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Gervase of Canterbury, Christ Church and the Archbishops

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 July 2009

MARIE-PIERRE GELIN
MARIE-PIERRE GELIN
Affiliation:
Department of History, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT; e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

In two texts written between 1185 and 1205, Gervase of Canterbury proposed a vision of the role of the Benedictine community of Christ Church in relation to the archbishop, their nominal abbot. In the Tractatus de combustione and the Actus pontificum, Gervase repeatedly presented the monks as the guardians of the archbishops' relics and memory. This in turn allowed him to establish close links between the prelates and a precise locus, the cathedral, in an attempt to reassert the traditional role of Christ Church as the archiepiscopal church at a time when this role was under threat.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 60 , Issue 3 , July 2009 , pp. 449 - 463
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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References

1 ‘Me autem inter cronicae scriptores computandum non esse censeo, quia non bibliotecae publicae sed tibi, mi frater Thoma et nostrae familiolae pauperculae scribo’: Chronica Gervasii, in The historical works of Gervase of Canterbury, ed. W. Stubbs (RS lxxiii, 1879–80), i. 89.

2 Tractatus de combustione et reparatione cantuariensis ecclesie, ibid. i. 3–29, and Actus pontificum cantuariensis ecclesie, ibid. ii. 325–414. R. Willis published a partial English translation of the Tractatus in The architectural history of Canterbury Cathedral, London 1845.

3 All these works were published in Stubbs's edition of Gervase's works.

4 Among other productions, the Christ Church monks wrote several Lives of the murdered archbishop as well as recording his many miracles (see Materials for the history of Thomas Becket, ed. J. C. Robertson [RS lxvii, 1875–6, i–ii], composed liturgical texts for his main feast day (S. Reames, ‘Liturgical offices for the cult of St Thomas Becket’, in Medieval hagiography: an anthology, ed. T. Head, New York 2000, 561–93), created a large-scale iconographic cycle in his honour in the stained glass windows of the Trinity Chapel (M. H. Caviness, Christ Church Cathedral Canterbury [Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi, Great Britain ii, 1981]), and compiled the voluminous correspondence relative to the quarrel between the king and the archbishop (Materials [1881–2, vi–vii]).

5 ‘quanta mala, quot pericula, quot adversitates’: Tractatus, 29.

6 The quarrel and its resolution are summarised by C. R. Cheney, Hubert Walter, London 1967, 135–50.

7 Historical works, ii, p. xli.

8 ‘Quia nomina regum Britanniae, vel Angliae, cum pauculis ipsorum factis brevissime, licet admodum laboriose, quo certior fierem incerta quaerendo, transcurri: restat ut secundum promissionis meae tenorem, ad gesta pontificum Cantuariensis ecclesiae stilum convertam’: Actus pontificum, 325. See also Gesta regum, in Historical works, ii. 4.

9 Michel Sot, Gesta episcoporum; Gesta abbatum: typologie des sources du moyen âge occidental, fasc. 37, Turnhout 1981, 20.

10 Louis Duchesne, Le liber pontificalis: texte, introduction et commentaire, 2nd edn, Paris 1955–7.

11 For instance ‘Anno sequenti … Theodorus venit in Angliam cum pallio et plenitudine potestatis’; ‘Cui successit venerandae memoriae Cuthbertus … qui Romam profectus suscepit pallium et plenitudinem potestatis a papa Gregorio’; ‘Cui successit Wlfredus vir sagacissimus, et a sancto papa Leone sacratus pallium suscepit, et metropolitanae plenitudinem potestatis’; ‘Post quem successit in archiepiscopatum Egelnothus … et a Benedicto papa cum honore multo susceptus est, pallioque suscepto cum honore primatus Cantuariam reversus’; ‘Ricardus … a domino papa Alexandro consecratus est, et pallium susceptit et totius Angliae primatum’: Actus pontificum, 338, 344, 347, 361, 397 (my emphases).

12 Nicholas Brooks, The early history of the Church of Canterbury, Leicester 1984, 71–6.

13 Bede's Ecclesiastical history, ed. B. Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors, Oxford 1991, ii. 3.

14 ‘successit venerandae memoriae Cuthbertus …, qui Romam profectus suscepit pallium et plenitudinem potestatis a papa Gregorio, optinuit etiam ut archiepiscopi omnes … sepulturae traderentur in ecclesia Cantuariae’: Actus pontificum, 344; Brooks, Early history, 81–2.

