"La Vie de saint Laurent": An Anglo-Norman Poem of the Twelfth Century. D. W. Russell

Speculum ◽  
1978 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 621-622
Author(s):  
Florence McCulloch
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Anglo Norman

The Earl, the Kings, and the Chronicler

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert B. Patterson
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Full Length ◽  
English History ◽  
Cultural Revival ◽  
South Wales ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
Merchant Class ◽  
History Of ◽  
William The Conqueror

This book is the first full length biography of Robert (c.1088 × 90–1147), grandson of William the Conqueror and eldest son of King Henry I of England (1100–35). He could not succeed his father because he was a bastard. Instead, as the earl of Gloucester, Robert helped change the course of English history by keeping alive the prospects for an Angevin succession through his leadership of its supporters in the civil war known as the Anarchy against his father’s successor, King Stephen (1135–54). The earl is one of the great figures of Anglo-Norman History (1066–1154). He was one of only three landed super-magnates of his day, a model post-Conquest great baron, Marcher lord, borough developer, and patron of the rising merchant class. His trans-Channel barony stretched from western Lower Normandy across England to South Wales. He was both product as well as agent of the contemporary cultural revival known as the Renaissance of the Twelfth Century, bilingual, well educated, and a significant literary patron. In this last role, he is especially notable for commissioning the greatest English historian since Bede, William of Malmesbury, to produce a history of their times which justified the Empress Matilda’s claim to the English throne and Earl Robert’s support of it.

Abbas qui et scriptor?The Handwriting of Robert of Torigni and His Scribal Activity as Abbot of Mont-Saint-Michel (1154–1186)

Traditio ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 69 ◽  
pp. 45-86
Author(s):  
Benjamin Pohl
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Monastic Community ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
Manuscript Production ◽  
Institutional Contexts ◽  
First Time ◽  
Previous Scholarship

This article investigates a specific twelfth-century hand that occurs in a group of manuscripts connected to the Norman abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel and identifies it as the hand of Robert of Torigni, the famous Anglo-Norman historian who became abbot of that monastery in 1154. The manuscripts used as evidence all contain corrections and interlinear glosses in what I contend constitutes Robert's own hand, and have neither been studied comparatively nor had their relationships scrutinized. Indeed, scholarship to date has actually argued for different examples of handwriting altogether as belonging to Robert and has not inquired as to whether the glosses and annotations contained within the codices discussed here could be indicative of Robert's scribal activity in the scriptorium of Mont-Saint-Michel during the period of his abbacy (1154–86). This article, therefore, seeks to challenge the prevailing notions concerning Robert's characteristic handwriting, both in terms of its supposed shape and character, and with regard to the manuscripts in which it is thought to survive. This fundamental reassessment of previous scholarship will be achieved by combining, for the first time, a comprehensive paleographical analysis of the manuscripts with a discussion of their broader historical and institutional contexts. Furthermore, and perhaps more significantly, in identifying Robert's hand and the contexts in which it survives, this article aims to enhance our knowledge concerning the person behind the script. It will present new and important insights into Robert's activities as head of his monastic community, as well as into his methods as a monastic historian who, as will be shown, was intimately involved in the processes of manuscript production at Mont-Saint-Michel during the second half of the twelfth century. Ultimately, this article argues that Robert, despite being the author and intellectual architect of complex and influential historical works, had in fact very little training as a book scribe, which is evidenced by his handwriting.

The Anglo-Norman Card of Adela of Blois

1990 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 569-589 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberly A. LoPrete
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Real Power ◽  
Family Ties ◽  
Family Politics ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
William The Conqueror

Down through the twelfth century, politics were as much, if not more, the affairs of personalities and families as the affairs of state. One corollary of this premise is that certain women, as creators of family ties and managers of households, can be shown to have exercised more effective real power than traditional legal and institutional approaches to the medieval period have brought to light. As an instrument of long-term policy, marriage politics were fraught with uncertainties, but when dominant and powerful personages were able to capitalize on opportunities, the resultant alliances could prove effective in the realization of precise political aims. A re-examination of the available evidence for the career of Adela, daughter of William the Conqueror and countess of Blois, Chartres, and Meaux, from the perspective of family politics reveals that the Anglo-Norman – Thibaudian alliance, confirmed in her marriage to the eldest son of count Thibaud of Blois-Chartres, was actualized by Adela as an effective determinant of political action in the nearly twenty years she acted as the acknowledged head of the Thibaudian family.

