Letteratura scientifica selezionata sul tema "Norway (Monastery)"

Gardening was an important part of the daily duties within several of the religious orders in Europe during the Middle Ages. The rule of Saint Benedict specified that the monastery should, if possible, contain a garden within itself, and before and above all things, special care should be taken of the sick, so that they may be served in very deed, as Christ himself. The cultivation of medicinal and utility plants was important to meet the material needs of the monastic institutions, but no physical garden has yet been found and excavated in either Scandinavia or Iceland. The Cistercians were particularly well known for being pioneer gardeners, but other orders like the Benedictines and Augustinians also practised gardening. The monasteries and nunneries operating in Iceland during medieval times are assumed to have belonged to either the Augustinian or the Benedictine orders. In Norway, some of the orders were the Dominicans, Fransiscans, Premonstratensians and Knights Hospitallers. Based on botanical investigations at all the Icelandic and Norwegian monastery sites, it is concluded that many of the plants found may have a medieval past as medicinal and utility plants and, with all the evidence combined, they were most probably cultivated in monastery gardens.

AbstractUmberto Eco’s novel The Name of the Rose as a postmodern literary work is extensively based on transtextuality. There are series of quotations from the Bible, Petrus Abelardus, St. Bernard, Petrarch, Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Jorge L. Borges, Nietzsche, and other classic authors interwoven into the novel’s narrative. The text is a result of multiple translations, a truly intercultural adventure: Adso, a 14th-century German monk from the Melk monastery provides a Northern Italian travel experience in Latin language, this memoir is translated by the publishing narrator into the Italian language of the 20th century. The characters of the story come from different areas of Europe, as there are monks from England, Spain, Norway, Germany, and other countries. This paper sheds light on the problems that occurred during the novel’s translation.

The paper discusses the study visit of pedagogue Sreten Adžić and his col- league Jovan Milijević from the Aleksinac Teacher Training School to the United Kingdom of Sweden and Norway during 1898 and 1899. Based on the decision of the Minister of Education and Church Affairs of the Kingdom of Serbia, Adžić and Milijević arrived to this Scandinavian country in early June 1898 with the task of studying organization and structure of its school system and to get acquainted with the teaching of handwork and physical education in primary and secondary schools. Adžić stayed in Sweden and Norway for a little over two months, while Milijević remained there until mid-July of 1899. After returning to his homeland, Adžić was appointed principal and Milijević teacher of handwork in the newly opened Male Teacher Train- ing School in Jagodina, in which they introduced their pedagogical experience from Scandinavia. During his stay in Sweden, Milijević mastered Swedish language to such an extent that he was able to translate various literary works and scientific papers. The paper is based on the study of original material from the legacy of Sreten Adžić kept in the Vraćevšnica monastery, official acts of the Ministry of Education and Church Af- fairs stored in the Archives of Serbia, modern periodicals and relevant literature of domestic provenance and newspaper material of Swedish provenance.

This study presents skeletal material from five medieval burial sites in Eastern Norway, confined to one royal burial church, one Dominican monastery, and three burial sites representing parish populations. We combine osteological analysis and Dual Energy X-Ray Absorptiometry, studying the remains of 227 individuals (102 females and 125 males) employing young, middle, and old adult age categories. The aim is to assess bone mineral density as a skeletal indicator of socioeconomic status including stature as a variable. We detected that socioeconomic status significantly affected bone mineral density and stature. Individuals of high status had higher bone mineral density (0.07 g/cm2, p = 0.003) and taller stature (1.85 cm, p = 0.017) than individuals from the parish population. We detected no significant relationship between young adult bone mineral density and socioeconomic status (p = 0.127 and 0.059 for females and males, respectively). For males, high young adult bone mineral density and stature varied concordantly in both status groups. In contrast, females of high status were significantly taller than females in the parish population (p = 0.011). Our findings indicate quite different conditions during growth and puberty for the two groups of females. The age-related pattern of bone variation also portrayed quite different trajectories for the two socioeconomic status groups of both sexes. We discuss sociocultural practices (living conditions during childhood and puberty, as well as nutritional and lifestyle factors in adult life), possibly explaining the differences in bone mineral density between the high-status and parish population groups. The observation of greater differences in bone mineral density and stature for females than males in the medieval society of Norway is also further discussed.

