On the popularity of Bede

Venerable the Bede may have been, but not clairvoyant
- Endeavour Morse, Endeavour S02E01


Today is the feast-day of Bede (d.735), a monk at the monastery of Jarrow in Northumbria (now on the coast of Durham County) who was canonised in 1899. In the English-speaking world, Bede is currently most famous as a historian, in particular for his Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, the ecclesiastical history of the English people. Among later historians in medieval England, Bede was a model to be emulated in the writing of chronicles, and William of Malmesbury (d.1143) praised Bede's work in one of his own chronicles, Gesta Regum Anglorum, the deeds of the kings of the English. Indeed, William claimed to be the first historian since the Venerable Bede to have undertaken a historiographical project on such a scale.

Historia Ecclesiastica provides us with a valuable, if questionable source to Britain's history before 735, and the accuracy of several of Bede's claims have come under close scrutiny in modern historical research. Once, at a conference in Oxford, I was sitting in a pub together with a group of mostly junior scholars, where David Rollason, one of the most established scholars of early medieval Northern England, told about how he had once written a paper on Bede's Historia, tentatively titled "Would you buy a car from this man?". Sadly, the paper was never published.

 In the Middle Ages, however, Bede's reputation as a historian was greatest within England. In the rest of Latin Christendom, Bede's significant and widespread popularity rested predominantly on his theological works, which circulated widely from a relatively early point. A good example of this disparity in popularity between his historical and his theological work can be found in Legenda Aurea, the collection of saints' legends written in the 1260s by Jacobus de Voragine. Here, Jacobus engages several times with the history of the British Isles, such as when recounting Saint Germanus of Auxerre's journey to Britain. Germanus' sojourn to Britain is also mentioned by Bede, and it is possible that Bede serves as the ultimate source for Jacobus' account, but there is no reference to this in Legenda Aurea. This is notable, because in several other chapters of Legenda Aurea, Jacobus mentions Bede as an authority for various claims, but only for Bede's theology, and never for his historical writing. This might serve as a good measurement of Bede's importance outside of England.

The popularity and importance of Bede's theological works can also be illustrated in a different way. Just as Jacobus de Voragine had employed Bede as a theological authority in Legenda Aurea, Bede's scriptural commentaries were a part of that corpus of established scriptural knowledge that provided the foundation for several commentators in the new flourishing of theology that came about in the post-Carolingian period. To exemplify this, we have a fragment from a German breviary which is now kept in the special collections at the University Library of Southern Denmark.

Lectio from the office for the celebration of the dedication of a church

RARA Musik M 4, fragment XI, Syddansk Universitetsbibliotek

The fragment contains readings and chants for the feast of the dedication of a church. The exact date of this feast naturally varied from institution to institution, but the repertoire of liturgical material was common to all of Latin Christendom. This was a feast in which the new church was typologically connected to the temple of Solomon, the model for all Christian churches according to Christian exegesis. Another typological connection was also made to the site of Bethel where Jacob wrestled with God's angel, about which I have written more here.

In order to emphasise the connection between the new church and the old temple, theological authorities were invoked in the readings for the feast of the dedication. In the fragment above, we see one of the lessons read aloud during Matins, and this text provides a good insight into Bede's place among theological authorities. 

The lesson itself, as it stands in the fragment, is of unknown provenance. It is a collection of snippets and quotations from older works, where each individual part can be identified, while the current constellation of materials might have been assembled at any point and at any place. The snippets in question all refer to the temple of Solomon, and the surviving Latin text reads as follows (I have not yet had time to translate it):  


[superimpositi]s sibi inuicem ordinibus lapidum [a]mbulando ac proficiendo de uir[t]ute in uirtutem. Cepit salemon [e]dificare domum domini in jerusalem in [m]onte moria. Edificat in monte domus domini in uisione quia dilatata per orbem ecclesia in una eademque fidei et ueritatis catho[l]ice societate consitit. Namque in scissura mentium deus non est sed factus est in pace locus eius ac habitacio eius in syon. Edificatur in monte in ipso uidelicet sal[u]atore nostro. Ipse est enim mons montium qui de terra quidaem per originem assumpte carnis ortus est sed omnium terrigenarum potentiam ac sanctitatem singularis culmine dignitatis transcendit. In quo nimirum monte ciuitas siue domus domini constructa est quia si non in illo radicem frigat spes et fides nostra nulla est tu au[tem]


Despite being an assemblage of parts, this is coherent, and its coherence is a testament to the skillful compiling of the unknown liturgist who executed this passage. The compilation points to the importance Bede in two ways. First of all, by the fact that this compilation includes material from his treatise on the temple of Solomon, De templo salomonis. Secondly, by the fact that Bede is woven into the text twice (and perhaps even more, given that we have lost the opening of the lesson). 

The lesson comprises four snippets of texts: First, an extract from Bede; second, an extract from 2 Chronicles 3:1 (to which Bede's text presumably refers); third, a passage whose author is as yet undetermined, but who appears to be either Johannes Cassianus, Eucherius, or Hrabanus Maurus; fourth, another extract from Bede's De templo salomonis. In short, Bede appears to bookend the entire passage - although since the opening is lost we cannot make any certain judgement about this. 

What we see here is a good example of Bede's importance and popularity as a theological authority in the intellectual milieu of Latin Christendom. While his historiographical enterprise might have been appreciated more notably in medieval England, his theology established him as one of the universal theologians among Latin Christians throughout the Middle Ages.

Edward the Confessor and the Nightingales

 The nightingales in Haveringatte-Bower
Sang out their loves so loud, that Edward’s prayers
Were deafen’d and he pray’d them dumb
- Alfred Lord Tennyson, Harold, Act I, Scene II


Edward the Confessor occupies a big place in English history and folklore, both because of his office as king of England and because of his role as one of England’s royal saints. As a consequence, there are several legends about him that have been in circulation throughout the centuries. One story claims that he aided Harold Godwinsson in the Battle of Stamford, while another, and one of the most widely famous of these legends, states that he gave his ring to a beggar who turned out to be John the Evangelist . We will return to this latter legend later on, but the main focus of this blogpost is another and much more recent story.

