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This article arises out of a research project on gift exchange as an agent of social and political integration and challenges the idea that charters, chronicles and memorial texts should necessarily be placed in discrete categories to inform the histories of property, law, politics and religion. The author argues that each of these texts fulfilled a multipliciy of secular and ecclesiastical functions, drawing up modern authorites such as Fichtenau, Johanek and Geary to illustrate the point for charters and chronicles. In relation to memorial records, he quotes, Oexle* (1983): 'memoria was not only a religious phenomenon, but also included the assurance of legal interests and possessions, historiography and legal memory' (p. 394).
Bijsterveld looks at a group of sources in relation to three monastic houses to illustrate interlocking aspects of these arguments, and in relation to the overlapping roles of memorial books and cartulary-chronicles focuses upon the example of the texts of the abbey of Saint-Hubert in the Ardennes.
He rejects the view that there were fifty-three 'lost' charters and suggests that they may never have existed. He goes on to observe that the Chronicle only records the gifts of high status owners, and encourages historians to make greater use of the memorial text (the liber capituli) of the abbey. It commemorates benefactors, including those of lower social origins, whose names were recited daily etc. In short, the LC provides a more comprehensive (if not as detailed) record of gift exchanges between the secular and ecclesiastical spheres than the Chronicle.
This article draws attention to an under-used source, a unique list of twenty-seven obits, relating to Glastonbury abbey. Blows observes that it must have been compiled from earlier documents in several stages and that the list reached its present form well before the date of the present manuscript.
He suggests that the list of the earliest abbots in the obit list is connected to the endowments which these men made in establishing the community, and demonstrates through later examples links between gifts and inclusion in the list. Also makes the point that the source enables us to identify otherwise unknown obits of lay benefactors and abbots of Glastonbury.
This article begins by providing a descriptive analysis of the manuscript, pointing out that it was written by one major hand and three secondary hands, and embodied materials from the period before c. 1180. It is an unusual text in comparison to its counterparts because of the large numbers of religious houses with which the York community established relationships. Burton notes that this included houses which were not Benedictine communities and the links which were established over great distances, notably with twenty religous houses in France. Burton draws attention to way in which confraternity relationships could support a range of other links (political etc.).
This article uses onomastics, supplemented by analysis of hands and languages of the manuscript to investigate the interaction between English and French in the post-Conquest period at Canterbury. Linguistic biases of the scribes are investigated as well as nicknames. Clark concludes that the domination of English is demonstrated by its exclusive use to describe topographical features, and it was not superseded by French although the two languages remained in competition. In terms of personal names, French forms even when coupled with Anglo-Saxon personal names were on the whole less original and picturesque than English ones.
This articles focuses upon womens' names as way of analysing the relations between the Normans and the English in the post-Conquest period. Clark rejects the view that naming patterns were a product of fashion, and draws upon examples of aristocrats, monks, burgesses and peasants from a range of local studies (English and French).
She suggests that in an English context womens' names were much more likely to be insular, archaic and drawn from a relatively narrow stock of common names. Those developments are in turn connected to greater immigration by men from France into England combined with the tendency for daughters rather than sons to be named after their mothers and other kinswomen. She concludes this essay: 'high politics tells one tale, and tells it in a clear and dominating voice; but the story quietly lived out in the towns and in manor houses has a different theme as well as a different style'.
1. In any homogeneous community, naming behaviour will remain constant, except when disturbed by outside influence.
2. In any community previously characterized by uniform naming-behaviour, reactions to a uniform outside influence will likewise be uniform
3. In any homogeneous community, any variations in the effects of an outside influence on naming-behaviour will be proportional to variations in the strength of that influence.
Clark draws upon a series of local and regional studies which make use of sources ranging from saints' lives to charters and feets of fines on personal names to demonstrate relationships between densities of setttlement by Scandinavians and onomastic evidence. She also notes that amongst womens' names Scandinavian forms are less common than for mens' forms, similar to Clark's conclusions for the Anglo-Norman period.
