Twelfth-Century England Research Articles

‘The Rich and the Poor, the Lesser and the Great’

ABSTRACTThis article explores the intersection between society and culture in medieval England by examining the ways in which the social identities of female pilgrims were represented in twelfth-century miracle narratives. Miracle stories are written accounts of miraculous events associated with saints' shrines, and often include detailed sociological information about medieval pilgrims. The article focuses on women in these texts, and investigates the extent to which the social roles and labels attributed to female pilgrims by clerical writers suggest a hagiographical discourse of womanhood rather than an accurate reflection of women's social experiences in twelfth-century England.

Early Evidence for the Cult of Anne in Twelfth-Century England

Despite scholarly attention on its later medieval popularity, the feast of Anne, the mother of the Virgin Mary, first appeared in the West in twelfth-century England. The earliest surviving liturgical texts for the feast were composed in the 1130s by Osbert of Clare, prior of Westminster, for Worcester Cathedral. They attest to the novelty of the celebration and the process by which a saintly identity was constructed for Anne, an apocryphal figure. To understand why Anne began to be celebrated at this time and how her liturgy was crafted, this article explores Osbert's texts in their devotional context. A lively monastic cult of the Virgin Mary in England provides an important backdrop to the emergence of the celebration of Anne. Debates about the Anglo-Saxon feast of Mary's Conception were especially influential, and a comparison between the liturgical texts for the feast of the Conception and the feast of Anne yields striking parallels. This suggests that the liturgy for Anne both drew on and supported the contentious feast of the Conception. At the same time, Anne was presented as a monastic role model, a virtuous and chaste woman with special appeal for nuns. The history and identity of Anne were therefore deeply embedded in trends of monastic devotion to Mary as Anne was shaped into a deserving mother of her illustrious offspring but also as a worthy saint in her own right.

Early Evidence for the Cult of Anne in Twelfth-Century England

Despite scholarly attention on its later medieval popularity, the feast of Anne, the mother of the Virgin Mary, first appeared in the West in twelfth-century England. The earliest surviving liturgical texts for the feast were composed in the 1130s by Osbert of Clare, prior of Westminster, for Worcester Cathedral. They attest to the novelty of the celebration and the process by which a saintly identity was constructed for Anne, an apocryphal figure. To understand why Anne began to be celebrated at this time and how her liturgy was crafted, this article explores Osbert’s texts in their devotional context. A lively monastic cult of the Virgin Mary in England provides an important backdrop to the emergence of the celebration of Anne. Debates about the Anglo-Saxon feast of Mary’s Conception were especially influential, and a comparison between the liturgical texts for the feast of the Conception and the feast of Anne yields striking parallels. This suggests that the liturgy for Anne both drew on and supported the contentious feast of the Conception. At the same time, Anne was presented as a monastic role model, a virtuous and chaste woman with special appeal for nuns. The history and identity of Anne were therefore deeply embedded in trends of monastic devotion to Mary as Anne was shaped into a deserving mother of her illustrious offspring but also as a worthy saint in her own right.

‘In gente Britanniarum, sicut quaedam nostratum testatur historia …’: national identity and perceptions of the past in John of Salisbury's Policraticus

This article examines the construction of national identity in John of Salisbury's Policraticus (c.1159). This well-known treatise has not been included in recent discussions of identities in medieval Britain. The focal point of the analysis is the author's contradictory representations of Britones. John of Salisbury emphasised the distinction and hostility between the Britons/Welsh and the English; at the same time, he claimed that the ancient Britons (Brennius and his companions-in-arms from Geoffrey of Monmouth's De gestis Britonum) were ‘compatriots’ and ‘ancestors’ of the ‘contemporary’ inhabitants of the English kingdom. Comparison with other twelfth-century texts reveals specific features of the model of national identity traced in the Policraticus: the appropriation not only of the British past, but also of the British name and identity, and the imagining of a unified people of Britain. This culminated in the invention of the unique term gens Britanniarum, which nevertheless did not exclude the ‘English’ as an alternative or even interchangeable name. The article discusses political agendas behind John of Salisbury's use of the language of ‘Britishness’, most importantly, support for the pan-British ambitions of the archbishops of Canterbury. The example of the Policraticus, with its combination of both conventional and original elements, nuances our understanding of how and for what ideological purposes national identity might have been constructed in twelfth-century England.

