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O'neal Dissertation © Copyright by Amy Michele O’Neal May, 2008 PRAGMATISM, PATRONAGE, PIETY AND PARTICIPATION: WOMEN IN THE ANGLO-NORMAN CHRONICLES ______________________________________ A Dissertation Presented to The Faculty of the Department of History University of Houston ___________________________________ In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy ________________________________________ By Amy Michele O’Neal May, 2008 ii PRAGMATISM, PATRONAGE, PIETY AND PARTICIPATION: WOMEN IN THE ANGLO-NORMAN CHRONICLES By: _______________________________ Amy Michele O’Neal Approved: ____________________________________ Sally N. Vaughn, Ph.D. Committee Chair ____________________________________ Catherine F. Patterson, Ph.D. ____________________________________ Patricia R. Orr, Ph.D. _____________________________________ John A. Moretta, Ph.D. ______________________________________ John J. Antel, Ph.D. Dean, College of Humanities and Fine Arts Department of Economics iii PRAGMATISM, PATRONAGE, PIETY AND PARTICIPATION: WOMEN IN THE ANGLO-NORMAN CHRONICLES An Abstract to the Doctoral Dissertation Presented to The Faculty of the Department of History University of Houston In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy By Amy Michele O’Neal May, 2008 iv PRAGMATISM, PATRONAGE, PIETY AND PARTICIPATION: WOMEN IN THE ANGLO-NORMAN CHRONICLES This dissertation examines the chronicles written in England and Normandy in the eleventh and twelfth centuries and explores how the writers of these histories perceived women. This study is meant to illuminate the lives of the women in the Anglo-Norman chronicles at every stage of life. While many modern books have addressed medieval women, they have attempted to deal with women more generally, looking at many areas and societies over hundreds of years. Other modern historians have focused on a few select women using evidence from the same Anglo-Norman chronicles used in this study. These historians, often times unintentionally, portray their subjects as extraordinary; this is simply not the case. Women like Adela of Blois, the Empress Matilda, and Queen Edith Matilda were the rule not the exception. The Anglo-Norman authors illuminate the lives of women at every stage of life and in every order of society. The chroniclers describe women who were wise and gave good advice, who were pious and showed it through patronage of the Church, and who were very active in society. This is their history. v Table of Contents Abstract iii Index of Tables and Charts vi Chapter 1: Introduction: Women in the Anglo-Norman Chronicles 1 Chapter 2: Antecedents and Models: the Bible, Mythology, and the Past 29 Chapter 3: Daughters: Girls and Young Women in the Family 67 Chapter 4: Wives: The Roles of Married Women 107 Chapter 5: Concubines: Wives Who Were Not Wives? 139 Chapter 6: Mothers & Stepmothers: Protection and Threat 157 Chapter 7: Widows: Most Helpless in Society? 189 Chapter 8: Bellatores: Women Who Fought 199 Chapter 9: Laborares: Women Who Worked 230 Chapter 10: Conclusion: Pragmatism, Patronage, Piety and Participation 252 Appendix I: The Muddled Case of William the Conqueror’s Daughters 256 Bibliography 263 vi Tables and Charts Table of Abbreviations vii-viii vii Abbreviations Adela of Blois Kimberley LoPrete, Adela of Blois: Countess and Lord, c. 1067-1137 (Dublin: Four Corner’s Press, 2007) ASC Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, edited and translated by Michael Swanton (NY: Routledge, 1998). Dunbabin Jean Dunbabin, France in the Making, 843-1180, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). Eadmer Eadmer, Historia Novorum in Anglia et Opuscula Duo De Vita Sancti Anselmi et Quibusdam Miraculis Ejus, edited and translated by Martin Rule in the Roll Series, vol. 81 (Wiesbaden: Kraus Reprint, 1965). EER Encomium Emma Reginae, edited by Alistair Campbell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). Empress Matilda Marjorie Chibnall, The Empress Matilda: Queen Consort, Queen Mother, and Lady of the English (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1991). Fauroux Recueil des Actes des Ducs de Normandie de 911 á 1066, Edited by Marie Fauroux (Caen: Société d’ Impressions, 1961). GND Gesta Normannorum Ducum of William of Jumieges, Orderic Vitalis, and RobertOf Torigni in 2 vols.translated by Elisabeth M. C. van Houts. (New York:Oxford University Press, 1992). GPA William of Malmesbury, Gesta Pontificum Anglorum, translated by David Preest (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 2002). GRA William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum, vol. 1, edited and tranlated by R. A. B. Mynors and completed by R. M. Thomson and M. Winterbottom. (Oxford: Clarendon viii Press. 