Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T12:56:59.025Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Lists of saints' resting-places in Anglo-Saxon England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

D. W. Rollason
Affiliation:
The University of Durham

Extract

Secgan be þam Godes sanctum þe on Engla lande ærost reston is the title of a short document in Old English which is extant in two manuscripts, Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 201, pp. 149–51, and London, British Library, Stowe 944, 34v–39r. These manuscripts are dated to the middle and the first half of the eleventh century respectively on the evidence of their script. A third copy was once in London, British Library, Cotton Vitellius D. xvii but was destroyed in the fire of 1731. The only scholarly edition is that of Felix Liebermann. The document mentions the resting-places of eighty-nine saints: all but one of these places are in England and all but ten of the saints were active in England. The usual formula is of the type, ‘Ðonne resteð sanctus Congarus confessor on Cungresbirig’ (37b), but in many cases the place is further defined by reference to some topographical feature, most often a river, as, for example, ‘Ðonne resteð sanctus Iohannes biscop on þare stowe Beferlic, neah þare ea Hul’ (5a).

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1978

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

page 61 note 1 I am grateful to Mr Patrick Wormald for first drawing my attention to the text, Professor R. H. C. Davis, Dr Wendy Davies, Dr Peter Hunter Blair, Dr Karl Leyser, Dr Henry Mayr-Harting, Mr Patrick Sims-Williams and my father, Mr W. G. G. Rollason, for reading drafts of this paper and offering very valuable advice. Dr I. G. Thomas generously allowed me to use his thesis, ‘The Cult of Saints’ Relics in Medieval England' (unpubl. Ph.D. thesis, London, 1974): without its invaluable appendix, this paper could not have been written. The following abbreviations have been adopted throughout: ASC = Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel, ed. Plummer, Charles and Earle, John (Oxford, 1892)Google Scholar; BHL = Bibliotbeca Hagiograpbica Latina Antiquae et Mediae Aetatis, ed. Soc. of Bollandists, 2 vols. (Brussels, 18981901)Google Scholar; DCB = A Dictionary of Christian Biography, Literature, Sects and Doctrines, ed. Smith, William and Wace, Henry, 4 vols. (London, 18771887)Google Scholar; HE = Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, quoted by book and chapter – I use the edition by Bertram Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors, Oxford Med. Texts (Oxford, 1969); LVH = Liber Vitae: Register and Martyrology of New Minster and Hyde Abbey, Winchester, ed. de Gray Birch, Walter, Hampshire Record Soc. (London and Winchester, 1892)Google Scholar; MRH = David Knowles and Hadcock, R. Neville, Medieval Religious Houses, England and Wales, 2nd ed. (London, 1971)Google Scholar; PL = Patrologia Latina, ed. J. P. Migne, 221 vols. (Paris, 1844–64); RS = Rolls Ser.; SO = Symeonis Monachi Opera Omnia, ed. Arnold, Thomas, RS, 2 vols. (London, 18821885).Google Scholar

page 61 note 2 On these three manuscripts, see Ker, N. R., Catalogue of Manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford, 1957)Google Scholar, nos. 49, 274 and 222.

page 61 note 3 Die Heiligen Englands (Hanover, 1889), pp. 919Google Scholar. My references are to the section numbers of this edition; see app., below, pp. 87–93. The copy in Stowe 944 was edited in LVH(pp. 87–96). The Old English was translated into Latin, apparently at a later date and without major modification; see Liebermann, Heiligen, pp. xvii and 10–20.

page 61 note 4 The resting-place outside England is that of Columba at Dunkeld (3). The ten saints who were not active in England are Columba, Florentius (recte Florentinus, 26), Vincent (28), Justus (31), Judoc (32), Balthild (34), Patrick (37), Brangwalator and Samson (47) and Melorius (51).

page 62 note 1 The following discussion will be made clearer by reference to the appendix, below, pp. 87–93, which may also serve as a reference list. The manuscript forms of personal names and placenames are there given. As stated at the head of the appendix, the order of the items is not identical in the two manuscripts, but this variation does not affect my argument. See also the map accompanying the appendix, fig. 1, below, p. 88.

page 62 note 2 See below, pp. 68 and 81.

page 62 note 3 HE 1.7.

page 62 note 4 Ibid. 111.4.

page 62 note 5 Ibid. iv.27–9.

page 62 note 6 Ibid. iii.9–13. For his head, see SO 1, 57 and 255.

page 62 note 7 HE v.2–6.

page 62 note 8 Ibid. iii.4 and 27, iv.3 and v.9 and 22.

page 62 note 9 Ibid. v.19.

page 62 note 10 Ibid. iv.3.

page 62 note 11 Ibid. iii.23.

page 62 note 12 Ibid. iv. 3. There was also an eighth-century bishop of Lindisfarne but he seems to have had no connection with Lindsey.

page 62 note 13 Ibid. v.24. He resigned his kingdom in 704 but the date of his death is unknown.

