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‘The Site of King-Making and Consecration’: Westminster Abbey and the Crown in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2016

Emma Mason
Emma Mason*
Affiliation:
Birkbeck College, University of London
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Extract

‘From the era of its first foundation, this has been the venue for the royal consecration, the burial place of kings, and the repository of the royal insignia, and deservedly named from ancient times as the (spiritual) head of England and the diadem of the realm.’ This claim, made on behalf of Westminster Abbey by the fifteenth-century monk John Flete, is examined here with reference to its history between the reign of Edward the Confessor and that of John.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History Subsidia , Volume 9: The Church and Sovereignty c.590-1918 , 1991 , pp. 57 - 76
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1991 

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Footnotes

*

The Leverhulme Trust, the Nuffield Foundation, and the British Academy have generously funded successive phases of my work on the Westminster Abbey charters. I am grateful to the late Dr Jennifer Bray for her assistance throughout this project; to Miss Barbara Harvey, Dr Diana Greenway, Dr Jane Sayers, and Dr David Bates for their views on the documents discussed here, and to the staff of Westminster Abbey Library for much patient help.

References

1 Flete, John, The History of Westminster Abbey, ed. Robinson, J. Armitage (Cambridge, 1909), p. 63.Google Scholar

2 Rollason, D., Saints and Relics in Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, 1989), p. 137.Google Scholar

3 Binns, Alison, Dedications of Monastic Houses in England and Wales 1066—1216 (Woodbridge, 1989), pp. 20–1.Google Scholar

4 Vita Aedwardi Regis: The Life of King Edward who rests at Westminster, attributed lo a monk of St. Bertin, ed. and tr. F. Barlow (London, 1962), p. 44.

5 Harmer, Florence E., Anglo-Saxon Writs, 2nd edn (Stamford, 1989), no. 55, and pp. 243–4, 292–3. 538–9.Google Scholar

6 Ibid., pp. 294—5; Gem, R. D. H., ‘The Romanesque rebuilding of Westminster Abbey’, Proceed ings of the Battle Conference on Anglo-Norman Studies III. 1980, ed. Brown, R. Allen (Woodbridge, 1981), p. 34.Google Scholar

7 Harvey, Barbara, Westminster Abbey and its Estates in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1977), p. 27.Google Scholar

8 Vita Aedwardi Regis, pp. 44-6; Gem, ‘The Romanesque rebuilding of Westminster Abbey’, pp. 36,38,44, 46.

9 Archibald, Marion M., ‘Anglo-Saxon Coinage, Alfred to the Conquest’, in Backhouse, Janet, Turner, D. H., and Webster, Leslie, eds, The Golden Age of Anglo-Saxon Art (London, 1984), nos 229–33.Google Scholar

10 Nelson, Janet L., Politics and Ritual in Early Medieval Europe (London, 1986), pp. 390–9.Google Scholar

11 Vita Aedwardi Regis, pp. 45-6; Gem, ‘The Romanesque rebuilding of” Westminster Abbey’, pp. 36—7.

12 Gem, The Romanesque rebuilding of Westminster Abbey’, pp. 39,46—55.

13 William of Malmesbury, De Gestis Regum Anglorum, ed. W. Stubbs, 2 vols, RS (1887-9), 1 p. 280.

14 Gem, R., ‘England and the resistance to Romanesque architecture’, in Harper-Bill, C., Holdsworth, C.J., and Nelson, Janet L., eds, Studies in Medieval History presented to R. Allen Brown (Woodbridge, 1989), pp. 129–39.Google Scholar

15 Vita Aedwardi Regis, p. 40.

16 Ibid., p. 46.

17 Ibid., pp. 94, 96.

18 Ibid., pp. 46—8.

19 Chronica Abbatiae de Evesham ad annum 1418, ed. W. D. Macray, RS (1863), p. 317.

20 Vita Aedwardi Regis, f p. 50,73.

21 Mason, Emma, “Pro statu el incolumnilate regni mei”: royal monastic patronage 1066—1154’, SCH, 18 (1982), pp. 99—117.Google Scholar

22 Vita Aedwardi Regis, p. 100; ASC, ed. and tr. D. Whitelock (with D. C. Douglas and S. I. Tucker), The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a Revised Translation (London, 1061), D, E, sa 1075.

23 Ibid., E, sa 1118; See, however. The Cartulary of Holy Trinity Aldgate, ed. G. A. J. Hodgett, London Record Society, 7 (1971), nos 13,997.

