Anglo-Saxon women and the law

Scholarly investigations of Anglo-Saxon social history have usually drawn the conclusion that women during that period enjoyed a favourable position in comparison with their successors in post-Conquest England. The following study aims to qualify this view, by demonstrating that the position of women was more complicated than is usually acknowledged. An examination of the Anglo-Saxon legal documents shows that the position of women varied according to circumstances such as rank, marital status, and geographical location. However, an overall improvement between the early and late period is clear. In fact, this improvement is so considerable that there is a much closer resemblance between the situation obtaining in late Anglo-Saxon England and post-Conquest England than there is between the early and late Anglo-Saxon period. Thus, to describe Anglo-Saxon E England as a time when women enjoyed an independence which they lost as a result of the changes introduced by the Norman Conquest is misleading.     

Criticism of Henry II's expedition to Ireland in William of Canterbury's miracles of St Thomas Becket

The long collection of miracles of St Thomas Becket written by William, a monk of Christ Church, Canterbury, between 1172 and c.1179 is, like many other examples of the genre, a rich source for attitudes towards sanctity, relics, and pilgrimage. A far more unusual feature of William's text is the author's criticism of the recent English presence in Ireland. William's comments on this score amount to a loaded stretching of the normal parameters of his textual medium, resulting in an evaluative engagement with current affairs of the sort that we would more normally associate with reflective forms of history-writing. William's criticism focused in particular upon the expedition to Ireland undertaken by King Henry II (October 1171–April 1172), inverting the very rhetoric that Henry had used to justify his Irish adventure. William was not himself Irish, as has sometimes been supposed, nor was he registering his institution's frustrations about its exclusion from the new ecclesiastical order in Ireland, as might be implied by the traditional but questionable ‘Canterbury plot’ interpretation of the much-debated papal bull Laudabiliter. Instead, William was skilfully engaging with current debates about the rectitude of Henry II's Irish expedition, and more broadly contesting emerging prejudices about England's ‘uncultivated’ neighbours, in order to effect a subtle critique of the king's involvement in Becket's murder.     

Modern and Medieval Approaches to Pilgrimage,Gender and Sacred Space

This article examines both modern ethnographical, and medieval hagiographical, constructs of sacred space in the context of female pilgrimage. Beginning with an overview of the ways in which anthropological theories of sacred space and gender have informed pilgrimage scholarship over the last fifty years, it focuses in particular on two conceptual models: that which argues that spatial practices employed by cult centres served to distance women from holy places, and that which contends that accommodation was reached between the devotional aspirations of female pilgrims on the one hand, and the institutional policies of the Church on the other. In turning to the Middle Ages, the second part of the article examines narrative representations of sacred space, and reveals that the spatial challenges posed by female pilgrimage in the medieval West were addressed and mediated in hagiography in surprisingly similar ways.     

Philip of Harvengt's Life of the Blessed Virgin Oda

For every famous author of the twelfth-century renaissance, there are numerous lesser-known writers. Despite being overshadowed by more brilliant scholars or those closer to the centre of important events, their voices add depth to the study of the intellectual and religious history of this period. A founding member of one of the earliest Premonstratensian houses, a highly-educated and prolific author, much in demand as a hagiographer, and a vigorous defender of the clerical order, Philip of Harvengt is one such writer, and a worthy subject for study. This article examines one of his hagiographical works, the Life of the Blessed Virgin Oda, a nun attached to his own house, whom he portrays as a martyr. It analyses the predominant and recurrent concerns and ideals expressed in the Life, particularly the claim to martyrdom, and the means by which this is expressed.     

Reformist hagiography: the Life of St Roding of Beaulieu and the struggle for power in early eleventh-century Lotharingia

This article explores an example of ‘reformist’ hagiographic production in early eleventh-century Lotharingia by focusing on the Life of St Roding of Beaulieu, a small monastery in the diocese of Verdun. Until recently, this text was interpreted exclusively in terms of the scant information it provides for this institution's early medieval history and in terms of its ideological message regarding monastic discipline and leadership. By integrating the composition of this text into the then-current regional geography and political context, this article proposes a new approach to its interpretation and to the understanding of Beaulieu’s ‘monastic reform’ in general. Close analysis of the narrative reveals that its production was inspired by specific issues relating to local and regional politics in the mid-1010s, and that parts of the institution's recent history were veiled allegorically behind the portrayal of Roding. However, rapid changes in power relationships rendered those aspects of the text outdated within a few years. This raises significant questions regarding the long-term relevance of such hidden stories and the degree to which their ideological, political and other messages remained accessible to medieval audiences.