page 62 note 14 Ibid.

page 62 note 15 Felix's Life of St Gutblac, ed. Colgrave, Bertram (Cambridge, 1956).Google Scholar

page 62 note 16 ASC (A) s.a. 654, and (E) s.a. 653: ‘Botulf ongan timbrian mynster æt Icanhoe.’

page 62 note 17 James, M. R., ‘Two Lives of Ethelbert King and Martyr’, EHR 32 (1917), 214–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 62 note 18 The Early Charters of the West Midlands, ed. Finberg, H. P. R., 2nd ed. (Leicester, 1972), pp. 197216.Google Scholar

page 62 note 19 HE iv.9–10.

page 63 note 1 Cox, J. C., The Victoria History of the Counties of England: Nottingham, ed. William, Page (London, 1906–) 1, 37Google Scholar. The name of the abbess is spelt Ecgburh in the printed text of Felix's Life of St Guthlac, pp. 70 and 146; some manuscripts do however give Edburga (Ibid. p. 147, n. 29).

page 63 note 2 Stowe; CCCC 201 reads Dionia.

page 63 note 3 HE iii.21 and 24.

page 63 note 4 Ibid. v.9.

page 63 note 5 BHL, nos. 7385–7.

page 63 note 6 Hohler, Christopher, ‘St Osyth and Aylesbury’, Records of Buckinghamshire 18 (19661970), 6172Google Scholar, and Bethell, Denis, ‘The Lives of St Osyth of Essex and St Osyth of Aylesbury’, AB 88 (1970), 75127.Google Scholar

page 63 note 7 Grosjean, Paul, ‘Codicis Gothani Appendix’, AB 58 (1940), 178–83Google Scholar; and SO 11, 63.

page 63 note 8 Chronicon Abbatiae de Evesham ad Annum 1418, ed. Macray, William Dunn, RS (London, 1863), pp. 325–32.Google Scholar

page 63 note 9 Memorials of St Edmund's Abbey, ed. Arnold, Thomas, RS, 3 vols. (London, 18901896) 1Google Scholar, xv-xxiv.

page 63 note 10 Edith of Polesworth cannot be connected with Edith of Wilton (d. 984) and is probably identical to the equally obscure Edith of Tamworth. Both Polesworth and Tamworth were founded in the tenth century. According to Matthew Paris the foundress of the former was Edith, daughter of King Athelstan. See Hohler, ‘St Osyth’, pp. 65–6 and n. 27.

page 63 note 11 ASC (C) s.a. 909 and (D) s.a. 906 and 11, 118.

page 63 note 12 The foundation of the collegiate church of Southwell is assigned to the mid-tenth century, mainly on the basis of a charter of 956 granting Southwell and dependent villages to the archbishop of York, printed in Cartularium Saxonicum: a Collection of Charters relating to Anglo-Saxon History, ed. Birch, Walter de Gray, 4 vols. (London, 18851899)Google Scholar, no. 1029, and Sawyer, P. H., Anglo-Saxon Charters: an Annotated List and Bibliography (London, 1968)Google Scholar, no. 659. See Cox, , VCH Nottingham 11, 37–9 and 152–3Google Scholar. The date c. 1000 given in MRH, p. 439, for the enshrinement of St Eadburg seems to be derived from Cox's statement that ‘by 1000 … the church contained the shrine of St Eadburh’, VCH Nottingham 11, 153. This is based only on the Secgan, which alone provides the evidence for the enshrinement, p. 37 and n.

page 63 note 13 See n. 9 above.

page 63 note 14 SO 1, 78–9.

page 64 note 1 See below, p. 68.

page 64 note 2 Skene, William F., Chronicles of the Picts, Chronicles of the Scots and Other Early Memorials of Scottish History (Edinburgh, 1867), pp. clxii and 8.Google Scholar

page 64 note 3 Gesta Abbatum Monasterii Sancti Albani a Thoma Walsingham, regnante Ricardo Secundo, ejusdem Ecclesiae Praecentore, compilata, ed. Riley, Henry Thomas, RS, 3 vols. (London, 18671869) 1, 56.Google Scholar

page 64 note 4 Chich claimed that Osyth was translated from Chich to Aylesbury and then returned, but this is based on a confusion between two saints of the same name, one of Chich and one of Aylesbury. See Hohler, ‘St Osyth’, and Bethell, ‘Lives of St Osyth’, pp. 75 ff.

page 64 note 5 Grosjean, ‘Codicis Gothani Appendix’, pp. 178–83.

page 64 note 6 Chronicon de Evesham, pp. 83 and 325–6.

page 64 note 7 Throughout this article details of the histories of religious houses are derived from MRH unless otherwise stated.

page 64 note 8 ASC (A) s.a. 919 and (B) s.a. 971.