This article traces the manuscript filiation and the routes of textual transmission of Viðrǿða líkams ok sálar, the first soul-and-body debate that is preserved in Old Norse translation, a fairly faithful yet succinct translation of the Anglo-Norman poem known alternatively as Desputisun de l’âme et du corps and Un Samedi par nuit. The Norse text survives today in four manuscripts: AM 619 4to (Old Norwegian Homily Book), AM 696 XXXII 4to, AM 764 4to, and JS 405 8vo. Through a qualitative analysis of concurrent readings, the present study confirms and expands the stemma hypothesized by Ole Widding and Hans Bekker-Nielsen in 1959. The presence in the Norse text of readings typical of a newly identified “Continental tradition” within the Anglo-Norman family of manuscripts indicates that the nowlost manuscript source may have been a French codex, produced in all probability in a Flemish Benedictine monastery (Picardy, northeastern Artois or Hainaut) during the second half of the twelfth century. Subsequently, the codex may have been transferred from Flanders to a sister Benedictine house in Norway—such as Munkeliv in Bergen—via well-attested profitable monastic and trade networks that connected Flemish and Norwegian scriptoria between the twelfth and the fourteenth centuries.

The present volume establishes that Christian liturgy and religious rituals were the main tools for the transformation of the self after the introduction of Christianity in various cultural contexts of medieval Europe. The liturgical ritual was the ultimate arena and outer manifestation of the cognitive and behavioral changes required by individuals and which were inspired in them by the Church. In this article, I will discuss whether the same tools for transformation were relevant in medieval Norway and how self-reflection and cognitive change were triggered not only during the liturgy but also through other activities, such as the reading of literature. The primary focus will be on the medium of the book, here exemplified by an Old Norse translation of the pan-European legend about Barlaam and Josaphat as preserved in its main manuscript Holm Perg 6 fol., c. 1250. By Studying the content of the saga, its narratological structure, and the mise en page of the manuscript, I will argue that the text foregrounded the Christian quadriga model of interpreting and may have served to teach this model to its readers, i.e. members of the upper social class in medieval Norway during the second half of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth century. This book itself, with its specific mise en page, may thus be seen as a tool assisting in the transformation of the self, in a similar way as the liturgy. Keywords: Barlaams saga, Quadriga, cognitive transformation, mise en page, medieval Norway. On cover:Monks singing the Office and decorated initial A[sperges me.]. Gradual Olivetan Master (Use of the Olivetan Benedictines), illuminated manuscript on parchment ca. 1430-1439. Italy, Monastero di Santa Maria di Baggio near Milan, Ca 1400-1775.Beinecke Ms1184: The olivetan Gradual. Gradual. General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

