Barbara H Rosenwein The Many Families of Aelred of Rievaulx

Journal of Medieval Monastic Studies, 2019

This article is an inventory and discussion of the interaction between monks, nuns, and their secular kin in the monastic rules produced between the fifth and the eighth centuries, from Egypt to Cappadocia, Italy, Spain, as well as southern and northern Gaul. It begins with admission into the community and moves inwards from contact with one’s kin outside the monastery to the relationship between family members inside the monastery. Though its results are preliminary, this survey demonstrates a significant amount of interaction between the monastery and the secular family, thus reaffirming the centrality of kinship to the monastic project.

Heresy and the Making of European Culture: medieval and modern perspectives, 2013

Historical Research, 2019

In a close prosopographical examination of the five 'great' aristocratic families of tenth-and eleventh-century England, as pieced together by a study of contemporary charters, wills, chronicles and saints' vitae , this article will show that they all appear to have followed similar familial strategies which focused on obtaining political and social standing through secular office alone. Overall, the young men of such kin groups did not enter the Church as an alternative career path to political power. This fresh look at familial strategies reveals more about the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy as a whole including possible insights into group self-perception. In 965 AEthelwine, 1 ealdorman of East Anglia, approached Bishop Oswald of Worcester, received a blessing, and afterwards the two men spoke together 'concerning the salvation of their souls'. 2 During this discussion AEthelwine offered land in his ealdordom to the future archbishop of York. This site would become Ramsey abbey. In addition to co-founding Ramsey, Ealdorman AEthelwine and his family endowed the monastery and other reformed abbeys with multiple estates during the tenth century. After King Edgar's death in 975, AEthelwine and his brother, AElfwold, acted as protectors of the reformed foundations against the 'anti-monastic' reaction. 3 AEthelwine's support and protection of the movement earned him the nickname Dei amicus. 4 Yet both his generosity towards and relationship with the Church need to be read in light of his wider familial and cultural background. The purpose of this article is to argue that men like AEthelwine, who reached or were in reach of ealdorman status, viewed 1 Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England <http://www.pase.ac.uk/index.html> [accessed 22 Nov. 2018] (hereafter P.A.S.E.), AEthelwine 2. 2 Byrhtferth of Ramsey, The Lives of St Oswald and St Ecgwine , ed. and trans. M. Lapidge (Oxford, 2009), pp. 84-7 (pt. iii, §14) 'petens eius benedictionis gratiam … Qui, accepta benedictione, pacifice locuti sunt invicem … Plurima inter se locuti sunt de salute animarum'; see Chronicon Abbatiae Rameseiensis (hereafter Chron. Rames .), ed. W. D. Macray (Rolls ser., 1886), bk. i, ch. 2. 3 P.A.S.E., AElfwold 42; P. Stafford, 'The reign of AEthelred II, a study in the limitations on royal policy and action', British Archaeological Reports, British Series , lix (1978), 15-46, at p. 23. Stafford discussed how the 'anti-monastic' reaction has been misnamed and suggested that many of the men who reclaimed lands from certain monasteries were actually major patrons and protectors of other reformed foundations. 4 The Chronicle of John of Worcester , ii: Annals from 450 to 1066 , ed. and trans. R. R. Darlington (Oxford, 1995), s.a. 991.There are no contemporary documents that call AEthelwine dei amicus but Cyril Hart has suggested that it is very unlikely that John of Worcester created this nickname. Rather it is probably a translation or mistranslation of a vernacular by-name (see C. R. Hart, 'Aethelstan "Half-King" and his family', Anglo-Saxon England , ii (1973), 115-44, at p. 138).

I n the famous Life of Odo of Cluny, written by John of Salerno around 943, a long passage explains how, and especially why, Odo chose the monastery where he became monk : it was not simply a matter of finding a monastery that followed assiduously the Rule of Benedict of Nursia, but first and foremost one that had the right monastic customs (consuetudines). At the time, Odo was still a secular canon in Tours ; he had a companion with similar spiritual aspirations, a layman called Adhegrinus. I have marked by expanded spacing the words of particular significance for this article. For wherever they could hear of a monastery anywhere in France they either visited it themselves or sent investigators, but nowhere could they find a religious house in which they felt inclined to remain. At last Adhegrinus decided to go to Rome, and having started on his journey, he came into Burgundy, and to a certain village called Baume. In this place there was a monastery which had recently been restored by the abbot Berno. Adhegrinus turned aside there and was received by the abbot into the guesthouse most hospitably, as St Benedict laid down. And there for some time he chose to stay as a guest ; not that he wanted anything from the monks, but that he might get to know their way of life and the customs of the place (mores habitantium locique consuetudines). For those who dwelt in this place were the followers of a cer tain Eut icus (imitatores cujusdam patris Eutici), the excellence of whose life there is no need for me to relate in this book, though later on I have thought it well to recall the death he merited to die. This Euticus lived at the time of the great Emperor Louis, and was well-loved by him, as he was by all, for he was an attractive character. As a layman (laicus) he was learned in unusual studies (peregrinis studiis), but giving up all those things in which human weakness is accustomed to take pride, he devoted himself entirely to the rules and institutions of the holy Fathers (beatorum Patrum regulis et institutionibus) ; and from these author it ies he took var ious customs (consuetudines) and collected them in one volume. After a little time he became himself a monk, and he was so esteemed by the king that a monastery was built for him in the palace. When his life had run its course he gave up his spirit in the presence of the brethren […Here follows a miracle related to his death…]. This Euticus was the founder of the customs (institutor […] harum consuetudinum) which to this day are kept in our monaster ies. When the venerable Adhegrinus understood this, he sent word immediately to Odo, who, taking a hundred volumes from his library, went at once to the same monastery. " 1

This paper sets Bishop Walter de Cantilupe (d. 1266) and St Thomas, bishop of Hereford (d. 1288) in their context as family men, looking at ways to reconstruct their personalities through interactions with their kin. It also considers the difficulties of such a task, taking into account the bias of sources available to us, and the possible reasons behind posthumously projected personalities.

The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 2009

Church History, 2011

Why did the medieval West condemn clerical marriage as an abomination while the Byzantine Church affirmed its sanctifying nature? This book brings together ecclesiastical, legal, social, and cultural history in order to examine how Byzantine and Western medieval ecclesiastics made sense of their different rules of clerical continence.