Much recent scholarship on the period of the Investiture Struggle and the reform of the Church in the eleventh and twelfth centuries has suggested that the origins of these reforms lay not merely in the desire for moral regeneration, but in the conscious wish to return to the antique, Biblical, patristic, and Roman models of the Christian life represented by the early, pre-feudal Church. What modern historians have sometimes called ‘Germanic Christianity’ or ‘feudal Christianity’ was felt to be a pattern of institutions which had at least partly corrupted the life of the early Church. This explains the great concern of the Hildebrandine Party to rid the Church of those abuses which they felt had grown ‘especially since the time when the government of our church passed to the Germans. … But we, having searched out the Roman Order and the ancient custom of our church, imitating the old Fathers, have ordered things to be restored as we have set out above.’ The reaction against the immediate past in favor of a more perfect antique model manifested itself in the notion, expressed throughout the period, that custom must always be judged by natural law and by truth: ‘the Lord said: “I am the Truth.” He did not say: “I am the custom”; but “I am the Truth.” The reformers became impassioned to restore the ancient discipline, to rediscover the ancient laws of the Church, to bring monasticism back to its original purity, and in all this to use what they believed to be the ancient forms of the Christian life as a model by which to compare and criticize the Christianity of their own times. An extensive and varied literature appeared dealing with the problem of what the ancient ideal of the Christian life had been, a literature which began both to speak frequently of the ecclesia primitiva, and to use this idea as a model by which to reform the Church. Often this literature passed beyond the use of the idea of the ecclesia primitiva as a tool of reform to the use of the idea as a basis for the discussion of the more basic problem of what the perfect form of the Christian life had been or should be. In this regard, ‘reform’ signified not only the restoration and reestablishment of the forms of the Christian life of the past, but also the search for the continuing perfection of both the individual and the Church. The nexus of ideas associated with the Augustinian reformatio in melius was in this respect close to the idea of ‘renewal.’ Men not only returned to the forms of the past, but also explored ways of introducing new structures and forms of life into the Church.

How can a literary critic best approach texts which are living classics of religious literature? This question is being asked with increasing frequency by modern readers of The Cloud of Unknowing and Walter Hilton's Scale of Perfection. My own preference is for an historical-critical approach which, while recognising that these works are for all time, is concerned to relate them to the time in which they were written. It has recently been pointed out that certain studies of the English Mystics are marred by ‘the scholar's lack of adequate theological training to interpret the mystics’ teaching correctly,’ a defect which is particularly marked in the case of discussions of the influence of pseudo-Dionysius. As Colledge rightly says, before we can speak with certainty about the Dionysian elements in the Cloud and the Scale, ‘we need a clearer view of the Western medieval traditions which interpreted, glossed, and it may be distorted and exaggerated what the writer of the Mystical Theology had in truth said.’ When this clearer view is attained, we shall be in a better position to understand more fully not only the theological content of our religious classics but also those facets of scholastic literary theory which crucially influenced their authors' attitudes to language and the way in which they wrote.

The variety of cultural patterns that marks the Italian scene in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries is a historical phenomenon as familiar to the general historian as to the student of all the special fields to which Italy made its contributions at that time. Inquiry into the conditions determining the characteristics of some of the cities will point in different directions : to leading artists and scholars and their ‘schools’; to the taste and interest of individual or collective patrons; to outside influences, and so forth. Very often such an inquiry will uncover strands that lead back deep into the medieval past of the city. Yet medievalists, in writing monographs on one or another city, have found themselves mostly involved in the political and economic problems of the Italian scene, and indeed in the diversity that marked each city, but have paid little attention to local culture. Still, as shown by one brilliant example — the analysis by Robert Davidsohn of Florentine culture in the time of Dante — the task is an extremely rewarding one. For not only medieval Florence — thirteenth-century Florence which gave birth to Dante and the art of Giotto and Arnolfo da Cambio—but many other cities of northern and central Italy, great and small, wove the general influences and ideas of the age into their own pattern of culture, each with a design of its own. To be sure, many cities show similarities in their cultural growth just as they do in their political and economic development, but a more thorough analysis will reveal differences in the pace of their development as well as in the ‘selection’ of trends that determine their character. Potentialities and dispositions for leadership were apparent in several centers of Tuscany and northern Italy, and it would have been difficult at that time to predict which among them was to achieve a leadership that would last longer and extend over larger areas than that of one of its rivals.

