The So-called Anonymous of York

Ruth Nineham

doi:10.1017/S0022046900064368

The So-called Anonymous of York

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011

Ruth Nineham

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GH. Williams and N. F. Cantor have both attempted in recent years to solve the problem of the authorship of the anonymous treatises of MS. C.C.C.415 and E. H. Kantorowicz has mapped out a place for him in the history of the development of political theory. The thirty-four tracts of this manuscript, with their variety of subject matter and lines of approach, including theocratic kingship, Gelasian political theory, neo-Donatism, bitter anti-Gregorianism and a nostalgia for the purity of the primitive church, present a fascinating puzzle in the history of Anglo-Norman Church-State relations. They have been considered by some to represent the earliest sparks of Wycliffism in England, and even to one writer the first indications of the peculiar ethos of the Anglican Communion.

Type: Articles
Information: The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 14 , Issue 1 , April 1963 , pp. 31 - 45

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022046900064368 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1963

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References

^{page 31 note 1} The Norman Anonymous of 1100 A.D. (Harvard Theological Studies, XVIII), Harvard 1951.Google Scholar

^{page 31 note 2} Church Kingship and Lay Investiture in England 1089–1135, Princeton 1958.Google Scholar

^{page 31 note 3} The King's Two Bodies, Princeton 1957.Google Scholar

^{page 31 note 4} de Lapparent, Pierre, ‘Un précurseur de la Réforme Anglaise: l'Anonyme d'York’ in Archives d'histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Age, XXI (1946).Google Scholar

^{page 31 note 5} Gavin, F., Seven Centuries of the Problem of Church and State, Princeton 1938, 50–2.Google Scholar

^{page 31 note 6} Kirche und Staat in England und in der Normandie im XI und XII Jahrhundert, Leipzig 1899 (cited hereafter as K.S.).Google Scholar

^{page 31 note 7} Libelli de Lite, iii, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, 662–79 (cited hereafter as Lib. de L.).

^{page 31 note 8} See The Benedictional of Archbishop Robert, ed. Wilson, H. A., Henry Bradshaw Society Publications, London 1903.Google Scholar

^{page 32 note 1} Boehmer, K. S., 437–49.

^{page 32 note 2} Lib. de L., 656–62.

^{page 32 note 3} Scherrinsky, H., Untersuchungen zum sogenannten Anonymous von York, Wurzburg 1940, 150–1 (cited hereafter as Sch.).Google Scholar

^{page 32 note 4} Lib. de L., 686–7 and K.S., 478–81.

^{page 32 note 5} K.S., 437–49.

^{page 32 note 6} Lib. de L., 656–62.

^{page 32 note 7} Sch., 150–1.

^{page 32 note 8} Lib. de L., 686–7 and K.S., 478–81.

^{page 33 note 1} K.S., 446.

^{page 33 note 2} Cantor, 99–101; Giles, J. A., Lanfranci Opera (1845), Vita Bosonis, I. 328–9.Google Scholar

^{page 33 note 3} Hugh the Chantor, in Historians of the Chunk of York, ii, Rolls series, 99–105, 109–10, 111–26.

^{page 33 note 4} The York chapter urged on Thomas, Gerard's successor, to resist submission to Canterbury in these words: ‘Respice ad Girardum archiepiscopum! hoc probe, hoc viriliter, hoc agit egregie! Londoniae in concilio sedere noluit quod Anselmo archiepiscopo altior sedes data erat, donec et illi aequa digna parata est sedes’: Hugh the Chantor, op. cit., 114.

^{page 33 note 5} ldquo;K.S.,479.

^{page 34 note 1} A letter from the chapter of York in the time of Thomas II written to Anselm contains these words: ‘Vos mandasti illi et summonuisti eum nimis aspere, ut nobis visum est, ut termino a vobis praefixo veniret ad vos facere et suscipere quod debebat. Quid a Deo sanctorum manuum vestrarum impositione suscipere debeat scimus. Quid vero facere debeat id nescimus. Sed fortasse dicitis, aut monachi vestri, professionem’. It is assumed that Anselm has the right to consecrate him. Hugh the Chantor, op. cit., 116.

