Manuscripts containing English decoration 871–1066, catalogued and illustrated: a review

1978 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 239-266 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda L. Brownrigg
Keyword(s):  
High Standard ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
The South ◽  
Norman Conquest ◽  
Southern England ◽  
The North ◽  
Careful Preparation ◽  
Service Books

In the period from Alfred's reign to the Norman Conquest scribes and artists in southern England once more achieved a high standard in bookmaking, comparable to the brilliant tradition which had been established in both the north and the south in the eighth century. Some codices survive which are rough in execution, written on poorly prepared membrane by unskilled hands, but the majority – by no means chiefly service books produced for ecclesiastical and royal patrons – demonstrate that by the end of the tenth century a large number of scribes understood the techniques of careful preparation of membranes and inks, had mastered the letter-forms of two scripts, Caroline minuscule and Anglo-Saxon square minuscule, and were disciplined to follow consistently a hierarchy of scripts for the openings of texts and major divisions, chapter titles, incipits and explicits. What remains must be only a fragment of the production of Benedictine monks and nuns, secular clerks and lay scribes. But however incomplete and unbalanced the evidence, the over-all level of accomplishment cannot be doubted.

Winchester

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Roffey
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Central Place ◽  
British History ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
The South ◽  
Norman Conquest ◽  
The North ◽  
South Central ◽  
Charles Ii ◽  
Power Center

Winchester lays claim to being one of the most important cities in British history. The city has a central place in British myth and legend and was once ancient capital and residence of the Anglo-Saxon and early Norman kings. Winchester is also one of the most extensively excavated medieval towns in England and was the training ground for modern British archeology. Situated in south-central England, Winchester was close to key communication routes via the south coast and the important medieval port at Southampton. Founded in the Roman period as Venta Belgarum, close to the site of the Iron Age market settlement, Winchester quickly grew into a prosperous Roman civitas. After the decline of Roman power in Britain, Winchester remained as an important power center in the south and by the mid-7th century was the pre-eminent town in the newly established Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex. With the consolidation of Wessex’s power in the 9th and 10th centuries and the eventual re-establishment of control over the former Viking-influenced areas of the midlands and the north, Winchester became the seat of English royal power. With the Norman Conquest in 1066, the early Norman kings sought to keep Winchester as the royal seat. However, with the rising pre-eminence of London in the mid-12th century, Winchester’s power declined as royal and secular power shifted to London. Nevertheless, Winchester was still to remain of some importance throughout the medieval period and its bishop one of the most powerful, influential, and richest lords in medieval England; a status still attested to by the city’s medieval cathedral. As a city of many religious foundations, Winchester’s fortunes waned after the Reformation to be briefly reborn in the later 17th century with the planned construction of Charles II palace on the site of the former medieval castle. Charles’ plans to reinvent Winchester as a revitalized English royal city were aborted with his untimely death in 1688, with the palace, designed by Christopher Wren, barely finished.

England and Aquitaine in the century before the Norman Conquest

1990 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 81-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Beech
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
The South ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
Norman Conquest ◽  
Language And Culture

A commonplace among English historians today is the importance of English ties with Aquitaine during the later Middle Ages. For some three centuries, historical events came to link the destinies of these two countries and peoples who otherwise differed strikingly in economy, language and culture in general, with lasting consequences for both. It has long been taken for granted by both English and French historians that this association came about abruptly in the 1150s as a result of the ascent to the English throne of Henry of Anjou who, through his marriage to Eleanor, heiress of the duchy of Aquitaine, became the sovereign of that enormous territorial principality. Till the present no one has suspected that any significant ties existed between the Anglo-Saxons and Aquitanians prior to that time. To be sure, the Anglo-Saxons had been in contact with the late Carolingian kings in the tenth century and with the Normans in the eleventh, but those were purely northern French phenomena. So too were the important Anglo-Saxon relations with the monks of Fleury-sur-Loire in the later tenth and early eleventh centuries, but these were not known to have had any repercussions in Aquitaine far to the south.

Archangel in the Margins: St. Michael in the Homilies of Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 41

Traditio ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 53 ◽  
pp. 63-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard F. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Ninth Century ◽  
Devotional Literature ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
The South ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Corpus Christi ◽  
University Library ◽  
The North ◽  
Devotional Practices

In the preface to his edition of the ninth-century Book of Cerne (Cambridge, University Library, MS L1. 1.10), A. B. Kuypers notes “two great currents of influence, two distinct spirits, Irish and Roman” at work in the composition of the prayers in this private devotional book. Moreover, Kuypers asserts that “these influences are traceable through the whole range of the strictly devotional literature of the period.” Since it is generally acknowledged that the two great forces shaping the early Anglo-Saxon church were the Roman missionaries in the south and Irish monks in the north, it is reasonable to suspect that the Anglo-Saxon devotional practices to St. Michael the Archangel were also influenced by both traditions.