Getting the punchline: deciphering anti-Jewish humour in Anglo-Norman England

The idea that laughter was impossible for medieval monks has been largely overturned in recent decades, but the paucity of sources and the cultural specificity of humour still makes understanding their sense of humour difficult. William of Malmesbury, a twelfth-century English Benedictine, nevertheless provides a rare glimpse of what made monks laugh in his collection of Marian miracles, the Miracula sanctae Mariae. Introducing one of his miracle stories as ‘a great joke that will have readers laughing out loud’, William gives us invaluable information about the way humour could infiltrate the most unlikely of genres, in this case one generally thought to be devotional and edificatory in nature. The story is also virulently anti-Jewish. By placing the joke in its historical context, exploring the themes of corruption, political weakness and interaction between Jews and Christians in twelfth-century England, we can understand what this joke meant and what it can in turn reveal about the world that produced it.

The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Mysticism

The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Mysticism

Recycling the Franks in Twelfth-Century England: Regino of Prüm, the Monks of Durham, and the Alexandrine Schism

In the Middle Ages, even more so than today, history writing could be an act of political engagement. In an era without formal representation, the ability to persuade audiences of particular views of the past could be a significant weapon for those seeking to gain rhetorical leverage in political disputes. Yet “useful” history could be compiled from existing works as well as written from scratch. Because of the technologies of transmission in the age before printing, texts were essentially unstable: even authoritative works were vulnerable to editing and repackaging by copyists in ways that could fundamentally alter their original meanings. Moreover, because of the organization of manuscript production, historical compilations were more likely to reflect the views of communities rather than individual authors. Modern historians have observed that the Carolingian and Anglo-Norman periods, both of which witnessed a revival of interest in the writing of new history, also saw surges in the production of historical compilations that functioned as responses to high-level political events and contributed to the formation of social identities.

The 'Miracle of Childbirth': The Portrayal of Parturient Women in Medieval Miracle Narratives

This paper explores how tales of difficult births found in medieval miracle narratives can contribute to our understanding of the experience of pregnancy and childbirth in twelfth-century England. While rare in the early collections, pregnant and parturient women are increasingly visible in the miracula from the later twelfth century. This paper seeks to explain why childbirth miracles began to appear more frequently and became more medical in character. The discussion centres on the two miracle collections belonging to St Thomas of Canterbury, written by Benedict of Peterborough andWilliam of Canterbury in the 1170s. Explanations for the more frequent appearance of childbirth miracles are found, not in the changing relationship between humans and saintly intercessors, nor in the contemporary interest in the maternity of the Virgin Mary but in the specific context of the cult of St Thomas and the new emphasis given to lay testimony.

Celestial Divination and Arabic Science in Twelfth-Century England: The History of Gerbert of Aurillac’s Talking Head

The legend of Gerbert of Aurillac’s oracular head reveals significant information about contemporary medieval attitudes toward foreign knowledge from outside of the Latin Christian West, and in particular about the quadrivium, astral science, and celestial divination. In particular, William of Malmesbury’s account—the most well-known in the medieval period—demonstrates the extent to which scientific knowledge from the Arabic tradition had penetrated the intellectual climate of England in the early twelfth century.

Representations of English Women and their Pilgrimages in Twelfth-Century Miracle Collections

<span>Miracle collections, compiled by monastic cult centres, record stories of pilgrims visiting miracle-working shrines. Those produced in England in the High Middle Ages have recently received much scholarly attention. Not only do they seem to offer a rare glimpse into the lives of the laity for the period, but they are also remarkable for containing a large number of stories about women. Conventional historical approaches to miracle narratives, which tend to regard them as ‘shrine-side records’, often seek evidence for women’s experiences of pilgrimage in these texts. This essay, however, reappraises such interpretations and explores some of the ways in which the stories of women and their journeys were informed by hagiographical agenda and Christian ideology. Drawing on a survey of sixteen miracle collections compiled in twelfth-century England, the study examines the representation of women as pilgrims, and demonstrates that many modern assumptions about female travel in the Middle Ages are not consistent with the miracle accounts. Far from being creatures of restricted mobility as is commonly assumed, female pilgrims are often presented by hagiographers as intrepid travellers who do not seem especially thwarted by the supposed limitations on their gender.</span>

Investigating Macedon in Medieval England: The St Albans Compilation, the Philippic Histories, and the Reception of Alexander the Great

For many who took up his story in the Middle Ages Alexander the Great was not so much a historical ruler of Macedon as he was a legendary figure of adventure and conquest. Yet twelfth-century England witnessed an investigation that frustrates us still: finding an accurate history of Alexander amidst so much fiction. The genesis of this movement is found in the unedited St Albans Compilation, a compendium of classical histories of Macedon. Among its sources, none proved as influential in subsequent centuries as the Philippic Histories. This forthright narrative based on the long line of Macedonian tyranny and Alexander’s devolution into luxuriant “Eastern” living and madness was recast in St. Albans as a history of transgression and downfall on a massive scale. Following the efforts there, English writers would repeatedly question Alexander romances and subscribe instead to Roman warnings against the corruptive nature of power and success.

