The Piety of Henry III

Henry III ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 273-348
Author(s):  
David Carpenter
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
Patron Saint ◽  
Fourth Lateran Council ◽  
Edward The Confessor

This chapter focuses on the piety of Henry III. King Henry III was widely regarded by his contemporaries as a ‘rex Christianissimus’, ‘a most Christian king’. Everything known about his religious practices confirms that opinion. In some areas, notably the distribution of alms and the hearing of masses, he was doing what all his predecessors had done, but on a new scale and with a new intensity. In other areas, notably in his efforts to convert the Jews to Christianity and his adoption of Edward the Confessor as his patron saint, he was doing something very new. His devotion to the Confessor, in particular, became central to his life and led to the greatest monument of his kingship, the rebuilding of Westminster Abbey. One reason for Henry's piety was almost certainly his father's reputation for impiety. Henry also lived in a new spiritual environment, one created by the decrees of the Fourth Lateran Council, the work of pastorally minded bishops, the preaching and example of the friars, and the ideas developed in the twelfth century about purgatory, confession, penance, and the eucharist.

VIII.—The Palace of Westminster in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries

Archaeologia ◽  
1906 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. R. Lethaby
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Positive Evidence ◽  
Parallel Case ◽  
Edward The Confessor ◽  
The Church

We do not know when the English kings took up their residence at Westminster. Some slight indications suggest that Canute may have first established himself here. It is clear from the name Westminster that the Abbey was first in place, and this is confirmed by the position of the Palace, built along a narrow marshy strip between the better ground of the Abbey precinct and the river. Holyrood seems to be a parallel case of a famous religious house drawing the king's palace to its side. There is no certain evidence for the existence of the Abbey itself until the opening of the last third of the tenth century. The points in favour of Canute's residence at Westminster are as follows. His son Harold was buried in the Abbey, and according to the traditions of the house he was a great benefactor to it, presenting it with many relics, and being much attached to the Abbot Wulnoth. Gaimar, a twelfth-century writer, says that the dispute as to the tide happened at Westminster. “He was in London on the Thames, the tide was flowing near the church called Westminster, and the king stood at the strand on the sand.” The first positive evidence as to the Saxon palace is contained in William of Malmesbury's Chronicle, which tells how King Edward the Confessor was wearing his crown at Westminster, and while sitting at table one Easter Day, surrounded by nobles, he saw a vision.

NADIA ABU-ZAHRA, The Pure and the Powerful: Studies in Contemporary Muslim Society (Reading, Berkshire, U.K.: Ithaca Press, 1997). Pp. 340. $45.00 cloth, $21.00 paper.

2002 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 174-175
Author(s):  
Vincent F. Biondo III
Keyword(s):  
Religious Practices ◽  
Common People ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Patron Saint ◽  
Muslim Society ◽  
Intellectual Elites

The Pure and the Powerful, the second book by the Oxford-based anthropologist Nadia Abu-Zahra, is a case study of the rituals performed at the Cairo shrine of al-Sayyida Zaynab, patron saint of women, during the anniversaries of her birth and death. Considered by many to be the granddaughter of the Prophet Muhammad, al-Sayyida Zaynab is the epitome of purity and has the power to heal the sick. Abu-Zahra sees religious practices at the shrine as a demonstration of Islam and Egyptian society's “integrated wholeness.” In short, the beliefs and practices of common people, intellectual elites, men, and women are more analogous than previously thought.

Edward the Confessor

2020 ◽  
pp. 132-172
Author(s):  
George Garnett
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Richard Ii ◽  
Magna Carta ◽  
English Law ◽  
Edward The Confessor ◽  
King John ◽  
Papal Legate

Chapter 4 shows how during John’s reign the baronial opposition appropriated the figure of the recently canonized Edward the Confessor, and used him as a standard against which to judge the current king. A key part was played by the London Collection of the Leges Anglorum, which compiled and in important respects elaborated and extended the compilations of Old English law codes made during the twelfth century. The Collection informed opposition thinking prior to the crisis which produced Magna Carta. The chapter also subjects to minute analysis two very unusual episodes recorded in thirteenth-century annals of provincial churches. First, the St Augustine’s, Canterbury account of Duke William’s having allowed the men of Kent, uniquely, to continue to use Old English Laws and customs. This episode is supposed to have taken place at Swanscombe Down in 1066. The second is the Burton Abbey account of what purports to be a dialogue between King John and a papal legate, allegedly in 1211. The nub of the dialogue is a disagreement about the role of Edward the Confessor. The chapter then shows how Henry III re-appropriated St Edward for the royal cause, but by emphasizing his saintliness rather than his alleged legislation. Henry focussed on the development of the cult, expressed in liturgical, artistic, and architectural terms, and focussed on the rebuilt Westminster Abbey. The chapter concludes with a brief envoi on the later medieval expression of the cult, especially under Richard II.

I.—Armorials upon English Seals from the Twelfth to the Sixteenth Centuries

Archaeologia ◽  
1943 ◽  
Vol 89 ◽  
pp. 1-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. H. Hunter Blair
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Edward The Confessor ◽  
Two Sides

The purpose of this paper is to discuss and illustrate the development of shields of arms and their accessories upon the seals of English men and women from the simple devices of the later twelfth century to the complicated armorials and complete achievements of later times. The great seal of William the Norman, like that of Edward the Confessor, had two sides. On one William was shown seated in majesty as king of the English; on the other, unlike Edward, he appeared fully armed upon horseback as duke of the Normans. This equestrian representation of a knight fully equipped with the arms and armour of his time was the type of seal adopted by the greater barons in the early twelfth century. It was upon the shields borne by these horsemen that armorial charges first appear. Part I of this paper deals with this equestrian type.

