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Relic-cults as an instrument of royal policy c. 900–c. 1050

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

D. W. Rollason
D. W. Rollason
Affiliation:
The University of Durham
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Extract

A considerable body of evidence shows that the kings of later Anglo-Saxon England concerned themselves very seriously with the cult of relics. No doubt this involvement arose in part from their piety; but as I hope to show there are grounds for thinking that it also derived from the importance of relics and relic-cults as instruments of royal policy, expressing and reinforcing the kings' power and position. I shall consider in turn three aspects of royal activity with regard to relics: firstly the collection and donation of relics by the kings in order to increase their prestige and to symbolize their political status; secondly the use of relics in the processes of government; and thirdly royal patronage of particular relic-cults as an expedient to political influence.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 15 , December 1986 , pp. 91 - 103
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

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References

1 This paper was first read to the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists' conference held in Cambridge in 1985. I am grateful to the society for the opportunity of presenting my work and of benefiting from the ensuing criticisms and suggestions. My chief debts have been to Förster, Max, Zur Geschichte des Reliquienkultus in Altengland (Munich, 1943)Google Scholar; Fichtenau, Heinrich, ‘Zum Reliquienwesen in früheren Mittelalter’, Mitteilungen des Instituts für Osterreichische Geschichtsforschung 60 (1952), 60–89Google Scholar; and Thomas, Islwyn Geoffrey, ‘The Cult of Saints' Relics in Medieval England’ (unpubl. Ph.D. dissertation, London Univ., 1974).Google Scholar To the last of these I owe a continuing debt for permission to use his immensely valuable thesis. I should also like to thank George Garnett and Dr Alan Thacker for their helpful comments on the draft of this article.

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11 Willelmi Malmesbiriensis Monachi, De Gestis Kegum Anglorum, Libri Quinque, ed. Stubbs, William, RS (1887–1889) 1, 149–51.Google Scholar On this passage see Loomis, Laura Hibbard, ‘The Holy Relics of Charlemagne and King Athelstan: the Lances of Longinus and St Mauricius’, Speculum 25 (1950), 437–56, and Michael Lapidge, ‘Some Latin Poems as Evidence for the Reign of Athelstan’, ASE 9 (1981), 61–98, at 62–71.Google Scholar Although Lapidge has convincingly disproved the theory that William based his account on a now lost tenth-century poem, Loomis's other arguments for the veracity of that account remain strong and it would be rash to reject it as merely a twelfth-century invention. See also Wood, Michael, ‘The Making of King Athelstan's Empire’, Ideal and Reality in Frankish and Anglo-Saxon Society: Studies Presented to J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, ed. Wormald, Patrick with Bullough, Donald and Collins, Roger (Oxford, 1983), pp. 250–72, at 265–6Google Scholar, and Keynes, ‘Athelstan's Books’, pp. 144–5, n. 15.

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15 ibid. Lot's belief that the relics were never actually sent (p. 64, n. 2) seems to have been groundless.

16 Stenton, , Anglo-Saxon England, p. 348.Google Scholar

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18 ibid. p. 400: ‘Et modo reliquias, quas omni terrena substantia vobis scimus esse cariores, transmitto vobis.’

19 Thacker, A. T., ‘Chester and Gloucester: Early Ecclesiastical Organization in Two Mercian Burhs’, NH 18 (1982), 199–211, at 203–4 and 209–11.Google Scholar

20 De Gestis Pontificum, ed. Hamilton, p. 198. Although in De Gestis Regum, ed. Stubbs 1, 56 and 60, William regarded the translations of these northern relics to Glastonbury as having occurred ‘tempore Danicae vastationis’, which would seem to exclude Edmund's reign (ibid. pp. 157–60), he was there writing in general and rather vague terms, so the De Gestis Pontificum version is probably to be preferred. The story in the De Antiquitate Glastonie Ecclesie of how an abbot called Tyccea brought the relics to Glastonbury in 754 is anachronistic and certainly a later interpolation into the text; see Scott, John, The Early History of Glastonbury. An Edition, Translation and Study of William of Malmesbury's De Antiquitate Glastonie Ecclesie (Woodbridge, 1981), pp. 58Google Scholar and 194 and Thomas, ‘Cult of Saints' Relics’, pp. 172–3.

21 Brooks, Nicholas, The Early History of the Church of Canterbury: Christ Church from 597 to 1066 (Leicester, 1984), pp. 227–8.Google Scholar

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24 Important studies include: Fichtenau, ‘Reliquienwesen’; Töpfer, B., ‘Reliquienkult and Pilgerbewegung zur Zeit der Klosterreform im Burgundisch-Aquitanischen Gebiet’, Vom Mittelalter zur Neuzeit. Zum 6;. Geburtstag Heinrich Sproemberg, ed. Kretzschmar, H. (Berlin, 1956), pp. 420–39Google Scholar; Herrmann-Mascard, Nicole, Les reliques des saints. Formation coutumière d' un droit (Paris, 1975)Google Scholar; and Geary, Furta Sacra.