Wooden statue of Edward the Confessor, uncertain date but possibly Victorian

Courtesy of The Parish Church of St Edward the Confessor, Romford

Note the bird on the sceptre - possibly a nightingale

In his play Harold, Alfred Lord Tennyson presents a dramatised account of the Norman Conquest centred around the figure of Harold Godwinsson. In Act I, Harold meets with his sister Edith, Edward the Confessor’s wife, and as Harold enters the stage he recounts the brief anecdote quoted above. The story goes that Edward, who was more of a monk than a king according to the very first biography of him, Vita Ædwardi (c.1070), spent his night in prayer and meditation. One night he was at Havering, the nightingales sang so loudly that they disturbed his prayers and so he prayed that they would be quiet. Since Edward had God’s attention, the nightingales turned silent.

We don’t know how old this legend is, but evidence suggests that it is not very old as far as legends go, and the earliest recorded instance is said to date from the seventeenth century, according to AHistory of the County of Wessex. There is no trace of it in the Latin vitae of Edward that were written during the Middle Ages, and nor can it be found in the historiographical or vernacular material – at least to my knowledge.  The earliest account seems to stem from the early modern period. Historian Deb Martin notes that a local legend – recorded by Essex historian Philip Morant in 1768 – claimed that after this incident, the nightingales never dared to sing in Havering again. By the 19^th century, this legend seems to have passed into historiographical tradition, as we see in David Hughson’s London from 1809. Here, Hughson notes that Havering Bower “was the seat of some of the Saxon kings; particularly of Edward the Confessor, who took great delight in it, as being woody, solitary, and fit for devotion” (Hughson 1809, vol. VI: 195). He then goes on to quote the legend, and repeats the story recorded by Montagu that since then the nightingales had stopped singing in that place.

The story of Edward and the nightingales is a curious one, and even though we can’t say for certain when the nightingales at Havering entered the legendary of the Confessor, we can see in this story the conflation of two motifs from medieval folklore.

The first motif is that of animals being silenced by a saint. Many saints are said to have had command over animals, and this motif is found already in Athanasius’ Life of Antony in which we read how Antony of Egypt ordered animals to stay out of his vegetable garden. This was the foundation for the later version of Antony’s life in which it was said that he had a pet-pig, who became his primary iconographical attribute. A later example of this motif can be found in the legend of St Francis of Assisi, who was said to not only command birds but even locusts. In Legenda Aurea, Jacobus de Voragine records the following incident (translated by William Granger-Ryan): “He preached to the birds and they listened to him; he taught them and they did not fly away without his permission. When swallows were chattering when he was preaching, he bade them be silent and they obeyed” (Jacobus de Voragine 2012: 611). Whether there is a connection between this story and that of St Edward and the nightingales is beyond conjecture, but it is nonetheless interesting to see this motif recur in two such different settings.

Antony and his pet-pigs

MS Royal 2 A XVIII, early-fifteenth-century prayerbook

Courtesy of British Library

The second motif at play comes singularly from the legendary of Edward the Confessor, namely his connection to Havering. In 1809, Hughson stated that Havering had been a royal residence and that Edward had spent time there. Whether the Confessor ever did spend much time at Havering can not be ascertained, even though Hughson quotes the Domesday Book as marking Havering as a feudum of the king. The earliest known record of Edward staying at Havering comes from John Hardyng’s chronicle of 1437, where he states that Havering was the setting for the legend of St Edward’s ring. Hardyng’s treatment of the episode goes as follows:

In his forest, as he pursued a dere,
In Essex, a palmer with hym met,
Askyng hym good, whome gladly he dyd here,
He claue his ryng and in sonder it bette,
The halfe of whiche he gaue without lette
To the palmer that went awaye anone,
That other good to geue [hym] there had [he] none

But after that full longe and many [a] daye,
Two pylgrames came vnto that noble kynge,
And sayde, saint Iohn thappostell in pore araye
Vs prayed, and bad straytly aboue all thing,
To you present and take this halfe golde rynge,
Which ye gaue hym of almesse and charyte,
And bade vs say that right sone ye should him se:

Whiche ryng he set together there anone,
And that ylke place he called ay after Hauerynge,
And that same place where they it braste alone
He called by after that ryme Claueryng,
In Essex be bothe fayre standynge,
Where that he made two churches of saint Iohn
Theuangelyst, and halowed were anon
- The Chronicle of Iohn Hardyng, edited by Henry Ellis, printed in London, 1812: 232

Edward holding his ring

Statue of uncertain date, St Albans

Couresy of this website

Hardyng’s account is interesting in many ways. First of all, he introduces the novel idea that Edward broke the ring in two rather than giving it unbroken to the beggar (which is how it happens in Aelred of Rievaulx’s Vita Sancti Ædwardi (1163), the earliest source to mention this). Secondly, Hardyng states that Edward was hunting when he first met the Evangelist. This is significant in that it is a feature absent from the Latin hagiographical tradition, but it is included in William of Malmesbury’s Gesta Regum Anglorum, in which a hunting episode becomes an illustration of the king’s calm temper (William of Malmesbury 1998: 348-49).

In the chronicle of John Hardyng, no reference is made to nightingales, only his connection to Havering. We don’t know when the nightingales first enter the stage, or what was the origin of the legend. One likely source, however, is the Confessor’s coat of arms, which was a golden gross on a blue background surrounded by five gold martlets.

The supposed coat-of-arms of Edward the Confessor

Courtesy of Wikimedia

This coat of arms did not exist in the time of the Confessor, but was believed to have been his coat of arms in the fourteenth century. Therefore, when Richard II merged his own coat of arms with that believed to be the Confessor’s, the result was as follows.

Richard II's coat-of-arms, 1395-99

Courtesy of Wikimedia

The trajectory from Hardyng’s chronicle to the legend recorded by Montague, Hughson and Tennyson can not be recovered, but in the medieval texts and iconography we have seen here we might perceive at least the origin of this charming story.



