Introduction

In the second half of the twelfth century a number of Benedictine houses in England compiled histories of their own communities. This trend was particularly pronounced in the Fenlands, where three important abbeys – Ely, Peterborough, and Ramsey – produced house-histories at almost exactly the same time. These house chronicles do not seem to have enjoyed wide circulation. The manuscripts of these texts seem to have stayed within the monastic precincts, and there is little or no sign of their being consulted by outsiders. Not unreasonably, most historians have assumed that these texts were intended primarily for the monks themselves, and indeed, house histories were certainly designed to address the internal concerns of the monastic community. Nevertheless, a close look at these texts reveals that they include another dimension. They contain evidence of efforts the communities were making in the twelfth century to reach out to the wider lay community, and, if I may push my argument a little bit, I think the chronicles themselves were intended to serve as a repository of knowledge that would equip the brothers (or at least the most prominent among them) to meet the outside world on terms advantageous to themselves. This appeal to the past was intimately linked to a whole campaign of lay outreach that promoted the abbey through the writing of hagiographic texts, the physical reconfiguration of shrines and the active solicitation of donations associated with various forms of monastic services rendered, from supernatural cures to burial within the abbey precincts, and even, in one case, local public works.