Hagiographies of Mary

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kati Ihnat
Keyword(s):  
Early Development ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
New Form ◽  
Miracle Story

This chapter examines a new form of literature that emerged in twelfth-century England, the collections of Marian miracle stories, designed to prove through reasoned argument that Mary was worthy of devotion. Marian miracle collections first appeared in English monasteries in the early twelfth century, depicting the imagined rewards of entreating Mary to act on their behalf. The Marian genre was a further expression of the drive to record letters, laws, histories, and hagiographies that pervaded Anglo-Norman monastic culture. In order to understand the part the miracle story played in the development of the Marian cult, the chapter traces its inception and early development within wider literary and devotional patterns. It also considers the prayers, chants, offices, and feast days that lie at the heart of the universal miracle collections before concluding with a discussion of how the miracle stories were communicated in the liturgy.

Waging War: Fields of Conflict and Siege Warfare

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver H. Creighton ◽  
Duncan W. Wright ◽  
Michael Fradley ◽  
Steven Trick
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Landscape Context ◽  
Siege Warfare ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
Characteristic Features

This chapter provides an overview of how and with what consequences warfare was waged in the twelfth century, drawing particular attention to the landscape context of conflict. Case studies of the period’s two major pitched battles (Northallerton/the Battle of the Standard, 1138, and Lincoln, 1141) are presented, although the conflict as a whole saw few pitched battles and was instead dominated by siege warfare. The period saw the siege castle cemented as an essential part of the repertoire of Anglo-Norman conflict, mixing psychological and martial functions and favoured by rulers in an era when siege warfare was static and protracted while leaders needed to be mobile. The overall picture is that the conflict saw no radical departure in ways of waging war, and many of its characteristic features — such as the use of mercenaries, the avoidance of pitched battle, devastation of landscapes and the predominance of sieges — were not aberrations but part and parcel of an established pattern of Anglo-Norman warfare.

The legend is born: early Greek, Latin, and insular versions

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juliana Dresvina
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Proper Names ◽  
Place Names ◽  
Corpus Christi ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
Katherine Group ◽  
Old English Martyrology

Chapter 1 is dedicated to the early distribution of the relics of St Margaret/Marina, the early versions of her passio (Greek, Latin, and Old English), and their interrelations. It also discusses the proper names and the place names found in her legend: of Margaret/Marina herself and its conflation with Pelagia, of her father Theodosius, the evil prefect Olibrius, her executioner Malchus, a matron Sinclitica, the supposed author Theotimus, the dragon Rufus, and of Pisidian Antioch. It then examines the three extant Old English versions of St Margaret’s life from the ninth to the early twelfth century: the Old English Martyrology, the Cotton Tiberius version, and the Corpus Christi life. The chapter proceeds with a discussion of the Anglo-Norman poem about the saint by Wace, an overview of Margaret’s early cult in England, and concludes with a study of the life of St Margaret from the Katherine Group.

Anglo-Norman Canonists of the Twelfth Century: An Introductory Study

Traditio ◽  
1951 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 279-358 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephan Kuttner ◽  
Eleanor Rathbone
Keyword(s):  
Early Development ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Canon Law ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Country Of Origin ◽  
Constitutional History ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
History Of ◽  
Established Fact ◽  
The Common

Among the various aspects of the operation of canon law in medieval England, the history of the Anglo-Norman school of canonists which flourished in the late twelfth and the early thirteenth centuries remains largely unexplored. Modern historians have frequently emphasized, to be sure, the eager interest which English churchmen of the twelfth century took in problems and issues of canon law; and it can now be considered an established fact that the English Church throughout this period was well abreast of the developments which everywhere resulted from the growing centralization of ecclesiastical procedure, from the work of Gratian and his school, and from the ever-increasing number of authoritative responses and appellate decisions rendered by the popes in their decretal letters. The importance of the system of delegate jurisdiction in the cases referred back by Rome to the country of origin has been noted, and so has the conspicuous number of twelfth-century English collections of decretals, which testifies to a particular zeal and tradition, among Anglo-Norman canonists, in supplementing Gratian's work by records of the new papal law. The problem, also, of the influence exercised by Roman and canon law on the early development of the Common Law is being discussed with growing interest among students of English legal and constitutional history.

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.

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