For more on Edward the Confessor see these blogposts:

Overview of his cult

Edward in stained glass at Ickford

The celebration of his feast day



Bibliography


Primary Sources

Aelred of Rievaulx, The Life of Saint Edward, King and Confessor, translated by Jane Patricia Freeland, printed in Dutton, Marsha (ed.), Aelred of Rievaulx: The Historical Works, Cistercian Publications, 2005: 123-244

Evagrius, Life of Antony by Athanasius, translated by Carolinne White, printed in White, Carolinne (ed.), Early Christian Lives, Penguin Classics, 1998: 1-70

Hughson, David, London, Stratford, 1809

Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend, translated by William Granger Ryan, Princeton University Press, 2012

John Hardyng, The Chronicle of Iohn Hardyng, edited by Henry Ellis, London, 1812

Tennyson, Alfred Lord, Harold

William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum, translated by R. A. B. Mynors, Clarendon Press, 1998


Secondary sources

Baker, Arthur, A Tennyson Dictionary, Haskell House Publishers, 1916

'Parishes: Havering-atte-Bower', in A History of the County of Essex: Volume 7, ed. W R Powell (London, 1978), pp. 9-17 http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/essex/vol7/pp9-17 [accessed 9 March 2015].

Websites

http://www.romfordrecorder.co.uk/news/heritage/havering_once_home_to_the_nightingale_but_where_are_they_now_1_1701752

: http://www.stedwardsromford.org/history/edward_the_confessor.html

The Psalter of Quendrada - a miracle of St Kenelm

Kenelm holding a virginal lily

From the Digby Chantry, St Augustine's Church Ramsgate, John Hardman Powell, mid-19th century

Courtesy of this website

The elusively historical Kenelm of Mercia was the head of the Mercian kingdom for some time at the turn of the 8th century, at least according to his legend. Little is known about his life, and what appears in later texts is the stuff of saint-biographical legend, cultivated especially at Winchcombe Abbey, which was the centre of his cult. From documents and charters we know that a royal person by this name existed in this period, but little can be suggested beyond this. The first tokens of a liturgical cult can be found almost two centuries after his death, a time when many royal figures were the subject of new cults, such as Ethelreda, Edward Martyr and Sexburga, to mention only a few.

This flourishing of English royal saints has been treated in great detail by Susan J. Ridyard in her Royal Saints of Anglo-Saxon England, where she distinguishes between king-saints and royal women who became saints by virtue of their monastic pursuits. Ridyard's study was published in 1988, and was a counterargument against the beliefs that royal women in the convent abandoned their roles as royal patrons (hagiography shows this not to be the case), and that these saints were cultivated to protect weak royal houses. In fact, the royal houses benefitting from these cults were all very strong at this time.

Kenelm's role as a saint, therefore, fits into a larger historical canvas, and like the other royal saints boosted by the Benedictine reform movement, his cult enjoyed a perhaps surprising longevity, as can be seen by his inclusion in the 13th-century South English Legendary, and even in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Traditions belonging to the cult of Kenelm have endured for a long time, as suggested by a certain piece of folklore expounded by Eleanor Parker in this blogpost I have given some details about his cult and iconography in an earlier blogpost, so I will avoid undue repetition. In this blogpost, however, I will present a miracle of Kenelm which is reported by Gerald of Wales in his Journey through Wales, a work completed at the turn of the 1180s. This miracle is one among many reported by Gerald in chapter 2 of Book 1. The text quoted is taken from Lewis Thorpe's translation published in Penguin Classics (reprinted in 1984).

Kenelm's dream by H. A. Payne

From The Artistic Crafts Series of Technical Handbooks edited by W. R. Lethaby, plate 71

Courtesy of Project Gutenberg

Before presenting the miracle, however, a brief summary of Kenelm's legend might be appropriate. Kenelm was a child-king of Mercia c.800, and he had a wicked sister Cwenthryth, or Quendrada, who plotted against him. She ordered a huntsman to slay him during the child-king's hunt, and although forewarned by a vision given to his nurse, the boy accepted his death with the stoicism so typical of martyrs. After he had died, his body was discovered by the aid of a cow who began to feed at its burial-place, while the pope had been alerted of Kenelm's death by a dove. Kenelm's body was exhumed and taken back to the royal palace, and upon seeing his brother return, Quendrada's eyes fell out of her head and onto the psalter she was reading (backwards, because she was so very evil). The miracle reported by Gerald concerns this psalter:


In our days another great miracle has caused quite a stir. This had to do with the psalter of Quendrada, the sister of Saint Kenelm, at whose instigation he was murdered. In Winchcombe, on the vigil of Saint Kenelm, when, at the invitation of the monks, a great crowd of women from the neighbourhood had congregated for the celebrations, as their custom was, the assistant cellarer had intercourse with on of them inside the precincts of the monastery. The next day he had the audacity to carry this psalter in the procession of the relics of the saints. When the solemn procession was over, he made his way back to the choir. The psalter stuck to his hands and he could not put it down. He was greatly astonished and confounded by what had happened. Then he remembered the crime which he had committed the previous eveing. He confessed his sin and did penance. His repentance was sincere enough, and he was helped by the prayers of his fellow-monks. In the end, by divine intervention, he was able to free himself from the psalter and so was liberated. The book in question is held in great veneration in the monastery, for, when the dead body of Kenelm carried out and the crowd shouted: 'He is God's martyr! There is no doubt about it! He is the martyr of God!' Quendrada, who was guilty of her brother's murder and had it very much on her conscience, replied: 'He is indeed God's martyr, as truly as my eyes are resting on this psalter!' By chance she was reading the psalter at the moment. Thereupon, by divine intervention, her two eys were torn from her head and fell plop on the open book, where you can still see the marks of her blood to this day.
- Thorpe 1984: 85-86

Carving of St Kenelm at the gateway to Romsley Church

Photograph by Pollyanna Jones

There are several interesting iconographical details to pick up on in this anecdote. First, it should be mentioned that although a seemingly novel grisly detail, the loss of eyes is also found in the legend of St Alban, protomartyr of Britain together with his companion Amphibalus. Like the wicked Quendrada, Alban's murderer lost his eyes after killing him, as depicted in gory detail by Matthew Paris in the St Alban's Psalter (as seen below). On the obverse side of the coin we find a story - mentioned by Benedicta Ward in her book on medieval miracles - in the legends of St Cuthbert (if I remember correctly) where a man who had lost his eyesight and was healed by the saint, told a miraculous tale of how birds had carried his eyes away, but that they were returned after he had prayed for healing.