This article combines the evidence of onomastics with the narrative of the Battle Abbey Chronicle to argue for a high degree of cosmopolitanism within an urban context. Clark notes, moreover, that although there are insufficient numbers of womens' names to sustain a study. There is discussion of patronymics, occupational names etc. She concludes that there was a high degree of immigration into Battle from Normandy by burgesses and a high degree of cultural assimiliation between French and English languages and people within the town.
The author follows a familiar framework to suggest that twelfth-century England affords an ideal laboratory for testing personal names as a source which can reveal the balance between several competing alliances, not in black and white, but in gradations through time and space. She concludes that womens' names were about a generation more old fashioned than the corresponding names for men and connects that time-lage to lower densities of settlement by women.
This complementary article starts off by observing some of the differences between by-names and baptismal names as sources of evidence. Clarke notes that not all patronymic, occupational and residential quailifiers found in this material represent forms in regular eveyday use, and bear the signs of having been invented on ad-hoc basis by the scribe. She notes that analysis of by-names requires more than etymological analysis, and notes problems of analysis caused by the fact that by-names lack the semantic context of baptismal names. By-names can be divided into the following categories: (a) family relationships; (b) place-names; (c) occupation or rank; (d) miscelleneous characteristics. As regards (b) we can distinguish between
(i) locative place-names (ii) topographical elements derived from the rural/urban landscape; (iii) places of present domicile and (iv) family origins. The author goes on to note, following McKinley, that the transference of mens' by-names to their wives only became a regular custom after c. 1400. More detailed discussion follows looking at issues such as contrasts between the use of common occupational by-names and those more related to trades closely associated with King's Lynn; and discussion of place by-names in relation to King's Lynn's immediate hinterland and further afield.
In this article Clark provides an overview of the manuscript, followed by a description of the ways in which the spellings of names changes in terms of preferences. She moves on to discuss whether enrolments made by diverse hands were normally contemporaneous with the lives of the names of those who were enterred. She goes on to raise questions such as whether family members from different generations are enrolled together, and who was the prime mover. Discussion is also given over to whether figures such as the wife of the archdeacon may be referring to the wife of Henry of Huntingdon. Ends by asking why the Thorney Liber Vitae fell into disuse during the second quarter of the twelfth century, and suggests may be connected to some general change in liturgy and theology.
The author starts off by making the point that there is no lay settlement at Thorney and hence that its catchment area relates to the areas from which its donors and patrons resided. In this context Clark makes the point that figures such as Odo 'of Beverley' in all likelihood belonged not to a Yorkshire, but a Huntingdonshire family. By making the links between Red Book of Thorney and the Liber Vitae of Thorney, Clark demonstrates the links between temporal, spiritual and economic affairs.
Clark turns to the evidence of changing personal names to discuss shifts in the use of personal names as changing evidence of cultural patterns. Following on from earlier comparisons of the Thorney Liber Vitae and the Red Book of Thorney she discusses wider issues such as the links between the appearance of names in the Liber Vitae, providing gifts to Thorney and recruitment of oblates from those families. As in earlier article, Clark then turns attention to look at relationships between script and spelling variations, and notes that variations for womens' names are much greater than for men which could perhaps be related to differences in documentary coverage.
The reviewer begins by commentating that the key to advances in medieval studies lies not in the discovery of previously unknown sources but in the use of materials previously regarded as useless. Constable then moves on to outline the division of the LMR text, which comprises (a) commemoration book with around 11,500 names (b) three full necrologies (c) cartulary containing records of 3,000 grants (d) a rent book. Contrasts LMR with DLV, a 'pure and simple' liber vitae, and goes on to discuss one of the distinctive features of the LMR; namely the high-proportion of short commemoration entries, many of them probably made in the presence of individuals named.
