英国封建制度“诺曼起源说”的论争述析

英国封建社会的起源,是西方学术界一个长期纷争不已的话题。19世纪90年代,英国历史学家儒德先后发表一系列论著,创立了英国封建制度起源于诺曼征服的学说。其实,白面世之日始,这一学说就一直受到质疑和批判,特别是20世纪下半叶,对其批判的浪潮一浪高过一浪。1973年,布朗在《英格兰封建制度起源》一书中,坚定地捍卫了诺曼征服是英国封建社会起源的理论,该书被视为是诺曼起源学说反批判的扛鼎之作。然而,从史实和学理两个角度而言,儒德所创立和布朗所恪守的诺曼起源学说都是难以获得证实的。     

Excavations on Brightstone and Bowcombe Downs,Isle of Weight,Made in August 1854

Abstract

Not a single English Romanesque great cloister arcade survives in situ. Despite this, the existence of a number of 11th- and 12th-century rear walls, and the discovery of quantities of stonework likely to have originated in cloister arcades, make it possible to recover something of the likely appearance and character of the cloister in Anglo-Norman England. The following paper considers that evidence, and assesses how our understanding of the underlying topography and archaeology of Anglo-Norman cloisters might enable us to reconstruct their lost walks. It concludes with an appraisal of the chronology of English cloister building.     

Hosting the king: hospitality and the royal iter in tenth-century England

Traditional studies of royal itinerancy have depended on locating the king’s progress through his kingdom(s) as precisely as possible and it should therefore not surprise that the iter regis in pre-conquest England has received relatively little attention, since Anglo-Saxon diplomas only rarely record their date and place of issue, making the establishment of the royal itinerary all but impossible. However, more recent studies, particularly by German scholars, have moved away from the earlier attention to the concrete details of the royal iter and focus more on the effects of itinerancy as a method of rulership, viewing itinerancy as a central part of royal ritual. This study argues that if we investigate itinerancy in tenth-century England from this standpoint, we can throw new light onto the subject. Contemporary sources reveal that in England as in France and Germany the iter regis was of great importance, with symbolic acts of feasting and gift-giving accompanying royal visits. The attention given to these ritualised acts in contemporary sources suggests, moreover, that Anglo-Saxon kingship possessed an important ‘charismatic’ quality, which deserves further investigation.     

The Anglo-Norman succession debate of II26: Prelude to Stephen's anarchy

On 1 January 1127 Henry 1 made his magnates and prelates swear to accept his daughter Maud as heiress to England and Normandy. In the months prior to the oathtaking, certain identifiable curiales ～ Robert earl of Gloucester, Brian fitz Count, and David king of Scots - seem to have been supporting Maud's candidacy. Others, including Roger bishop of Salisbury and his kinsmen, appear to have opposed her and perhaps to have supported Henry's nephew, William Clito, as heir. The factions resurfaced at Henry's death in December 1135. William Clito having died in the meantime, Roger of Salisbury became one of Stephen of Blois' earliest and strongest supporters. Maud's former friends, Robert of Gloucester and Brian fitz Count, were temporarily immobilized by a violent break between Henry and Maud in the closing months of Henry's reign, but they, along with King David, subsequently became Maud's most active and consistent champions. The two factions differed neither in socioeconomic background nor in ideology. It was not a question of old baronial families on one side and newly-risen curiales on the other, but simply of differing personal allegiances originating in the divisions among Henry's courtiers in 1126.     

The mead-hall community

The paper provides background context to the Anglo-Saxon concept of the ‘mead-hall’, the role of conspicuous consumption in early medieval society and the use of commensality to strengthen horizontal and vertical social bonds. Taking as its primary starting point the evidence of the Old English verse tradition, supported by linguistic and archaeological evidence and contemporary comparative material, the paper draws together contemporaneous and modern insights into the nature of feasting as a social medium. The roles of the ‘lord’ and ‘lady’ as community leaders are examined, with particular regard to their position at the epicentre of radiating social relationships. Finally, the inverse importance of the mead-hall as a declining social institution and a developing literary construct is addressed.     

The rotten apple and the good apples: Orthodox,Catholics, and Turks in Philippe de Mézières' crusading propaganda

The late medieval English gentry are now receiving the attention they deserve. The higher levels of gentry society are, however, the usual (though by no means the exclusive) focus of this attention and this tends to make them appear a social caste aloof from their fellows. This article questions whether the upper gentry were very far removed from their social inferiors. It also supports those historians of later medieval England who have questioned the validity of the ‘county community’, a fashionable concept in recent English historiography, if hitherto primarily the hobbyhorse of several seventeenth-century scholars.     