24 Harvey, Westminster Abbey and ils Estates, pp. 27—8.

25 The Heads of Religious Houses, England and Wales, 940-1216, ed. D. Knowles, C. N. L. Brooke, and Vera C. M. London (Cambridge, 1972), p. 76; Gem, The Romanesque rebuilding of Westminster Abbey’, p. 37; Scholz, B. H., ‘Sulcard of Westminster: “Prologus de Construccione Westmonasterii”‘, Traditio, 20 (1064), p. 60.Google Scholar

26 Westminster Abbey Charters 1066-c.1214, ed. Emma Mason, assisted by the late Jennifer Bray, continuing the work of the late Murphy, D.J., London Record Society, 25 (1088), nos 2—3, 13.Google Scholar

27 Heads of Religious Houses, p. 76; Flete, The History ofWestminster Abbey, p. 84.

28 RR, 1, no.91.

29 Mabillon, J., Vetera Analecta, ed. Barre, L. F. J. de la, new edn (Paris, 1723, republished Farnborough, 1967), p. 450Google Scholar. I am grateful to Dr David Bates for his comments on this text, and for his information that it is transcribed from an early twelfth-century liturgical manuscript from Fecamp. The two letters written by Abbot John in response to that of the King are printed by Mabillon, ibid., pp. 450—1, and all three are also printed in PL 147, cols 463—6.

30 Scholz, ‘Sulcard of Westminster’, pp. 60, 80.

31 Vita Aedwardi Regis, pp. xiv and n. 3, xliv—xlv, lxi, 91-2; Gransden, Antonia, Historical Writing in England cao to c.1307 (London, 1974), pp. 56, 58, 63–4.Google Scholar

32 Scholz, ‘Sulcard of Westminster’, pp. 80—1.

33 Ibid., pp. 69, 90—1.

34 Ibid., pp. 71—2. For Edward’s lifetime healings and visionary experience, see Vita Aedwardi Regis, pp. 61-3,75-6; and for early addenda, ibid., pp. 64—0.

35 Scholz, ‘Sulcard of Westminster’, pp. 64,66.

36 Ridyard, Susan J., ‘Condigna Venerano: Post-Conquest attitudes to the saints of the Anglo-Saxons’, Anglo-Norman Studies IX. Proceedings of lhe Battle Conference 1986, ed. Brown, R. Allen (Woodbridge, 1987), pp. 179—206.Google Scholar

37 Vita Aedwardi Regis, pp. xvi-xviii.

38 Scholz, ‘Sulcard of Westminster’, p. 90 and n. 3.

39 Ibid., pp. 61,72-4,82-5,87-9.

40 Vita Aedwardi Regis, p. 113.

41 Ibid., pp. 61—74; Barlow, F., Edward the Confessor (London, 1970), pp. 257–63.Google Scholar

42 Vita Aedwardi Regis, pp. 113—15.

43 Westminster Abbey Charters, nos 238—40.

44 Stubbs, W., Select Charters and other Illustrations of English Constitutional History, 9th edn rev. Davis, H. W. C. (Oxford, 1913), pp. 116–19, clauses 5,9,13.Google Scholar

45 Ridyard, Susan J., The Royal Saints of Anglo-Saxon England (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 140–75.Google Scholar

46 Vita Aedwardi Regis, pp. lxix-lxx; Barlow, F., The Norman Conquest and Beyond (London, 1983), pp. 23—47.Google Scholar

47 Vita Aedwardi Regis, pp. 61–2; Heffernan, T. J., Sacred Biography: Saints and their Biographers in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1988), pp. 5—6.Google Scholar

48 Gransden, Antonia, ‘Baldwin, abbot of Bury St Edmunds, 1065-1097’, Proceedings of the Battle Conference on Anglo-Norman Studies IV. 1981, ed. Brown, R. Allen (Woodbridge, 1982), pp. 68—71.Google Scholar

49 The literary portrayal of Edward in the Vita Aedwardi Regis, p. 12, should be compared with his visual depiction in the Bayeux Tapestry: Bernstein, D. J., The Mystery of the Bayeux Tapestry (London, 1986)Google Scholar, plates I, XXVIII, and XXX. But see also Barlow, Edward the Confessor, pp. 70, 71 and n. 1. On the likelihood that the Tapestry derived visual motifs from St Augustine’s, see Brooks, N. P. and Walker, H. E., ‘The authority and interpretation of the Bayeux Tapestry’, Proceedings of the Battle Conference on Anglo-Norman Studies 1.1978, ed. Brown, R. Allen (Ipswich and Totava, 1979), pp. 13—15.Google Scholar

50 Bernstein, The Mystery of the Bayeux Tapestry, plate XXIX.

51 Brown, Shirley Ann, ‘The Bayeux Tapestry: why Eustace, Odo and William?’, Anglo-Norman Studies XII. Proceedings of the Battle Conference 1989, ed. Chibnall, Marjorie (Woodbridge, 1990), pp. 25–6.Google Scholar

52 Scholz, B. W., ‘Two forged charters from the Abbey of Westminster and their Relationship with St Denis’, EHR, 76 (1961), pp. 466–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

53 Ibid., pp. 468-78; Westminster Abbey Charters, no. 57.

54 Mason, ‘ “Pro statu et incolumnitate regni mei” ‘, pp. 99—117.

55 Mason, Emma, ‘Westminster Abbey and the monarchy between the reigns of William 1 and John (1066—1216)’, JEH, 41 (1990), p. 201 and nn. 9—10.Google Scholar

