RESPONDING TO VIOLENCE: LITURGY, AUTHORITY AND SACRED PLACES,c.900–c. 1150

Sarah Hamilton

doi:10.1017/s0080440121000025

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe principle that church buildings constitute sacred spaces, set apart from the secular world and its laws, is one of the most enduring legacies of medieval Christianity in the present day. When and how church buildings came to be defined as sacred has consequently received a good deal of attention from modern scholars. What happened when that status was compromised, and ecclesiastical spaces were polluted by acts of violence, like the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral? This paper investigates the history of rites for the reconciliation of holy places violated by the shedding of blood, homicide or other public acts of ‘filthiness’ which followed instances such as Becket's murder. I first identify the late tenth and early eleventh centuries in England as crucial to the development of this rite, before asking why English bishops began to pay attention to rites of reconciliation in the years around 1000ce. This paper thus offers a fresh perspective on current understandings of ecclesiastical responses to violence in these years, the history of which has long been dominated by monastic evidence from west Frankia and Flanders. At the same time, it reveals the potential of liturgical rites to offer new insights into medieval society.

Highlights

The principle that church buildings constitute sacred spaces, set apart from the secular world and its laws, is one of the most enduring legacies of medieval Christianity in the present day
When and how church buildings came to be defined as sacred has received a good deal of attention from modern scholars
What happened when that status was compromised, and ecclesiastical spaces were polluted by acts of violence, like the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral? This paper investigates the history of rites for the reconciliation of holy places violated by the shedding of blood, homicide or other public acts of ‘filthiness’ which followed instances such as Becket’s murder

Summary

Introduction

The principle that church buildings constitute sacred spaces, set apart from the secular world and its laws, is one of the most enduring legacies of medieval Christianity in the present day. Rob Meens recently suggested that the appearance of this rite in late eighth-century Frankia should be linked to the emergence at the same time of a rite for the consecration of an altar; and that both rites are a reflection, in the liturgy, of wider developments in Latin Christian thought and law over the course of the eighth century, which was when the idea that the church building should be regarded as sacred first became firmly established in ecclesiastical thought.

Results

Conclusion