page 64 note 9 See, e.g., DCB and Butler's Lives of the Saints, ed. Thurston, H. and Attwater, Donald, 4 vols. (London, 1956)Google Scholar. For the materials, see BHL.

page 64 note 10 BHL, no. 4638.

page 64 note 11 See, e.g., Doble, G. H., ‘St Congar’, Antiquity 19 (1945), 3243 and 8595.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 64 note 12 Förster, Max, ‘Die heilige Sativola oder Sidwell’, Anglia n.s. 62 (1938), 3380.Google Scholar

page 64 note 13 Grosjean, Paul, ‘Vie de S. Rumon’, AB 71 (1953), 359–75 and 393–7.Google Scholar

page 64 note 14 Grosjean, Paul, ‘Vie et miracles de S. Petroc’, AB 74 (1956), 131–88.Google Scholar

page 65 note 1 HE iv.6. In view of Eorcenwald's close connection with Æthelburg, who is the subject of the preceding entry, this entry may belong to the first half of the list.

page 65 note 2 Liebermann, , Heiligen, pp. 13.Google Scholar

page 65 note 3 DCB 1, 736 and 758.

page 65 note 4 See above, p. 62, n. 16.

page 65 note 5 Felix's Life of St Guthlac, pp. 175–6 and passim.

page 65 note 6 HE iv.18.

page 65 note 7 Ibid. 1.23–33.

page 65 note 8 Ibid. 11.9, 12–14 and 20.

page 65 note 9 Ibid. iii.7 and iv.12.

page 65 note 10 Ibid. iii.7, iv.12 and v.18.

page 65 note 11 Ibid. iii.3 and passim.

page 65 note 12 Willelmi Malmesbiriensis Monachi, De Gestis Pontificum Anglorum, Libri Quinque, ed. Hamilton, N. E. S. A., RS (London, 1870), pp. 332 ff.Google Scholar

page 65 note 13 Humphreys, John, Studies in Worcestershire History, ed. Barnard, E. A. B. (Birmingham, 1938), pp. 209–13.Google Scholar

page 65 note 14 ASC (A), s.a. 718.

page 65 note 15 LVH, pp. 286–90.

page 65 note 16 Chronicon de Evesham, pp. 3–27 and London, British Library, Cotton Nero E. i, fols.22–32.

page 65 note 17 Stenton, Frank Merry, ‘St Frideswide and her Times’, Oxoniensia 1 (1936), 103–12.Google Scholar

page 65 note 18 Chronicon Abbatiae Rameseiensis, ed. Macray, William Dunn, RS (London, 1886), pp. 114–15 and 339Google Scholar; and PL 156, cols. 82–90.

page 65 note 19 DCB 1, 731.

page 65 note 20 Grierson, Philip, ‘Grimbald of St Bertin's‘, EHR 55 (1940), 529–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 65 note 21 Braswell, Laurel, ‘Saint Edburg a of Winchester, a Study of her Cult, A.D. 950–1500, with an Edition of the Fourteenth-Century Middle English and Latin Lives’, MS 33 (1971), 292333.Google Scholar

page 65 note 22 BHL, nos. 2471–2.

page 65 note 23 André Wilmart, , ‘La Légende de Ste Édithe en prose et en vers par le moine Goscelin’, AB 56 (1938), 5101 and 265307.Google Scholar

page 65 note 24 It is not clear who this was, but it may have been John the Old Saxon and not John Scotus as William of Malmesbury apparently believed. See Asser's Life of King Alfred, ed. Stevenson, William Henry (Oxford, 1904), pp. 335–6.Google Scholar

page 65 note 25 Since the Secgan entry is the only evidence for the massacre of Beocca and Edor and ninety monks, this event cannot be dated. It probably took place during the Danish invasions of the ninth century. Chertsey's secular priests were expelled and replaced by monks in 964, according to ASC (A), but it is not clear when Eorcenwald's original foundation had ceased to be monastic, and so this information is of no use in narrowing the possible period of the massacre.

page 65 note 26 The association is questionable: Asser's Life of Alfred, pp. 256–61.

page 66 note 1 Ibid. pp. 296–9. The Secgan itself provides the terminus post quern for the translation.

page 66 note 2 See above, p. 65, n. 18.

page 66 note 3 Chronicon Abbatiae Rameseiensis, pp. 55 and 191, and BHL, nos. 2641–4, esp. no. 2642, Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 285, fols. 116–21. See a full note in DCB 11, 216–17.

page 66 note 4 Chronicle of Hugh Candidus, ed. Mellows, W. T. (London, 1949), pp. 49 and 51Google Scholar, and ASC (E) s.a. 1013.

page 66 note 5 Hugh Candidus, pp. 50–1, and ASC (E) s.a. 963.

page 66 note 6 LVH, pp. 287–8.

page 66 note 7 Ibid. pp. 288–90.

page 66 note 8 Annaks Monastici, ed. Luard, Henry Richards, RS, 5 vols. (London, 18641869) ii 10.Google Scholar

page 66 note 9 LVH, p. 6.