56 RR, 1, no. 91.

57 Scholz, Two forged charters’, p. 473; Vita Aeduiardi Regis, p. 115 and nn. 3—4.

58 Vita Aedwardi Regis, pp. 115—16; Flete, The History of Westminster Abbey, pp. 71—2.

59 Vita Aedwardi Regis, p. 117.

60 Westminster Abbey Charters, no. 161; Harvey, Barbara, ‘Abbot Gervase de Blois and the Fee-Farms of Westminster Abbey’, BZHR, 40 (1967), pp. 128–9.Google Scholar

61 Flete, The History of Westminster Abbey, pp. 71—2.

62 Vita Aedwardi Regis, p. 93.

63 Westminster Abbey Charters, no. 58.

64 Biddle, M., ‘Seasonal festivals and residence: Winchester, Westminster and Gloucester in the tenth to twelfth centuries’, in Anglo-Norman Studies VIII. Proceedings of the Battle Conference 198), ed. Brown, R. Allen (Woodbridge, 1986), pp. 51—72.Google Scholar

65 Westminster Abbey Charters, pp. 10—12.

66 Chaplais, P., ‘The Original Charters of Herbert and Gervase, abbots of Westminster (1121-1157)’, in Barnes, Patricia M. and Slade, C. F., eds, A Medieval Miscellany for Doris Mary Stento = Pipe Roll Society, ns 36 (London, 1962), pp. 91–4Google Scholar; Westminster Abbey Charters, nos 1, 14-15, 33, 43, and pp. 321—2.

67 Westminster Abbey Charters, no. 77. The full text is most readily accessible in Mon Angl, 1, p. 308, no. 52.

68 Westminster Abbey Charters, no. 76 (full text printed by Robinson, J. Armitage, Gilbert Crispin, Abbot of Westminster = Notes and Documents relating to Westminster Abbey, no. 3 (Cambridge, 1911), pp. 163–4)Google Scholar, and no. 78 (full text printed Mon Angl, 1, p.307).

69 Westminster Abbey Charters, nos 62-3,74.

70 Ibid., nos 62—3.

71 Ibid., no. 79.

72 Ibid., nos 187—8.

73 Ibid., no. 187.

74 Ibid., no. 189.

75 Ibid., no. 57.

76 Ibid., nos no, 123, 140. For discussion of the grounds on which such charters might be presumed genuine, see R. Mortimer, The Charters of Henry II: what are the criteria for authenticity?’ Anglo-Norman Studies XII, pp. 119—34.

77 RR, 2, appendix 1; cal. Westminster Abbey Charters, no. 57.

78 Ibid., no. 97.

79 Brooke, C. N. L and Keir, Gillian, London Soo-1216: the Shaping of a City (London, 1975), pp. 32, 99—100, 315–23, 334.Google Scholar

80 Westminster Abbey Charters, no. 79.

81 Reading Abbey Cartularies, 1. ed. B. R. Kemp, CSer, 31 (1986), pp. 13-19, and nos 1—7.

82 The Acts of Malcolm IV King of Scots 1133-1165, ed. G. W. S. Barrow, Regesta Regum Scottorum, 1 (Edinburgh, 1960), no. 319; calendared Westminster Abbey Charters, no. 160.

83 Harvey, ‘Abbot Gervase de Blois and the Fee-Farms of Westminster Abbey’, pp. 128—9.

84 Westminster Abbey Charters, nos 99—104.

85 Ibid., no. 158; Scholz, B. W., “The Canonization of Edward the Confessor’, Speculum, 36 (1961), pp. 38—49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

86 The Letters of Osbert of Clare, Prior of Westminster, ed. E. W. Williamson (London, 1929), pp. 17—18; Barlow, Edward the Confessor, pp. 275—6.

87 William of Malmesbury, The Historia Novella, ed. and tr. K. R. Potter (London, 195 5), pp. 25—34.

88 Stubbs, Select Charters, p. 142.

89 Mason, ‘Pro statu el incolumnitate regni mei’, pp. 111—17.

90 RR, 3, no. 751.

91 Westminster Abbey Charters, no. 109.

92 Davis, R. H. C., King Stephen 1135-1154, 3rd edn (Harlow, 1990), pp. 108–24.Google Scholar

93 RR, 3, no. 938; Westminster Abbey Charters, no. 118.

94 Westminster Abbey Charters, nos 110—11, 119—21.

95 RR, 3, no. 928; Westminster Abbey Charters, no. no.110

96 Westminster Abbey Charters, no. 197.

97 Scholz, The canonization of Edward die Confessor’, pp. S3, 55—6.

98 Ibid., pp. 56—9.

99 Westminster Abbey Charters, no. 123.

100 Ibid., no. 126.

101 Ibid., no. 138.

102 Ibid., no. 140.

103 Ibid., nos 141—51. See particularly the notes to nos 149 and 151.

104 Mason, Emma, ‘St Wulfstan’s staff: a legend and its uses’, Medium Aevum, 53 (1984), pp. 157–60, 162.Google Scholar

105 Ibid., p. 171. See also Wander, S. H., ‘The Westminster Abbey Sanctuary Pavement’, Traditio, 34 (1978), pp. 137–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

106 Widmore, R., An Enquiry into the Time of the First Foundation of Westminster Abbey (London, 1743), p. 11.Google Scholar