Bede's Ecclesiastical History and the Material Conditions of Anglo-Saxon Life

1979 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Joel T. Rosenthal
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
The West ◽  
Ecclesiastical History ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Material Conditions ◽  
Do So

The author of the Ecclesiastical History of the English People was the greatest historian writing in the West between the later Roman Empire and the twelfth century, when we come to William of Malmesbury, Otto of Freising, and William of Tyre. Bede's qualities as a historian are well known and widely appreciated, and they need no further exposition here. Instead, we propose to be perverse and to attempt to read Bede's text as though he had been a sociologist or an economic anthropologist: What can we learn from him about the “material conditions” of life in post-Roman and early Anglo-Saxon England, especially about life in the sixth and seventh centuries. This is surely a strange purpose for which to use the Ecclesiastical History. We do so both to show that Bede is so rich and so multifaceted that he is immensely valuable for many purposes besides those of greatest obvious interest to him, and because the sources for social and economic life in those years are so poor that everything available is legitimate grist for the mills of our analysis.Actually there are two reasons why Bede might have furnished us with the kind of information we are seeking. One is that among classical and early medieval historians there was a considerable tradition of describing the barbarian world, of paying particular attention to the institutions, mores, and customs of the Germanic people or whoever might be the subject of the tale.

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’.

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.

scholarly journals The Venetians and the Venetian Quarter in Constantinople to the close of the Twelfth Century

1920 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Horatio F. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Special Reference ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Free State ◽  
The West ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Eastern Empire

The foundation and development of the Venetian Quarter in Constantinople, and the history of the early trading relations between Venice and the Roman Empire are intimately connected with and illustrate the movement by which the Republic gradually passed from actual, through merely nominal, vassalage to actual and formal independence. That movement constitutes an essential part of early Venetian history, the growth of the Republic as a free State between the Empire of the East and the Empire of the West, both weak at sea and in need of a fleet which Venice alone was able to supply, and shows us the Republic skilfully steering her course between Saracens, Normans, Greeks and Germans towards her goal, naval supremacy in the Adriatic and the Levant.It is not the object of this paper to dwell on the larger movement, but rather to examine the relations between Venice and the Eastern Empire with special reference to the Venetian Quarter in Constantinople. Those relations were governed by the Chrysobulls, or Golden Bulls, whereby the Emperors made gradually extending concessions to the seamen and merchants of their vassal State.

scholarly journals Royal succession and kingship among the Picts

2008 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Evans
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Ecclesiastical History ◽  
Female Line ◽  
Male Line ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject

When we consider the history of the Picts we are faced with the perennial challenge for the early medievalist of deciding whether the fragments of evidence which survive are representative of the reality of Pictish society, or whether they provide us with distortions, based on patterns of survival. This issue is as relevant to the subject of royal succession as it is to other aspects of Pictish history. The debate over whether the Picts practised a matrilineal system, with the son of the previous king's sister becoming the next king, or whether it was a patrilineal system, with the kingship generally passing through the male line, has dominated the discussion of Pictish succession. Until the 1980s, the matriliny thesis was virtually unquestioned, and accepted by scholars including F. T. Wainwright, Marjorie Anderson, and Isabel Henderson1. The bases for this view were the accounts of the Pictish settlement of northern Britain in Bede's ‘Ecclesiastical History of the English People’ and Irish texts written throughout the medieval period, but mainly surviving in versions from the twelfth century or later.2 In these sources it was claimed that the Picts went to Ireland before arriving in northern Britain, and that they obtained wives from the Irish, with some versions stating that this was done on condition that the succession went through the female line. Other sources which did not openly discuss the nature of Pictish succession, particularly the Irish chronicles and the Pictish king-lists, were then interpreted by scholars in relation to these accounts and were thought to support them.

Scissors and paste: Corpus Christi, Cambridge, MS 139 again

1975 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 83-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derek Baker
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Ultra Violet ◽  
Present Form ◽  
The West ◽  
Corpus Christi ◽  
Violet Light ◽  
The North ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Unique Source

Amongst the manuscripts bequeathed to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, by Matthew Parker in 1575 is one of the most important surviving collections of sources for the history of the north of England in the twelfth century. Manuscript 139, as it now is, contains, amongst other items, unique, or almost unique, copies of the so-called Historia Regum, which had been ascribed to Symeon of Durham before the end of the twelfth century, its continuation by John of Hexham, and the History of Richard of Hexham. It was a prime, and in part a unique, source of Twysden’s pioneering edition of 1652, and its value is in no way diminished today. This apart, the manuscript is of great interest as a manuscript, and the problems of its date, provenance and composition are still the subject of debate. The most recent and definitive account of the manuscript was given by Peter Hunter Blair in a fifty-five page article contributed to the volume of essays edited by Nora Chadwick under the title Celt and Saxon. His conclusions, which supersede all earlier views, were that the manuscript was compiled in the period c 1165–70 at the cistercian house of Sawley in the West Riding of Yorkshire, and the subsequent discovery of an erased Sawley ex libris, now visible only in ultra-violet light, and dated by Ker to the late twelfth/early thirteenth century, reinforced his view. Yet there still remain problems and uncertainties, and my purpose here is first to sketch in a little of the history of the manuscript in its present form, and secondly, by further examination of particular aspects of its to supplement and qualify Blair’s conclusions.

