Liturgical Calendars, Saints and Services in Medieval England

Liturgical Calendars, Saints and Services in Medieval England
Author: Richard W. Pfaff
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2024-10-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 104024422X

This book includes four hitherto unpublished papers together with a substantial introductory historiographical and bibliographical overview. Many of the studies concern the liturgical views of figures like Lanfranc, St Hugh of Lincoln, and William of Malmesbury (an edition of William’s Abbreviatio Amalarii is included) and the ways Thomas Becket and the Venerable Bede were viewed liturgically. Others reveal the achievement of an 11th-century Canterbury scribe, lay out a hagiographical puzzle as to the saints venerated on the 19th January, ask why calendars come to be attached to psalters, demonstrate that monks at Canterbury Cathedral were still reading Old English homilies in the 1180s, and present a fascinating, previously misunderstood, psalter owned by bishop Ralph Baldock, c.1300. Two final papers deal with ’Sarum’ services in late medieval parish churches and with the devotional practice called St Gregory’s Trental.

Willibrord between Ireland, Britain and Merovingian Francia (690–739)

Willibrord between Ireland, Britain and Merovingian Francia (690–739)
Author: Michel Summer
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
Total Pages: 184
Release: 2024-05-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 1835534201

The century between c. 650 and 750 was one of major religious, social and political transformations in northwest Europe. In the Frankish kingdom, clerics from Ireland and Britain played an important role in these processes. One of the most prominent figures to emerge from this period was Willibrord – a Northumbrian educated in Ireland who became the first bishop of Utrecht and founded the monastery of Echternach in modern Luxembourg. Through his involvement in the Christianisation of Frisia, his cooperation with the eastern Frankish elite, including the ancestors of Charlemagne, and his connection with the pope, Willibrord was at the centre of the developments which led to the formation of a new ecclesiastical and political landscape between the North Sea and Thuringia on the eve of the Carolingian period. This book, which represents the first extensive study of the topic in English, extends its analysis of Willibrord’s career beyond the mission to Frisia and examines the political dimension of his activity in Merovingian Francia and its border regions. By offering a fresh look at the main sources for Willibrord’s life, the book explores how Insular clerics shaped their Frankish environment through the creation of networks between Ireland, Britain and the continent and their ability to take on a variety of different roles within Merovingian society.

Culture and Religion in Merovingian Gaul, A.D. 481-751

Culture and Religion in Merovingian Gaul, A.D. 481-751
Author: Yitzhak Hen
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 323
Release: 2023-09-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004614575

Although often depicted as a barbaric and uncivilised society, in the full pejorative meaning of these words, Merovingian Gaul was clearly a Christian society and a direct continuation of the Roman civilisation in terms of social standards, morals and culture. Using insights provided by social history, archaeology, palaeography and anthropology, this book studies the problem of Christianisation in early Medieval Gaul from a cultural point of view. While exploiting a huge range of primary and secondary material, Dr. Hen does not confine himself to a functional analysis of various cultural and religious activities in Merovingian Gaul, but goes on to assess the consequences and implications of such activities for the people themselves, and for the subsequent developments in the Carolingian period.

Aelfric and the Cult of Saints in Late Anglo-Saxon England

Aelfric and the Cult of Saints in Late Anglo-Saxon England
Author: Mechthild Gretsch
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2006-01-19
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 113944865X

The cult of saints was one of the most important aspects of life in the Middle Ages, and it often formed the nucleus of developing group identities in a town, a province or a country. The literature of Anglo-Saxon England is unique among contemporary European literatures in that it features a vast amount of saints' Lives in the vernacular. Of these Lives, Ælfric is the most important author, and his saints' Lives have never previously been explored in their contemporary setting. In this study, Gretsch analyses Ælfric's Lives of five important saints in the light of their cults in Anglo-Saxon England. This gives the reader fascinating glimpses of 'Ælfric at work': he adapts the cults and rewrites the received Latin hagiography of the five saints, with the result that each of their English Lives conveys a distinct message to the contemporary political elite and to a lay audience at large.