page 66 note 10 See above, p. 64, n. 13.

page 66 note 11 Robinson, Joseph Armitage, The Times of St Dunstan (Oxford, 1923), p. 74.Google Scholar

page 66 note 12 De Gestis Pontificum, p. 198.

page 66 note 13 Durham is excluded from this discussion because the entry containing it seems to be a later interpolation; see below, p. 68.

page 66 note 14 ‘Cecesege, neah þare ea, þe is genemnod Oncel’ (7). It is probably to be identified with Hibaldstow in Lincolnshire (SE 980025); see Precentor Edmund Venables, , ‘The Dedications of Lincolnshire, as illustrating the History of the County’, ArchJ 38 (1881), 369–70.Google Scholar

page 66 note 15 HE iii.6.

page 66 note 16 ASC (A and E) s.a. 757; The Chronicle of Æthelweard, ed. Campbell, A., Nelson's Med. Texts (London, 1962), p. 23Google Scholar; and Florentii Wigorniensis Monachi Chronicon ex Chronicis, ed. Thorpe, Benjamin, Eng. Hist. Soc, 2 vols. (London, 18481849) 1, 72 and 266.Google Scholar

page 67 note 1 Buckingham was fortified by Edward the Elder: ASC (D) s.a. 915 and (A) s.a. 918.

page 68 note 1 ASC 11, 81.

page 68 note 2 Ker, , Catalogue, no. 274, pp. 338–9.Google Scholar

page 68 note 3 See above, p. 66, n. 4.

page 68 note 4 SO 1, 78–9.

page 68 note 5 Ibid. 1, 201 and 361. The Latin version of the Secgan reads, ‘Beatus vero Cuthbertus in loco qui vocatur Ubbanford – vel Dunholm – requiescit iuxta amnem qui Twiode vocatur’ (4).

page 68 note 6 Introduction to the Survey of English Place-Names, ed. Mawer, A. and Stenton, F. M. (Cambridge, 1924) 1Google Scholar. i, 47–50, and Ekwall, Eilert, English River-Names (Oxford, 1928), pp. lxxxiii–lxxxiv.Google Scholar

page 68 note 7 Hugh Candidas, pp. 6 and 38.

page 68 note 8 See above, p. 66, nn. 4 and 5.

page 69 note 1 Hugh Candidus, pp. 59–64. For the date of the chronicle, see Alexander Bell's introduction, pp. xv-xvii.

page 69 note 2 Printed in Lestorie des Engles solum La Translation Maistre Geffrei Gaimar, ed. Hardy, Thomas Duffus and Martin, Charles Trice, RS, 2 vols. (London, 18881889) 1, xxxixxliiGoogle Scholar. For a description of the Breviate, see Birch, Walter de Gray, Domesday Book: a Popular Account of the Exchequer Manu-script So Called (London, 1887), pp. 31–6.Google Scholar

page 69 note 3 Fols. 1–62 and 94–117 of Harley 3776 are from Waltham Abbey; seeE. Millar, G., ‘A Manuscript from Waltham Abbey in the Harleian Collection’, Brit. Museum Quarterly 7.4 (1933), 112–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Lambeth 99 is described by James, M. R., Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts of the Library of Lambeth Palace, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 19311932)Google Scholar, where a list of the saints in the Cathalogus is given.

page 69 note 4 I am indebted to the analysis given by Bell, Alexander, ‘The Anglo-French “De Sanctis ”’, N ∧ Q 12th ser. 5 (1919), 281–3.Google Scholar

page 70 note 1 The Heads of Religious Houses, England and Wales, 940–1216, ed. Knowles, David, Brooke, C. N. L. and London, Vera C. M. (Cambridge, 1972), p. 25.Google Scholar

page 70 note 2 Gesta Abbatum Sancti Albani 1, 192–3, and The Historical Works of Gervase of Canterbury, ed. Stubbs, William, RS, 2 vols. (London, 18791880) 1, 265.Google Scholar

page 70 note 3 Florentii Wigorniensis Chronicon 1, 222.

page 70 note 4 Their presence is perhaps due to Glastonbury influence; see Wormald, Francis, ‘The English Saints in the Litany of Arundel MS 60’, AB 64 (1945), 73–4.Google Scholar

page 70 note 5 Bell suggests Wagele (Whalley) as the true reading: ‘“De Sanctis”’, p. 282. If so, the confusion of the initial letter suggests an Old English source.

page 70 note 6 See above, p. 63, n. 11.

page 70 note 7 Hohler, ‘St Osyth’, and Bethell, ‘Lives of St Osyth’.

page 71 note 1 Chronicon Abbatiae Rameseiensis, pp. 127, 190, 196 and 340.