Erik Petersen: Suscipere digneris. A find and some hypotheses on the Copenhagen Psalter Thott 143 2° and its history. The Copenhagen Psalter Thott 143 2º has often, and rightly, been praised as an outstanding example of the subtlety and artistic quality of Romanesque art in manuscripts. Its illumination, the saints of its calendar and litany place it in an English context. Two added elements, an obituary notice on the death in 1272 of Eric duke of Jutland, son of the Danish king Abel, and a prayer of an anonymous woman, link the codex to Medieval Denmark and Scandinavia as well. Addressing the Holy Trinity with the words Suscipere digneris the woman prays for herself, pro me misera peccatrice, and for the souls of her father and mother, of her brothers and sisters, of all members of her family, and for the souls of all brothers and sisters and familiares of her order. She also prays pro anima Byrgeri ducis. The occurrence of duke Birger, or Birger Jarl, in her prayer has given the book the name “Psalter of the Folkungar”, in particular in Scandinavian scholarship. The assumptions have been that the Psalter belonged to the Swedish aristocratic family of the Folkungar, that the duke Birger mentioned in the prayer was the older member of the family bearing that name (d. 1202), and that the book later passed to Mechtilde, the mother of duke Eric and widow of king Abel killed in 1252, who married the younger duke Birger in 1261. Duke Birger died in 1266, Mechtilde in 1288. The fate of the Psalter from the end of the 13th century until it entered the huge library of count Otto Thott (1703–1785) has been entirely unknown. There are, however, a couple of clues to its history, one in the codex itself and one external, which do cast some light on its whereabouts. The first is a small piece of paper with bibliographical notes from the 18th century inserted at the very end of the codex. The second is an elaborate copy of the calendar and the prayer that I became aware of while working on the German humanist and theologian Johann Albert Fabricius (1668–1736) and his manuscripts. It could be proved that the copy was made in Fabricius’ own hand between 1720 and 1736. Since I knew that Fabricius did not leave Hamburg at any time during these years, it could also be proved that the Copenhagen Psalter must have been present in the city at least for some time in the same period. The codex did not belong to Fabricius, and since he left no information about it apart from the copy itself, I was not able to determine how he had had access to it. The answer was to be found in a hitherto unnoticed treatise De Psalterio Manuscripto Capelliano ob singularem elegantiam commemorabili observatio, written by Johann Heinrich von Seelen (1687–1762) and published in the third volume of his Meditationes Exegeticae, quibus varia utriusque Testamenti loca expenduntur et illustrantur, Lübeck 1737. Von Seelen’s treatise is based on an autoptic study of the codex. He informs his readers that the codex once belonged to Rudolphus Capellus (1635–1684), professor of Greek and History at the Gymnasium Academicum in Hamburg. Von Seelen gives a detailed description of the codex, which leaves no doubt about its identity with the Psalter now in Copenhagen. He also states that the codex was sent to him for his use and information by his friend Michael Richey (1678–1761) in Hamburg. Michael Richey had been a colleague and close friend of Fabricius, who must have copied the codex while it was in Richey’s library. After Rudolphus Capellus’ death it passed on to his son Dietericus Matthias Capellus (1672–1720), who noted down the bibliographical notes on the sheet of paper attached to the codex. It was sold by auction as part of the bibliotheca Capelliana in Hamburg in 1721, and it will have been on that occasion that Michael Richey acquired it. It is not known where and how Rudolphus Capellus acquired the Psalter. Von Seelen called it Capellianum, because Capellus was the first owner known to him. In the present paper the old Benedictine nunnery in Buxtehude, Altkloster, is suggested as the likely previous home of the codex. The short distance from Hamburg to Buxtehude, Capellus’ limited radius of action, and the fact that Altkloster was dissolved as a catholic monastery exactly in the period when Capellus acquired the codex is adduced in support of the hypothesis. In addition, archival material in Stade confirms that there were still several medieval manuscripts in the