15 Actus pontificum, 345–8; Tractatus, 10–17; S. Robertson, ‘Burial-places of the archbishops of Canterbury’, Archaeologia cantiana xx (1893), 276–94; M. Sparks, ‘The liturgical use of the nave, 1077–1540’, in K. Blockley, M. Sparks and T. Tatton-Brown (eds), Canterbury Cathedral nave: archaeology, history and architecture, Canterbury 1997, 121–3, figs 46, 53.

16 The exceptions are very rare, and when Gervase does not specifically note where the archbishop was buried, it is usually possible to infer that he was buried in Canterbury, either at St Augustine's or at Christ Church.

17 Actus pontificum,, 353.

18 The causal link between the two episodes, and the divine retribution meted out against the simoniac and disrespectful prelate was developed in much greater detail by Eadmer in his Vita sancti Odoni, which may have been the source for Gervase's notice: Eadmer of Canterbury: lives and miracles of Saints Oda, Dunstan and Oswald, ed. A. J. Turner and B. J. Muir, Oxford 2006, 32–5.

19 R. Willis, The architectural history of Canterbury Cathedral, London 1845; H. M. Taylor, ‘The Anglo-Saxon cathedral church at Canterbury’, Archaeological Journal cxxvi (1969), 101–30; F. Woodman, The architectural history of Canterbury Cathedral, London 1981; P. Draper, ‘William of Sens and the original design of the choir termination of Canterbury Cathedral, 1175–1179’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians xlii (1983), 238–48, and ‘Interpretations of the rebuilding of Canterbury Cathedral, 1174–1186: archaeological and historical evidence’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians lvi (1997), 184–203; P. Kidson, ‘Gervase, Becket and William of Sens’, Speculum lxviii (1993), 969–91; Hearn, M. F., ‘Canterbury Cathedral and the cult of Becket’, Art Bulletin lxxvi (1994), 19–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20 W. Stubbs proposed a composition date of 1185–6, that is to say the point at which Gervase breaks off his narration, but a recent article argued for a later date of writing: Cragoe, C. Davidson, ‘Reading and rereading Gervase of Canterbury’, Journal of the British Archaeological Association cliv (2001), 40–53 at pp. 48–50.Google Scholar

21 Cheney, Hubert Walter, 137.

22 A. Gransden, Historical writing in England, I: c. 550-c. 1307, London 1974, 255.

23 ‘nec tamen nostri fuit propositi lapidum compositionem scribere, sed quia non plene potui loca sanctorum et requiem qui in diversis ecclesiae partibus positi sunt edicere, nisi prius loca ipsa in quibus … positi sunt’: Tractatus, 12.

24 Ibid. 6–7.

25 ‘quoniam vero novum opus in alium mutatum est, non inutile duxi statum describere vetustatis et deinde novitatis’: ibid. 7.

26 Eadmer, De reliquiis S. Audoenis et quorumdam aliorum sanctorum quae Cantuariae in aecclesia Domini Sancti Saluatoris habentur, ed. A. Wilmart, Revue des sciences religieuses xv (1935), 184–219, 354–79.

27 The nave was rebuilt in the fourteenth century only: Caviness, Christ Church Cathedral Canterbury, ii. 228.

28 Twelve pages as opposed to ten in Stubbs's edition. Gervase also points out that if he had been able to find a description of Lanfranc's choir, he would have included it in his text: Tractatus, 12.

29 ‘erat enim ipsa ecclesia, quod per excessum dici patienter quaeso eccipiatur, sicut in hystoriis Beda testatur, Romanorum opere facta, et ex quadam parte ad imitationem ecclesiae beati apostolorum principis Petri’: ibid. 7.

30 Bede's Ecclesiastical history, i. 33.

31 ‘ne ejus memoria deleatur’: Tractatus, 11; ‘ne tanti viri vel tam paeclari operis memoria deleatur’: 12; ‘verum ne memoria eorum quae in translatione eorundem gesta sunt deleatur’ and ‘ne memoria sancti lapidis hujus deleatur’: 25.

32 Hamer, Eileen Robertson, ‘Christ Church, Canterbury: the spiritual landscape of pilgrimage’, Essays in Medieval Studies vii (1990), 59–69.Google Scholar

33 ‘reposita sunt, sicut antiquitus fuerunt’: Tractatus, 24.

34 ‘Beatus vero Cuthbertus dolens se post obitum ab ecclesia sua et a filiorum societate debere separari quos in vita summo karitatis studio dilexit, Romam petiit et a summo pontifice liberam ecclesie Christi sepulturam impetravit. Iste primus voluntate Dei … summi pontificis auctoritate et regis Angliae permissione in ecclesia Christi sepultus est, et omnes archiepiscopi successores ejus praeter unum solum’: ibid. 14.

