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Continental influence at Bath monastery in the seventh century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Patrick Sims-Williams
Patrick Sims-Williams
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The University of Birmingham
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Extract

Referring to the reign of Eorcenberht of Kent, 640–64, Bede writes: At that time, because there were not yet many monasteries founded in England, numbers of people from Britain used to enter the monasteries of the Franks or Gauls to practise the monastic life; they also sent their daughters to be taught in them and to be wedded to the heavenly bridegroom. They mostly went to the monasteries at Brie, Chelles and Andelys-sur-Seine…

Type
Research Article
Information
Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 4 , December 1975 , pp. 1 - 10
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975

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References

page 1 note 1 Bede's, Ecclesiastical History of the English People (hereafter HE), ed. Colgrave, B. and Mynors, R. A. B. (Oxford, 1969) 111.8Google Scholar. The three monasteries lay in the Seine and Marne valleys in the vicinity of Paris. Other abbreviations used in the course of this article are: BCS = Cartularium Saxonicum, ed. Walter de, G. Birch (London, 1885–1893)Google Scholar; EHD = English Historical Documents c. 500–1042, ed. Whitelock, Dorothy (London, 1955)Google Scholar; Sawyer, = Sawyer, P. H., Anglo-Saxon Charters: an Annotated List and Bibliography (London, 1968)Google Scholar. BCS and Sawyer are cited by number not by page.

page 1 note 2 HE III.8 and IV.23.

page 1 note 3 ‘The First Century of Christianity in England’, Ampleforth Jnl 76 (1971), 16.

page 1 note 4 I have in hand a study of the monastic culture of the West Midlands and the Welsh border. I am indebted to Mr David Rollason and Dr Hunter Blair for two references. DrTaylor, H. M. referred me to the article by Beat Brenk cited below and very kindly lent me his copy of the Marquise de Maillé's Les Cryptes de Jouarre (Paris, 1971).Google Scholar

page 1 note 5 Ed. James, J. W. (Cardiff, 1967), c., 13Google Scholar; discussed by Wade-Evans, A. W., Life of St David (London, 1923), pp. 80–3.Google Scholar

page 2 note 1 Smith, A. H., ‘The Hwicce’, Medieval and Linguistic Studies in Honor of F. P. Magoun, Jr, ed. Bessinger, J. B. and Creed, R. P. (London, 1965), pp. 56–65.Google Scholar

page 2 note 2 BCS 43; Sawyer, 51 – best edited by William, Hunt, Two Chartularies of the Priory of St Peter at Bath, Somerset Record Soc. (1893), no. 1.7, pp. 6–7Google Scholar. ‘Bretanae’ in James, M. R., A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Corpus Christi College Cambridge (Cambridge, 1912)Google Scholar is an error. Quotations have been checked against the manuscript. Abbreviations have been expanded. Kenneth, Harrison (‘The Annus Domini in some Early Charters’, Jnl of the Soc. of Archivists 4 (1970–1973), 553)Google Scholar has established the date of Osric's charter; previous writers had thought the AD dating and the indiction disagreed. I regret that I had already completed this article before noticing Mr Harrison's valuable discussion of BCS 43, in which he concludes that ‘there is a case for thinking that a genuine charter underlies it’ (p. 554). To demonstrate the authentic basis of BCS 43, he also notes the similarity between the sanctions and attestations of Leuthere in this charter and in BCS 107, without, however, extending the comparison to other charters. His comparison of the dispositive clauses of the two charters and his defence of the anno recapitulationis Dionysii dating clause of BCS 43 deserve especial mention. His defence of the verbose, quasi-historical proem of BCS 43 is more questionable, particularly the argument based upon the suggestion that ‘the text of the charter implies a fairly recent relapse into heathenism’ (p. 553). Charles, Plummer (Venerabilis Baedae Opera Historica (Oxford, 1896) 11, 247)Google Scholar suggested that this proem was inspired by the text of Bede.