page 71 note 2 Colker, Marvin L., ‘Texts of Jocelyn of Canterbury which Relate to the History of Barking Abbey’, Studia Monastica 7 (1965), 383460.Google Scholar

page 71 note 3 Abbot of Wearmouth and Jarrow; see Venerabilis Baedae Opera Historica, ed. Plummer, Charles, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1896) 1, 388404.Google Scholar

page 71 note 4 This may be the Northumbrian king, Eardulf; see SO 1, 52, and 11, 57, 59, 62, 63, 65, 376 and 391, and DCB11,18. The church of Breedon on the Hill is dedicated to St Hardulph, possibly the same person; see Arnold-Forster, Frances E., Studies in Church Dedications, 3 vols. (London, 1899) 11, 325–7Google Scholar.

page 71 note 5 For Pandouna, see MRH, p. 258.

page 71 note 6 Early Christian martyr at Autun; see Doble, G. H., St Symphorian, Cornish Saints 27 (1931).Google Scholar

page 71 note 7 On the possibility that Aldgytha is the obscure Mercian princess mentioned as Elgida in the Life of St Osyth, see Hohler, ‘St Osyth’, p. 63.

page 71 note 8 Presumably Boisil, a seventh-century prior of Melrose; HE iv.27.

page 71 note 9 SO ii, 52.

page 71 note 10 The only saintly person otherwise recorded at Hackness is the nun Begu; HE iv.23.

page 72 note 1 Hugh Candidas, p. xxxv. The form of the place-names seems to indicate that they have been drawn from an Old English source or sources.

page 72 note 2 Padstow was devastated in 981; ASC (C) s.a.

page 72 note 3 See above, p. 64, n. 6.

page 72 note 4 See above, p. 64, n. 2, and p. 63, n. 11.

page 73 note 1 The ‘Kentish Royal Legend’ is printed in Liebermann, , Heiligen, pp. 19.Google Scholar

page 73 note 1 Ibid. p. xiii.

page 73 note 3 The following is a list of saints and their resting-places drawn from this text: Æthelburg and Eadburg at Lyminge (5); Eanswith at Folkestone (6); Mildthryth at Minster in Thanet (15); Eormengith one mile to the east of Minster (16); Æthelthryth at Ely (20); Wihtburg at Ely (21); Werburg at Hanbury, later at Chester (22); Eormenild at Ely with Seaxburg (25); and Eorcengota at Brie (26). I omit Wihtred (27) who seems never to have had a cult.

page 73 note 4 Sects. 15, 16, 20, 25 and 26.

page 73 note 5 On these texts, see Liebermann, Heiligen, pp. iv-v, and Hardy, Thomas Duffus, Descriptive Catalogue of Materials relating to the History of Great Uritain and Ireland to the End of the Reign of Henry VII, RS, 3 vols. (London, 18621871) 1.1Google Scholar, nos. 685, 686, 879, 883 and 884.1 am preparing a full study of all these texts.

page 74 note 1 For the Magonsætan, see West Midlands Charters, ed. Finberg, pp. 217–24.

page 74 note 2 Leechdoms, Wortcunning and Starcraft of Early England, ed. Cockayne, Oswald, RS, 3 vols. (London, 18641866)Google Scholar iii, 424.

page 74 note 3 An Old English Martyrology, ed. Herzfeld, George, Early Eng. Text Soc. o.s. 116 (London, 1900Google Scholar). See also Sisam, Celia, ‘An Early Fragment of the Old English Martyrology’, RES n.s. 4 (1953), 209–20Google Scholar. The Martyrology includes the following saints of English origin or association. An asterisk indicates that the resting-place is specified: Æthelwald (21 April), Aidan# (31 August), Alban (22 June), Augustine (26 May), Benedict Biscop (12 January), Cedd* (26 October), Ceolfrith# (25 September), Ceadda# (2 March), Eadberht# (6 May), Eastorwine (7 March), Æthelburg (11 October), Æthelthryth# (23 June), Fursa# (16 January), Guthlac# (11 April), Heawolds (3 October), Hilda (17 November), Hygebald# (14 December), John of Beverley# (7 May), Oswald# (5 August) and Pega (9 January).

page 74 note 4 I have been unable to find lists for other countries and would welcome any information. The English resting-place lists, although so insular in subject matter, do not in fact have any close relationship with such superficially similar insular texts as the Welsh ‘Stanzas of the Graves’, which concerns the location of the graves of the secular heroes of Welsh history and literature, or the Irish tracts, ‘On the Graves of Leinster Men’ and ‘The Deaths of some of the Nobles of Eirin’, printed and discussed respectively by Jones, Thomas, ‘The Black Book of Carmarthen: the Stanzas of the Graves’, Proc. of the Brit. Acad. 53 (1967), 97137Google Scholar; Dobbs, M. E., ‘On the Graves of Leinster Men’, Zeitschrift für Celtiscbe Philologie 24 (1954), 139–53Google Scholar; and Stokes, Whitley, ‘On the Deaths of some Irish Heroes’, Revue Celtique 23 (1902), 303–48Google Scholar. These texts concern graves to the exclusion of any extensive information about their occupants. There is no evidence that such Celtic texts were ever known to the English and there are great dissimilarities in emphasis. The English lists are starkly factual and at least aim to concern real persons and to give precise information about their resting-places. In only a few cases is there any echo of the more literary apparatus of the cult of saints. By contrast the Celtic resting-places are set in a blaze of poetry and, while some of the graves are located with precision, as, for example, ‘at the confluence of the Gwenoli’ or ‘at Llanfeuno’, the precise topography of the English lists has little in common with such references as that to ‘the region which sea and ravine-edge cover’; see Jones, ‘Black Book’, sections 1.7, 1.4 and 1.17.