He then goes on to describe the technical apparatus provided by the study, notably the way in which each entry, whether unified or scattered on the page, is given a unit/number. The reviewer goes on to provide a critical analysis of the indices, and then moves on to discuss Oskar Mitis's work on establishing family relationships (pp. 266-70). This discussion forms the core of the review article. He points out that family relationships can be identified through internal evidence—repetition etc. This enables the historian to construct kinship charts (as distinct from genealogical trees) showing the links between influential families and individuals over wide areas and time periods. Within this framework Constable goes on to discuss different secular and ecclesiastical ranks, beginning with high-ranking seculars. Notes inter alia that the mention of fifty bishops from the ninth and tenth centuries witnesses the widespread influence of Remiremont at this stage, and discusses the wider kinship circle of the nun, Geza, and the advocate, Gerard, as discussed by Hlawitschka. In discussion of donation entries—above (c)—goes on to discuss lower social ranks connected with the abbey.
Constable ends the review with general comments on commemorative records as representing 'older and less personal current of spirituality, in which groups of men and women bound by ties of kinship stood together in battle against oblivion, confidant that their memory, enshrined in prayers and masses of the nuns, would find them favour in the eyes of the almighty'. (p. 277)
This review article provides a review of a series of Cluniac necrologies, which with one exception were previously unpublished. Constable notes that these materials will be useful to philologists, prosopographers, demographers and the study of monasticism and medieval society generally, but warns many scholars will find these editions 'incomprehensible' and it will only be used by a few. He notes that it provides a source for the names of 96,000 dead people, with just over half comprising Cluniac monaches, the rest being familiares. He discusses the ways in which a system of arrows identifies repetition of names, references to dates, and attention is drawn to the variation between different months; in one month women's names comprise a third of the entries, but in another month only four percent.
The review also provides an outline of the introductory material, divided between (a) introduction and indices—introduction provides commentary on Cluniac necrologies generally by Wollasch; (b) Neiske on preparation and presentation of material; (c) lemmatization of personal names; (d) description of the manuscript.
This article provides a descrition of the manuscripts relating to the commemoration of benefactors at Christ Church, Canterbury. In a tabular form sets out the details of B.L. manuscript Cotton Nero C ix, fos. 19r-21v; fos. 3-18v.; Cotton Galba E iii, 2, fos. 32r-34r and indices of people and places pp. 124-53. It is prefaced by an introduction which enables the author to comment that the Canterbury calendars give us a different picture of the community's benefactors than do the charters, bringing all of the people who participated in gifts into the nexus of Christ Church's prayers.
This article provides an analysis of texts discussed in Fleming (1992). The author observes that these sources have either been misused or underused, and notes that 'no one has ever attempted to understand the relationships of each of these Christ Church texts to others or a variety of pre-Conquest material emanating from Canterbury' (p. 68). The author begins by discussing Oswulf's ninth-century charter in favour of the community at Christ Church which deals with the obligations of commemoration placed upon the community in exchange for gifts. The author notes that no longer extant obituary evidence reached back into the eighth century, that it would have been impossible for the community to keep track of the dates, deaths and rituals without accounting methods. Discussion then moves on to assess the ways in which these obituary texts do not provide comprehensive coverage of donors and patrons. Partly that stems from the tendency of donors to organize their commemoration days on saints' feasts days etc., but it also arose from subsequent pruning and editing of commemorative records by the Canterbury community. For example, the fact that the Mercian kings were memorialized for gifts which were restitutions of property originally given by members of competing dynasties suggests that material was reworked. Fleming then discusses of the erasures of the names of the late eighth and ninth-century allies of Mercian hegemony as a result of increasing West Saxon hegemony in the third quarter of the ninth century. Attention is then shifted towards the removal of clerks' names from the obituary lists so as to provide a more monastic image of the community. The article concludes with that obituary lists are more to do with the history of monastic property as with the histories of patrons.