The prototype of British eye-losses: St Alban's beheader

Royal 2 B VI, English psalter, c.1246-c.1260

Another interesting feature is the immediate recognition by the populace of Kenelm's status as martyr. Although we have no information about the death of the historical Kenelm and how his subjects reacted, Gerald's description - perhaps drawn from William of Malmesbury's record, or the anonymous 11th-century vita - invokes a trait typical of Northern European royal cults, namely the immediate canonisation by the vox populi following the trauma of the death of a leader-figure. André Vauchez, in his study of saints' cults, has marked this as an aspect common to several English leaders in the Middle Ages, for instance Simon Montfort and Edward II.

A final aspect I want to draw your attention to in this case, is the punitive nature of Kenelm's miracle. By way of an overly adhesive psalter, Kenelm makes the assistant cellarer's guilt obvious to everyone and forces him thus to repent his crime. Punitive miracles could take many forms, either in a mundane manner or more severely through disfigurement, disablement or death. The assistant cellarer might be grateful that his punishment was not more severe than this.

Kenelm guarding his well-head

From the chapel at the Well-Head of St Kenelm's Well, by J. D. Wyatt, 1887

Courtesy of this website

Literature

Gerald of Wales, The Journey Through Wales, (trl. by Lewis Thorpe), Penguin Classics, 1984

Love, Rosalind, Three Anglo-Saxon Saints' Lives, Clarendon Press, 1996

Ridyard, Susan J., Royal Saints of Anglo-Saxon England, Cambridge University Press, 1988

Vauchez, André, Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages, (trl. by Jean Birrell), 2005

Ward, Benedicta, Miracles and the medieval mind, 1982

Flores Historiarum, pt. V - Danish responses to the call for crusade

 The Scandinavian effort in the history of the Crusades is an aspect often overlooked in the more general overviews of this movement, which was such a central feature in medieval Christian thought. However, academics have recently paid much attention to the crusades launched by Danes, Swedes and Norwegians, and there is currently exciting research being done about the Swedish crusades in the Baltics, and the Norwegian king Sigurd Jorsalfare's (c.1090-1130) sojourn to Palestine from 1108-11. That Scandinavian monarchs and noblemen took part in the crusader movement is only to be expected, as this was an aspect of kingship virtually every Christian ruler had to take into consideration – whether to participate, to fund or to stay away from it.

Three knights, illustration picture
MS Royal 20 D II, Roman de Tristan, France, c.1300
Courtesy of British Library

In this blogpost, I wish to present two descriptions of how Danes responded to calls for crusade, as recorded by authors outside Denmark. The first description is taken from the short crusader narrative Profectio Danorum in Hierosolymam, “The leave-taking of the Danes for Jerusalem”. The book recounts a joint Danish-Norwegian crusader expedition prompted by a papal call for crusade following the loss of Jerusalem in 1187. The author of Profectio is now believed to have been a Norwegian Augustinian canon, and the work was likely written on the behest of a member of the Danish high clergy or nobleman some time after 1192.

As the title suggests, the book is predominantly concerned with the journey to the Holy Land, not the crusaders’ effort in the war against the Muslims. This is because the crusaders came too late and arrived in Palestine after the peace treaty had been signed and the Third Crusade was over. This may have caused some embarrassment to the surviving participants, and the author of Profectio goes to great lengths in depicting the hazards at sea and death by drowning as the crusaders’ imitatio Christi.
Profectio is in many ways an interesting book, and I hope to return to it in future blogposts. What concerns me here, however, is the author’s representation of the piety of the Danish nobles, and their response to the papal call to arms which they received at Odense during King Knud’s celebration of the Nativity. The following excerpt from chapter IV is a translation from the Norwegian by Astrid Salvesen:

Ship with a cross - has nothing to do with crusade in its literary context
MS Egerton 3028, Roman de Brut, 2nd quarter of the 14th Century
Courtesy of British Library

The king and all those who sat around him then started to weep and moan so that they could not speak a word, and so deep was this great sorrow that not one of them was able to give a reply. Finally they came to themselves, breathed more slowly and broke the silence – such often happens when one learns of grand and unexpected events. But they had to be encouraged and exhorted before they could agree on who should answer these messengers, who were as splendidly dressed as their message was tragic.

This kind of lachrymose piety is repeated a couple of times as some of the nobles renew their commitment to the crusade, and the author is careful to depict his protagonists as true Christians. As suggested above, this depiction was perhaps all the more needful in light of the crusaders’ ultimate failure to provide help.

Crusaders reaching the their destination, but not too late
MS Royal 19 D I, Historia de proeliis, translated into French, France, c.1340 (after 1333)
Courtesy of British Library

A rather different, more tongue-in-cheek depiction of the Danish response to a papal call for crusade, can be found in William of Malmesbury’s Gesta Regum Anglorum, written in the 1120s and -30s. In the fourth book of his work, William is chiefly preoccupied with the first crusade and he commends the efficacy with which it was preached. As a measure of its effectiveness, he includes a short summary of the effects it had on the remotest corners of Latin Christendom.

Then the Welsh relinquished his woodland hunting, the Scot the intimacy of his fleas, the Dane his continuous drinking, and the Norwegian his raw fish.
- From Gesta Regum Anglorum, Book 4, chapter 348, my translation

Indeed, for these inhabitants of Christendom’s peripheries to give up their favourite pastimes and nourishment, the call for crusade must have been very powerful.

Crusaders, possibly as lost as our Danish-Norwegian protagonists from Profectio
MS Royal 16 G VI, Chroniques de France ou de St Denis, France, after 1332, before 1350
Courtesy of British Library

Methodology of negatives

Yesterday, upon the stair,

I met a man who wasn't there

- Antigonish, Hughes Mearns

To a young scholar in training, there are certain things for which he or she can not fully prepare but rather has to experience when the time comes. One of these things is to deal with negative results in the humanities, which can become something of a problem when one line of inquiry yields almost more negative results than positive ones. For me this problem first arose in my research for the paper to IMC Leeds this year, in which I looked at sources for the cult of Edward the Confessor in France and Normandy. The following is a reflection/complaint/whining on some of the problems I faced when trying to make a case from more negative results than I had expected.

