Polesworth abbey (Warwickshire) and the Marmion lord of Tamworth castle: using an Anglo-Saxon saint’s cult in the earlier twelfth century*

2020 ◽  
Vol 93 (260) ◽  
pp. 205-226
Author(s):  
Nigel Tringham
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Royal Family

Abstract A fifteenth-century manuscript gives an account of how a post-Conquest lord of Tamworth castle expelled nuns from nearby Polesworth (Warwickshire), later restoring them after he had been admonished in a dream by the nuns’ patron, St. Edith. The story can be tested against copies of twelfth-century charters, which show that the nuns were installed in Polesworth church anew by Robert Marmion (d. 1144), acting with his high-born wife Milisent. Political considerations were probably foremost in this process, and close ties with the royal family help to explain the convent’s association with the prestigious Continental Benedictine house at Cluny.

scholarly journals St Edith of Polesworth and her Cult

2019 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
NIGEL TRINGHAM
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Anglo Saxon

Venerated at Polesworth (Warws.) in the late Anglo-Saxon period, the identity of St Edith remains uncertain, with medieval chroniclers suggesting various candidates, but she is likely to have been a seventh-century Mercian princess, perhaps also connected with a church near Louth (Lincs.). Buried at Polesworth, where miracles were still being recorded in the thirteenth century, and perhaps with relics in the collegiate church at nearby Tamworth, her cult was very localised, with only a few outliers elsewhere in the Midlands, probably linked to the Marmion family, lords of Tamworth castle and the founders in the mid twelfth-century of a female religious house at Polesworth.

Two pre-Conquest manuscripts from Glastonbury Abbey

1987 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 197-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
James P. Carley
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Early History ◽  
Reform Movement ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
The West ◽  
History Of ◽  
Fine Collection ◽  
Irish School ◽  
William Of Malmesbury

The earliest identified surviving manuscripts from Glastonbury Abbey date from the ninth and tenth centuries, but there are reliable post-Conquest traditions claiming that valuable books were found at the monastery as early as the reign of Ine, king of the West Saxons (688–726). By the tenth century at the latest there are reports of an ‘Irish school’ at Glastonbury, famous for its learning and books, and St Dunstan's earliest biographer, the anonymous. B., relates that Dunstan himself studied with the Irish at Glastonbury. During Dunstan's abbacy (940–56) – that is, at the period when most historians would place the beginnings of the English tenth-century reform movement – there was a general revival at Glastonbury which included a concerted policy of book acquisition and the establishment of a productive scriptorium. Not surprisingly, Dunstan's abbacy was viewed by the community ever afterwards as one of the most glorious periods in the early history of the monastery, especially since the later Anglo-Saxon abbots showed a marked falling off in devotion and loyalty to the intellectual inheritance of their monastery. Æthelweard and Æthelnoth, the last two Anglo-Saxon abbots, were especially reprehensible, and confiscated lands and ornaments for the benefit of their own kin. Nor did the situation improve immediately after the Conquest: the first Norman abbot, Thurstan, actually had to call in soldiers to quell his unruly monks. In spite of these disruptions, a fine collection of pre-Conquest books seems to have survived more or less intact into the twelfth century; when the seasoned traveller and connoisseur of books, William of Malmesbury, saw the collection in the late 1120s he was greatly impressed: ‘tanta librorum pulchritudo et antiquitas exuberat’.

The Vikings in England: a review

1975 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 181-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gillian Fellows Jensen
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Life Time ◽  
Present Review ◽  
Place Names ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Domesday Book ◽  
First Time

In the preface to F. M. Stenton's collected papers Lady Stenton notes that the publication ofAnglo-Saxon Englandin 1943 marked the culmination of a life-time spent largely preparing for and writing a book in which ‘place-names, coins and charters, wills and pleas, archaeology and the laws of the Anglo-Saxons were all for the first time adequately used to produce a balanced narrative, supported by Domesday Book and the twelfth-century charters which made it easier to understand the earlier material’. Indeed, with the exception of archaeology, Sir Frank had been actively engaged in all these fields of research, as is revealed by the list of his published works, and it seemed unlikely at the time that it would ever be necessary to make major adjustments to the view of the Scandinavian settlements that he presented. Only twelve years had passed, however, when voices of dissent began to arise and the first of three papers that were to herald two decades of controversy about the Vikings in England was published. The present review examines the most significant contributions to the ensuing debate and considers whether it has, in fact, been necessary to depart substantially from the views held by Stenton.

The Anglo-Saxon Royal family

1891 ◽  
Vol s7-XI (267) ◽  
pp. 103-103
Author(s):  
Japhet
Keyword(s):  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Royal Family

The English Navy in the Twelfth Century*

2020 ◽  
Vol 135 (575) ◽  
pp. 743-774
Author(s):  
Susan Raich Sequeira
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Royal Navy ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Norman Conquest ◽  
Territorial Expansion ◽  
Royal Power ◽  
Crucial Component ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
Trading Networks ◽  
Shed Light

Abstract This article investigates the naval strategies of England’s post-Conquest kings, especially from c.1100–1189, a period for which modern scholarship has yet to recognise the existence of a royal navy. It demonstrates that post-Conquest kings deployed warships, summoned defensive fleets, and launched their own invasion navies throughout the long twelfth century. Previously unnoticed evidence for the maintenance of warships under Henry II is discussed and records of fleet recruitment are used to shed light on the systems behind naval levies. Given all this evidence, it can firmly be concluded that there was a navy at the disposal of England’s Anglo-Norman and Angevin kings. The origins of this navy are twofold. Firstly, twelfth-century tactics drew on Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Danish systems and precedents, suggesting the long continuity of post-Conquest naval activities rather than sudden naval innovation under any particular king. The ‘English navy’ therefore did not decline after the Norman Conquest, nor was it a new foundation of Richard I. Secondly, England’s twelfth-century rulers relied upon the maritime skills and co-operation of coastal and port inhabitants across the realm. These coastal denizens’ motivations for participation in royal navies reveal both the extent and the limitations of English royal power. Royal naval activities took place against the backdrop of a European north that was becoming ever more connected by sea routes. English navies were therefore a crucial component of territorial expansion and warfare across a realm situated in the midst of extensive pan-European trading networks.

