ThePlanctus, or lament, is a contemporary Latin poem on the murder of William Longsword, count of Rouen, on 17 December 942.¹ It belongs to the Carolingian genre of lament (planctus) poems, which bewail the death of a beloved person.² Laments were written for rulers, bishops or other prominent people, originally in Latin but also in the vernacular, of which the Occitanplanhare amongst the most common. Early composition after the death of the person lamented was the norm and, as I will argue, William’s was written in 943. ThePlanctuson William is an exceptionally important text for...

In the introduction to a recent general book on religion, society, and politics in high medieval Britain, Henry Mayr-Harting felt compelled to justify his decision to omit from consideration the interplay between religion and national identity.¹ Although Mayr-Harting was not convinced about the significance of this topic, it is in my view a fruitful direction for further research on national identity in England during the ‘long’ twelfth century.² The unexhausted potential of this perspective on the generally well-studied theme of twelfth-century national identity is especially manifest in comparison with the existing literature on nationhood and ethnicity in Anglo-Saxon England that...

On 8 September 1435, at the peace conference held at Arras, the English delegates received from the French ambassadors a letter with their ‘last offers’ to put an end to the war between the two nations. The main condition was ‘that upon the part of England, there be a renunciation, sufficiently and for ever, of the title and right they advance to the crown of France’. In which case, the French king consented and agreed

that to the said king shall belong and shall remain in perpetual inheritance all that they held and occupy at present in the duchy of...

In 1131, Pope Innocent II summoned a great council to the city of Reims in northern France to rally support for his papacy. It was a very large gathering, featuring bishops from all over western Christendom. This was a momentous council, since the Church had been divided by schism – since the death of Honorius II in 1130 – between two contenders for the papacy, Innocent II and Anacletus II. Innocent II eventually triumphed with the support of King Louis VI of France, and the spiritual leaders Norbert of Xanten and Bernard of Clairvaux. Moreover, Innocent II used the council...

In the majority of cases, the process of transmission for texts found in both rolls and codices in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries seems, logically, to have moved from roll to codex.¹ Material recorded first on rolls that could be easily expanded through the addition of sheets of parchment might then be copied into sturdier books. Yet occasionally the process was reversed, with texts that were widely available in book form being copied into rolls.² Part of the explanation for this must lie in the visual appearance of the resulting rolls, which contributed to shaping the experience of the user....

In the Europeanizing societies of the central Middle Ages the question of when kings began to produce charters in favour of lay beneficiaries, usually their own sworn men, is a salient one.¹ That religious institutions dominated the early phases of the expansion of literate methods of record-keeping is well known, but one key milestone in the road that would eventually lead to widespread use and acceptance of written documents throughout most levels of lay society was when the king’s clerks began to produce charters recording gifts to lay subjects, because this appears to be when administrative literacy was first used...

In 1155 Wace of Bayeux completed theRoman de Brutand began his verse chronicle, theRoman de Rou. Of the two, theRouhas in general been less extensively studied. In order to set this study into a secure analytical framework the discussion will explore the way Wace has been evaluated by historians and literary scholars to clarify some of the approaches that may be taken to reading him. It will build on this discussion to explore the way that Wace portrayed women in theRou, in order to consider whether they were central to family power and Norman...

In an article published in 2007, Kathleen Thompson presents a vivid picture of the authority and administrative efficiency of the abbesses of Caen at the beginning of the thirteenth century:

En ce temps-là, en 1230, Isabelle de Crèvecœur, nouvelle abbesse de La Trinité de Caen, fit un voyage en Bretagne pour faire hommage au roi anglais, Henri III, pour les terres anglaises de sa maison. Malgré la séparation entre la Normandie et l’Angleterre les religieuses avaient gardé ces terres et les géraient efficacement. Isabelle et ses avocats plaidèrent dans les cours anglaises et l’existence de plusieurs «surveys» des...

The relationship between kings and their sons in the High Middle Ages has been the subject of reflections by Anglophone and German scholars alike. Ralph Turner wrote in an article on Eleanor of Aquitaine: ‘Revolts by sons against the Norman dukes/kings made up a substantial portion of the family history … We can almost speak of a “Norman tradition of family hostility”.’¹ Karl-Heinrich Krüger, on the other hand, was sure that severe conflicts between father and son happened repeatedly in the Empire.² Juxtaposing these two opinions I hope makes my point as to why a comparison between different realms might...

‘Ecce quam bonum et quam iucundum habitare fratres in unum– see how good and how delightful it is for brothers to live together in unity’: thus wrote the psalmist in Psalm 132, and there is a mass of evidence suggesting that medieval monks not only agreed, but even found this verse particularly applicable to their own profession.¹ Unity, ordered communal life, was a highly desirable good, and could be sought in a variety of units: families, local communities, larger political units, but also in monastic communities, and in the universal Church. But what, in basic terms, allowed brothers to...

For over half a century historians have suggested that population growth, economic development and agricultural innovation supported and enhanced the cultural, intellectual and spiritual achievements of Benedictine monasticism and new monastic orders in late Anglo-Saxon England and Anglo-Norman Britain.¹ These developments were gradual and have provided the basis for suggesting that two Worcester cartularies fulfilled different functions. In recent years the transformation of Anglo-Saxon England has been presented within an inter-disciplinary framework which has brought together archaeology, history, numismatics, and landscape studies.² The success of the research programme has had an unintended consequence in that less attention has been given...

In an exhibition of manuscripts from Anglo-Norman England held to mark the thirty-sixth Battle Conference, the Eadwine Psalter (Trinity College, MS R.17.1) held pride of place as one of the masterpieces of Anglo-Norman book production. It was made during the mid-twelfth century by teams of scribes and artists working in collaboration at the cathedral priory of Christ Church, Canterbury,¹ and contains a triple psalter together with liturgical calendar and canticles, each psalm accompanied by a Latin psalter gloss, prologues and collects, Old English and Anglo-Norman interlinear translations, and pictorial illustration.² A decade or so after the book was completed, various...

Chronologically speaking, 1074 was in the eleventh century. But if a year matters to us as historians, it is usually because it was significant, or because it became significant at some other point in time. In terms of its significance to Anglo-Norman studies, I propose that 1074 be relocated to the twelfth century.

Years and dates are useful tools and markers for the modern historian. Several Anglo-Norman dates in particular have continued to serve as focal points and titles, most notably 1066 and 1086.¹ By 1086 the English aristocracy was mostly replaced, and the Domesday survey was completed, a document...