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Outsiders, insiders, and property in Durham around 1100

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Bernard Meehan
Bernard Meehan*
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh
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Extract

The monastic community at Durham was founded by bishop William of St Calais in 1083. Its arrival from Jarrow and Wearmouth was accompanied by an act of aggression, when the secular clerks previously in residence were presented with the ultimatum of either becoming monks or leaving. All but one chose to leave. This action can be seen as setting the tone for the community’s attitude to the world outside the see. In their historical writings, particularly Symeon’s Historia Dunelmensis Ecclesiae, written between 1104 and 1109, the Durham monks were self-assertive and defensive.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 12: Church Society and Politics , 1975 , pp. 45 - 58
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1975

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References

1 The Historia Dunelmensis Ecclesia was last edited by Arnold, [Thomas], [Symeonis Monachi Opera Omnia] 2 vols RS 75 (1882) 1, pp 3–135 Google Scholar. For the date of composition, see Arnold 1 p xix. The attribution to Symeon is not conclusive. He was named as author only in the Sawley copy, third in date, now MS Ff. 1. 27 in Cambridge University Library, described in A Catalogue of the Manuscripts preserved in the library of the University of Cambridge 5 vols (Cambridge 1856-67) 2 pp 318-29. The Durham MSS, Bishop Cosin’s MS V. ii. 6, described in Mynors, R.A.B., Durham Cathedral Manuscripts (Durham 1939) pp 60-1Google Scholar, and its early copy, British Museum Cotton MS Faustina A. v, described in A Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Cottonian Library, ed J. Planta (London 1801) p 603, are both anonymous, as is the fourth copy, an early thirteenth century MS from Durham, described in Davies, J. Conway, ‘A Recovered Manuscript of Symeon of Durham’, Durham University Journal 44 (1951) pp 22-8Google Scholar. See also Offler, [H.S.], Medieval Historians [of Durham] (Durham 1958) p 20 n 8 Google Scholar. The work had been maiorum auctoritate jussus (Arnold 1 p 4), and it was only when it left Durham and became of more academic historical interest that it was felt necessary to know the author. Before the end of the twelfth century, Symeon had also been credited with writing the so-called Historia Regum, printed in Arnold 2 (1885) pp 3-283. On the problem of the MS which contains this work, see Blair, [P. Hunter], [‘Some Observations on the Historia Regum attributed to Symeon of Durham’], in Celt and Saxon, ed Chadwick, Nora K. (Cambridge 1963) pp 63–118 Google Scholar and Derek, Baker, ‘Scissors and Paste: Corpus Christi Cambridge MS 139 again’, SCH 11 (1974) pp 83–123 Google Scholar. Like MS Ff. 1.27, MS 139 was also at Sawley, at least for a time, and the rubric ascribing authorship to Symeon is very similar to those in Ff. 1. 27, though whether they are all in the same hand, as Blair suggests (see Blair pp 74-6 and plate facing p 117) can not be regarded as certain. Baker has pointed out that MS 139 was put together in sections of different date; it is interesting that the rubric to the Historia Regum occurs at the bottom of the last folio of one section, and the text itself occurs in the next. The ascription to Symeon should perhaps thus be viewed with some suspicion. In his edition of the Historia Regum, [J. Hodgson] Hinde indicated some internal objections to seeing Symeon as author of both the Historia Dunelmensis Ecclesiae and the Historia Regum; see [Symeonis Dunelmensis Opera et Collectanea] 1, SS 51 (1867) pp xxvii-xxx.

2 For some discussion of this problem see Appendix.

3 See the Historia de Sancti Cuthberti (Arnold I pp 196-214), the De Miraculis et Translationibus Sancti Cuthberti (Arnold 1 pp 229-61, 2 pp 333-62), and Colgrave, B., ‘The Post-Bedan Miracles and Translations of St Cuthbert’, in The Early Cultures of North West Europe (H. M. Chadwick Memorial Studies) ed Fox, C. and Dickins, B. (Cambridge 1950) pp 305-32Google Scholar.

4 See Arnold 1 pp 247-61, and Reginald[i Monachi Dunelmensis Libellus de admirandis Beati Cuthberti virtutibus], SS 1 (1835) pp 84-90.

5 Craster, [H.H.E.], [‘The Red Book of Durham’,] EHR 40 (1925) pp 504-32, at p 529 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Arnold 1 p 8.