Archbishop John Morton and the Province of Canterbury, 1486–1500

1978 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Harper-Bill
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Political Role ◽  
Personal Nature ◽  
Late Fifteenth ◽  
Foster Father ◽  
The Church

The episcopate of John Morton has received little attention from historians, possibly because it falls in time between the traditional interests of medievalists and of reformation specialists. Previous treatments, notably that of dean Hook in his Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury and the biography by Woodhouse, published in 1895 and heavily reliant on Hook, have concentrated on Morton's political role as ‘foster father of the Tudors’, and while Professor Claude Jenkins provided an excellent survey of the Canterbury register, he was more concerned with the evidence which it provides for die condition of the Church in die late fifteenth century than widi the archbishop himself. The purpose of this paper is to outline the salient characteristics of the episcopate and to examine the ecclesiastical policies pursued by Morton. Two qualifications must immediately be added. First, despite the wealth of material in the archiepiscopal register, supplemented by the records of the cathedral priory, there is almost nothing of a personal nature, and as always it is more difficult to estimate the character or sentiments of a fifteenth-century bishop than of his twelfth-century counterpart Secondly, it has been remarked how a hard and fresh look has upgraded the reputation of Hubert Walter, ‘that old model of secular prelacy’.

Reddatur Parentibus: The Vengeance of the Family in Cnut's Homicide Legislation

2002 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 157-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Jurasinski
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
British Library ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Corpus Christi ◽  
The Family ◽  
Ultimate Outcome ◽  
English Law ◽  
One Year

TheAnglo-Saxon Chroniclestates that during his 1018 meeting in Oxford with the leading English ecclesiastical and lay authorities, roughly one year after his accession to the throne in England, Cnut agreed to uphold “the laws of Edgar” during his reign. The ultimate outcome of this and subsequent meetings is the code issued at Winchester in 1020, referred to by editorial convention as I and II Cnut. This code contains, respectively, the religious and secular laws of England promulgated under Cnut. The code is contained in four manuscripts in Old English. The earliest are British Library, Cotton Nero A.i and Cambridge, Corpus Christi College (CCCC) 201, both dated to the mid-eleventh century; the latest, Cambridge, Corpus Christi College (CCCC) 383 and British Library, Harley 55, belong to the early twelfth century. Cnut's code reappears in three twelfth-century Norman Latin tracts intended to acquaint French authorities with English law, theInstituta Cnuti, Consiliatio Cnuti, andQuadripartitus. TheLeges Henrici Primi, prepared by the same author as theQuadripartitus, also draws heavily on Cnut's legislation.

II. —Decorated Initials in English MSS. from A.D. 900 to 1100

Archaeologia ◽  
1945 ◽  
Vol 91 ◽  
pp. 107-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Wormald
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Norman Conquest ◽  
Ample Evidence ◽  
The Past ◽  
Outline Drawing ◽  
History Of ◽  
Norman Invasion ◽  
Do So

A recent beautiful publication by Mr. Mynors of the MSS. in the Cathedral Library at Durham has raised an important point in the history of English illuminated MSS. Up to now there has been a tendency to regard the Norman Conquest as constituting a complete break with the past accompanied by the introduction of a new style of illumination. There is, of course, no doubt that in many spheres of life the Norman occupation of England did do away with many characteristics of Anglo-Saxon England. But this is not the whole story. A change in one department of life does not mean a revolution in another. In the realm of literature, for instance, Professor Chambers has shown that the Conquest did not interrupt the writing and development of vernacular prose. Mr. Mynors's book produces ample evidence to confirm a suspicion long held by some, but not uttered, that much of the ornament used by illuminators of English MSS. during the first fifty years after the Conquest is directly descended from motives in use in England long before the Norman invasion. To Mr. Mynors's evidence from Durham, examples of illuminated MSS. from Canterbury may be added in order to show that the famous outline drawing style of the English MSS. of the tenth and eleventh centuries had healthy descendants in the early years of the twelfth century. The best place to see this continuity is in the illuminated initials of these MSS. In order to do so it is necessary to examine the development of initial ornament in England during the tenth and eleventh centuries.

The Waldensian Recourse to Violence

1986 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 294-306 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanna K. Treesh
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
The State ◽  
The Reformation

From their origins in the twelfth century to their support for and involvement in the Reformation in the sixteenth, the Waldensian heretics professed nonviolence as one of their beliefs. Later Protestant and Catholic polemicists equated the profession of nonviolence with a policy and bestowed upon the sect a reputation as one of the precursors of religious pacifism. More recent scholars have noted that the heretics at least occasionally employed violence. I will argue that lay Waldensian believers, called credentes, reacted violently to persecution and learned to employ aggression in pursuit of political goals. In the later Middle Ages, at least, Waldensians resorted to violence on enough occasions and in enough different locations to justify dropping the idea that they were a nonviolent group. Their use of violence did become more sophisticated—that is, more closely connected to political goals—during the fifteenth century as access to representatives of the state increased.

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