Tunisian Performances of the Sufi Ascent: the ‘Issawiya Hadra Ritual

2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 260-271
Author(s):  
Dia Barghouti
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
The Body ◽  
Cultural Center ◽  
Patron Saint ◽  
Ibn Arabi ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Philosophical Writings

Focusing on the hadra ritual of the ‘Issawiya Sufi community, in this article Dia Barghouti explores how the narrative of the Prophet Muhammad's ‘night journey’ is performed within the Tunisian socio-cultural context. Drawing on the philosophical writings of the twelfth-century Sufi saint Muhyidin Ibn ‘Arabi, the author examines how re-enacting narratives of transcendence, and particularly of myths associated with the patron saint of the order, Sidi Ben-’Issa, allows members of the ‘Issawiya community to explore the ontological principles of Sufi cosmology by experiencing them directly in the body. Dia Barghouti is a playwright and PhD candidate in the Department of Theatre and Performance at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her plays have been performed at Ashtar Theatre and the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center in Ramallah in Palestine.

The Papacy Takes Charge

2021 ◽  
pp. 157-170
Author(s):  
James Morton
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Southern Italy ◽  
New Order ◽  
Fourth Crusade ◽  
Legal Structures ◽  
Pope Innocent Iii ◽  
Fourth Lateran Council

Chapter 8 moves from the Norman kingdom of the twelfth century to the newly changed situation in the early thirteenth century, as the demise of the Hauteville dynasty and the minority of the young king Frederick II Hohenstaufen (r. 1198–1250) created an opportunity for Pope Innocent III (r. 1198–1216) and his successors to enforce their authority in southern Italy. Meanwhile, the Latin conquest of Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade (1204) created an imperative for the papacy to develop a coherent policy towards the integration of Greek Christians into the Roman church’s administrative and legal structures. The chapter discusses how the papacy formulated this policy at the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) and the resulting increase in papal interventions in the legal affairs of the southern Italian Greeks. It then looks at Pope Honorius III’s (r. 1216–1227) short-lived effort to organise Byzantine-rite monasteries into an Order of St Basil under Grottaferrata (a predecessor to Eugenius IV’s more successful fifteenth-century order). It examines the Grottaferrata Nomocanon (Marc. gr. 171), a manuscript produced at the monastery in c. 1220–1230 that was apparently intended to provide a legal guide for the new order yet was still entirely Byzantine in character. The chapter finishes by focusing on the conflict between the Holy Saviour monastery of Messina and the papacy in the 1220s–1230s as an important example of the papacy’s efforts to bring the royal monasteries of the Kingdom of Sicily under episcopal control.

Hagiography as Political Documentation : The Case of Betha Beraigh (The Life of St Berach)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ksenia Kudenko
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Religious Discourse ◽  
Church Reform ◽  
Patron Saint ◽  
Textual Structure ◽  
Political Background

The focus of the article is on the historical stimuli which might have prompted the compilation of the Irish Life of St Berach, Betha Beraigh, and on the textual structure and motifs employed by the hagiographer to achieve his goals, i.e. to extol his patron saint and to claim territories for his church. Although the twelfth century was characterized by Church reform, Betha Beraigh seems to show little interest in contemporary religious discourse. Instead, the main purpose of the text seems to be concern with property, as well as desire to forge or revive connections with secular dynasties. The Life, therefore, represents a property record and accordingly, should be read against a political background as a document similar in its intent to continental charters.

Henry III

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Carpenter
Keyword(s):  
Soft Power ◽  
Patron Saint ◽  
Politics And Religion ◽  
Magna Carta ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Personal Rule ◽  
Edward The Confessor

Nine years of age when he came to the throne in 1216, Henry III had to rule within the limits set by the establishment of Magna Carta and the emergence of parliament. Pacific, conciliatory, and deeply religious, Henry brought many years of peace to England and rebuilt Westminster Abbey in honour of his patron saint, Edward the Confessor. He poured money into embellishing his palaces and creating a magnificent court. Yet this investment in ‘soft power’ did not prevent a great revolution in 1258, led by Simon de Montfort, ending Henry's personal rule. This book brings to life Henry's character and reign as never before. The book stresses the king's achievements as well as his failures while offering an entirely new perspective on the intimate connections between medieval politics and religion.

Earl Godwine's ship

2009 ◽  
Vol 38 ◽  
pp. 185-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Keynes ◽  
Rosalind Love
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Edward The Confessor

AbstractThe Vita Ædwardi regis, written probably in the late 1060s, is a major source for our knowledge of the reign of King Edward the Confessor (1042–66). The discovery by Henry Summerson of the complete text of a hitherto incomplete poem in the Vita Ædwardi, describing a ship given to the king by Earl Godwine, on the occasion of the king's accession in 1042, contributes significantly to our understanding of the poem itself, and bears at the same time on the relationship between the Encomium Emmae reginae and Vita Ædwardi, and between the Vita Ædwardi and the later eleventh- or early-twelfth-century source common to John of Worcester's Chronicle and to William of Malmesbury's Gesta regum Anglorum. These matters are pursued further, in a preliminary exploration of the wider significance of Dr Summerson's discovery.

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