monastery when it was dissolved as a consequence of the Peace of Westphalia. Only one of them has been identified – actually another manuscript that found its way into the Thott collection in Copenhagen. This manuscript, Thott 8 8º with a late medieval German translation of the New Testament, contains a note in the hand of its first modern owner, Dietrich von Stade (1637–1718), which attests the presence of medieval books in Altkloster even as late as in 1696. They had been taken over by the first Lutheran minister in the former monastery and were in the custody of his widow when Dietrich von Stade visited it. Capellus left his marks and scars on the manuscript. His hand, which I recognize from an autograph manuscript now in the Fabricius Collection, can be identified as the one that added numbers to the psalms. He also added the heading to the list of relics on top of f. 1r, and four lines of text on f. 199v. He added a note to the prayer on f. 16v, and even wrote down the Greek passages in the NT as parallels to the Latin canticles Magnificat and Nunc dimittis on f. 185r–185v. As to the medieval additions in the manuscript it is pointed out in the paper that the owner of the relics listed on the first page of the book was not the owner of the manuscript. The name was erased at an unknown date, but the letters dns (for dominus) before the erasure indicate that the owner was a man, not a woman or a church or a monastery. It is suggested that the list of relics is probably younger than usually assumed. The text that Capellus completed with the four lines and a final Amen at the very end of the codex is itself an addition to the original manuscript. Despite its length (f. 194v–199v) it has received little attention from scholars. It is actually a version of the so-called Oratio Sancti Brandani, copied in a late medieval hand that imitates the script of the Psalter proper. Palaeographically as well as textually it appears to be a foreign element in the context of the Psalter, but it is, of course, interesting for its history. The text ends abruptly, so Capellus’ addition may perhaps be seen as more justifiable here than elsewhere in the book. The only date explicitly noted down in the entire codex is found in the calendar. There are two medieval additions in it, one, little noticed, mentioning the 11.000 virgins in October, and the one noting the death of Eric duke of Jutland in year 1272, added to the line of the 27th day of the month of May. The present paper offers new suggestions as to how to understand the notices, and argues against the interpretation most often put forward, namely that Mechtilde was the direct or indirect authoress of the obituary-notice about duke Eric. It also argues against the identification of Mechtilde with the ego of the prayer on f. 16v. Based on palaeographical and other formal observations it is contended that the text should be dated to the end of the 13th Century and not its beginning, and that Byrgerus dux is likely to be the younger Birger Jarl, not the older. It is pointed out that he is not included in the prayer as a family member, but merely as Byrgerus dux. Following a structural analysis of the text, it is concluded that the anonymous voice of prayer is not that of Mechtilde; instead it is suggested that it could belong to an otherwise unknown daughter of Mechtilde and king Abel, and thus a sister of Eric duke of Jutland. Her place was a monastery, her present time the year 1288 or later. Prayers beginning with words Suscipere digneris are found in many variations in medieval manuscripts. In one source, MS 78 a 8 in the Kupferstichkabinet in Berlin, a Psalter, this prayer as well as other significant elements, display a striking similarity with the Copenhagen Psalter. The Berlin Psalter, which is younger than the Copenhagen Psalter, has added elements that relates to persons in Sweden and Norway. The Berlin Psalter was presented to the nuns in Buxtehude in 1362 by a miles who passed by from his hometown in the western part of Northern Germany. The relation between the Psalters now in Berlin and Copenhagen is complicated. In the present paper it is suggested that, with respect to the prayer, they may depend on a common source. It is concluded that the Berlin Psalter may have had closer links to the Folkungar in Sweden than the Copenhagen Psalter, whose history, in so far as we know it, points rather to its presence in Medieval Jutland, that is Southern Denmark and Northern Germany.