7 Ibid p 106.

8 Ibid p 122.

9 Ibid p 11.

10 Nicholl, [Donald], [Thurstan Archbishop of York] (York 1964) p 91 Google Scholar.

11 See Reginald pp 28-9.

12 Ibid p 41. It is not certain, however, that Thurold can be added to the names of those who were at Jarrow (see note 2 above), or whether he can be identified with the monk who comes eighty-ninth in the list in the Historia Dunelmensis Ecclesiae and had thus not professed up to 1104 x 9. Reginald speaks of Thurold in the past tense, and he was thus not alive in the 1170s, but it is not clear how someone not in the community between 1083 and 1104 could have spoken to the clerks.

13 See Foreville, R. and Leclercq, J., ‘Un debat sur le sacerdoce des moines au XIIe siècle’, Studia Anselmiana 41 (1957) pp 8–118 Google Scholar. See also Nicholl pp 171-2, and, for later examples, Knowles Monastic Order pp 662—78.

14 Arnold 1 p 113.

15 Craster pp 523-9.

16 Printed in Arnold 1 pp 215-20. For a more complete discussion of this tract, see Bernard Meehan, ‘The siege of Durham, the battle of Carham, and the cession of Lothian’, ScHR forthcoming.

17 Two of the estates, however, seem to have been back with the church by 1141. See Acts of Malcolm IV, ed G. W. S. Barrow (Edinburgh 1960) pp 146-7.

18 Arnold 1 pp 96-7.

19 Craster p 528, and see p 530.

20 Ibid p 529.

21 Arnold 1 p 106.

22 Ibid pp 107-8.

23 Craster p 528.

24 Ibid, and Arnold 1 p 98.

24a Arnold 1 p 90.

25 Arnold 1 p 255, and see pp 18-21.

26 See Southern, R.W., ‘England’s First Entry into Europe’, in Medieval Humanism (Oxford 1970) pp 135-57, PP 150-1Google Scholar.

27 Arnold 2 p 334.

28 Warren, W.L., Henry II (London 1973) p 372 Google Scholar.

29 Arnold 1 p 85.

30 Ibid p 85. Adherence to monasticism meant that the church of Durham retained the original character of the church at Lindisfarne (ibid p 18).

31 See Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed B. Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford 1969) pp 228-9.

32 Arnold 1 pp 85-6. The final judgement on Edmund was that nullius violentia res ecclesiasticas pessundari patiebatur (ibid p 87).

33 Ibid p 91, and see Arnold 2 p 162.

34 Ibid p 86.

35 Ibid p 91. Strictly speaking, the first four bishops - Aidan, Finan, Colman and Tuda - had also been strangers, having come from Iona. Their successors, Eata and Cuthbert, came via Melrose, as did Ethelwold, the ninth bishop. Of the bishops up to Aldun, Edmund’s immediate predecessor, it is not always indicated that they were elected, rather than someone’s appointee; for example, Kynewulf seems to have appointed Higbald, his successor. But it may be assumed, from lack of evidence to the contrary, that they were members of the community; of Aldun, it is said that he was habitu, sicut omnes predecessores ejus, et actu probabilis monachus {ibid p 78). Sexhelm was a puzzling exception. He was a secular cleric, and a simoniac (ibid pp 20, 106), but it is not said where he came from, and it is not clear whom he bribed. It is inferred in two places that he became bishop after committing simony (ibid); elsewhere, it seems that his expulsion resulted from offences after his appointment: Defuncto autem Uhtredo episcopo, Sexhelm loco ejus est ordinatus, sed vix aliquot mensibus in ecclesia residens, sancto Cuthberto illum expellente, aufugit. Cum enim, a via praedecessorum suorum aberrans, populum ipsius sancti et eos qui in ecclesia ejus serviebant avaritia succensus affligeret, exterritus a sancto per somnium jussus est quantocius abscedere (ibid p 77).

36 Ibid p 92.

37 Blair (p 112) suggests that the section of the Historia Regum indisputably the work of Durham is the chronicle contained in Arnold 2 pp 98-283. The chronicle finishes in 1129, but it is not yet certain at what date in the twelfth century it was written. See Offler, H.S., ‘The Tractate De Iniusta Vexacione Willelmi Episcopi Primi’, EHR 66 (1951) pp 321-41, at p 322 n 3 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Offler, H.S., ‘Hexham and the Historia Regum’, Transactions of the Architectural and Archaeological Society of Durham and Northumberland 2 (1970) pp 51–62 Google Scholar.

38 Arnold 2 p 173.

39 Craster p 528, and see p 530.

40 ‘D’ version. See EHD 2 p 151.