page 2 note 3 See the forms quoted by Ernst, Förstemann, Altdeutsches Namenbuch I: Personennamen (Bonn, 1900), cols. 281–2Google Scholar, and Christopher, Wells, ‘An Orthographic Approach to Early Frankish Personal Names’, TPS 1972, 101–64 (Index Nominum, 153)Google Scholar. Marie-Thérèse, Morlet (Les Noms de Personne sur le Territoire de l' Ancienne Gaule du VIe au XIIe Siècle (Paris, 1968–1972) 1, 55)Google Scholar says that the element BERT- ‘est très fréquent dans les noms franciques, mais selon Meyer-Lübke, Rom. Nam. 1, 20 [Meyer-Lübke, W., Romanische Namenstudien, Sitzungsberichte der kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, phil.-hist. Klasse 149.2 and 184.4 (Vienna, 1905–1917)Google Scholar], il est rare dans les noms gotiques’.

page 2 note 4 William, Searle, Onomasticon Anglo-Saxonicum (Cambridge, 1897), pp. 88, 104 and 543.Google Scholar

page 2 note 5 The Oldest English Texts, ed. Henry, Sweet, Early Eng. Text Soc. o.s. 83 (London, 1885), 154.Google Scholar

page 2 note 6 Thorvald, Forssner (Continental Germanic Personal Names in England in Old and Middle English Times (Uppsala, 1916), p. 46, n. 5)Google Scholar equates her with Æthelberht's queen. He also comments that ‘the occurrence of this name in England will mostly be due to its having been borne by [her]’ (p. 47). This hypothesis does not seem very likely. If the Anglo-Saxons named their children according to fashions of this sort – and Forssner advances no evidence that they did – one might expect more occurrences of the name than one, and occurrences nearer to Kent than Bath is. Moreover we should not assume that the queen was famous outside Kentish circles because she appears historically significant to us as readers of Bede. (The Durham entry is, of course, later than Bede.) The names of the other women cited by Forssner occur in the post-Conquest portions of the Durham Liber Vitae, in post-Conquest contexts, and are obviously OF Berte.

page 3 note 1 Finberg, H. P. R., The Early Charters of the West Midlands, 2nd ed. (Leicester, 1972), p. 174Google Scholar, citing BCS 282, Sawyer 268. The significance of this similarity is minimized by K. Harrison, ‘The Annus Domini in some Early Charters’, p. 553.

page 3 note 2 Hunt, , Chartularies, no. 1.8, pp. 7–8Google Scholar; BCS 57; Sawyer 1167; EHD no. 57. The other seventh-century charter (Hunt, Chartularies, no. 1.6, p. 6; BCS 28; Sawyer 1168) contains internal contradictions and seems in part to be modelled on the genuine charter. If' loco… Slaepi' in it is rightly identified with Islip on the Cherwell (Preparatory to ‘Anglo-Saxon England’, being the Collected Papers of Frank Merry Stenton, ed. Stenton, D. M. (Oxford, 1970), p. 225Google Scholar; Sawyer 1168), it may have been produced as a geographically more specific version of the Cherwell grant. At a synod held in Bath in 864 Burgred of Mercia granted land at Water Eaton to the bishop of Worcester (BCS 509; Sawyer 210; cf. Sawyer 402). Water Eaton adjoins Islip on the Cherwell. If Burgred was in fact disposing of some Bath estates along the Cherwell, this might be the occasion for fabricating the Islip charter in its present form.

page 3 note 3 Since it occurs in the Bath cartulary. The agreement of the names Berta and Folcburg noted below confirms this presumption.

page 3 note 4 Förstemann, Personennamen, col. 549.

page 3 note 5 Hunt, Chartularies, p. xxxvi.

page 3 note 6 Searle, Onomasticon, p. 99. The name Burnegundis, for which Förstemann (Personennamen, col. 269), found two examples in the early-ninth-century Polyptych of St Germain-des-Prés, is hardly this name; nor, as Forssner (Continental Germanic Personal Names, p. 282) points out, is Bernoidis in the ninth-century Polyptych of Rheims (Förstemann, Personennamen, col. 272).