page 75 note 1 Schermann, Theodorus, Propbetarum Vitae Fabulosae Indices Apostolorum Discipulorumque Domini Doroibeo, Epipbanio, Hippolyto, Aliisque Vindicata (Leipzig, 1907), pp. 213–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 75 note 2 Ibid. p. 213.

page 75 note 3 Ibid. p. 214. Schermann printed this text from Brower, C., Antiquitates Annalium Trevirensium (Cologne, 1626), pp. 1532 ff.Google Scholar Baudouin de Gaiffier drew attention to the manuscripts and printed a definitive edition as ‘Une Ancienne Liste des localités où reposent les apôtres’, L'Homme devant Dieu: mélanges offerts au Père Henri de Lubac, 3 vols. (Paris, 19631964) 1, 365–71Google Scholar, repr. de Gaiffier, B., Études critiques d'bagiograpbie et d'iconologie, Soc. of Bollandists, Subsidia Hagiographica 43 (Brussels, 1967), 361–8.Google Scholar

page 75 note 4 Schermann, , Prophetarum Vitae, pp. 216–17.Google Scholar

page 75 note 5 For Schermann's discussion of these texts, see his Propheten- und Apostellegenden nebst Jüngerkatalogen des Dorotheus und verwandter Texte, Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur 31.3 (Leipzig, 1907)Google Scholar, esp. 169–72 and 216–30. I am grateful to Dr Neville Birdsall for help and advice with this material.

page 76 note 1 The use of the names of provinciae or regiones seems to have been sporadic and short-lived in Anglo-Saxon England; see Introduction to the Survey of English Place-names i.i, 50.

page 76 note 2 The entries are Alban martir (2), Oswald cyningc (5), John biscop (5a), Wilfrid biscop (6), Æthelred cyningc and Osthryth sancte Osmoldes swustor cynges (8), Edmund cyningc (21), Eorcenwald biscop (23b), Neot mæsssepreost (24), Florentinus martir (26), Vincent martir (28), Dunstan arcebiscop (29), Birinus romanisca biscop and Justus martir (31), Mærwyn abbodesse and Balthild regina (34), Iwii biscop (35), Edward cyningc (36), Sidefulla fæmne (38), Rumon biscop (39), John se wisa (41), Oswald arcebiscop (42), Ecgwine biscop (43), Kenelm cynebearn (44), Brangwalator biscop and Samson biscop (47), Beocca abbod and Edor mæssepreost (49) and Melorius confessor (51).

page 76 note 3 The third manuscript is the late-eighth-century Sessorianus 77 (Rome, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale Vittorio Emanuale II, 2107).

page 76 note 4 Gaiffier, , Études, pp. 362–3Google Scholar, and Lowe, E. A., Codices Latini Antiquiores, 11 vols. and suppl. (Oxford, 19341971)Google Scholar viii, no. 1197.

page 77 note 1 Levison, Wilhelm, England and the Continent in the Eighth Century (Oxford, 1946), pp. 139–48.Google Scholar

page 77 note 2 The text is printed in Rituale Ecclesiae Dunelmensis, The Durham Collector, ed. Lindelöf, U., Surtees Soc. 140 (London, 1927), 195–7Google Scholar. I owe this reference to Mr Sims-Williams. For a facsimile and discussion of the manuscript, see The Durham Ritual, ed. Brown, T. J. et al. , EEMF 16 (Copenhagen, 1969)Google Scholar. The item concerned is on 88r.

page 77 note 3 The Fulda text has ‘Simon Cananeus apostolus requiescit Hierosolyma in provincia Syria’. The Durham text has ‘Beatus symon channaneus apostolus requiescit in rintho in terra quae dicitur parthorum’.