The purpose of my paper at Leeds 2014 was to look at three case-studies for devotion to the cult of Edward the Confessor as suggested by three types of source material in the period 1161-1480. These sources were a set of 12th-13th-century liturgical books from the archbishopric of Rouen and the Abbey of the Holy Trinity of Fécamp, a series of stained glass window from the same abbey dated to c.1307, and finally an antiphon found in a book compiled by a German Carthusian around 1480. From this material, scattered among several centuries, I tried first to compile a concise overview of the cult of Edward the Confessor in France following his canonisation in 1161. This were to prove very difficult, and it was here I was faced time and again with a number of negative inquiries.  

The Abbey of the Holy Trinity, Fécamp

Courtesy of Wikimedia

During my MA studies, I had often heard the dictum of one of the history professors at NTNU: Negative results are also results. This is of course well and true, but I was also aware that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, and therefore it can be very difficult to extract a picture of historical development when there are gaping holes in the timeline. Given the unknown and unfortunately high number of medieval sources lost to us, we are not permitted to make bold claims when we face a lack of material, and at best we can make an educated guess about the possible scenarios such a dearth of evidence may signify.

To give an example: In order to attempt mapping the cult of Edward the Confessor in France, I sought to find out how he was represented in sources beyond hagiography and liturgy. I therefore had a look through one of the greatest works of historiograhpy from medieval France, namely Vincent of Beauvais' Speculum Historiale written in the 1240s and -50s, a vast encyclopedia drawing on a number of sources and covering a big range of historical events. Since Vincent's work was completed about eight or nine decades after Edward the Confessor's canonisation, I assumed that the monk of Beauvais would have been able to get hold of one of the hagiographies about Edward. At the very least I presumed Vincent would have read Aelred of Rievaulx's popular and influential Vita Sancti Edwardi. I was excited to find this out, because Vincent's source for Edward could tell a lot about the dissemination of hagiographies for the Confessor. 

Image allegedly of Vincent of Beauvais

Courtesy of Wikimedia

However, when I opened the big, heavy, yellow 1964 reprint of a Douai edition from 1624 - a book as big as my torso but not as thick - and finally found Vincent's chapter on Edward, I was much disappointed. In short, Vincent draws chiefly - and perhaps exclusively - on the Gesta Regum Anglorum of William of Malmesbury, completed in the 1130s, several decades prior to the canonisation of Edward the Confessor. As a consequence, Vincent of Beauvais writes something about the miracles and dreams of Edward - indeed he allots a surprising length to his dream of the seven sleepers - but the Confessor is not referred to as a saint for obvious reasons. I was a bit disappointed with this discovery. Although it did suggest that the hagiographies of Edward indeed were not widely disseminated in France, I couldn't suggest that this was the case unless it was corroborated by several other inquiries, which I didn't have the time to undertake.

After my dead-end-foray into Speculum Historiale, I turned my attention to sources more directly relevant for the cult of St Edward, namely liturgical books. The antiphon handed down to us by the 15th-century Carthusian from Cologne is an adaptation of an antiphon composed for St Louis around 1300. (For more on this antiphon, see here.) In order to see whether this adaptation did suggest exchange of cult material between the cult centres of the two confessor kings, Louis and Edward, I looked through the Westminster Missal and the liturgical material from Saint-Denis as treated by Anne Walters Robertson. What I had envisioned would be a time-consuming investigation into primary sources, was concluded in about fifteen minutes, most of which were spent taking the book from spot A to spot B. I still remember the slightly dejected sensation when I realised that Abbot Lytlyngton's Westminster Missal of c.1380 did not contain a single reference to Louis IX. 

Angels receiving the soul of Louis IX

Paris - Bibl. Sainte-Geneviève - ms. 0783, Grande Chroniques deFrance, 13th-14th centuries

Courtesy of enluminures.net

Of course, the negative results from the liturgical books were of a different nature than that of Speculum historiale. The fact that Louis was not celebrated at Westminster, nor Edward at Saint-Denis, pointed to a deliberate omission, since the contact between France and England was strong enough to ensure that both these monastic institutions knew of the other's patron saint. Consequently, this allowed me to build towards a conclusion in my paper, but - as in the case of Vincent of Beauvais - it was of course slightly frustrating to have to relegate so much research into footnotes that could not be included in my talk at Leeds.

In the end, I believe the paper itself went rather well and I managed to keep some coherence in my argument, but it was a long and arduous road to get there - and one that is not easily traced in the footnotes or in the text itself. This was something for which I was not prepared, despite having heard anecdotes and despite my experience from my MA dissertation. As stated above, it is the kind of experience you have to tackle head-on when it arises, and sometimes it can be very frustrating. It helps, of course, that there are several kinds of negative results. Vincent of Beauvais' reliance on William of Malmesbury was an omission of later material that may not have been deliberate but caused by limited available material. The fact that Louis IX did not appear in the Westminster Missal, composed more than eight decades after his canonisation, suggests a deliberate omission and can yield some ground for positive claims - i.e. that Louis' cult was not adopted at Westminster. A third kind of negative result is the lacunic absence of evidence which may be due to a loss of material or that the material sought was lacking form the start. This is the most frustrating kind, for this leaves only tentative conjectures.  

Unto the End of Days - Time in medieval historical and liturgical thought

Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.
- Book of Daniel 12:2

Creation

From MS Harley 334, Image du Monde, 2nd quarter of the 15th century

Courtesy of British Library

Medieval man understood time differently from how we do. We tend to think of time as linear and divided into successive epochs. We recognise to a great extent that these epochs are constructs which help us navigate and make sense of history, but they are nonetheless an inextricable part of the way we understand the past. For learned people of the Middle Ages, men and women, things were different. They likewise had successive epochs, like the six ages of man as formulated by Saint Augustine or the four kingdoms expressed in the Book of Daniel, but history had a teleological nature which to many historians these days is alien.

This difference makes it sometimes very difficult for modern historians to faithfully represent medieval people in their research. Often, historians run the risk of focussing on one particular aspect of, say, a medieval monk's literary output, while ignoring some other parts that may be just as significant. The Norwegian medievalist Dr. Sigbjørn Sønnesyn has recently argued that the historiographical output of William of Malmesbury must be considered in conjunction with his theological work, and his office as historian should not be separated from his office as cantor and participant in the monastic liturgy at Malmesbury Abbey. By pointing to these two aspects of William of Malmesbury's life as a monk, Dr. Sønnesyn points to one of the significant problems often encountered in medieval studies: the frequent neglect of the omnipresent liturgical rites so fundamental to the monastic life.