^{page 34 note 2} Eadmer, , Historia Novorum, ed. Rule, M., Rolls Series, London 1884, 205Google Scholar; Hugh the Chantor, op. cit., 118. We do not know in what part of Normandy the king was when he received the letter from Thomas or the messengers from Anselm, but he was certainly at Rouen twice during his short period in Normandy (1108–9). See C. H. Haskins, Norman Institutions, 310.

^{page 34 note 3} Lib. de L., 662–79.

^{page 35 note 1} Hugh the Chantor, op. cit, 131, 140 ff.; Eadmer, 239, 243.

^{page 35 note 2} Op. cit., 137–45.

^{page 35 note 3} Op. cit., 190 ff.

^{page 35 note 4} The Benedictional of Archbishop Robert, ed. Wilson, H. A., Henry Bradshaw Society Publications, London 1903.Google Scholar

^{page 35 note 5} The text is unprinted.

^{page 35 note 6} ‘The Coronation Ceremony in Mediaeval England’, in Speculum, XIV (1939), 167–8.Google Scholar

^{page 36 note 1} Leroquais, V., Les Pontificaux Manuscrits des Bibliothèques Publiques de France, Paris 1938.Google Scholar

^{page 36 note 2} Paris Bib. Nat. MS. lat. nouv. acq. 306.

^{page 37 note 1} Cantor, op. cit., 242–9.

^{page 37 note 2} Anselm, St., Opera Omrda, iv and v, ed. Schmitt, F. S., Edinburgh 1946–1951.Google Scholar

^{page 37 note 3} Ep. 362.

^{page 38 note 1} Schmitt, op. cit., ep. 363, ll. 1, 10–11.

^{page 38 note 2} Schmitt, op. cit., ep. 255, ll. 5–7.

^{page 38 note 3} Schmitt, op. cit., ep. 326, ll. 15–17.

^{page 38 note 4} Schmitt, op. cit., ep. 373, ll. 6–11.

^{page 38 note 5} K.S., 452–3.

^{page 39 note 1} Lib. de L., 681, l. 34.

^{page 39 note 2} K.S., 470–3.

^{page 39 note 3} Williams, op. cit., 223–4.

^{page 40 note 1} Lib. de L., 686, ll. 38 ff.

^{page 40 note 2} Lib. de L., 686, ll. 22 ff.

^{page 40 note 3} Sch., 131–47.

^{page 40 note 4} Sch., 149–50.

^{page 40 note 5} K.S., 481–97 (numbered 30).

^{page 40 note 6} Cantor, 245–6.

^{page 40 note 7} Sch., 140.

^{page 41 note 1} Cantor relegates a number of William's arguments for Rouen authorship to brief mention in a footnote (189), and dismisses them as ‘only supplementary’. Among these is the extensive quotation by the Anonymous from the Hibernensis Collection of Canons, which follows tract 24a: see Williams, op. cit., 48–52. Since the influence of this collection was considerable in Brittany and N. France, and in England there is no evidence that it was used at all after the Conquest (Brooke, Z. N., The English Church and the Papacy, Cambridge 1931, 49)Google Scholar, such corroborative evidence can be by no means so lightly dismissed. The ‘final evidence’ offered by Williams on this point, however, is not convincing. He notes that one of the paragraphs on kingship copied from the Hibernensis by the Anonymous begins, ‘De sermone regis aut ducis protegente inimicum aut vinctum’, and that no other known versions contain the phrase ‘aut ducis’. But the context favours the translation of ‘dux’ as ‘leader’ rather than ‘duke’. None of the other paragraphs includes ‘dux’ with ‘rex’.

^{page 41 note 2} Cantor, 246.

^{page 41 note 3} Lib. de L., 662–79.

^{page 43 note 1} Lib. de L., 65 f.; K.S., 443.

^{page 43 note 2} K.S., 476.

^{page 44 note 1} K.S., 457–62.

^{page 44 note 2} Lib. de L., 680–6.

^{page 44 note 3} Sch., 146–7.

^{page 44 note 4} Lib. de L., 645–55.

^{page 45 note 1} Lib. de L., 662–79.

^{page 45 note 2} K.S., 466.

^{page 45 note 3} I should like to thank Professor R. W. Southern for his generous help in the study of this subject over a number of years.

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