This journal has a complex subtitle: Media, technology and lifelong learning. The subtitle will to many of our readers be perceived as a synonymous to “ICT in education”. However, ICT in education is strongly influenced by informatics and psychology. Even if schools are main receivers of educational technology, not many inventions in the field stem from the educational field itself. There are many tendencies reminding us of the continual conflict between technology and education. The task of this journal has the aim to discuss media and technology on educational grounds. One might think that in the ideal world, media and technologies would develop gradually from good practice where the technology would fit to the expressed needs and desires of the teachers and students of the actual situation. Ivan Illich brings such an example to the fore: in the 7th century the process of christening the people in Northern Europe came to slow down. For some reasons it was difficult to teach newly recruited students in the monastery schools Latin and therefore Christianity. Some clever monks in Ireland came up with the idea of inserting a graphical sign - an open space - to mark the differences between letters that ends a word and starts the next (Illich 1995, p. 87). Inserting an open space, made words distinct and a lot easier to understand. This innovation speeded up the learning process not only for slow learners of the Northern Europe, but for the whole community of readers worldwide. Inserting a space greatly improved the technology of writing, reading and teaching. A genuinely simple innovation radically changed how writing was undertaken, and the innovation came from teaching. It might not be common to think of writing as technology. In Carl Mitcham’s seminal work “Thinking through technology” he points out how technology has developed historically, and covers a number of shapes and forms. In the modern everyday conception of technology, most people – as well as academics – think of technology as visible artefacts, gadgets, gizmos or whatever material expressions it may take. But a wider interpretation is that technology is an expression of “how things work”. According to Mitcham (1994), technology can be identified on many levels: as knowledge, as artefacts, as activity, and as volition. In this sense didactics and didactical interventions are both knowledge and activity. But there are also manifest artefacts representing didactics, that act as the type of “organ projections” that technology has been conceived to be: textbooks, classrooms, computers, projectors etc.. The problem with educational technology is that so much of it does not come as a response to expressed desires and needs. This is a general concern with technology. Technologies are invented for some specific purpose – or simply because it was possible to develop. By accident or serendipity it is all of a sudden applied to some other function. Dissemination of technology is difficult to predict, its patterns, means and ends is difficult to foresee. Our first contributor, Bjørn Hofmann, deals with this phenomenon, and he describes this as an uncontrollable technology. He explains how rather technology controls us. From being a means, technology now has become the end in itself. Hofmann offers us also a profound critique of this position. He claims there is a fundamental link between values and technology. We, educators as well as citizens in general, have a certain responsibility to screen and test technology according to its effects. We have to evaluate the ethics of the technology that surrounds us, and never accept this superfluous fact implied in “technological determination”. He asks us to trace the values inherent in the technology in question and seek beyond the imperatives of technology, for the ethics of technology. The second article addresses a specific context of teaching about human communication. Halvor Nordby seeks to explore the nature of face-to-face and interactive communication and the respective challenges that students of a national further education program for medical paramedics experience. Nordby builds his paper on an analysis of the communicative situations paramedics often find themselves in. He addresses two main questions: What are the basic problems of understanding paramedics confront when they meet patients and other health personnel in face-to-face situations? And how are these problems similar to, but also different from, the challenges they confront when they communicate interactively via radio or telephone with other health personnel? Nordby uses philosophy of mind and language to understand these situations and provides us with an analytical framework for not only understanding the similarities and differences, but also to avoid misunderstandings. Nordby’s paper is an excellent example on how one can develop fine research from investigating one’s own teaching. Another insight from Carl Mitcham is how technology seems to follow steps of naturalistic innovation. What started as an idea and turned into standard procedures in a community of practitioners became more or less fundamental “rules of thumb”, written down in manuals, and distributed in the community. In the next stage one seeks for more consistent systems of predictions, such as ‘if A, then B’ appear, a semi-scientific stage which strives for Scientific precision. In its final stage, agents of the community seek to legitimize and systematize what once was a practical rule by transforming it to science. Now, scientific theories are of two kinds, Mitcham argues: the highest status is gained by being defined as a substantial theory, to which most nature sciences belong. The second group, operational theories, offer less absolute certainty, more insecurity, less predictability. Think of “thermodynamics” and “management” as examples of the two kinds. Education is often trapped between these types of scientific theory. On one hand most teachers act on the grounds of “rules of thumb”, believing there is a good reason to claim that “If I do A, B will follow”. These are dimensions of the personal knowledge teachers carry without giving it much thought. University teachers are no exception in this respect. Even if they seek to build their research on scientific theories, their lives are just as based on personal knowledge as any layperson. When it comes to teaching, university teachers are equally attached do unreflected traditions, habits and unjustified patterns of action. The last paper deals with how scientific interventions into education seeks to challenge established “ways of doing things”, by changing methods of assessment. The paper suggests that giving students proper feedback on their written essays pays off significantly: more students pass the exam, and with better results. Raaheim has screened the available literature on what seems to have a positive effect on student learning when writing papers, and shows how using a different method improves the studying conditions for students. He offers a technological innovation that illuminates the recursive process between the developmental levels of technologies. The obligation of educators is to improve the chances for learners to fulfil their aims. Even if education never can become a scientific theory on par with “substantial” theories, the obligation is still there to increase the chance for making A be followed by B. Literature: Illich, I. (1995): In the Vineyard of the text. A Commentary to Hugh's Didascalicon. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Mitcham, C. (1994): Thinking through technology : the path between engineering and philosophy . University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