To be precise: there are many medievalist scholars, and not all of them musicologists, who have done significant research which includes liturgical sources. However, the tendency, addressed by Dr. Sønnesyn, to divorce William of Malmesbury the historian from William of Malmesbury the liturgist, has resulted in a failure to consider his historiographical output together with his theological work.  

The last three days of Creation

MS Egerton 1894, Genesis picture book, England, 3rd quarter of the 14th century

Courtesy of British Library

In this blogpost, I want to follow up on Dr. Sønnesyn's remarks on the relationship between liturgy and history, and argue that this relationship is only natural to a medieval mind because of the multi-layered nature of medieval time, or perhaps rather times. These musings are also informed by a one-day colloquium held at St Mary's College in London and papers given by Emma Dillon, Nils Holger Petersen and Beth Williamson.

First of all, in medieval historical thought there were two major strands of the movement or progression of history. Both of these were formulated around the eve of the Western Roman Empire, both of these were founded upon Jewish history as presented in the Bible and both of them were expressively Christian. The oldest strand was that formulated by Augustine, and which in German scholarship is referred to as Heilsgeschichte, the history of the salvation of mankind (with thanks to Nathaniel Campbell). In this presentation of history, Augustine sought to express the progression of time from Creation unto Judgement Day and was concerned with the work of holy men and women and God's intervention in mankind's life and work.  

St Augustine in his study

Sandro Botticelli

Courtesy of Wikimedia

The second strand to be considered here was formulated by Augustine's disciple Orosius and was concerned with the passing of earthly empires, for the most part modelled on the historical books of the Old Testament, in particular Kings and Chronicles, but perhaps also heavily informed by that famous dictum of Ecclesiastes: There is no new thing under the sun. This approach by Orosius, called Weltreichslehre by German scholarship, was often placed within the overarching narrative of Heilsgeschicte.

Both these strands of history are linear in the sense that they have a clearly defined beginning and a clearly defined end. At the same time, both these strands have cyclical aspects to the way history progresses. In Augustine's Heilsgeschichte, we encounter men and women who imitate Christ in their lives and works and sometimes deaths, and although each life and death has a beginning and an end, this succession of imitations has a certain cyclical aspect to it. In a similar way, Weltreichslehre describes the cyclical rise and fall and ultimate demise of kingdoms, empires and princedoms in their progression through history towards Judgement Day. In this sense we see that to a medieval historiographer, history had at least two layers of time, two parallel lines of historical progression. 

Christ in Majesty

MS Arundel 157, St Albans psalter from c.1240

Courtesy of British Library

A similar multiplicity of layers can be found within the yearly cycle of monastic life. I do not claim that these layers correspond with those of historiography, for that would imply that historiography and liturgy are separate spheres of historical progress. Rather, these layers come in addition to those presented in historiographical writing and help to illustrate how thoroughly medieval life was permeated by multiple layers of historical progress.

In the liturgical year we also find an overarching narrative of linear progression, as the liturgy recreates the temporale, the life and times of Christ, beginning at Advent, reaching a climax at Easter and then coming to its close around All Saints. Of course, this linear narrative in turn becomes cyclical since it is reenacted every year, but within the structure of the liturgical year it is linear in a way similar - but not identical to - Augustine's vision of the history of the holy.

However, within this overarching structure of the temporale, the liturgical year is also marked by the daily cycle of the divine office, in which saints are celebrated in a series of communal prayers and meditations known as the hours. The office begins at Vespers, around six in the afternoon, on the day before the saint's day and concludes with the Vespers of the saint's day, an hour known as the second Vespers. Similar to Orosius' everchanging yet neverchanging succession of earthly realms, the catalogue of saints celebrated in the divine office, the sanctorale, was continuously emended with new saints being added and old saints receiving new days as their relics were moved. Additions occurred, but these additions were celebrated in the same way as the older saints. There were differences in celebration, of course, depending on the time of the year and the importance of the saint at a particular monastery. For instance, St Edmund had a more significant position at Bury St Edmunds than he had at, say, Westminster Abbey. Despite these differences, the daily celebration of the divine office nonetheless was a liturgical wheel within the greater liturgical wheel of the temporale.

Day of Judgement

Triptych by Hans Memling, fifteenth century

Courtesy of Wikimedia

The liturgical year as a recreation of the life and times of Christ points to one interesting difference between medieval historiography and literature pertaining to the cult of the saints, i.e. hagiography and liturgy. While historiography - through the Orosian approach - was largely modelled on the Old Testament, hagiography and liturgy were chiefly concernced with the imitatio Christi of the saints. This does not mean that historiography did not employ motifs from the New Testament or that liturgy did not refer to events of the Old Testament, but we see that historiography and liturgy focus on different parts of the Bible. In this way we can sense that historiographical writing and liturgical celebration form a kind of unity in the way that they each emphasise different parts of the Bible and together create a whole within which medieval men and women navigate their way towards Heaven.

When we consider the multiple layers of time that permeated the life of a medieval monk or a nun, there is little reason to separate the monk as a writer of history from the monk as a partaker in the daily rhythm of the liturgical year. Consequently, when we consider a medieval monk's historical oeuvre, like that of William of Malmesbury, we would do well to remember that his writing must have been heavily informed by liturgical ritual and the theology espoused at the monastery at which he worked. Taking this into consideration, we must also, as Dr. Sønnesyn wisely exhorts us to do, look at points where the liturgical background bleeds into the arrangement of historiography. What implications this has on the presentation of morality of history or the interpretation of worldly events are aspects that must be examined on an individual basis, but must be included in order to represent a medieval monk's literary production as faithfully as possible.  

Harold Godwinson's Posthumous Reputation, 1066-c.1160

The following is based on a lecture I gave to the student organisation for history students at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology earlier this autumn. The translations of passages are all from the editors of the works cited, and the pictures are all from wikimedia.

