The Saints' Lives of Jocelin of Furness: Hagiography, Patronage and Ecclesiastical Politics 1903153336, 9781903153338

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness Hagiography, Patronage and Ecclesiastical Politics

The Cistercian hagiographer, Jocelin of Furness (fl.  1175x1214), composed four substantial saints’ lives; varying widely in both subject and patron, they offer a rich corpus of medieval hagiographical writing. Jocelin’s Vita S. Patricii and Vita S. Kentegerni provide updated versions of the legends of these saints and are carefully adapted to reflect the interests of their respective ecclesiastical patrons in Ireland and Scotland. The Vita S. Helenae was probably commissioned by a female community in England; it represents an idealized narrative mirror of its early thirteenth century context. In contrast, the Vita S. Waldevi was written to promote the formal canonisation of a new saint, Waltheof (d. 1159), abbot of the Cistercian house of Melrose in the Scottish borders.   This first full-length study of the Lives combines detailed analyses of the composition of the texts with study of their patronage, audiences and contemporary contexts; it provides new insights into Jocelin’s works and the writing of hagiography in the period. Helen Birkett is a Mellon Fellow at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto.

YORK MEDIEVAL PRESS York Medieval Press is published by the University of York’s Centre for Medieval Studies in association with Boydell & Brewer Limited. Our objective is the promotion of innovative scholarship and fresh criticism on medieval culture. We have a special commitment to interdisciplinary study, in line with the Centre’s belief that the future of Medieval Studies lies in those areas in which its major constituent disciplines at once inform and challenge each other.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness Hagiography, Patronage and Ecclesiastical Politics

Helen Birkett

YORK MEDIEVAL PRESS

©  Helen Birkett 2010 All rights reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner The right of Helen Birkett to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 First published 2010 A York Medieval Press publication in association with The Boydell Press an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9  Woodbridge  Suffolk IP12 3DF  UK and of Boydell & Brewer Inc. 668 Mt Hope Avenue  Rochester  NY 14620  USA website: www.boydellandbrewer.com and with the Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York ISBN  978 1 903153 33 8

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library The publisher has no responsibility for the continued existence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Printed in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne

Contents List of Tables

vi

Acknowledgements

vii

Abbreviations

ix

Introduction

1

Part I. Texts 1 Expanding the Narrative: The Composition of the Vita S. Patricii

25

2 Compiling Female Sanctity: The Sources for the Vita S. Helenae

59

3 Restoring the Text: Jocelin’s Approach to the Vita S. Kentegerni

85

4 From the Testimony of Trustworthy Men: The Interaction of Oral and Written Sources in the Vita S. Waldevi

115

Part II.  Contexts 5 Irish Ecclesiastical Politics and Anglo-Norman Sponsorship: The Patronage of the Vita S. Patricii

141

6 Scottish Independence and Ecclesiastical Reform: The Vita S. Kentegerni in Context

171

7 Promoting Sanctity: The Vita S. Waldevi, Canonization and Cistercian Saintly Cults

201

8 Locating the Text: The Patrons, Sources and Historical Context of the Vita S. Helenae

227

9 Exemplary Narratives: Contemporary Reforming Discourses in Jocelin’s Vitae

259

Conclusion

279

Bibliography

287

Index

313

Tables 1. Extant Medieval Manuscripts

19

2.

52 54 56

The Composition of the Vita S. Patricii Section 1 Section 2 Section 3

3. Exact Matches Between Jocelin’s Vita S. Patricii and Other Sources

57

4. The Dispersal of Unattributed Material in Jocelin’s Vita S. Patricii

57

5. The Sources for the Vita S. Helenae

84

6. The Narrative Strands in the Vita S. Kentegerni 7. The Scottish Royal Ancestry as Portrayed by the Vita S. Waldevi

vi

96 224

Acknowledgements First of all, I am extremely grateful to the AHRC for funding this research. Particular thanks must also go to Professor Christopher Norton and Professor Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, whose unstinting patience, support and truly aweinspiring breadth of knowledge helped to bring this work to fruition. Much of what I have learnt in terms of the process of research, the understanding of source material and the expression of ideas can be traced back to their combined influence. In addition, I would like to thank Dr Sarah Rees Jones for her continued support and advice, as well as Prof. Robert Bartlett and Prof. Peter Biller, for their insightful comments and suggested amendments to the text. More general thanks must also go to: Prof. Dauvit Broun; Dr James Binns; Dr Clare Downham; Dr Reiner Nolden; Dr Emily Richards; Prof. Richard Sharpe; and the helpful staff at Marsh’s Library, Dublin, the British Library, the Bodleian Library, the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, the Stadtbibliothek, Trier, and the libraries of Trinity College, Cambridge, Trinity College, Dublin and the University of St Andrews. I am also grateful to Boydell & Brewer for granting permission to print chapter seven, an abridged version of which appeared under the title ‘The Struggle for Sanctity: St Waltheof of Melrose, Cistercian In-House Cults and Canonisation Procedure at the Turn of the Thirteenth Century’ in The Cult of Saints and the Virgin Mary in Medieval Scotland, ed. S. Boardman and E. Williamson, Studies in Celtic History 28 (Woodbridge, 2010). Finally, I would also like to take this opportunity publicly to express thanks to my family, my friends and my colleagues at the Centre for Medieval Studies in the University of York for their continued support over the past few years – your patience, encouragement and kindness are deeply appreciated.

vii

The publishers are grateful to the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society for their generosity in providing financial support towards the production costs of this volume.

Abbreviations Acta Sanctorum, ed. J. Carnandet et al. (Paris, 1863–). ‘Additamenta’, in The Patrician Texts in the Book of Armagh, ed. and trans. L. Bieler, Scriptores Latini Hiberniae 10 (Dublin, 1979), pp. 166–79. Altmann, ‘Historia translationis ad coenobium Altmann’s   Miracula Altivillarense, auctore Almanno ejusdem coenobii monacho’ and ‘Miracula ope Sanctae in sua translatione in Galliam patrata seculo x, auctore Almanno monacho Altivillarensi’, in ‘Gloria posthuma e variis corporis translationis’ and ‘Gloria posthuma ex miraculis’, AASS Augusti III, §§10–17, 53–76, pp. 601F–3A, 612C–17C. Altmann’s Vita Altmann, ‘Vita seu Potius homilia, auctore Almanno, coenobita Altivillarensi’, in AASS Augusti III, pp. 580D–99F. Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis CCCM Cottonian Vita ‘Anecdotum Patricianum: Fragments of a Life of St Patrick from Mss. Cotton Vitellius E. vii and Rawlinson B479’, ed. L. Bieler, in Ludwig Bieler: Studies on the Life and Legend of St Patrick, ed. R. Sharpe, Collected Studies Series 244 (London, 1986), Ch. XIX, pp. 222–9. Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum CSEL Oxford Dictionary of National Biography in Association with DNB the British Academy, from the Earliest Times to the Year 2000, ed. H. C. G. Matthew and B. Harrison (Oxford, 2004). ‘St Patrick and the Scandinavians of Dublin’, ed. and trans. Dublin Poem D. N. Dumville, in D. N. Dumville et al., Saint Patrick A.D. 493–1993, Studies in Celtic History 13 (Woodbridge, 1993), pp. 260–2. Early English Text Society EETS English Historical Review EHR Furness Coucher The Coucher Book of Furness Abbey: Printed from the Original   Book Preserved in the Record Office, London, ed. J. C. Atkinson and J. Brownbill, 2 vols. in 6, Chetham Society New Series 9, 11, 14, 74, 76, 78 (Manchester, 1886–1919). Gloucester Vita ‘Eine Patricksvita in Gloucester’, ed. L. Bieler, in Ludwig Bieler: Studies on the Life and Legend of St Patrick, ed. R. Sharpe, Collected Studies Series 244 (London, 1986), Ch. XVIII, pp. 347–59. AASS Additamenta

ix

Abbreviations Herbertian Life ‘Fragment of the Life of S. Kentigern’, in Lives of S. Ninian and S. Kentigern Compiled in the Twelfth Century, ed. and trans. A. P. Forbes, Historians of Scotland 5 (Edinburgh, 1874), pp. 121–33, 243–52. Historia regum Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of the Kings of Britain: An   Britanniae Edition and Translation of De gestis Britonum [Historia regum Britanniae], ed. and trans. M. D. Reeve and N. Wright, Arthurian Studies 69 (Woodbridge, 2007). Historia tripartita Cassiodorus, Cassiodori – Epiphanii, Historia ecclesiastica tripartita: Historiae ecclesiasticae ex Socrate, Sozomeno et Theoderito in unum collectae et nuper de Graeco in Latinum translatae libri numero duodecim, ed. W. Jacob and R. Hanslik, CSEL 71 (Vienna, 1952). Inventio crucis ‘Inventio crucis A’, ed. and trans. S. Borgehammar, in S. Borgehammar, How the Holy Cross was Found: From Event to Medieval Legend (Stockholm, 1991), pp. 154–61, 255–71. Melrose Chronicle See the facsimile editions available in The Chronicle of Melrose from the Cottonian Manuscript, Faustina B. IX in the British Museum: A Complete and Full Size Facsimile in Collotype, ed. A. Orr Anderson, M. Ogilvie Anderson and W. Croft Dickinson (London, 1936) and in D. Broun and J. Harrison, The Chronicle of Melrose Abbey: A Stratigraphic Edition, Vol. I: Introduction and Facsimile Edition, Scottish History Society (Woodbridge, 2007). MGH Monumenta Germaniae Historica Muirchú’s Vita Muirchú maccu Machtheni, ‘A. Muirchú’, in The Patrician Texts in the Book of Armagh, ed. and trans. L. Bieler, Scriptores Latini Hiberniae 10 (Dublin, 1979), pp. 61–123. PL Patrologia Latina RS Rolls Series Rufinus, Historia Rufinus of Aquileia, Eusebius Werke, Zweiter Band,   ecclesiastica Der Kirchengeschichte: Zweite Teil die Bücher VI bis X über die Märtyrer in Palästina, ed. E. Schwartz and T. Mommsen, Die Griechischen Christlichen Schriftsteller der Ersten Drei Jahrhunderte (Leipzig, 1908). Rule Benedict of Nursia, RB1980: The Rule of St Benedict in Latin and English with Notes, ed. T. Fry et al. (Collegeville, 1981). SS Surtees Society TCWAAS Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society New Series TDGAS Transactions of the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society Tírechán’s Vita Tírechán, ‘B. Tírechán’, in The Patrician Texts in the Book of

x

Abbreviations Armagh, ed. and trans. L. Bieler, Scriptore Latini Hiberniae 10 (Dublin, 1979), pp. 122–67. VCH The Victoria County History series Vita Helenae Jocelin of Furness, ‘The Vita sancte Helene of Jocelin of Furness (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 252)’, ed. A. Harbus, in A. Harbus, Helena of Britain in Medieval Legend (Cambridge, 2002), pp. 152–82. Vita Kentegerni Jocelin of Furness, ‘The Life of S. Kentigern by Jocelinus, a Monk of Furness’, in Lives of S. Ninian and S. Kentigern Compiled in the Twelfth Century, ed. and trans. A. P. Forbes, Historians of Scotland 5 (Edinburgh, 1874), pp. 29–119, 159–242. Vita Patricii Jocelin of Furness, ‘The Life and Acts of St Patrick by Jocelin’, in The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick, Including the Life by Jocelin Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings, trans. J. O’Leary (Reprint of 1880 edn, Honolulu, 2002), pp. 132–347. Vita Patricii Jocelin of Furness, ‘Vita auctore Jocelino monacho de   AASS Furnesio’, in AASS Martii II, pp. 536D-77D. (The equivalent chapters in Colgan’s edition of the text are given in brackets, see p. 17.) Vita Patricii, Jocelin of Furness, ‘Vita Sexta’, in Triadis thaumaturgae seu   ed. Colgan Divorum Patricii, Columbae et Brigidae, trium veteris et maioris Scotiae, seu Hiberniae sanctorum insulae…, ed. J. Colgan (Louvain, 1647), pp. 64a–108b. ‘Vita auctore Probo’, in Four Latin Lives of St Patrick: Vita Probo Colgan’s Vita Secunda, Quarta, Tertia and Quinta, ed. L. Bieler, Scriptores Latini Hiberniae 8 (Dublin, 1971), pp. 191–219. Vita secunda- ‘Vita secunda and Vita quarta’, in Four Latin Lives of   quarta St Patrick: Colgan’s Vita Secunda, Quarta, Tertia and Quinta, ed. L. Bieler, Scriptores Latini Hiberniae 8 (Dublin, 1971), pp. 46–114. ‘Vita tertia’, in Four Latin Lives of St Patrick: Colgan’s Vita Vita tertia Secunda, Quarta, Tertia and Quinta, ed. L. Bieler, Scriptores Latini Hiberniae 8 (Dublin, 1971), pp. 115–90. Vita tripartita The Tripartite Life of Patrick, with Other Documents Relating to that Saint, ed. and trans. W. Stokes, 2 vols., RS 89 (London, 1887), I, 1–267. Vita Waldevi Jocelin of Furness, ‘The Life of St Waldef, Abbot of Melrose, by Jocelin, Monk of Furness’, in ‘An Edition and Translation of the Life of Waldef, Abbot of Melrose by Jocelin of Furness’, trans. G. J. McFadden (unpublished

xi

Abbreviations D.Phil. dissertation, Columbia University, 1952), pp. 201–357. Vita Waldevi Jocelin of Furness, ‘Vita auctore Jordano vel Joscelino,   AASS monacho Furnesiensi’, in AASS Augusti I, pp. 249D–278E. William of William of Malmesbury, ‘Vita Patricii’, in William of   Malmesbury’s Malmesbury, Saints’ Lives: Lives of SS. Wulfstan, Dunstan,   Vita Patrick, Benignus and Indract, ed. and trans. M. Winterbottom and R. M. Thomson, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 2002), pp. 316–43.

xii

Introduction Although acknowledged as the author of four extant hagiographical texts, Jocelin of Furness remains a shadowy figure in modern historiography.1 Much of this obscurity reflects our limited knowledge about the author himself. His Vitae are largely impersonal works and outside sources provide little further information to complete the picture. In addition, the fact that three of Jocelin’s four texts are reworkings of much earlier material means they have found few admirers in modern scholarship. Of those historians who choose to comment on Jocelin, only the minority do so with an interest in the author himself or the context in which he was writing. Instead, his works are frequently treated as imperfect secondary sources for the historical figures they describe and Jocelin himself as a credulous barrier to an elusive historical truth.2 However, the basis of much of this modern criticism rests on a profound difference between the original intentions of the texts and the way in which they have been read since. The comment by Silas Harris that Jocelin’s Vita Kentegerni ‘is romance rather than history’ – as a hagiographical text it is, strictly speaking, neither – is representative of a wider attitude in the scholarly literature that has failed to appreciate the texts on their own terms.3 This book offers a much more sympathetic approach to Jocelin’s works. By closely analysing the texts of the Vitae themselves and the wider environment in which they were written, this study places the author and his works firmly in the hagiographical, religious, cultural and political context of Angevin Britain. It is a methodology that reflects a wider movement in the current field of hagiographical studies. Whereas earlier scholars cited vitae as evidence for the periods described by the texts, greater attention is now being

1

2

3

The spelling of the name Jocelin varies in the secondary literature. This study will use that found in the most recent edition of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. DNB 21, 190–1. For example: ‘behind Jocelyn’s parade of bogus miracles and Scriptural verbosity, we do seem to catch a fleeting glimpse of a real person’ (David McRoberts); ‘the substratum of fact in each life being ingeniously hidden under a marvellous superstructure of fiction’ (T. Lees). James Bulloch identified the main problem that previous historians had with Jocelin: he ‘used his sources honestly but uncritically, faithfully reproducing whatever he found there’. D. McRoberts, ‘The Death of St Kentigern of Glasgow’, Innes Review 24 (1973), 50; T. Lees, ‘A Monk of Furness’, TCWAAS 3 (1878), 202; J. B. P. Bulloch, ‘Saint Waltheof’, Records of the Scottish Church History Society 11 (1955), 127. S. M. Harris, ‘Liturgical Commemoration of Welsh Saints II: St Asaf’, Journal of the Historical Society of the Church in Wales 6 (1956), 11.

1

The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness directed to the function and meaning of the works in the time in which they were written. The increasing appreciation of hagiographical texts as sources for the particular circumstances of their authors and patrons means that the rich historical material to be found in many medieval vitae is now being more fully recognized.4 As an explicitly didactic genre, hagiography presents models of saintly behaviour for its audience to imitate. These models are rooted in centuries of Christian literary tradition and reinforce the individual saint’s claim to sanctity by placing him or her within a recognized framework of holy mimesis. However, while this recycling of topoi means that certain aspects of hagiographical texts retain an often self-consciously timeless character, in a number of other ways vitae are strongly representative of the historical context in which they were produced.5 Frequently written at the request of religious communities particularly associated with the saint in question, these texts often include narratives that express the contemporary aspirations and anxieties of both the patrons they were commissioned by and the society from which they emerged. For the communities behind these texts, the most fundamental purpose of the vitae was to raise greater awareness of their respective saints and, in turn, of the houses to which he or she was allied. Accounts of posthumous miracles also allowed these groups to show how the saint’s power, which was drawn from the virtues he or she had embodied during life, continued to intervene in the lives of successive generations. This power not only aided those who came to the shrine seeking intercession but protected the community who venerated the saint by opposing those who intended to harm its interests. However, such defensive discourses were not only confined to the miracula. As Wolfert van Egmond states, hagiographical works lacked the immutable authority of canonical texts and could be freely adapted if necessary to advance the interests of the saint’s cult.6 In short, although the framework of hagiographical texts represented a genre firmly rooted in centuries-old tradition, the narratives inserted within these structures were adaptable and responsive to contemporary needs.

4

5

6

For concise overviews of the evolving approaches to hagiographical studies see the introductions in K. Ashley and P. Sheingorn, Writing Faith: Text, Sign & History in the Miracles of Sainte Foy (Chicago, 1999), pp. 1–21 (pp. 8–20) and W. S. van Egmond, Conversing with the Saints: Communication in Pre-Carolingian Hagiography from Auxerre, Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy 15 (Turnhout, 2006), pp. 6–11. R. Bartlett, ‘Rewriting Saints’ Lives: The Case of Gerald of Wales’, Speculum 58 (1983), 598; D. Townsend, ‘Anglo-Latin Hagiography and the Norman Transition’, Exemplaria 3 (1991), 387–90. Egmond, Conversing with the Saints, p. 37.

2

Introduction

Jocelin: The scholarly tradition Jocelin’s literary tradition has both waxed and waned as modern historians have sought to distinguish fact from legend and, to use Michel Foucault’s phrase, as literary anonymity became increasingly intolerable.7 Jocelin’s authorship of the four extant works attributed to him is relatively secure. Jocelin introduces himself as the author of the Vita Kentegerni and the Vita Waldevi in the salutations that open their respective prologues.8 His association with the other works, the Vita Patricii and the Vita Helenae, is based on long-held textual traditions that accompanied their transmission in the medieval period (see below). As the author of four extant texts, Jocelin’s output appeared prolific enough to suggest that his pen lay behind other works of similar date. Consequently, in his 1878 article, ‘A Monk of Furness’, T. Lees cautiously listed Jocelin’s works as the Vitae of Kentigern, Patrick, Waltheof ‘and other saints’.9 Scholars working in the field of Patrician and Irish studies gave a name to some of these potential texts. Ludwig Bieler suggested that the Vita Patricii may have been the first of a projected set of three hagiographical works commissioned in response to the miraculous discovery of the bodies of SS Patrick, Columba and Brigit in Down in 1185. Although there is no evidence to suggest that Jocelin composed a Vita S. Columbae, Félim O’Briain identified Jocelin as the author of the anonymous Vita S. Brigidae. Bieler lent further credibility to O’Briain’s claim by noting that the Vita Brigidae closes with the same synchronisms as Jocelin’s Vita Patricii.10 However, George McFadden, who translated Jocelin’s Vita Waldevi in 1952, argued against this stating that ‘the clausulae, for instance, consistently lack Jocelin’s habitual care’.11 Instead, McFadden claimed that Jocelin was the author of the anonymous Vita Haroldi, an account of King Harold’s survival at the Battle of Hastings and his life afterwards – but this too has failed to find wider

7 8

9 10

11

M. Foucault, ‘What is an Author?’, trans. J. V. Harari, in Textual Strategies: Perspectives in Post-Structuralist Criticism, ed. J. V. Harari (Ithaca, 1979), pp. 149–50. The late fifteenth century manuscript copy of the Vita Waldevi confirms that the ‘Frater Jordanus’ of the Acta Sanctorum edition is a corruption of ‘Frater Jocelinus’. Vita Kentegerni, prol., pp. 29, 159; Vita Waldevi AASS, §1, p. 249E; Madrid, Biblioteca del Palacio Real, MS II 2097, fol. 42ra. Lees, ‘Monk of Furness’, p. 201. L. Bieler, The Life and Legend of St Patrick: Problems of Modern Scholarship (Dublin, 1949), pp. 122, 142 n.32; L. Bieler, ‘Jocelin von Furness als Hagiograph’, in Ludwig Bieler: Studies on the Life and Legend of St Patrick, ed. R. Sharpe, Collected Studies Series 244 (London, 1986) Ch. XVI, pp. 410–11. G. J. McFadden, ‘An Edition and Translation of the Life of Waldef, Abbot of Melrose, by Jocelin of Furness’ (unpublished D.Phil. dissertation, Columbia University, 1952), p. 5 n.12.

3

The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness acceptance.12 Other suggestions that apparent excerpts from a vita of King David in the Scotichronicon came from a lost work by Jocelin were rightly rejected by James Bulloch as being material excerpted from the prologue to the Vita Waldevi.13 In the seventeenth century, Jocelin was seen not only as a hagiographer but also as a historian. In his 1603 Survey of London, John Stow twice referred to Jocelin as a source for the early Church in Britain and cited a now lost work called the Book of British Bishops.14 Following Stow, Jocelin was described as the author of this work and many other books (libros plures) by John Pits in 1619.15 However, since no copy of the Book of British Bishops now remains, most scholars recognize Jocelin as the author only of the four Vitae extant today.16 Even a brief survey of the literature concerning Jocelin’s career reveals that his literary reputation reached its zenith in the medieval period – indeed, probably in those years closest to the time in which he was writing. His commissions in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries indicate that he was acknowledged as a master of his trade, a man worthy of the highprofile literary assignments contracted to him. Modern commentators have been somewhat less appreciative. Jocelin came to be seen largely as a barrier to the study of the much earlier saints whom his works described. As a result, scholars vented their frustrations by criticizing his style as overblown and his approach as credulous. In 1829, John Lanigan stated that Jocelin’s Vita Patricii was ‘so wretched a composition [it] is scarcely worth attending to’.17 Much the same sentiment prevailed a century later. In his Christianity in Celtic Lands, Louis Gougaud introduced Jocelin as ‘a writer by no means trustworthy’, while G. Waterhouse commented that the Vita Patricii had ‘little or no historical value, being merely a collection of extravagant legends’.18

12 13

14 15 16 17

18

McFadden, ‘Edition and Translation’, p. 3 n.7; Vita Haroldi: The Romance of the Life of Harold, King of England, ed. and trans. W. de Gray Birch (London, 1885). J. T. Gilbert, ‘Jocelin or Joscelin’, in The Dictionary of National Biography Founded in 1882 by George Smith From the Earliest Times to 1900, Vol. X: Howard-Kenneth, ed. L.  Stephen and S. Lee (Oxford, 1921–2), p. 834; Bulloch, ‘Saint Waltheof’, p. 106; Walter Bower, Scotichronicon by Walter Bower in Latin and in English, ed. and trans. D. E.  R. Watt, 9 vols. (Aberdeen, 1987–98), III, VI.i, pp. 290–3; Vita Waldevi AASS, §§1–3, pp. 249E–50A; Vita Waldevi, pp. 201–4. J. Stow, A Survey of London: Reprinted from the Text of 1603, 2 vols. (Oxford, 2000) I, ‘Cornehill warde’, p. 194, II, ‘Spirituall Governors’, pp. 125–6. J. Pits, Relationum historicarum de rebus Anglicis (Reprint of 1619 edn, Farnborough, 1969), ‘Appendix illustrium Angliae scriptorum’, p. 884. McFadden suggests that the author of the Book of British Bishops was not Jocelin of Furness but Goscelin of Canterbury. McFadden, ‘Edition and Translation’, p. 1 n.1. J. Lanigan, An Ecclesiastical History of Ireland from the First Introduction of Christianity Among the Irish to the Beginning of the Thirteenth Century, Vol. I, 2nd edn (Dublin, 1829), p. 88. L. Gougaud, Christianity in Celtic Lands: A History of the Churches of the Celts, Their Origin, Their Development, Influence and Mutual Relations, trans. M. Joynt (London,

4

Introduction Despite Bieler’s favourable comments on Jocelin’s Vita in 1944 and his plea for a ‘new appreciation of his work from both the documentary and literary point of view’, by 1975 these feelings had apparently evaporated when he described the text as ‘little more than a rehash of an earlier Life of the saint’.19 Jocelin’s Vita Kentegerni has been accorded similar treatment. In 1956, Silas Harris described it as a ‘prolix and prosy production’ and a work ‘of very dubious value’.20 Kenneth Jackson criticized Jocelin’s apparent lack of interest in the Celtic context of the legend and compared him to a nineteenth-century littérateur as a suppressor of strange or lewd details.21 Even the editor of the text, Bishop Forbes, concluded that the real value of Jocelin’s Vita lay ‘in the historical events of the Cambrian kingdom that are therein incidentally mentioned’.22 Unsurprisingly, such comments tainted the approach to Jocelin’s other works. Although Christopher Holdsworth believed the Vita Waldevi to be ‘an accurate and well-drawn portrait’, he described Jocelin’s work as ‘uneven’ and commented on the doubts concerning the ‘accuracy’ of the Vitae Kentegerni, Patricii and Helenae.23 Indeed, Derek Baker placed such a low value on Jocelin’s talent that he suggested the Vita Waldevi, the Vita of a near-contemporary Cistercian abbot, was merely an edited collection of earlier texts and contained little that was actually Jocelin’s.24 Yet not all scholars have been so dismissive. In the 1950s, George McFadden undertook an edition and translation of the Vita Waldevi as his doctoral thesis.25 Dividing his study between the author and the saintly protagonist, with an emphasis on the latter, he examined the date of Jocelin’s works, his background and his career, all with fairly inconclusive results. Although few agree with his assertion that Jocelin was ‘a literary artist of almost the first rank’,

19

20 21 22 23 24

25

1932), p. 73; G. Waterhouse, ‘St Patrick’s Purgatory: A German Account’, Hermathena 44 (1926), 32. ‘Anecdotum Patricianum: Fragments of a Life of St Patrick from MSS Cotton Vitellius E. vii and Rawlinson B479’, ed. L. Bieler, in Ludwig Bieler: Studies on the Life and Legend of St Patrick, ed. R. Sharpe, Collected Studies Series 244 (London, 1986), Ch. XIX, p. 237; L. Bieler, ‘Did Jocelin of Furness Know the Writings of St Patrick at First Hand?’, in Ludwig Bieler: Studies on the Life and Legend of St Patrick, ed. R. Sharpe, Collected Studies Series 244 (London, 1986), Ch. XV, p. 161. Harris, ‘St Asaf’, p. 11. K. H. Jackson, ‘The Sources for the Life of St Kentigern’, in Studies in the Early British Church, ed. N. K. Chadwick et al. (Cambridge, 1958), pp. 281, 288, 291, 293, 303. Lives of S. Ninian and S. Kentigern Compiled in the Twelfth Century, ed. and trans. A. P. Forbes, Historians of Scotland 5 (Edinburgh, 1874), p. lxxxvii. C. J. Holdsworth, ‘John of Ford and English Cistercian Writing 1167–1214’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 5th Series 11 (1961), 130. D. Baker, ‘Legend and Reality: The Case of Waldef of Melrose’, in Church Society and Politics: Papers Read at the Thirteenth Summer Meeting and the Fourteenth Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society, ed. D. Baker, Studies in Church History 12 (Oxford, 1975), pp. 71–2. McFadden, ‘Edition and Translation’.

5

The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness his 1955 article summarizing his research continues to form the backbone of most succeeding studies of the author and his Vitae.26 The most recent scholar to study one of Jocelin’s works in depth is Antonina Harbus, who published a much-needed edition of the Vita Helenae as an appendix to her Helena of Britain in Medieval Legend in 2002.27 Since Jocelin was only a secondary interest to her study, Harbus tended to recycle statements from previous literature and provided only limited new analysis. She does, however, give Jocelin credit for integrating the hagiographical and historical traditions concerning Helena into a single narrative.28 By taking this moderate view, she follows the lead of other recent historians who recognize Jocelin as ‘a hagiographer of some merit’.29

Jocelin: The historical figure It is the circumstances behind the composition of Jocelin’s four extant works that provide the most valuable information about the author and his career. The Vita Patricii may well be the earliest of Jocelin’s works. Commissioned by Archbishop Tomaltach of Armagh, Bishop Malachy of Down and John de Courcy, the Anglo-Norman ruler of Ulaid, the widest possible dates for the text fall between Archbishop Tomaltach’s accession to his see in 1181 and his death twenty years later.30 Plausible assumption allows us to narrow down the possible date of the commission. It is hard to disassociate Jocelin’s Vita from the wider programme of renewal at Down undertaken during the 1180s, which included the building and rededication of the cathedral, the establishment of a new chapter and the discovery in 1185 of the bodies of SS Patrick, Columba and Brigit in the churchyard. Although Jocelin does not mention the inventio in his text, details in the Vita suggest that the burial place of Patrick may already have been known. The site is said to have been revealed to Patrick by a miraculous light that shone on the eastern part of Down’s 26 27 28 29

30

G. McFadden, ‘The Life of Waldef and its Author, Jocelin of Furness’, Innes Review 6 (1955), 5–13 (p. 5 n.1). A. Harbus, Helena of Britain in Medieval Legend (Cambridge, 2002). Ibid., p. 103. Quotation from E. Freeman, ‘Models for Cistercian Life in Jocelin of Furness’s Vita Waldevi’, Cistercian Studies Quarterly 37 (2002), 107. Bulloch was one of the earliest to take a measured view of Jocelin but his lead has only really been followed within the past decade. For example, see the recent comments made by Rex Gardner and Keith Stringer. Bulloch, ‘Saint Waltheof’, p. 127; R. Gardner, ‘Kentigern, Columba, and Oswald: The Ripon Connexion’, Northern History 35 (1999), 6; K. J. Stringer, The Reformed Church in Medieval Galloway and Cumbria: Contrasts, Connections and Continuities, The Eleventh Whithorn Lecture 14th September, 2002 (Stranraer, 2003), p. 15. Annala Uladh, Annals of Ulster, Otherwise Annals of Senat: A Chronicle of Irish Affairs A.D. 431–1131, 1155–1541, Vol. II: A.D. 1057–1131, 1155–1378, ed. and trans. B. Mac Carthy (Dublin, 1893), pp. 198, 199, 234, 235.