The article written by Gerchow is helpful in identifying three major strands of scholarship by German scholars, noting that early medieval commemorative records have attracted far more attention than their later medieval counterparts. These strands comprise: (a) study of the context in which commemorative records developed—notably work by Angenendt (b) development of monastic life—notably the internal organization of houses and their relationships with the secular world—notably work of Wollasch on Cluniacs (c) illumination of associations which linked social groupings and households, notably work by Althoff and Schmid. Developing out of these three schemes other scholars have focused upon new sets of methodologies: Friese: (Studien zum Einzugsberich der Klostergemeinshaft) brought together onomastics and prosopography to explore familial, social, institutional and territorial connections of around 600 monks Geuenich: brought together onomastic and philological studies to look at name frequencies, status of the bearers of the different types of names, phonology and orthography. The following methodological tools were adopted: a. lemmatization of all personal names using DMP {Datenbank zur Erforschung mittelaltericher Personen und Personnengruppen} distinguishing between name word themes, suffixes and inflections b.an index of uncertain readings c. an index of name-entries with territorial bynames d. an index of titles e. an index of place-names f. identification of entries by scribe—with full descriptions of the hand if it appears more than five times.
In general the variations in the format of the memorial books has sustained different forms of analysis, with a close analogy between the Salzburg structuring of names with that which appears in the DLV. Moreover, research tools developed in this study have led to cognate initiatives, such as Borgholte and Geuenich which has provided lemmatized index for all the names in the St. Gallen charter collection.
This article focuses upon the frontispiece to the New Minster Liber Vitae, which depicts King Cnut and Queen Emma together offering a large cross to the community. The author compares it with the depiction of Edgar in the New Minster charter, and goes on to discuss differences, such as the deptictions of their respective crowns. Gerchow discusses continental context (notably Ottonian) for the donations of crosses, and suggests that at least three elements in the frontispiece explicitly recall Ottonian elements. The discussion then moves onto the Liber Vitae itself, and suggests in passing that it contains strong evidence of a reform impulse. He suggests that Cnut's prominence in a series of commemorative records was linked to the wish to legitimize himself as a conqueror.
The author begins by commenting that the libri vitae are the earliest source for English family historians and demographers (tribal hidage?). He observes that although social and economic historians focus upon manorial surveys, courts rolls etc., such texts were regarded as being as far less significant than other texts such as memorial records. Moore then reviews the ways in which Clarke used these texts to pursue studies of onomastics, etymology, prosopography etc., and then goes on to note sex imbalances in these texts. After remarks on the feudal age, attention shifts to the thirty-three entries in the Hyde abbey Liber Vitae. A prosopographical analysis follows, similar to Tsurushima (1992)
The author provides a review of the ways in which Clark used the Thorney Liber Vitae to discuss issues such as intermarriage between English and Normans. The author then provides a discussion of forty-eight family entries in the Thorney Liber Vitae using prosopographical analysis.
The author begins by providing a list of post-Conquest (1066) lords who entered into fraternityship with the monastic community of Rochester, ranging from the baronial rank to lower-ranking Anglo-Saxon nobles whose status had changed as a result of the Norman Conquest. Tsurushima sets out the thirty-two confraternity texts in full, and discusses the members of each group, on occasion providing family trees and making use of prosopographical analysis. These enables him to reconstruct one or two small communities in the parish context. The article ends by taking issue with Cowdrey's views that confraternity bonds established vertical not horizontal bonds and points to a series of long and short distance 'horizontal' relationships. Tsurushima equates confraternityship with burial in the monastic graveyard and argues that Rochester's monastic graveyard was expanded to meet secular needs but not much evidence is provided.
This extended introduction provides a new context for the development, context and purpose of commemorative records as well as setting out various issues relating to methodology. The core of the argument is in chapters three-five. Two provides a general discussion of the stabilization of lordship under Henry I and six a discussion of why the use of these texts declined under Otto I.