Introduction

When William Bastard, duke of Normandy, invaded England in 1066 he was very concerned that this would have the bearings of an enterprise that was legitimate according to contemporary norms. After William had been crowned at Westminster Abbey on Christmas Eve that same year, he made severe efforts to persuade the surviving high-born members of Anglo-Saxon society that he truly was the king of England, and that he was the true deserving subject of their loyalty. As a part in this campaign the writing of history was an important tool, and various Norman and Anglo-Norman chronicles were to argue that William's invasion was not a usurpation, but, quite the contrary, an expedition to rid England of the usurper Harold Godwinson. This text will show in which ways Harold's posthumous reputation was constructed to cement the Norman claim to legitimacy and how this legacy lasted well beyond William the Conqueror's death.

Harold Godwinson in the Bayeux Tapestry

Note the moustaches

Background - Harold Godwinson

Harold Godwinson was born early in the 1020s. His father was one of the most powerful nobles of the Danish empire, and his mother belonged to another Danish house of nobles. During the reign of King Edward the Confessor, the house of Godwin was among the greatest political dynasties in Anglo-Saxon England, and Godwin gave his daughter Edith as the king's wife.

In 1051 England was heading towards a civil war beteween the forces of the Godwin family on one side and those of King Edward on the other. One of the key reasons for this was that King Edward had brought bishops and nobles from the continent, presumably owing to his childhood exile in Fécamp in Normandy. This was met with protestations from the native nobles, and it was a particularly grave matter that the Norman Robert of Jumièges was appointed to the See of Canterbury. Robert had already served as bishop of London and during his rule he had established a hostile relationship with the Godwin family. In the early days of the unrest Robert set out a rumour that Godwin had authored the death of King Edward's brother, Alfred, several years earlier. This made matters worse for the Godwin family and they had to flee into exile. They returned, however, already in 1052 and made peace with the king. The following year Godwin himself died from a stroke during the Easter meal of the royal celebration at Windsor, and this was to have great ramifications of Harold Godwinson's posthumous reputation, as we shall see.

When his father died, Earl Harold was the most powerful noble of the kingdom, and his landed revenue even exceeded that of the king. It is therefore no wonder that the childless King Edward were to appoint Harold Godwinson has his successor on his deathbed in January 1066. Harold's own reign lasted only 10 months, and in October that same year he died at the Battle of Hastings, allegedly by an arrow through the eye.

Contemporary likeness of Harold the King

Norman historiography

William of Jumièges

Christmas Eve 1066 Duke William became king of a country he had no family bonds to, and he was well aware of the necessity in establishing his legitimate right as rule of the English. The key to this problem was King Edward. In his youth, Edward has been in exile in Normandy and in the new reign of William it was now purported that Edward, in gratitude for his Norman lodgings, had promised the throne of England to the family of Duke William. This claim was first put forth by the Norman chronicler William of Jumièges in his Gesta Normannorum Ducum, which was completed around 1070.

According to William's chronicle, King Edward had sent the archbishop of Canterbury, the anti-Godwinist Robert, to William Bastard with the purpose of appointing him as Edward's heir (1). This claim was also put forth in the poem Carmen de Hastingae Proelio, and the poet even exceeds the chronicler. In the poet it is stated that not only had King Edward appointed William, but he had done so with the support of the entire English people. Furthermore, in the poem Edward - with Robert as his vessel - hands William his ring and his sword, an investiture episode whose symbolic strength and importance can not be overestimated (2).

However, it was an indisputable fact that King Edward had also appointed Earl Harold as his successor, as testified by a number of contemporary witnesses, William of Jumièges solved the problem accordingly: Edward, we are told, asked Harold to swear fealty to William as his next lord and king. Harold promises to do so and leaves for Normandy to perform the oath before William the Bastard. On the way he is captured by a local count, but he is later released from captivity by Duke William. In other words, not only is Duke William the man appointed as Harold's future king, he is also his saviour (3). Consequently, it becomes an even graver matter when Harold later seizes the throne upon Edward's death. He is both an oath-breaker and a usurper, and this is why Harold is depicted as dying from an arrow piercing his eye, for according to contemporary ideas, this was how oath-breakers died (4). Despite this, however, it is interesting to note that Harold is in fact labelled as rex in the Bayeux tapestry.

Harold dies early in the Battle of Hastings, according to William of Jumiéges, and many Englishmen were also slaughtered. This was considered God's punishment for the murder on Alfred, King Edward's brother. William does indeed go so far as to call Harold "a traitor like Judas" (5).

Harold swears his oath to William

William of Poitiers

The next historiography to be written in the aftermath of the conquest was the Gesta Guillelmi of William of Poitier, also composed around 1070. The narrative follows the pattern presented in Gesta Normannorum Ducum, but William of Poitiers adds a few more details. In his version, Harold admits to swearing fealty to Duke WIlliam, but that King Edward passed the lordship of England over to him on Edward's deathbed, and that Duke William's claim is against English custom. Duke William is of course offended by this, but he says that he will let the English people decide, not wishing the English to die as enemies on account of this disagreement (6). Earl Harold, on the other hand, ignores this peace offer and leads his army towards Hastings. Thus, Harold's betrayal becomes even more severe and it is he who is responsible for sending the English into their death.

It is nonetheless interesting to note that William of Poitiers treats Harold with a certain amount of respect. He compares Harold's prowess in battle with heroes from classical poetry - which in turn serves to elevate Duke William's own prowess and courage - and the chronicler states that "we do not revile you, Harold; but we grieve and mourn for you with the pious victor who weeps over your ruin. You have reaped the reward that you deserved, and have fallen bathed in your own blood; you lie in a tumulus on the seashore and will be an abomintion to future generations of English no less than Normans" (7). Harold is placed in a tumulus, a grave for the common folk, in the manner of Pompey as described in Statius' Thebaid. Harold thus becomes an epic antagonist who leads his people into destruction and therefore gets his deserved revenge.

This was the first stage of the history writing which established Harold Godwinson's reputation as the great historical antagonist in the game of England. How many of the English who actually believed in these historigraphical constructions is impossible to ascertain, but due to the contemporary understanding of history - where mankind was subject to the assaults of the Devil in a grand narrative presided over by God - it was necessary to find an antagonist who could bear the blame in order to make sense of the punishments meted out by the Divine on account of the evils of kings and clergy. For instance, in the text Vita Ædwardi, King Edward's first biography, it was the clergy and particularly Archbishop Stigand, who bore the blame for the troubles wrought upon the English, while the Norman sources move the blame over to Harold.