“Once Upon a Time There Was a Saint …”: Re-evaluating Folklore in Anglo-Latin Hagiography

This article examines methods for identifying folklore in hagiography. Using hagiographical materials from eleventh-century and twelfth-century England, it critiques the current trend of equating folklore motifs with oral transmission and argues in favour of a “performer-centred” understanding of folklore and hagiographical composition.

Saints and Their Communities: Miracle Stories in Twelfth-Century England - By Simon Yarrow

Saints and Their Communities: Miracle Stories in Twelfth-Century England - By Simon Yarrow

Brief Lives of Sidonius, Symmachus, and Fulgentius Written in Early Twelfth Century England?

More than forty years ago, Callu, in his edition of Symmachus’s letters, referred to a “notice rapide” on the epistolographer, preserved in four manuscripts, two of which contain florilegia of Symmachus’s letters. In 2006, Thomson drew attention to what he called “bio-bibliographical introductions” on Sidonius in two Sidonius manuscripts. There is no mention by Callu or Thomson of the other author referenced in these notes, and no indication that there is a third note on Fulgentius. Callu cited the notes in the context of a renewed interest in Symmachus during the twelfth

III The Central Middle Ages (900–1200)

III The Central Middle Ages (900–1200)

Law and theology in twelfth-century England. The works of Master Vacarius (c. 1115/20–c. 1200). By Jason Taliadoros. (Disputatio, 10.) Pp. x+323. Turhout: Brepols, 2006. €60. 13 978 2 503 51782 7

Law and theology in twelfth-century England. The works of Master Vacarius (c. 1115/20–c. 1200). By Jason Taliadoros. (Disputatio, 10.) Pp. x+323. Turhout: Brepols, 2006. €60. 13 978 2 503 51782 7 - Volume 60 Issue 4

Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy, c. 1050-1134. William M. Aird

Previous articleNext article No AccessReviewsRobert Curthose, Duke of Normandy, c. 1050-1134. William M. Aird Constance B. BouchardConstance B. Bouchard Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Speculum Volume 84, Number 4OCTOBER 2009 The journal of the Medieval Academy of America Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1017/S0038713400208178 Views: 15Total views on this site Citations: 2Citations are reported from Crossref © 2009 The Medieval Academy of AmericaPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article: Simon MacLean Recycling the Franks in Twelfth-Century England: Regino of Prüm, the Monks of Durham, and the Alexandrine Schism, Speculum 87, no.33 (Sep 2015): 649–681.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0038713412003053 Jamie Kreiner About the Bishop: The Episcopal Entourage and the Economy of Government in Post-Roman Gaul, Speculum 86, no.22 (Sep 2015): 321–360.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0038713410004677

Roman, canon and common law in twelfth-century England: the council of Northampton (1164) re-examined

Against the background of the long-running debate about the extent to which the creation of English common law was influenced by principles of jurisprudence and forms of action derived from the Roman law of Justinian and the ecclesiastical canon law which was developing in the wake of Gratian's Decreta/Decretum, this article examines William FitzStephen's eyewitness account of the staged trial of Thomas Becket at Northampton in 1164 to throw new light on the juridical context within which that law was born.

'Boeve de Haumtone' and 'Gui de Warewic': Two Anglo-Norman Romances. (Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 332; The French of England Translation Series, 3) by Judith Weiss