2006). GS Gesta Stephani, Regis Anglorum, translated by K. R. Potter (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976). HH Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum: The History of the English People, translated and edited by Diana Greenway (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996). Johns Susan M. Johns, Noblewomen, Aristocracy, and Power in the Twelfth Century Anglo-Norman Realm (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003). JW John of Worcester, The Chronicle of John of Worcester, vol. 2 and 3, translated by Jennifer Bray and P. McGurk. (New York: Clarendon Press, 1995-8). Matilda of Scotland Lois L. Huneycutt, Matilda of Scotland: A Study in Medieval Queenship (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2003). RRAN Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, 1066-1154, edited by H. W. C. Davis (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913-69). Stafford Pauline Stafford, Queen Emma and Queen Edith: Queenship and Woman’s Power in Eleventh Century England (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1997). Strickland Agnes Strickland, Lives of the Queen of England from the Norman Conquest in eight volumes (Philadelphia: J B. Lippincott Company, 1892). Women in Orderic Vitalis Marjorie Chibnall, “Women in Orderic Vitalis” ” in The Haskins Society Journal: Studies in Medieval History, vol. II, edited by Robert Patterson (London: Hambledon Press, 1990). WP William of Poitiers, Gesta Guillelmi of William Poitiers, edited and translated by R. H. C.Davis & M.Chibnall (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998). viii Chapter 1: Women in the Anglo-Norman Chronicles This work in many ways is born out of the chroniclers who wrote in England and Northern France in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Women were an integral part of their society and fill the pages of their writings; yet, somehow these same women have been short-changed by later historians. By acting within the parameters of their family, these women accessed power, using their relationships to people within their family and community to expand their presence in the larger society. The Anglo-Norman chroniclers, like Orderic Vitalis, praise women at every stage of life and from every order of society. This study is meant to bridge the gaps between general histories of medieval women and the more specific arguments from the biographies of a few select individuals or from shorter, more focused articles. While the Anglo-Norman chronicles have been used to piece together the lives of a few important women, they have rarely been examined in a more holistic manner to create a wider look at the place that women held in society as well as how these religious men viewed their subjects. While there are a few potential problems with using the Anglo-Norman Chronicles, they are largely un-mined sources that have waited until now to be used in reconstructing the history of the women within them. The Chroniclers of the Anglo-Norman World Since this work relies heavily on the writings of the Anglo-Norman chroniclers, this chapter will discuss each of them individually and how they view women in their works. Even though the writers have certain things in common, each author has his own specific perspective of the world complete with specialized knowledge and biases. Once the reader has a better understanding of these religious men and their agendas, the words that they recorded will carry more and different meanings. While the chroniclers are most concerned with the important people and events around them, they include many topics from ordinary people and things to places and events worlds away. Despite their differences in perspectives and biases, the chroniclers also have a number of characteristics in common. First and foremost, they are all religious men, clerks and monks. As such they had access to the best education and the time and energy to give over to recording the chronicles. Their writings were intended first as devotion to God and second to record history, participate in political interpretations, or to please their patrons in some other way. Their writings, just like their world, were simultaneously temporal and spiritual. Women are an integral part of the world that they record. Orderic Vitalis Orderic Vitalis is one of the most important sources for this work because of the sheer volume of his writings. First, he wrote a continuation of the Gesta Normannorum Ducum,1 adding his own redactions to the original manuscript by William of Jumièges. Later, he wrote his most original and most thorough work, Historia Ecclesiastica, a 1 Gesta Normannorum Ducum of William of Jumièges, Orderic Vitalis and Robert of Torigni, 2 vol.s, translated by Elisabeth M C van Houts (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992). 2 massive history which is available in six modern volumes. Born around 1075 in England, Orderic was an oblate who became a monk at St Évroul in Normandy around the age of 10, and he died there around 1141, the year in which he stopped writing.2 Orderic records some
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