page 3 note 7 Campbell, Cf. A., Old English Grammar (Oxford, 1959), §§42 and 199.Google Scholar

page 3 note 8 Stenton, , ‘St Frideswide and her Times’, Preparatory to ‘Anglo-Saxon England’, p. 228Google Scholar, and Philibert, Schmitz, Histoire de l'Ordre de Saint Benoît (Maredsous, 1942–1956) VII, 47–8Google Scholar. On double monasteries in general see ibid. 1, 298–300 and references.

page 3 note 9 Vita Bertilae, ed. Wilhelm, Levison, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Script. Rer. Merov. 6, 96.Google Scholar

page 4 note 1 Ibid. c. 6.

page 4 note 2 Ibid. p. 99.

page 4 note 3 Wilhelm, Levison, England and the Continent in the Eighth Century (Oxford, 1946), p. 132, n. 2Google Scholar; Finberg, West Midlands, p. 209; and J. Campbell, ‘First Century of Christianity’, p. 21. (On the abbess Liobsynd(a) in ‘St Muldburg's Testament’ mentioned by these last, cf. Whitelock's, D. caution (ASE 1 (1972), 12)Google Scholar: ‘nothing is known of this abbess’.) Jean, Guerout (‘Les Origines et le Premier Siècle de l'Abbaye’, L'Abbaye Royale de Notre-Dame de Jouarre, ed. Chaussy, Yves et al. (Paris, 1961) I, 48, n. 9)Google Scholar believes that the writer of the Vita Bertilae used earlier documents.

page 4 note 4 On the shifting boundary see Hart, C., ‘The Tribal Hidage’, TRHS 5th ser. 21 (1971), 149–50Google Scholar; but note that the reliability of many of the charters used is doubtful.

page 4 note 5 HE 111.7. On the chronology see Plummer, , Baedae Opera Historica, 11, 144–8.Google Scholar

page 4 note 6 No bishop of Worcester attests the 675 charter. The date 679 for the foundation of the see is first given by two related sources, the Appendix to Florence of Worcester, ed. Henry, Petrie and Sharpe, J., Monumenta Historica Britannica (London, 1848), p. 622Google Scholar (cf. Arthur, Haddan and William, Stubbs, Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents relating to Great Britain and Ireland (Oxford, 1869–1871) 111, 327–8Google Scholar) and an early-twelfth-century tract, Monasticon Anglicanum, ed. William, Dugdale, re-ed. Caley, J. et al. (London, 1846) 1, 607.Google Scholar

page 4 note 7 Taylor, C. S., ‘Bath, Mercian and West Saxon’, Trans. of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeol. Soc. 23 (1900), 235–6Google Scholar; Finberg, West Midlands, p. 173. Bishop Hæddi who succeeded Leuthere in 676 also attests. Taylor suggests that both signatures appear because arrangements for the foundation spanned the change of bishop; Finberg suggests that ‘Hædde may well have been consecrated as an assistant bishop while Leutherius was still alive’. (For early parallels see Haddan and Stubbs, Councils 111, 301, and Colgrave and Mynors, Bede, ‘HE’, p. 144, n. 2; for later ones see Pierre, Chaplais, ‘The Authenticity of the Royal Anglo-Saxon Diplomas of Exeter’, Bull. of the Inst. of Hist. Research 39 (1966), 27–8.)Google Scholar Another possibility is that episcopus after Hæddi's name was added later from hind-sight. This is also suggested by Harrison, ‘The Annus Domini in some Early Charters’, p. 553. The possible connection suggested by Harrison between Bishop Wilfrid, who attests, and the use of AD dating is another point in favour of the witness-list; Brooks, cf. Nicholas, ‘Anglo-Saxon Charters: the Work of the Last Twenty Years’, ASE 3(1974), 225 and n. I.Google Scholar

page 5 note 1 Cf. ‘quamuis indignus’ in the autograph of St Willibrord, The Calendar of St Willibrord, ed. Wilson, H. A., Henry, Bradshaw Soc. 55(London, 1918), 39vGoogle Scholar, and Lowe, E. A., Codices Latini Antiquiores (Oxford, 1934–1972) v, no. 606aGoogle Scholar. On the frequency of indignus in scribal signatures see Meyvaert, P., RB 71 (1961), 283–4Google Scholar; for examples of indignus in documents not concerning Leuthere see Harrison, ‘The Annus Domini in some Early Charters’, p. 554, n. 20.