The Fenland Frontier in Anglo-Saxon England

Antiquity ◽  
1934 ◽  
Vol 8 (30) ◽  
pp. 185-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. C. Darby
Keyword(s):  
Political Geography ◽  
Great Part ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
The South ◽  
Northern Germany ◽  
The North ◽  
Frontier Region

It would seem that the Anglo-Saxon invasion of a great part of eastern Britain in the fifth century radiated fan-wise from the gateway of the Wash and of the Fenland Gulf. If this is true, it is not surprising. The position of the continental base of the Anglo-Saxons made the area a natural entry into the Midland plain; and the invaders, with the Wash behind them, gazed upon no unfamiliar scene. The region into which they came may not have been so different from their former homeland on the flats of northern Germany, the homeland which Bede tells us they had so completely deserted. They penetrated by way of the Fenland rivers, up the Nene, the Welland, the Ouse, and the Witham, and this big spread was supplemented to the north and to the south by the smaller river entrances, the Bure, the Yare, the Waveney, the Humber and so on. The archaeological finds, as plotted by Mr Thurlow Leeds, are located along the courses of navigable streams and their tributaries, and are disposed concentrically around the Fenland. Dr Cyril Fox has moreover indicated affinities, during the earlier Saxon period, between the opposite shores of this marshy gulf. All had changed, however, when the tribes emerged into the light of history. The Fenland basin, characterized at an earlier epoch by a certain cultural unity, had now become a frontier region, separating peoples and exercising a repelling action revealed in the making of the Anglo-Saxon States. Kingdoms, finding their limits here, partitioned the marshy wastes between them, and the barrier of the Fens became a permanent feature in the political geography of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy.

The Anglo-Saxons and the Christianization of Scandinavia

1995 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 213-249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lesley Abrams
Keyword(s):  
North Sea ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
The North ◽  
Theoretical Support ◽  
Malar Region ◽  
Northern Border ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
Louis The Pious ◽  
Mission Field

St Anskar, a monk of Corbie and Corvey, is often referred to as the ‘Apostle of the North’. In 826 he was attached to the retinue of Harald, king of Denmark, upon the king's baptism at the court of Louis the Pious; Anskar was sent to evangelize first the Danes, who were an increasing threat to the northern border of the Empire, and then the Swedes of the Mälar region, whose rulers may have hoped for imperial favour. If the mission of Anskar and his immediate successors had significant and enduring effects beyond his death in 865, however, they have so far failed to make themselves known to historians. The see of Hamburg-Bremen, of which Anskar was the first archbishop, had indeed been given responsibility for the northern mission-field, and successive popes renewed their theoretical support for this goal; but activity, let alone success, was not conspicuous for many years thereafter. The conversion of the Scandinavian peoples had to wait, and when it came the impetus was not from Hamburg-Bremen alone. Rather, the story of the Christianization of Denmark, Norway and Sweden from the later tenth century through the eleventh is one with a significantly English cast and an English script, although the German church – and maybe others – never quite withdrew from the stage. Scandinavian historians have long been concerned with this missionary activity of Anglo-Saxon churchmen, but it has attracted undeservedly less interest and attention on this side of the North Sea.

Monastic tower-naves and tower-nave origins

2019 ◽  
pp. 109-132
Author(s):  
Michael G. Shapland
Keyword(s):  
Tenth Century ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Reform Movement ◽  
High Status ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Burial Practices ◽  
Monastic Reform ◽  
Monastic Life ◽  
Secular Power

This chapter traces the origins of the tower-nave form in Anglo-Saxon monasteries, where they occur from at least the early eighth century onwards. It seeks the architectural meanings underlying the tower form, which were drawn from Carolingian and Late Antique practice and related to high-status secular power and burial. Thus, many monastic tower-naves in England were constructed as private, often royal, chapels and burying-places, as a result of the expression of these meanings by their builders. The evidence for monastic tower-naves increases significantly during the mid–late tenth century, a period which coincided with the Monastic Reform, whose leaders were personally responsible for this apparent spate of tower-nave construction. These tower-naves were built in seeming fulfilment of key tenets of the Reform movement: the patronage of the king in monastic life, the regularization of burial practices, and the increased emphasis on the integrity of monastic space.

