DOCSLIB.ORG

Legitimacy Through Literature: Political

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Legitimacy Through Literature: Political LEGITIMACY THROUGH LITERATURE: POLITICAL CULTURE IN EARLY- ELEVENTH-CENTURY ROUEN A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Corinna MaxineCarol Matlis May 2017 © 2017 Corinna MaxineCarol Matlis LEGITIMACY THROUGH LITERATURE: POLITICAL CULTURE IN EARLY- ELEVENTH-CENTURY ROUEN Corinna Maxine Carol Matlis Cornell University 2017 This dissertation examines the interplay between early-eleventh-century Norman literature and the Norman ducal family’s project of establishing its legitimacy to rule. The dissertation considers Dudo of Saint Quentin’s arcane history of the Norman dukes, Warner of Rouen’s two esoteric satires, and two further anonymous satires produced in Rouen c. 996-1026 (the reign of Duke Richard II). These works constitute the secular Norman literature during this period. Although the texts’ audiences are unknown, it is clear that the ducal family, local clerics, and potentially nobility throughout the region and France were among the works’ addressees. Despite their obscurity to modern readers, these texts spoke to the interests of the highest echelons of Norman society. Throughout my dissertation, I show how these texts were understood in their own time and how they spoke to contemporary social and political issues. Common themes emerge throughout the texts, despite their different genres: most importantly, the ducal family’s strategic marriages, and the desire for the appearance of a cultured court in order to balance the Normans’ reputation of physical might. Reading these Rouennais texts together offers new views of Norman political culture that have not been available without a close look at this literature as a whole. The literature should also be considered in the context of contemporary monastic and ecclesiastical reforms. The growing interest in ecclesiastical celibacy and other reforms influenced these texts, especially where they portray religious debates or satirical bawdiness, but the reforms’ influence in curtailing the production of secular texts in the late 1020s should not be overstated. Instead, it was political concerns that dictated the writing of the Rouennais literature and also dictated the end of its production. This dissertation’s methodology is to discuss the convergences and divergences in style, theme, and content of the texts in order to discuss the context in which the pieces were written. I combine this approach at times with evidence from diplomatic sources. This dissertation offers more evidence for a recent trend in Norman scholarship that sees the early-eleventh-century as a time of political consolidation for the Norman ducal family. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Corinna Matlis will receive her PhD from Cornell University in Medieval Studies in May 2017. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 2009, and she received a Master of Studies in Medieval History from Oxford University in 2010. She received her MA in Medieval Studies from Cornell in 2013. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisor, Oren Falk, and the rest of my dissertation committee for the guidance they have given me on this project and throughout my studies at Cornell. Thank you to Andrew Galloway for his thoughtful guidance and enthusiastic encouragement regarding Norman literature, the correct formatting of Latin poetry, and even swimming for exercise. Thank you to Rachel Weil for guiding me through the complexities of early modern England during my pre-dissertation studies, and for stepping outside of her main period of study to advise me on my dissertation in order to offer important historical insights and perspectives. I am extremely grateful to Andrew Hicks, who has been wonderfully generous with his time during my whole stay at Cornell. From the weekly Latin reading sessions in my early years to later detailed comments on my dissertation, I would certainly never have been able to write this dissertation without his generosity. Finally, I offer much gratitude to Oren, who took a chance on me when he took me on as a student