page 5 note 2 BCS 37; Sawyer 1245; Aldhelmi Opera, ed. Ehwald, R., MGH, Auct. Antiq. 15, 507–9.Google Scholar

page 5 note 3 BCS 107; Sawyer 1164; EHD no. 55.

page 5 note 4 ‘Et hoc quod repetit, vindicare non valeat.’ Pierre, Chaplais (‘The Origin and Authenticity of the Royal Anglo-Saxon Diploma’, Jnl of be Soc. of Archivists 3 (1965–1969), 55)Google Scholar describes the clause as ‘of continental and probably Frankish origin’. He notes that it occurs elsewhere in England only in a grant by Edward the Confessor to Leofric (Sawyer 1003), where it may be attributable to Leofric's Lotharingian upbringing (‘Diplomas of Exeter’, p. 26).

page 5 note 5 England and the Continent, pp. 226–8; EHD, p. 441; and Stenton, F. M., The Latin Charters of the Anglo-Saxon Period (Oxford, 1955), pp. 23–4Google Scholar. Chaplais (‘Origin and Authenticity’, pp. 55–6) is non-committal.

page 6 note 1 ‘Quodsi quis haec scripta et decreta nostrae definitionis [variants: diffinitionis; et definita et decreta nostra] irrita facere nitetur sciant se ante tribunal Christi rationem redditurum’ (Aldbelmi Opera, ed. Ehwald, , p. 509Google Scholar).

page 6 note 2 ‘Si quis vero contra hæc nostræ diffinitionis decreta propriæ temeritatis pertinacia fretus violenter venire nisus fuerit. noverit se in tremendo ultimæ discussionis examine coram judice Christo æqua discretionis lance singulorum facta librante rationem redditurum’ (BCS 100; Sawyer 239). Chaplais's comment on this charter is mistakenly quoted under Sawyer 243.

page 6 note 3 Levison, , England and the Continent, pp. 227–8Google Scholar; EHD, pp. 341–2; and Chaplais, ‘Origin and Authenticity’, p. 55 (‘probably to be also attributed to continental influence’).

page 6 note 4 ‘Si quis ergo diffinitionem hanc a me factam una, concorditer, canonice et ecclesiastice a rege Ini, necnon ab episcopo Daniele roboratam, irritam facere temptaverit, sciat se coram Christo rationem redditurum’ (BCS 29; Sawyer 1179).

page 6 note 5 ‘Quicunque uero sequentium regum aut principum aut aliquis seculari fretus potestate hęc nostrę definitionis scripta irrita facere quod absit nisus fuerit. sciat se in presenti uita domini benedictione esse priuatum. et in nouissimo maledictione subiacere. ut a consortio sit separatus sanctorum et cum impiis et peccatoribus flammis ultricibus esse damnandum. excepto si digna satisfactione emendare curauerint quod iniqua temeritate deprauarunt’ (Charters of Rothester, ed. Campbell, A., Anglo-Saxon Charters 1 (London, 1973), no. 6, pp. 7–8Google Scholar; BCS 195; Sawyer 105). Stanton (‘The Anglo-Saxon Coinage and the Historian’, Preparatory to ‘Anglo-Saxon England’, p. 381) notes that ‘it contains ancient formulas which we get in earlier Kentish charters – formulas brought, as I would think, by Archbishop Theodore from the continent’.