The attempted Byzantine alliance with the Sicilian Norman kingdom (1166–7)

1956 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 86-93
Author(s):  
John Parker
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Diplomatic History ◽  
The West ◽  
Byzantine Church ◽  
Do So

The endeavours of Manuel I Comnenus (1143–1180) to obtain a papal coronation from Alexander III in the years 1167–1168, and to have himself recognised as Emperor in the West in place of the schismatic and simoniac Frederick Barbarossa, together with his offers in return to subject the Byzantine Church to the authority of the pope, make up one of the most curious episodes in twelfth-century diplomatic history. The story, as told by Cardinal Boso in his life of Alexander, is well known, and has been discussed by a number of historians. Boso relates that on two occasions Manuel sent an ambassador to the pope declaring his wish to unite the Greek Church (ecclesiam suam graecam) to that of Rome and proposing to do so, asking in return that the ‘crown of the Roman empire’ (Romani corona imperii) should be restored to him by the papacy, since Frederick (crowned in 1155) had so clearly shown himself to be unworthy of it. The first ambassador, identified as the sebastus Jordan, son of Robert of Capua, went to Alexander at Rome; on the second occasion the pope was at Benevento and the unnamed apocrisiarius conferred with him there. Manuel offered a great quantity of men and money, sufficient, his emissaries said, to reduce all Italy to the papal obedience, if his proposals were accepted; on both occasions, however, Alexander and his advisers, having considered the matter carefully, came to the conclusion that the emperor's plan was too doubtful and dangerous. Though cardinals were sent to Constantinople for further discussions, nothing came of it.

Welsh church history: sources and problems

1975 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 293-300
Author(s):  
Nigel Yates
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
Church History ◽  
Language Barrier ◽  
Source Material ◽  
Ecclesiastical History ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
First Time

When one considers how intimately the ecclesiastical history of Wales has been bound up with that of England from at least the twelfth century until the disestablishment of the Welsh church in 1920, it is perhaps surprising that the subject should present as many problems as it does to those approaching it for the first time, especially to those familiar with the sources of English ecclesiastical history. It will not, of course, be possible in a paper of this length to consider fully all the problems involved, and I wish therefore to confine myself to four which seem to me to be absolutely basic. They are the shortage of primary source material; the lack of competent monographs on many topics; the language barrier which faces those unfamiliar with Welsh; and the dangers inherent in what may be called the ‘Welsh Nationalist’ approach to Welsh ecclesiastical history.

Latin Syria and the West, 1149–1187

1969 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 1-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. C. Smail
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The West ◽  
First Crusade ◽  
Holy Places ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject

Historians of the crusades have given most of their attention to the major crusading expeditions, especially to the first, and to the surface history of the Latin states in Syria, especially to that of the kingdom of Jerusalem. They have shown less interest in those conditions in western Europe from which all crusading activity grew. It is true that the roots of the movement prior to the First Crusade were traced by Erdmann in a magisterial study which remains the most important contribution made to the subject during the present century. But the First Crusade was not the end of the matter. European sentiment about the crusades and the Latin states continued to develop during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and beyond. Even in the twelfth century there was a body of opinion which was highly critical of crusading activity and this grew in the course of time; but the main weight of conventional opinion in the later twelfth and earlier thirteenth century came to accept the crusade, and the maintenance or recovery of Latin possession of the Holy Places, as a Christian responsibility.

The Anglian collection of royal genealogies and regnal lists

1976 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 23-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
David N. Dumville
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
British Library ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Corpus Christi ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject

This collection of Old English royal records is found in four manuscripts: London, British Library, Cotton Vespasian B. vi; London, British Library, Cotton Tiberius B. v, vol. 1; Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 183; and Rochester, Cathedral Library, A. 3. 5. The present paper aims both to provide an accurate, accessible edition of the texts in the first three of these manuscripts and to discuss the development of the collection from its origin to the stages represented by the extant versions. We owe to Kenneth Sisam most of our knowledge of the history of the Anglo-Saxon genealogies. Although his closely argued discussion remains the basis for any approach to these sources, it lacks the essential aid to comprehension, the texts themselves. It is perhaps this omission, as much as the difficulty of the subject and the undoubted accuracy of many of his conclusions, that has occasioned the neglect from which the texts have suffered in recent years.

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