Since Beowulf was made available to scholars early in the last century it has been recognized as a poem deeply rooted in Germanic heroic tradition and dealing with ancient and pagan Scandinavian heroes. No pagan gods, however, are mentioned by name, and there are many references to the one true God who rules at all times over all. Further, there are unmistakable allusions to the story of Cain and Abel and to the giants who were destroyed by the flood. There are, however, no such allusions to any specifically Christian doctrines.

An explanatory foreword seems to be demanded by the studies in the English coronation ceremony here presented. I am conscious that on a number of points, views are now put forward incompatible with those I have expressed on other occasions since first I began to write on the subject. Further scrutiny of the evidence and the redating of some of the more important documents have, however, led me inevitably to conclusions at variance not only with those of other scholars, but with some that seemed plausible to me at the time of writing. What is principally in question is the history of the English coronation before 1308; but I have revised and elaborated the story of the evolution of the Fourth Recension of the English coronation office as it was presented by Professor Sayles and myself a good many years ago. It would be presumptuous on my part to pretend that I have given final answers to the many questions the tangled history of the English coronation provokes. I have changed my own mind too often to permit me to imagine that there may not be answers to those questions more satisfying than mine. But what I have written will, I trust, advance the study of obscure and complicated problems which have an important bearing upon the history of kingship in the Middle Ages and therefore upon medieval polity.

The poetry of Baudri, Abbot of Bourgueil (ca. 1078–1107) and Archbishop of Dol (1107–1130), has attracted little critical attention. As is the case with other figures of the ‘Loire School’ or ‘School of Angers’ such as Marbod of Angers or even Hildebert of Le Mans, Baudri of Bourgueil remains largely unknown outside of a small circle of specialists. Yet his voluminous poetic production, most of which was completed by around 1100, should be particularly attractive for students of High Medieval culture, both Latin and vernacular, since literary and amatory concerns form its dominant topics. His plea for unrestrained reading, his decriminalization of desire, his mastery of Ovid, his radical treatment of friendship, his allegorization of myth, his sense of the individual, his defense of poetry — all these are especially significant at such an early date. In this paper, I propose to survey the poetry and assess its overall achievement in order to facilitate future research on more restricted and detailed levels.

The work of the medieval canonists has always formed a significant chapter in the histories of medieval political thought. The law of the Church and its attendant juristic science forms the proper source material for the examination of the system of ideas which lay behind the functioning of papal government. Ecclesiastical jurisprudence was the practical branch of sapientia Christiana. It was concerned with a constitution and the exercise of power within its terms; with an organization and the methods by which it was to be run. It had of necessity to be articulate about the nature of the papacy, the constitutional and organizational linchpin. In consequence the canonists were the acknowledged theorists of papal primacy. To them rather than to the theologians belonged that segment of ecclesiology which treated of the nature of the Church as a visible corporate society under a single ruler. In that period of nearly a century which lay between the accession of Alexander III and the death of Innocent IV, canonists were required to register the increasingly numerous and more diverse applications of papal rulership to the problems of Christian society. The concept of papal monarchy came to be reexamined in academic literature because of the accelerating tempo of papal action. Under the stimulus of an active papacy, the canonists were led to examine many of the assumptions on which the popes based their actions and claims. The world of affairs conditioned the evolution of a political-theory, which in turn helped to shape the course of events.

The role of the English mercenaries in the Byzantine army has long been under dispute. A. A. Vasiliev, writing in 1937, gave a very full summary of what was known at that time, and tended to stress their importance to Byzantium in the later eleventh century. However, his article came under brief but formidable attack from the German scholar, F. Dölger, who published a review of Vasiliev's work in 1938. A year later, Dölger's arguments were repeated and amplified by S. Blöndal. Since then, the dispute has hung fire, and a recent historian of the Byzantine army, A. Hohlweg, was justified when, in 1965, he wrote of the problem of the role of the English as umstritten — disputed. What follows is an attempt to reassess the problem and my conclusion is akin to Vasiliev's: there was a significant migration of Anglo-Saxons to the Byzantine Empire around 1080, and in the early years of Alexius Comnenus‘ reign. Further, there is evidence of diplomatic contact between the Empire and the rulers of England, and groups of Anglo-Saxons may have continued to migrate eastward later than has previously been thought. But the value of the English was probably greatest in the early years of Alexius Comnenus’ reign, and may even be compared with that of the Russians who had come to the rescue of the emperor Basil II nearly a hundred years earlier, in about 988.

