
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Maps
- Introduction
- 1 Intellectual Priorities, Individuals, and Intra-Communal Veneration
- 2 Saints and Property
- 3 Saints and Unreformed Clerics
- 4 Saints and Nobles
- 5 Saints, the Laity, and Sacred Spaces
- 6 Saints and the Second Generation
- Conclusion
- Appendix 1: Saints and Property in Royal Grants, 900–1000
- Appendix 2: Members of the Circle Appointed to High Ecclesiastical Offices, 956–1016
- Bibliography
- Index
- ANGLO-SAXON STUDIES
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Maps
- Introduction
- 1 Intellectual Priorities, Individuals, and Intra-Communal Veneration
- 2 Saints and Property
- 3 Saints and Unreformed Clerics
- 4 Saints and Nobles
- 5 Saints, the Laity, and Sacred Spaces
- 6 Saints and the Second Generation
- Conclusion
- Appendix 1: Saints and Property in Royal Grants, 900–1000
- Appendix 2: Members of the Circle Appointed to High Ecclesiastical Offices, 956–1016
- Bibliography
- Index
- ANGLO-SAXON STUDIES
Summary
The assembly wisely, and under severe censure and anathema, forbade the holy monasteries to acknowledge the overlordship of secular persons, a thing which might lead to utter loss and ruin as it did in past times. On the other hand, they commanded that the sovereign power of the King and Queen– and that only– should ever be besought with confident petition, both for the safeguarding of the holy places and for the increase of the goods of the Church. As often therefore as it shall be to their advantage, the fathers and mothers of each house shall have humble access to the King and Queen in the fear of God and observance of the Rule. They shall not, however, be allowed to meet persons of importance, either within or just outside the monastery, for the purpose of feasting together, but only according as the well-being and defence of the monastery demand.
– Æthelwold, Preface to the Regularis concordiaRIVAL CLERICS were not the only powerful groups with which Æthelwold's circle had to contend. They also dealt extensively with lay elites, as major landowners and as participants in local and royal governance. The circle needed nobles’ support, or at least non-interference. However, gaining this support was complicated, since the circle explicitly sought to redefine churches’ relationships with lay elites. As discussed earlier, they wanted to make their monasteries financially and socially autonomous from wealthy and powerful patrons, and they also wanted to influence lay peoples’ beliefs and behaviours. This situation was further complicated, the following chapter will argue, because the circle's relationships with lay nobles varied between their different houses. Even the same individuals – such as the leading ealdorman, Æthelwine – could be hostile to one of the circle's monasteries and a major patron of another, even though those houses were staffed with some of the same monks from Æthelwold's earlier refoundations. There was no single ‘anti-monastic reaction’ by nobles, nor was opposition to Æthelwold's circle limited to a single segment of the nobility.
Once again, supra-communal veneration seems to have been a key way the circle pursued its goals. As the circle's relationship to some key nobles varied, so their approach to supra-communal veneration also varied, at least during Æthelwold's lifetime.
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- Information
- Bishop Æthelwold, his Followers, and Saints' Cults in Early Medieval EnglandPower, Belief, and Religious Reform, pp. 125 - 155Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2022