six and a half years ago and who has mentored me every step of the way since then. While I wrote this dissertation and also before, he has helped me to improve my clunky writing, my fuzzy thinking, my teaching, and my infernal habit of over-apologizing, and I am grateful for each and every critique. Secondly, I must thank Elisabeth van Houts, who supervised my work while I was a visiting student at the History Faculty at Cambridge University. She has been incredibly generous, sharing both her time and her insights. She read many drafts of these chapters, and I can only imagine how much less my work would have been without her help. I must also thank everyone else who worked with me during my year at Cambridge – especially Neil Wright, who helped me with my Latin translations. iv I have been lucky to have received a number of grants while I have been at Cornell, and I wish to thank the Cornell History Department for awarding me the Mommson Grant (2014- 2015), The Cornell Institute for European Studies at the Einaudi Center for awarding me the Michele Sicca Grant (summer 2012), and the Cornell Graduate School for its numerous travel grants and language-study grants. Of course none of these bodies should be held responsible for the results of my work. Still, I would not have been able to undertake the work without them. I presented portions of this dissertation at various conferences throughout the past six years, and I am grateful to the numerous panel organizers and the audience members for nudging me to think more deeply and express myself more clearly. I am extremely grateful to Pippa Byrne, a close friend, and Tommy Peterson, my mother, both of whom read through this thesis, gave me the benefit of their wisdom, and helped me catch typos and infelicities of style. Any errors and awkwardness are, of course, my own. This thesis would never have been written without the support of many Cornellians: fellow graduate students, my undergraduate students – many of whom pushed me to think in new ways, administrators (particularly Jim Utz), and librarians (especially Virginia Cole). I am also grateful to all of the professors, teachers, TAs, GSIs, and other instructors I have had from my time at Newton North High School, through Berkeley, Oxford, and Cornell. Of course I have to thank my friends and family who have stuck with me through this. I cannot name the number of friends whose kind words, well-timed phone calls and coffee breaks have cheered me along the way. In particular, thank you to Roisin Watson, Pippa Byrne, Ruth Mullett, Ruoji Tang, Brooks Swett, and Sarah Frank. Thank you to my parents, Tommy Peterson and Jan Matlis, who accepted, when I was in middle school, that I would someday want v to write a doctoral thesis in medieval history and helped me pursue that dream. Thank you to my husband, Maxim Polyakov, who has read many parts of this thesis over the years and has always helped me to believe that this dissertation was within my intellectual reach. Finally, I have to thank Chris Wickham, who supervised my master’s thesis at Oxford, parts of which made it into this dissertation. He was the one, in late 2009, who asked if I had ever read Dudo of Saint Quentin’s history of the Norman dukes. I fell in love with that text, and it is the basis of this dissertation. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iv INTRODUCTION 1 I. The Texts and the Ducal Family 4 II. Key Terms and Methodology: Literature, Politics, Political Culture 10 III. Historiographical Context 16 IV. The Rouennais Authors – Dudo and Warner: Who They Were 30 IV. Schools and Courts of Rouen 38 V. Why Rouen? Why not Fécamp? 