6

Introduction cemetery and, after the saint’s death, the Vita tells us that his body was buried ‘beneath a stone, five cubits deep in the heart of the earth’ – statements that cannot be found in any other extant Patrician text.31 As earlier scholars have concluded, the combined evidence points to a date of c.1185 for the composition of Jocelin’s work.32 This date is further supported by the limited familiarity with St Patrick’s Purgatory shown by Jocelin’s text. Following a narrative that appears in various earlier accounts of Patrick’s life, Jocelin describes the torments suffered by the saint during his period of fasting on Cruachan-aigle (today’s Croagh Patrick).33 However, the Vita’s statement that this place was known as ‘St Patrick’s Purgatory’ is a new addition to the legend. This identification of the Purgatory is usually interpreted as an error on Jocelin’s part, combining what was apparently another popular pilgrimage site with rumours he had heard of St Patrick’s Purgatory at Lough Derg.34 What it does suggest is that Jocelin did not have access to either Gerald of Wales’s Topographia Hibernica or H. of Sawtry’s Tractatus on the Purgatory. The Topographia, first written c.1186, contains the earliest known description of the Purgatory on Lough Derg but its identification as ‘St Patrick’s Purgatory’ seems to form part of Gerald’s revision for the second edition, believed by Yolande de Pontfarcy to have been written under the influence of H.’s Tractatus in 1187x1189.35 While 31 32

33

34

35

Vita Patricii AASS, §§165, 171 (cc. clxxxviii, cxcvi), pp. 576A, 577C; Vita Patricii, pp. 339, 347. The date of c.1185 was given to the text by Colgan and has found few detractors since. Some scholars (for example, G. Waterhouse) cite the year as 1186, a statement that seems to refer either to the belief that the bodies were translated in that year or to the date accorded to the inventio by the Chronicle of Melrose. Triadis thaumaturgae seu Divorum Patricii, Columbae et Brigidae, trium veteris et maioris Scotiae, seu Hiberniae sanctorum insulae …, ed. J. Colgan (Louvain, 1647), p. 64; Waterhouse, ‘St Patrick’s Purgatory’, p. 33; Chronicle of Melrose, fol. 24r; ‘Chronicle of Melrose’, The Church Historians of England Vol. IV Part I, trans. J. Stevenson (London, 1854), p. 141. Vita Patricii AASS, §150 (c. clxxii), pp. 571F–2A; Vita Patricii, pp. 320–1; Tírechán’s Vita, c. xxxviii, pp. 152, 153; Vita secunda-quarta, §59, p. 101; Vita tertia, §85, p. 180; Vita tripartita, pp. 114, 115; Gloucester Vita, fol. 150ra ll. 20–1, p. 359. It is not implausible that Cruachan-aigle had also become a site for purgatorial pilgrimage – the Annals of Loch Cé record pilgrims fasting there in 1113. Robert Easting notes the possibility that the Croagh Patrick pilgrimage may have been called St Patrick’s Purgatory before the name became irrevocably attached to Lough Derg. The Annals of Loch Cé: A Chronicle of Irish Affairs from A.D. 1014 to A.D. 1590, Vol. I, ed. and trans. W. M. Hennessy, RS 54 (London, 1871), pp. 102, 103; Waterhouse, ‘St Patrick’s Purgatory’, p. 34; L. Bieler, ‘St Patrick’s Purgatory: Contributions Towards an Historical Topography’, Irish Ecclesiastical Record 93 (1960), 138; Marie de France, Saint Patrick’s Purgatory, A Poem by Marie de France, trans. M. J Curley, Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies 94 (Binghamton, 1993), pp. 12–13; Peter of Cornwall, ‘Peter of Cornwall’s Account of St Patrick’s Purgatory’, ed. R. Easting, Analecta Bollandiana 97 (1979), 397–8 n.4. F. X. Martin, ‘Giraldus as Historian’, in Expugnatio Hibernica, The Conquest of Ireland by Giraldus Cambrensis, ed. and trans. A. B. Scott and F. X. Martin, A New History

7

The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness the exact date of the Tractatus remains contentious, current scholarship has settled on c.1184 and indicates that if Jocelin’s Vita was written in response to the discovery of the holy bodies at Down in 1185, the publication of the Tractatus may simply have been too recent for Jocelin to have accessed the text.36 Since the Tractatus also includes other details relating to St Patrick that differ from those found in Jocelin’s Vita, it seems clear that both writers were unaware of each other’s works.37 The confusion over the site of St Patrick’s Purgatory present in the Vita Patricii suggests that Jocelin’s text was written before the later years of the 1180s when information regarding the Purgatory was in greater circulation. The Vita Kentegerni also dates from the late twelfth century. The work was commissioned by Bishop Jocelin of Glasgow to commemorate the cathedral’s patron saint at some point between 1175 and 1199 – the span of Jocelin’s episcopate.38 Efforts have been made to narrow down this period. Forbes dated the Vita to c.1189 but in the absence of supporting evidence, this appears somewhat arbitrary.39 McFadden argued for a much earlier date. Citing the

36

37

38

39

of Ireland, Ancillary Publications 3, Irish Medieval Texts 1 (Dublin, 1978), p. 271; Gerald of Wales, ‘Topographia Hibernica’, in Giraldi Cambrensis Topographia Hibernica et Expugnatio Hibernica, ed. J. F. Dimock, RS 21 (London, 1867), II.v, pp. 83, 83 n.1; Y. de Pontfarcy, ‘The Historical Background to the Pilgrimage to Lough Derg’, in The Medieval Pilgrimage to St Patrick’s Purgatory, Lough Derg and the European Tradition, ed. M. Haren and Y. de Pontfarcy (Enniskillen, 1988), p. 16; H. of Sawtry, Saint Patrick’s Purgatory: A Twelfth Century Tale of a Journey to the Other World, trans. J. Picard and Y. de Pontfarcy (Dublin, 1985), p. 17. Although Robert Easting dated the Tractatus to c.1179x1181 in 1978, by 1991 he had revised this to c.1180x1184. Pontfarcy argues that H. of Sawtry wrote two versions, a more primitive one in 1184 and a later one with additional information in 1186x1190. R. Easting, ‘The Date and Dedication of the Tractatus de purgatorio sancti Patricii’, Speculum 53 (1978), 782; St Patrick’s Purgatory: Two Versions of Owayne Miles and the Vision of William of Stranton Together with the Long Text of the Tractatus de Purgatorio sancti Patricii, ed. R. Easting, EETS OS 298 (Oxford, 1991), p. xvii; H. of Sawtry, Saint Patrick’s Purgatory, trans. Picard and Pontfarcy, pp. 17–18. In contrast to Jocelin’s Vita, the Tractatus provides a different account of how Patrick received the Staff of Jesus and asserts that Patrick the Apostle is the younger of the two Patricks associated with Ireland. H. of Sawtry, ‘Tractatus de purgatorio sancti Patricii’, in St Patrick’s Purgatory: Two versions of Owayne Miles and The Vision of William of Stranton together with the long text of the Tractatus de purgatorio sancti Patricii, ed. R. Easting, EETS OS (Oxford, 1991), ll. 78–9, 118–24, pp. 123, 124; H. of Sawtry, Saint Patrick’s Purgatory, trans. Picard and Pontfarcy, pp. 45–6, 47. Jocelin was elected as bishop in 1174 but it seems unlikely that he would have commissioned the work before his consecration at Clairvaux in 1175, where his appointment was approved by the Cistercian authorities. Chronicle of Melrose, fols. 22r, 26v; ‘Chronicle of Melrose’, trans. Stevenson, pp. 135, 136, 147; R. of Melrose, ‘Eulogium on Bishop Joceline’, ed. A. P. Forbes, in Lives of S. Ninian and S. Kentigern Compiled in the Twelfth Century, ed. and trans. A. P. Forbes, Historians of Scotland 5 (Edinburgh, 1874), pp. 310–11. Lives of Ninian and Kentigern, ed. and trans. Forbes, p. lxiv.

8

Introduction author’s use of the words ‘first-fruits’ (primicias) and ‘inexperience’ (imperitie), as well as the inclusion of a miracle described as if unprecedented but which also appears in the Vita Patricii, he asserted the Vita Kentegerni to be the earliest of Jocelin’s works.40 McFadden also commented on the more rhetorical style of the text as compared to the Vita Patricii which, to his mind, suggested a writer fresh from the schools.41 However, parts of this argument seem a little too simplistic. Although the interpretation of Jocelin’s words ‘I have deemed it fitting to present the first-fruits of my gatherings to you’ offers a possible reading in terms of his own oeuvre, a more plausible interpretation would be that the author is referring to the finished draft of this specific work.42 The repetition of the miracle cited by McFadden also needs qualification. Both examples involve the miraculous shielding of saints from rain and form part of a common hagiographical trope. However, Jocelin’s statement that Kentigern was never touched by rain significantly extends this topos.43 The verbosity surrounding this episode also reflects the more discursive nature of the text in general. Just as the Vita Patricii formed part of a wider programme of renewal at Down, it seems that the Vita Kentegerni must also be considered as part of a more general project of renovation at Glasgow. Both the eulogy written on Bishop Jocelin’s death in 1199 and the Chronicle of Melrose credit the bishop with the extensive rebuilding of the cathedral.44 This architectural restyling has been associated with a more specific programme to renovate both the

40

41 42

43

44

Forbes translates ‘imperitie’ as ‘unskilfulness’ rather than ‘inexperience’. McFadden, ‘Edition and Translation’, pp. 4–5; Vita Kentegerni, prol., c. xxxv, pp. 29, 31, 97–8, 159, 161, 221–2; Vita Patricii AASS, §137 (c. clvi), p. 568F; Vita Patricii, p. 304. McFadden, ‘Edition and Translation’, p. 5. ‘congruum duxi vobis offerre manipulorum meorum primicias’. This may also be an allusion to Leviticus 23. 10, where the children of Israel are instructed to bring ‘the first-fruits (primitias) of your harvest to the priest’. Vita Kentegerni, prol., p. 159. For example, compare with the miracles in Gregory’s Dialogues, the Vita Niniani, the Vita Bernardi and the Vita Aelredi. Vita Kentegerni, c. xxxv, pp. 98, 222; Gregory the Great, Gregorii Magni, Dialogi libri IV, ed. U. Moricca (Rome, 1924), III.xii, pp. 159–60; Gregory the Great, Saint Gregory the Great, Dialogues, trans. O. J. Zimmerman, The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 39 (New York, 1983), pp. 127–8; William of St Thierry et al., ‘S. Bernardi vita prima’, in S. Bernardi abbatis primi Clarae-Vallensis opera omnia, PL 185, I.xi, cols. 255C–6A; William of St Thierry et al., St Bernard of Clairvaux, The Story of his Life as Recorded in the Vita prima Bernardi by Certain of his Contemporaries, William of St Thierry, Arnold of Bonnevaux, Geoffrey and Philip of Clairvaux, and Odo of Deuil, trans. G. Webb and A. Walker (London, 1960), p. 70; Aelred of Rievaulx, ‘The Life of S. Ninian by Ailred’, Lives of S. Ninian and S. Kentigern Compiled in the Twelfth Century, ed. and trans. A. P. Forbes, Historians of Scotland 5 (Edinburgh, 1874), c. ix, pp. 18–19, 150–1; Walter Daniel, The Life of Ailred of Rievaulx by Walter Daniel, ed. and trans. F. M. Powicke (London, 1950), Ep. ad Mauricium, §4, pp. 74–5. R. of Melrose, ‘Eulogium’, p. 311; Chronicle of Melrose, fol. 23r; ‘Chronicle of Melrose’, trans. Stevenson, p. 139.

9

The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness physical setting and literary representation of St Kentigern’s cult.45 A. A. M. Duncan argues that the Vita was written as part of an unsuccessful attempt formally to canonize the saint and would have been completed by the dedication of Bishop Jocelin’s new cathedral on 6 July 1197, when the relics of the saint were to be translated to their new shrine. The dedication occurred on the first day of Glasgow’s newly-granted annual fair and indicates that Bishop Jocelin intended this event to be associated with the ceremony, i.e. that it would become part of the celebrations commemorating Kentigern’s translation.46 If so, this restricted the possible dates for the intended dedication and translation ceremony since it would have to take place in a year in which 6 July fell on a Sunday. The charter for the fair was granted between 1189 and 1195, so the only possible years in which this joint ceremony could take place were 1197 or 1203.47 Duncan argues that although Bishop Jocelin was unable to secure the saint’s canonization in time for the 1197 ceremony, he refused to postpone the dedication of the new cathedral any longer. The dedication therefore went ahead without the proposed translation.48 The idea that the Vita was commissioned in preparation for the dedication of the new cathedral and the translation of Kentigern’s relics seems entirely plausible. Although the canonization aspect of Duncan’s argument is misleading – there is no evidence that official confirmation of Kentigern’s status was either felt necessary or actively sought during this period – there are numerous examples of hagiographical works written to commemorate the building of a new church or shrine and the translation of a saint’s relics to their new home.49 That in the end no translation appears to have taken place may indicate that papal permission for the elevation of the relics was denied or that the day

45 46 47 48

49

N. F. Shead, ‘Jocelin, Abbot of Melrose (1170–1174) and Bishop of Glasgow (1175– 1199)’, Innes Review 54 (2003), 10, 12–13. Kentigern’s actual feast day fell in midwinter (13 January), an unseasonal date for an annual fair. The Acts of William I, Kings of Scots 1165–1214, ed. G. W. S. Barrow and W. W. Scott, Regesta Regum Scottorum 2 (Edinburgh, 1971), no. 308, pp. 322–3. A. A. M. Duncan, ‘St Kentigern at Glasgow Cathedral in the Twelfth Century’, in Medieval Art and Architecture in the Diocese of Glasgow, ed. R. Fawcett, British Archaeological Association Conference Transactions 23 (London, 1998), pp. 9, 14–18, 20. For example, the Liber de miraculis S. Edmundi by Herman the archdeacon seems to have been commissioned to commemorate the translation of the saint’s body into the new Norman church at Bury St Edmunds in 1095. Likewise, the completion of the Norman cathedral at Ely in 1106 was accompanied by the translation of the relics of Æthelthryth, Wihtburh, Seaxburh and Eormenhild, and the production of new hagiographical texts. M. Lapidge and R. C. Love, ‘The Latin Hagiography of England and Wales (600–1550)’, in Hagiographies: International History of the Latin and Vernacular Hagiographical Literature in the West from its Origins to 1550, Vol. III, ed. G. Philippart, Corpus Christianorum Hagiographies 3 (Turnhout, 2001), pp. 244, 246.

10

Introduction was always intended to commemorate the dedication of the church alone – a significant local ceremony in itself. Other evidence in the Vita suggests that the text was written before much of Bishop Jocelin’s new building work had taken place. Although the prologue comments on the ‘glory and beauty’ of the church, the text seems to describe Kentigern’s shrine in its former, pre-renovation state.50 In contrast to the later location of Kentigern’s tomb in the crypt, Jocelin not only states that the saint’s body was buried to the right of the altar but also remarks on the absence of any extant translation narrative regarding the saint.51 This implies that when Jocelin was writing the saint’s body remained in the same place in which it had been buried centuries earlier. Duncan argues that this reflects the layout of the church before its refurbishment under Bishop Jocelin: a single storey building with tomb and altar side by side. In contrast, the new church seems to have incorporated a crypt containing the tomb below with an enlarged choir and high altar above – behind which Kentigern’s new shrine was situated.52 The Vita therefore seems to have been written earlier rather than later in the renovation project, before the new arrangement of tomb, shrine and altar had been completed. The Chronicle of Melrose comments on the enlargement of Glasgow’s church under the entry for 1181, which may point to a date in the early to mid-1180s for Jocelin’s text.53 However, it is also possible that the serious fire at the cathedral at some point between 1189 and 1195 provided the opportunity for a more extensive remodelling – which could situate the composition of Jocelin’s text in the early 1190s.54 Other evidence suggests that Jocelin may have been commissioned to write the Vita in or before 1189. Bishop Jocelin and the then abbot of Melrose,

50 51 52

53 54

Vita Kentegerni, prol., pp. 29, 159. Ibid., prol., c. xliv, pp. 31–2, 115, 161, 238. It is clear from the offerings of Edward I that there were two Kentigern shrines in the cathedral by 1301 – this may well reflect a much earlier arrangement. Considering Bishop Jocelin’s keen interest in the cult of Thomas Becket (see p. 184) and the apparent contact between the churches of Glasgow and Canterbury, it is possible that the building of St Thomas’s shrine at Canterbury, following the new plan implemented c.1179, provided an architectural model for the work undertaken at Glasgow. It is also possible, however, that a crypt was part of the earlier cathedral that predated Bishop Jocelin’s renovations. Duncan, ‘St Kentigern’, pp. 15–16; P. Yeoman, Pilgrimage in Medieval Scotland (London, 1999), p. 19; F. Woodman, The Architectural History of Canterbury Cathedral (London, 1981), pp. 119–20; P. Draper, ‘Interpretations of the Rebuilding of Canterbury Cathedral, 1174–1186: Archaeological and Historical Evidence’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 56 (1997), 184, 194; R. Fawcett, ‘Introduction’, in Medieval Art and Architecture in the Diocese of Glasgow, ed. R. Fawcett, British Archaeological Association Conference Transactions 23 (London, 1998), p. 1. Chronicle of Melrose, fol. 23r; ‘Chronicle of Melrose’, trans. Stevenson, p. 139. Acts of William I, ed. Barrow and Scott, no. 316, p. 327; Shead, ‘Jocelin, Abbot of Melrose’, p. 13.

11

The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness Reiner, appear as witnesses on three charters granted to Furness Abbey between 1189 and 1194, the original having been granted in 1189x1190. These charters represented a mutually beneficial exchange of land for money, the land in question being pasture in Yorkshire owned by Richard de Morville, his wife and his heir.55 Other charters in the Furness Coucher Book show that these grants formed part of a wider policy to extend abbey holdings in this area.56 Indeed, the de Morville family had made an earlier appearance in the Coucher Book when they had confirmed the gift of lands in the same locality by Waltheof, son of Edmund.57 However, although the de Morvilles were clearly aware of Furness interests in this region, their decision to grant the lands of Selside and Birkwith to Furness Abbey should not be viewed as a foregone conclusion. Furness was not the only Cistercian house with holdings in this vicinity. Jervaulx Abbey held lands close by and the de Morville grant seems to have lain at the heart of what became a longstanding grievance over access to monastic lands in the area.58 With this in mind, Bishop Jocelin’s association with the de Morville transaction becomes potentially significant. Although it is possible that this grant formed the starting point of the bishop’s relationship with Furness Abbey, it seems more likely that this charter represents the extension of the bishop’s interests in the house. The decision by the de Morvilles to grant their lands to Furness may well have been encouraged and confirmed by the bishop’s literary patronage of Jocelin. If so, it seems likely that the Vita Kentegerni was commissioned before the end of the 1180s, even if its completion did not occur until several years later. Due to the information we have concerning the patrons and dedicatees of the Vita Waldevi, the dating of this text requires much less discussion. The prologue tells us that the Vita was written at the request of the late Patrick, abbot of Melrose from 1206 to 1207.59 The work was then dedicated to King William of Scotland and his immediate heirs. Since William’s reign ended in 1214, the completion of the Vita can be closely dated to the seven years between 1207 and 1214. Derek Baker argues that the absence of any reference in the text to Patrick’s successor, Abbot Adam, indicates that the Vita was completed relatively soon after Patrick’s death. This is plausible but by no means conclusive.60 55

56 57 58 59 60

The charters were also expressly intended to prevent the lands from coming into the hands of William de Stuteville. Furness Coucher Book, II ii, Selesset nos. 1–3, pp. 334–7. Ibid., Nuby nos. 5, 11–12, 15–18, 21–4, 26, Stachous nos. 1, 5, pp. 296–7, 300–2, 303–7, 308–12, 313–15, 318–19. Ibid., Nuby no. 12, pp. 301–2. Ibid., Selesset nos. 10, 12–13, 18, pp. 343, 344–9, 353–4. Vita Waldevi AASS, §3, p. 250A; Vita Waldevi, p. 205; Chronicle of Melrose, fols. 27v–8r; ‘Chronicle of Melrose’, trans. Stevenson, p. 149. For example, although William of Malmesbury’s Gesta pontificum was written in 1125, it makes no reference to Eadwulf who was elected abbot of Malmesbury in

12

Introduction The fourth of Jocelin’s texts, the Vita Helenae is the most enigmatic of all his works. The prologue tells us only that the author’s patrons were members of a religious community dedicated to St Helena.61 In an argument that is discussed at much greater length in chapter eight, the apparently British interests of the text combined with the possibility of a primarily female intended audience suggest that the work was commissioned by either Elstow Abbey (Beds.) or St Helen’s, Bishopgate, London. In terms of dating, scholars have followed McFadden’s suggestion that the text was written between the years 1198 and 1207 – a period that covers the shortest possible extent of Jocelin’s known career. McFadden did not, however, rule out the possibility that it was written outside these dates.62 Indeed, analysis of other themes in the text indicate that the Vita was written in the early thirteenth century, at around the same time as Jocelin’s other work from this period, the Vita Waldevi. The circumstances of the Vitae thus provide a partial outline of Jocelin’s career. Commissions in the late twelfth century saw the author write for patrons first in northern Ireland in the mid-1180s, then in Glasgow in the years around 1190. In 1206 or 1207, Jocelin returned to Scotland at the request of the Cistercian house at Melrose. At around the same time, an English community also commissioned him to write a new hagiographical text. Into this framework we can weave two further facts. A comment in the Vita Kentegerni informs us that Jocelin was in priestly orders, while the salutation that opens the Vita Waldevi reveals that by the early thirteenth century, Jocelin had joined the Cistercian community at Furness.63 This latter association came to dominate the literary representation of Jocelin. Despite the absence of any self-ascription in the Vita Patricii and the Vita Helenae, contemporary rubrics in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century manuscript copies of each of these works attribute the texts to ‘Jocelin, monk of Furness’.64 Although the length of Jocelin’s association with Furness and Cistercian monasticism remains unknown, evidence within the texts suggests Jocelin may have joined the Order rela-

61 62 63 64

1105. In contrast, William devotes a chapter to Eadwulf’s predecessor, Abbot Godefrey. Baker, ‘Legend and Reality’, p. 62, 62 n.10; William of Malmesbury, William of Malmesbury, Gesta pontificum Anglorum, The History of the English Bishops, Vol. I: Text and Translation, ed. and trans. M. Winterbottom and R. M. Thomson, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 2007), V.cclxxi, pp. xii, 644–9. Vita Helenae, ll. 42–4, p. 153. McFadden, ‘Life of Waldef’, p. 10; Baker, ‘Legend and Reality’, p. 59 n.1; Harbus, Helena of Britain, p. 97. Vita Kentegerni, c. xvii, pp. 60, 187; Vita Waldevi AASS, §1, p. 249E; Vita Waldevi, p. 201. Vita Patricii: ‘jhocelino monacho de furnesio’, Cambridge, Trinity College, B.15.25, fol. 1r; ‘Jocelini monachi de Furnesio’, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS lat 18314, fol. 3r. Vita Helenae: ‘Iocelini monachi de Fornesio’, Gotha, Forschungs- und Landesbibliothek Mm.I.81, fol. 203va; ‘Jocelini monachi Fornensio’ in an abridged version of the Vita written in 1377 and found in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley MS 240, fol. 801, as cited by Harbus, Helena of Britain, p. 97 n.30.

13

The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness tively early in his literary career. The Vita Kentegerni was written at the request of Bishop Jocelin of Glasgow, a man who, prior to his episcopal appointment, had been abbot of Melrose. Jocelin’s use of the phrase ‘the least of the poor of Christ’ to describe himself in the prologue to this work echoes descriptors used by other Cistercians in the twelfth century and may have been intended as a reference to both his and his patron’s shared Cistercian background.65 Jocelin’s later statement in the Vita that ‘now I draw attention to myself and others like me, who in any way are discharging the office of the priesthood’ may also suggest that he was a member of a monastic order rather than just a priest in the secular church.66 In addition, Elizabeth Freeman’s analysis of the Vita Waldevi suggests that by the early thirteenth century, Jocelin was extremely familiar with Cistercian life and thought, which implies that he had been a monk for some time.67 Jocelin has also been frequently identified with the abbot of Furness, Jocelin of Pennington, who was in office in the early 1180s and is described by the abbey’s Coucher Book as an ‘inceptor in theology’.68 If the two Jocelins were one and the same, then this suggests that the author was a local man who joined a house that lay within five miles of his village. Due to the Manx interests present in the Vita Patricii, Jocelin has also been identified with Abbot Jocelin of Rushen, a Furness daughter house located on the Isle of Man – a figure who may also be identified with the Abbot Jocelin mentioned above.69 However, without any evidence to associate the men more closely, these identifications must remain speculative. 65 66 67

68

69

See the discussion on p. 191. ‘minimus pauperum Christi’. Vita Kentegerni, prol., p. 159. ‘nunc ad meipsum, et mei similes, qualicunque modo sacerdocio fungentes oculos reduco’ (the italics are mine). Vita Kentegerni, c. xvi, p. 187. In contrast, however, George McFadden suggested that the number of references to Cistercian monastic procedure in the Vita Waldevi potentially indicated that Jocelin was a new convert. Freeman, ‘Models for Cistercian Life’, p. 109; Vita Waldevi, p. 275 n.2. ‘inceptor in Theologia’. The claims of the seventeenth-century Irish antiquary, John Colgan, that Jocelin was a Welshman who had come to Down as part of the new monastic community installed at the cathedral from Chester, have long since been discredited. Abbot Jocelin is attested in 1181x1185. He seems to have followed the abbacy of Walter of Millom (recorded in 1175) and to have preceded Michael of Dalton, who occupied the office in 1194x1198. Although no further evidence has been found for them by the editors of The Heads of Religious Houses, the abbey’s cartulary records three more abbots between Jocelin and Michael, which may suggest that Jocelin’s abbacy was rather short. Triadis thaumaturgae, ed. Colgan, p. 108 n.1; D. Knowles, C. N. L. Brooke and V. C. M. London, The Heads of Religious Houses, England and Wales, I. 940–1216, 2nd edn (Cambridge, 2001), p. 134; Furness Coucher Book, I i, no. iv, p. 9. Jocelin, abbot of Rushen, was one of the witnesses to an 1188x1190 grant by King Reginald of Man confirming Furness’s right to elect the island’s bishop. D. S. Dugdale asserted that Jocelin joined the community of Rushen in 1188, presum-

14

Introduction Jocelin’s Cistercian identity carries significant implications for his works. Most importantly it supports Jocelin’s claims that the Vitae were all written at the instance of other parties.70 Despite his assertions in the Vita Patricii and Vita Helenae that his personal devotion to the two saints would have obliged him to write even had he not received the commissions, if he was a Cistercian throughout his career, the opportunities for such free self-­expression would have been limited.71 As is well known, early statutes had specifically banned monks of the Order from writing books without the General ­Chapter’s consent, a decree that was reissued in 1202 and repeated with slightly different wording in c.1220.72 This concern over writing seems to have been specifically related to the impromptu works of individuals, from sermons and other theological material written by abbots, which from 1175 were to be submitted for inspection at the General Chapter, to the composition of apparently polemical verse, which was legislated against in 1199 and 1202.73 Such measures seem to have been intended as a safeguard for the reputation of the Order, whose activities among religious dissidents in southern France during this period must have heightened sensitivity around issues of theology and secular criticism. However, writing which reflected

70

71

72

73

ably on the strength of this grant. Furness Coucher Book, II iii, Manx Documents no. 5, p. 711; A. Ashley, The Church on the Isle of Man, Borthwick Papers 13 (York, 1958), p. 5; E. G. Bowen, Saints, Seaways and Settlements in the Celtic Lands (Cardiff, 1977), pp. 156–7; D. S. Dugdale, Manx Church Origins (Felinfach, 1998), pp. 166–7. Vita Kentegerni, prol., pp. 29, 159; Vita Patricii AASS, prol., p. 536F; Vita Patricii, p. 133; Vita Helenae, ll. 42–4, p. 153; Vita Waldevi AASS, §3, p. 250A; Vita Waldevi, pp. 204–5. Vita Patricii AASS, prol., p. 536F; Vita Patricii, p. 133; Vita Helenae, ll. 41–4, p. 153. See also Charles Dumont’s comments on Aelred’s commission to write the Speculum caritatis: C. Dumont, ‘Aelred of Rievaulx: His Life and Works’, in Aelred of Rievaulx, The Mirror of Charity, trans. E. Connor, Cistercian Fathers Series 17 (Kalamazoo, 1990), pp. 65–6. The earlier statute has been dated to c.1119x1151. C. Norton, ‘Table of Cistercian Legislation on Art and Architecture’, in Cistercian Art and Architecture in the British Isles, ed. C. Norton and D. Park (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 325, 345, 361; ‘The Instituta generalis capituli apud Cistercium’, in Narrative and Legislative Texts from Early Cîteaux: Latin Text in Dual Edition with English Translation and Notes, ed. and trans. C. Waddell, Studia et documenta 9 (Cîteaux, 1999), c. lx, p. 481; Statuta capitulorum generalium ordinis Cisterciensis ab anno 1116 ad annum 1786, Tomus I: Ab anno 1116 ad annum 1220, ed. J. Canivez, Bibliothèque de la Revue D’Histoire Ecclésiastique Fasc. 9 (Louvain, 1933), 1134/58, p. 26. Norton, ‘Table of Cistercian Legislation’, p. 329; Twelfth-Century Statutes from the Cistercian General Chapter, Latin Text with English Notes and Commentary, ed. C.  Waddell, Studia et documenta 12 (Cîteaux, 2002), 1199/1, p. 420; Statuta capitulorum generalium, ed. Canivez, 1175/31, p. 84; La codification Cistercienne de 1202 et son évolution ultérieure, ed. B. Lucet, Bibliotheca Cisterciensis 2 (Rome, 1964), IX.xxvi, p. 126; J. W. D. Paden, ‘De monachis rithmos facientibus: Hélinant de Froidemont, Bertran de Born, and the Cistercian General Chapter of 1199’, Speculum 55 (1980), 669–85.

15

The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness more communal values seems to have been openly tolerated. The proliferation of Cistercian chronicles during the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries, written largely for an in-house readership, seems to go unremarked upon by the General Chapter, as does the writing of vitae relating to saintly figures associated with particular monasteries.74 While Jocelin’s Vita Waldevi is widely acknowledged under the latter heading, his other works, which concern the lives of saints unconnected with Cistercian houses, represent vitae of a different kind. Without a specific commission, the communal value of writing such works set against the commitments of time and research – and any disruption to the regular life that this might entail – may well have made them suspect proposals in the eyes of the wider Cistercian community. Although relating to a slightly different kind of work, it is notable that William of Newburgh’s Historia rerum Anglicarum was written at the request of Abbot Ernald of Rievaulx, not because Ernald’s community lacked sufficient talent, but because he wanted to avoid the disturbance such an activity might cause.75 The commissioning of Cistercian authors by patrons from outside the Order was, however, a different matter. Despite an early statute decreeing that authors were not to write outside abbey boundaries, the benefits in terms of reputation, connections and influence associated with high-profile commissions such as the Vita Kentegerni and Vita Patricii must have significantly outweighed any negative costs.76

Editions and manuscripts With the publication of the Vita Helena in 2002, all four of Jocelin’s works are now available in printed editions. These editions are, however, of varying quality and accessibility. For the Vita Patricii, I have used the widely available Acta Sanctorum edition as the basis for the majority of my Latin references to the work.77 However, the Bollandists were not passive transcribers of texts and the Vita has been edited in accordance with their own principles of scholarship. Consequently, four narratives from the text have been omitted: how Patrick received the Staff of Jesus; Patrick’s conversion of the Dublin-Norse; the resurrection of the giant man; and the dual transformation of Eugenius’s 74

75 76 77

D. Knowles, The Monastic Order in England: A History of its Development from the Times of St Dunstan to the Fourth Lateran Council 940–1216, 2nd edn (Cambridge, 1963), pp. 644–5; Holdsworth, ‘John of Ford and English Cistercian Writing’, pp. 122–3; A. Lawrence, ‘English Cistercian Manuscripts of the Twelfth Century’, in Cistercian Art and Architecture in the British Isles, ed. C. Norton and D. Park (Cambridge, 1986), p. 289. William of Newburgh, William of Newburgh, The History of English Affairs Book I, ed and trans. P. G. Walsh and M. J. Kennedy (Warminster, 1988), prol., pp. 26, 27. Statuta capitulorum generalium, ed. Canivez, 1154/31, p. 58. Cited throughout this study as Vita Patricii AASS (see abbreviations).

16

Introduction appearance. References to these episodes in this study therefore cite the less accessible edition of the Vita found in John Colgan’s mid-seventeenth century work, Triadis thaumaturgae.78 I have also used the chapter divisions provided by Colgan in the table of Jocelin’s sources found in chapter one.79 Compared to the divisions inserted by the editors of the Acta Sanctorum, Colgan’s chapters more closely represent those found in the medieval manuscripts and allow for a clearer presentation of the construction of Jocelin’s text. Consequently, for ease of reference, both the Acta Sanctorum divisions and Colgan’s chapters are provided in the footnotes. Where it is necessary to clarify other points, reference has also been made to the medieval mansucripts themselves, details of which can be found in Table 1, alongside information concerning the other extant manuscripts of Jocelin’s works.80 Many of the translations of the Vita Patricii used in this book have been taken from James O’Leary’s 1880 English edition of Jocelin’s text. However, where I have found O’Leary’s version deficient, I have supplied translations of my own.81 Jocelin’s Vita Waldevi is widely available in the Acta Sanctorum series and it is from this edition that the Latin references to the work are taken.82 George McFadden revised and translated the Acta Sanctorum version of the text in 1952 and his work provides a number of translations used in this book.83 However, the recent rediscovery of a late fifteenth century version of the Vita means that a new edition of Jocelin’s text is now required. The Vita S. Wallevi found in a manuscript now held by the Biblioteca del Palacio Real in Madrid forms part of a selection of saints’ lives and other miscellaneous devotional texts believed to have come from Dunfermline.84 Since Jocelin probably wrote the Vita in or soon after 1207, the Madrid manuscript is still comparatively late but in a number of ways it appears to be a closer approximation to the original than the text which survives in the Acta Sanctorum edition. This version was edited from two manuscripts held by the house of Augustinian canons at Boeddeken in Westphalia, neither of which remain today.85 The

78 79 80 81 82

83 84 85

Cited throughout this study as Vita Patricii, ed. Colgan (see abbreviations). Vita Patricii, ed. Colgan, cc. xxiv, lxxi, lxxxi, lxxxiv, lxxxv, pp. 70a, 80b–1a, 83b–4a, 84b–5a. See Table 2, pp. 52–7. Bibl. del Palacio Real, MS. II 2097. Cited thoughout this study as Vita Patricii (see abbreviations). The spelling in O’Leary’s translations has been modernized. Cited throughout this study as Vita Waldevi AASS (see abbreviations). The corrupted spelling of ‘Walthenus’ found in the Acta Sanctorum edition of the text has been consistently amended to ‘Waldevus’ throughout this study. Cited throughout this study as Vita Waldevi (see abbreviations). The Miracles of St Æbbe of Coldingham and Saint Margaret of Scotland, ed. and trans. R. Bartlett, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 2003), pp. xxxi–xxxiii. ‘De S. Waltheno Abbate Ordinis Cisterciensis in Scotia: Commentarius Praevius’, in AASS Augusti I, p. 242C; McFadden, ‘Edition and Translation’, p. 68.

17

The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness distinct differences between the two remaining versions of the Vita indicate that they followed separate routes of transmission which parted at a relatively early stage in the dissemination of the text. In the majority of cases, these differences are minor. However, in a number of instances, such as the account of Brother Walter’s vision in the second half of the work, the variations between the two are significant.86 Accordingly, where the versions differ, reference is made to both readings. All citations of the Vita Kentegerni are taken from the 1874 edition and translation by Bishop Forbes, which collated the texts from the two remaining manuscripts of the work.87 Containing the vitae of both Kentigern and Servanus, the manuscript now held by Marsh’s Library, Dublin, is believed to be the same volume as that referred to by the 1432 inventory of Glasgow Cathedral and as such was Forbes’ preferred text for his edition.88 Although apparently earlier, the Vita Kentegerni found in the British Library manuscript, Cotton Vitellius C. VIII, is a poorer copy of the text, written by a scribe with imperfect Latin and corrected by another hand relatively soon after.89 Again, where I have found them preferable, I have used my own translations of the Vita – otherwise, the translations are from Forbes’ edition of the work.90 References to the Vita Helenae come from Harbus’s recent edition of the Latin text. This is based on the Cambridge manuscript, which was judged by Harbus to be the earliest and least corrupt of the two full remaining versions of the work.91 However, on a number of occasions, the readings in the Gotha manuscript version of the text are to be preferred to those in Harbus’s edition – when this is so, it is stated in the relevant footnotes. All the translations of this Vita are my own.