page 6 note 6 Grosjean, P., ‘La Date du Colloque de Whitby’, AB 78 (1960), 250–2 and 269–71Google Scholar; Guerout, ‘Lea Origines’, pp. 38–9, 45 and 51–3; and Marquise de, Maillé, Les Cryptes de Jouarre (Paris, 1971), pp. 74–7.Google Scholar

page 6 note 7 Guerout, ‘Les Origines’, pp. 11 and 33 and Marquise de, Maillé, Les Cryptes de Jonarre, p. 70.Google Scholar

page 6 note 8 Guerout, ‘Les Origines’, p. 52.

page 6 note 9 Ibid. pp. 11 and 47 and Marquise de, Maillé, Les Cryptes de Jouarre, pp. 77–8.Google Scholar

page 6 note 10 Guerout, ‘Les Origines’, pp. 23 and 38.

page 7 note 1 So Grosjean, ‘La Date du Colloque de Whitby’, p. 270. He thinks Agilbert may have been consecrated bishop in Ireland, but it is equally likely that he had already been consecrated ‘évêque pérégrin’ in Gaul as Guerout (‘Les Origines’, p. 45 and n. 54) thinks.

page 7 note 2 See HE IV. 1 and Guerout, ‘Les Origines’, p. 51.

page 7 note 3 Guerout, ‘Les Origines’, pp. 51 and 38–9; Jean, Hubert, Let Cryptes de Jouarre (Melun, 1952), pp. 4 and 7Google Scholar. The doctrine that the present crypt is a twelfth-century enlargement of a Merovingian original has been questioned by Jean, Coquet, Pour une Nouvelle Date de ía Crypte Saint-Paul de Jouarre (Ligugé, 1970)Google Scholar. Dom Coquet argues that the crypt was constructed in Carolingian times, in part from Merovingian materials whose provenance cannot be proved. ‘Certes [les chapiteaux] peuvent avoir appartenu, ainsi que les colonnes, à un décor plaqué de l'ancien sanctuaire… mais ils peuvent tout aussi bien avoir des origines diverses et partant des temps d'exécution différents' (p. 31). His scepticism is not shared by the Marquise de Maillé, who argues that the crypt is an eighth-century enlargement of the original mausoleum built by Agilbert (Les Cryptes de Jouarre, esp. pp. 145, 151, 267 and n. 1, and 274–5).

page 7 note 4 HE 111. 7.

page 7 note 5 Guerout, ‘Les Origines’, pp. 6, 34–9 and 46, and Levison, , Vita Berlilae, pp. 96–7.Google Scholar

page 7 note 6 Guerout, ‘Les Origines’, pp. 38 and 47–8; Levison, , Vita Bertilae, pp. 95–6 and c. 4Google Scholar; Marquise de, Maillé, Les Cryples de Jouarre, pp. 49–50 and 72–3Google Scholar; and Vita S. Balthildis, ed. Krusch, B., MGH, Script. Rer. Merov. 2, 475–508, cc. 7–8Google Scholar. On Balthild see Levison, , England and tbe Continent, pp. 9–10 and references.Google Scholar

page 8 note 1 See above, p. 4.

page 8 note 2 Levison, , Vita Bertilae, pp. 96–7Google Scholar; Bernhard, Bischoff, Mittelalterliche Studien (Stuttgart, 1966–1967) 1, 16–34Google Scholar; and Lowe, Codices Latini Antiquiores vi, xxii.

page 8 note 3 HE 111. 7.

page 8 note 4 ‘La Date du Colloque de Whitby’, p. 270.

page 8 note 5 HE 111. 25 and iv. 1.

page 8 note 6 See Jean, Hubert et al. , Europe in the Dark Ages (L'Europe des Invasions), trans. Gilbert, S. and Emmons, J. (London, 1969), pls. 77–91.Google Scholar

page 8 note 7 E.g. Aubert, M., L' Abbaye Royale de Notre Dame de Jouarre, ed. Chaussy, et al. , p. viiGoogle Scholar. The Marquise de Maillé (Les Cryptes de Jonarre, pp. 213–15, 273–4 and 281) speculates on Contact between Agilbert and Theodore as a possible channel of influence between Jouarre and England.