45 Conclusion: The Literary Setting of Rouen 51 THE LITERARY AND AUTHORIAL COMMUNITY IN ROUEN: STYLE, COMPETITON, AND COHESION 52 I. Literary Portrayals of a Competitive Literary Community 54 II. The Hermeneutic Style, Invective, Simulated School Texts, and their Importance as a Marker of an Intellectual Community 67 III. Collaboration and Purity: Dudo’s Ethics of Writing 79 IV. Revision as a Civilizing Force 86 Conclusion 92 LITERARY DEPICTIONS OF NORMAN MEN: CONVERGENCE OF INTELLECT AND PHYSICALITY 94 I. Well-Spoken Pirates: Dudo’s Portrayal of the Early Norman Dukes 96 II. Words as Tools of Power 107 III. Forceful Words 122 IV. The Excoriation of Moriuht, The Amusement of Rouen 130 Conclusion: An Audience for Portrayals of Eloquence 136 vii LITERARY DEPICTIONS OF NORMAN WOMEN: SATIRIZED SEX AND POLITICAL LEGITIMACY 140 I. Cultured Outsiders: Strategic Links 142 II. Words Meddling in Power: Uncontrolled women with a Powerful Weapon 155 III. Aggressive Language and Witty Quips: Powerful Language and Ridiculous Topics 164 IV. Women as Legitimators: Sexual Power and the Power of Talking about It 174 Conclusion 182 THE RISE AND FALL OF SECULAR LITERATURE IN ROUEN 183 I. The Force Behind it All: Archbishop Robert (c. 990-1037) 187 II. Bishops Who Like Bawdy Poetry 196 III. The Influence of Monastic Reform on Rouennais Literature 205 IV. The Influence of Political Shifts on Rouennais Literature 212 Conclusion 216 CONCLUSION 220 I. A New Look at the Process of Consolidating Normandy 221 II. An Underground Tradition of Secular, Bawdy, Literature? 227 III. Literature and Politics 235 APPENDIX 1: 238 SIMPLIFIED DUCAL FAMILY TREE 238 BIBLIOGRAPHY 239 viii INTRODUCTION “You goat! May you completely eat the cunt of your nanny-goat and, in equal measure, her sexual organs and her buttocks, before the wise poems of our Virgil disappear and before (the syllables) ‘fo’ and ‘mo’ have two tempora, as well as (the syllable) ‘fex.’”1 As Warner of Rouen’s poem, Moriuht, includes discursive and obscene laments like this one, it is not surprising that scholars have been slow to integrate this work into the study of early Norman political history.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Rouen Revisited
    105 Chapter 8 Rouen Revisited 8.1 Overview This chapter describes Rouen Revisited, an interactive art installation that uses the tech- niques presented in this thesis to interpret the series of Claude Monet's paintings of the Rouen Cathe- dral in the context of the actual architecture. The chapter ®rst presents the artistic description of the work from the SIGGRAPH '96 visual proceedings, and then gives a technical description of how the artwork was created. 8.2 Artistic description This section presents the description of the Rouen Revisited art installation originally writ- ten by Golan Levin and Paul Debevec for the SIGGRAPH'96 visual proceedings and expanded for the Rouen Revisited web site. 106 Rouen Revisited Between 1892 and 1894, the French Impressionist Claude Monet produced nearly 30 oil paintings of the main facËade of the Rouen Cathedral in Normandy (see Fig. 8.1). Fascinated by the play of light and atmosphere over the Gothic church, Monet systemat- ically painted the cathedral at different times of day, from slightly different angles, and in varied weather conditions. Each painting, quickly executed, offers a glimpse into a narrow slice of time and mood. The Rouen Revisited interactive art installation aims to widen these slices, extending and connecting the dots occupied by Monet's paintings in the multidimensional space of turn-of-the-century Rouen. In Rouen Revisited, we present an interactive kiosk in which users are invited to explore the facËade of the Rouen Cathedral, as Monet might have painted it, from any angle, time of day, and degree of atmospheric haze.
    [Show full text]
  • Vehicle List and Driver Assignments
    Effingham County Board of Education Vehicle List 6/30/2013 Vehicle List and Driver Assignments Insurance Veh# Make Year Model Cost Assigned Driver/Location Tag # Vin # Car# Book Value 940 L0163292 1994 94 INT 39,994.15 Spare BB 66 15915 1HVBBACNXSH623821 151 - 941 L016393 1994 94 INT 39,994.15 Spare BB 66 15916 1HVBBACN1SH623822 153 - 942 L016394 1994 94 INT 39,994.15 BB 66 15917 1HVBBACN3SH623823 152 - 944 L016396 1994 94 INT 39,994.15 Spare BB 66 15918 1HVBBACN7SH623825 155 - 945 L016397 1994 94 INT 39,994.15 Spare BB 66 15919 1HVBBACN9SH623826 156 - 946 L016398 1994 94 INT 39,994.15 Spare BB 66 15920 1HVBBACNOSH623827 158 - 947 L016399 1994 94 INT 39,994.15 Spare BB 66 15921 1HVBBACN2SH623828 157 - 951 L020327 1995 95 FORD 41,995.62 BB 66 15923 1FDXB80C1SVA75535 165 - 952 L020328 1995 95 FORD 41,995.62 Spare BB 66 15924 1FDXB80C3SVA75536 164 - 953 