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Sulcard
Sulcard (floruit ''c''. 1080) was a Benedictine monk at St. Peter's, Westminster Abbey, and the author of the first history of the abbey. Little is known of Sulcard, whose unusual name may reflect either Anglo-Saxon or Norman parentage.Harvey, "Sulcard (''fl. c.'' 1080)." His entrance into the monastery may be dated to the 1050s and it is possible that he was previously attached to the cathedral priory at Rochester, which receives a noticeable degree of attention in his work. ''Prologus de Construccione Westmonasterii'' The sole work which Sulcard is known to have produced is the so-called ''Prologus de Construccione Westmonasterii'' (“Prologue concerning the Building of Westminster”), dedicated to Abbot Vitalis of Bernay (''c''. 1076–?1085) and hence datable to about 1080. It relates the history of the abbey, beginning in the time of Mellitus, bishop of London (604—17), with the foundation of its first church on what was then Thorney Island by a wealthy Londoner and h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Flete
John Flete (ca. 1398 – 1466) was an English monk and ecclesiastical historian who documented the history and abbots of Westminster Abbey. He entered the monastery at Westminster some time around 1420. For some years, he was an ordinary cloistered monk, but he became the almoner around 1435.Harvey, "John Flete." Later, he became prior of the abbey from 1456 to 1466 and served under two successive abbots who were replaced for poor management. He was himself caught up in some of the allegations of mismanagement. In 1444 the misbehavior of the abbot Kirton led to examination from outside "visitors," and they had Flete suspended from his position for a time. His major work was the four volume ''History of Westminster Abbey'' from its founding by, according to him, "King Lucius" in 184, to around 1386. He had wanted to continue the history up to 1443, but his removal from office kept him from his plan. In general, the history copies from other sources, including a lost ''Liber regiu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an historic, mainly Gothic church in the City of Westminster, London, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the United Kingdom's most notable religious buildings and since Edward the Confessor, a burial site for English and, later, British monarchs. Since the coronation of William the Conqueror in 1066, all coronations of English and British monarchs have occurred in Westminster Abbey. Sixteen royal weddings have occurred at the abbey since 1100. According to a tradition first reported by Sulcard in about 1080, a church was founded at the site (then known as Thorney Island) in the seventh century, at the time of Mellitus, Bishop of London. Construction of the present church began in 1245 on the orders of Henry III. The church was originally part of a Catholic Benedictine abbey, which was dissolved in 1539. It then served as the cathedral of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vita Ædwardi Regis
The ''Vita Ædwardi Regis qui apud Westmonasterium Requiescit'' ( en, Life of King Edward who rests at Westminster) or simply ''Vita Ædwardi Regis'' ( en, Life of King Edward) is a Latin biography of King Edward the Confessor completed by an anonymous author 1067 and suspected of having been commissioned by Queen Edith, Edward's wife. Due to insecure dating and authorship, the reference to a "queen" in the prologue, however, may just as well refer to Queen Matilda. It survives in one manuscript, dated 1100, now in the British Library. The author is unknown, but was a servant of the queen and probably a Fleming. The most likely candidates are Goscelin and Folcard, monks of St Bertin Abbey in St Omer. It is a two-part text, the first dealing with England in the decades before the Norman Conquest (1066) and the activities of the family of Godwin, Earl of Wessex, and the second dealing with the holiness of King Edward. It is likely that the two parts were originally di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vitalis Of Bernay
Vitalis of Creuilly or Vitalis of Bernay (died 19 June 1085) was a Benedictine monk from Normandy. Sources on his life includthe early 15th century history of the Abbeyby John Flete and the 1751 An history of the Church of St. Peter, Westminster, commonly called Westminster Abbey' by Richard Widmore. He was a monk at Fécamp Abbey before becoming abbot of Bernay Abbey around 1055. On 28 May 1065 he buried his friend Osbern, Abbot of Saint-Evroul, who had died the previous year. He was a confidant of John, abbot of Fecamp, who in 1058 charged him with setting up Saint-Gabriel-Brécy Priory - its establishment had been requested by Vitalis' brother Richard, lord of Creully. Finally he was appointed the third abbot of Westminster Abbey by William I of England on the advice of Lanfranc, the first Norman Archbishop of Canterbury. William also granted Vitalis a manor at Doddington, Lincolnshire, whilst Vitalis' brother Osbern took over at Bernay. Vitalis may have been reluctant to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mellitus
Saint Mellitus (died 24 April 624) was the first bishop of London in the Saxon period, the third Archbishop of Canterbury, and a member of the Gregorian mission sent to England to convert the Anglo-Saxons from their native paganism to Christianity. He arrived in 601 AD with a group of clergy sent to augment the mission, and was consecrated as Bishop of London in 604. Mellitus was the recipient of a famous letter from Pope Gregory I known as the ''Epistola ad Mellitum'', preserved in a later work by the medieval chronicler Bede, which suggested the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons be undertaken gradually, integrating pagan rituals and customs. In 610, Mellitus returned to Italy to attend a council of bishops, and returned to England bearing papal letters to some of the missionaries. Mellitus was exiled from London by the pagan successors to his patron, King Sæberht of Essex, following the latter's death around 616. King Æthelberht of Kent, Mellitus' other patron, died a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thorney Island (Westminster)
Thorney Island was the eyot (or small island) on the Thames, upstream of medieval London, where Westminster Abbey and the Palace of Westminster (commonly known today as the Houses of Parliament) were built. It was formed by rivulets of the Tyburn (stream), River Tyburn, which entered the Thames nearby. In Roman times, and presumably before, Thorney Island Watling Street#Westminster ford, may have been part of a natural ford where Watling Street crossed the Thames, of particular importance before the construction of London Bridge. The name may be derived from the Anglo-Saxon language, Anglo-Saxon ''Þorn-īeg'', meaning "Thorn Island". Thorney is described in a purported 8th century charter of Offa of Mercia, King Offa of Mercia, which is kept in the Westminster Abbey, Abbey muniments, as a "terrible place". In the Spring of 893, Edward the Elder, son of Alfred the Great, forced invading Vikings to take refuge on Thorney Island. Despite hardships and more Viking raids over the fol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward The Confessor