This book traces the development of a group of anonymous, vernacular, annalistic chronicles—‘the Anglo-Saxon chronicles’—from their genesis at the court of King Alfred to their end at the Fenland monastery of Peterborough. It reconsiders them in the light of wider European scholarship on the politics of history-writing. It covers all surviving manuscript chronicles, with detailed attention being paid to palaeography, layout, and content, and identifies key lost texts. It is concerned with production, scribe-authors, patrons, and audiences. The centuries these chronicles cover were critical to the making of England and saw its conquest by Scandinavians and Normans. They have long been part of the English national story. The book considers the impact of this on their study and editing. It stresses their multiplicity, whilst identifying a tradition of writing vernacular history. It sees that tradition as an expression of the ideology of a southern elite engaged in the conquest and assimilation of old kingdoms north of the Thames, Trent, and Humber. The book connects many chronicles to bishops and especially to archbishops of York and Canterbury. Vernacular chronicling is seen, not as propaganda, but as engaged history-writing closely connected to the court, whose networks and personnel were central to the production of chronicles and their continuation. The disappearance of the English-speaking elite after the Norman Conquest had profound impacts on them, repositioning their authors in relation to the court and royal power, and ultimately resulting in the end of the tradition of vernacular chronicling.

Abstract The three main buildings of a monastery provided for the same needs as those of a castle, namely secure places in which to eat, sleep, and worship. In the castle these were provided by the hall, the chamber, and the chapel, in the monastery by the refectory, the dormitory, and the church. Both would also have had a boundary wall and a gatehouse, a kitchen, and outbuildings, as well as accommodation for guests. In other words, the difference between a monastery and a castle is one of degree, with a greater stress on worship in one and on the trappings of power in the other. There is one fundamental difference, however, which has more to do with symbolism than utility, and that is the ordered layout of the key buildings in the monastery as opposed to the apparently ad hoc one of the castle bailey, an order which arises out of the model of the monastic life bequeathed to western monasticism by Benedict of Nursia (c.480-before 553).

Abstract St Oswald’s part in the revival of monasticism known as the Tenth-Century Reformation was the subject of an important study by Dean Armitage Robinson. He was mainly concerned with the part Oswald played in the transformation of the cathedral community at Worcester into a fully Benedictine monastery. This transformation has since been the subject of varying interpretations. The present enquiry reconsiders the question in a broad chronological framework, continuing across the Norman conquest. The outcome will, I hope, be a clearer view of the history of the mensa, extending from Oswald’s pontificate to the twelfth century.

Abstract The twelfth century in England was characterized by a resurgence of interest in indigenous saints’ cults. The reservations of Norman churchmen had vanished, and a new generation of prelates eagerly espoused the cause of native saints. The art and architecture of the period bears witness to this renewed enthusiasm, not least the adaptation of early Anglo-Norman architecture in response to the renaissance of the cults of local saints.Typical of the new attitude was Faritius, appointed abbot of Abingdon in the auspicious year 1100. He was an energetic rebuilder of his monastery church. His opinion of English saints was evidently very different from that of his sceptical predecessor, Abbot Athelhelm; for during his fifteen-year abbatiate a shoulder-blade and arm of St Ethel world were received at Abingdon, and Bishop William Giffard, who, one supposes, may have been the donor of these Winchester relics, presided at their translation into a new reliquary.

Chapter 8 moves from the Norman kingdom of the twelfth century to the newly changed situation in the early thirteenth century, as the demise of the Hauteville dynasty and the minority of the young king Frederick II Hohenstaufen (r. 1198–1250) created an opportunity for Pope Innocent III (r. 1198–1216) and his successors to enforce their authority in southern Italy. Meanwhile, the Latin conquest of Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade (1204) created an imperative for the papacy to develop a coherent policy towards the integration of Greek Christians into the Roman church’s administrative and legal structures. The chapter discusses how the papacy formulated this policy at the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) and the resulting increase in papal interventions in the legal affairs of the southern Italian Greeks. It then looks at Pope Honorius III’s (r. 1216–1227) short-lived effort to organise Byzantine-rite monasteries into an Order of St Basil under Grottaferrata (a predecessor to Eugenius IV’s more successful fifteenth-century order). It examines the Grottaferrata Nomocanon (Marc. gr. 171), a manuscript produced at the monastery in c. 1220–1230 that was apparently intended to provide a legal guide for the new order yet was still entirely Byzantine in character. The chapter finishes by focusing on the conflict between the Holy Saviour monastery of Messina and the papacy in the 1220s–1230s as an important example of the papacy’s efforts to bring the royal monasteries of the Kingdom of Sicily under episcopal control.