Overview The first part of this study examines the structure and composition of Jocelin’s Vitae, beginning with the three works that record the legends of much older saints. These texts form part of a wider movement, described by Susan Ridyard as a ‘fashion-conscious dissatisfaction’, in which older

86 87 88

89 90 91

Vita Waldevi AASS, §§100–5, pp. 271D–2D; Vita Waldevi, pp. 322–8; Bibl. del Palacio Real, MS. II 2097, fols. 61ra–2vb. Cited throughout this study as Vita Kentegerni (see abbreviations). Registrum episcopatus Glasguensis: Munimenta ecclesie metropolitane Glasguensis a sede restaurata seculo XII ad reformatam religionem, ed. C. Innes, 2 vols. (Edinburgh, 1843), II, no. 339, p. 335. Lives of Ninian and Kentigern, ed. and trans. Forbes, p. lxiv. The spelling in Forbes’ translations has been modernized. Cited throughout this study as Vita Helenae (see abbreviations).

18

Introduction Table 1. Extant Medieval Manuscripts92 Jocelin’s Vitae Vita S. Patricii

Vita S. Kentegerni Vita S. Waldevi Vita S. Helenae

Extant Medieval Manuscripts

Date

Cambridge, Trinity College, MS B.15.25. Dublin, Trinity College, MS 178, fols. 2–95. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Rawlinson B.485, fols. 1–46v. [Incomplete] Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Rawlinson B.505, fols. 1–89v. [A copy of B.485 but complete] Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS lat. 18314. Dublin, Marsh’s Library, MS Z 4.5.5, fols. 7–62v. London, British Library, Cotton Vitellius C. viii, fols. 148–95. Madrid, Biblioteca del Palacio Real, MS II 2097, fols. 41v–68. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 252, fols. 166v–83v. Gotha, Forschungs- und Landesbibliothek, MS Memb. I 81, fols. 203–13v.

s. xv¹

Provenance

s. xiv²/xv

Ireland/England

s. xiv²

Saint’s Island

s.xiv¹

Abbeyderg

s. xv

Donegal

s. xiii

Glasgow

s. xii/xiii 1460x1488

Dunfermline

s. xiv¹

Norwich

s. xiv²

England

­ agiographical works were rewritten in a more contemporary style.93 Examh ples from earlier in the twelfth century include Lawrence of Durham’s Vita S. Brigidae, Geoffrey of Burton’s Vita S. Modwennae and Aelred’s Vita S. Edwardi, while Jocelin’s direct contemporary, Gerald of Wales, recast a Vita S. Davidis 92

92

93

This list does not include abridged versions or extracts taken from the texts. There are also two seventeenth-century copies of the Vita S. Patricii: Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale, 1790; Rome, Bibl. Alexandrina 92. The dates given to the manuscripts are drawn from the most recent research where possible. R. Sharpe, A Handlist of the Latin Writers of Great Britain and Ireland Before 1540, Publications of the Journal of Medieval Latin 1 (Turnhout, 1997), p. 198; L. Bieler, Codices Latini Patriciani: A Descriptive Catalogue of Latin Manuscripts Relating to St Patrick (Dublin, 1942), pp. 38–41; M. L. Colker, Trinity College Library Dublin, Descriptive Catalogue of the Medieval and Renaissance Latin Manuscripts, Vol. I (Aldershot, 1991), p. 343; A. MacQuarrie, ‘Vita sancti Servani: The Life of St Serf’, Innes Review 44 (1993), 134–5; Lives of Ninian and Kentigern, ed. and trans. Forbes, p. lxiv; Miracles of St Æbbe, ed. and trans. Bartlett, pp. xxxi–xxxiii; Harbus, Helena of Britain, pp. 97, 150. Bartlett, ‘Rewriting Saints’ Lives’, pp. 598–9; S. J. Ridyard, The Royal Saints of AngloSaxon England: A Study of West Saxon and East Anglian Cults, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought 4th Series 9 (Cambridge, 1988), p. 13.

19

The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness and a Vita S. Ethelberti.94 The verse reworking of a number of earlier texts by Henry of Avranches (d. 1260) in the thirteenth century continued this trend.95 In terms of Jocelin’s works, the rewriting of these earlier vitae was rarely a simple case of updating the style of a single text. Jocelin frequently adapted and extended the narrative to represent the contemporary versions of the legend and to reflect current interests or ideals. The first two chapters offer an analysis of the Vita Patricii and Vita Helenae, saints whose popularity continued unabated throughout the medieval period and texts for which a substantial amount of the source material remains. Yet despite initial similarities between the works, close examination shows that the rewriting of these texts presented Jocelin with two very different projects. From among the potential wealth of Patrician vitae available by the late twelfth century, Jocelin chose a single work around which to frame his text. In contrast, Jocelin’s source material for the Vita Helenae consisted mainly of late antique and contemporary histories, whose primary interest was not the saint in question. Without a satisfactory template to hand, Jocelin was forced to take a much more compilatory approach to the Vita. Different texts provided the main outlines for different episodes and information from other sources was also assimilated into the work. Set against each other, these two studies allow us to compare and contrast Jocelin’s approach to rewriting earlier texts, and provide two potential models for the construction of the third work to describe the life of an older saint, the Vita Kentegerni. Although no longer extant, the sources used by Jocelin in the composition of this text have been the subject of much scholarly debate. Chapter three, therefore, first investigates this debate before moving on to examine the text of the Vita Kentegerni itself. The fourth chapter analyses the composition of the Vita Waldevi, the Vita of a near-contemporary Cistercian abbot. Most of Jocelin’s material for this text appears to have been oral, which means that it offered a very different challenge to the author compared to his other works. This chapter explores the ambiguous nature of Jocelin’s source material and examines the interplay of oral and written sources that lies behind the text. The second part of the book sets each of the Vitae firmly in the context of their commissions. Chapters five to eight attempt to tap into the discourses found in the Vitae that represent the interests of the textual communities who commissioned them.96 Jocelin’s Vitae provided a semi-public arena in which 94

95 96

Lapidge and Love, ‘Latin Hagiography’, pp. 261, 266, 276; Geoffrey of Burton, Geoffrey of Burton, Life and Miracles of St Modwenna, ed. and trans. R. Bartlett, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 2002), pp. xi, xiv; Bartlett, ‘Rewriting Saints’ Lives’, p. 599. Lapidge and Love, ‘Latin Hagiography’, pp. 295–7. Brian Stock’s statement that ‘textual communities’ share a common understanding of what the text means rather than what it says indicates that the use of this term is valid in this context. B. Stock, The Implications of Literacy: Written Language and Models of Interpretation in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Princeton, 1983), pp. 90, 522.

20

Introduction the contemporary anxieties and antagonisms of the patrons could be aired. In a number of instances, the Vitae used pseudo-historical narratives to create fictionalized pasts which either justified the aims of the present or underlined the perversion of the contemporary world. Thus, the Vita Patricii provides an updated version of the Patrician legend, which is adjusted to reflect the religio-political realities of its Irish and Anglo-Norman patrons. Similarly, the Vita Kentegerni is shown to mirror the ecclesiastical politics of late twelfth century Scotland. The Vita Waldevi has a slightly different agenda. As the first official account of the cult that had developed around the memory of Waltheof, second abbot of the Cistercian house of Melrose, it appears to have been commissioned as an essential part of an application for papal canonization. The fourth text, the Vita Helenae, sits apart from the other three. Written for a community whose only connection to the saint appears to have been the dedication of the house, the text does not serve the same general promotional purposes as Jocelin’s other works. Instead, analysis suggests that it was intended as a much wider reflection of contemporary concerns. It is a text that embodies narratives and discourses of clear relevance to the ecclesiastical and political context of the early thirteenth century. The final chapter of this study offers a thematic overview of the Vitae and examines the contemporary religious themes expressed in Jocelin’s works. The conclusion then draws the different threads of the book together, before closing with a re-evaluation of Jocelin’s place within the literary and historical context of late Angevin Britain.

21

Part I Texts

CHAPTER  ONE

Expanding the Narrative: The Composition of the Vita S. Patricii

Although the Vita Patricii seems to be the earliest of Jocelin’s extant works, it is unlikely to have been the first text written by the author. The length and scope of the Vita, combined with the high-profile status of the AngloNorman ruler and Irish ecclesiastics who sponsored it, indicate that Jocelin must already have enjoyed the literary renown necessary to qualify him for this commission. The task of rewriting and updating the life of St Patrick was certainly not a job for an amateur. By the late twelfth century, a large amount of Patrician hagiographial material was already in circulation. Jocelin was therefore faced with the challenge of selecting material from this extensive corpus and creating a text that adequately represented all the narratives considered essential to the contemporary legend. Jocelin’s approach to the Vita Patricii was governed by a number of factors. Firstly, the political circumstances behind the work meant that it represented far more than a simple restyling of what was perceived to be archaic prose. It reflected the unity of religious intent shared by its three patrons, men who stood on either side of the secular/ecclesiastical and Anglo-Norman/Irish divides. The contemporary context of the work shaped not only specific narratives in the text (which will be discussed in detail in chapter five) but also the scale and weight of the project. The Vita provided the literary reinforcement for the cult of St Patrick at Down and for the wider reforms being implemented in the Irish church. As such, the work represents a textual foundation stone, a comprehensive account upon which the new ecclesiastical regime could be both built and consolidated. This chapter will analyse the way in which Jocelin approached this important text and how he constructed a new Patrician vita based largely on earlier source material.

The basic construction of the text Jocelin’s Vita Patricii belongs to a subgroup of texts derived from the largely vernacular Bethu Phátraic, a work more widely known by the name given to John Colgan’s Latin translation of the text, the Vita tripartita (and this will be the name used to refer to the work thoughout this study). Scholarly opinion remains divided over the age of the Vita tripartita. Once thought to date to 25

The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness the early tenth century, recent studies now suggest the text could have been written as late as the twelfth.1 Jocelin’s work stands as the latest addition within this subgroup, being primarily based on a work very similar to the Vita tertia, a Latin text composed in Ireland at some point between c.800 and the early twelfth century.2 The author of the Vita tertia drew largely on the Vita tripartita but may also have had access to St Patrick’s own writings and the late seventh century vitae composed by Muirchú and Tírechán.3 The fragmentary Cottonian Vita provides a further intermediary stage between ­Jocelin’s text and the extant Vita tertia. The Cottonian Vita is believed to date from the twelfth century and seems to be an extract from a more copious source, its modest scale indicating that it probably predated Jocelin’s more comprehensive work.4 The reference to ‘hec insula’ suggests that the author of the Cottonian Vita was either Irish or, as may well be the case with Jocelin, an Anglo-Norman writing in Ireland.5 It is possible that Jocelin supplemented his text with details from other vitae, using various works from the Patrician hagiographical corpus such as the Vita secunda, the Vita quarta, the Vita auctore Probo and the Additamenta. Since the Vita secunda and the Vita quarta are dependent on a common source written between the early eighth and eleventh centuries, this analysis will follow the lead of previous scholarship and treat the two works as a single text.6 The Vita Probo, named after its author, Probus, appears to have been written in Britain and has been tenta-

1

2 3

4

5 6

This debate is summarized succinctly by David Dumville. More recently, Maíre Herbert has argued that the vernacular Vita tripartita was begun in the ninth century but continued and completed at some point in the mid-tenth century. Some time later in the eleventh century, the work was edited as a tripartite homily. Vita tripartita, p. lxiii; D. N. Dumville, ‘The Dating of the Tripartite Life of St Patrick’, in Saint Patrick A.D. 493–1993, ed. D. N. Dumville et al., Studies in Celtic History 13 (Woodbridge, 1993), pp. 255–8; ‘Anecdotum Patricianum’, ed. Bieler, pp. 233–6; M. Herbert, ‘Latin and Vernacular Hagiography of Ireland from the Origins to the Sixteenth Century’, in Hagiographies: International History of the Latin and Vernacular Hagiographical Literature in the West from its Origins to 1550, ed. G. Philippart, Corpus Christianorum Hagiographies 3 (Turnhout, 2001), p. 341. Four Latin Lives of St Patrick: Colgan’s Vita Secunda, Quarta, Tertia and Quinta, ed. L. Bieler, Scriptores Latini Hiberniae 8 (Dublin, 1971), pp. 25–6. Although Tírechán’s text is not really a vita but a collected record of local traditions, for ease of reference it will be referred to as Tírechán’s Vita throughout this study. Bieler, Four Latin Lives, pp. 33–4; The Patrician Texts in the Book of Armagh, ed. and trans. L. Bieler, Scriptores Latini Hiberniae 10 (Dublin, 1979), pp. 1–2, 36, 42. The text has lost its beginning, end and a large section of the main body. The remaining three leaves are also in a poor state of preservation. ‘Anecdotum Patricianum’, ed. Bieler, pp. 221, 237. Cottonian Vita, fol. 10rb l. 5, p. 228; ‘Anecdotum Patricianum’, ed. Bieler, p. 236. It has very plausibly been assumed that where the Vita secunda breaks off at chapter 49, the original text followed that which remains in the Vita quarta. Four Latin Lives, ed. Bieler, pp. 7, 12.

26

Expanding the Narrative tively dated to the late tenth century.7 The Additamenta is a late eighth century document relating to Patrick found in the Book of Armagh which, although a source apparently unused by Jocelin, may have recorded more widespread traditions.8 More contemporary Patrician material was also available, such as the vita written for the monks of Glastonbury Abbey by William of Malmesbury at some point before 1126 and the vita transcribed in a late twelfth or early thirteenth century hand and now found in a manuscript at Gloucester Cathedral (henceforth referred to as the Gloucester Vita).9 However, in spite, or perhaps because of, the potential wealth of material available, Jocelin appears to have based his work largely on a single text that is closely related to the extant version of the Vita tertia. Analysis of the Vita shows that it can be divided into three basic sections – information that is shown in tabular form at the end of the chapter. The first and third sections follow the narrative order of the Vita tertia, with the third section rejoining the narrative of this base text at the point at which the first section ended. The central section presents an interruption in this sequence. It not only has no clear base text, but also includes a high incidence of episodes that have no attributed source. The first section (chapters 1 to 81 of Colgan’s edition) closely follows the narrative order and, in a significant number of cases, repeats the content of the Vita tertia.10 This section also shares a large amount of narrative ­material with other sources. This is partly a reflection of the traditional and wellknown episodes that this part of the text covers, for example: the kidnapping of Patrick and his arrival in Ireland; Patrick’s Easter celebrations at Bregh and his contest against Locut Mael. Consequently, this section also has very few episodes – only two chapters – for which some form of extant exemplar cannot be found. On several occasions, the base narrative of the Vita tertia is interrupted and other episodes are incorporated into Jocelin’s text. There are two possible explanations for this: either these episodes were already present in the version of the Vita tertia used by Jocelin or they form new additions to the text. The closely-related Vita tripartita provides a possible source for eight of the episodes that interrupt the flow of the Vita tertia narrative and indicates that these episodes may have been found in Jocelin’s exemplar. The sources for the majority of the central section of the Vita (covered by chapters 82 to 145 in Colgan’s edition) remain unknown. However, where 7 8 9

10

Four Latin Lives, ed. Bieler, pp. 39–40. Patrician Texts, ed. and trans. Bieler, pp. 46, 49. William of Malmesbury, William of Malmesbury, Saints’ Lives: Lives of SS. Wulfstan, Dunstan, Patrick, Benignus and Indract, ed. and trans. M. Winterbottom and R. M. Thomson, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 2002), p. xv; ‘Eine Patricksvita in Gloucester’, ed. L. Bieler, in Ludwig Bieler: Studies on the Life and Legend of St Patrick, ed. R. Sharpe, Collected Studies Series 244 (London, 1986), Ch. XVIII, p. 346. Twenty-seven of Jocelin’s chapters closely match the narrative content of episodes found in the Vita tertia.

27

The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness similar elements of a story can be compared, this section is shown to have most in common with the Vita tripartita. Only two episodes cannot be found in some form in the Vita tripartita: chapter 96 (elements of which can be found in Muirchú’s Vita and the Vita Probo) and chapter 98 (elements of which can be found in Vita S. Comgalli).11 The final section of the Vita (beginning at chapter 146 in Colgan’s edition) picks up the Vita tertia where it left off at the end of the first section and generally follows the narrative until the end of the text. However, this section includes both a greater number and a greater frequency of interruptions to the Vita tertia narrative than is found in the first section.

Jocelin’s base text The evidence clearly indicates that Jocelin used a version of the Vita tertia as a base text for the Vita Patricii, a conclusion also reached (but largely undemonstrated) by the pre-eminent Patrician scholar, Ludwig Bieler.12 Bieler identified Jocelin’s Vita and the Vita tertia as part of a separate group of texts in the Bethu Phátraic tradition, claiming that both texts were based on the same lost Latin version of the Vita tripartita.13 There are reasonable grounds for believing that Jocelin used an intermediary Latin text rather than the Irish-Latin (but predominantly Irish) extant Vita tripartita.14 There is nothing in Jocelin’s text to suggest that he had an extensive knowledge of the Irish language and it seems likely that if he did access Irish texts, he would have done so with the aid of an interpreter. Although there is evidence for this kind of intercultural exchange in this context, it is limited to one example: that which occurred between the Anglo-Norman author of the late twelfth century ‘Song of Dermot and the Earl’ and Morice Regan, King Diarmait’s personal inter-

11

12

13

14

Vita Patricii AASS, §§83, 86 (cc. xcvi, xcviii), pp. 557A–B, 557E–8A; Vita Patricii, pp. 244–5, 247–8; Muirchú’s Vita, I.xxvii, pp. 100–3; Vita Probo, II.§1, p. 206; ‘Vita sancti Comgalli abbatis de Bennchor’, in Vitae sanctorum Hiberniae, Partim hactenus ineditae ad fidem codicum manuscriptorum recognovit prolegomenis notis indicibus instruxit, Vol. II, ed. C. Plummer (Oxford, 1910), c. xvi, p. 8. Bieler, Life and Legend, p. 132 n.39; ‘Anecdotum Patricianum’, ed. Bieler, pp. 233, 235, 236; Four Latin Lives, ed. Bieler, p. 13 n.2; Bieler, ‘Jocelin von Furness als ­Hagiograph’, p. 411. The now lost Opus tripartitum cited by James Ussher in his account of St Patrick in the Britannicarum ecclesiarum antiquitates (Dublin, 1639) appears to have been a Latin vita of Patrick in three books which Ussher clearly distinguished from the Vita tripartita. However, while Bieler concluded that it formed part of the Bethu Phátraic subgroup, he did not identify it as the lost Latin text apparently used by the author of the Vita tertia and Jocelin. Four Latin Lives, ed. Bieler, pp. 235, 244. The Latin amounts to just under ten per cent of the text. Bieler, Codices Patriciani Latini, p. 36.

28

Expanding the Narrative preter.15 More conclusively, the sporadic appearance of episodes found in the Vita tripartita does not noticeably change throughout Jocelin’s work – even in the central section where the content of Jocelin’s text moves away from the extant version of Vita tertia – suggesting that the Vita tripartita, as we have it now, was not a source directly accessed by Jocelin. The proposed base text for Jocelin’s work seems to have been an intermediary between the Vita tripartita and the Vita tertia but one that was significantly closer to the latter. Ignoring the hiatus of the middle section, not only does Jocelin follow the narrative structure of the Vita tertia very closely but he omits only three of its chapters, each of these being quite general in nature: chapter 4 notes that Patrick’s nurse lived in Nempthor (Jocelin’s Empthor) and that Patrick chose the true path, while both 93 and 94 are laudatory concluding chapters summarizing Patrick’s achievements.16 The evidence strongly suggests that Jocelin based his text upon a version of the Vita tertia that is no longer extant. Such a hypothesis seems to be confirmed by earlier analyses of the sources used by William of Malmesbury in the composition of his version of the Vita Patricii. The Vita tertia is believed to survive in two recensions, designated by Bieler as Continental (G) and English (P). Where comparison of William’s fragmentary text allows, it was found to follow variants in the P-text rather than those in the G-text.17 However, William’s early chapters also include details that seem to come from introductory material prefixed to the G-text but omitted from the P-text. This offers two possibilities: either William’s copy of the G-text also included the introductory material prefixed to the G-text or he incorporated additional introductory material from a work analogous to the Vita secunda-quarta just as the compiler of the G-text had done. Clark H. Slover believed the latter to be the most likely option and therefore concluded that William also had at his disposal a version of the Vita secunda-quarta – a conclusion reaffirmed by Bieler.18 However, analysis of Jocelin’s Vita suggests that this argument may need to be revised. Although Bieler believed that Jocelin

15

16 17

18

The Deeds of the Normans in Ireland, La geste des Engleis en Yrlande: A New Edition of the Chronicle Formerly Known as The Song of Dermot and the Earl, ed. and trans. E. Mullally (Dublin, 2002), ll. 1–9, p. 53; E. Mullally, ‘Hiberno-Norse Literature and its Public’, in Settlement and Society in Medieval Ireland: Studies Presented to F. X. Martin, O.S.A., ed. J. Bradley (Kilkenny, 1988), p. 328. Vita tertia, §§4, 93, 94, pp. 118–19, 188–90. William’s use of the P-version also gains support from the fact that two of the three remaining English recension manuscripts are copies of a common ancestor and include the identical interpolation equating the burial place of Patrick with Glastonbury. Four Latin Lives, ed. Bieler, pp. 14–24 (pp. 22–4). C. H. Slover, ‘William of Malmesbury’s Life of St Patrick’, Modern Philology 24 (1926), 5–20 (pp. 8, 9, 13–14, 20); Four Latin Lives, ed. Bieler, pp. 23–4. See also Rodney Thomson’s comments on the sources for William’s Vita. R. Thomson, William of Malmesbury (Woodbridge, 1987), pp. 70, 70 n.178, 207.

29

The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness followed the G-version, further investigation shows that Jocelin’s text does not align itself closely with either extant recension of the Vita tertia. As noted by Bieler, Jocelin’s Vita includes two significant traits of the G-text: the introductory material that prefixes this recension and the variant version of the miracle concerning the floating altar.19 In addition, Jocelin’s inclusion of the name ‘Erc’ (Jocelin’s Bishop Hercus) and the identification of the river Seyle also reflect features found in the G-text but not in the P-text.20 However, at various points, Jocelin’s Vita transmits details from the P-version of the Vita tertia: when St Martin, not Patrick, is sent to an island by angelic command; the version of the magicians’ prophecy foreseeing Patrick’s arrival in Ireland; the description of the two magicians as sons of Niall rather than the magicians of Lóegaire son of Niall; the statement that Glarcus is said to have died after a hundred years rather than to have been dead for a hundred years; that there are sixty-six rather than sixty-three books which record Patrick’s miracles; and the comments concerning the storage and display of the relics granted to Armagh by the pope.21 There is also little reason to think that Jocelin supplemented his account with material from the Vita secunda-quarta. Although it must be noted that some of the G-variants, such as the introductory material and the naming of Erc, can also be found in the Vita secundaquarta, Jocelin’s reliance on this source cannot be said to be heavy.22 While it remains possible that Jocelin had a copy of this text at his disposal and inserted certain episodes from it, it seems more plausible to suggest that Jocelin had access to another version of the Vita tertia which included these other features – in short, a G-P hybrid. If so, this may mean that William of Malmesbury also had access to another version of the Vita tertia – although differences between William’s Vita and that written by Jocelin indicate that

19

20 21

22

In the P-text, Patrick ejects an altar from his ship to make space for a leper to sail with the party onboard the vessel: ‘et in alteris sede sedit leprosus’. Miraculously, the altar floats and follows Patrick’s ship to Ireland. In the G-version, the altar is thrown into the water and the leper is placed upon it: ‘et in altare sedit leprosus’. The floating altar and its passenger then follow Patrick’s boat to Ireland. The similarity between the two texts and the message behind the narrative itself suggest that the P-version reflected the author’s original intentions. Bieler, ‘Jocelin von Furness als Hagiograph’, pp. 411, 412; Vita Patricii AASS, §§1–6, 10, 23 (cc. i–ix, xiii, xxvii), pp. 537–8D, 539B–D, 542D–E; Vita Patricii, pp. 135–44, 147–8, 164–5; Vita tertia, §§1–9, 17, pp. 118–21, 133–4. Vita tertia, §§38, 43, pp. 143, 149; Vita Patricii AASS, §§35, 47 (cc. xli, liii), pp. 545F, 548E; Vita Patricii, pp. 181, 194. Vita tertia, §§22, 30, 47, 67, 84, 87, pp. 130, 135–6, 151, 165, 179, 182; Vita Patricii AASS, §§18, 26, 51, 145, 163 (cc. xxii, xxxi, lvii, clxvi, clxxxvi), pp. 541C, 543B–C, 549C, 570C, 575C; Vita Patricii, ed. Colgan, c. lxxxi, pp. 83b–4a; Vita Patricii, pp. 158, 168–9, 198, 227, 314, 337. Vita secunda-quarta, §§1–11/15, 35/41, pp. 50–62, 90.

30

Expanding the Narrative they did not have access to the same version.23 As Bieler himself noted, the Vita tertia enjoyed great popularity during the Middle Ages and it is not unlikely that other recensions of this text have been lost.24 The version of the Vita tertia that formed Jocelin’s base text differed in a number of ways from the version of the text remaining today. In particular, it may have included many of the episodes present in Jocelin’s central section that now are found only in the Vita tripartita. It is notable that in the two sections that retain the narrative structure of the proposed base text, in a number of cases Jocelin’s work is more closely analogous to other sources than to the extant Vita tertia. Although some of these episodes may be insertions into the narrative, it is possible that some of these details were found in Jocelin’s base text. The latter alternative is most easily accepted for chapters in Jocelin’s work which have exemplars in the Vita tertia but are more closely related to accounts found in other sources. Chapters 18 and 160 both include details that match episodes found in the Vita tripartita more closely than episodes in the extant Vita tertia, while chapters 147 and 156 are closer to episodes present in both the Vita tripartita and the Vita secunda-quarta.25 Further evidence of this lost base text may be found in the fragmentary Cottonian Vita, a somewhat abbreviated version of the text to which Jocelin’s Vita is closely related. In several instances, Jocelin’s text shares greater similarities with the Cottonian Vita than any other vita.26 Both chapter 26, where Patrick beholds God on Mount Morion, and chapter 27, where the leper follows Patrick’s boat to Ireland on a floating altar, contain strikingly similar details.27 Apart from two passing references to the tradition in the works of Gerald of Wales, only the Cottonian Vita and Jocelin’s text transmit the story of how Patrick rid Ireland of venomous beasts.28 These similarities indicate that

23

24 25

26 27 28

Dumville offers a similar conclusion with regard to William’s sources, although he appears to suggest the possibility of an entirely new text rather than just a different recension of the Vita tertia. D. N. Dumville, ‘William of Malmesbury’s Vita S. Patricii and his Source: Two Lost Lives of St Patrick?’, in Saint Patrick, A.D. 493–1993, ed. D. N. Dumville et al., Studies in Celtic History 13 (Woodbridge, 1993), p. 267. Four Latin Lives, ed. Bieler, p. 13. Vita Patricii AASS, §§14, 128, 137, 141 (cc. xviii, cxlvii, clvi, clx), pp. 540C–D, 566F– 7A, 568F, 569D–E; Vita Patricii, pp. 153, 294–5, 304, 308–9; Vita tripartita, pp. 23, 124–7, 222–5; Vita secunda-quarta, §§64–5, pp. 102–3. ‘Anecdotum Patricianum’, ed. Bieler, pp. 221, 235. Cottonian Vita, fol. 11ra ll. 1–17, 11va–b ll. 24–22, pp. 223–4; Vita Patricii AASS, §23 (cc. xxvi-xxvii), p. 542B–E; Vita Patricii, pp. 163–5. Although Gerald’s Topographia Hibernica cast doubt on the story that Patrick rid Ireland of snakes, his Gemma ecclesiastica accepted it as fact. Bede also stated that Ireland had no reptiles or serpents but attributed this to the island’s air. Since the story that Patrick rid Ireland of snakes appears only in these twelfth-century texts, Patrick’s association with this apparently well-known tradition seems to have been a relatively recent development in his legend. ‘Anecdotum Patricianum’, ed. Bieler, p. 234; Gerald of Wales, ‘Topographia Hibernica’, I.xxviii, p. 62; Gerald of Wales,

31

The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness Jocelin and the author of the Cottonian Vita both shared a common source, designated by Bieler as ‘Q’, which represents the intermediary stage between these two texts and the Vita tertia. However, even though the Cottonian Vita bears a greater similarity to Jocelin’s text than to the Vita tertia, the spelling of proper names in the Cottonian Vita is always nearer to those found in the latter. Bieler therefore concluded that the author of the Cottonian Vita followed Q more closely than Jocelin.29 For our purposes, the conclusion must be that Jocelin’s base text was a derivative of Q but not Q itself. Despite this emphasis on the proposed base text, it is clear that Jocelin did not slavishly copy the exemplar set before him. As Jocelin explicitly states in the prologue, the main intention of the Vita was to correct the ‘rough style’ and ‘barbaric language’ of earlier texts, which not only posed a barrier to understanding, but now meant that these works were ‘held in weariness and contempt’.30 Gathering his various sources, Jocelin explained that we will endeavour by reducing them to order, to collect what is confused, when collected to mould this material and compose it in a single volume, and when composed to season it, if not with the salt of the highest Latin, at least with the taste of the Latin language.31

As a result of this stylistic overhaul, Jocelin’s Vita contains very few linguistic traces of his source material. A rare example of this can be found in the episode where Milcho’s magicians foresee the arrival of Patrick in Ireland. The wording of the magicians’ prophecy in Jocelin’s text is almost exactly the same as the language used in the P-version of the Vita tertia: Vita tertia: Adueniet cum suo ligno curuo capite, cuius mensa erit in oriente domus sue et populus eius retrorsum illius, et ex sua mensa cantabit nefas, et tota familia sua respondebit ei: Fiat, fiat. Hic autem cum

29 30

31

Gerald of Wales, Topography of Ireland, trans. J. J. O’Meara (Harmondsworth, 1982), p. 50; Gerald of Wales, Giraldi Cambrensis Gemma ecclesiastica, ed. J. S. Brewer, RS 21 (London, 1862), I.liii, p. 161; Gerald of Wales, Gerald of Wales, The Jewel of the Church: A Translation of Gemma ecclesiastica by Giraldus Cambrensis, trans. J. J. Hagen, Davis Medieval Texts and Studies 2 (Leiden, 1979), p. 123; Cottonian Vita, fol. 10rb ll. 5–28, pp. 228–9; Vita Patricii AASS, §§147–8 (cc. clxix-clxx), p. 571; Vita Patricii, pp. 317–19; Bede, Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. B. Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 1969), I.i, pp. 18–21. ‘Anecdotum Patricianum’, ed. Bieler, pp. 234–6. ‘stylo incondito’, ‘sermone barbarico’. The first two quotes in the main text refer to earlier vitae in general, the third specifically to Patrician vitae. Vita Patricii AASS, prol., p. 536E; Vita Patricii, p. 133. ‘conabimur confusa in seriem reducendo colligere, collecta in codice cudendo condere, condita et si non Latinissimi, saltem vel Latini sermonis sapore condire’. Vita Patricii AASS, prol., p. 536E.

32

Expanding the Narrative aduenerit, deos nostros destruet, templa subuertet, turbas seducet et reges sibi resistentes occidet; et doctrina eius in seculum seculi regnabit.32 Jocelin’s Vita: Adveniet in circulo tonsus in capite, cum suo ligno curvo; cujus mensa erit in Oriente domus suae, populusque illius retrorsum illi astabit, et ex mensa sua nefas cantabit, et tota familia sua, fiat fiat, respondebit. Hic autem cum advenerit, deos nostros destruet, templa et altaria subvertet, turbas post se seducet, Reges sibi resistentes subjiciet, aut de medio tollet, et doctrina ejus in seculum seculi regnabit.33

Considering that this prophecy formed a traditional part of the Patrick narrative, occurring in Muirchú’s Vita, the Vita secunda-quarta, the Vita tripartita, the Vita Probo and in the Cottonian Vita (where both the episode and prophecy are abbreviated), it is not surprising that Jocelin copied this passage from his base text.34 However, such an example is far from common. Even in instances given by Bieler as denoting strong linguistic similarities between the Cottonian Vita and Jocelin’s text, we find echoes rather than repetition. For example, Bieler cited the foundation of Armagh as an instance where Jocelin and the author of the Cottonian Vita used ‘almost the same words’:35 Cottonian Vita: Ipsam uero, sicut Dei monitis preordinuerat, eleganter construxit formam eius et quantitatem angelicis edoctus indiciis. Constructa igitur non modici ambitus ciuitate et in ea uenuste et honeste edificatis ecclesiis ciues quos studiose delegerat ad habitandum introductos Christiane fidei catholicis dogmatibus erudiuit.36 Jocelin’s Vita: Civitatem itaque egregriam, situ, forma, quantitate, ambitu, Angelicis indiciis designatam, fundavit Patricius et extruxit et divinitus adjutus ad unguem perduxit: cives quoque duodecim, quos studiose undecumque collegit et discrete delegit, ad inhabitandum in eam introduxit, introductos fidei Christianae Catholicis institutis atque dogmatibus diligenter instruxit. Ecclesiis autem honesto ac spirituali schemate fabricatis, urbem eamdem venustavit.37

Similarly in Bieler’s other example, the episode concerning the expulsion of venomous animals from Ireland, he states that ‘many phrases and single expressions have parallels’ in Jocelin’s text but admits they are often found in

32

33 34 35 36 37

Words in bold indicate an exact match. Although this passage is very similar in both recensions of the Vita tertia, at the points where the two versions differ, ­Jocelin’s text follows the P-reading. Vita tertia, §30, pp. 135–6. Vita Patricii AASS, §26 (c. xxxi), p. 543B. Muirchú’s Vita, I.x, pp. 74–7; Vita secunda-quarta, §27/38, pp. 79–81; Vita tripartita, pp. 32–4; Vita Probo, I.§26, pp. 198–9; Cottonian Vita, fol. 11rb ll. 10–22, p. 224. ‘Anecdotum Patricianum’, ed. Bieler, p. 232. Words in bold indicate an exact match, italicised words indicate only a partial match. Cottonian Vita, fol. 10ra ll. 9–19, p. 228. Vita Patricii AASS, §144 (c. clxv), p. 570C.