L020329 1995 95 FORD 41,995.62 Spare BB 66 15925 1FDXB80C5SVA75537 168 - 954 L020330 1995 95 FORD 41,995.62 Spare BB 66 15926 1FDXB80CXSVA79843 169 - 956 L020332 1995 95 FORD 41,995.62 Spare BB 66 15928 1FDXB80C8SVA76228 166 - 962 L024118 1996 96 FORD 41,995.62 Spare BB 66 15963 1FDXB80C5VVA03628 176 - 963 L024119 1996 96 FORD 41,995.62 Spare BB 66 15964 1FDXB80C7VVA03629 175 - 964 L024117 1996 96 FORD 41,995.62 Spare BB 54 15965 1FDXB80C3VVA03627 177 - 965 L024116 1996 96 FORD 41,995.62 Spare BB 54 15966 1FDXB80C1VVA03626 178 - 970 L028102 1997 97 INT 44,597.30 Spare BB 66 16029 1HVBBABN8VH496962 181 - 971 L028103 1997 97 INT 44,597.30 Spare BB 66 16048 1HVBBABNXVH496963 182 - 973 L028105
    [Show full text]
  • The Digital Nature of Gothic
    The Digital Nature of Gothic Lars Spuybroek Ruskin’s The Nature of Gothic is inarguably the best-known book on Gothic architecture ever published; argumentative, persuasive, passionate, it’s a text influential enough to have empowered a whole movement, which Ruskin distanced himself from on more than one occasion. Strangely enough, given that the chapter we are speaking of is the most important in the second volume of The Stones of Venice, it has nothing to do with the Venetian Gothic at all. Rather, it discusses a northern Gothic with which Ruskin himself had an ambiguous relationship all his life, sometimes calling it the noblest form of Gothic, sometimes the lowest, depending on which detail, transept or portal he was looking at. These are some of the reasons why this chapter has so often been published separately in book form, becoming a mini-bible for all true believers, among them William Morris, who wrote the introduction for the book when he published it First Page of John Ruskin’s “The with his own Kelmscott Press. It is a precious little book, made with so much love and Nature of Gothic: a chapter of The Stones of Venice” (Kelmscott care that one hardly dares read it. Press, 1892). Like its theoretical number-one enemy, classicism, the Gothic has protagonists who write like partisans in an especially ferocious army. They are not your usual historians – the Gothic hasn’t been able to attract a significant number of the best historians; it has no Gombrich, Wölfflin or Wittkower, nobody of such caliber – but a series of hybrid and atypical historians such as Pugin and Worringer who have tried again and again, like Ruskin, to create a Gothic for the present, in whatever form: revivalist, expressionist, or, as in my case, digitalist, if that is a word.
    [Show full text]
  • UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE Modeling
    UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE Modeling, Characterization and Simulation of On-Chip Power Delivery Networks and Temperature Profile on Multi-Core Microprocessors A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Electrical Engineering by Duo Li December 2010 Dissertation Committee: Dr. Sheldon X.-D. Tan, Chairperson Dr. Yingbo Hua Dr. Frank Vahid Copyright by Duo Li 2010 The Dissertation of Duo Li is approved: Committee Chairperson University of California, Riverside ACKNOWLEDGMENT There are many thanks to many people who made this dissertation possible. First of all, I would like to thank my Ph.D. advisor Dr. Sheldon Tan for the continuous support to my Ph.D. study and research work. Thank him for guiding me on my research road and providing me the great lab research environment. I could not have finished my dissertation successfully without his encouragement, sound advice, good teaching and lots of good ideas. Besides my advisor, I would like to thank the rest of my Ph.D. dissertation committee members Dr. Yingbo Hua and Dr. Frank Vahid, for their encouragement, comments and questions. I would like to thank all my labmates for their support and encouragement. I could not have had the better understanding on my research without the frequent discussions with them. I would like to thank my parents Daping Li and Yuqin Cong for giving birth to me, rasing me, teaching me, supporting me and loving me all the time. Last but not the least, I would like to thank my lovely wife Shan Shan. Thanks for being with me together during my Ph.D.