Chapter one provides a general discussion of the Carolingian context of commemorative records, the obligations and relationships which stemmed from mutual prayers for souls, and the ways in which different aspects of a common theme (namely the role of friendship and union in creating social and political cohesion) manifests itself in a range of sources. Chapter three provides a discussion of the evidence, and focuses upon the confraternity books of Reichenau and St. Gallen, the Liber Memorialis of Remiremont and the Death Annals of Fulda. It discusses the alliances between these monasteries, and the significance of issues such as the use of space in the text which had originally been reserved for other entries. Chapter four looks at the structure of the entries, their interconnections and the phenomenon, contra Mitis' work (see Constable (1972)), Althoff concludes 'to regard the order as based on families or relations would not satisfactorily explain most of the evidence' (p. 53). After demonstrating this negative conclusion, Althoff demonstrates that names entered at the same time belonged to different social groups, and hence that their entries were connected to processes of unification and peace. He connects the development of entries to the struggles between groups, and notes for example that entries are connected 'to the formation of parties in Eastern Franconia and reflects the attempts of the Conradiners to ally themselves with the local nobility in the area' (p. 65). The author's explanation also explains why such a large majority of names are not to be found in other sources, since it represents an alliance strategy between leading dynasties and local landowners. This leads to the conclusion that groups of people listed in the confraternity books need not have any connection with abbeys and their monks. The author also demonstrates a link between restitutions of monastic property and inclusion in memorial texts. Within chapter four there is also a discussion of the Anglo-Saxon embassy to St. Gallen.
In chapter five attention is shifted towards the role of external factors in explaining the ways in which the use of confraternity books flourished in the area of Alemannia/Upper Lorraine. The author concludes this chapter by noting that 'the presence of entries in such numbers, and at such length from all areas of the realm is primarily explained by the huge efforts of all the political power-sources at the time to arm themselves in every possible way against the Hungarians' (p. 82). He begins by noting the links between prayers and intercessions through prayers as a means to defeating the Hungarians, and identifies the Worms Diet (926) as the key turning point. Original documents, moreover, specify intercession through prayer as part of that secular and ecclesiastical programme. By being able to date the entries, Althoff is also able to show that many of the entries correlate with the synods of 932, and in terms of content are consistent with the actions sought by the synods. For a few years after those synods the names of members of families were sent out to different monasteries to have their names consolidated in the names of the dead. He observes that in moments of military crisis the importance which was given to confraternity books; thus the monks of St. Gallen not only took their treasures but also their commemorative records into castles.
In the conclusion (chapter seven) Althoff provides a summary of the issues raised in the introduction. He notes the importance of friendship and union generally and that great social divides were consciously bridged. The politics of unions had a positive echo in all parts of the realm and the surviving evidence in the commemorative records is to be regarded as the tip of the iceberg. He discusses the critical role of Henry I, and the links between unions of prayers, rebuilding of destroyed churches and the return of alienated property. Althoff, though, rejects a mono-causal explanation, noting that large numbers of entries were made before the initiatives against the Hungarians and focuses upon the Babenberger feud, the overthrow of King Zwentibold etc. as explanatory factors. Finally he suggests that comparative analysis can be applied to the Liber Vitae of Brescia, and functions of the Peace of God Movement.
The authors respond to the criticisms which are made by Hoffmann of the thesis put forward by Althoff (1992). Hoffmann criticized the methodologies of Althoff and others in the types of information which can be gained from memorial texts, and more specifically why the use of these sources flourished during the reign of Henry I. Various counter comments on the criticisms raised by Hoffmann are made, notably that scholars do not need to be certain of the personal identity of each person in order to discuss the composition and significance of groups. In relation to the importance of Henry I's reign the authors reiterate the point that an exceptionally high number of names were entered during his reign, and that the entering of names cannot be reduced to a question of fashion.