page 77 note 4 The source of the text of the Notitia in Sessorianus 77 may be relevant here. It belonged to the monastery of Nonantola, situated to the north-east of Modena in northern Italy. Although it appears only in a fifteenth-century catalogue of the library of that house, Lowe expressed the opinion that it was written in northern Italy and was at Nonantola by the ninth century, and a later inscription on the first folio records the tradition that it was acquired by Abbot Anselm who founded the monastery of Nonantola in the mid-eighth century. The manuscript is dated on palaeographic grounds to the second half of the eighth century, and so it is feasible that it was copied by or for Anselm, who died in 803; see CLA iv, no. 423, and G. Gullotta, Gli anticbi cataloghi e i codici della abbazia di Nonantola, Studi e Testi 182 (Vatican City, 1955), 439–45. On Gullotta's erroneous dating of the manuscript to the sixth century, see Gaiffier, , Etudes, pp. 363–4Google Scholar. Items 3–13 of Sessorianus 77, of which item 13 is the Notitia, are identical in content and order to the corresponding sections of the Fulda manuscript, Bonifatianus 2, and the text of the Notitia is identical in both manuscripts. Since Sessorianus 77 is half a century later than Bonifatianus 2, it is possible that it was derived from the Fulda manuscript, which would be an interesting example of contact between an English continental house and a north Italian house. If that were the case, the common source from which the Notitia and the text in Durham, Cathedral Library A. IV. 19 developed may itself have been known to the English and the variants may have developed in England. This would further emphasize the extent of English interest in the text. It is also possible, however, that Sessorianus 77 was derived directly from Rome, where the original text was composed (see below). Nonantola claimed to have had very close relations with the pope from its foundation in the mid-eighth century and to have received the relics of St Sylvester as a papal gift at that time; see the Vita Anselmi abbatis Nonantulani in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Script. Rer. Lang. (Hanover, 1878), pp. 566–70, and Cottineau, L. H., Repertoire topohibliogr aphique des abbayes et prieurés, 2 vols. (Macon, 19351937)Google Scholar, art Nonantole. Doubt has been cast on the claim that the relics came to Nonantola as a gift, since Astulph, king of the Lombards, Anselm's brother-in-law, pillaged the Via Salaria, where Sylvester's relics were enshrined, at about the time of Nonantola's foundation and could thus have stolen them on Anselm's behalf; see Baudrillart, A.et al., Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographic ecclésiastique (Paris, 1912–)Google Scholar in, cols. 451–2. Nevertheless they seem to have come to Nonantola in the eighth century, and so it is possible that Anselm obtained Sessorianus 77 or its exemplar, by fair means or foul, from Rome.

page 78 note 1 Gaiffier, , Études, p. 365Google Scholar, citing Guidi, P., Rationes Decimarum Italiae nei secoli XIII e XIV, Tuscia l La decima degli anni 1274–1280, Studi e Testi 58 (Vatican City, 1932), xixiiiGoogle Scholar, and Thomsen, R., The Italic Regions from Augustus to the Lombard Invasion (Copenhagen, 1947)Google Scholar, s.v. Etruria.

page 78 note 2 PL 83, col. 151. See de Gaiffier, Baudouin, ‘Le “Breviarium Apostolorum”’, AB 81 (1963), 104–13.Google Scholar

page 78 note 3 MGH, Auct. Ant. (Hanover, 1887–) 15, 23.

page 78 note 4 The text is printed by Schermann, Prophetarum Vitae, pp. 207–11, and discussed by Gaiffier, ‘Le “Breviarium”’, pp. 89–116.

page 78 note 5 Duchesne, L., ‘Saint Jacques en Galicie’, Annales du Midi 12 (1900), 145–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 78 note 6 Gaiffier, ‘Le “Breviarium”‘, pp. 113–16.

page 79 note 1 The text added to the Durham manuscript in the tenth century mentions the resting-place of only one James. Since the Notitia locates the remains of both Iacobus apostolus and lacobus alter aposiolus in Jerusalem, the tenth-century English scribe may merely have omitted one of these entries as superfluous repetition. By then the tradition that two apostles of that name rested in Jerusalem was long forgotten.

page 79 note 1 Schermann, Prophetarum Vitae, pp. 216–17.

page 79 note 3 Ibid. pp. 218–19.

page 79 note 4 Ibid. pp. 219–20 and James, M. R., ‘An Ancient List of the Seventy Disciples’, JTS 11 (19091910), 459–62.Google Scholar

page 79 note 5 Other examples are Anastasia (25 December), John the Evangelist (27 December), Sylvester (31 December), Anteros (3 January), Julian of Antioch (6 January), Telesphorus (6 January), Marcellus (16 January), Anthony the Hermit (17 January), Speusippus, Elasippus and Melasippus (17 January), Prisca (18 January), Sebastian (20 January), Fabianus (20 January), Agnes (21 January), Anastasius (22 January), Emerantiana (23 January), Perpetua and Felicitas (7 March), Ambrosius (5 April) and Irene (5 April).

