King John and St Wulfstan

In accordance with the terms of his will, King John was buried near to the shrine of St Wulfstan in Worcester cathedral despite his apparent intention earlier in the reign to be buried in a Cistercian house. When and why John might have developed his particular interest in Wulfstan, the last Anglo-Saxon bishop, are considered and attention is drawn to the relevance of a famous legend linking Wulfstan and Edward the Confessor to King John's dispute with Innocent III over the king's authority in the appointment of bishops. The revival of Wulfstan's cult, which led to his formal canonisation in 1203, is seen as part of a general interest in indigenous saints, both Anglo-Saxon and contemporary, in the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The suggestion is made that this concern with national saints provides the context for John's devotion to St Wulfstan and for the significant choice of his place of burial.     

King John and St Wulfstan

In accordance with the terms of his will, King John was buried near to the shrine of St Wulfstan in Worcester cathedral despite his apparent intention earlier in the reign to be buried in a Cistercian house. When and why John might have developed his particular interest in Wulfstan, the last Anglo-Saxon bishop, are considered and attention is drawn to the relevance of a famous legend linking Wulfstan and Edward the Confessor to King John's dispute with Innocent III over the king's authority in the appointment of bishops. The revival of Wulfstan's cult, which led to his formal canonisation in 1203, is seen as part of a general interest in indigenous saints, both Anglo-Saxon and contemporary, in the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The suggestion is made that this concern with national saints provides the context for John's devotion to St Wulfstan and for the significant choice of his place of burial.     

Preaching,politics and episcopal reform in Wulfstan's early writings

Putting Wulfstan's earliest legal texts – the Canons of Edgar and the so‐called Peace of Edward and Guthrum – in dialogue with his homilies on the role of the bishop, this article argues that, from his earliest writings, Wulfstan adapted approaches from Kings Alfred and Edgar as well as from the Benedictine reform to make ambitious claims concerning the role of the bishop in the secular sphere. These claims went beyond the contemporary understanding of the relationship between bishop and king both in England and on the Continent, to frame the bishop as the primary authority in the nation because he is the teacher of teachers.     

Laymen and church reform around the year 1000: the case of Otto-William,count of Burgundy

The frequently-expressed idea that the church reform of the eleventh century was only possible when churches were removed from lay control is a product of the perceptions of the late rather than the early eleventh century. In fact, church reform in France began long before papal directives had begun to remove laymen from ecclesiastical affairs, at a time when most churches were controlled by the local nobility. The example of Otto-William, count of Burgundy at the beginning of the eleventh century, is illustrative of the seeming paradox that, around the year 1000, an ambitious territorial prince could also be considered, by his ecclesiastic contemporaries, as a model patron of reform. The paradox is resolved in the understanding that the early eleventh century saw no incompatibility between lay control of churches and church reform. Rather, ecclesiastical reformers needed laymen to give them churches and land and to protect them; laymen needed reformed monks, men of undoubted sanctity, to pray for their sinful souls. As the case of Otto-William indicates, ecclesiastical reformers and territorial princes were not necessarily enemies but were often allies.     

The cult of St Minias and the struggle for power in the diocese of Florence, 1011–1018

Foundation of churches and monasteries in the tenth and eleventh centuries often have more to do with economic and political concerns than they have to do with religious motivation. Though historians have long recognized the importance of the basilica of San Miniato al Monte in Florence for the history of the Tuscan romanesque, they have largely failed to see that its foundation stemmed from conflicts over competing interests between rival families in the northern Tuscan elite. The tenth and early eleventh centuries saw the formation of several powerful family lineages (consorterie) in northern Tuscany, which organized their regional patrimonies into proprietary monasteries. Two of those lineages — the Guidi and the Cadolingi — derived much of their wealth from the seizure of properties formerly held by the bishops of Florence. Endowing its two proprietary monasteries at Fucecchio and Settimo at the end of the tenth and beginning of the eleventh centuries with a patrimony which may have included lands claimed by the bishop, the Cadolingi patronized a faction within the Florentine clergy that challenged the moral qualifications of Bishop Hildebrand to be bishop.In order to defend episcopal properties from usurpation by the Caldolingi and Guidi and to provide a cover for his own family's appropriation of ecclesiastical property, Bishop Hildebrand consciously orchestrated after 1014 the revival of the cult of the first martyr of Florence, St Minias. The core of that program was the construction of the basilica and monastery of San Miniato. Endowing the basilica with the episcopal properties he sought to protect, the bishop appointed a loyal abbot who agreed to write a new Passio of the saint. Bishop Hildebrand managed to hold on to his office in spite of the challenges to his prelacy, but shortly after his death his sons lost control of the church property bequeathed to them by their father.     