33

The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness different combinations.38 The limited linguistic similarities between Jocelin’s Vita and the Cottonian Vita suggest that Jocelin made careful efforts to avoid reproducing the language he found in his main source. Admittedly, that the two texts appear to be only indirectly related makes this a far from conclusive comparison, but it does at least indicate the ways in which both authors adapted their base texts. One of the most striking features of Jocelin’s Vita is its extraordinary length. This not only seems to reflect Jocelin’s desire to provide a comprehensive account of the contemporary traditions relating to Patrick, but also the need to extend and explain certain parts of the narrative. Although comparison with the extant version of the Vita tertia does not provide an entirely accurate picture, it certainly indicates the ways in which Jocelin elaborated upon his source material. On several occasions, episodes that are described in only a couple of sentences have been developed into much longer accounts. For example, the incident where a magician upsets the chalice containing the Eucharistic wine is succinctly recorded by the author of the Vita tertia: ‘Alio autem die, cum Patricius in sua ecclesia sacrificium offerret, uenit quidam magus et effudit calicem eius. Statimque aperiens terra os suum deuorauit illum magum.’39 Four lengthy sentences later, Jocelin too has covered the episode.40 Likewise, whereas the Vita tertia devotes two sentences to the miracle that aids the search for Patrick’s horses, Jocelin lengthens the narrative to fill eight sentences.41 Jocelin’s extended text reflects both the greater amount of descriptive material accorded to events in the Vita and the addition of Biblical analogies which serve to reinforce meaning and to create a more explicitly religious tone. A particularly good example of this is found in chapter 62, when Patrick single-handedly raises a stone that could not be moved by one hundred men. Jocelin appends an unusually elaborate allegorical comment to the episode: and those who hitherto having stony hearts worshipped stones, when this stone was raised by the saint, believed in the living Stone, the precious, chosen cornerstone that is placed in the foundations of Zion. Although they had rejected this Stone for a long time, now like living stones bonded together with the cement of the Catholic faith, cut and polished by sacred doctrine, and washed by baptism, they grew together into a holy temple of the Lord.42 38 39 40 41 42

‘Anecdotum Patricianum’, ed. Bieler, p. 231; Cottonian Vita, fol. 10rb ll. 5–28, pp. 228–9; Vita Patricii AASS, §148 (c. clxx), p. 571C–E. Vita tertia, §32, p. 137. Vita Patricii AASS, §28 (c. xxxiii), pp. 543F-4A; Vita Patricii, p. 171. Vita tertia, §77, pp. 173–4; Vita Patricii AASS, §138 (c. clvii), pp. 568F-9B; Vita Patricii, p. 305. ‘et qui hactenus habentes corda lapidea lapides colebant, hujus lapidis a Sancto levati occasione, in lapidem vivum, pretiosum, angularem, electum, positum in fundamentis Sion, credebant. Hunc lapidem ipsi diu reprobaverant: sed jam

34

Expanding the Narrative Another example is provided by the episode where Patrick is given two wagons of green twigs, one of which later catches fire and burns. In the extant versions of the Vita tertia, the significance of this remains unexplained. However, in Jocelin’s text, an attempt is made to extract a meaning from this miracle, if not a reason for its occurrence. Jocelin likens it to the Scriptural parallel of the three children [who] were cast into the Chaldean furnace but were saved from the fire and untouched by injury. Yet while we admire the merit of Patrick shown by this miracle, we do not think that the reason for this sign needs to be discussed.43

Further examples can be found at other points in the text.44 Although Bieler characterized Jocelin as having ‘a tendency towards exaggerating the miraculous often beyond, and sometimes beside, the point’, considering the sometimes abrupt and slightly puzzling nature of his source material, Jocelin’s ‘seasoning’ is not unwelcome.45

Other sources In contrast to the oblique reference to earlier texts written by ‘many uneducated persons’ in the prologue, at several points in the Vita Jocelin carefully cites his alleged source material.46 In chapter 186, he tells us that among his sources are: four books of [Patrick’s] virtues and miracles, written partly in Latin and partly in Irish which are said to have been written at different times by his four disciples, namely his successor, the Blessed Benignus; the bishop, St Mel; his nephew and bishop, St Loman; and his nephew, St Patrick, who returning to Britain after the death of his uncle, passed away and was

43

44

45 46

tamquam lapides vivi fidei Catholicae coemento conglutinati, sacra doctrina secti atque politi, et baptismo abluti in templum sanctum in Domino crescebant.’ Vita Patricii AASS, §56 (c. lxii), p. 550C–D; Vita Patricii, pp. 203–4 (p. 204); Vita tertia, §51, p. 155. ‘in fornace Chaldaica tribus pueris ligatis, sed ab igne solutis, absque illorum laesione contigit. Nos autem Patricii praedicandum in hoc miraculo meritum miramur; signi tamen causam discutiendam esse nequaquam arbitramur.’ Vita Patricii AASS, §136 (c. clv), p. 568E; Vita Patricii, pp. 303–4; Vita tertia, §75, pp. 172–3. For example, Jocelin’s suggested explanation for the north-south axis of the church at Saul noted by the Vita tertia. Jocelin is similarly perturbed by an episode that appears in the Vita tripartita and the Vita secunda-quarta in which Patrick orders his disciples to perform a miracle for him. Vita Patricii AASS, §§28, 73 (cc. xxxii, lxxxiii), pp. 543E, 554E-5A; Vita Patricii, pp. 170, 230–1; Vita tertia, §31, p. 137; Vita tripartita, pp. 198, 199; Vita secunda-quarta, §78, pp. 106–7. Bieler, Life and Legend, p. 123. ‘multis illiteratis’. Vita Patricii AASS, prol., p. 536E.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness honourably buried in the church of Glastonbury. In a similar way, St Evinus also compiled the acts of St Patrick into one book, which he wrote partly in Latin and partly in Irish. From all of these, whatever I found to be worthy of belief and which I deemed pleasing to transmit for the knowledge of posterity, I have collected in this work.47

Although it was apparently an accepted tradition that four of the saint’s disciples had written accounts of Patrick’s life, evidence to prove Jocelin actually had access to these texts is hard to find.48 Traces of the alleged work by Mel appear at the beginning of the Jocelin’s Vita where, after discussing the traditions surrounding St Patrick’s rock, Jocelin seems to refer to the saint’s text: ‘Let it suffice, therefore, to have mentioned the miracle that the bishop St Mel claims often to have seen.’49 Jocelin’s Vita is the only source to record a discrepancy in the traditions at this point. The Vita notes that while some believed Patrick was born on the stone (as is found in the Vita secunda-quarta, Vita tertia, Vita tripartita and William of Malmesbury’s Vita), others believed that the saint was baptised on it.50 The presence of this additional information in Jocelin’s Vita lends some credibility to both the existence of Mel’s work and to Jocelin’s possible use of it. The book said to have been written by Benignus may be a reference to the apparently late eleventh century Irish work, the Book of Rights (Lebor na Cert), which repeatedly asserts the saint’s authorship – however, the Vita provides little further evidence of any use of the text.51 There is no trace of any work by Patrick junior, although the subtle inclusion (and refutation) of Glastonbury’s claim to hold the body of St Patrick provides at least one additional reason why Jocelin chose to add these details.52 Colgan took Jocelin’s reference to the Hiberno-Latin work by

47

48 49 50

51

52

‘Quatuor tamen codices de virtutibus et miraculis ejus partim Latine et partim Hibernice conscripti reperiuntur, quos diversis temporibus quatuor discipuli ejus, videlicet B. Benignus successor illius, et S. Mel Episcopus, et S. Lumanus Pontifex nepos ejus, et S. Patricius filiolus ejus (qui post decessum patrui sui Britanniam remeans in fata decessit, et in Glasconensi ecclesia sepultus est honorifice) conscripsisse referuntur. Sanctus nihilominus Evinus simili modo actus S. Patricii in unum codicem compilavit, quem partim Latino sermone partim Hibernico composuit. De quibus omnibus quaecumque fide digna reperire potui, in hoc opus collecta communicare notitiae posterorum gratum duxi.’ Vita Patricii, §163 (c. clxxxvi), p. 575D. Bieler, ‘Did Jocelin Know…?’, p. 164. ‘Sufficiat ergo miraculum memorasse quod S. Mel Episcopus testatur se saepius conspexisse.’ Vita Patricii AASS, §2 (c. iii), p. 537D. Vita Patricii AASS, §2 (c. iii), p. 537C–D; Vita Patricii, p. 137; Vita secunda-quarta, §2, p. 52; Vita tertia, §2, p. 118; Vita tripartita, pp. 8, 9; William of Malmesbury’s Vita, pp. 316–19. Lebor na Cert, The Book of Rights, ed. M. Dillon, Irish Text Society (Dublin, 1962), I.ii, iii, iv, v, II.i, ii, III.i, ii, IV.i, ii, V.i, ii, VI.i, ii, VII.i, VIII, pp. ix, xii, 12, 16, 18, 22, 24, 28, 30, 48, 54, 56, 62, 66, 72, 78, 84, 86, 90, 92, 96, 100, 104, 114. See pp. 151–3.

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Expanding the Narrative Evinus to indicate the Vita tripartita but, while Jocelin may have had access to this text, no extant versions make this authorship claim.53 In short, it is perhaps best to treat Jocelin’s claims about his source material with scepticism. Indeed, it is not improbable that Jocelin found these works referred to in his main source and cited them indirectly.54 Similar doubts have undermined Jocelin’s references to the writings of Patrick himself. Jocelin states that in his letters he was accustomed to call himself the greatest of sinners, the least of men and despised by all… and because he was of small stature, he often referred to himself as a dwarf (homuncionem).55

The first part of this passage, ‘Unde et in epistolis suis se peccatorem ultimum, minimum, contemptibilem omnium se nominare consueverat’, was recognized by Bieler as echoing the opening words of Patrick’s Confessio where the author introduces himself as a ‘peccator rusticissimus et minimus omnium fidelium et contemptibilissimus apud plurimos’.56 However, Bieler noted that not only were these echoes relatively weak, but that Jocelin’s wording included phrasing similar to the variant ‘contemptibilis sum’ found only in the Book of Armagh, a source that seems to go otherwise unused in the composition of the Vita.57 In addition, Bieler could find no trace of the ‘repeated’ use of the term homuncio in any of the saint’s writings, genuine or alleged, or in any of his vitae.58 Another apparent reference to the Confessio was also shown by Bieler to be potentially indirect. During a discussion of Patrick’s humility, Jocelin tells us that when presented with difficult questions Patrick would answer ‘I know not, God knows’, ‘nescio, Deus scit’ (II Cor 12. 2, 3) – an expression that occurs twice in Patrick’s Confessio.59 However, it can also be found in Muirchú’s Vita and the G-version of the Vita tertia.60 A version of the latter may well have been Jocelin’s source but it is notable that the context in which this phrase is used differs between Jocelin’s Vita and both of these other works. Jocelin may also have had access to now lost letters allegedly

53 54 55

56

57 58 59 60

Triadis thaumaturgae, ed. Colgan, p. 117. Bieler, ‘Did Jocelin Know…?’, p. 164. ‘in epistolis suis se peccatorum ultimum, minimum, contemptibilem omnium nominare consueverat… et quia non grandis staturae fuerat, se saepius homuncionem vocabat.’ Vita Patricii AASS, §162 (c. clxxxv), p. 575B. Patrick, ‘Confessio’, in St Patrick: His Writings and Muirchú’s Life, ed. and trans. A.  B.  E. Hood, History from the Sources, Arthurian Period Sources 9 (London, 1978), §1, p. 23. Bieler, ‘Did Jocelin Know…?’, p. 166. Ibid., p. 165. Vita Patricii AASS, §161 (c. clxxxv), p. 575A; Vita Patricii, p. 335; Patrick, ‘Confessio’, §§24, 27, pp. 27, 28, 46. Muirchú’s Vita, I.xii.3, pp. 80, 81; Vita tertia, §34, p. 139; Bieler, ‘Did Jocelin Know…?’, p. 165.

37

The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness written by Patrick. The Vita mentions a letter written to abbess Cethuberis of Cruimdubhchan and quotes from another addressed to a friend overseas.61 James Carney suggested that Jocelin’s references to both came from the same source, possibly that they originated from the same letter. Whatever their relationship, it is generally agreed that neither are authentic.62 In addition, Jocelin’s general references to Patrick’s letters contrast with the more specific citations found in the Vita secunda-quarta and the Vita tripartita, which always refer to Patrick’s Confessio as the ‘Liber Epistolarum’, and may indicate that Jocelin was using a different and now lost source.63 Jocelin also claims know­ ledge of another alleged text by Patrick, a ‘little Book of Proverbs written in Irish’.64 This text remained unidentified by Bieler but may be the source for the various ‘Irish proverbs’ included in Jocelin’s Vita.65 Although the list of dicta attributed to Patrick found in the Book of Armagh does not include any of the sayings recorded by Jocelin, it does at least attest to a tradition of Patrician proverbs.66 It may be significant, however, that Jocelin notes only the existence of this source rather than making any claim actually to have used it. The same words – ‘extat libellus’ – recur in Jocelin’s later work, the Vita Waldevi, where they describe a text that was known but that went apparently unused during the composition of the Vita.67 It seems that, as Bieler concluded, ‘a direct knowledge of the writings of St Patrick on the part of Jocelin cannot be demonstrated’.68 Jocelin’s reference to the ‘Book of Proverbs’ and other allegedly Patrician texts should probably be read in the same light as his allusions to other works, such as the Vita S. Columbae and Vita S. Comgalli. Although these texts were cited by Jocelin, there is little actual evidence for 61 62 63

64 65

66 67

68

Vita Patricii AASS, §§70, 72 (cc. lxxix, lxxxii), p. 554A, 554D; Vita Patricii, pp. 225, 229. J. Carney, The Problem of St Patrick (Dublin, 1961), pp. 138–42; Bieler, Life and Legend, p. 34. Jocelin also refers to these letters as ‘in epistolis suis’, ‘epistolam exhortatoriam’ and ‘in epistola’. Bieler, ‘Did Jocelin Know…?’, pp. 166–7; Vita Patricii AASS, §§70, 72, 162 (cc. lxxix, lxxxii, clxxxv), pp. 554A, 554D, 575B; Vita Patricii, pp. 225, 229, 336. ‘libellus Proverbiorum ejus Hibernice scriptus’. Vita Patricii AASS, §161 (c. clxxxv), p. 575A. Jocelin refers to four alleged Irish proverbs in the text but only one can be found in some form in another source: the Vita tripartita provides an exemplar for ‘Sic tu dormias, sicut Murinus obdormivit ad verbum sententiantis S. Patricii’ but replaces Murinus with Faillén, reeve of the fort of Naas. Vita Patricii AASS, §§22, 62, 89, 111 (cc. xxv, lxxii, c, cxxviii), pp. 542B, 552B, 558C, 563D; Vita Patricii, pp. 163, 216, 250, 278; Vita tripartita, pp. 186, 187; Bieler, ‘Did Jocelin Know…?’, pp. 164–5. The dicta are found in the notes prefacing Tírechán’s Vita. Tírechán’s Vita, ‘Dicta Patricii’, pp. 124, 125. Vita Patricii: ‘Exstat enim libellus Proverbiorum ejus’. In the Vita Waldevi, the phrase refers to a book containing the miracles of Earl Waltheof written at Crowland (see pp. 119–20). Vita Patricii AASS, §161 (c. clxxxv), p. 575A; Vita Waldevi AASS, §9, p. 251F. Bieler, ‘Did Jocelin Know…?’, p. 167.

38

Expanding the Narrative their use.69 Instead, their appearance served to bolster the credibility of both the Vita and its author. Jocelin’s use of other Irish historical sources is also uncertain. For example, the Vita includes a rather confused reference to the ‘Canoin Phadruing’.70 Jocelin seems to use this name to refer to the eighth-century Collectio canonum Hibernensis, a volume of canons divided into sixty-six books. However, the Canóin Pátraic is actually another name for the Book of Armagh, a manuscript comprising a New Testament and a variety of Patrician materials including the saint’s Confessio, Muirchú’s Vita and the single remaining copy of Tírechán’s Vita.71 To add even further confusion, Jocelin also makes a separate reference to sixty-six books that record the saint’s deeds.72 This information seems to come from the version of the Vita tertia used by Jocelin as his base text, a reference that is now believed to be a mistaken reading of an earlier source citing the Collectio canonum Hibernensis.73 The implication of all this is that Jocelin was not familiar with the Canóin Pátraic either in its actual form as the Book of Armagh or in the form he believed it to be, the Collectio canonum Hibernensis. The claims made in the Vita that Patrick instituted regular reforming synods suggest potential knowledge of another source: a list of canons compiled in the sixth or seventh centuries and attributed to a Patrician council.74 However, Jocelin’s claims regarding these apparently annual councils may simply reflect the influence of contemporary reform ideals on the text. There is also little conclusive evidence for Jocelin’s use of chronicles. The Vita states that Patrick died in the year 493, a date supported by entries in three extant, but much later, sets of annals.75 It is possible that Jocelin used earlier copies 69

70 71 72 73 74

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The Vita S. Columbae and Vita S. Comgalli entirely omit Patrick’s prophecies about their respective saints. Vita Patricii AASS, §§76, 86 (cc. lxxxix, xcviii), pp. 555E, 557F–8A; Vita Patricii, pp. 237, 247–8; Adomnán, Adomnán’s Life of Columba, ed. and trans. A. Orr Anderson and M. Ogilvie Anderson, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 1991); ‘Vita Comgalli’, ed. Plummer, pp. 3–21. Vita Patricii, §161 (c. clxxxv), p. 575A. Bieler, ‘Did Jocelin Know…?’, p. 165; Patrician Texts, ed. and trans. Bieler, pp. 3, 54. Vita Patricii AASS, §163 (c. clxxxvi), p. 575C; Vita Patricii, p. 337. The reference to sixty-six books is found in the P-version of the Vita tertia. Bieler, ‘Did Jocelin Know…?’, p. 164; Vita tertia, §87, p. 182. The Bishops’ Synod (“The First Synod of St Patrick”): A Symposium with Text Translation and Commentary, ed. M. J. Faris, ARCA Classical and Medieval Texts, Papers and Monographs 1 (Liverpool, 1976), pp. 1–8, 18; Vita Patricii AASS, §§147, 168 n.a (cc. clxviii, cxci), pp. 571B, 577D; Vita Patricii, pp. 316, 343. In addition to recording Patrick’s death in 493, the Annals of the Four Masters and the Chronicon Scotorum also state that Patrick died aged 122, which may be analogous with Jocelin’s apparently unique claim that the saint was 123 at his death. Discrepancies in dates found in Jocelin’s later work, the Vita Waldevi, suggest that Jocelin used a method of inclusive counting (see p. 136 n. 97). He may, therefore, have interpreted Patrick’s death aged 122 to have occurred in the 123rd year of the saint’s life. Vita Patricii AASS, §§168 n.a, 171 n.b (cc. cxci, cxcvi) p. 577C–D; Vita Patricii, pp. 343, 347; The Annals of Ulster (To A.D. 1131), Part I, ed. S. Mac Airt and

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness of these texts or the sources upon which they were based. Indeed, these may have been among the ‘Irish histories’ or bardic songs mentioned by the Vita in reference to Patrick’s prophecy concerning Conall.76 Jocelin may also have supplemented his narrative with details gleaned from the vitae of other saints. Both he and William of Malmesbury seem to have used the same source, the ‘B. Germani gestis’, to supply the detail that Patrick was taught by St Germanus for eighteen years, a statement either omitted or contradicted by other Patrician vitae.77 The episode concerning Colman and the singing of Patrick’s hymn has a very brief parallel in the Vita tripartita and may mean that an extended version of this narrative was present in Jocelin’s base text. However, it is also possible that Jocelin drew his account from the episode found in the Vita S. Colmani.78 The Vita also includes a small number of narratives that have parallels in the Vita prima S. Brigidae, a text generally thought to be a seventh-century compilation of three earlier vitae and which features a new emphasis on the saint’s close association with Patrick.79 However, in each case, exemplars found in the Vita

76 77

78

79

G. Mac Niocaill (Dublin, 1983), pp. 56, 57; Annála Rioghachta Éireann, Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland by the Four Masters from the Earliest Period to the Year 1616, ed. and trans. J. O’Donovan (Reprint of 1854 edn, New York, 1966), I, 154–9; Chronicum Scotorum: A Chronicle of Irish Affairs from the Earliest Times to A.D. 1135 with a Supplement Containing the Events from 1141 to 1150, ed. and trans. W. M. Henessy, RS 46 (London, 1866), pp. 32, 32 n.1, 33. K. Hughes, Early Christian Ireland: Introduction to the Sources (London, 1962), pp. 99, 114. ‘historiae Hibernicae’. Vita Patricii AASS, §120 (c. cxxxviii), p. 565C; Vita Patricii, p. 287. This text may be the same as or similar to the ‘Liber beati Germani’ cited by Nennius in the Historia Brittonum. Neither this text nor the one cited by Jocelin are to be confused with the Vita S. Germani by Constantius of Lyons, where Patrick goes unmentioned. Patrick’s visit to Germanus appears in Muirchú’s Vita, the Vita secunda-quarta, Vita tertia, Vita tripartita, Vita Probo and the Gloucester Vita. It is also possible that Jocelin found this detail in William’s Vita, but unlike Jocelin, William does not cite his source and there is little other evidence to suggest that Jocelin had access to his text. Vita Patricii AASS, §18 (c. xxii), p. 541B–C; Vita Patricii, p. 157; William of Malmesbury’s Vita, pp. 324–7; Nennius, Nennius, British History and the Welsh Annals, ed. and trans. J. Morris, History from the Sources, Arthurian Period Sources 8 (London, 1980), §47, pp. 33, 73; Constantius of Lyon, Constance de Lyon, Vie de Saint Germain d’Auxerre, ed. R. Borius, Sources Chrétiennes 112 (Paris, 1965); Muirchú’s Vita, I.vi–vii, pp. 70–3; Vita secunda-quarta, §22/26, pp. 73–4; Vita tertia, §21, pp. 129–30; Vita Probo, II.§§21–2, p. 197; Vita tripartita, pp. 25–6, 30; Gloucester Vita, fol. 148ra ll. 33–40, p. 348; Egmond, Conversing with the Saints, pp. 32–3. The statement that the singing of St Patrick’s hymn allowed the Irish to evade enemies and cure a type of blindness is also suggestive of an oral source. Vita Patricii AASS, §156 (cc. clxxvii, clxxix), pp. 573D, 573E–F; Vita Patricii, pp. 327, 328–9; ‘Vita sancti Colmani abbatis de Land Elo’, in Vitae sanctorum Hiberniae, Partim hactenus ineditae ad fidem codicum manuscriptorum recognovit prolegomenis notis indicibus instruxit, Vol. I, ed. C. Plummer (Oxford, 1910), c. xxv, p. 268. Herbert, ‘Latin and Vernacular Hagiography’, pp. 335–6.

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Expanding the Narrative tripartita and the Vita secunda-quarta provide closer matches for Jocelin’s text and indicate that these narratives came directly from hagiographical traditions relating to Patrick rather than through Brigittine texts.80 A number of other narratives present in Jocelin’s Vita but which are absent from the extant Patrician canon provide clearer evidence for the insertion of additional material. Jocelin cites his source for the apparition of Patrick to St Winwaloe as the ‘gesta’ of the saint, a reference to either the ninth-century ‘gesta’ of the saint by Wrdisten or the anonymous vita of a similar date which is extant in a twelfth-century Canterbury manuscript.81 Although not a particularly high-profile saint, the cult of Winwaloe seems to have grown in popularity in England over the course of the twelfth century and Jocelin’s inclusion of the Winwaloe episode probably reflects this.82 The reference to Patrick’s prophecy concerning St David also makes its sole appearance in the Patrician canon in Jocelin’s Vita.83 The probable source for this episode appears to be Rhigyfarch’s Vita S. Davidis written c.1090. However, if Jocelin did use this text, he apparently took little else from the work, ignoring the claims that Patrick had first intended to convert Wales before being redirected to Ireland by an angelic messenger.84 Other evidence in the text suggests that Jocelin was aware of the Scottish cult associated with Patrick. Dumbarton claimed to be the birthplace of the saint and appears to have been a well-established site of pilgrimage in

80

81

82 83 84

The Vita tripartita provides a closer parallel for Jocelin’s chapter 94 than either the Vita secunda-quarta or Vita prima Brigidae, which carry the same narrative at this point. Vita Patricii AASS, §§81, 82, 165 (cc. xciv, xcv, clxxxviii), pp. 556E–7A, 576A–B; Vita Patricii, pp. 242–3, 339–40; ‘Vita I. S. Brigidae auctore anonymo’, in AASS Februarii I, §§53, 56, 59, pp. 125C–D, 126A–B, 126C–D; ‘Vita prima sanctae Brigitae’, trans. S. Connelly, Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 119 (1989), §§55, 58, 61, pp. 28–9, 30, 31; Vita tripartita, pp. 176, 177; Vita secunda-quarta, §§72, 91, pp. 104–5, 112. Jocelin’s narrative does not borrow linguistically from either text (the anonymous Vita Winwaloei provides an abridged version of Wrdisten’s Vita at this point). Vita Patricii AASS, §159 (c. clxxxii), p. 574C–D; Vita Patricii, pp. 331–2; ‘Vita S. Winwaloei primi abbatis Landevenecensis, auctore Wurdestino’, ed. C. de Smedt, Analecta Bollandiana 7 (1888), 172–228, (c. xix, pp. 205–6); British Library, Cotton Otho D. viii, fols. 78v–92v, (fols. 81vb–2ra); N. Orme, The Saints of Cornwall (Oxford, 2000), p. 257; Bieler, Life and Legend, p. 123. Orme, Saints of Cornwall, pp. 258–9. Vita Patricii AASS, §146 (c. clxvii), p. 571A; Vita Patricii, p. 315. The Vita Davidis written by Gerald of Wales in the 1190s also mentions Patrick, but this seems a little too late to be a source for Jocelin’s Vita. Gerald of Wales, ‘De vita S. Davidis archiepiscopi Menevensis’, in Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, scilicet, I. De invectionibus, lib. IV, II. De Menevensi ecclesia dialogus, III. Vita S. David, ed. J. S. Brewer, RS 21 (London, 1863), c. ii, pp. 379–81; Rhigyfarch, Rhigyfarch’s Life of St David, The Basic Mid-Twelfth-Century Latin Text with Introduction, Critical Apparatus and Translation, ed. and trans. J. W. James, Wales University Board of Studies Celtic Publications (Cardiff, 1967), cc. i, iii, pp. xi, 1, 2–3, 29–30.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness the Middle Ages. In accordance with this, Jocelin’s Vita includes a miracle concerning the cleansing of the fort at Dumbarton, which is said to have been widely publicized by the inhabitants of the region.85 Jocelin’s text also notes that the fountain produced by the infant Patrick is named after the saint, a statement unique in the Patrician hagiographic canon.86 This seems to be a direct reference to ‘St Patrick’s Well’ at Old Kilpatrick near Dumbarton, which was also the location of ‘St Patrick’s Stone’, presumably the rock upon which Patrick was believed to have been born or baptised. This stone is referred to by several of the extant sources: the Vita secunda-quarta, the Vita tertia, the Vita tripartita and William of Malmesbury’s Vita as well as Jocelin’s text.87 However, it is significant that Jocelin’s Vita alone states that this stone was located near to the fountain created by the young saint and, as noted previously, that some believed Patrick to have been baptised rather than born on the rock. Although Jocelin appears to cite St Mel for some of the details associated with this episode, the narrative also seems to indicate knowledge of Patrick’s cult in the Clyde valley. The accounts of Patrick’s activities in the Isle of Man also point to Jocelin’s potential use of local legends and oral sources. The Vita’s claim that the island was first converted by Patrick finds a medieval parallel only in a late fourteenth century list of the Bishops of Sodor appended to the Chronicle of the Kings of Man – a fact that is strongly suggestive of a Manx source.88 We are also told that following the island’s conversion, ‘to govern the new church of this people St Patrick appointed one of his disciples as bishop, a wise and holy man named German, and he placed the episcopal see on a certain promontory which to this day is called Patrick’s Isle because he

85 86

87

88

A version of this miracle can be found in the Vita tripartita. Vita Patricii AASS, §8 (c. xi), p. 538E-F; Vita Patricii, pp. 145–6; Vita tripartita, pp. 14, 15. Jocelin’s Vita also differs from the other extant texts which refer to this fountain by omitting Patrick’s baptism by the blind man, Gornias, in the newly flowing water. Instead, Jocelin records only that the fountain which sprang forth at the saint’s touch restored Gornias’s sight. Vita Patricii AASS, §2 (c. ii), pp. 537B–C; Vita Patricii, pp. 136–7; Vita tripartita, pp. 8, 9; Vita secunda-quarta, §3, pp. 52–3; Vita tertia, §3, p. 118. A. MacQuarrie, The Saints of Scotland: Essays in Scottish Church History AD 450–1093 (Edinburgh, 1997), pp. 9, 31; Vita Patricii AASS, §2 (c. iii), p. 537C–D; Vita Patricii, pp. 137–8; Vita tripartita, pp. 8, 9; Vita secunda-quarta, §2, p. 52; Vita tertia, §2, p. 118; William of Malmesbury’s Vita, pp. 316–19. The sixteenth-century Manx Traditionary Ballad also records Patrick’s conversion of the island, including the Maughold narrative. Vita Patricii AASS, §79 (c. xcii), p. 556B–C; Vita Patricii, p. 240; Cronica regum Mannie & Insularum, Chronicles of the Kings of Man and the Isles, BL Cotton Julius A vii, ed. and trans. G. Broderick (Belfast, 1979), fols. 50v, 51v; Account of the Isle of Man in Song, also known as The Manx Traditionary Ballad, or The Mannanan Ballad, Coontey jeh Ellan Vannin ayns Arrane, ed. and trans. J. Kewley Draskau, Centre for Manx Studies Monographs 5 (Douglas, 2006), §§9–16, pp. 28–33.

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Expanding the Narrative resided there for a short time’.89 Since the alleged presence of both Patrick and German in Man helps to explain local etymology and the dedication of the Manx episcopal see, it seems plausible to assume some form of Manx source for this passage. The Isle of Man also appears in the legend of St Maughold, a wicked man converted by Patrick. Newly penitent, Maughold was shackled and set adrift, eventually washing up on the shores of Man where he later became bishop. This legend forms a traditional part of the Patrick narrative and can be found in Muirchú’s Vita, the Vita secunda-quarta, the Vita tertia, the Vita tripartita, the Vita Probo and the vita written by William of Malmesbury.90 However, Jocelin’s account also appends some unique details to the story. We are told that the key to Maughold’s shackles, which was thrown into the sea by Patrick, was later found in the belly of a fish being gutted at Maughold’s dwelling – a common folklore motif.91 The Vita also claims that healing water flows from ­Maughold’s tomb, which lay in the city named after the saint. This water is said to cure serpent bites and poisons and, as a result, many men, including a Norse king, tried to remove the stone so that they might have continual access to its miraculous powers.92 These details again suggest access to additional Manx ­material. Despite Maughold’s appearance in the Patrician legend, his cult appears to have been largely confined to the Isle of Man.93 There is certainly evidence that Maughold had an active following on the island in the twelfth century: under the entry for 1158, the Chronicle of Man credits the saint with the expulsion of Somerled, ruler of

89

90

91

92

93

‘Quemdam discipulorum S. Patricii virum sanctum et sapientem, Germanum nominatum, in Episcopum promotum, illius gentis Ecclesiae novellae Regentem praeposuit, et in quodam promontorio (quod adhuc Insula Patricii vocatur, eo quod ipse ibidem aliquantulum demorabatur) Episcopalem Sedem posuit.’ Vita Patricii AASS, §79 (c. xcii), p. 556B–C. The story is also found in the Cottonian Vita and the Gloucester vita, but it stops at the point of Maughold’s conversion, omitting his shackling, setting adrift and arrival on the Isle of Man. Vita Patricii AASS, §§132–4 (cc. cli–clii), pp. 567D–8B; Vita Patricii, pp. 298–301; Muirchú’s Vita, I.xxiii, pp. 102–7; Vita secunda-quarta, §§81–2, pp. 108–9; Vita tertia, §73, pp. 169–72; Vita Probo, II.§§9–11, pp. 208–9; Vita tripartita, pp. 220–3; William of Malmesbury’s Vita, p. 332; Cottonian Vita, fol. 10va ll. 3–20, pp. 226–7; Gloucester Vita, fol. 149rb ll. 20–42, pp. 354–5. Vita Patricii AASS, §§133–4 (c. clii), pp. 567F-8B; Vita Patricii, pp. 300–1; S. Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk Literature: A Classification of Narrative Elements in Folktales, Ballads, Myths, Fables, Mediaeval Romances, Exempla, Fabliaux, Jest-Books and Local Legends, 6 vols. (Bloomington, 1966), V, N211.1, p. 87. The statement that a city in Man was named after Maughold is also present in the Vita tertia. The current position of St Maughold’s Well is about half a mile from Maughold village and its church – and probably represents a different site to the miraculous water referred to by Jocelin. Vita Patricii AASS, §134 (c. clii), p. 568A–B; Vita Patricii, p. 301; Vita tertia, §73, p. 172; The Manx Museum and National Trust, The Ancient and Historic Monuments of the Isle of Man: A General Guide Including a Selected List with Notes, 5th edn (Douglas, 1981), p. 40. Bowen, Saints, Seaways and Settlements, p. 148.

43

The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness Argyle, and his occupying forces from the island.94 The Chronicle’s description of King Magnus Barefoot (d. 1103), apparently a man both inquisitive and acquisitive by nature, also provides an identification for Jocelin’s Norwegian king.95 Since much of the local material found in the Chronicle is believed to be based on oral tradition, there seems little reason to assume that the same is not true of the Manx narratives present in Jocelin’s Vita.96 The statement that the remaining walls of the city named after Maughold, today’s village of Maughold, ‘are still to be seen’ could indicate that Jocelin had travelled to Man at some point – although it must be noted that other comments of this type have been drawn from the source material.97 The presence of a daughter house of Furness Abbey on Man strengthens the possibility that Jocelin’s Manx narratives were the product of local research.

