This book includes four hitherto unpublished papers together with a substantial introductory historiographical and bibliographical overview. Many of the studies concern the liturgical views of figures like Lanfranc, St Hugh of Lincoln, and William of Malmesbury (an edition of William’s Abbreviatio Amalarii is included) and the ways Thomas Becket and the Venerable Bede were viewed liturgically. Others reveal the achievement of an 11th-century Canterbury scribe, lay out a hagiographical puzzle as to the saints venerated on the 19th January, ask why calendars come to be attached to psalters, demonstrate that monks at Canterbury Cathedral were still reading Old English homilies in the 1180s, and present a fascinating, previously misunderstood, psalter owned by bishop Ralph Baldock, c.1300. Two final papers deal with ’Sarum’ services in late medieval parish churches and with the devotional practice called St Gregory’s Trental.

This book provides a comprehensive historical treatment of the Latin liturgy in medieval England. Richard Pfaff constructs a history of the worship carried out in churches - cathedral, monastic, or parish - primarily through the surviving manuscripts of service books, and sets this within the context of the wider political, ecclesiastical, and cultural history of the period. The main focus is on the mass and daily office, treated both chronologically and by type, the liturgies of each religious order and each secular 'use' being studied individually. Furthermore, hagiographical and historiographical themes - respectively, which saints are prominent in a given witness and how the labors of scholars over the last century and a half have both furthered and, in some cases, impeded our understandings - are explored throughout. The book thus provides both a narrative account and a reference tool of permanent value.

The author argues that miracle narratives were the product of and helped to foster lay notions of Christian practice and identity centred on the spiritual patronage of certain enshrined saints."--BOOK JACKET.

Were mid-Tudor evangelicals roaring lions or meek lambs? Did they struggle with a minority complex, or were they comfortable with their position of political ascendancy under Edward VI? How did their theological blueprint of the ‘True Church’ fit their temporal realities? By relocating the Book of Common Prayer at the centre of the English Reformation, Stephen Tong gives new significance to two underacknowledged drivers of reform: ecclesiology and liturgy. Edwardian reformers caused a sensation in England by engaging with these questions, which spilled over into Ireland, and continued to cast a shadow over subsequent generations of the English Protestants.

Papers dealing with the interactions of medieval persons (some of them saints), service books, and churches in England, c. 980-1500

The extraordinary growth and development of the cult of St Thomas Becket is investigated here, with a particular focus on its material culture. Thomas Becket - the archbishop of Canterbury cut down in his own cathedral just after Christmas 1170 - stands amongst the most renowned royal ministers, churchmen, and saints of the Middle Ages. He inspired the work of medieval writers and artists, and remains a compelling subject for historians today. Yet many of the political, religious, and cultural repercussions of his murder and subsequent canonisation remain to be explored in detail. This book examines the development of the cult and the impact of the legacy of Saint Thomas within the Plantagenet orbit of the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries - the "Empire" assembled by King Henry II, defended by his son King Richard the Lionheart, and lost by King John. Traditional textual and archival sources, such as miracle collections, charters, and royal and papal letters, are used in conjunction with the material culture inspired by the cult, toemphasise the wide-ranging impact of the murder and of the cult's emergence in the century following the martyrdom. From the archiepiscopal church at Canterbury, to writers and religious houses across the Plantagenet lands, to thecourts of Henry II, his children, and the bishops of the Angevin world, individuals and communities adapted and responded to one of the most extraordinary religious phenomena of the age. Dr Paul Webster is currently Lecturer in Medieval History and Project Manager of the Exploring the Past adult learners progression pathway at Cardiff University; Dr Marie-Pierre Gelin is a Teaching Fellow in the History Department at University College London. Contributors: Colette Bowie, Elma Brenner, José Manuel Cerda, Anne J. Duggan, Marie-Pierre Gelin, Alyce A. Jordan, Michael Staunton, Paul Webster.

Professor Palliser focuses here on towns in England in the centuries between the Norman Conquest and the Tudor period, on which he is an acknowledged authority. Urban topography, archaeology, economy, society and politics are all brought under review, and particular attention is given to relationships between towns and the Crown, to the evidence for migration into towns, and to the vexed question of urban fortunes in the 15th and 16th centuries. Two essays set urban history in a broader framework by considering recent work on town and village formation and on the development of parishes. The collection includes two hitherto unpublished studies and is introduced and put in context by a new survey of English towns from the 7th to the 16th centuries.