Anglo-Saxon Towers of Lordship

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael G. Shapland
Keyword(s):  
Tenth Century ◽  
Dual Function ◽  
High Status ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Free Standing ◽  
Norman Conquest ◽  
Monastic Reform ◽  
European Tradition ◽  
The Social ◽  
Secular Power

It has long been assumed that England lay outside the Western European tradition of castle-building until after the Norman Conquest of 1066. It is now becoming apparent that Anglo-Saxon lords were constructing free-standing towers at their residences all across England during the tenth and eleventh centuries. Initially these towers were exclusively of timber, and quite modest in scale. There followed the ‘tower-nave’ churches, towers with only a tiny chapel located inside, which appear to have had a dual function as buildings of elite worship and symbols of secular power and authority. This book gathers together the evidence for these remarkable buildings, many of which still stand incorporated into the fabric of Norman and later parish churches and castles. It traces their origin in monasteries, where kings and bishops drew upon Continental European practice to construct centrally planned, tower-like chapels for private worship and burial, and to mark gates and important entrances, particularly within the context of the tenth-century Monastic Reform. Adopted by the secular aristocracy to adorn their own manorial sites, many of the known examples would have provided strategic advantage as watchtowers over roads, rivers, and beacon systems, and acted as focal points for the mustering of troops. The tower-nave form persisted into early Norman England, where it may have influenced a variety of high-status building types. The aim of this book is to establish the tower-nave as an important Anglo-Saxon building type, and to explore the social, architectural, and landscape contexts in which they operated.

‘Æthelstan A’ and the rhetoric of rule

2013 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
pp. 217-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. A. Woodman
Keyword(s):  
Tenth Century ◽  
Latin Literature ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
The North

AbstractIn the years c. 928 to 935, sole responsibility for the production of Latin diplomas was entrusted to the royal draftsman known to modern scholarship as ‘Æthelstan A’. The documents he produced are entirely different from any previous example of the Anglo-Saxon diploma. Not only does he modify the very form of the diploma, but he writes in a Latin style that is marked by its sophistication, ostentation and learning, a kind of Latin that was a forerunner to the so-called ‘hermeneutic’ Latin that dominates Anglo-Latin literature of the mid-tenth century and beyond. Never before had the royal diploma's rhetorical properties been exploited to such a degree and it seems no coincidence that these documents appeared following King Æthelstan's momentous political conquest of the North in 927.

Traditionalism and Continuity during the Last Century of Anglo-Saxon Monasticism

1989 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonia Gransden
Keyword(s):  
Religious Life ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Reform Movement ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Norman Conquest ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Strict Enforcement ◽  
Rule Of Benedict ◽  
The Ideal

Those writing at the time, and subsequent historians, have tended to exaggerate the importance of the tenth-century monastic revival and of the reform movement which followed the Norman Conquest. During each period contemporary writers glorified the achievements of the reformation, of which they themselves were products, and belittled or even denigrated the religious life of the preceding era. This was partly because the hallmark of both reformations was the strict enforcement of the Rule of Benedict; the ideal of strict Benedictinism appealed to those writing during the reformations, since they themselves were strict Benedictines, and it has appealed to some historians in our own day. One result has been a tendency to emphasise the influence of continental models so much that it overshadows the importance of the Anglo-Saxon tradition. David Knowles makes continental influence on the tenth-century revival the theme of chapter 1 of hisThe Monastic Order in England.

Domiciling the evangelists in Anglo-Saxon England: a fresh reading of Aldred's colophon in the ‘Lindisfarne Gospels’

2012 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
pp. 101-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis L. Newton ◽  
Francis L. Newton ◽  
Christopher R. J. Scheirer
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
British Library ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Lindisfarne Gospels

AbstractThe Codex ‘Lindisfarnensis’ (London, British Library, Cotton Nero D. iv, early eighth century) was glossed in Old English by the tenth-century priest Aldred. Aldred's colophon purports to give information about the eighth-century makers of the manuscript, at Lindisfarne. What is actually reliable about this highly literary colophon is Aldred's purpose in writing the gloss: to give the Evangelists a voice to address ‘all the brothers’ – particularly the Latinless. We propose new interpretations of three OE words (gihamadi, inlad, ora) misunderstood before. Aldred was learned; his sources extend from Ovid through the Fathers to contemporary texts.

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