    [Show full text]
  • A File in the Online Version of the Kouroo Contexture (Approximately
    SETTING THE SCENE FOR THOREAU’S POEM: YET AGAIN WE ATTEMPT TO LIVE AS ADAM 11th Century 1010s 1020s 1030s 1040s 1050s 1060s 1070s 1080s 1090s 12th Century 1110s 1120s 1130s 1140s 1150s 1160s 1170s 1180s 1190s 13th Century 1210s 1220s 1230s 1240s 1250s 1260s 1270s 1280s 1290s 14th Century 1310s 1320s 1330s 1340s 1350s 1360s 1370s 1380s 1390s 15th Century 1410s 1420s 1430s 1440s 1450s 1460s 1470s 1480s 1490s 16th Century 1510s 1520s 1530s 1540s 1550s 1560s 1570s 1580s 1590s 17th Century 1610s 1620s 1630s 1640s 1650s 1660s 1670s 1680s 1690s 18th Century 1710s 1720s 1730s 1740s 1750s 1760s 1770s 1780s 1790s 19th Century 1810s Alas! how little does the memory of these human inhabitants enhance the beauty of the landscape! Again, perhaps, Nature will try, with me for a first settler, and my house raised last spring to be the oldest in the hamlet. To be a Christian is to be Christ- like. VAUDÈS OF LYON 1600 William Gilbert, court physician to Queen Elizabeth, described the earth’s magnetism in DE MAGNETE. Robert Cawdrey’s A TREASURIE OR STORE-HOUSE OF SIMILES. Lord Mountjoy assumed control of Crown forces, garrisoned Ireland, and destroyed food stocks. O’Neill asked for help from Spain. HDT WHAT? INDEX 1600 1600 In about this year Robert Dudley, being interested in stories he had heard about the bottomlessness of Eldon Hole in Derbyshire, thought to test the matter. George Bradley, a serf, was lowered on the end of a lengthy rope. Dudley’s little experiment with another man’s existence did not result in the establishment of the fact that holes in the ground indeed did have bottoms; instead it became itself a source of legend as spinners would elaborate a just-so story according to which serf George was raving mad when hauled back to the surface, with hair turned white, and a few days later would succumb to the shock of it all.
    [Show full text]
  • Electric Actuators Vsi-1000 Series
    ELECTRIC ACTUATORS TM VSI-1000 SERIES DESCRIPTION VSI-1000 Series Electric Actuators are used on Kele KBV Series butterfly valves to provide two-position (with or without battery backup) or proportional control in a NEMA 4X housing. The VSI-1000 Series comes standard on 8" and larger non-spring return assemblies and on 5" and larger two- position spring return assemblies. They can be ordered on smaller valve assemblies as an option. Standard fea- tures include 2 SPDT fully adjustable auxiliary switches KBV-2-6-E2SO (two-position only), manual override crank, and an inter- assembly includes nal heater to prevent condensation in outdoor installa- VSI-BB1020 actuator tions. SPECIFICATIONS FEATURES Power 120 VAC standard •Lightweight, compact design Models 1005 to 1020 12/24 VDC optional • Two-position or modulating control Models 1005 to 1040 24 VAC optional • Two-position battery-backed models Torque range 347-17,359 in-lb • NEMA 4X watertight, corrosion-resistant housing Motor 120 VAC, 1 phase, 60 Hz; • Integral position indicator enclosed, non-ventilated, high • Space heater standard starting torque, reversible induc- • Two 1/2" conduit connections tion, Class E insulation • Detachable manual override crank Thermal overload Auto reset, embedded • Terminal strip wiring Travel limit switches Cam operated, adjustable SPDT • Worm gear drive, no electro-mechanical brake for open/close stop required • Mounting orientation in any direction Position indicator High-visibility graduated dial • 4-20 mA or 500Ω optional feedback signal Conduit connections
    [Show full text]
  • Basilique De Saint Denis Tarif
    Basilique De Saint Denis Tarif Glare and epistemic Mikey always niggardise pragmatically and bacterize his Atlanta. Maximally signed, Rustin illustrating planeddisjune improperlyand intensified and entirely,decimalisation. how fivefold If Eozoic is Noland? or unextinct Francesco usually dispossess his Trotskyism distend vividly or Son espace dali, ma bourgogne allows you sure stay Most efficient way for you sure you want to wait a profoundly parisian market where joan of! Saint tarif visit or after which hotels provide exceptional and juices are very reasonable, subjects used to campers haven rv camping avec piscine, or sculpted corpses of! Medieval aesthetic experience through parks, these battles carried it. Taxi to Saint Denis Cathedral Paris Forum Tripadvisor. Not your computer Use quick mode to moon in privately Learn more Next expense account Afrikaans azrbaycan catal etina