Abstract ‘So William became King’, wrote Eadmer, monk of Canterbury, of the events of 1066; ‘what treatment he meted out to those leaders of the English who managed to survive the great slaughter, as it could do no good, I forbear to tell.’1 Eadmer’s pursed lips need no special explanation. Within a year of the Conquest the Anglo-Saxon cathedral at Canterbury had been gutted by fire (possibly by arsonists). Within three years of this event, Eadmer had to submit to the leadership of an archbishop, Lanfranc, whose initial plans made few concessions either to the architectural or to the liturgical traditions of the Anglo-Saxons. Having accepted perhaps with some reluctance, the English oddity of a cathedral staffed by monks, Lanfranc had begun to erect a building of the same dimensions as his church at Caen, with stone from Caen, to provide it with a calendar that would as far as possible match that of his former monastery at Bee, and to introduce new constitutions modelled on those of Cluny, the great Burgundian abbey which became the pattern of reform for Norman monasteries in the eleventh century.

Chapter 5 explores how, following the restoration of relative peace and stability after the Norman conquest, several newly founded and important Italo-Greek monasteries developed their own independent legal jurisdictions on their own property. The chapter argues that the Normans’ opposition to papal and episcopal interference created a laissez-faire atmosphere in which Italo-Greek monks could continue to follow Byzantine canon law. Many such monasteries enjoyed the patronage of the Norman nobility throughout the late eleventh and twelfth centuries. These monasteries were responsible for producing the majority of surviving nomocanons from medieval southern Italy. It divides them into two broad categories: the royal archimandritates (monastic federations) of Rossano and Messina; and lesser archimandritates and autodespotic (independent) monasteries such as SS Elias and Anastasios of Carbone and St Nicholas of Casole. It observes that the production of a monastic nomocanon was closely linked to a monastery’s acquisition of legal privileges from the kings of Sicily, indicating that they were produced to meet a practical legal need and not simply out of academic curiosity. Lastly, the chapter asks how Italo-Greek monks under Norman rule perceived their relationship to papal jurisdiction, using the examples of Bartholomew of Grottaferrata’s comments on papal legislation and Neilos Doxapatres’ work on the Order of the Patriarchal Thrones to show that they still felt themselves to be a part of the legal sphere of the Patriarchate of Constantinople.

Abstract Religious prose was produced in abundance throughout the whole of this period; surviving examples of secular prose on the other hand are few, and limited to the latter part of the fourteenth century, with the solitary exception of the work with which we begin our survey. This—the later part of The Peterborough Chronicle—has a direct and interesting relationship with pre-Conquest literary culture, for it is a continuation of that remarkable achievement of Old English learning, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. After the Norman Conquest, a continuation of this was kept up at Worcester, a famous traditional centre of learning, but only up to 1080. At the monastery of Peterborough, however, a text of The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was continued over the years from II 21 to II 54, and the events of post-Conquest history were recorded in it. It is usual to distinguish two ‘continuations’ —the ‘first’, covering the years 1122—31, and the ‘final continuation’ for the years 1132—54-both of which are believed to have been composed as well as copied at Peterborough. The value of this part of the text for historians of the English language is inestimable; it affords a wealth of information on changing sounds, inflexions, and vocabulary (it is here, for instance, that the new form of the feminine personal pronoun ‘she’ emerges, spelt sere). Its historical and literary interest is not at first glance so obvious. ‘Disappointingly brief and provincial in outlook’ is the verdict of one modern historian.*:It is certainly true that it cannot compete with contemporary histories written in Latin, such as the Historia Ecclesiastica of Ordericus Vitalis, which records the turbulent deeds of the Normans with vivid detail and gives in addition a remarkable panoramic view of Anglo-Norman society and its wider European relationships, or the even more distinguished Gesta Regum Anglorum of the scholar William of Malmesbury, whose erudition is accompanied by a power of incisive analysis and a remarkable awareness of men’s motives and the workings of self-interest.