Arnulf of Lisieux and the crisis at Grestain 1164–6: brother bishops,inherited policies and failed leadership

ABSTRACT

This article examines the failed reform of the abbey of Grestain by Arnulf, bishop of Lisieux (r. 1141–81). Faced with a disobedient abbot, in whose absence the monks had resorted to violence and murder, Arnulf saw an opportunity to stamp his authority on his diocese by turning the monastery into a house of canons regular. Arnulf’s policies were shaped by the example of his older brother John, bishop of Sées (r. 1124–44), and his uncle and predecessor in his own bishopric John of Lisieux (r. 1107–41), as well as his mentor Geoffrey of Lèves, bishop of Chartres (r. 1116–49). A close reading of Arnulf’s letters demonstrates that Arnulf's conception of religious leadership and his representation of the crisis at Grestain were formed not only by familial networks, but also by the wider social and educational ideals of the eleventh and twelfth centuries filtered through the Victorines.     

Rethinking the Pseudo‐Eligius sermon collection

St Eligius of Noyon (d. 660) has been credited with the authorship of a collection of sixteen sermons since their publication in the sixteenth century. However, this article demonstrates through a detailed analysis of the sources used in these sermons that the collection cannot have been composed before the end of the ninth century. The sermons were written to be preached by a bishop in the vernacular to a mixed audience of clergy and laity. This article also shows how the sermons for Maundy Thursday can shed light on the theory and practice of public penance in the late Carolingian church.     

The Liber feudorum maior of the counts of Barcelona: the cartulary as an expression of power

The Liber feudorum maior, the late-twelfth-century cartulary of the counts of Barcelona, is at once one of the earliest surviving lay cartularies and a rare example of an illuminated cartulary. Although much of the original has been lost, its modern editor was able to use surviving single-sheet documents and early registers to reconstruct its contents: over nine hundred individual records in two volumes. Drawing on this reconstruction, this article considers the date of the cartulary, its composition, its organization, and its functions. For each of these questions the inclusion and placement of many blank folios in the original two volumes prove significant. Considered together, the organization of the cartulary and its distinctive pictorial programme, which includes some of the earliest depictions of the ceremony of homage in Europe, reveal the Liber feudorum maior as not simply an administrative tool, but as a written expression of power.     

Notice of the Cross-Legged Sepulchral Effigies,Existing at Cashel

Evidence recovered on the site known from late ninth-century charters as Æthelred’s hithe illustrates successive phases in the early development of London as an international port. While two middle Anglo-Saxon female skeletons were found in foreshore deposits, coins and other metalwork, along with the remains of gangplank trestles, suggest the site was a trading shore from at least the later ninth century. Riverside construction followed by the late tenth century: several low waterfront embankments date to the late tenth and early eleventh century, the waterfront was divided into regular plots and timber buildings erected. Reused nautical and building timbers include fragments of a Frisian ship and an arcaded building.     

Economic Expansion in Central Greece in the Eleventh Century

Abstract

A familiar orthodoxy in Byzantine history is that the empire's economy began to stagnate in the eleventh century. It was a turning-point marked by the development of large estates at the expense of independent peasants and the onset of demographic decline. The demographic trend has been much discussed and generally pessimistic conclusions have been reached. Recently, Lemerle has asserted that the labour force was less plentiful than land. This view has been questioned by Lefort who uses evidence from the archive of Iberon to suggest that population was increasing from the eleventh century. This paper examines the problem in another region, using the Theban tax-register as evidence that agricultural production was intensified in the eleventh century, a clear sign of an increase in population.     

On the “Roman Miliaries” Found in Britain

Riveted bone strips have been described variously as ‘riveted mounts’ or the components of combs. They are examined here and interpreted as connecting plates from horn composite combs. This comb type came into use during the ninth century and quickly became the most common form of the Late Saxon period, continuing in use until the twelfth century. It is essentially an Anglo-Saxon comb form but examples have been found also in Dublin and across numerous sites in northern France. Connecting plates, made of antler or bone, occur in three basic shapes. Horn composite comb waste assemblages from Norwich, Thetford and Winchester suggest that by the late eleventh century commodity-based manufacture had superseded earlier forms of material-centred production.     

Benefactors of the Greyfriars in York: Alms from Testators, 1530–1538

Abstract

The prominent role of the gentry in late medieval local administration has long been acknowledged, and studies of officeholding have been central to the identification and understanding of that social group. Local administration in the liberty of Durham, however, was very different. The liberty's constitutional peculiarities meant that fewer prestigious offices were available to local gentry; furthermore, local office was controlled not by the king, but by the bishop of Durham, who was free to appoint men of relatively low status for extended terms. As a result, many of the liberty's gentry, and the majority of its greater families, had little formal involvement in its administration, which was dominated instead by a small corps of professionals for whom office provided rapid advancement in local society. This paper provides a detailed account of a family that produced several such professionals, who were extremely prominent in the liberty's administration in the first half of the fourteenth century. Their careers illuminate the workings of patronage and lordship in the liberty, and demonstrate the substantial impact of the liberty's distinctive administration on the structure and identity of the local political community. They also suggest some tentative wider conclusions about the relationship between officeholding and gentility.     