page 80 note 1 See, e.g., J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, ‘Rome and the Early English Church: some Questions of Transmission’, Settimane di Studio del Centro Italiano du Studi sull’ Alto Medioevo 7.2 (Spoleto, 1960), 519–48, repr. Wallace-Hadrill, J. M., Early Medieval History (Oxford, 1975), pp. 115–37.Google Scholar

page 80 note 2 For general surveys, see Delehaye, Hippolyte, Les Origines du culte des martyrs, Soc. of Bollandists, Subsidia Hagiographica 20, 2nd. ed. (Brussels, 1933)Google Scholar, ch. 3, and Herrmann-Mascard, Nicole, Les Reliques des saints, formation coutumière d'un droit (Paris, 1975), pp. 2649.Google Scholar

page 80 note 3 Epistolae Romanorum Pontificum Genuinae et quae ad eos scriptae sunt a S. Hilaro usque ad Pelagium II, Tomus I, A. S. Hilaro usque ad S. Hormisdam, Ann. 461–523, ed. Thiel, Andreas (Brunsburgh, 1868), pp. 873–5.Google Scholar

page 80 note 4 PL 77, cols. 700–5. See McCulloh, John M., ‘The Cult of Relics in the Letters and “Dialogues” of Pope Gregory the Great: a Lexicographical Survey’, Traditio 32 (1976), 145–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 81 note 1 See above, p. 66, n. 11.

page 81 note 2 HE iii. 12.

page 81 note 3 Baedae Opera Historica, ed. Plummer 11, 157–8 and 159–60.

page 81 note 4 HE 1.18.

page 81 note 5 Förster, Max, Zur Geschichte des Reliquienkultus in Altengland (Munich, 1943), p. 74Google Scholar and passim.

page 81 note 6 The relics of native saints in the relic-lists may in general be secondary relics, i.e. clothes or items which had been in contact with the saint's remains, rather than corporeal relics. When Gregory urged Augustine to put relics in altars, he presumably had secondary relics in mind; see HE 1.30. The deliberate division of the relics of native saints evidently did occur, however; see, e.g., the division of Botulf's relics described in LVH, p. 288.

page 82 note 1 Dialogues, bk ii, ch. 38 (PL 77, col. 204). Gregory denies that miracles are impossible without corporeal relics, for the saints must work even greater signs in those sanctuaries where they are not physically present. The implication must be that it is unnecessary to break up saintly bodies in order to provide every church with corporeal relics. The passage is cited incorrectly by Herrmann-Mascard, , Les Reliques, p. 45Google Scholar, n. 136. She shows (pp. 62–3) that even at Rome the fragmentation of corporeal relics began to establish itself from the ninth century.

page 82 note 2 Dialogues, bk 1, ch. 12 (PL 77, col. 213); The Earliest Life of Gregory the Great by an Anonymous Monk of Whithy, ed. Colgrave, Bertram (Lawrence, Kansas, 1968), p. 78.Google Scholar

page 82 note 3 HE 1.31.

page 82 note 4 Willelmi Malmesbiriensis Monacbi, De Gestis Regum Anglorum, Libri Quinque, ed. Stubbs, William, RS, 2 vols. (London, 18871889) l, 260 ff.Google Scholar

page 83 note 1 Hugh Candidus, p. 64.

page 83 note 2 An alphabetical index was, however, added to the fourteenth-century list in Harley 3776.

page 84 note 1 The exceptions are Maerwyn (34), Cuthburg (45) and Beocca and Edor (49). The ‘Fourth Book of St James’ is printed as Le Guide du pélerin de Saint-Jacques de Compostelle, ed. and trans. Vielliard, Jeanne, 2nd ed. (Macon, 1950)Google Scholar. The diary of Sigeric's journey to Rome forms a sort of guide, but its object is Rome alone and it is merely an itinerary; see Magoun, Francis P., ‘An English Pilgrim-Diary of the Year 990’, MS 2 (1940), 231–52Google Scholar. See also Liebermann, , Heiligen, pp. xixii.Google Scholar

page 84 note 2 Printed by Colker, Marvin L., ‘A Hagiographical Polemic’, MS 39 (1977), 74.Google Scholar

page 84 note 3 L'Estoire des Engleis by Geffrei Gaimar, ed. Bell, Alexander, Anglo-Norman Texts 14–15 (Oxford, 1960), lvi.Google Scholar

page 84 note 4 See above, p. 66, n. 12, and p. 71.

page 84 note 5 ‘Heo wearð bebirged on þam mynstre þe is genemnod Heanburh; heo wearð eft upadon and nu resteð on Legeceastre pare birig’ (Liebermann, Heiligen, p. 7).

page 85 note 1 Sects. 26, 29, 31, 34, 37 and 42.

page 85 note 2 The entry about Cuthburg seems to be based on ASC (A) and (E) s.a. 718. Note however the reference to Kenelm cynebearn (44), which seems to resemble a couplet quoted in English in the Latin Life of St Kenelm. I owe this information to Mr Sims-Williams, who is preparing an edition of this Life. See also Wright, C. E., The Cultivation of Saga in Anglo-Saxon England (London, 1939), P. 104.Google Scholar