41 Arnold 1 p 91.

42 Ibid p 105. For the confusion of the two brothers in other sources, see Freeman, E.A., The History of the Norman Conquest of England 4 (Oxford 1871) pp 812-13Google Scholar.

43 Arnold 1 p 94.

44 Arnold 2 p 177.

45 Arnold 1 pp 246-7.

46 Ibid pp 100-1, and Arnold 2 p 189.

47 Arnold 1 pp 98-9.

48 Arnold 2 pp 186-7.

49 Arnold 1 p 105.

50 Arnold 2 p 190.

51 See Arnold 1 pp 101, 118; 2 p 188.

52 Arnold 2 p 202. In discussing Walcher’s death, William of Malmesbury noted that Fusus ibi non paucus numerus Lotharingorum, quod praesul ipse nationis ejus erat. See Willelmi Malmesbiriensis Monachi, De Gestis Regum Anghrum, ed W. Stubbs, 2 vols RS 90 (1889) 2 p 330.

53 Southern, R.W., ‘Aspects of the European Tradition of Historical Writing: 4. The Sense of the Past’, TRHS, fifth series 23 (1973) pp 243-63, at pp 248-9Google Scholar.

54 Arnold 1 pp 101, 108, 113, 128.

55 Ibid p 128: licet enim in alia monasteria et ecclesias ferocius ageret.

56 Ibid p 105.

57 Ibid pp 20, 106.

58 Ibid pp 9, 106, 109-13.

59 Ibid p 106.

60 Ibid pp 114-17, and see Douglas, David, William the Conqueror (London 1964) pp 240-1Google Scholar.

61 Arnold 1 pp 117-18.

62 Ibid p 10.

63 Ibid pp 128-9.

64 Ibid p 10.

65 Ibid p 123.

66 Ibid p 125: summa discretione regebat.

67 Ibid p 123.

68 The Rule of St Benedict, ed and trans J. McCann (London 1952) pp 148-9.

69 Arnold 1 p 128: per aliortim machinamenta orta inter ipsos dissensione, episcopus ab episcopatu pulsus ultra mare secessit, quern comes Normannorum non ut exuletn, sed ut patrem suscipiens, in magno honore per tres annos, quibus ibi moratus est, habuit.

70 Ibid p 128.

71 See Offler, ‘De Iniusta Vexacione’.

72 Arnold 1 p 125.

73 R. W. Southern, ‘Ranulf Flambard’, in Medieval Humanism pp 183-205, at p 202.

74 Arnold 1 p 139.

75 See Offler, Medieval Historians p 7. For later relations between bishop and monks see Scammell, [G.V.], [Hugh du Puiset] (Cambridge 1956) pp 135-41Google Scholar.

76 Arnold 1 pp 60-1, 95.

77 Ibid pp 93, 131, and see Scammell pp 100-1.

78 Arnold 1, pp 222-8.

79 See Morris, Colin, The Discovery of the Individual 1050-1200 (London 1972) pp 68-9, 100 Google Scholar. Lawrence was prior 1149-54.

80 See Dialogi Laurentii Dunelmensis Monachi ac Prioris, SS 70 (1878) 2, pp 12-38, 69-70.

81 Arnold 1 p 147.

82 The Rule p 14.

83 See Offler, H.S., Durham Episcopal Charters 1071-1152, SS 179 (1968) pp 4–6, 30-2, 41-7Google Scholar; Arnold 1 pp 124-5; Nicholl pp 76-7.

84 Wendover was the only chronicler to blame Walcher for his own death. He accused Walcher of buying the earldom and of reducing the population to poverty. See [Roger of Wendover, Flores Historiarum] 4 vols, ed [H. O.] Coxe, English Historical Society (London 1841-2) 2, pp 17-18. Wendover indulged in the usual monastic rhetoric against Ranulf Flambard (ibid p 165). Up to 1201, he seems to have used an earlier St Albans’ chronicle which he may have embellished; see [Roger of Wendover, Flores Historiarum] 3 vols, ed [H. G.] Hewlett, RS 84 (1889) 3, pp xi-xxii. He accused Hugh du Puiset of bribing his king and pope; see Coxe 3, p 9. In fact, Hugh did buy the earldom; see Scammell pp 49-50. Wendover was violently opposed to Richard Marsh (bishop 1215-26) in his struggle with the monks of Durham; see Coxe 4, pp 68-71, Hewlett 3, p xxii, and Offler Medieval Historians p 15.

85 See Liber Vitae Ecclesiae Dunelmensis, SS 136 (1923) p xvi, and see, for example, fols 14v and 16v, where, admittedly in part for reasons of space, the ninth century groupings are ignored.