Bread and surpluses: the Anglo-Saxon ‘bread wheat thesis’ reconsidered

This paper presents a fundamental new assessment of crop husbandry in the Mid Saxon period in England (c. AD 650–850), using data from charred plant remains. While recent archaeological studies have begun to emphasise the importance of agricultural development in this period – focusing especially upon field systems and livestock – crops have received comparatively little attention. This study challenges one popular model of Anglo-Saxon arable farming, here dubbed the ‘bread wheat thesis’, which posits a Mid Saxon shift whereby bread wheat supplanted hulled barley as the most important cereal crop in this period. The empirical basis for this model is here re-examined in the light of an updated archaeobotanical dataset from selected regions in southern Britain. No evidence for bread wheat supplanting hulled barley is discovered. It is argued instead that rye and oats became substantially more important in the 7th–9th centuries, regional patterns in cereal cultivation in this period correlate with differences in the natural environment and Anglo-Saxon farmers were able to produce greater arable surpluses from the 7th century onwards.     

‘From Nitria to Sitria’: the construction of Peter Damian's Vita Beati Romualdi

This article examines the construction of Peter Damian's (c.1007–72) Vita Beati Romualdi (c.1042) as a piece of eleventh-century hagiography. Peter Damian was an erudite hermit, monk and reformer whose ideas on spiritual perfection helped to shape the ideals of the so-called ‘Gregorian Reform’ movement in the eleventh century. This article aims to contribute to recent historiography on the eleventh century through a re-examination of this important piece of hagiography, which has not been more thoroughly considered by medievalists since 1957 in Tabacco's critical edition. This article suggests that, through the biography of St Romuald, Peter Damian sought to promote the example of the Desert Fathers in formulating a more rigorous monastic rule, not only for his hermits at Fonte Avellana, but also for a wide monastic and lay audience. It also argues that there existed a gradual evolution in monastic ideology from the tenth century onwards, sponsored by ascetics like Damian who strove constantly to lead a more austere existence based on the Desert tradition and more particularly the Life of St Antony. In particular, the article pays attention to how Damian, as a hagiographer, was engaged in the construction of Romuald's sanctity.     

A biomechanical study of activity patterns in a medieval human skeletal assemblage

Activity patterns in an assemblage of medieval skeletons from York, England, are investigated using analyses of biomechanical properties of the humeral diaphyses. Evidence is found for differences in activity patterns between males and females and between male layfolk and members of a male monastic community. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On Roman Remains Recently Discovered at Headington near Oxford

Plans to redisplay the Bayeux Tapestry raise anew the questions as to where and how it was originally intended to be displayed. Analysis of the linen fabric provides new insights into the tapestry’s design and manufacture, and enables its original length to be calculated. Re-examination of the (largely destroyed) 11th-century cathedral at Bayeux and of its liturgical layout demonstrates that the tapestry would have fitted neatly into the nave west of the choir screen. Its narrative falls into three discrete sections that reflect the way in which it would have been hung within the building, and the arrangement of the scenes takes account of the uneven bay-spacings of the nave arcades and the positions of the doorways. It can therefore be concluded that the tapestry was designed for a particular location within the nave of Bayeux cathedral. The cathedral’s liturgical traditions shed light on the way in which the tapestry would have been viewed in the Middle Ages, and the wider implications for the way in which it could and should be viewed today are briefly considered.     

Unpicking the web: the divorce of Ecgfrith and Æthelthryth

The concept of a woman who is a ‘peace-weaver’ is known chiefly from Anglo-Saxon literature, yet is also a role that must have been reflected in the actual marriage alliances among the Anglo-Saxon dynasties. This article considers how networks of marriage and kinship may have functioned among the Anglo-Saxons of the late seventh century, and to what extent a woman could have real value in the role. It takes as starting point the historian Bede's account of how the marriage of Ecgfrith, king of Northumbria, and his wife, known to history as St Æthelthryth, was dissolved on grounds of non-consummation. Bede's claims that Ecgfrith was reluctant to let his wife go, sometimes dismissed as hagiographic convention, are here taken seriously and used to explore what reasons Ecgfrith might have had to want to maintain the marriage by looking at the politics of peace and war in the English kingdoms of the period, the role played by seventh-century marriage ties in relations between kingdoms, and what the value of such a marriage and the consequences of dissolving it may have been.     

The texture of literacy in the testimonies of late-medieval English proof-of-age jurors, 1270 to 1430

This article examines references by jurors in proof-of-age hearings from 1270 to 1430 to writing and written documents. By analysing the incidence of these references decade by decade over the whole period and by close attention to changes in the wording of individual testimonies, some important insights into the place of literacy in the lives and mentalities of quite humble medieval men are apparent. Of only ‘village status’, these jurors' testimonies provide evidence of the way literacy gradually permeated more and more intricately the day-to-day lives of ordinary people, often not replacing older ways of doing things but co-existing with them. Some conclusions as to how literacy affected different occupations and different areas of the country are drawn.