MLR, 104.4, 2009 ii35 psycholinguistic discussions; despite discussion of the psychological plausibility of descriptions for language-learning, despite the experience of the author in teach ing French toGerman learners and the commendable objective of being useful to French as second language, and despite the subtitle of the book, no actual exper imental data are taken on board although there is a wealth of studies in the field (among many others, Emmanuelle Labeau, Beyond theAspect Hypothesis: Tense Aspect Development inAdvanced Li French (Bern: Peter Lang, 2005)). Accounting for such real data about learning and usage isverymuch the next challenge for the description of language forms and of the temporal categories. Aston University Pierre Larrivee 'Boeve de Haumtone' and Gui de Warewic: Two Anglo-Norman Romances. Trans, by Judith Weiss. (Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 332; The French of England Translation Series, 3) Tempe: Arizona Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. 2008. xiv+264 pp. $45. ISBN 978-0-86698-378-5. Judith Weiss's translation of Boeve de Haumtone and Gui deWarewic is a welcome addition to the field of Anglo-Norman scholarship and successfully makes two key twelfth-century insular romances considerably more accessible to themodern reader. In her detailed introduction Weiss contextualizes the development of insular romance in twelfth-century England, pointing out the emergent concerns with history and topography that provide a preliminary thematic link between the two texts. She goes on to discuss their ensuing popularity in Europe and in England, re-establishing them as central to understanding both the literary tastes of their original audiences and their influence on latermedieval texts.Having established the background to the romances, Weiss moves on to an individual study of both texts inher introduction. This in-depth analysis of theworks will be invaluable to anyone studying the romances, as both previously existed in now rather outdated editions: Boeve de Haumtone being last edited in 1899 by Albert Stimming (Halle: Niemeyer), and Gui deWarewic in 1933 byAlfred Ewert (Paris: Champion). Weiss begins her introductory study of both works with an individual plot sum mary, with subsequent sections on author and date, sources and influences, themes and issues, structure, style, and aesthetic qualities, manuscripts, her principles in translating the text, and, in the case of Gui de Warewic, an additional section on Ewert's earlier edition. Following the romances there is an extensive bibliography, index, and an appendix of short extracts from the original Anglo-Norman texts. In the case of Boeve particularly, Weiss highlights the challenges presented by previous editions. She highlights the shortcomings of Stimmings's 1899 edition, which freely emends the textwhere incomprehensible, changes the order of lines, and adds or omits words. Ewert similarly supplies lines missing from the 'best' manuscript in his edition of Gui. Weiss's edition, in the case of both romances, keeps to themanuscripts as closely as possible, replacing former editorial inter ventions where necessary and maintaining original line order where tenable. Her 1136 Reviews main alteration is to adopt modern paragraphing, which facilitates easy reading, especially of the epic Gui, which runs to 12,920 lines. Weiss's translation is flowing and colourful, and supported by comprehensive footnotes which defend her choice ofwords, draw attention to previous editorial corrections, and point out manuscript variants. She takes pains to avoid any am biguity ofmeaning, as in her translation of Ta mer de Bretaine' in line 750 as 'the Breton coast\ combining both nuances of the original phrase. In sum, this is an excellent scholarly edition of both texts,which it is to be hoped will contribute to a renewed critical interest in insular romance. Queen's University Belfast Mariana Neilly Desire by Gender and Genre in Trouvere Song. By Helen Dell. (Gallica, 10) Cambridge: Brewer. 2008. x+227 pp. ?50. ISBN 978-1-84384-164-7. Helen Dell's study focuses on issues thathave been explored indepth in troubadour scholarship but, as of yet,mostly neglected with regard to theNorthern French lyric tradition. Her work aims in part, therefore, to counteract criticism which has privileged not only the Southern poetry, but also the 'high-style' chanson over the pastourelle and the chanson defemme. Dell adopts a psychoanalytic line of enquiry to support...

Episcopal "Gesta" and the Creation of a Useful past in Ninth-Century Auxerre

Previous articleNext article No AccessEpiscopal "Gesta" and the Creation of a Useful past in Ninth-Century AuxerreConstance B. BouchardConstance B. Bouchard Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Speculum Volume 84, Number 1Jan., 2009 The journal of the Medieval Academy of America Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1017/S0038713400020844 Views: 60Total views on this site Citations: 8Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 2009 The Medieval Academy of AmericaPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Fiona J. Griffiths Froibirg Gives a Gift: The Priest’s Wife in Eleventh-Century Bavaria, Speculum 96, no.44 (Sep 2021): 1009–1038.https://doi.org/10.1086/716002Edward Roberts Flodoard of Rheims and the Writing of History in the Tenth Century, 137 (Sep 2019).https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108226851 Anne Heath Elevating Saint Germanus of Auxerre: Architecture, Politics, and Liturgy in the Reclaiming of Monastic Identity, Speculum 90, no.11 (Sep 2015): 60–113.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0038713414002425 Double-scope narrative and the economy of government, (Apr 2014): 140–188.https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107279605.005 Simon MacLean Recycling the Franks in Twelfth-Century England: Regino of Prüm, the Monks of Durham, and the Alexandrine Schism, Speculum 87, no.33 (Sep 2015): 649–681.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0038713412003053 Jamie Kreiner About the Bishop: The Episcopal Entourage and the Economy of Government in Post-Roman Gaul, Speculum 86, no.22 (Sep 2015): 321–360.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0038713410004677Simon Elling Institution versus Individuum, Diözese versus Dynastie, (Mar 2018): 203–238.https://doi.org/10.7788/boehlau.9783412213206.203Steffen Patzold Visibilis creatura – invisibilis salus, (Mar 2018): 79–308.https://doi.org/10.7788/boehlau.9783412213206.79