Shared Sanctity to Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, and English Audiences

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The Hermitic Topos 117

Chapter 4 The Hermitic Topos: “Selling” Shared Sanctity to Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, and English Audiences

Maren Clegg Hyer

Traditions of hermitic sanctity from early Christian writers onwards lent a powerful “cachet” to any saints and associated foundations to which they might be applied. Such traditions and associations help to explain surprisingly similar arguments and rhetorical strategies shared by both the infamous interpolators of William of Malmesbury’s De antiquitate Glastonie ecclesie and Ord- eric Vitalis in his remarks on the history of Croyland Abbey. The Glastonbury interpolators are infamous for adding New Testament and Arthurian connec- tions to the foundation history written for them by William of Malmesbury, but they also inserted lengthy additions claiming special sanctity for Glaston- bury as a space transformed by the repeated colonization of hermitic saints. Likewise, in his Ecclesiastical History, Orderic couches a defense of Anglo-Sax- on and later English national and ecclesiastical tradition in the context of scriptural and canonical law, but he also reclaims the sanctity of that ecclesiastical tradition at Croyland Abbey through the person of an overtly hermitic saint, St Guthlac. In both instances, the interpolators and/or authors address both post-Conquest Anglo-Saxon (or English) and Norman sensibilities, at- tempting to unify and justify the native English ecclesiastical tradition along- side Norman traditions and challenges in shared terms both audiences might respect.

1 Time of Challenge

The twelfth century was a time of significant challenge for Benedictine institu- tions in England. As every foundation history of the period laments, those who served in traditionally Anglo-Saxon foundations saw erosion of many of their land grants and treasures to the Norman political hierarchy despite (or occa- sionally because of) imposed Norman abbots. Religious orders new to England such as the Cistercians competed with older English religious houses, often- times with the patronage of Norman lords. Even long-respected Anglo-Saxon

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004408333_006 118 Hyer saints were depicted and perhaps perceived as being under attack by alien Norman rulers, and there is textual evidence to support such a perception. Lanfranc’s suspicions about the Anglo-Saxon saints are well known, as is the Norman investigation of the relics of St Cuthbert. Likewise, William of Malmes- bury lambasts the second Norman abbot of Malmesbury, Warin, for his abet- ting the despoiling of the house and for doubting the sanctity of St Aldhelm and other local saints.1 The creation of so many vitae for Anglo-Saxon saints far into the twelfth century might argue a similar perception among English monks that local saints were not being taken as seriously as they should by Normans in positions of authority. That such dynamics were strictly “English versus Norman” by the twelfth century, however, is less certain. S. J. Ridyard argues that twelfth-century Nor- man abbots at Ely and Bury St Edmunds were in fact champions of their monasteries’ privileges and the reverence due their local (Anglo-Saxon) saints, having taken on the successes and interests of the monasteries over which they had stewardship. She suggests that many Norman abbots, even early ones such as Lanfranc, “came quickly to appreciate the usefulness of [their] community’s patron saint.”2 Her arguments find some support in twelfth-century texts, such as Orderic’s Ecclesiastical History, which tells the story of a scoffing Nor- man who disputes the status of Waltheof, a noted saint-in-the-making buried at Croyland, because Waltheof is both Anglo-Saxon and an enemy executed by William the Conqueror. Geoffrey, the Norman abbot of Croyland who gave Or- deric hospitality there, “dulciter eum quia extraneus erat redarguit” [rebuked the monk gently because he was a foreigner] and bade him repent.3 When the Norman refused, he was stricken dead. Orderic’s depiction of an abbot who is clearly identified as a Norman rebuking a fellow Norman for disrespecting

1 William states that Warin showed “nausia sanctorum corporum” [distaste for the bodies of the saints], including the holy hermit who founded the house, as well as St Aldhelm and St John the Scot (both of whom he lists as sanctum) and many former abbots. Gesta Pontificum Anglorum: The History of the English Bishops, Volume I, ed. and trans. M. Winterbottom with R. Thomson (Oxford, 2007), v.265.2–3. Later, we learn that miracles by Aldhelm convince him otherwise (v.266–67). William states that these miracles increased respect for Aldhelm “apud Normannos” [among the Normans] (v.266.6). S. J. Ridyard argues that Warin’s gestures were against abbots, and not saints. “Condigna Veneratio: Post-Conquest Attitudes to Anglo-Saxon Saints,” Anglo-Norman Studies 9 (1986): 179–206, at 193. But William clearly thinks otherwise, viewing (or at least presenting) these acts as impious gestures of Normans only convinced of sanctity through subsequent miracles. 2 “Condigna Veneratio,” 203. Ridyard expounds that many Norman abbots showed “a business- like readiness to make the heroes of the past serve the politics of the present” (205). 3 The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, Volume II, ed. and trans. M. Chibnall (Oxford, 1969), iv.348–49. Hereafter, Ecclesiastical History. Translations are Chibnall’s, except where otherwise noted.