35 These are Augustine (596–604); Cuthbert (741–60), the first archbishop to be buried at Christ Church; Bregwin (760–4); Æthelhard (790–805); Oda (942–58); Dunstan (959–88); Alphege (1006–12); and Thomas (1162–70).

36 N. Ramsay and M. Sparks, ‘The cult of St Dunstan at Christ Church, Canterbury’, in N. Ramsay, M. Sparks and T. Tatton-Brown (eds), Saint Dunstan: his life, times and cult, Woodbridge 1992, 311–23.

37 Tractatus, 13.

38 In three calendars of the twelfth century from Christ Church, the feast days of St Dunstan and St Alphege are the most important saints' festivals, after the celebrations of Thomas Becket. The calendars are BL, ms Arundel 155 (English kalendars before AD 1100, ed. F. Wormald [Henry Bradshaw Society lxxii, 1934]); Bodleian Library, Oxford, ms Add. C. 260 (‘The Canterbury calendars and the Norman Conquest’, ed. T. A. Heslop, in R. Eales and R. R. Sharpe [eds], Canterbury and the Norman Conquest: churches, saints and scholars, London 1995, 53–85); and BL, ms Cotton Tiberius B iii (Benedictine kalendars after A.D. 1100, ed. F. Wormald [Henry Bradshaw Society lxxvii, 1939], i. 68–79).

39 BL, ms Arundel 155.

40 BL, ms CottonTiberius B iii (c. 1220).

41 Tractatus, 22.

42 Ibid. 13.

43 These picture cycles have been analysed by M. H. Caviness, The early stained glass of Canterbury Cathedral, 1175–1220, Princeton 1977, and by Budny, M. and Graham, T., ‘Les Cycles des saints Dunstan et Alphège dans les vitraux romans de la cathédrale de Canterbury’, Cahiers de civilisation médiévale xxxviii (1995), 55–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

44 ‘Quoniam vero patroni ecclesiae, Sanctus videlicet Dunstanus et Sanctus Ælfegus, in solitudine illa remanserant, ne pluviarum et tempestatum vel ad modicum paterent injuriis, … tumbas sanctorum aperuerunt et ipsos cum sarcofagis suis de choro extraxerunt’: Tractatus, 5.

45 Ibid. 22–4.

46 ‘cum dolore et angustia incredibili flentes et lugentes’, ibid. 5.

47 A sure sign that the saints did not wish to be moved: P. Geary, Furta sacra: thefts of relics in the central Middle Ages, rev. edn, Princeton 1990, in particular ch, vi.

48 ‘sic ergo filii Israel … de terra promissionis, immo de paradiso deliciarum ejecti’: Tractatus, 6, 24.

49 ‘vere autem ejusdem, id est, sexti anni post incendium intrante et tempore operandi instante, desiderio cordis accensi chorum praeparere curaverunt monachi’: ibid. 22.

50 ‘Sublevatis autem panniculis in quibus fuerunt obvoluti, nimia vetustate et putredine in magna parte consumptis, aliis palliis decentioribus operuerunt et lineis cingulis constrixerunt’: ibid.

51 ‘Conventus vero cum magna cordis laetitia cantum suscipiens, cordis et vocis jubilo cum dulcissimis lacrimis pro impensis beneficiis Deum laudaverunt’: ibid. 24.

52 ‘Sic Dominus noster Jesu Christus praecessit nos in Galileam, id est, in novae ecclesiae transmigrationem’: ibid. 23.

53 ‘Sed sullato sarcofagi lapidi superiore, integer et rigidus apparuit, ossibus et nervis, cute et carne sed extenuata cohaerens. Mirati sunt astantes et manibus appositis super tabulam gestatoriam eum posuerunt, sicque in vestiarium … delatus est, ut de utroque conventus discerneret quid decentius fieri oporteret. Insonuit interea rumor in populo, et jam a plerisque propter insolitam integritatem Sanctus Theobaldus appelatus est. … Ex sententia igitur conventus ante altare Sanctae Mariae … sepultus est’: ibid. 25–6 (my emphasis).

54 Ibid. 22–3.

55 Actus pontificum, 402.

56 S. Vaughn, ‘Eadmer's Historia novorum: a re-interpretation’, Anglo-Norman studies X, ed. R. A. Brown, Woodbridge 1988, 259–89.

57 Gransden, Historical writing, i. 257, 259.