Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 2015 Unius Regulae Ac Unius Patriae: A Standardizing Process in Anglo-Saxon England Daniel Matteuzzi O'gorman Loyola University Chicago Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss Part of the Medieval History Commons Recommended Citation O'gorman, Daniel Matteuzzi, "Unius Regulae Ac Unius Patriae: A Standardizing Process in Anglo-Saxon England" (2015). Dissertations. 1485. https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/1485 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Copyright © 2015 Daniel Matteuzzi O'gorman LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO UNIUS REGULAE AC UNIUS PATRIAE: A STANDARDIZING PROCESS IN ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY PROGRAM IN HISTORY BY DANIEL M. O’GORMAN CHICAGO, IL MAY 2015 Copyright by Daniel M. O’Gorman, 2015 All rights reserved. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would first of all like to thank Barbara Rosenwein, my advisor, for her dedication, patience and advice in the process of writing this dissertation. Without her support this process would not have been possible. Thank you to my committee members, Theresa Gross-Diaz, who took it upon herself to enable me to attend the Levison Memorial Conference in Durham; Leslie Dossey, whose questions opened up hitherto unforeseen aspects of this topic; and Allen Frantzen, who first broached the notion of my writing on ‘standards.’ Your guidance and expertise has been invaluable. I would like to thank the faculty and staff of the Loyola University Chicago Department of History, Graduate School, and Department of English. Thank you to the Loyola University Library and in particular to the Interlibrary Loan staff for their hard work and support. Your resourcefulness is much appreciated. I would also like to thank Loyola University Chicago for the Advanced Doctoral Fellowship that assisted in the funding my research. Thank you to the Hill Museum and Monastic Library for the Heckman Stipend for Research that enabled me to access its collections. I would like to express my gratitude for the British Library and the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford for access to their rare book and manuscript collections. I have benefited greatly from the support of these institutions and organizations. I would like to acknowledge my past educational institutions for providing the strong foundation which prepared me for this work. The number of friends, family and iii colleagues-overlapping categories, to be sure-that provided aid and comfort in forms ranging from proofreading to the occasional beer is so large that it is invidious to single any out, but I would be grievously remiss if I did not recognize here the support of Thomas Greene, Andrew Donnelly and Edith Livermore. Similarly, I must offer a special thank you to my parents, Robert and Mary Lou O’Gorman, and my aunt, Mary Catherine O’Gorman, for their editing comments, feedback, and support. I conclude these all-too- brief memorializations with Ruth, whose grace has been the most unexpected, yet most constant, gift of all. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii LIST OF TABLES vii LIST OF FIGURES viii ABSTRACT ix INTRODUCTION: THE PURPOSE AND DESIGN OF THIS STUDY 1 Towards an Understanding of Standardization 4 Definition and Elaboration 29 Late Anglo-Saxon England–A Brief Overview 52 The Plan for this Study 63 CHAPTER ONE: THE COINS 68 Preliminaries: Weights and Measures 70 Edgar’s Reform in the Context of the Anglo-Saxon Monetary Tradition 78 The Physical Evidence 91 Anglo-Saxon Legislation on Coinage 112 Conclusions 132 CHAPTER TWO: MANUSCRIPTS OF LEGISLATION 137 Early English Law and its Reputation 138 The Andover Code 142 The Manuscripts 143 The Text 153 Analysis 168 Conclusions 176 CHAPTER THREE: MONASTIC BEHAVIOR 179 The Old English Translation of Benedict’s Rule and its Prologue 185 The Winchester Charters 194 The Regularis Concordia 207 The Posthumous Tradition of Æthelwold 232 The Abbot, the Monks and the Cheese 250 Conclusions 253 CONCLUSION: STANDARDIZATION AS A TOOL FOR MEDIEVALISTS 256 APPENDIX A: THE HOARDS 261 v APPENDIX B: FOREIGN COINS 272 APPENDIX C: DISTRIBUTION OF SINGLE FINDS AND HOARDS 278 APPENDIX D: LAWS ON COINS, WEIGHTS AND MEASURES 283 APPENDIX E: STYLISTIC VARIATION AMONG THE MANUSCRIPTS 291 BIBLIOGRAPHY 308 VITA 336 vi LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Extant Manuscripts of the Andover Code 144 Table 2. Single Finds in East Anglia: Domestic vs. Foreign 279 Table 3. Single Finds in East Anglia: Intraregional vs. Interregional 279 Table 4. Single Finds in Wessex: Domestic vs. Foreign 279 Table 5. Single Finds in Wessex: Intraregional vs. Interregional 280 Table 6. Combined Single Finds: Domestic vs. Foreign 280 Table 7. Combined Single Finds: Intraregional vs. Interregional 280 Table 8. Hoards in East Anglia: Domestic vs. Foreign 280 Table 9. Hoards in East Anglia: Intraregional vs. Interregional 