Compilation Despite using a framework largely based on a version of the Vita tertia, Jocelin also extended his narrative with other episodes which seem unlikely to have been found in a single exemplar. In a number of instances, the Vita includes narratives that appear to share the same origin but which have diverged at some point in their transmission to form two similar yet distinct stories. The narratives describing the conversion of Dublin, which form largely new additions to the Patrick legend, present the most interesting example of this and are worth discussing in detail. In the majority of manuscript witnesses, the three chapters devoted to the conversion of Dublin are separated into two groups: the two chapters recounting the earlier Irish tradition and the third chapter dealing with the Norse elaboration of the legend.98 In the first of the

94 95

96 97

98

Cronica regum Mannie, ed. Broderick, fols. 37v–9r. D. S. Dugdale also identifies Magnus as the most plausible historical model for Jocelin’s king. Cronica regum Mannie, ed. Broderick, fols. 34r–5r; Dugdale, Manx Church Origins, p. 115. Cronica regum Mannie, ed. Broderick, p. x. ‘cujus murorum adhuc cernuntur residua’. The extant walls mentioned by Jocelin seem to refer to the fort situated to the east of Maughold village. Vita Patricii AASS, §134 (c. clii), p. 568A; Vita Patricii, p. 301. For examples of comments concerning ‘the present day’ etc transmitted from the source material, see those made in chapters 55, 56, 65 and 119 of Jocelin’s Vita: Vita Patricii AASS, §§49, 50, 58, 104 (cc. lv, lvi, lxv, cxix), pp. 549A, 549B, 550F–1A, 562A; Vita Patricii, pp. 196, 197, 206–7, 269–70; Vita tertia, §§45, 54, pp. 150, 155–6; Vita tripartita, pp. 190–3, 184–5; Vita secunda-quarta, §§53, 74, pp. 99, 105. This division of the Dublin material is found in four of the extant medieval manuscripts. In the Paris manuscript, the Dublin-Norse narrative was originally omitted from the text but has been appended to the end of the Vita and labelled as chapter  71. Likewise, Colgan’s edition placed all three episodes together as chapters 69 to 71. They would have been similarly ordered in the Acta Sanctorum

44

Expanding the Narrative Dublin narratives, Patrick looks down upon the village of Áth Cliath (the Irish name for Dublin) and prophesies that one day it will be the seat of a royal kingdom. Going into the village itself, he finds the son of the local lord on the point of death and restores him to health. The witnesses to this miracle are then baptised.99 The second chapter follows directly on from this. The Vita tells us that during Patrick’s stay in the village, he heard his hostess repeatedly complain about the lack of fresh water. In response, he created a fountain in the earth with the Staff of Jesus.100 In the majority of medieval manuscript witnesses, the third narrative concerning Dublin appears just under thirty chapters later. In a move that indicates some unease on the part of Jocelin, this chapter opens with an unusual preamble on the necessity of recording the saint’s miracles. Jocelin then recounts how Patrick entered the Norse city of Dublin and resurrected not only the king’s recently-deceased son but also his recently-deceased daughter, Dublinia. The king and his people then convert and are baptized in the fountain of St Patrick. The tale ends with a note on Dublin’s subsequent subjection to Patrick’s successors, the archbishops of Armagh, and details the tributes that were owed to them.101 The Dublin episodes represent foundation stories based on a common tradition but which have come down to Jocelin via two different routes. Patrick’s visit to Áth Cliath records the Irish version of the story, while the legend concerning Dublinia reflects traditions surrounding the name by which the Norse city was known, Dubhlinn.102 Despite the almost continual presence of the Norse in Ireland from the 840s onwards and the increasing Irish dominance over the Norse towns in the eleventh century, the Norse community appears to have maintained its own distinct identity and the development of the Dublinia legend reflects this.103 It is possible that both foundation stories were relatively recent creations. Aubrey Gwynn and R. Neville Hadcock suggest that the historical figure lying behind these narratives was not Patrick the Apostle of Ireland but Patrick, bishop of Dublin from 1074 to 1084, who is referred to as St Patrick by some early manuscripts.104 Even if the earliest

99 100 101 102 103 104

version had the editors chosen to print the Dublin-Norse narrative. Vita Patricii, ed. Colgan, cc. lxix–lxxi, pp. 80a–1a; Vita Patricii AASS, §61, pp. 551E–2A. Vita Patricii AASS, §61 (c. lxix), p. 551E-F; Vita Patricii, pp. 210–11. Vita Patricii AASS, §61 (c. lxx), p. 551F-2A; Vita Patricii, pp. 211–12. Vita Patricii, ed. Colgan, c. lxxi, pp. 80b-1a; Vita Patricii, pp. 212–15. H. B. Clarke, Dublin Part I: To 1610, Irish Historic Town Atlas 11 (2002), p. 2. L. Abrams, ‘The Conversion of the Scandinavians of Dublin’, Anglo-Norman Studies 20 (1997), 2–3. Joseph Szoverffy makes a similar, but more nuanced, suggestion. Lesley Abrams notes that the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland, which survive today only in a ­seventeenth-century manuscript but may have been compiled in the mid-­eleventh century, also make a determined attempt to retrospectively link the Viking invaders of the ninth century with St Patrick – the Danes are urged by the leader to pray to St Patrick for victory. A. Gwynn and R. N. Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses: Ireland, with an Appendix to Early Sites (Blackrock, 1988), p. 70; Abrams,

45

The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness version of the story only dates to the late eleventh century, it had clearly been in circulation long enough to have split into these two separate versions. While it is possible that Jocelin found the account of the Irish narrative in the text upon which much of the Vita is based, the third of the Dublin chapters jars as an anomaly in his work. In contrast to the largely fifth-century context of the rest of the Vita, Dublin is said to be inhabited by Norwegians and people of the Isles – yet the Annals date the first Viking settlement in Dublin to 841.105 Not only is the Norse context both unique and (unusually) anachronistic but the quick (indeed, in the Paris manuscript, immediate) evolution of Dublin from an Irish village into a Norse-ruled city is also problematic.106 The emphasis on Patrick’s links to Armagh found in the third chapter also strikes a jarring note since it pre-empts the founding of Armagh in the text by no small margin.107 Indeed, Jocelin seems openly to acknowledge the unusual features of this episode. The chapter distinguishes itself by being not only substantially longer than most of the other chapters in the text but opens with an aside on the necessity of writing the Vita, which subtly signals a departure from the more traditional Patrician stories: Divine providence brought to this transitory world the ability of writing letters, so that by writing humankind might remember the divine and mortal miracles of former times – which, because death intervenes, cannot forever remain in the memory – and recall what was done as if occurring before our eyes. For these things, likewise, seem to me worthy of remembrance…108

With the exception of the prologue, no other chapter in the Vita opens in this way. The self-consciously authenticating nature of this passage suggests that

105 106

107

108

‘Conversion of the Scandinavians’, pp. 11, 16–17; J. Szoverffy, ‘The Anglo-Norman Conquest of Ireland and St Patrick: Dublin and Armagh in Jocelin’s Life of St Patrick’, Reportorium Novum 2 (1957), 16. Clarke, Dublin , p. 2. Jocelin’s comments concerning the discovery of an altar and four chalices buried in the earth of supposedly heathen Ireland provide further evidence of both the author’s historical awareness and his scepticism regarding the source material. The exemplar for this story in the Vita tripartita does not register any doubts concerning the narrative. Vita Patricii AASS, §93 (c. cv), p. 559B–C; Vita Patricii, p. 255; Vita tripartita, pp. 94, 95. Although there are earlier passing mentions of Armagh in the Vita, the city is not actually founded until chapter 165. Vita Patricii AASS, §144 (c. clxv), p. 570C–D; Vita Patricii, pp. 312–13. ‘Divina providencia labili contulit mundo sollicitudinem scribendi litteras, ut humanum genus, quod morte interveniente non potest in memoria permanere, scribendi suffragio divina vel humana magnalia posteris temporis recoleret et quasi pre oculis facta in usum revocaret. Eadem enim mihi, memoriae commendanda videntur…’ Szoverffy also noted that this preamble was unusual. Vita Patricii, ed. Colgan, c. lxxi, p. 80b; Szoverffy, ‘Anglo-Norman Conquest’, p. 7.

46

Expanding the Narrative Jocelin had his own reservations about the account that followed. However, despite these misgivings, he clearly felt duty-bound to record this tale as part of the contemporary Patrician legend. The bottom line seems to be that the story – or its proponent – was too well-known to be omitted. In his discussion of the presentation of Dublin and Armagh in Jocelin’s Vita, Joseph Szoverffy concluded that ‘circumstantial evidence’ pointed to Jocelin as being the originator of the third Dublin chapter.109 However, the details incorporated into this episode make this highly unlikely. Viewed as a new literary creation, the Norse context is inexplicable: Jocelin’s other two references to the Norse in Ireland are implicitly ascribed to a later period.110 Aside from Dublinia, there is also no need for Jocelin to provide names for the principle characters in this episode. Indeed, the name of Dublinia’s brother, Cochadh, is hardly the kind of name Jocelin, an author who explicitly objects to Irish names in the Vita, would wish to bestow.111 In addition, a version of this story can also be found in an Irish poem from the Book of Rights, which has been dated by David Dumville to 1105x1152.112 Although this apparently predates the Vita, the differences between the accounts do not suggest a direct relationship between the two. Most notably, the poem omits all mention of Dublinia – interestingly, a name form first attested for the city only in 1174.113 In short, the evidence strongly indicates that Jocelin was recording a contemporary tradition which had its root in an earlier Irish narrative. The repetition of similar yet distinct narratives also occurs at other points in the text. In chapter 125, the Vita describes how nine evil-doers disguised themselves as monks in order to kill Patrick. To forestall this plan, one of Patrick’s friends, Enda, sent his son, Conall, among the conspirators. However, the saint had already been divinely apprised of the situation and a fire descended from heaven that consumed all the evil-doers but left Conall unhurt.114 Jocelin follows this episode with an incident that is said to have taken place at another time. Here a magician vowed to destroy the saint but before the crime could be attempted, Patrick cursed him and he was 109 110 111 112

113

114

Szoverffy, ‘Anglo-Norman Conquest’, pp. 8, 15–16. Vita Patricii AASS, §§134, 154 (cc. clii, clxxv), pp. 568B, 572F; Vita Patricii, pp. 301, 325. See p. 159. Vita Patricii AASS, §80 (c. xciii), p. 556E; Vita Patricii, p. 241. Dublin Poem; D. N. Dumville, ‘St Patrick and the Scandinavians of Dublin’, in Saint Patrick A.D. 493–1993, ed. D. N. Dumville et al, Studies in Celtic History 13 (Woodbridge, 1993), pp. 263–4. The two texts include mutually exclusive details. Although both note that the king is called Alphinus/Ailpín and that he has a son, the poem calls him Eochaid rather than Cochadh and states that Ailpín is ‘son of Aeol Ádach of the descendants of Domnall Dubdámach’. The tributes given to Armagh also differ. Vita Patricii, ed. Colgan, c. lxxi, pp. 80b–1a; Vita Patricii, pp. 212–15; Clarke, Dublin, p. 11; Dublin Poem, ll. 1711–12, 1716, 1718, 1725, 1729–32, pp. 260–1; Szoverffy, ‘Anglo-Norman Conquest’, p. 15. Vita Patricii AASS, §109 (c. cxxv), pp. 562F–3A; Vita Patricii, p. 275.

47

The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness consumed by fire from heaven.115 The first chapter reflects much of the story as it appears in the Vita tripartita, where Enda, realizing that a group of druids seek to kill Patrick, tells his unnamed son to look out for the saint. Heavenly fire then descends and kills nine of the group.116 The first chapter also includes details of another version of the story, now extant only in Tírechán’s Vita, where Patrick sends Conall son of Énde to stand by the chief of the nine druids. The chief druid alone is then consumed by fire.117 The second of Jocelin’s chapters clearly reflects the latter outcome, while the consecutive order of the two episodes indicates that Jocelin was well aware of the similarities between them. This approach is also seen at other points in the text. The Vita’s story of Fidelma, a pregnant woman who was resurrected by Patrick and was then baptised along with her newborn son, appears in the Vita tertia and the Vita tripartita.118 However, Jocelin also had access to another similar narrative which he appends to the end of the episode: ‘And shortly after, he repeated this miracle by bringing back to life another pregnant woman and baptizing her and her child.’119 The chapter immediately before this may also include a multiplication of narratives – while the Vita tertia describes one woman raised from the dead at Fearta, Jocelin tells of two.120 Other examples are also present in the text.121 The repeated association of similar but separate narratives suggests that Jocelin composed his text using more than one source. The slightly repetitive inclusion of these second variants also indicates that Jocelin’s main aim was to represent the contemporary Patrician legend as fully as possible. The Vita saw Jocelin take on an editorial role where the restyling of the Latin rather than a refining of the content was his immediate preoccupation.

Writing on location? As a text written under the sponsorship of the archbishop of Armagh, the bishop of Down and the new Anglo-Norman ruler of Ulaid, John de Courcy, it seems reasonable to assume that the commission for the Vita Patricii took 115 116 117 118 119

120 121

Vita Patricii AASS, §110 (c. cxxvi), p. 563B; Vita Patricii, p. 276. Vita tripartita, pp. 132–5. Tírechán’s Vita, c. xlii.1–6, pp. 156, 157. Vita tertia, §53, p. 155; Vita tripartita, pp. 134–7; Vita Patricii AASS, §57 (c. lxiv), p. 550E–F; Vita Patricii, pp. 205–6. ‘Eodem modo post paullulum, mulierem alteram praegnantem et defunctam resuscitando, et una cum prole baptizando, iteravit hoc signum.’ Vita Patricii AASS, §57 (c. lxiv), p. 550F. Vita tertia, §52, p. 155; Vita Patricii AASS, §56 (c. lxiii), p. 550D–E; Vita Patricii, pp. 204–5. For example, the two similar narratives in chapter 106 and the sea-based narratives in chapters 109 and 110. Vita Patricii AASS, §§94, 96 (cc. cvi, cix–x), pp. 559C–D, 560A–C; Vita Patricii, pp. 256, 259–60.

48

Expanding the Narrative Jocelin to Ireland. However, in terms of source material, there is very little evidence to confirm this. Information regarding the holdings of medieval Irish libraries is extremely limited. No Irish monastic catalogue for our period seems to survive and, frustratingly, the only two extant near-contemporary manuscripts of the Vita tertia both seem to have come from English houses.122 In addition, significant questions surround the absence of the Book of Armagh from Jocelin’s source materials. The Book of Armagh contains a variety of writings relating to Patrick including Muirchú’s Vita and the only extant copy of the vita written by Tírechán. It not only formed an authoritative witness to the Patrick legend but, due to the belief that the New Testament also contained in the volume had been owned by the saint himself, was regarded as an important Patrician relic.123 Combined with the fact that one of his patrons was the archbishop of Armagh, Jocelin’s apparent ignorance of this text seems extraordinary. There is, however, a possibility that Jocelin simply did not have access to this source. Although the Book of Armagh was, as the name suggests, usually to be found in Armagh, in 1170s and 1180s Ulaid it was not a stationary object. Mac Carthaigh’s Book, a late fifteenth century Irish chronicle, records that the Book of Armagh was taken into battle along with a number of other relics as part of the Irish counter-attack following de Courcy’s 1177 invasion of Down. In the ensuing Irish defeat, the relics and their protectors were captured. While many of the relics were taken to Dublin, where they joined another Patrician relic, the Staff of Jesus, which had been seized previously, the Book of Armagh was released along with the captured archbishop, Gilla in Choimded Ua Caráin.124 In 1182, the Book reappears at the battle of Dún-bó, when it was taken for a second time by de Courcy’s men.125 There is no record of when it returned to Armagh but its partisan use as a talisman for the Irish may have meant it remained in Anglo-Norman custody for some time. The seizure of the Staff of Jesus reflected its status as a powerful symbol of supremacy within the Irish church and there is no reason why the Book 122

123 124

125

Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 285 and Dublin, Trinity College, MS 171. The twelfth- or thirteenth-century copy of the Vita tertia held by the Bodleian Library may have come from Ramsey. The Dublin manuscript was written at Jervaulx in the thirteenth century. Bieler, Codices Patriciani Latini, pp. 27–8. Patrician Texts, ed. and trans. Bieler pp. 2–3; Annals of Loch Cé, ed. and trans. Hennessy, pp. 162–3 n.4. ‘Fragment I: Mac Carthaigh’s Book [A.D. 1114–1437]’, in Miscellaneous Irish Annals (A.D. 1114–1437), ed. S. Ó hInnse (Dublin, 1947), pp. vii, 64–7; Gerald of Wales, Expugnatio Hibernica, The Conquest of Ireland by Giraldus Cambrensis, ed. and trans. A. B. Scott and F. X. Martin, A New History of Ireland, Ancillary Publications 3, Irish Medieval Texts 1 (Dublin, 1978), II.xx, pp. 182, 183; A. Gwynn, ‘Saint Lawrence O’Toole as Legate in Ireland (1179–1180)’, Analecta Bollandiana 68 (1950), 233–4; A. Gwynn, ‘Tomaltach Ua Conchobair, Coarb of Patrick (1181–1201): His Life and Times’, Seanchas Ardmacha 8 (1977), 248–9. Annals of Loch Cé, ed. and trans. Hennessy, pp. 162, 163, 162–3 n.4.

49

The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness of Armagh, an object of comparable symbolic value, should not have been similarly retained.126 Even if it was returned to Armagh relatively quickly, the ongoing attempts by the local aristocracy to oust the new archbishop may have resulted in restricted access to the Book during what must have been a tense period.127 While none of these possibilities fully explains the absence of the Book of Armagh from among Jocelin’s source material, they do at least indicate that access to this source may not have been straightforward.128 Other elements of the text, however, do strongly indicate Jocelin’s presence in Ireland. As is revealed in chapter five, the clear articulation of interests relating to the ecclesiastical communities of Down and Armagh suggest close communication between Jocelin and his patrons. In addition, the anachronistic narrative concerning Patrick’s conversion of the Norse kingdom of Dublin alludes to the city’s ecclesiastical geography in a much more precise way than can be found at any other point in Jocelin’s works. We are told that King Alpinus founded ‘the church next to the aforesaid fountain [of St Patrick], and another house (mansionem) next to the church of the Holy Trinity in the city and to the west of the seat of the same archbishop.’129 This statement apparently refers to the church of St Patrick, which was rebuilt as a cathedral in the second quarter of the thirteenth century, and the archbishop’s private chapel of St Michael, which is believed to have been founded by Bishop Donatus in the eleventh century.130 Although it is possible that these local details form part of an authenticating strategy for the Dublin-Norse narrative, they also seem to suggest a degree of familiarity with the twelfthcentury city that may have been gained through personal experience. The appointment of Jocelin’s patron, John de Courcy, to the justiciarship of Ireland in 1185, combined with Dublin’s position as the main Anglo-Norman stronghold in the country means that Jocelin may well have visited the city at some

126

127 128

129

130

H. of Sawtry’s Tractatus states that the Book of Armagh and the Staff of Jesus were dual symbols of the supremacy of Armagh, a claim apparently based on its assertion that Patrick received both directly from Jesus (the saint receives the Staff through an intermediary in Jocelin’s Vita). H. of Sawtry, ‘Tractatus’, ed. Easting, ll.  118–27, p. 124; H. of Sawtry, Saint Patrick’s Purgatory, trans. Picard and Pontfarcy, p. 47; Vita Patricii AASS, §21 (c. xxvi), p. 541F; Vita Patricii, p. 160. See pp. 143–4. There is little other evidence to attest to Jocelin’s presence in Armagh during the composition of the Vita. Even the description of the relics allegedly given to Patrick by the pope and held by the church of Armagh reiterates statements found in the P-version of the Vita tertia. Vita Patricii AASS, §145 (c. clxvi), p. 570F; Vita Patricii, p. 314; Vita tertia, §84, p. 179. ‘Ecclesiam juxta prefatum fontem, & aliam mansionem juxta Ecclesiam S. Trinitatis in civitate ad occidentem ejusdem sedit Archipraesulis.’ Vita Patricii, ed. Colgan, c. lxxi, p. 81a. Clarke, Dublin, pp. 4, 7.

50

Expanding the Narrative stage during his commission.131 In addition, if Jocelin had joined the Furness community by this point, he could have found hospitality at the Cistercian abbey of St Mary’s, which was situated atypically near an urban centre on the opposite side of the River Liffey.132 Indeed, considering the unusual Norse elements of the third Dublin chapter, it may be significant that the precinct of St Mary’s bordered the suburb of Ostmantown (later known as Oxmantown), a name that reflected its ethnic Norse character.133 The localized traditions relating to the Isle of Man found in the Vita Patricii also provide possible evidence of Jocelin’s travels. It has already been suggested that Jocelin’s Manx narratives reflect a local source, and considering the close links between Furness and the Isle of Man during this period, the appearance of this Manx material in the text is not so surprising. King Olaf of Man had founded the Furness daughter house of Rushen on the island and had granted Furness the right to elect the bishop of the Isles in the 1130s, a grant confirmed by both his son and grandson in the second half of the century.134 For a Furness monk, the Isle of Man formed a natural halfway point on the journey across the Irish Sea and Jocelin’s Manx material may well reflect a short stay on the island.

Conclusion The main source for the Vita Patricii seems to have been a now lost Latin text that formed an intermediary between the Vita tertia and the Vita tripartita. While this text provided the basic narrative structure for Jocelin’s work, the author restyled the prose to offer a more elaborate version of the Patrick legend that was more in keeping with contemporary literary style. The Vita was also augmented with accounts taken from other written and, probably, oral sources. Jocelin seems to have been concerned to represent the full story of Patrick as understood by his contemporaries, which meant including narratives the author himself recognized as either repetitive or anachronistic but which he felt unable to omit. It is an approach that attests both to the nature of the text and to the author’s purpose in writing. The Vita Patricii 131

132 133 134

Orpen argued that de Courcy was justiciar from 1185 until 1194, which Seán Duffy has modified to 1185 to 1192. However, Marie Therese Flanagan believes that John de Courcy was only appointed as justiciar in 1194. G. H. Orpen, Ireland under the Normans 1169–1216, Vol. II (Oxford, 1911), pp. 110–13; DNB 13, 663; M. T. ­Flanagan, Irish Society, Anglo-Norman Settlers, Angevin Kingship: Interactions in Ireland in the Late Twelfth Century (Oxford, 1998), p. 267. Clarke, Dublin, p. 6. Clarke, Dublin, pp. 7, 11 n.58. I. B. Cowan and D. E. Easson, Medieval Religious Houses: Scotland with an Appendix on the Houses in the Isle of Man, 2nd edn (London, 1976), p. 237; Furness Coucher Book, II iii, Manx Documents nos. 1, 4–5, pp. 708–9, 710–11.

51

The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness was not commissioned to document the life of a fifth-century missionary but to record the legend of a twelfth-century saint. It offered a carefully crafted version of Patrick as a figure who was recognizable in both word and deed but also as one who was clothed in contemporary fashions and values and, as will be shown in chapter five, whose face was turned firmly towards a late twelfth century present.

Table 2: The Composition of the Vita S. Patricii The cross (X) indicates that sources share the same narrative features, while the stroke (/) indicates that sources only share some of the same narrative features. The circle (°) in the column marked ‘Elements unique to Jocelin’s text’ indicates that no extant source for this episode has been found. Section 1 1

Jocelin’s chapters 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

Elements unique to Jocelin’s narrative

/ /

Vita tertia sections (*sections found only in the continental recension) / 1*, 12 / 3* / 2* / 5* X 6* X 7* / 10* X 8* / 9*

Vita tripartita page references (*numbering from 18–27 is consecutive and is taken from Colgan’s Latin edition1) /8 /8 /8 / 8–10 X 10–12 X 12 / 14 X 12 / 12 / 14 / 14

Vita secunda and Vita quarta sections (Vita secunda: Vita quarta)

Other sources for episodes not found in the Vita tertia or Vita tripartita and other exact matches

/1:1 /3:3 /2:2 /5:5 X6:6 X7:7 / 10 : 10 X8:8 /9:9 / - : 12

/

William of Malmesbury’s Vita: / p. 318 / 11*, 13

/ 16

/ 11, 12 : 15

1 These episodes are extant only in Colgan’s Latin translation of the Vita tripartita. Although it remains possible that Colgan’s translation may have been influenced by Jocelin’s text, the fact that his edition also includes episodes not found in ­Jocelin’s Vita suggests this is not the case. The Tripartite Life of Patrick, with Other Documents Relating to that Saint, Vol. I, ed. and trans. W. Stokes, RS 89 (London, 1887), pp. ix–xiv; Vita tripartita, pp. 18–27.

52

Expanding the Narrative 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

/

/

/

/ 14

/ 19–20* / 18–19*, 21*

/ 14, 15 / 16 / 16 X 17 / 18, 19 X 20 / 21, 22

/ 20–21* / 23* X 23* / 23–24* / 22*, 24* / 24–25* / 25*

X 25–26* / 22, 23 / 26–27*, 28–30 / 24, 25, 26 / 30

26

/ 25

27

/ 27

28 29 30 31 32

/ 27 X 28 / 29 X 30 / 31

33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40

/

X 32 X 33 X 33 / 34 / / /

/ 32 / 34 / 32–34 / 36

/ - : 24 / - : 22 / 21 : 25 / 22 : 26

/ 38, 168 / 40

/ 40–42

41 42 43 44

/ 38 X 39 / 39 / 39, 40

/ 42–44 X 44 / 44–46 / 46, 52

45 46 47 48 49 50 51

X X X X X

X 54 X 54–56 X 56 / 56–58 / 58–60 / 16, 68, 82 / 66

53

William of Malmesbury’s Vita: X pp. 324–26

/ 23 : 27, 29 / 23, 24, 26 : 27, 28, 31 / 23 : 27 Cottonian Vita: X 11vb Cottonian Vita: X 11ra

/ 27 : 38 / 27, 29 : 31, 33, 38

/ 38

/ 35 / 36 / 37, 38

40 41 41 42 42

/ 15 : 19 / 14, 16, 17, 30 : 18, 20, 21, 34 / 18 : 21 / 18, 19 : 23

/ 30 : 34, 35 / 32 : / 34 : 39 / 34, 35 : 39, 40, 41 / 35: 41 X 36: 42 / 36: 42 / 37, 38 : 43, 44 X 38 : 45 X 39 : 46 X 39 : 47 X 40 : 48 / 41 : 49

The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81

X 43 X 44 X 45 / 46 X 47 / 48 / 49 X 50 X 50 X 51 / 52 / 53 X 54 X 55 / 56 / 57, 58

/ /

/ /

/

/ / / / / / / /

66–68 68–70 70 72 90–92 92 92 134

X - : 51 / - : 52 / / / /

-

: : : :

53 54 55, 56 70

/ 134–36 / 146

° °

/ /

Dublin Poem: / / 59 / 60 / 61 / 62 X 63 X 64 / 65 / 66 / 67

/

/ / / / /

184–86 216–18 196 202–04 108–10

/ 176–78 / 178–80 / 122

/ - : 77

/ - : 58

/ - : 62

Section 2

Jocelin’s chapters 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92

Elements unique to Jocelin’s narrative

/

/ /

Vita tripartita / 182 / 198–200 / 150–52 / 152 / 160–62 / 196–98 / 168 / 144, 150 / 142–44 / 174

Vita secunda and Vita quarta / - : 78 / - : 71 / - : 71

°

54

Other sources for episodes (similar and exact)

Expanding the Narrative 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141

/ / / / /

/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / /

° °

/ /

°

/

°

/ /

/

° °

/ / / /

/ 74–76 / 176 / 176

/ - : 72

Vita I Brigidae: / §59 Vita I Brigidae: / §53 Muirchú’s Vita: / I 28 Vita Probo: / II 1

/ 232 Vita Comgalli: / 8 / 78 / 80–82 / 86–88 / 88–90 / 90 / 92 / 94 / 94–96 / 96 / 94–96 / 98 / 98 X 82 / 108 / 84 / 84–86 / 188–90, 192 / 240–42 / 190–92, 242 / 142 / 182–84 / 186–88

/ 156–58 / 132 / 132–34

Tírechán’s Vita: / 22

Additamenta: / 15 Additamenta: / 14 / - : 74

/ - : 68 Tírechán’s Vita: / 42

/ 194 / 208 X 224 / 112 / 218 / 218–20 / 226–28

/ - : 80 / - : 80

/ 162 / 138 X 182 / 248 / 136

55

The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness 142 143 144 145

/ / / /

/ / / /

142 174–76 76 136

Section 3 Elements Unique to Jocelin’s Jocelin’s Chapters Narrative Vita tertia 146 / / 68 147 / 69 148 / 70 149 X 71 150 / 72 151 / 73 152 / / 73 153 / / 74 154 X 76 155 X 75 156 / 77 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170

171 172 173 174 175

X 77 /

/ /

/ 92 / 78 / 79 / 80 / 81, 82 / 82 / 82, 83 / 84

Other sources for episodes not found in Vita secunda the Vita tertia or Vita and tripartita and other exact matches Vita tripartita Vita quarta X 124–26 / 180

X - : 64 / - : 73

/ 220–22 / 222

/ - : 81 / - : 81, 82

/ 246–48

/ - : 90

X 124

X - : 65

X 126

X - : 65

X 222–24 / 228 / 230 / 230

/ - : 83, 84 / - : 85 / - : 86

/ 232 / 238

Cottonian Vita: / 10ra

° ° °

/

/ /

Vita Probo: / II 29–30 Cottonian Vita: / 10va, 10vb Vita Probo: X II 30 Cottonian Vita: X 10vb

Cottonian Vita: / 10rb Gerald of Wales’s Topographia: / 21 / 85 / 85 / 85

/ 114 / 114 / 114

/ - : 59 / - : 59

°

/

Gerald of Wales’s Topographia: / 111–113

56

Expanding the Narrative 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190

X 242–44 / 242 / 246 / 246

/ / /

Vita Colmani: X 25

/ 92

°

Vita Winwaloei: X I 18 / 86 / 86

/

°

/

/ 87 / 88

/ / /

191 192 193 194

/ - : 63

/ 252 / - : 91 / - : 93

°

195 196

/ 124

/ 89

/ 62, 170, 258–62

/ 90 / 90 / 91

/ 254 / 254 / 254–56

/ 91

/ 252–54, 254–56

/ - : 96, 97

/ 254

/ - : 96, 97

/

Vita I Brigidae: / §56

Muirchú’s Vita: / II 13 Vita Probo: / II 38 Muirchú’s Vita: / II 14 Vita Probo: / II 40 Gloucester Vita: / p. 359 Muirchú’s Vita: / II 11 Gloucester Vita: / p. 359

Table 3: Exact Matches Between Jocelin’s Vita S. Patricii and Other Sources

Jocelin’s Vita Section 1 Section 2 Section 3 Total

Vita Vita tertia tripartita 27 9 3 4 5 31

17

William of Vita secunda Vita Vita Cottonian Malmesbury’s Total and Colmani Matches Vita Vita Vita quarta Probo 9 2 1 48 3 3 1 1 1 15 12

1

3

1

1

Table 4: The Dispersal of Unattributed Material in Jocelin’s Vita S. Patricii Jocelin’s Vita Section 1 Section 2 Section 3 Total

Number of chapters 81 64 51 196

Unattributed episodes 2 (2.5%) 7 (10.9%) 7 (13.7%) 16

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Partially unattributed episodes 18 (22.2%) 37 (57.8%) 19 (37.3%) 74

CHAPTER  TWO

Compiling Female Sanctity: The Sources for the Vita S. Helenae

Superficially, Jocelin’s commission to write the Vita Helenae presented a similar project to the Vita Patricii. The central figures of each work were saints of international renown and both were already the subjects of a significant amount of literature. However, although an earlier hagiographical account of Helena seems to have been available for use as a primary base text, Jocelin chose to construct his work largely from other sources – the ‘diverse ecclesiastical histories and universal chronicles’ acknowledged by the prologue.1 In contrast to the composition of the Vita Patricii, Jocelin formed the Vita Helenae episode by episode, using the most detailed account he could find as a base text for each section and inserting, where possible, additional material from other sources.2 Yet this was no mere ‘cut-and-paste’ job. As seen previously, Jocelin shows a reluctance to paraphrase, let alone quote, long extracts from other works.3 Instead he condensed the information into his own prose, layering tradition upon tradition without distinction between the author or age of the source material. As in the previous chapter, these underlying texts are largely identified by content. However, the dense interweaving of source material found in the Vita Helenae means that many of these sources only become visible when anomalous information is provided or the Vita follows a unique narrative structure. Although such analysis has its limitations, it provides clear evidence of the extensive research conducted by Jocelin and the sheer amount of information that he was able to assemble and then reorder (a table listing Jocelin’s apparent sources for this work can be found at the end of the chapter). To present as simply as possible what must have been an extremely complex process, this chapter is structured according to the broad chronology of the material, which is then assessed in order of Jocelin’s dependence upon that source. However, considering the intricate layering of

1 2 3

‘diuersis historiis ecclesiasticis et cronicis catholicis’. Vita Helenae, l. 33, p. 153. William of Malmesbury appears to have used a similar technique when writing the Vita Dunstani. William of Malmesbury, Saints’ Lives, p. xxix. Where there is evidence of linguistic dependency, it is noted – otherwise, ‘dependency’ is used to refer to narrative similarities.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness traditions found in the text, brief digressions concerning the material used to supplement the main sources are unavoidable.