‘The revolt of the medievalists’. Directions in recent research on the twelfth-century renaissance

This paper examines an attempt to introduce a male administrator at a Benedictine women's monastery in Catalonia in the fourteenth century. It argues that records from the monastic and episcopal archives indicate the existence of a complex and dynamic interplay between the nuns and their abbess and the bishop. Due to this complicated process of negotiation, the bishop did not succeed in imposing a new male authority figure over the traditional leadership of the community. Over the next fifty years, the abbesses reasserted themselves and redefined the procurator's role as one subordinate to themselves. The episode illustrates that nuns could employ varied tactics to resist attempts to change their traditional administrative structure.     

Visions of My Youth: Representations of the Childhood of Medieval Visionaries

This article is based on visionary narratives and vitae of twenty‐seven female and thirteen male visionaries from Britain and Europe, from the late eleventh to the early fifteenth century. Across this chronological and geographical span, the differences between the childhood representations of male and female visionaries are shaped by prevailing beliefs about the nature of men and women. Male visionaries rarely include reminiscence of their childhood in their narratives, while women offer childhood memories relatively consistently. For male visionaries, childhood seems irrelevant in terms of their adult spirituality. For women, childhood reminiscences reaffirmed their association with the purity of virgin childhood.     

Substitute or subordinate? The role of a male procurator at a Benedictine women's monastery

This paper examines an attempt to introduce a male administrator at a Benedictine women's monastery in Catalonia in the fourteenth century. It argues that records from the monastic and episcopal archives indicate the existence of a complex and dynamic interplay between the nuns and their abbess and the bishop. Due to this complicated process of negotiation, the bishop did not succeed in imposing a new male authority figure over the traditional leadership of the community. Over the next fifty years, the abbesses reasserted themselves and redefined the procurator's role as one subordinate to themselves. The episode illustrates that nuns could employ varied tactics to resist attempts to change their traditional administrative structure.     

TOWNS AND TOWN HIERARCHIES IN SAXON ENGLAND

Summary. The extent to which archaeological evidence can be used to identify and account for an urban hierarchy in England between the eighth and eleventh centuries AD is assessed in this article. Using the later medieval evidence as a control, it is suggested that the archaeological data could be used not only to compare the relative condition of towns but also to reconstruct the general economic trends which may have been responsible for emphasising differences between towns. Despite the apparently rudimentary character of the urban network in the eighth and early ninth centuries, the strength of the economy may have been underestimated. In contrast, the development of a three-tier hierarchy coupled with ubiquitous urban growth in the tenth century may have been overemphasised. Town planning programmes in the south and midlands may not have been accompanied by rapid urban development whereas there is plentiful evidence for town growth in the north. This differential development may be explained by a greater economic vitality in the north which was not experienced in the south until the later tenth century. The later tenth and early eleventh centuries may have marked a period of pronounced and rapid urban growth and differentiation in the south.     

The vocabulary of groups in eleventh‐century Mantua

Imperial charters issued to the cities of Italy in the eleventh and early twelfth century have been studied extensively for their presentation of social groups and the interaction of these groups with the imperial court. However, these studies have generally overlooked the role of these documents as political rhetoric. This paper argues that the terms and phrasing used to describe the people of Mantua in the imperial charters of the eleventh century were chosen for their political and ideological power, not for their ability to indicate a concrete social group.     

Legends of the Beauchamps' ancestors: the use of baronial propaganda in medieval England

From the early part of the eleventh century, legendary propaganda was generated by the Tosny family. The Warwickshire branch of the Beaumonts did likewise from the late twelfth century, their efforts culminating in the popular romance Guy of Warwick. Such material was designed to romanticize those activities of the families which had led to their acquiring landed power, and to reinforce a widespread acceptance of the status which they endeavoured to retain in face both of the growing powers of the monarchy, and of economic pressures. By contrast, the families of Beauchamp and Mauduit relied on growing royal power to enhance their position. Beauchamp dominance of Worcestershire through the hereditary enjoyment of the post of sheriff, and Manduit enjoyment of court influence through exercise of the hereditary office of chamberlain, obviated the need to generate a popular image, although both families attracted unfavourable notice in contemporary literature, generated by territorial or professional rivals. When the estates of all four families merged, at the end of the thirteenth century, to form the late medieval earldom of Warwick, the Guy image was consciously revived. John Rous, composing the Rous Roll in 1483, in order to glorify the lords of Warwick, suppressed unfavourable elements, both in this literature and in modern political history, while elaborating on others, reworking the material with the help of current literary themes.