281 Table 10. Hoards in Wessex: Domestic vs. Foreign 281 Table 11. Hoards in Wessex: Intraregional vs. Interregional 281 Table 12. Combined Hoards: Foreign vs. Domestic 281 Table 13. Combined Hoards: Intraregional vs. Interregional 282 Table 14. Rendering of Numbers in the Andover Manuscripts 293 Table 15. Clausal Divisions in the Andover Manuscripts 296 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Lead Weight Stamped by a Coin Die 78 Figure 2. Æthelstan Two-Line Penny 82 Figure 3. Louis the Pious Temple Penny 84 Figure 4. Edgar First Reform Cross Penny 85 Figure 5. Æthelred II First Hand Penny 86 Figure 6. Æthelred II Last Small Cross Penny 86 Figure 7. Cnut Quatrefoil Penny 86 Figure 8. Edward the Confessor Sovereign/Eagles Penny 87 Figure 9. Æthelred II Agnus Dei Penny 88 Figure 10. Map of England Denoting the Traditional Counties 94 Figure 11. Illuminated Miniature from the New Minster Refoundation Charter 197 Figure 12. Illuminated Miniature Prefacing a Copy of the Regularis Concordia 213 viii ABSTRACT My dissertation investigates the value of ‘standards’ and ‘standardization’ as tools for historians to interpret social and political dynamics in the Middle Ages. To date, medieval scholarship has utilized these concepts in a relatively unsophisticated manner; standardization has been taken to simply mean the imposition of uniformity. My dissertation uses the work of contemporary engineers and sociologists to problematize this understanding of standardization. I argue that the term, properly employed, signifies a process of consensus, of horizontal rather than hierarchical relationships and of ongoing revision. Further, I contend that standardization is a means and not an end, and that those who create and disseminate standards allow for a substantial degree of diversity, provided the diverse means are all directed at the same end. Anglo-Saxon England of the tenth and eleventh centuries serves as a proving ground for this conception of standardization. As a period that witnessed the coalescing of a single kingdom, uniting a number of hitherto distinct Germanic and Celtic cultures, it would appear to present a number of opportunities to apply the principles I have adduced. I focus on three such subjects. The first is the realm’s coinage. Through an examination of single finds and hoards, as well as the extant legislation, I demonstrate that the creation of a single coinage, accepted throughout the kingdom, was the result not of any single initiative, but an evolution over the course of generations. Similarly, in the case of legal texts, I trace a process in which both the form and content of older codes was continually ix updated to the current prevailing standard. Finally, my examination of attempts to regulate the behavior of monks reveals not a desire to impose an invariable regimen, but a negotiated process that embraced a variety of traditions, old and new, foreign and domestic. x INTRODUCTION THE PURPOSE AND DESIGN OF THIS STUDY This dissertation represents an attempt to interrogate the usefulness of “standardization” as a concept for medievalists. Despite the fact that the word itself is an anachronism for this period, scholars have not been shy about applying it in a variety of contexts.1 In many of these instances, the phenomena described were identified by contemporaries as a “reformation” or “regularization” designed to create more uniformity either in practice or in the production of material goods.2 Indeed, medievalists have generally employed the term “standardization” as shorthand to describe precisely this 1 To cite just a few example: Kathleen Scott, “Caveat Lector: Ownership and Standardization in the Illustration of Fifteenth-Century English Manuscripts,” English Manuscript Studies, 1100- 1700 1 (1989): 19-63; Sally Badham, “London Standardisation and Provincial Idiosyncrasy: The Organization and Working Practices of Brass-Engraving Workshops in pre-Reformation England,” Church Monuments 5 (1990): 3-25; Sherry Reames, “Late Medieval Efforts at Standardization and Reform in the Sarum Lessons for Saints’ Days,” in Design and Distribution of Late Medieval Manuscripts in England, eds. Margaret Connolly and Linne R. Mooney (York: York Medieval Press, 2008), 91-117; and Janet Snyder, “Standardization and Innovation in Design: Limestone Architectural Sculpture in Twelfth-Century France,” in New Approaches to Medieval Architecture, eds. Robert Bork, William W. Clark and Abby McGeehee (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011), 113-27. Nor is such usage limited to English, e.g., Monique Clavel-Lévêque and René Nouailhat, “Les Premiers Moines de Lérins. Régulation et Normalisation du Christianisme,” in Mélanges Pierre Lévêque, eds Marie Madeleine Mactoux and Evelyne Geny, 5 vols., (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1990), 4:99-113; Jörg Oberste, “Normierung und Pragmatik des Schriftsgebrauchs im cisterziensischen Visitationsverfahren bis zum beginnenden 14.