The early sources Although leaning heavily on Rufinus of Aquileia’s expanded Latin translation of Eusebius’s Ecclesiastical History and the Inventio crucis legend, Jocelin also had at hand a variety of other early sources that provided information on the life of Helena.4 The Liber pontificalis supplied details for Jocelin’s references to church furnishings and there are also explicit references to Ambrose’s De obitu Theodosii. Traces of Cassiodorus’s mid-sixth century compendium of the Greek ecclesiastical histories written by Socrates Scholasticus, Sozomen and Theodoret – the Historia tripartita – can be found in the text, along with evidence for access to Lactantius’s De mortibus persecutorum and the eighthcentury forgery, the Constitutum Constantini. Much of Jocelin’s earlier narrative is dependent upon Rufinus’s extended translation of Eusebius’s Ecclesiastical History, dated to the late fourth or very early fifth century.5 The Vita’s description of Constantine’s vision of the cross and the Battle of the Milvian Bridge is largely, if not entirely, based on 4

5

The ability to read Greek had significantly declined in Western Europe since the Carolingian period and there is no reason to believe that Jocelin was a Greek scholar. Earlier twelfth-century writers such as William of Malmesbury and William of St Thierry appear to have known limited Greek, but it seems unlikely that this went beyond a small amount of vocabulary and some simple sentences. Indeed, the fact that Robert Grosseteste’s proficiency in Greek was so admired in the mid-thirteenth century, a man at least one generation younger than Jocelin, suggests it was a novel skill. Jocelin’s presumed absence of Greek means that sources such as Eusebius’s original Ecclesiastical History, his Vita Constantini (translated into Latin only in 1544) and the full church histories of Socrates Scholasticus, Sozomen and Theodoret have been omitted from this study. The Vita Constantini was, however, indirectly available to Jocelin through the excerpts of Socrates and Sozomen in the Historia tripartita. The reference to and paraphrase of the Vita Constantini found in the Gotha manuscript of the Vita Helenae appears to be an interpolation and does not occur in the earlier Cambridge manuscript. The quotation style of the reference is certainly uncharacteristic of Jocelin. Vita Helenae, p. 172 n.26; Gotha, MS Memb. I 81 fol. 210va; J. W. Drijvers, Helena Augusta: The Mother of Constantine the Great and the Legend of her Finding of the True Cross (Leiden, 1992), p. 125; S. Lieu, ‘From History to Legend and Legend to History: The Medieval and Byzantine Transformation of Constantine’s Vita’, in Constantine: History, Hagiography and Legend, ed. S. N. C. Lieu and D. Montserrat (London, 1998), p. 151; Thomson, William of Malmesbury, p. 62; R. W. Southern, Robert Grosseteste: The Growth of an English Mind in Medieval Europe (Oxford, 1986), pp. 182, 185–6; J. Coleman, Ancient and Medieval Memories: Studies in the Reconstruction of the Past (Cambridge, 1992), p. 201. D. Rohrbacher, The Historians of Late Antiquity (London, 2002), p. 98; Drijvers, Helena Augusta, p. 100, 100 n.26; S. Borgehammar, How the Holy Cross was Found: From Event to Medieval Legend (Stockholm, 1991), p. 8.

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Compiling Female Sanctity Rufinus’s account. Yet, although Jocelin retains echoes of Rufinus’s language as well as most of his scriptural allusions, he also makes various amendments to his source material.6 The Vita’s explanatory additions to the narrative concerning the sabotaging of the bridge, including a further scriptural reference, serve to heighten the drama of an episode that is rather prosaically phrased by Rufinus.7 Conversely, Jocelin also shortens Rufinus’s statement that the Senate erected images of Constantine holding the cross, substantially editing the alleged inscription on the statues.8 In following Rufinus’s version of events, which placed Constantine’s vision of the cross during the civil war against Maxentius, Jocelin ignores the statement made in the Inventio crucis narrative that the vision preceded a battle against the barbarians at the Danube.9 His reference to Maxentius’s persecution of St Katherine also privileged Rufinus’s order of events ahead of that found in the popular mid-eleventh century Passio S. Katerine.10 This preference for Rufinus not only reflected the fact that Rufinus’s narrative provided the most detailed version of events, but it was also an account supported by reference to other late antique sources, such as the Historia tripartita and Lactantius’s De mortibus persecutorum.11 The appending to this episode of a passage concerning Maximinus (wrongly identified by Jocelin 6

7 8 9 10

11

Jocelin abbreviates Rufinus’s narrative concerning the vision of the cross, similarly noting that the cross shone in the night with a fiery radiance (‘rutilare’) and including the famous exhortation of the angels to Constantine: ‘in hoc vince!’. Both texts record that the labarum was changed into an image of the cross, that Constantine carried a gold cross in his hand and that the emperor dearly wished to avoid spilling Roman blood. Jocelin follows Rufinus’s allusions to Pharoah (Exodus 15. 4) and the Psalms (Psalm 7. 16), but shortens the latter and reverses their order. He also follows Rufinus in noting that Constantine was welcomed in Rome as the restorer of previous freedoms and liberties, but that the emperor ascribed his victory to God rather than himself. Vita Helenae, ll. 208–46, pp. 158–9; Rufinus, Histora ecclesiastica, IX.ix.1–11, pp. 827–33 (pp. 827, 829); Rufinus of Aquileia, ‘Rufinus of Aquileia, Church History, Book 9, Chapter 9, sections 1–11’, trans. G. E. Whatley, in Medieval Hagiography: An Anthology, ed. T. Head (London, 2001), pp. 83–4. Vita Helenae, ll. 221–37, pp. 158–9; Rufinus, Historia ecclesiastica, IX.ix.4–6, pp. 829–31; Rufinus, ‘Church History’, trans. Whatley, pp. 83–4. Vita Helenae, ll. 244–7, p. 159; Rufinus, Historia ecclesiastica, IX.ix.10–11, p. 833; Rufinus, ‘Church History’, trans. Whatley, p. 84. Inventio crucis, §1, pp. 255–6. The Passio S. Katerine claims that Maxentius fled from the battle of the Milvian Bridge to Alexandria where he persecuted the Christians, an outcome that is impossible in Jocelin’s version. Jocelin also refers to a prophecy made by Katherine that Maxentius would be killed by a Christian, i.e. Constantine – a statement that may well be unique to the Vita. Vita Helenae, ll. 189–92, p. 158; Seinte Katerine: Re-Edited from MS Bodley 34 and Other Manuscripts, ed. S. R. T. O. D’Ardenne and E. J. Dobson, EETS SS 7 (Oxford, 1981), ll. 39–44, pp. xvi, 146. Historia tripartita, I.iv.4–v, pp. 16–19; Lactantius, Lactantius, De mortibus persecutorum, ed. and trans. J. L. Creed, Oxford Early Christian Texts (Oxford, 1984), c. xliv, pp. 62–5.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness as Maximianus Herculius12) and the marriage of Licinius to Constantine’s sister suggests that Jocelin had access to Lactantius’s work, an idea further supported by the statement present in both the Vita and the De mortibus persecutorum that Constantine was in attendance at Diocletian’s court during the persecutions.13 The text also indicates that Jocelin had read Orosius’s Historia aduersus paganos at some point, even if he did not revisit it in detail during his research for the Vita. Jocelin’s knowledge of this text is unsurprising. In the twelfth century, Orosius’s Historia appears to have been an extremely popular work and was considered an essential text for the study of Roman history.14 In addition to following the narrative order of Orosius’s text, which places Maximinus’s rebellion against Licinius immediately after Maxentius’s defeat at the Milvian Bridge, the Vita also states that Maximinus’s internal organs began to rot – a statement that appears to be an incorrect reading of a slightly earlier passage in the Historia where this fate is ascribed to Maximinus’s uncle, Emperor Galerius.15 However, a number of other details from Orosius’s 12

13

14

15

Jocelin’s Vita shows some confusion with regard to Roman imperial history. The identification of Maxentius as Katherine’s pagan tormentor reflects that found in the Passio S. Katerine. However, the persecution of Christians in the eastern empire attributed to Maxentius, emperor of the western empire (c.278–312) more aptly describes the career of Maximinus Daia, caesar of the east (c.270–313). Maximinus is also mistakenly identified later in the text as Maximianus Herculius, Maxentius’s father and former emperor of the western empire (c.250–310). The Vita’s statements that ‘Maximianus Herculius’ was a great persecutor of Christians who ruled in the east, rebelled against Licinius and was defeated by Constantine after the Battle of the Milvian Bridge confirm that Maximinus is the ruler in question. Vita Helenae, ll. 185–92, 246–9, pp. 157–8, 159; Virgin Lives and Holy Deaths: Two Exemplary Biographies for Anglo-Norman Women, The Life of St Catherine, The Life of St Lawrence, trans. G. S. Burgess and J. Wogan-Browne (London, 1996), pp. 62–3 n.6. Jocelin’s particular refusal to distinguish between Maximian and Maximinus in the Vita ignores the difference in spelling apparent in his source material: Rufinus, Historia ecclesiastica, VIII.xiii.12, IX.ix.12, pp. 777, 833; Historia tripartita, I.iv.4–6, p. 16; Lactantius, De mortibus persecutorum, c. xliii, p. 62; Paulus Orosius, Orose, Histoires (contre les païens), Tome III: Libre VII, Index, ed. M. Arnaud-Lindet (Paris, 1991), VII.xxviii.6, 9, 14, 17, 20, pp. 75, 76, 77; Henry of Huntingdon, Henry, Archdeacon of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, The History of the English People, ed. and trans. D. Greenway (Oxford, 1996), I.xxxviii, p. 60. For an overview of imperial history during the turbulent years of the late third and early fourth centuries see C. Matson Odahl, Constantine and the Christian Empire (New York, 2004), pp. 39–97. However, since this source was relatively uninformative with regard to Helena, its apparent low usage is not unexpected. Vita Helenae, ll. 159–62, 246–9, pp. 157, 159; Lactantius, De mortibus persecutorum, cc. xviii.10, xliii, xlv, pp. 28, 29, 64–7. L. B. Mortensen, ‘The Texts and Contexts of Ancient Roman History in TwelfthCentury Western Scholarship’, in The Perception of the Past in Twelfth-Century Europe, ed. P. Magdalino (London, 1992), pp. 103, 106. Paulus Orosius, Histoires (contre les païens), VII.xxviii.12, xxviii.16–17, pp. 76–7; Paulus Orosius, Paulus Orosius, The Seven Books of History Against the Pagans, trans. R. Deferrari, Fathers of the Church 50 (Washington, 1964), pp. 329–30; Vita Helenae, ll. 249–51, p. 159.

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Compiling Female Sanctity Historia are not only omitted by the Vita but replaced by other material, which underlines Jocelin’s use of this work as a supplementary text rather than a principal source.16 Jocelin also depended largely on Rufinus for his passage concerning the Council of Nicaea, copying the general narrative structure of his source to the extent that, like Rufinus, he immediately followed his account with Helena’s journey to Jerusalem.17 However, Jocelin remains reluctant to paraphrase Rufinus’s text. Although both texts include discussions of Arius’s beliefs and the council’s condemnation of them, there is little linguistic similarity between the two accounts.18 Jocelin also made certain amendments to Rufinus’s version of events. The account of Constantine’s speech at the Nicaean Council found in the Vita combines Rufinus’s version with that given by Aelred of Rievaulx in the De genealogia regum Angliae. Not only does Jocelin copy Aelred in placing the command to burn the bishops’ written complaints before Constantine’s speech in the text, but he also retains much of the speech recorded by Aelred, including the final comment concerning clerical incontinence that is absent from Rufinus’s version: Aelred: ‘Non est meum,’ inquiens, ‘de sacerdotibus judicare,’ vocansque episcopos, inquit: ‘Patres sanctissimi, nolite judicio contendere, praesertim apud nos, de quorum erratibus vestrum est judicare. Sed si quid inter vos ortum fuerit quaestionis, modeste tractetur in ecclesia, ne aliquid quod vestram sanctitatem dedeceat ad eorum qui foris sunt notitiam transferatur. Ego quem piam certe si de ordine vestro cernerem cum muliere peccantem, proprio eos pallio operirem ne qua religioni vestrae impiis detrahendi daretur occasio.’19 Jocelin: ‘Non est meum,’ inquid, ‘de sacerdotibus iudicare. Vos enim sicut scriptum est dii estis; soliusque Dei examen expectandum est de uobis. Deus,’ inquit, ‘in synagoga stetit deorum; in medio autem deos diiudicat [Ps. 81:1] et cetera que subsequuntur. Si quid ergo inter uos ortum fuerit

16

17

18 19

For example, Jocelin omits Orosius’s statement that Maximinus died at Tarsus, various details concerning Licinius’s rebellion and that Constantine died in his official residence near Nicomedia. Paulus Orosius, Histoires (contre les païens), ed. Arnaud-Lindet, VII.xxviii.17–20, xxviii.31, pp. 76–7, 79; Paulus Orosius, History Against the Pagans, trans. Deferrari, pp. 330–1; Vita Helenae, ll. 371–82, p. 162. Vita Helena, ll. 520–89, pp. 167–9; Rufinus, Historia ecclesiastica, X.i-vii, pp. 960–9; The Church History of Rufinus of Aquileia Books 10 and 11, trans. P. R. Amidon (Oxford, 1997), pp. 9–16. Rufinus, Historia ecclesiastica, X.i, v, pp. 960, 964–5; Rufinus, Church History, trans. Amidon, pp. 9, 13; Vita Helenae, ll. 521–33, 568–73, pp. 167, 168. Bold type indicates exactly the same word or phrase has been used, italics indicate that a similar word is present. Aelred of Rievaulx, ‘Genealogia regum Anglorum’, in Beati Aelredi abbatis Rievallensis opera omnia, PL 195, 719B–C.

63

The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness questionis uel controuersie in ecclesia, modeste20 tractetur ne quippiam quod uestram dedecorat sanctitatem ad eorum qui foris sunt noticiam transferatur. Ego certe si quempiam de ordine sancto vestro21 cernerem cum muliere peccantem eos cooperirem proprio pallio ne qua religioni uere laicis detrahendi daretur occasio.’22

Jocelin’s Vita offers a careful merging of the two accounts. While the latter half is dependent on Aelred’s version of the speech, the two sentences following ‘Non est meum de sacerdotibus iudicare’ paraphrase the words placed in Constantine’s mouth by Rufinus and include the scriptural allusion omitted by Aelred.23 Jocelin also uses information found in the Historia tripartita to expand Rufinus’s account. While both late antique sources agree that 318 bishops were present at the council, Jocelin adds that Pope Julius sent two cardinals, Vitus and Vincentius, while a third was sent by St Silvester, who was too ill to come. He also notes that Macarius of Jerusalem, Eustachius of Antioch and Alexander of Alexandria, along with his archdeacon Athanasius, were present. Much of this information reflects details found in the Historia tripartita where, in addition to the statement concerning the three latter bishops, Sozomen also notes that Pope Julius, now too aged to attend, sent the priests Vitus and Vincentius in his stead. However, although Jocelin repeats this statement, the introduction of Pope Silvester to the narrative makes a necessary addition to it.24 Sozomen’s text is incorrect at this point: it was not Julius but Silvester who held the papacy at the time of the Council of Nicaea. That Jocelin retained the earlier, incorrect information indicates his preference to compile rather than correct what appears to have been wellknown source material. Ambrose’s oration on the death of Theodosius I in 395 marked a significant development in the Helena legend, where emphasis was placed on Helena’s discovery of the cross rather than Constantine’s role in the spread of Christianity.25 Although Jocelin chose not to follow the outdated version of the inventio given by Ambrose (it had been superseded by a more popular 20 21 22 23 24

25

The reading of ‘modeste’ in the Gotha manuscript is to be preferred to the reading of ‘domestice’ in Harbus’s edition. Gotha, MS Memb. I 81 fol. 208vb. The word ‘vestro’ is present in the Gotha manuscript at this point. Ibid. Vita Helenae, ll. 556–64, p. 168. Rufinus, Historia ecclesiastica, X.ii, p. 961; Rufinus, Church History, trans. Amidon, p. 10. Harbus’s edition reads ‘Machareus’ and ‘Alexus’ but the Gotha manuscript provides the preferred readings of ‘Macharius’ and ‘Alexander’. Vita Helenae, ll.  536–41, p. 167; Gotha, MS Memb. I 81 fol. 208va; Rufinus, Historia ecclesiastica, X.i, p. 960; Rufinus, Church History, trans. Amidon, p. 9; Historia tripartita, II.i.1, VII.xxiv.2, pp. 82, 421. Ambrose of Milan, ‘Oration on the Death of Theodosius I’, in Ambrose of Milan: Political Letters and Speeches, trans. J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz and C. Hill, Translated Texts for Historians 43 (Liverpool, 2005), p. 175; Drijvers, Helena Augusta, pp. 36, 95.

64

Compiling Female Sanctity narrative), he does make explicit reference to Ambrose’s well-known statements about Helena’s early life. He retains Ambrose’s definition of Helena as the ‘bona stabularia’ and uses the same biblical allusions – the reference to Psalm 112, ‘He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the dung’, and the comparison of Helena to the innkeeper who cared for the injured man in the story of the Good Samaritan.26 Although Jocelin’s explicit citation of Ambrose actually appears at the end of the passage in reference to the statement that Helena knew Constantius before he achieved imperial office, it sets the whole passage in its patristic context.27 Jocelin carefully interweaves the stabularia narrative with contemporary ideas of noble learning in his description of Helena’s youth, subtly introducing the idea that as a girl Helena devoted herself to aiding those in need in the xenodochium. This prepares the reader for the reprise of the stabularia theme with its explicit Ambrosian references a little later when, on the death of Cole, Helena withdraws to the xenodochium to preserve her virginity.28 However, since both Rufinus’s text and that of Ambrose had been composed at a relatively early stage in the development of the Helena legend, Jocelin’s preference for more comprehensive accounts meant that he also based large parts of his narrative on later sources. The most important of these was the Inventio crucis narrative, a Greek text that was translated into Latin in the later fifth century.29 The brief and varied accounts concerning the discovery of the cross given by Ambrose, Rufinus and the Historia tripartita were soon superseded by the more detailed and dramatic Inventio crucis. The great popularity of this text in the medieval period ensured that it became as essential part of the contemporary Helena legend. It is therefore unsurprising that Jocelin used this narrative as the base text for this section of the Vita. In the original version of the text, Helena summons three councils of the Jews, the first a group of three thousand men, then one thousand, and finally five hundred. Although she claims to want to question the lesser assemblies, she asks no questions and allows no response, making only cryptic allusions to what she seeks. The Jews are bewildered but one, Judas, speaks up and tells them that he not only knows what Helena wants but he also knows where she can find it. Once found, he tells them that the Hebrews will no 26

27

28 29

Psalms 112. 7. Ambrose of Milan, ‘De obitu Theodosii’, in Sancti Ambrosii opera, pars septima, ed. Otto Faller, CSEL 73 (Vienna, 1955), §42, p. 393; Ambrose, ‘Oration on the Death of Theodosius’, trans. Liebeschuetz and Hill, p. 198; Vita Helenae, ll. 117–23, p. 156. Ambrose, ‘De obitu Theodosii’, ed. Faller, §42, p. 393; Ambrose, ‘Oration on the Death of Theodosius’, trans. Liebeschuetz and Hill, p. 198; Vita Helenae, ll. 128–9, p. 156. Vita Helenae, ll. 78–82, 115–19, pp. 154–5, 156. Inventio crucis here refers to Borgehammar’s ‘A’ text, which was the most extensively copied version of the work and survives today in the largest numbers. Borgehammar, How the Holy Cross was Found, pp. 203–4, 208, 213.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness longer rule and that the kingdom will belong to Christians. The Jews therefore enjoin him to silence. Helena recalls the Jews and threatens to burn them unless they aid her in her quest. Faced with this choice, the Jews quickly hand over Judas who, refusing to give Helena the information she desires, is imprisoned. After seven days without food, he relents, and going to the area where the cross lies, he prays to God in Hebrew to reveal the exact site. The ground immediately shakes, a cloud of sweet-smelling perfume rises revealing the place, and Judas gives thanks to Jesus. After digging deep into the earth, Judas uncovers three crosses.30 The identity of the True Cross is revealed by its power to resurrect a dead youth. The Devil appears and is rebuked by Judas, who is then baptised and later ordained bishop of Jerusalem. Part of the cross is encased in a reliquary and given to the church at Calvary. In order to find the nails of the cross, Helena again summons Judas, now called Cyriacus. He prays at Calvary and the Lord reveals the nails to him in a flash of light. They are given to Helena and she forms them into a bridle for Constantine. She then banishes all Jews who refuse to convert from the land of Judaea.31 While Jocelin generally follows this outline, he makes certain adaptations to it.32 Much of the dialogue from the original is either left out or rephrased. Among the missing sections of dialogue, Jocelin omits the first and second speeches of Helena to the Jews, noting only that she held counsel with all the Jews of the area and then with the one thousand Jews who knew the law.33 Although he records Helena’s speech to the crowd of five hundred Jews, it is different from that found in the Inventio crucis, being more didactic and placing greater emphasis on the Jewish failure to recognize the Messiah. Neither is it based on the two previous speeches found in the Inventio crucis and is, presumably, of Jocelin’s own invention.34 Judas’s speech to the Jews is similarly different. Jocelin again contracts its length and changes its emphasis, here underlining the idea that the discovery of the cross will mean the end of Judaism.35 After the Jews have delivered Judas to Helena, Jocelin again omits the discussion between Helena and Judas, noting only that he failed to be persuaded by her prayers, arguments or threats.36 Jocelin also omits both Judas’s Hebrew prayer and its Latin interpretation and Judas’s later thanks to Jesus.37 Both the Inventio crucis and Jocelin’s version include the appearance 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37

The Inventio crucis states that the crosses were discovered after digging 20 fathoms – Jocelin omits this detail. Inventio crucis, §10, pp. 158, 267. Ibid., pp. 154–61, 255–71. Vita Helenae, ll. 603–717, pp. 169–72. Jocelin also omits Helena’s request to Judas to pray for help in finding the nails that fixed Jesus to the cross. Inventio crucis, §§4, 5, 13, pp. 155, 160, 258–60, 269. Inventio crucis, §§4–6, pp. 155–6, 258–60; Vita Helenae, ll. 612–26, pp. 169–70. Vita Helenae, ll. 630–46, p. 170; Inventio crucis, §7, pp. 156–7, 261–3. Vita Helenae, ll. 659–65, pp. 170–1; Inventio crucis, §8, pp. 157, 263–5. Inventio crucis, §9, pp. 157–8, 265, 266–7.

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Compiling Female Sanctity of the Devil after the identity of the cross is confirmed. While the speeches of the Devil and Judas differ in the two texts, the final half of the interchange bears a limited similarity.38 Jocelin also expanded the Inventio crucis narrative with additional material taken from other sources. He informs us that at Calvary, the pagans had built a temple to Venus to prevent Christians from venerating Christ, a statement absent from the Inventio crucis but present in Rufinus’s text.39 Jocelin also notes the background presence of Bishop Macarius during these events, introducing him into the text on Helena’s arrival in Jerusalem and later stating that he taught the baptized Judas.40 In the earlier versions of the inventio found in Rufinus and the Historia tripartita, Macarius performed the identification role now assigned to Judas, and Jocelin’s subtle allusion to him seems to be an attempt to reconcile these various sources.41 Further additions show Jocelin doing his best to include other well-known, but diverging, traditions. In line with references by Ambrose, Rufinus and Socrates in the Historia tripartita, Jocelin corrects the omission of Pilate’s sign in the Inventio crucis text.42 In what seems to be a reference to Ambrose’s version, where Helena alone finds the cross and identifies it by this sign, Jocelin admits that although the Holy Cross could be distinguished from the others by the sign in Hebrew, Greek and Latin letters written by Pilate, the queen desired to further certify the truth of the discovery in order to strengthen the faith of the people.43

38 39

40 41

42

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Inventio crucis, §11, pp. 159, 268; Vita Helenae, ll. 686–95, p. 171. Although this detail is present in Paulinus of Nola’s letter concerning the discovery of the cross, there is little other evidence to suggest that Jocelin used this source. Altmann’s Vita states that a ‘templum’ of Venus obscured the site of the crucifixion, but the ‘simulacrum’ found in Rufinus’s text is more akin to Jocelin’s ‘ydolum’. Vita Helenae, ll. 592–9, p. 169; Rufinus, Historia ecclesiastica, X.vii, p. 969; Rufinus, Church History, trans. Amidon, p. 16; Paulinus of Nola, Sancti Pontii Meropii Paulini Nolani epistulae, ed. G. de Hartel, CSEL 29 (Vienna, 1999), Ep. xxxi.3, pp. 270–1; Altmann’s Vita, §26, p. 588B. Vita Helenae, ll. 559–600, 700, pp. 169, 171. William of Malmesbury also states that the cross was discovered in Macarius’s time. Rufinus, Historia ecclesiastica, X.vii-viii, p. 970; Rufinus, Church History, trans. Amidon, p. 17; Historia tripartita, II.xviii.10, pp. 114–15; William of Malmesbury, William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum Anglorum, The History of the English Kings, Vol. I, ed. and trans. R. A. B. Mynors, R. M. Thomson and M. Winterbottom, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 1998), IV.ccclxviii.1, pp. 644, 645. Ambrose, ‘De obitu Theodosii’, ed. Faller, §§45–6, p. 395; Ambrose, ‘Oration on the Death of Theodosius’, trans. Liebeschuetz and Hall, p. 199; Rufinus, Historia ecclesiastica, X.vii, p. 969; Rufinus, Church History, trans. Amidon, pp. 16–17; Historia tripartita, II.xviii.8, p. 115. ‘Et quamvis Sancta Crux ex titulo Hebraicis litteris Grecis et latinis a Pilato conscripto potuisset a ceteris discerni, plenius tamen cupiebat regina super illius ueritate certificari ob roborandam fidem populi.’ Vita Helenae, ll. 675–7, p. 171.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness He also attempts to unite other traditions concerning the identification of the cross. Whereas the Inventio crucis uses the miraculous resurrection of the dead youth to confirm the identity of the True Cross, both Rufinus and Sozomen in the Historia tripartita claim that the identification was made by the cure of a wealthy, local woman on the verge of death.44 Jocelin does his best to reconcile these two versions by including them both, although, perhaps in deference to the greater antiquity of the source, Jocelin places the latter miracle first in his text.45 Jocelin combined further details from the late antique sources concerning the bridle, helmet and diadem which were said to be adorned with the nails of the Passion. As well as restoring the diadem and helmet to the inventio narrative, the Vita also incorporated the well-established tradition mentioned by Ambrose and the Historia tripartita that the bridle fulfilled Zachariah’s prophecy: ‘on that day, that which is on the bridle of the horse will be holy to the Lord’ (Zacharias 14. 20).46 Jocelin also notes that the discovery of the cross by Helena coincided with Constantine’s conquest of the ‘barbarous’ nations mentioned by Rufinus and Orosius, as well as including Orosius’s subsequent statement that Constantine also crushed Calcerus’s rebellion in Cyprus.47 Jocelin also follows Rufinus and the Historia tripartita in devoting a paragraph to Helena’s attendance on a community of virgins in Jerusalem.48 However, the Vita’s additional comment that Judas was martyred during the reign of Julian the Apostate seems to come from the later cult that grew up around Judas Cyriacus.49

44 45 46

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Rufinus, Historia ecclesiastica, X.vii-viii, p. 970; Rufinus, Church History, trans. Amidon, p. 17; Historia tripartita, II.xviii.10, pp. 114–15. Vita Helenae, ll. 677–87, p. 171. The accounts of Rufinus, Theodoret (in the Historia tripartita) and Ambrose all mention the bridle, but Rufinus does not cite Zachariah’s prophecy. Rufinus and Theodoret also refer to the helmet made for Constantine, but this is replaced by the diadem in Ambrose’s version – Jocelin’s text includes all three items. Vita Helenae, ll. 758–69, p. 173; Ambrose, ‘De obitu Theodosii’, ed. Faller, §§40, 47–51 (§40), pp. 392–3, 396–8 (pp. 392–3); Ambrose, ‘Oration of the Death of Theodosius’, trans. Liebeschuetz and Hall, pp. 197, 199–200; Historia tripartita, II.xviii.11, p. 115; Rufinus, Historia ecclesiastica, X.viii, p. 970; Rufinus, Church History, trans. Amidon, p. 17. Vita Helenae, ll. 717–21, p. 172; Rufinus, Historia ecclesiastica, X.viii, p. 971; Rufinus, Church History, trans. Amidon, p. 18; Paulus Orosius, Histoires (contre les païens), ed. Arnaud-Lindet, VII.xxviii.30, p. 79; Paulus Orosius, History Against the Pagans, trans. Deferarri, p. 331. Jocelin’s comment that Helena was in her eighties at this point follows a statement made by Theodoret which is absent from Rufinus’s text. Vita Helenae, ll. 784–90, p. 174; Rufinus, Historia ecclesiastica, X.viii, pp. 970–1; Rufinus, Church History, trans. Amidon, p. 18; Historia tripartita, II.xviii.14, p. 116. Vita Helenae, l. 702, p. 171. For further information on the Judas Cyriacus legend, see ‘De S. Juda Quiriaco, Episcopo Martyre Hierosolymis’, AASS Maii I, pp. 443C–56E.

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Compiling Female Sanctity Jocelin’s references to another popular cult associated with Helena, that of St Silvester, help flesh out his text in relation to Constantine’s baptism and Helena’s conversion. Using the fifth- or sixth-century Vita Silvestri as a base text, Jocelin gives a heavily abridged account of Constantine’s baptism, omitting any uncomfortable claims along with all dialogue.50 For example, while the Vita Silvestri states that Constantine’s leprosy was sent by God as punishment for his persecutions of Christians, Jocelin unsurprisingly passes over this statement both here and again later when these persecutions are cited as the reason for Silvester’s self-imposed exile.51 The lengthy dispute between Silvester and the Jews that results in Helena’s conversion is covered by Jocelin in a mere two sentences, while the climax of the debate, the resurrection of the bull, merits only an oblique reference to the base text itself.52 Although Antonina Harbus suggests that by underplaying the bull episode Jocelin seems to emphasize victory by rhetorical skill rather than miraculous demonstration, the great abridgement of the whole episode, particularly the omission of so much dialogue, indicates that Jocelin was more concerned to pass over this well-known story quickly rather than highlight any particular aspect of the debate.53 Instead, it seems more significant that Jocelin’s use of the Vita Silvestri narrative concerning Constantine’s Christianity is at the expense of Ambrose’s statement that the emperor only received baptism on his deathbed – evidence which, again, indicates Jocelin’s assessment of his sources by content rather than age or authorship.54 The principal source for Jocelin’s various references to church furnishings is the sixth- or seventh-century Liber pontificalis, with the author selecting details from the entry concerning Silvester’s pontificate.55 In contrast to his 50

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The Vita Silvestri also goes by the names Actus Silvestri and Gesta beati Silvestri. Vita Helenae, ll. 257–318, pp. 159–61; ‘Vita sancti Sylvestri papae et confessoris’, Sanctuarium seu Vitae sanctorum II: Novam hanc editionem curaverunt duo monachi Solesmenses, ed. B. Mombritius (Reprint of 1910 edn, Hildesheim, 1978), pp. 510–13; Drijvers, Helena Augusta, p. 37; A. Linder, ‘Ecclesia and Synagoga in the Medieval Myth of Contantine the Great’, Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire 54 (1976), 1051. Jocelin also refers only briefly and without quotation to the alleged letters from Helena to Constantine concerning his conversion, which are given in full in the Vita Silvestri. Vita Helenae, ll. 285–93, p. 160; ‘Vita Sylvestri’, ed. Mombritius, pp. 510, 515. The differences between Jocelin’s text and the Vita Silvestri edited by Mombritius suggest that Jocelin either used a variant version of the Vita Silvestri or that he misread the text. These differences include the name of the leader of the Jews (Josiah in Jocelin’s text, Isachar in the Vita Silvestri) and the numbers of bishops and rabbis attending the debate. Vita Helenae, ll. 294, 297–99, 308–15, pp. 160, 161; ‘Vita Sylvestri’, ed. Mombritius, pp. 515–28. Harbus, Helena of Britain, p. 104. Ambrose, ‘De obitu Theodosii’, ed. Faller, §40, p. 392; Ambrose, ‘Oration on the Death of Theodosius’, trans. Liebeschuetz and Hall, p. 197. For example, Jocelin summarizes the statements in the Liber pontificalis concerning the churches that hold the relics of St Paul and the Holy Cross. Jocelin also briefly mentions the church built in Ostia, the church of St John the Baptist in Albanum

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness general use of sources, Jocelin readily draws phrases from this work. For example, when the Vita describes the font in the Lateran Palace, it retains much of the language found in Jocelin’s exemplar: Liber pontificalis: Fontem sanctum, ubi baptizatus est Augustus Constantinus ab eodem episcopum Silvestrum ipsum sanctum fontem ex metallo [lapide] porfyretico ex omni parte coopertum intrinsecus et foris et desuper et quantum aqua continet ex argento purissimo in pedibus u qui pensauit argenti lib. IIIVIII. In medio fontis columna porfyritica quae portat fialam auream, ubi candela est, pens. auro purissimo lib. LII, ubi ardet in die paschae balsamum lib. CC, nixum uero et stippa amiati. In [labio] fontis baptisterii habent agnum ex auro purissimo fundentem aquam, qui pensat lib. XXX; ad dexteram agni salvatorem ex argento, in pedibus V, pens. lib. CLXX, in leva agni beatum Iohannem baptistam ex argento, [tenentem] titulum scriptum: ECCE AGNVS DEI, ECCE QVI TOLLIT PECCATA MVNDI, pens. lib. CXXV … thimiamatherium [ex auro purissimo] aureum cum gemmis prasinis et iacinthinis XLII, pens. lib. X.56 Jocelin’s Vita: Baptisterium in ea lapide porfiretico sanctum undique ex argento et auro purissimo uestiuit. In cuius medio columpnam porfireticam gestantem phialam erexit in qua balsamum probatissimum ardere fecit. In labio fontis agnum57 aquam fundentem ex auro purissimo fecit fieri et ad dextram agni imaginem saluatoris et ad leuam beati Iohanis baptiste scriptum in manu tenentem et digito porrecto: ‘Ecce agnus Dei ecce qui tollit peccata mundi.’ Thimiamatherium quoque librarum decem ex auro

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and the church in Naples – all of which are discussed in greater detail by the Liber pontificalis. Both texts state that Constantine built the basilica in the Via Tiburtina at the Ager Veranus and Jocelin further selectively notes from the Liber pontificalis that it was decorated with purple marble and silver railings (the ‘cancellis’ found in the Gotha manuscript corrects the reading of ‘candelis’ given by Harbus’s edition). Both texts agree that Helena’s mausoleum in the church of SS Marcellinus and Peter stood on the Via Labicana on land between the Two Laurels, and that she was buried in a porphyry sarcophagus. Vita Helenae, ll. 335–60, 825–40 (l. 833), pp. 161–62, 175 (p. 175); Gotha, MS Memb. I 81 fol. 211va; Liber pontificalis, pars I, ed. T. Mommsen, MGH Gesta Pontificium Romanorum 1 (Weimar, 1898), c. xxxiv.21–4, 26–8, 30, 32, pp. 60–4, 65–8, 69–71; The Book of Pontiffs (Liber pontificalis): The Ancient Biographies of the First Ninety Roman Bishops to AD 715, trans. R. Davis, Translated Texts for Historians 6, 2nd edn (Liverpool, 2000), pp. xlvii–xlviii, 21–7. Jocelin’s passage reflects some of the variants found in the E version of the Liber ponticalis, which is the version given here. The words which do not appear in the E version but do appear in Jocelin’s text are in square brackets. Interestingly, William of Malmesbury also had access to the E version of this text. Liber pontificalis, ed. Mommsen, c. xxxiv.13, pp. 54–5; Thomson, William of Malmesbury, p. 120. The reading of ‘labio fontis agnum’ in the Gotha manuscript is to be preferred to the reading of ‘labro f[r]ontis’ in Harbus’s edition. Gotha, MS Memb. I 81 fol. 206va.

