The Religious

Abstract

AbstractThe clergy, regular and secular, native and immigrant, were central to cultural assimilation and the triumph of English identity during the medieval period. On the level of the personal, the church provided an existing set of institutions and relationships that drew English and Normans together and forced them to interact, ultimately with very positive results for ethnic harmony. Religious difference in the Middle Ages was one of the greatest sources of ethnic hostility, and in Christian Europe, including England, religious minorities suffered terribly. In the case of the English and Normans, however, religion ultimately helped to unite the two peoples. Far greater evidence survives of close cooperation and of affective relationships at an early stage involving Norman and English monks, nuns, and clerics than the laity. Undoubtedly this owes much to the bias of the sources toward the religious, but this chapter also argues that many within the church were pioneers in creating harmonious relations across ethnic lines.