page 8 note 8 Les Cryptes de Jouarre, p. 7. Beat, Brenk (‘Marginalien zum sogenannten Sarkophag des Agilbert in Jouarre’, Cahiers Archéologiques 14 (1964), 106)Google Scholar: ‘Mit diesem orientalischen Impuls stehen auch die angelsächsischen Steinkreuze von Ruthwell und Bewcastle in engstem Zusammenhang.’ The doubt implied in Brenk's title is dispelled by the Marquise de, Maillé (Les Cryptes de Jouarre, pp. 201–3)Google Scholar. Francis, Salet (Bulletin Monumental 128 (1970), 136)Google Scholar mistakenly quotes Dom Coquet as redating Agilbert's tomb to the ninth Century. In fact Coquet does not question the traditional dating; the redating concerns the tomb of Agilberte. A seventh-century date for Agilbert's tomb is supported by Brenk and by the Marquise de Maillé (pp. 203–6).

page 8 note 9 Hunt, , Chartularies, no. 1.19, pp. 23–4Google Scholar; BCS 327; Sawyer 265.

page 8 note 10 It has been argued that the charter has suffered ‘improvement’, Cynewulf of Wessex being confused with Cynewulf of Mercia (as in the abstract in Hunt, Chartularies, no. 11.808, p. 153), because of the date given; see Hunt, Chartularies, p. xxxiv and Sawyer 265. However the date is more simply explained as a misreading of DCCLVIII as DCCCVIII.

page 8 note 11 BCS 241; Sawyer 1257; EHD no. 77.

page 9 note 1 BCS 154; Sawyer 89; EHD no. 67. Cf. Sawyer 1826.

page 9 note 2 BCS 220; Sawyer 1411. Cf. Taylor, ‘Bath, Mercian and West Saxon’, p. 139.

page 9 note 3 Stubbs, W., ‘The Cathedral, Diocese and Monasteries of Worcester in the Eighth Century’, ArchJ 19 (1862), 250.Google Scholar

page 9 note 4 The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, EHD, p. 165.

page 9 note 5 Taylor, ‘Bath, Mercian and West Saxon’, pp. 138–9.

page 9 note 6 EHD, p. 466.

page 9 note 7 On the bounds of BCS 327 see Grundy, G. B., The Saxon Charters and Field Names of Somerset (Taunton, 1935), pp. 230–2Google Scholar. For the ‘prehistoric promontory fort’ see The Victoria County History of Somerset 11 (1911), 480–1, and 1 (1906), 302 for Roman remains in the vicinity. For Bath's possession of North Stoke in the twelfth century see Hunt, Chartularies, nos. 1.49–50, pp. 49–37.

page 9 note 8 BCS 278; Sawyer 148. BCS 277, which reads vico for monasterio, is merely a poor copy of BCS 278 and can be ignored; cf. Ker, N. R., ‘Hemming's Cartulary’, Studies in Medieval History presented to F. M. Powicke, ed. Hunt, R. W. et al. (Oxford, 1948), pp. 65–7Google Scholar. On allegations that Offa refounded Bath see Taylor, ‘Bath, Mercian and West Saxon’, p. 138 and Hunt, Chartularies, p. xxxvii.

page 10 note 1 Discussed at length by Taylor, ‘Bath, Mercian and West Saxon’. See also Joseph Armitage, Robinson, The Saxon Bishops of Wells, Brit. Acad. Supplemental Papers 4 (London [1919]), 5.Google Scholar

page 10 note 2 Cf. Hunt, Chartularies, no. 11.808, p. 152, on the celebration of his anniversary.

page 10 note 3 Ibid. no. 1.9, pp. 8–11; BCS 670; Sawyer 414.

page 10 note 4 BM Cotton Claudius B. v. Cf. Grierson, P., ‘Les Livres de l'Abbé Seiwold de Bath’, RB 52 (1940), 101, n. 5.Google Scholar

page 10 note 5 Ibid. p. 104 and n. 3; EHD, p. 318 (Gesta Abbatum S. Bertini).