Edward the Confessor ; la, Eduardus Confessor , ; ( 1003 – 5 January 1066) was one of the last Anglo-Saxon English kings. Usually considered the last king of the House of Wessex, he ruled from 1042 to 1066. Edward was the son of Æthelred the Unready and Emma of Normandy. He succeeded Cnut the Great's son – and his own half-brother – Harthacnut. He restored the rule of the House of Wessex after the period of Danish rule since Cnut conquered England in 1016. When Edward died in 1066, he was succeeded by his wife's brother Harold Godwinson, who was defeated and killed in the same year by the Normans under William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings. Edward's young great-nephew Edgar the Ætheling of the House of Wessex was proclaimed king after the Battle of Hastings in 1066 but was never crowned and was peacefully deposed after about eight weeks. Historians disagree about Edward's fairly long 24-year reign. His nickname reflects the traditional ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cartulary
A cartulary or chartulary (; Latin: ''cartularium'' or ''chartularium''), also called ''pancarta'' or ''codex diplomaticus'', is a medieval manuscript volume or roll ('' rotulus'') containing transcriptions of original documents relating to the foundation, privileges, and legal rights of ecclesiastical establishments, municipal corporations, industrial associations, institutions of learning, or families. The term is sometimes also applied to collections of original documents bound in one volume or attached to one another so as to form a roll, as well as to custodians of such collections. Definitions Michael Clanchy defines a cartulary as "a collection of title deeds copied into a register for greater security". A cartulary may take the form of a book or a ''codex''. Documents, chronicles or other kinds of handwritten texts were compiled, transcribed or copied into the cartulary. In the introduction to the book ''Les Cartulaires'', it is argued that in the contemporary diplomati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cotton MS Faustina
This is an incomplete list of some of the manuscripts from the Cotton library that today form the Cotton collection of the British Library. Some manuscripts were destroyed or damaged in a fire at Ashburnham House in 1731, and a few are kept in other libraries and collections. Robert Bruce Cotton organized his library in a room long by six feet wide filled with bookpresses, each with the bust of a figure from classical antiquity on top. Counterclockwise, these were Julius Caesar, Augustus, Cleopatra, Faustina, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian. (Domitian had only one shelf, perhaps because it was over the door). In each press, each shelf was assigned a letter; manuscripts were identified by the bust over the press, the shelf letter, and the position of the manuscript (in Roman numerals) counting from the left side of the shelf. Thus, the Lindisfarne Gospels, Nero B.iv, was the fourth manuscript from the left on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rochester Cathedral
Rochester Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary, is an English church of Norman architecture in Rochester, Kent. The church is the cathedral of the Diocese of Rochester in the Church of England and the seat (''cathedra'') of the Bishop of Rochester, the second oldest bishopric in England after that of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The edifice is a Grade I listed building (number 1086423). History Anglo-Saxon establishment The Rochester diocese was founded by Justus, one of the missionaries who accompanied Augustine of Canterbury to convert the pagan southern English to Christianity in the early 7th century. As the first Bishop of Rochester, Justus was given permission by King Æthelberht of Kent to establish a church dedicated to Andrew the Apostle (like the monastery at Rome where Augustine and Justus had set out for England) on the site of the present cathedral, which was made the seat of a bishopric. The cathedral was to be serv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Osbert De Clare
Osbert of Clare (died in or after 1158) was a monk, elected prior of Westminster Abbey and briefly abbot. He was a prolific writer of letters, a hagiographer and a forger of charters. Life Osbert was born towards the end of the eleventh century at Clare, Suffolk. He became a Benedictine monk at a priory located in Clare Castle. In 1090 Gilbert Fitz Richard gave the church in the castle to the Abbey of Our Lady of Bec in Normandy, making it an alien priory and a dependency of Bec. In 1124 Gilbert's son, Richard Fitz Gilbert de Clare, moved the Benedictines to a new foundation about two miles west of Clare in Stoke-by-Clare. Under the patronage of the powerful de Clare family, it was one of the wealthiest monastic houses in Norman England. Osbert was elected prior of St Peter's Abbey, Westminster. In the 1130s, he wrote liturgical texts for the feast of Saint Anne for Worcester Cathedral. During a vacancy of the See of London, Osbert undertook to introduce at Westminster, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Of Cirencester
Richard of Cirencester ( la, Ricardus de Cirencestria; before 1340–1400) was a cleric and minor historian of the Benedictine abbey at Westminster. He was highly famed in the 18th and 19th century as the author of '' The Description of Britain'' before it was proved to have been a later forgery in 1846. Life His name (as ''Circestre'') first appears on the chamberlain's list of the monks of that foundation drawn up in the year 1355. In 1391, he obtained a licence from the abbot to go to Rome and in this the abbot gave his testimony to Richard's perfect and sincere observance of religion for upwards of thirty years. In 1400 Richard spent nine nights of the infirmary of the abbey, and likely died that January. His only known extant work are the four books of the ''Historial Mirror of the Deeds of the Kings of England'' ( la, Speculum historiale de gestis regum Angliae), covering the years from 447 to 1066. The manuscript of this is in the university library at Cambridge and was edit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