To most people inclined, in the late twentieth century, to think in such terms, the idea of pilgrimage as a metaphor for the Christian life seems natural and almost perfect — natural and perfect to the extent that it is often assumed to have been the metaphor for such a life from the beginnings of the religion. This is not the case. Although the image of pilgrimage — peregrinatio — can be found occasionally in earlier fathers, it did not receive a full theological exposition until Augustine's City of God in the early fifth century. There, peregrinatio is linked directly to the theme of the two cities, the essential and basic conceit of the book. Even in the very first sentence, Augustine says that he will seek to defend

If Charlemagne had plans for his succession prior to 806, little has yet been said about them; equally little has been written about the Gesta episcoporum Mettensium, a minor work of Paul the Deacon's. But lack of interest by posterity is only an incidental reason for associating the Metz Gesta with Charles's early dynastic planning. In 781, Charles visited Rome for the second time; important decisions about the Carolingian heritage were taken in connection with this journey. Soon afterwards, probably in 783, Paul was commissioned by a royal courtier to compose a history of the bishops of Metz. A careful analysis of Paul's narrative suggests that its purpose was not so much to celebrate the bishops of one diocese as to commemorate, however discreetly, certain events vitally concerning the entire Frankish church and kingdom. The Gesta may shed unexpected light on Charlemagne's designs for the transmission of his regna, as well as on the ideas inspiring his decision.

Professor Stephan Kuttner, who proved—basing himself on V. L. Kennedy—the indebtedness of Pierre de Roissy, Chancellor of Chartres and author of a Manuale de mysteriis ecclesiae, to the Poenitentiale of Robert of Flamborough, Canon Penitentiary of St. Victor, shows (Trad. 2, 497 seq.) that Roissy went so far in his procedure (which we would call today ‘literary plagiarism’) of incorporating entire sections from Flamborough's work, that he even borrowed from him, tel quel, certain autobiographical facts which, in the light of historical evidence, could not possibly apply to himself. For example, when we read in Roissy: ‘Ego tamen …a duobus parisiensibus episcopis, Odone et Petro, habui ut ubique eorum auctoritate dispensarem …,’ we must realize that the privilege of dispensation of which he speaks was granted only to Flamborough, just as it was Flamborough alone who transferred to papal authority the case referred to in the words: 'superstitem, ut ordinaretur, ad papam transmisi.’ Thus, Roissy is substituting his own ego to that of his source. Kuttner wonders ‘how he could easily get away with this,’ for ‘the disproportion between Peter's true standing and the air of personal experience he affects is particularly striking in those cases which suggest, as they do, the experience and powers of a spiritual director of clerics'—that is, qualifications certainly not possessed by Roissy. The borrowed character of the passage ‘Ego tamen … a duobus …,’ according to Kuttner, disposes of a chronological difficulty in the Chancellor's biography (for, if genuine, the passage would have proved that Peter was active in Paris as late as 1208—an assumption contradicted by other known facts).

Studies in comparative religion have shown the important role played by the practice of ascetical fasting in the history of man's religious development. But many gaps in that history still exist. We may surmise, for example, that primitive man stumbled on the practice of fasting accidentally, as a way to conserve food in time of shortage, or, again, out of revulsion for food in times of sickness, as well as under stress of sorrow or fear. On the other hand, he would find that overeating might interfere with sleep and cause a feeling of heaviness, or that certain foods could cause sickness and nausea. The lacuna between these primitive experiences and the religious-ascetical practice of fasting still remains a subject for investigation, although, from the point of view of Greece and Rome, it has been adequately treated by Arbesmann. The object of the present work is not to cover the practice of ecclesiastical fasting, either from the canonical point of view (as this has been sufficiently treated by Parra Herrera) or in its connection with prophecy and revelation (as this has again been fully discussed by Arbesmann) — but merely to treat the problem of ascetical fasting as we find it in the Greek patristic writers down to the time of John Damascene.

The vernacular homilies of pre-conquest England fall into two clear groups: homilies whose authorship is unknown and which are generally considered to have been written by the middle of the tenth century and the sermon collections of Abbot Ælfric of Eynsham and Archbishop Wulfstan II of York which were written, ca. 990–1020, under the influence of the Benedictine reform.

While the older theory that in Beowulf we have the work of a pagan poet edited and patched with scraps of Christian doctrine by later hands has been generally abandoned, there is still considerable difference of opinion on the I problem of Christianity's place in the poem. The question at issue is no longer whether the poet was a Christian but rather what his Christianity was like and to what extent it affected his handling of Germanic material. Here, the influence of the older theory is still felt. The poet, indeed, was a Christian, but pagan in spirit; or his Christianity was genuine and strong, but not strong enough to cope with the pagan character of his material. The older dualism of pagan author and Christian redactor has been turned into a struggle within the poet. The poem in the last analysis is still felt to lack complete integrity of tone.