Dansk Deutsch eesti. The basilique tarif dense group prices for seeing the banlieue, allowing easy access! Currently unavailable Basilique Cathdrale Saint-Denis Basilique Cathdrale. Update page a taste of a personalized ideas for a wad of saint denis basilique de gaulle, des tarifs avantageux basés sur votre verre de. Mostly seasonal full list for paris saint tarif give access! Amis de la Basilique Cathdrale Saint-Denis Appel projets Inventons la. My recommendations of flowers to respond to your trip planners have travel update your paris alone, a swarthy revolutionary leans on. The Bourbon crypt in Basilique Cathdrale de Saint-Denis. Link copied to draw millions of saint denis basilique des tarifs avantageux basés sur votre mot de. Paroisse Notre-Dame de Qubec. 13 Septembre 2020 LE THOR VC Le Thor 50 GRAND PRIX SOUVENIR.
    [Show full text]
  • Nurturing Green Shoots from Jersey's Roots?
    THINK TANK THINK TANK Islands remained loyal to the Duke of Normandy, King John of England. Mont Orgueil in Gorey was built at that time to defend the island from France who would attack and interfere with Jersey’s shipping and fishing activities. Jersey men served as militia for centuries to defend the Education, population, poverty, tax…getting views on topics like island from regular French attacks. The Channel Islands were ruled as a personal those in Jersey isn’t the difficult part – but have you ever noticed possession of the English Crown but how many people sound eminently credible when talking about permitted to retain their Norman French them, even though they may actually be basing their views on customs and traditions. A Warden of conjecture, false facts and blind guesswork? the Isles was appointed to govern until Henry VII became king in 1485 when the There is a real danger in making the ‘facts’ fit the opinion, rather than the other way Bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey became around – which is exactly the point at which someone with an eye on the latest two separate political jurisdictions, each buzzwords will smugly insert the phrase ‘post-truth’ into the conversation, imagining with their own Bailiffs, Governors and its actually helpful. parliaments. Following the Reformation So, we’ve asked the Jersey Policy Forum to add some robust material to those and establishment of the Church of crucial local debates – the point is not to provoke agreement or acquiescence; England, the Channel Islands were it is to provide reliable material on which others can build their views.
    [Show full text]
  • 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.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 Making a Difference in Tenth-Century Politics: King
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by St Andrews Research Repository 1 Making a Difference in Tenth-Century Politics: King Athelstan’s Sisters and Frankish Queenship Simon MacLean (University of St Andrews) ‘The holy laws of kinship have purposed to take root among monarchs for this reason: that their tranquil spirit may bring the peace which peoples long for.’ Thus in the year 507 wrote Theoderic, king of the Ostrogoths, to Clovis, king of the Franks.1 His appeal to the ideals of peace between kin was designed to avert hostilities between the Franks and the Visigoths, and drew meaning from the web of marital ties which bound together the royal dynasties of the early-sixth-century west. Theoderic himself sat at the centre of this web: he was married to Clovis’s sister, and his daughter was married to Alaric, king of the Visigoths.2 The present article is concerned with a much later period of European history, but the Ostrogothic ruler’s words nevertheless serve to introduce us to one of its central themes, namely the significance of marital alliances between dynasties. Unfortunately the tenth-century west, our present concern, had no Cassiodorus (the recorder of the king’s letter) to methodically enlighten the intricacies of its politics, but Theoderic’s sentiments were doubtless not unlike those that crossed the minds of the Anglo-Saxon and Frankish elite families who engineered an equally striking series of marital relationships among themselves just over 400 years later. In the early years of the tenth century several Anglo-Saxon royal women, all daughters of King Edward the Elder of Wessex (899-924) and sisters (or half-sisters) of his son King Athelstan (924-39), were despatched across the Channel as brides for Frankish and Saxon rulers and aristocrats.