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Compiling Female Sanctity purissimo cum gemmis prassinis et iacinctinis in circuitu numero .xl. duabus et cetera.58

The Vita’s description of the basilica of St Peter shows a similar use of this source.59 Jocelin’s linguistic dependency at this point can be relatively easily explained. The itemized format of both the Liber pontificalis and Jocelin’s text made it difficult to vary the language – there are only so many ways to describe, for example, a gold cross. However, Jocelin’s use of the Liber pontificalis is more complex than this linguistic borrowing suggests. The Vita modifies the base text to emphasize Helena’s role in the founding of churches and, when summarizing the possessions granted to the church of St Peter, Jocelin is careful to mention Helena’s generosity.60 Although both texts note that Constantine built basilicas dedicated to St Agnes and St Laurence (information summarized in reverse order in the Vita), in place of the Liber pontificalis’ statement that Constantine’s sister and daughter were baptized at the former church, Jocelin states that at Helena’s encouragement her son founded a community of holy virgins which was attached to it.61 The Constitutum Constantini, an eighth-century forgery proclaiming the Roman Church’s independence from Byzantium, forms the background to Jocelin’s chapter ‘Concerning the conduct of Constantine’, where he compares Constantine’s voluntary homage to Pope Silvester with the less submissive attitude of contemporary rulers.62 It is possible that Jocelin’s knowledge of the Constitutum Constantini came not from the original but from Lanfranc’s abbreviated version found in the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals, the form in which the text seems to have been most commonly known in England.63 However, the topicality of the central theme of the work – the submission of secular

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Vita Helenae, ll. 337–45, pp. 161–2. Liber pontificalis, ed. Mommsen, c. xxxiv.16–18, pp. 56–8; Book of Pontiffs, trans. Davis, pp. 19–20; Vita Helenae, ll. 346–56, p. 162. Vita Helenae, ll. 354–6, p. 162; Liber pontificalis, ed. Mommsen, c. xxxiv.16–18, pp. 56–8; Book of Pontiffs, trans. Davis, pp. 19–20. Liber pontificalis, ed. Mommsen, c. xxxiv.23–4, pp. 62–4; Book of Pontiffs, trans. Davis, pp. 22–23; Vita Helenae, ll. 831–5, p. 175. This is the title given to the chapter in the Gotha manuscript version of the text. Vita Helenae, ll. 395–438, (ll. 425–350), pp. 163–4, 163 n.15 (p. 164); Gotha, MS Memb. I 81 fol. 207ra; ‘Constitutum Constantini’, Richerche sui falsi medioevali I, Il constitutum Constantini: Compilazione agiografica del sec. VIII, note e documenti per una nuova lettura, ed. P. de Leo (Reggio Calabria, 1974), pp. 123–35; ‘The Edict of Constantine to Pope Silvester’, in Constantine and Christendom: The Oration to the Saints, The Greek and Latin Accounts of the Discovery of the Cross, The Edict of Constantine to Pope Silvester, trans. M. Edwards, Translated Texts for Historians 39 (Liverpool, 2003), pp. xliii, xlv, 92–115. Thomson, William of Malmesbury, pp. 131–3.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness rulers to their ecclesiastical superiors – meant that the text is likely to have been well-known throughout twelfth and early thirteenth century Europe. Jocelin’s possible use of another early medieval source is more problematic. Although various statements in the text suggest that Jocelin was aware of the mid-ninth century Vita Helenae written by Altmann, he appears to have had only limited access to this work.64 Jocelin’s Vita certainly seems to acknowledge – and respond to – the rival claims found in Altmann’s text. In direct conflict with the twelfth- and thirteenth-century British conception of Helena, Altmann cites the German city of Trier as both the birthplace and residence of the saint.65 This continental tradition was clearly too well-known to be passed over and ‘Trier’ duly makes two appearances in Jocelin’s text. Helena’s birth, the Vita tells us, occurred in Colchester, a city that came to be named after the saint’s father, King Cole, but during his lifetime was known as ‘Triverum’ after the ‘Trivirorim’ from whom he was descended – thus providing a British Helena born in Trier.66 A little later in the text, we are told that for ease of governing the northern regions under his command, Constantius relocated to Trier (Treverim) where he built Helena a wonderful marble palace in which to stay during her visits.67 This seems to be a reference to Altmann’s politicallybased claim that Helena gave this palace as a special gift to the bishop of Trier.68 At this point, however, Jocelin is quick to reassert the British focus of his text and the Vita defensively states that the saint ‘loved Britain above all other earthly kingdoms’.69 There are also other traces of Altmann’s influence on the text. Jocelin’s mistaken belief that Drepanum was a suburb of Rome apparently stems from Altmann’s Vita.70 Likewise, the miracle concerning the relics lost in the Danube is also found in this earlier work, although Jocelin’s text places a greater emphasis on Helena’s role in this episode.71 Jocelin also mentions that among the relics temporarily submerged in the river was a ‘little knife’ (cultellus) associated with Jesus, an item that had previously been noted as being in Helena’s possession in Altmann’s text.72 Further evidence of Altmann’s Vita may also be seen in some of Jocelin’s comparisons and allusions. Both texts discuss the disparity between Helen of Troy and Helena Augusta and both compare the saint to the Biblical models provided by Anne

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Harbus also noted the lack of stylistic or close narrative dependence on the text. Harbus, Helena of Britain, p. 102; Drijvers, Helena Augusta, p. 22. Altmann’s Vita, §9, p. 583B. Unfortunately, a similar accommodation could not be made for Altmann’s assertion that Constantine was born in Gaul and Jocelin chooses to ignore this completely. Vita Helenae, ll. 50–4, 171–4, 180–1, pp. 154, 157; Altmann’s Vita, §23, p. 587C. Vita Helenae, ll. 150–3, p. 157. Altmann’s Vita, §9, p. 583B; Drijvers, Helena Augusta, p. 22. ‘Super omnia regna terrarum Britanniam dilexit.’ Vita Helenae, ll. 153–4, p. 157. Vita Helenae, ll. 887–90, p. 177; Altmann’s Vita, §§59, 62, p. 598A–B, 598E–F. Altmann’s Vita, §52, pp. 595F-6A; Vita Helenae, ll. 842–52, pp. 175–6. Vita Helenae, ll. 842–3, p. 175; Altmann’s Vita, §43, p. 592F.

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Compiling Female Sanctity and the Queen of Sheba. Finally, both vitae discuss Helena’s name and its lunar meaning.73 It is certainly significant that the final section of Jocelin’s Vita, which contains the translation of the saint’s relics and a selection of her posthumous miracula, is only indirectly drawn from Altmann’s work and suggests that either this text was not easily available to Jocelin or that that he simply chose not to use it.74 Instead, this section is based on a chapter from the mid-tenth century Historia ecclesiae Remensis by Flodoard of Reims, which provides an abridged version of Altmann’s account.75 That Jocelin had direct access to Flodoard’s text is shown by the same chronological reordering of Altmann’s narrative in both works and the clear linguistic dependency of the Vita on the Historia in the description of the later miracles. Although Jocelin begins the final part of his work with a much more elaborate account of the episodes summarized by Flodoard’s text, as the Vita reaches its conclusion, Jocelin’s wording of the miracles becomes ever closer to its source material – a fact more likely to reflect the difficulty of succinctly repeating an abridged list of miracles than the fatigue of the author. Indeed, Jocelin, is so closely indebted to the base text towards the end of Vita that he repeats Flodoard’s comment that the relics were taken ‘to the aforesaid monastery of Hautvillers’ even though this is the first time the house has been mentioned in the text.76 Yet there are also hints that Jocelin had another, more detailed source to hand at this point. The Vita’s allusion to the three revelations that confirmed the authenticity of Helena’s relics, as well as ‘other trials in water that we do not wish to write down’, seems to be a reference to details found in Altmann’s account and omitted from Flodoard’s summary.77 Jocelin also includes information which is absent from both his direct and indirect source material. The Vita presents a more detailed description of the sacred theft of Helena’s relics from Rome and includes two additional miracles worked by the relics during their journey to Hautvillers. The source of Jocelin’s statements at this point is unclear and it may well be that he was working from variant versions of either Altmann’s text or, more probably, the summary of this account found in Flodoard’s Historia.

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Vita Helenae, ll. 87–90, 322–4, 799–822, 854–6, pp. 155, 161, 174–5, 176; Altmann’s Vita, §§10, 34–6, 38, 44, 59, pp. 583C, 590F–1B, 591E, 593B-C, 598A–B. Altmann’s Miracula, §§10–17, 53–76, pp. 601F–3A, 612A–17C. Flodoard of Reims, ‘Historia Remensis ecclesiae libri quatuor’, in Flodoardo canonici Remensis opera omnia, PL 135, II.viii, cols. 108D-111A; Vita Helenae, ll. 933–1056, pp. 178–82; M. Sot, Un historien et son église au Xe siècle: Flodoard de Reims (Paris, 1993), pp. 53, 439, 442–3. ‘ad prefatam Altiuallarense monasterium’. Flodoard of Reims, ‘Historia Remensis’, II.viii, col. 110C; Vita Helenae, l. 1034, p. 181. ‘eciam aliis experimentis in aqua que conscribere nolumus’. Vita Helenae, ll. 1040–3, (l. 1042), p. 181; Altmann’s Miracula, §§13–17, 73–74, pp. 602C–3A, 616D–17A.

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The later sources By the time that Jocelin was writing, the Helena legend had undergone further mutations. In particular, the traditions concerning Helena’s alleged British origins enjoyed widespread currency in the extended narratives of twelfthcentury British historiography. The root of these traditions seems to have been the plausible extension of Anglo-Saxon claims concerning Constantine’s birth in Britain found in the works of Aldhelm and the Old English translation of Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica.78 By the late twelfth century, both Constantine and Helena had come to be accredited with noble British roots. Jocelin’s claim that Helena was the daughter of King Cole reiterated statements present in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae and Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum.79 Indeed, Geoffrey’s work underpins the British narrative of the Vita, an unsurprising reflection of the Historia’s popularity. Jocelin abridges the account of Cole’s rebellion against Asclepiodotus and the arrival of Constantius and also follows Geoffrey in stating that Constantine was encouraged by Christian exiles to fight Maxentius for the imperial throne. Both texts agree that Constantine took three of Helena’s uncles – Joelinus, Trahern and Marius – with him to the Continent, but Jocelin stops short of stating, as Geoffrey does, that they were made senators.80 Other aspects of Helena’s youth may have been based on the the various claims made in contemporary histories mixed, no doubt, with a healthy dose

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The statement that Constantine was born in Britain is ascribed to Eutropius in the Old English translation of Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica. Aldhelm, ‘De virginitate’, in Aldhelmi opera, ed. R. Ehwald, MGH Auctorum Antiquissimorum 15 (Weimar, 1919), c. xlviii, p. 302; Aldhelm, ‘The Prose De virginitate’, in Aldhelm, The Prose Works, trans. M. Lapidge and M. Herren (Ipswich, 1979), p. 115; Harbus, Helena of Britain, p. 40; The Old English Version of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, Part I, ed. and trans. T. Miller, EETS OS 95, 96 (London, 1890), I.viii, pp. 42, 43. This tradition also appears in Gervase of Tilbury’s Otia imperialia. However, since the first version of this work was completed only in 1215, Gervase’s text provides a parallel for Jocelin’s Vita rather than a potential source. Walter Map’s De nugis curialium, written c.1181–82, also notes that Colchester was the reputed birthplace of St Helena but says no more about the subject. Vita Helenae, ll. 48–57, p. 154; Historia regum Britanniae, V.§§78, 83, pp. 96, 97, 104, 105; Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, I.xxxvii, xxxviii, pp. 59–61, 62, 63; Gervase of Tilbury, Gervase of Tilbury, Otia imperialia, Recreation for an Emperor, ed. S. E. Banks and J. W. Binns, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 2002), II.xvi, pp. xxxix–xl, 380, 381; Walter Map, Walter Map, De nugis curialium, Courtiers’ Trifles, ed. and trans. M. R. James, revised C. N. L. Brooke and R. A. B. Mynors, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 1983), II.xvii, pp. xxvi, 170, 171. The first of the uncles, Joelinus, appears as ‘Loelinus’ in Reeve and Wright’s edition of Geoffrey’s text. Historia regum Britanniae, V.§§78–80, pp. 94–9; Vita Helenae, ll 98–113, 192–204, pp. 155, 158, 158 n.12.

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Compiling Female Sanctity of contemporary hagiographical topoi. While Jocelin potentially followed Geoffrey of Monmouth’s comment concerning Helena’s great beauty, he was also keen to emphasize that the saint was far more than just a pretty face: like Gervase of Canterbury, he notes that Helena was accomplished both musically and in the liberal arts.81 The Vita also states that Helena ruled Britain as regent before Constantine’s accession to the throne. Although it is unlikely to have been a source for Jocelin’s text due to its limited circulation and potentially later date, Laȝamon’s Brut carries the similar claim that ‘Elene wæs þisses londes queen’ and indicates that Helena’s British queenship was an idea in contemporary circulation.82 Indeed, Geoffrey of Monmouth comments that Cole did ‘all in his power to give Helen the kind of training which would enable her to rule the country more efficiently after his death’.83 Jocelin also seems to draw upon Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum for his statement that Helena built the city walls of London and Colchester.84 Jocelin’s use of this source is, however, limited. This is not surprising: Henry deals with Helena and Constantine very briefly, their deeds being covered in just two chapters.85 The most surprising use of a twelfth-century source is Jocelin’s unacknowledged quotation from William of Malmesbury’s Gesta regum Anglorum. The episode quoted concerns the divinely inspired restoration of Constantinople and is concealed under an attribution to Aldhelm, following the reference made to him by William in the Gesta. Although the two opening sentences of the chapters in each text are worded differently, both note that Constantinople was previously called Byzantium and refer to the passage in Aldhelm’s De virginitate. After this, however, the two texts become strikingly similar:

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The claim concerning Helena’s accomplishments is also present in Gervase of Tilbury’s work. Vita Helenae, ll. 59–62, 83–5, pp. 154, 155; Historia regum Britanniae, V.§78, pp. 96, 97; Gervase of Canterbury, ‘Gesta regum’, in The Historical Works of Gervase of Canterbury, Vol. II: The Minor Works Comprising the Gesta Regum with its Continuation, the Actus Pontificum, and the Mappa Mundi by Gervase the Monk of Canterbury Edited from the MS C.C.C. 438, ed. W. Stubbs, RS 73 (London, 1880), c. lxxxviii, p. 15; Gervase of Tilbury, Otia imperialia, II.xvii, pp. 414, 415. Internal evidence for the dating of Laȝamon’s Brut suggests a date after Henry II’s death in 1189 and possibly after the death of his queen, Eleanor, in 1204. However, the end-date for composition of the text may be as late as 1236. Vita Helenae, ll.  165–71, p. 157; Laȝamon, Laȝamon Brut or Hystoria Brutonum, ed. and trans. W. R. J. Barron and S. C. Weinberg (Harlow, 1995), l. 5513, pp. ix, 284. Thorpe’s translation of Geoffrey’s text at this point is preferable to that the translation found in the Reeve and Wright edition. Historia regum Britanniae, V.§78, p. 97; Geoffrey of Monmouth, Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of the Kings of Britain, trans. L. Thorpe (Harmondsworth, 1966), p. 132. Vita Helenae, ll. 171–4, p. 157; Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, I.xxxviii, pp. 62–3. Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, I.xxxvii–xxxviii, pp. 59–63.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness William: Constantinopolis primum Bizantium dicta; formam antiqui uocabuli preferunt imperatorii nummi bizanti uocati. Hanc diuinitus mutasse nomen sanctus Aldelmus auctor est in libro de virginitate huiusmodi sententia. Constantino, in eadem urbe soporato, uisa est astitisse uetula rugis anilibus arata frontem; mox imperiali clamide amicta in iuuenculam refloruisse, uiridisque formae decore Constantini pellexisse oculum, ut non abstineret quin porrigeret ei osculum. Tum Helena matrem, quae adesset, dixisse: ‘Haec tua semper erit, nec umquam morietur, nisi in fine seculi.’ Huius somnii solutionem Augustus extruso sopore ieiuniis et elemosinis extrahebat e caelo. Et ecce, post octo dies iterum soporatus, uisus est uidere Siluestrum papam, paulo ante defunctum, qui dulci luminum risu discipulum perstringens ‘Consueta’ inquit ‘egisti prudentia, ut quod intellectum effugeret hominis, a Deo expectares soluendum nodum enigmatis. Haec igitur quam uidisti anicula est ciuitas ista, aeui situ decrepita cuius iam uetustate quassa menia et uicinam ruinam minantia reparatorem desiderant. Sed tu eam muris reformans et opibus uocabulo quoque insignies tuo, et regnabit in ea perpetuo imperatoria progenies. Non tamen tuo arbitratu fundamenta iacies, sed ascenso sonipede, cui quondam rudis Christicola insidens apostolorum Romae circuisti aecclesias, laxatis habenis quo uolet eundi promptum illi cedes arbitrium; habebisque in manu hastam regiam, cuius cuspide in terram tracta muri scribentur uestigia. Consules ergo in terra cuspidis magisterium, quo ordine disponi debeant fundamenta menium.’ Paruit Augustus uisioni precluae, et ciuitatem aequam Romae constituit lege, professus non debere imperatorem Romae principari, ubi a Christo coronati apostoli principabantur.86 Jocelin: In diebus illis edificauit sibi Bisancium ciuitatem maritimam et de suo nomine Constantinopolim nunccupauit eam. Hec autem ciuitas qualiter reparata fuit colligimus in libro de uirginitate a sancto Adelmo conposito, sensum pocius quam uerba tenentes, sicut ipse in Grecis ystoriis inuenit. Constantinus in eadem urbe soporatus uidit uetulam in fronte et facie rugis anilibus aratam assistere subitoque casu clamide circumamictam imperiali in iuuenculam refloruisse. Cuius uernantis forme decor sic imperatoris in se illexit et animum et occulum ut non abstineret quin ei osculum porrigeret. Mater eciam eius Helena ut sibi uidebatur affuit, que talia sibi uerba protulit. ‘Hec,’ inquiens, ‘tua semper erit nec umquam morietur nisi cum seculi finis aduenerit.’ Augustus extruso sopore matri sancte narrat uisionem sicque utrique ieiuniis et orationibus ac elemosinis extrahere laborant e celo sompnii solucionem. Expletis .viii. diebus iterum soporatus87 Siluestrum papam paulo ante defunctum, patrem88 scilicet spiritualem suum, in uisu noctis conspexit, qui dulci risu luminum quasi filium et discipulum perstringens ait, ‘Conuenienter consueta egisti prudencia ut quod intellectum effugeret humanum expectans et expectares cum optima

86 87 88

William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum Anglorum, IV.cccliv-ccclv.1, pp. 622–4. The Gotha manuscript adds ‘soporatus’ here. Gotha, MS Memb. I 81 fol. 207vb. The reading of ‘patrem’ in the Gotha mansucript is to be preferred to Harbus’s reading of ‘priorem’. Ibid.

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Compiling Female Sanctity matre tua soluendum a deo89 enigmatis nodum. Hec igitur anicula est ciuitas ista [aevi]90 situ decrepita cuius iam vetustatem91 quassa menia monstrant et uicinam ruinam minancia reperatorem desiderant. Tu uero muris eam reformabis et opibus tuoque uocabulo reparatam insignies et in ea92 perpetuo regnabit imperatoria progenies. Non tamen tuo arbitratu eius fundamenta iacies sed ascenso sonipede cui quondam rudis Christicola insidens Rome uisitare solebas ecclesias apostolorum laxatisque habenis quo uolet eundi promptum illi concedes arbitrium. Habebis hastam regiam in manu tua cuius cuspide in terram tracta murorum scribentur uestigia. Consules ergo in terra sulcandis cuspidis lunare magisterium quo ordine disponi debeant fundamenta menium.’ Visionem hanc imperator clarissimus et clementiss imus matri sue retulit eandemque illa se uidisse respondens Deum glorificauit. Augustus igitur uisioni preclue paruit et ciuitatem emulam equalem Rome immo precellentem constituit. Profitebatur quasi lege93 sanctiendo non debere terrenum imperatorem Rome principari ubi apostoli principantur a Christo coronati.94

Yet, although the Vita is clearly dependent upon William’s text at this point, there is also evidence that Jocelin adapted the passage for the purposes of his own narrative. He carefully assigns Helena a more active role in the episode. In contrast to his exemplar, where Helena appears in Constantine’s dream, the Vita states that they fasted and prayed for its revelation together – the solo endeavour of William’s text has been turned into a joint enterprise. Jocelin also extends the list of churches built by Constantine found in William’s text, which immediately follows the above passage in the Vita. In line with information in the Historia tripartita and what may have been his own knowledge, Jocelin adds the Hagia Sophia and the church honouring Michael the Archangel to the church dedicated to the Apostles and the Eirene noted by the Gesta regum.95 89 90

91 92 93 94 95

Corrected from the reading of ‘adeo’ in the Harbus edition and the Gotha manuscript. Ibid. Both Harbus’s edition and the Gotha manuscript read ‘cui’ but, in comparison with William’s passage, it seems plausible that this represents a misreading of ‘aevi’ at some point in the transmission of Jocelin’s text. The reading of ‘vetustatem’ in the Gotha mansucript is to be preferred to Harbus’s reading of ‘venustatem’. Gotha, MS Memb. I 81 fol. 207vb. The reading of ‘in ea’ in the Gotha mansucript is to be preferred to Harbus’s reading of ‘mea’. Ibid. The reading of ‘lege’ in the Gotha mansucript is to be preferred to Harbus’s reading of ‘legem’. Ibid. Vita Helenae, ll. 440–70, pp. 164–5. Several sources refer to the churches founded by Constantine in Constantinople. Both William of Malmesbury and Altmann mention the Eirene and the church dedicated to the Holy Apostles. In the Historia tripartita, Socrates Scholasticus notes the Eirene and the church dedicated to the Apostles, while Sozomen states that there was a church associated with Michael. However, none of these sources mentions the Hagia Sophia. Vita Helenae, ll. 476–83, p. 165; William of Malmesbury,

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness Not only does the Vita retain much of William’s phrasing, but it also explicitly ascribes the narrative to a particular source. This approach contrasts with Jocelin’s general use of his source material, where narratives are largely rewritten and their original authors go unmentioned. The dependence on the Gesta regum at this point is not easy to explain. Although Jocelin seems to have recognized the account of Constantine’s dream found in Aldhelm’s De virginitate as integral to the Vita, he does not appear to have had direct access to Aldhelm’s text. Instead, he makes indirect reference to it through William’s work, unaware that the passage was not an extract but a reworking of Aldhelm’s account. Certainly, if Jocelin had been unable to access a copy of the De virginitate, citing Aldhelm via William may have been perceived as the next best thing. William’s status as a member of Aldhelm’s former monastic community at Malmesbury meant that he not only held Aldhelm in particular regard but also had access to a library full of Aldhelm’s works.96 As Rodney Thomson notes, William himself used a similar technique when unable to draw on original material: in the Historia novella, he cites Livy at second-hand through Orosius and, in the Gesta pontificum, he quotes from a rare play by Plautus via Jerome.97 Jocelin’s use of William’s text here may also have been a tacit admission that, grammatically and stylistically, this episode could be little improved. Jocelin certainly appears to have respected William as a source. On one occasion he seems to privilege the comment in the Gesta regum Anglorum that Constantine gathered troops from Britain to fight Maxentius over the Historia tripartita’s statement that he gathered troops from both Britain and Gaul – although it is possible that the emphasis of William’s statement was more suited to the underlying pro-British agenda of Jocelin’s Vita.98 The Vita’s citation of Aldhelm also provides important evidence for Jocelin’s attitude to indirect or fictional sources. It is notable that Jocelin does not merely refer to Aldhelm at this point, he unnecessarily tells us that Aldhelm’s sources were the ‘Greek histories’, usually a reference to the authors abridged in the Historia tripartita.99 Yet this is information absent from both William’s Gesta and the De virginitate, where Aldhelm explicitly references only Eusebius and Rufinus by name.100 Instead it suggests that Jocelin was attempting to further validate his citation with plausible assertion. The over-­ compensating nature of this reference indicates that other statements of this

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Gesta regum Anglorum, IV.ccclv.1, pp. 624, 625; Altmann’s Vita, §§50–1, p. 595E–F; Historia tripartita, II.xviii.5, xix.1–2, pp. 113, 117. Thomson, William of Malmesbury, p. 44. Thomson also provides further examples. Ibid., p. 16. Vita Helenae, ll. 200–2, p. 158; William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum Anglorum, I.i.2, pp. 18, 19; Historia tripartita, I.vi.3, p. 20. ‘Grecis ystoriis’. Vita Helenae, l. 443, p. 164, 164 n.19. Aldhelm, ‘De virginitate’, ed. Ehwald, cc. xxv, xxvii, xxxi, xxxii, pp. 257, 262, 263, 269, 273; Aldhelm, ‘De virginitate’, trans. Lapidge and Herren, pp. 82, 86, 90.

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Compiling Female Sanctity type, such as Jocelin’s reference to an alleged English Life of Helena, may also be suspect. As part of a more general note about his sources in the prologue, Jocelin tells us that a ‘libellus’ recording Helena’s life had been translated into English from a British text.101 Since Helena had a strong presence in the Welsh cultural landscape, this is not an implausible claim. As in the Vita, Helena’s brief appearance in tenth-century Welsh genealogies asserted both her British origin and her discovery of the cross. However, by the late twelfth century, the Welsh Helena legend had developed on a very different tangent. The saint became associated with the British princess, Elen Luyddawg, whose beauty compelled Emperor Maxen to leave Rome for Britain according to the ‘Breudwyt Maxen Wledic’ (‘The Dream of Maxen Wledic’).102 Indeed, since the major events in Jocelin’s Vita occur in either Rome or Jerusalem and were more than adequately described by Jocelin’s Latin sources, it is unclear what further important information this Anglo-British source could have provided. In addition, we have no evidence that Jocelin used any of the other surviving vernacular sources.103 The Old English adaptation of the Inventio crucis narrative and Cynewulf’s ‘Elene’ remain unreferenced by Jocelin, as does Aelfric’s brief Old English homily on the discovery of the cross.104 Analysis of the text also reveals no direct dependence on either the tenth-century Old English version of Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica or, indeed, Bede’s original work, which, like his similarly unused homily on the invention of the cross,

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Vita Helenae, ll. 35–7, p. 153. The ‘Breudwyt Maxen Wledic’ is believed to have been composed in the second half of the twelfth century. However, in his recent edition of the text, Brynley Roberts suggests that the years 1215–17 would provide an appropriate context. Harbus, Helena of Britain, pp. 52–3, 58; Breudwyt Maxen Wledic, ed. B. F. Roberts, Medieval and Modern Welsh Series 11 (Dublin, 2005), pp. xlix, lxxxv, 1–11; ‘The Dream of Macsen Wledig’, in The Mabinogion, trans. G. Jones and T. Jones (London, 1975), pp. 79–88; Troiedd Ynys Prydein, The Welsh Triads, ed. and trans. R. Bromwich (Cardiff, 1978), p. 341. Harbus claims that a musically annotated poem found in a Bodleian Library manuscript records healing miracles similar to those recounted by Jocelin. However, although someone has added the later title ‘Translacio sancte Elene’, this poem is actually a Middle English translation of a Latin ‘Compassio Marie’ and is unrelated to Jocelin’s text. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Tanner 169*, pp. 175–6; Harbus, Helena of Britain, p. 92, 92 n.7; ‘Eine Mittelenglische Compassio Mariae’, ed. A. Napier, Archiv fuer das Studium der Neueren Sprachen (1892), 181–9. Cynewulf, Cynewulf’s Elene, ed. P. O. E. Gradon, Methuen’s Old English Library (London, 1958); Cynewulf, ‘Elene’, in Poetry; An Anthology of Old English Poems in Prose Translation with Introduction and Headnotes, trans. S. A. J. Bradley (London, 1982), pp. 165–97; The Old English Finding of the True Cross, ed. and trans. M. Bodden (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 60–103; Aelfric, ‘XVIII: Inuentio sanctae Crucis’, in Aelfric’s Catholic Homilies: The Second Series, ed. M. Godden, EETS SS 5 (London, 1979), pp. 174–6.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness only briefly mentions Helena.105 Since these works contain little information that could not be found in late antique or early medieval continental sources, there is insufficient evidence to label Jocelin with a particular bias against vernacular material – although this remains a possibility. Left with a text that both ignores the Welsh Elen Luyddawg tradition and has no record of using vernacular English sources, Jocelin’s assertion of an Anglo-British source seems somewhat suspect. His claim draws a distinct parallel with Geoffrey of Monmouth’s generally discredited statement that the Historia regum Britanniae represented the translation of a much older Welsh source. It is certainly significant that Geoffrey’s claim conceals the complex nature of his own work, which, like Jocelin’s, combined a wide range of sources.106 David Howlett even argues that Geoffrey’s claims were mimicked by later authors as part of a knowing game of literary irony.107 Whatever truth there is in this, it is clear that the alleged use of a British text held a certain amount of authenticating kudos during this period. Jocelin’s detailed reference to his Anglo-British source is matched only by the misleading citation of Aldhelm and stands in contrast to the silence concerning the significant contribution of other well-respected Latin texts and authors. Somewhat paradoxically, it seems that in terms of the Vita’s intended readership the value placed on this apparently fictional source was higher than the late Antique and early medieval Latin works upon which much of the text was actually based.108 Despite the suspicions surrounding the Vita’s alleged Anglo-British source, it is clear that Jocelin did have access to a variety of unidentified or now lost sources. He cites an unspecified ‘ecclesiastical history’ for his claim that Helena supplied Jerusalem with Egyptian corn during a famine – a common 105

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Bede’s brief coverage of the reign of Constantine reflects the unease felt by early medieval writers concerning the emperor’s association with Arianism. With reference to Helena, the homily is the more informative of the two, but prioritizes Constantine’s conversion by Silvester over a much-abbreviated account of the Inventio crucis narrative. Bede, Ecclesiastical History, I.viii, V.xvi, pp. 36, 37, 508, 509; Old English Ecclesiastical History, ed. and trans. Miller, I.viii, pp. 42, 43; Bede, ‘Homilia XCIII: De inventione sanctae crucis’, in Venerabilis Bedae Anglo-Saxonis presbyteri opera omnia, PL 94, 494D-5D; Lieu, ‘From History to Legend’, pp. 141–2. Harbus notes that if the source was genuine it could have been the same text as that which lies behind Geoffrey of Monmouth’s work and, as suggested by Diana Greenway, Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia. Historia regum Britanniae, prol. §2, pp. 4, 5; Geoffrey of Monmouth, The Historia regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth I: Bern, Burgerbibliothek, MS. 568, ed. N. Wright (Cambridge, 1996), pp. xvii, xviii; Harbus, Helena of Britain, p. 101; Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, pp. civ–cv, 62 n.195. D. R. Howlett, ‘The Literary Context of Geoffrey of Monmouth: An Essay on the Fabrication of Sources’, Arthuriana 5 (1995), 25–69. See also Christopher Baswell’s comments on how Geoffrey of Monmouth’s presentation of his British source inverts the contemporary hierarchy of Latin and vernaculars. C. Baswell, ‘Latinitas’, The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature, ed. D. Wallace (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 132–3.