Later generations of historiographers also used Harold as the grand antagonist in the scheme of English history, and if nothing else, Harold was at least an expedient figure for this matter. Regardless what the individual chroniclers themselves believed, it was necessary to explain why God had allowed Duke William - whom many probably considered a wicked tyrant - to invade and conquer the English. King Edward's reign was lauded as a golden age of peace contrasted with the harsh rule of William, and Edward was honoured by both English and Norman historiographers. Harold, on the other hand, suited both sides as a historical villain, as shall be seen, both those who saw things from the Norman perspective and those of the other side.

English historiography

Eadmer of Canterbury

One of the voices from the other side was the historian Eadmer of Canterbury, born shortly after the battle of Hastings and strongly nostalgic towards the English. In his Historia Novorum in Anglia he presents a new twist to the Norman historical fiction. In Eadmer's rendition Harold is forced by William to yield his lordship by Duke William during Harold's stay in Normandy, and King Edward later scolds Harold for thus having brought England into disaster. Eadmer adds that the Normans claim Harold died because of this broken oath (8).

The next important historiographer is William of Malmesbury, who wrote his Gesta Regum Anglorum in the 1120s. He occupies a special place in the historiographical landscape since he was himself of both Norman and English heritage. Nonetheless, he unquestionably belongs to the English historians since he exhibits clear sympathies for the English and laments that the English culture is losing ground to the culture of the Normans. William is also interesting because he has a more nuanced view of King Edward than found in the works of earlier historians.

William points out that there are various view on how Harold acceded to the English throne. In his own opus, William seized the crown and uses here the verb arripere which may have connotations to thievery or otherwise illegal action (9). The English, William states, claims that Harold was given the crown from King Edward, and it is possible that William here also includes Eadmer of Canterbury, whom he refers to in his introduction. Despite uncertainty regarding the details, William, too, states that Harold had promised to give the crown to Duke William and that he thereby was guilty of oath-breaking. In his summary of the Battle of Hastings, William points out that Harold deserved his death because of his faithlessness.

Harold crowned as king. Note the vilified Stigand on his left

Henry Huntingdon

The final historiographer in this overview is Henry Huntingdon, who completed his Historia Anglorum in the 1150s. Henry is perhaps that historiographer who passes the most severe judgement on Harold Godwinsson, and this suggests that his sources - including his English material - carries a strongly anti-Godwinist tone.

In his description of Harold's accession to the throne, Henry applies the word inuadere, which points to an aggressive, though not necessarily violent, action (10). The meaning is nonetheless clear: Harold was a usurper who came to the throne by means of force rather than law, and this was one of three reasons Duke William invaded England. The other two reasons also pertained to the Godwin family.

Henry's antipathy towards the Godwin family is not, however, most clearly expressed in his depiction of Harold, but the portrayal of Harold's father, Godwin. As stated in the introduction, Godwin died from a stroke during the Easter celebration at Windsor in 1053, and Henry fused this tradition with William of Jumièges' description of Godwin as a Judas in a powerful condemnation of Godwin and his family. Henry was not the first to do this, but it shows how powerful this legacy was even about a century following Godwin's death.

Henry tells us that Godwin was anxious to persuade King Edward that he had nothing to do with the murder of his brother Alfred. During the Easter meal in 1053, therefore, Godwin says to King Edward that "if the God of heaven is true and just, may He grant that this little pice of bread shall not pass my throat if I have ever thought of betraying you". Henry furthermore states that God heard Godwin's false words and shortly afterwards Godwin chokes on the piece of bread and thus "tasted endless death" (11).

This episode is heavy with symbolism. It is set at Easter, the holiest time of the Christian year, it takes the form as a Last Supper scene and Godwin furthermore swears an oath despite Christ's commandment not to swear. Godwin is thus expressly portrayed as a Judas, and Harold Godwinson is thereby the son of a Judas which adds further shame to his own broken oath roughly 13 years later.

The death of Harold

Conclusion

Harold Godwinson's posthumous reputation was one of the historiographical legacies of the Norman invasion of 1066 and maintained a strong position long into later centuries. Harold becomes an antagonist in a cosmic game which caused the English to be subjected to the Norman yoke. This is a testamtent to the duration and longevity of literary legacies and a testamtent to the force of medieval historiography.

Notes

1) Van Houts 2003: vol. II, 158-59

2) Barlow 1999: 18. Traditionally, this poem has been attributed to Bishop Guy de Amiens and dated to c.1067, but later research suggests it may have been composed as late as c.1125. See Riggs 2006: 16-17.

3) Van Houts 2003: vol. II, 160-61

4) Fleming 2004

5) Van Houts 2003: vol. II, 106-07

6) Davis and Chibnall 1998: 122-23

7) Davis and Chibnall 1998: 140-41

8) Bosanquet 1964: 6-9

9) Mynors et.al. 1998: 416-17

10) Greenway 2007: 384-85

11) Greenway 2007: 378-79. Interestingly, Wace's Roman de Rou comes closest to ascribing Edward any direct agency. In Godwin's trial by morsel Edward makes the sign of the cross over it, thus in effect bringing about Godwin's death (Burgess 2004: line 5456)

Bibliography

Barlow, Frank (ed. and transl.), The Carmen de Hastingae Proelio of Guy Bishop of Amiens, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1999

Bosanquet, Geoffrey (ed. and transl.), Eadmer's History of Recent Events in England, The Cresset Press, London, 1964

Burgess, Glyn S. (ed. and transl.), The History of the Norman People - Wace's Roman de Rou, The Boydell Press, Woodbridge, 2004

Davis, R. H. C. and Chibnall, Marjorie (eds. and transl.), The Gesta Guillelmi of William of Poitiers, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1998

Fleming, Robin ‘Harold II (1022/3?–1066)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Sept 2010 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/12360, accessed 6 Sept 2013]

Greenway, Diana (ed. and transl.), Henry, Archdeacon of Huntindon - Historia Anglorum, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 2007

Mynors, R. A. B., Thomson, R. M., Winterbottom, M., William of Malmesbury: Gesta Regum Anglorum, The History of the English Kings, Clarendon Press, 1998

Van Houts, Elizabeth M. C. (ed.), The Gesta Normannorum Ducum of William of Jumièges, Orderic Vitalis, and Robert of Torigni, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 2003