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27 Fichtenau, ‘Reliquienwesen’, p. 70.

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31 ibid. 1, 228 (III Æthelred 2.1 and 3.1).

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33 Stenton, Frank et al. , The Bayeux Tapestry: a Comprehensive Survey (London, 1957), pl. 29 and p. 167.Google Scholar

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35 ibid. 412 (Iudicia Dei VI. 1).

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37 Förster, , Reliquienkultus, pp. 12–14.Google Scholar

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40 ibid. pp. 145–9. Keynes's discussion of the evidence furnished by the Abingdon glossary supersedes those of previous commentators, e.g. Barlow, Frank, The English Church 1000–1066: a History of the Later Anglo-Saxon Church, 2nd ed. (London, 1979), pp. 121–4Google Scholar; but cf. Chaplais, Pierre, ‘The Royal Anglo-Saxon “Chancery” of the Tenth Century Revisited’, Studies in Medieval History presented to R. H. C. Davis, ed. Mayr-Harting, Henry and Moore, R. I. (London, 1985), pp. 41–51, at 42.Google Scholar

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46 Compare Töpfer, Volk und Kirche, with the suggestive comments of Campbell, James, ‘England, France, Flanders and Germany: some Comparisons and Connections’, Ethelred the Unready: Papers from the Millenary Conference, ed. Hill, David, BAR British Series 59 (Oxford, 1978). 255–70, at 256–7.Google Scholar

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52 Liebermann, , Gesetze 1, 240Google Scholar (V Æthelred 16), and in, 298–9 (I Cnut 17.1). The first reference, which is to Edward's canonization alone, is probably an interpolation into Æthelred's laws made by Archbishop Wulfstan c. 1018: see Wormald, Patrick, ‘Æthelred the Law-Maker’, Ethelred the Unready, ed. Hill, pp. 47–80, at 53–4.Google Scholar

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54 Rollason, D. W., ‘Goscelin of Canterbury's Account of the Translation and Miracles of St Mildrith (BHL 5961/4). An Edition with Notes’, MS 48 (1986), forthcoming.Google Scholar

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56 Scott, , Early History of Glastonbury, pp. 193–4Google Scholar, and Finberg, H. P. R., ‘St Patrick at Glastonbury’, in his West Country Historical Studies (Newton Abbot, 1969), pp. 70–88Google Scholar. See also Lapidge, Michael, ‘The Cult of St Indract at Glastonbury’, Ireland in Early Medieval Europe: Studies in Memory of Kathleen Hughes, ed. Whitelock, Dorothy, McKitterick, Rosamond and Dumville, David (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 179–212Google Scholar, esp. 182–4.

57 Finberg, ‘St Patrick’, pp. 79–80; Doble, G. H., ‘St Indract and St Dominic’, Somerset Records Soc. 57 (1942), 1–24Google Scholar; and Finberg, H. P. R., ‘Sherborne, Glastonbury, and the Expansion of Wessex’, Lucerna (London, 1964), pp. 95–115, at 102.Google Scholar

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60 ibid. p. 134; De Gestis Regum, ed. Stubbs 1, 180–1; and Thomas, ‘Cult of Saints' Relics’, p. 488.

61 Symeonis Monachi Opera Omnia, ed. Thomas Arnold, RS (1882–5) 1, 3–135 and 196–214. See Craster, E., ‘The Patrimony of St Cuthbert’, EHR 69 (1954), 177–99, at 177–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Gransden, Antonia, Historical Writing in England c. 550 to c. 1307 (London, 1974), pp. 76–7 and 114–16Google Scholar. See also Offler, H. S., Medieval Historians of Durham (Durham, 1958), pp. 6–8.Google Scholar

62 See, for example, The Relics of Saint Cuthbert, ed. Battiscombe, C. F. (Oxford, 1956), pp. 21–40.Google Scholar

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65 Lapsley, G. T., The County Palatine of Durham: a Study in Constitutional History (London, 1900), pp. 22–4Google Scholar, esp. 22, n. 6.

66 Craster, ‘Patrimony’, pp. 177–99, and Hall, David, ‘The Community of St Cuthbert. Its Properties, Rights and Claims from the Ninth Century to the Twelfth’ (unpubl. D.Phil, dissertation, Oxford Univ., 1984)Google Scholar. I am grateful to Dr Hall for permission to use his work.

67 Symeonis Opera, ed. Arnold 1, 204–7, 210–13 and, on Cnut's pilgrimage, 90.

68 For detailed criticisms of the Historia de Sancto Cuthberto, see Craster, ‘Patrimony’, pp. 177–8; Robinson, , Times of Dunstan, pp. 52–4Google Scholar; and Keynes, ‘Athelstan's Books’, pp. 172–3 and 177–8. On Wessex, see Hohler, C. E., ‘Some Service Books of the Later Saxon Church’, Tenth-Century Studies, ed. Parsons, David (London and Chichester, 1975), pp. 60–83, at 70.Google Scholar

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