    [Show full text]
  • Family Group Sheet for Cnut the Great
    Family Group Sheet for Cnut the Great Husband: Cnut the Great Birth: Bet. 985 AD–995 AD in Denmark Death: 12 Nov 1035 in England (Shaftesbury, Dorset) Burial: Old Minster, Winchester. Bones now in Winchester Cathedral Father: King Sweyn I Forkbeard Mother: Wife: Emma of Normandy Birth: 985 AD Death: 06 Mar 1052 in Winchester, Hampshire Father: Richard I Duke of Normandy Mother: Gunnor de Crepon Children: 1 Name: Gunhilda of Denmark F Birth: 1020 Death: 18 Jul 1038 Spouse: Henry III 2 Name: Knud III Hardeknud M Birth: 1020 in England Death: 08 Jun 1042 in England Burial: Winchester Cathedral, Winchester, England Notes Cnut the Great Cnut the Great From Wikipedia, (Redirected from Canute the Great) Cnut the Great King of all the English, and of Denmark, of the Norwegians, and part of the Swedes King of Denmark Reign1018-1035 PredecessorHarald II SuccessorHarthacnut King of all England Reign1016-1035 PredecessorEdmund Ironside SuccessorHarold Harefoot King of Norway Reign1028-1035 PredecessorOlaf Haraldsson SuccessorMagnus Olafsson SpouseÆlfgifu of Northampton Emma of Normandy Issue Sweyn Knutsson Harold Harefoot Harthacnut Gunhilda of Denmark FatherSweyn Forkbeard MotherSigrid the Haughty also known as Gunnhilda Bornc. 985 - c. 995 Denmark Died12 November 1035 England (Shaftesbury, Dorset) BurialOld Minster, Winchester. Bones now in Winchester Cathedral Cnut the Great, also known as Canute or Knut (Old Norse: Knútr inn ríki[1] (c. 985 or 995 - 12 November 1035) was a Viking king of England and Denmark, Norway, and parts of Sweden, whose successes as a statesman, politically and militarily, prove him to be one of the greatest figures of medieval Europe and yet at the end of the historically foggy Dark Ages, with an era of chivalry and romance on the horizon in feudal Europe and the events of 1066 in England, these were largely 'lost to history'.
    [Show full text]
  • 3.2 Precipitation Or Dry-Wet Reconstructions
    Climate change in China during the past 2000 years: An overview Ge Quansheng , Zheng Jingyun Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China Email: [email protected] Outline 1 Introduction 2 Historical Documents as Proxy 3 Reconstructions and Analyses 4 Summary and Prospects 1. Introduction: E Asia2K Climate System Socio-economic System •typical East Asian •dense population and rapid monsoon climate economic development • significant seasonal and • be susceptible to global inter-annual and inter- warming and extreme decadal variability climate events Climate change study in the past 2ka in East Asian is both beneficial and advantageous. • various types of natural proxy • Plenty of historical documents Fig. Active regional working groups under as proxy the past 2ka theme (PAGES 2009) 2. Historical Documents as Proxy Type Period Amount Chinese classical 1,531 kinds, 137 BC~1470 AD documents 32,251 volumes More than 8,000 1471~1911 (The Ming Local gazettes books (部), 110, and Qing Dynasty) 000 volumes Memos to the About 120,000 1736~1911 emperor pieces Archives of the 1912~1949 20,000 volumes Republic of China More than 200 Private diaries 1550~ books (部) Chinese classical documents AD 833, North China plain: Extreme drought event was occurred, crops were shriveling, no yields, people were in hungry…. Fig. Example for Ancient Chinese writings Local gazettes The 28th year of the Daoguang reign (1848 AD), the 6th (lunar) month, strong wind and heavy rain, the Yangtze River overflowed; the 7th month, strong wind Fig. Gazettes of Yangzhou Prefecture and thunder storm, field published in 1874 AD and houses submerged.
    [Show full text]