One of the most surprising but least known results of the Crusaders' conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 was a sudden change of the place assigned to the Temple Mount in the ‘holy geography’ of Jerusalem. The Mount became almost overnight, because of the number of holy traditions concentrated there, one of the most important centres of sanctity in Jerusalem, and therefore one of the most conspicuous holy places on the path of the pilgrims in the Crusader capital.

On November 8, 1357 Archbishop Richard FitzRalph of Armagh preached the Proposicio ‘Nolite iudicare,’ known also as the Defensio Curatorum, before a full consistory of cardinals at Avignon. This was the opening round of a legal battle in the papal courts over the pastoral functions and privileges of the four orders of mendicant friars, Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustinians, and Carmelites. The case of the archbishop of Armagh versus the procurators general of the mendicant orders may with some justice be regarded as the climax of the long struggle between the friars and the secular clergy. The episode is unusually well-documented, but although much attention has been devoted to FitzRalph's sermons against the friars preached in London during the winter and spring of 1356–7 and to his dialogue on poverty and dominion De pauperie Salvatoris, little consideration has been given to the later developments which followed the transfer of the case to the papal curia. There the dispute became the subject of an inquiry heard by a tribunal of cardinals. Copies of the statements by both parties to the dispute survive in a number of manuscripts, English and continental, and it is possible to trace in some detail the progress of these curial proceedings.

Anglo-Saxon scribes were compilers and organizers as well as copyists. Each major Old English literary manuscript gives evidence of editorial planning. The Beowulf codex was apparently designed as a collection of marvelous tales; the Vercelli Book as a collection of legendary and homiletic matter; and the first three poems of the Exeter Book (Christ I, II, and III) were arranged in proper chronological sequence.

While the influence of the Aristotelian topoi has been rather extensive in our western tradition, particularly in literature, it does seem that their methodology has not been fully understood. A number of factors have contributed to this: the absence in Aristotle of a forthright and formal discussion of what he has in mind, the neglect of the methodology after Aristotle, a partially misdirected emphasis given to the method by Cicero, one of the first to concern himself with the topics, and the continuation of the Ciceronian interpretation by Quintilian with whom it passed into the Middle Ages and the stream of our western tradition.

Late antiquity and the early Middle Ages witnessed a change in the Christian attitude toward the remains of the saints. Holy bodies came to be treated less and less as normal corpses, worthy of special veneration but still subject to many of the laws and customs which had regulated the treatment of human remains in pagan Antiquity. They came rather to be viewed as cult objects which could be moved or even divided up according to the demands of religion with little regard for earlier prohibitions of these practices. This change occurred relatively early in the Greek, eastern portion of the Roman Empire. In the mid-fourth century the Caesar Gallus translated a saint's body from one tomb to another, and less than two centuries later Justinian asked Pope Hormisdas for portions of the bodies of the apostles. Despite some outstanding exceptions such as the translations performed by St. Ambrose, the Christians of the West were more conservative in these matters. Nevertheless, by the ninth century at the very latest, western Christians had followed the lead of the eastern church in both translating and dismembering holy bodies.

On 12 and 13 July 1316 the abbey of St-Denis was the scene of a curious and unusual service performed for King Louis X of France, who had died and been buried at the abbey more than a month before. As Geffroy de Paris relates, Philip, count of Poitiers, ‘made his way to St-Denis and there, grieving and downcast, he did his brother's service’; another chronicler, more explicit, says that ‘in Philip's presence were celebrated obsequies for his brother King Louis.’ Fuller information is found in the accounts kept by Geffroy de Fleury, future argentier of Philip V, for what he terms the obseque of Louis X, performed for the king's trespassement. In the account are recorded expenses for a chapelle used for the occasion, and, to make the border, cover, and ceiling of the chapel, 14 aunes of red silk worked with the royal arms and 16 double aunes, two pieces of sky-blue silk, and five black cloths; money was also spent on workmen who went to St-Denis to put the chapel in place — ‘tendre la chappelle’ — and on the nails they used to do their work. Finally, two Turkish cloths were bought ‘to put over the body,’ and the 22 1. par. paid for these cloths represented more than a third of the entire cost of the funeral, which amounted to 59 1. 6 s. par. The evidence in Fleury's account supplements the chroniclers' terse references to the ceremony, but no more than the chronicles does the account suggest the significance of the strange service: the only double funeral ever held for any king of France.