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Compiling Female Sanctity case of mistaken identity according to Peter Comestor’s Historia scholastica.109 The origin of the episode concerning Helena’s cancellation of a Jewish debt also remains unknown. In this narrative, a Christian is imprisoned for failing to repay his debt to a Jewish creditor. The Christian strikes a deal with the Jew which allows him to search freely for money to pay the debt on the condition that, should he fail, his right foot will be amputated. The Christian fails in his attempt to raise the money and the Jew takes him to court to extract his ‘payment’. By chance, Helena is in Constantinople and attends the hearing. She tells the Jew, in a storyline strongly reminiscent of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, that he may have his payment, but that if he dares to spill any Christian blood he will forfeit his own life. She then passes laws prohibiting Jews from imprisoning Christians and preventing Christians from being tried by non-Christians.110 The apparent source for Shakespeare’s play was the story told on day four of Ser Giovanni’s late fourteenth century Il Pecorone which is, of course, much too late to be a source for the Vita.111 Although it remains possible that Jocelin is the originator of the tale, the common features of the three versions – the female protagonist outwitting the Jew in a courtroom setting – suggest that this narrative is part of a much older story-telling tradition, one that was apparently only fleetingly associated with Helena. Jocelin certainly tries to work it into the narrative: appended to the end of this passage is the claim that Constantine renamed a city in Bithynia Helenopolis in celebration of her actions. Although references to ‘Helenopolis’ occur in a

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‘ecclesiastica ystoria’. As Peter Comestor states, the Helena associated with this incident was not Helena, mother of Constantine, but Helena, queen of the ‘Abigenorum’. After noting this event, Jocelin redirects our attention to Helena’s restoration of Jerusalem and her discovery of the cross, which may suggest that he had his own doubts about this story. Comestor also notes the tradition that the hay in which Jesus had lain as an infant was brought to Rome by Helena. This story, recorded in almost exactly the same words, can be found in the Gotha manuscript of Jocelin’s text. The absence of this narrative from the Cambridge manuscript as well as the quotation style of the statement suggests that this is a later addition to the Vita. Certainly, the evidence given above does not indicate that the Historia scholastica was among Jocelin’s direct sources. Vita Helenae, ll. 744–51, pp. 173, 176 n.31; Gotha, MS Memb. I 81 fol. 211va–b; Peter Comestor, ‘Historia scholastica’, in Magistri Petri Comestoris Historia scholastica, sermones olim sub nomine Petri Blesensis editi, PL 198, ‘Evangelica’, c. v, col. 1539D, ‘Actuum apostolorum’, c. lxxx, col. 1698B–C. Vita Helenae, ll. 485–514, pp. 165–7. Giovanni Fiorentino, ‘Giornata IV: Novella 1’, in Ser Giovanni, Il Pecorone: In appendice i ‘sonetti di donne antiche innamorate’ del ms. II, II, 40 della Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, ed. E. Esposito, Classici Italiani Minori 1 (Ravenna, 1974), pp. 87–118 (ll. 364–581, pp. 102–11); Giovanni Fiorentino, ‘Day IV Novel I’, in The Pecorone of Ser Giovanni, trans. W. G. Waters (London, 1897), pp. 44–60 (pp. 51–7); A. Skottowe, ‘The Major Sources (1824)’, in The Merchant of Venice, ed. W. Baker and B. Vickers, Shakespeare: The Critical Tradition (London, 2005), p. 35.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness variety of earlier sources, these texts do not link the renaming of the city to any particular event.112 While any source analysis of this kind will, by its very nature, focus upon the author’s use of written material, some attempt must also be made to account for the possible presence of oral sources and the inclusion of what must have been, to an extent, common knowledge. For example, Jocelin’s narrative concerning church-building, unsurprisingly, attributes much of the restoration and foundation of churches in the Holy Land to Helena. She is said to have restored the cities of Jerusalem, Nazareth and Bethlehem, and to have built the Temple of the Lord and the churches at Golgotha, the Lord’s tomb, Mount Olivet and in the Valley of Josaphat.113 Few sources credited Helena with such an active building role and those that did made much more modest claims.114 Either Jocelin had another more comprehensive source at hand – written or oral – or he inserted additional, plausible details to fill out the narrative. Similarly, Jocelin’s statement that Constantius was rumoured to be Christian may stem from late antique sources, contemporary sources or may have represented Jocelin’s own ideas on the matter.115 The Historia tripartita devoted a long passage to the pro-Christian stance of Constantius, while Rufinus’s translation of the Ecclesiastical History notes that during the Diocletian persecutions, he had spared both Christians and Christian buildings.116 Constantius’s Christian leanings also represented an idea in contemporary circulation. As Gervase of Tilbury noted in his Otia imperialia, written c.1215,

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115 116

Although parts of the narrative appear in a number of sources, the exact origin of Jocelin’s comments about the restoration and renaming of ‘Helienopolis’ remain unclear. I have yet to find a source that implies, as Jocelin does, that Helena brought the body of Lucian the martyr to the city. Vita Helenae, ll. 514–18, p. 167; Historia tripartita, II.xviii.7, p. 114; Altmann’s Vita, §59, p. 598A–B; Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, I.xxxviii, pp. 62, 63; Ralph de Diceto, ‘Abbreviationes chronicorum’, in Radulfi de Diceto decani Lundoniensis opera historica, The Historical Works of Master Ralph de Diceto, Dean of London, Vol. I, ed. W. Stubbs, RS 68 (London, 1876), p. 75. For further information on the association of Helena and Lucian see Drijvers, Helena Augusta, pp. 10–12. Vita Helenae, ll. 726–36, pp. 172–3. Historia tripartita, XII.iv.30, p. 668; Gervase of Tilbury, Otia imperialia, Appendix II §121, pp. 898, 899; Theoderich, ‘Theodericus’, in Peregrinationes tres: Saewulf, John of Würzburg, Theodericus, ed. R. B. C. Huygens, CCCM 139 (Turnhout, 1994), cc. v, vi, x, xvi, xxii, pp. 147, 150, 153, 163, 169; Theoderich, Theoderich, Guide to the Holy Land, trans. A. Stewart and R. G. Musto, 2nd edn (New York, 1986), pp. 8, 12, 17, 28, 29, 37. Vita Helenae, ll. 144–7, p. 156. Similarly, Lactantius states that although Constantius was complicit in Diocletian’s persecutions, he targeted Christian buildings rather than Christian consciences. Historia tripartita, I.vii.1–5, pp. 21–2; Rufinus, Historia ecclesiastica, VIII.xiii.12–13, p. 777; Lactantius, De mortibus persecutorum, c. xv.7, pp. 22, 23.

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Compiling Female Sanctity ‘Constantius showed much kindness towards his fellow human beings, while towards God he showed a truly religious spirit.’117 Yet it is clear that there was still some fluidity in traditions associated with the Helena legend. This is particularly evident in the case of chronological discrepancies between the sources. While Geoffrey of Monmouth states that King Cole died eight days after Constantius’s arrival, Jocelin extends this to within one month – as similarly claimed by Laȝamon.118 Again, while Geoffrey states that Constantius lived in Britain for eleven years, Ralph de Diceto notes that he died after being in the country for thirteen years, and Jocelin lengthens this to fifteen.119 Gervase of Tilbury’s mention of another, previously unattested, miracle that occurred during Helena’s return journey from Jerusalem via Cyprus provides further evidence that there were a number of variant traditions associated with the saint circulating among Jocelin’s contemporaries.120 Although Jocelin’s Vita may have been intended to create a comprehensive account of the legend, as with most popular stories, the author had neither full access to nor control over Helena’s evolving legend.

Conclusion The above analysis of Jocelin’s Vita Helenae reveals a text of some complexity. Instead of selecting a single work as the basic frame for the text as had been done for the Vita Patricii, the Vita Helenae was composed using a patchwork of various source materials that were combined into a homogenous whole. The complex layering of traditions must have been the product of many months, if not years, of work. The large range of sources used by Jocelin also provides insights into his approach to the text. He seems to have been both a vigorous and widely-read researcher, who had at his disposal an extensive library or libraries. Admittedly, if Jocelin had direct access to Altmann’s Vita, the consistent referencing of source material in this earlier text may have acted as a useful supplementary aid to Jocelin’s research.121 However, it did

117 118

119 120 121

Gervase of Tilbury, Otia imperialia, II.xvi, pp. 380, 381. Laȝamon states that ‘forty days had not fully passed’ before Coel became ill and died. Historia regum Britanniae, V.§78, pp. 96, 97; Vita Helenae, ll. 112–13, p. 155; Laȝamon, Brut, ll. 5490–502, pp. 282, 283. Historia regum Britanniae, V.§78, pp. 96, 97; Ralph de Diceto, ‘Abbreviationes chronicorum’, p. 73; Vita Helenae, ll. 165–7, p. 157. Gervase of Tilbury, Otia imperialia, III.xlvii, pp. 646, 647. Altmann cites the Historia tripartita in general and specifically the entries of Socrates and Sozomen. He also cites Eusebius and the Historia ecclesiastica, probably here referring to Rufinus’s text. Less numerous references are made to the Gesta pontificum Romanorum (i.e. the Liber pontificalis), the Gesta beati Silvestri (i.e. the Vita Silvestri), Bede, Ambrose and Orosius. Altmann’s Vita, §§19, 24, 25, 28, 45, 56, 59, pp. 586D, 587F, 588A, 588E, 593C, 593D, 593E, 597A, 598A.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness not substantially lessen Jocelin’s task in either locating the cited works or his evaluation and digestion of the information found. The Vita Helena may well represent Jocelin’s latest extant work and, if so, it offers a fitting testament to the hagiographer’s skills as a compiler and author following what must have been a lifetime of writing. Table 5. The Sources for the Vita S. Helenae The asterisk (*) indicates uncertainty over Jocelin’s direct use of this source. Early Sources Acta Cyriaci* Altmann, Vita Helenae* Ambrose, De obitu Theodosii Cassiodorus, Historia tripartita Constitutum Constantini* Flodoard of Reims, Historia Remensis ecclesiae Inventio crucis Lactantius, De mortibus persecutorum Liber pontificalis Orosius, Historia adversus paganos* Rufinus, Historia ecclesiastica Vita Silvestri

Later Sources Aelred of Rievaulx, De genealogia regum Angliae Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia regum Britanniae Gervase of Canterbury, Gesta regum* Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum Laȝamon, Brut* William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum Anglorum

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CHAPTER THREE

Restoring the Text: Jocelin’s Approach to the Vita S. Kentegerni

Of the four different vitae of Kentigern that seem to have been in circulation during the twelfth century, Jocelin’s version is the only one to survive intact today. The two vitae that constituted Jocelin’s main source material have vanished, while a third text composed in the mid-twelfth century survives only in fragmentary form. The loss of these earlier texts has led many scholars to use Jocelin’s Vita as an important but flawed source for the historical Kentigern and early Scottish religious history. However, few studies have analysed the Vita on its own terms as a literary and historical document of the late twelfth century. This chapter will examine the construction of the Vita as part of the wider investigation into Jocelin’s approach to his source material found in the first half of this study. Since the underlying sources of Jocelin’s work are the subject of significant historical debate, our analysis will begin with an overview of the main arguments concerning Jocelin’s source material, before turning to a detailed examination of the compositional framework of the text.

Previous scholarship The main division in Kentigern scholarship revolves around the identification of the two sources cited by Jocelin in the prologue to the Vita Kentegerni. Jocelin describes the first of these works as a vita in use at Glasgow Cathedral which was not only ‘discoloured by uncultivated language and darkened by slovenly style’ but which also contained ‘something contrary to sound doctrine and to the Catholic faith’.1 His other source is said to be a ‘codiculum’ that was written in ‘stilo Scottico’ (henceforth referred to as the Scottic Life) and ‘filled from end to end with solecisms’. The phrase ‘stilo Scottico’ seems best translated as ‘in the Gaelic style’ and since Jocelin notes that the text is full of grammatical errors, we can assume this to mean in the ‘Gaelic style of Latin’ rather than referring to a vernacular work.2 Scholarship is united in dating 1 2

‘decolorat inculta oratio, obnubilat stilus incompositus’. Vita Kentegerni, prol., pp. 30, 160. This name adapts Kenneth Jackson’s use of the word ‘Scottic’ to describe this text. Vita Kentegerni, prol., pp. 30, 160; Jackson, ‘Sources’, p. 277.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness the composition of this source to the context of strong Gaelic influence over the kingdom of Strathclyde from the tenth to the early twelfth centuries.3 With no other early extended Kentigern narrative remaining today, it has been traditionally assumed that the first of Jocelin’s two sources survives as the anonymous and fragmentary vita written at the request of Bishop Herbert of Glasgow between 1147 and 1164.4 This text, which will henceforth be referred to using Kenneth Jackson’s term, the Herbertian Life, survives in a single manuscript and retains only the prologue and the first eight chapters.5 It has been suggested that this may have been the intended length of the original work. However, the presence of a statement referring to a later episode which is absent from the remaining text indicates that the Herbertian Life as we have it is incomplete.6 Significantly, even a limited comparison between the surviving material and Jocelin’s text signals that, as both John MacQueen and Alan MacQuarrie concluded, the two are not directly related.7 Although MacQuarrie provides a brief overview of the differences between the two texts in his 1986 article and 1994 chapter, since our discussion works towards a slightly different purpose and also because his arguments have not been fully accepted, it is worth examining them in detail again here. The Herbertian Life includes a variety of details that are not present in Jocelin’s Vita, the most striking of which is the absence of the rape narrative and its subplots. The Herbertian Life tells us that Taneu’s father, King Leudonus, forced her to choose between marriage to her rich suitor, Ewen, or life with a local swineherd. After Taneu chooses the latter, Ewen disguises himself as a woman and leads Taneu into the forest where he rapes her. Blame for the subsequent pregnancy falls upon the swineherd who, during his flight, throws a javelin at King Leudonus, killing him. The remaining final passages of the Herbertian Life revisit the rape narrative as St Servanus provides a divine justification for Taneu’s ordeal. The author also states that he will 3

4

5 6 7

A. MacQuarrie, ‘The Career of Saint Kentigern of Glasgow: Vitae, Lectiones and Glimpses of Fact’, Innes Review 37 (1986), 21; MacQuarrie, Saints of Scotland, p. 139; Jackson, ‘Sources’, pp. 277, 332. A. A. M. Duncan suggests that the author of the Herbertian Life was William, who wrote a contemporary poem describing Kentigern’s role in the defeat of Somerled, lord of Argyll, by Bishop Herbert and his men. As part of this argument, Duncan assigns the dates 1153x1164 to the text. In contrast, David Howlett suggests Simeon, archdeacon of Teviotdale, as the author of both this text and the Vita S. Servani. Jackson, ‘Sources’, p. 274; Duncan, ‘St Kentigern’, p. 11; D. Howlett, Caledonian Craftsmanship: The Scottish Latin Tradition (Dublin, 2000), pp. 86–97, 191. British Library, Cotton Titus A XIX, fols. 76–80v. Herbertian Life, c. iii, pp. 128, 248. The editors of the Scotichronicon also noted that Jocelin’s Vita was ‘substantially independent’ of the Herbertian Life. J. MacQueen, ‘Yvain, Ewen and Owein ap Urien’, TDGAS 33 (1956), 111–15; J. MacQueen, ‘A Reply to Professor Jackson’, TDGAS 36 (1959), 180–2; MacQuarrie, ‘Career of Saint Kentigern’, pp. 3–24; MacQuarrie, Saints of Scotland, pp. 117–44; Walter Bower, Scotichronicon II, 226.

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Restoring the Text describe the encounter between Kentigern and his father, Ewen, later in the text (apparently in the part no longer extant).8 None of this occurs in Jocelin’s Vita, which notes only that Taneu was found to be with child but had no recollection of the conception. Although Jocelin provides some explanations for this, primarily to refute the local belief in Kentigern’s virgin birth, he does not mention the version of events outlined by the Herbertian Life and even states that to speculate over the identity of Kentigern’s father would be ‘absurd’.9 Despite the presence of angels and shepherds at Kentigern’s birth in both texts, unlike the Herbertian Life, Jocelin does not explicitly note any parallel with the nativity scene in Bethlehem – presumably to prevent any further rumours of the saint’s immaculate conception.10 The two vitae also provide slightly different accounts of Taneu’s punishment. The Herbertian Life states that the contemporary penalty for fornication was to be stoned to death. However, since the executioners feared to throw stones at the king’s daughter, Taneu was instead placed in a chariot and cast down from the top of a mountain. Taneu emerges unscathed from this ordeal and the text tells us that the path of her miraculous descent is marked to this day by a fountain and wheel tracks in the flint.11 In contrast, Jocelin’s narrative appears rather abbreviated. He tells us that the contemporary penalty for fornication was to be cast down from a mountain – here without a chariot – and omits any landscape features said to commemorate this event.12 In general, the Herbertian Life provides a more detailed version of the Kentigern story. While the Herbertian Life identifies Taneu’s father as Leudonus, king of Leudonia, and Ewen, son of Erwegende, Jocelin leaves Taneu’s father anonymous and her suitor unmentioned.13 The Herbertian Life also provides more local detail. According to the Herbertian Life, Taneu was first cast from the top of Kepduf (now Kilduff Hill in East Lothian) and then taken to the shore at Aberlessic before being cast adrift off the Isle of May. The name Aberlessic, meaning ‘Mouth of Stench’, is said to refer to the abundance of fish once there (so many that the fishermen had to leave them to rot on the shore) but whose shoals followed Taneu into exile.14 In contrast, Jocelin provides only two geographical details in the corresponding section of his Vita. As in

8 9 10 11 12 13 14

Herbertian Life, cc. i-ii, vii, viii, pp. 125–7, 130–1, 133, 245–7, 249, 251–2. Vita Kentegerni, c. i, pp. 34–5, 163–4 (pp. 35, 163). Herbertian Life, c. viii, pp. 132–3, 251. Ibid., cc. iii-v, pp. 128–9, 247–8. Vita Kentegerni, cc. ii, iii, p. 36, 38–9, 164, 166–7. Herbertian Life, c. i, pp. 125, 245. As Emrys Bowen states, ‘it is clear that behind the Herbertian author is a source with a detailed knowledge of Lothian – someone who knew the area well, together with all its geography and local religious legends’. Herbertian Life, cc. iv, vi, vii, pp. 128, 130, 131, 248, 249, 250; W. J. Watson, History of the Celtic Place-names of Scotland (Reprint of 1926 edn, Shannon, 1973), pp. 142, 460–1; Bowen, Saints, Seaways and Settlements, p. 85.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness the Herbertian Life, Jocelin states that Taneu’s boat finally washed ashore near Servanus’s religious establishment at Culross.15 However, in contrast to the Herbertian Life, Jocelin states that Taneu was first cast down from the top of Dunpelder (now Trapain Law in East Lothian). This site is mentioned in the Herbertian Life but as a location a mile north of the memorial that marks the place where King Leudonus was killed.16 In keeping with a general interest in the local landscape and folklore, the Herbertian Life is also notably more sympathetic to the inhabitants of the area. Leudonus is only half pagan, the swineherd has been converted by St Servanus, and the bystanders watching Taneu’s punishments become increasingly sympathetic to her cause.17 Jocelin, however, characterizes these people as almost irredeemably pagan. The king is described as belonging to ‘a most pagan sect’ and becomes enraged by the mere mention of Christ’s name.18 Kentigern’s conception is partly explained by the suggestion that Taneu fell victim to ‘the wiles of soothsayers’, a statement that subtly emphasizes the pagan context of the narrative.19 The bystanders, at first divided over Taneu’s innocence after she survives the descent from the mountain, mock both her and her Christian beliefs when she is cast adrift.20 Even the twelfth-century inhabitants of Kentigern’s diocese are portrayed as standing outside the orthodox Christian community through their claims of Kentigern’s virgin birth.21 Although it could be argued that these differences represent the distinct mindset of each author, this fails to explain why the two texts do not share more in common. Many of the local details present in the Herbertian Life could have been incorporated relatively easily into Jocelin’s text without endangering his narrative with the taint of unorthodoxy. Indeed, taken with the other evidence cited, the most plausible conclusion must be that the two texts are independent of each other. Apart from the fact of its existence, there is little to suggest that Jocelin had access to the Herbertian Life. Significantly, it does not fit the profile of either of the sources described by Jocelin in the prologue. Although the Herbertian Life is often assumed to be the vita said to be in use at Glasgow Cathedral (henceforth this work will be referred to by MacQueen’s term, the Glasgow Cathedral Life), the Herbertian Life seems to lack this source’s characteristic feature: the inclusion of something contrary to Catholic doctrine at the beginning of the text.22 The traditional view, most fully articulated by Kenneth Jackson, argues 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

Vita Kentegerni, c. iv, pp. 40, 168; Herbertian Life, c. vii, pp. 131, 250. Vita Kentegerni, c. iii, pp. 38, 166; Lives of Ninian and Kentigern, ed. and trans. Forbes, p. 322 n.M; Herbertian Life, c. vii, pp. 131, 249. Herbertian Life, cc. i, v–vi, pp. 125, 126, 129–30, 245–6, 248–9. ‘secta paganissimi’. Vita Kentegerni, c. i, p. 162. ‘sortilegorum prestigiis’. Ibid., c. i, p. 163. Ibid., c. iii, pp. 39, 167. Ibid., c. i, pp. 35, 163. MacQuarrie, ‘Career of Saint Kentigern’, p. 5; MacQueen, ‘Yvain, Ewen and Owein’, p. 114.

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Restoring the Text that Jocelin must have been referring to the rape narrative in the Herbertian Life, since this discredited both Kentigern (by making him a bastard) and Taneu (by making her rape a divine punishment for her presumption in wishing to imitate the Virgin Mary).23 Yet this argument is hard to sustain. Unflattering these statements may be, heretical they are not. Similarly, the more recent attempt by Rex Gardner to identify the unorthodox element thought to be present in the Herbertian Life has also proved to be problematic. Gardner argued that the differences between the Vita and the Herbertian Life reflected Jocelin’s need to distance himself from a theologically unsound text. He asserted that the idea of a virgin birth was so obviously unorthodox it was unlikely to have been countenanced by the cathedral community. Instead, Gardner believed Jocelin’s criticism of something contrary to Catholic doctrine actually referred to the speech given by Servanus in the Herbertian Life that justified Taneu’s rape and, in so doing, seemed to constitute a ‘fornicator’s charter’. His argument that Jocelin’s Vita was written as a direct response to the Herbertian Life rests on three main points. Firstly, the admission of rusticity in the prologue to the Herbertian Life corresponds to Jocelin’s statement about the inelegant style of his source material.24 Secondly, Jocelin’s comment concerning the irrelevance of uncovering ‘who was the sower and how the seed was ploughed in or sowed’ alludes to the circumstances of the sexual assault as described by the Herbertian Life (which Gardner believes to have been the spilling of semen without penetration).25 Thirdly, it is argued that the diatribe against fornication found in the second chapter of Jocelin’s text becomes much more relevant if seen as a correction of Servanus’s speech explaining Taneu’s ordeal.26 There are, however, a number of difficulties with these points. Firstly, admissions of rusticity form a common authorial trope in medieval texts and were usually phrased in a self-consciously elaborate manner in order to disprove the statement.27 To use them to identify source 23

24 25 26

27

Jackson, ‘Sources’, pp. 273–357 (pp. 275, 281, 347, 349); Lives of Ninian and Kentigern, ed. and trans. Forbes, pp. 314 n.C, 318 n.F; Pinkerton’s Lives of the Scottish Saints, Vol. I, ed. W. M. Metcalfe (Paisley, 1889), p. xxxvi. Herbertian Life, prol., pp. 124, 244; Vita Kentegerni, prol., pp. 30, 160. Vita Kentegerni, c. i, pp. 35, 164; Herbertian Life, cc. ii-iii, pp. 127–8, 247. Vita Kentegerni, c. ii, pp. 36–7, 164–6; Herbertian Life, c. viii, pp. 133, 251–2. For ­Gardner’s argument see R. Gardner, ‘“Something contrary to sound doctrine and to Catholic faith”: A new look at the Herbertian fragment of the Life of Kentigern’, Innes Review 49 (1998), 115–26 (pp. 121–4). For example, see the statements made by Sulpicius Severus in the Vita S. Martini and Goscelin of Saint-Bertin in the Vitae SS. Ætheldrethe and Sexburge. Sulpicius Severus, ‘Vita S. Martini’, in Sulpicii Severi libri qui supersunt, ed. C. Halm, CSEL 1 (Vienna, 1866), prol., pp. 109–10; Sulpicius Severus, ‘The Life of St Martin of Tours by Sulpicius Severus’, in The Western Fathers, Being the Lives of SS Martin of Tours, Ambrose, Augustine of Hippo, Honoratus of Arles and Germanus of Auxerre, trans. F. R. Hoare, The Makers of Christendom (New York, 1954), pp. 10–11; Goscelin of Saint-Bertin, ‘Miracula sancte Ætheldrethe virginis’, in Goscelin of Saint-Bertin, The

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness material in the way asserted by Gardner is to misunderstand their purpose in the text. Secondly, the apparent reference to the sexual assault described by the Herbertian Life does not necessarily mean that Jocelin had access to this work. Although it may represent Jocelin’s attempt to distance himself from this story, we should not discount the possibility that it was a direct response to an oral rather than a written narrative. Indeed, his phrasing at this point indicates that he wished to pass over more than one rumour relating to this incident. And thirdly, the diatribe against fornication is one of several lengthy digressions concerning sexual immorality found in Jocelin’s text and seems to reflect the wider concerns of this period rather than an attempt to refute a single statement found in an earlier source.28 Indeed, rather than Jocelin’s Vita being a direct reaction to the Herbertian Life, it seems more plausible to suggest that both texts were reacting separately to the same problem. The only point in Jocelin’s Vita to contest a specific claim about Kentigern refers to the local belief in his virgin birth – and it is this claim that provides the most obvious candidate for the heretical statement found in his source material. The great efforts made by both Jocelin and the author of the Herbertian Life to refute Kentigern’s immaculate conception indicate that both were combating the same threat – i.e. both were responding to the same text, that which is presumed to be the Glasgow Cathedral Life. MacQuarrie therefore argues that although the Herbertian Life had been commissioned to supplant the Glasgow Cathedral Life, it had failed to do so. This led to the later commissioning of Jocelin’s text, which glossed over the story of Kentigern’s birth in a more discreet manner.29 While this is an attractive argument, as it stands it does not fully account for all the facts. MacQuarrie’s hypothesis that both Jocelin’s text and the Herbertian Life were dependent on the Glasgow Cathedral Life is not supported by evidence in the traditional reading of the texts. The prologue to the Herbertian Life cites its sources as the stories of the faithful and a ‘codicello’ of Kentigern’s virtues.30 This ‘codicello’ has been assumed to be the same as the ‘codiculum’ cited by Jocelin in his description of the Scottic Life.31 Yet if, as Jackson argues, the ‘codicello’ and the ‘codiculum’ represent the same text, this suggests that the author of the Herbertian Life did not have access to

28 29

30 31

Hagiography of the Female Saints of Ely, ed. and trans. R. C. Love, Oxford Medieval texts (Oxford, 2004), prol., pp. 98, 99; Goscelin of Saint-Bertin, ‘Vita beate Sexburge regine’, in ibid., prol., pp. 136–9. See pp. 268–70. MacQuarrie, ‘Career of Saint Kentigern’, pp. 4, 6, 21; MacQuarrie, Saints of Scotland, pp. 4, 119, 122, 140; A. MacQuarrie, ‘Medieval Scotland’, in Hagiographies: International History of the Latin and Vernacular Hagiographical Literature in the West from its Origins to 1550, ed. G. Philippart, Corpus Christianorum: Hagiographies 1 (Turnhout, 1994), p. 491. Herbertian Life, prol., pp. 124, 243–4. Vita Kentegerni, prol., pp. 30, 160.

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Restoring the Text Jocelin’s other source, the Glasgow Cathedral Life.32 To make matters even more difficult, Jocelin assigns the belief in Kentigern’s virgin birth not to a specific text but to the Herbertian Life’s other acknowledged source, the people of the diocese.33 In short, MacQuarrie’s argument seems inherently flawed. If the Herbertian Life provides no evidence for a pre-existing vita associated with the cathedral then it seems that the Herbertian Life must be the text referred to here as the Glasgow Cathedral Life – unless we consider the unlikely possibility of another vita being written at some point after the one commissioned by Bishop Herbert and before the one written by Jocelin. However, there is a way to resurrect MacQuarrie’s argument. As H. L. D. Ward noted in 1893, the text of the Herbertian Life may read ‘codicellis’ rather than ‘codicello’. In fact, both Ward and Jackson comment that the word, abbreviated in the manuscript to ‘codicell’, is more appropriately expanded as ‘codicellis’ but cite Jocelin’s reference to the ‘codiculus’ to confirm the preferred reading of ‘codicello’.34 MacQuarrie dismisses this detail as unimportant, reasoning that ‘it could not be taken to imply anything other than that the author’s source was not bound in a single volume’. He also claims that if the author of the Herbertian Life did have access to more than one source he probably would have emphasized the fact by using a phrase such as ‘in diversis codicellis’.35 Yet if this other reading is correct, this allows the author of the Herbertian Life access to more than one written source and provides crucial evidence for the existence of the Herbertian Life and the Glasgow Cathedral Life as separate texts. In short, MacQuarrie’s argument that Jocelin’s Vita and the Herbertian Life, are independent works remains viable. As to why Jocelin did not use the Herbertian Life there is no clear answer – only the evidence that he did not. However, despite my general agreement with MacQuarrie’s analysis of the Herbertian Life, his other conclusions cannot go unquestioned. MacQuarrie takes Jocelin at his word that the Vita represents the amalgamation of the two sources acknowledged in the prologue. He therefore reasons that if Jocelin did not get something from one source, he must have taken it from the other. Based on the belief that the Office of Kentigern found in the Aberdeen Breviary represents an abbreviated version of the Scottic Life, MacQuarrie recreates a more detailed outline of the two acknowledged sources by dividing the 32 33 34

35

Jackson, ‘Sources’, p. 332. Vita Kentegerni, c. i, pp. 35, 163. Ward: ‘Perhaps this [“codicellis”] suits the passage better, by itself; but compare Joceline’s mention of a certain “codiculus” ’. Jackson: ‘the former [“codicellis”] is perhaps slightly better palaeographically, but the latter [“codicello”] seems to suit the context rather better’. Although Jackson notes the possible plural reading at other points in his article, he generally refers to it in the singular. H. L. D. Ward, ‘Lailoken (or Merlin Silvester)’, Romania 22 (1893), 505 n.1; Jackson, ‘Sources’, pp. 273 n.4, 332, 334, 338. MacQuarrie, ‘Career of Saint Kentigern’, p. 4.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness Vita into sections of shared interests and influences, and then assigning each section to one of these two sources.36 Since the identification of the Office of Kentigern with an abbreviated version of the Scottic Life is far from conclusive, it is necessary to discuss the evidence in detail here. As noted by a number of scholars, there is a close relationship between Jocelin’s text and the Office of Kentigern found in the early sixteenth century Aberdeen Breviary.37 In general, the lectiones and canticles in the Office correspond to episodes found in the Vita with the addition of various minor details: Taneu’s father is named as King Loth of Laudonia, Kentigern’s father as Eugenius Eufurenn, king of Cumbria, and the Molendinar is specified as a burn rather than an area.38 Other variants seem to be subtle corrections of Jocelin’s text: the river that Kentigern crosses as he parts with Servanus is named as the Forth; Fregus’s name becomes Fergusius; and in the response to Lectio VI, the king who is temporarily blinded is called Melchom rather than Melconde Galganu.39 However, other details appear to reflect access to a slightly different version of the legend. Jocelin’s narrative concerning the resurrection of Servanus’s cook is expanded with details concerning Servanus’s harvesters and an angelic message, while the story of Servanus’s pet robin places the blame for the bird’s death solely on Kentigern rather than his fellow pupils.40 The Office also states that Kentigern levitated during Mass at the words ‘Sursum corde’, a narrative that is interpreted more figuratively by Jocelin.41 In addition, Lectio VII explicitly claims to be dependent on a separate text, a ‘Historia Sancti Kentigerni’, from which it takes the episode concerning the queen’s adultery. Although this narrative is very similar to the account given by Jocelin, the abbreviated narrative in the lectio has two main differences: the central character is not Queen Languoreth but the queen of Cadzow and the lost ring is found in the fish’s mouth rather than in its belly.42 Since John Fordun’s citation of a ‘Historia beati Kentigerni’ in his fourteenth36 37

38 39 40

41 42

MacQuarrie, ‘Career of Saint Kentigern’, p. 10; MacQuarrie, Saints of Scotland, pp. 4, 127; MacQuarrie, ‘Medieval Scotland’, pp. 496–7. MacQuarrie provides a similar list of differences in his article to those appearing below. A. Boyle, ‘Some Saints’ Lives in the Breviary of Aberdeen’, Analecta Bollandiana 94 (1976), 100; A. Boyle, ‘St Servanus and the Manuscript Tradition of the Life of St Kentigern’, Innes Review 21 (1970), 42–3; Jackson, ‘Sources’, p. 280; MacQuarrie, ‘Career of Saint Kentigern’, pp. 9–10; MacQuarrie, Saints of Scotland, pp. 125–7. ‘Officium Kentegerni’, in Pinkerton’s Lives of the Scottish Saints, Vol. II, ed. W. M. Metcalfe (Paisley, 1889), pp. 111, 114. ‘Officium Kentegerni’, ed. Metcalfe, p. 113. These details also appear in the Office of Kentigern found in the late thirteenth century Sprouston Breviary. ‘Office of S. Kentigern’, ed. A. P. Forbes, in Lives of S. Ninian and S. Kentigern Compiled in the Twelfth Century, ed. and trans. A. P. Forbes, Historians of Scotland 5 (Edinburgh, 1874), pp. xcvi, xcviii–xcix. ‘Officium Kentegerni’, ed. Metcalfe, pp. 112, 114; MacQuarrie, ‘Career of Saint Kentigern’, p. 9; MacQuarrie, Saints of Scotland, p. 126. ‘Officum Kentegerni’, ed. Metcalfe, pp. 113–14.

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Restoring the Text century Chronica gentis Scotorum appears to refer to a paraphrased version of the Herbertian Life, it is not implausible that Lectio VII also represents an episode taken from a complete version of this source.43 However, none of the other narrative variations found in the Office appear to come from this text. The names of Kentigern’s father and grandfather in the lectiones are similar to but distinct from those found in the Herbertian Life – the lectiones call his father Eugenius Eufurenn, king of Cumbria, rather than the noble Ewen son of Erwegende and refer to his maternal grandfather as King Loth of Laudonia rather than Leudonus of Leudonia.44 Instead, the Office of Kentigern seems to represent a modified version of the Kentigern legend recorded by Jocelin. However, MacQuarrie asserts that the Office of Kentigern represents a variant not of Jocelin’s text but of one of its precursors. Arguing that these modifications indicate the Gaelic origin of this source, he claims that the Office of Kentigern is an abbreviated version of the Scottic Life.45 There are distinct problems with this argument. It fails to answer the question why some of the details included in the Aberdeen Breviary cannot be found in Jocelin’s Vita. It is possible that some of these differences represent Jocelin’s manipulation of his source material. For example, while the Office places blame for the death of Servanus’s robin solely on Kentigern, Jocelin ascribes the killing to the other pupils at the school – a narrative that portrays the saint in a much more favourable light. In a similar vein, MacQuarrie suggests that Kentigern’s alleged levitation at the words ‘Sursum corde’ described by the Office was omitted by Jocelin as being too fantastic. Although this is possible, it should be noted that a similar miracle was deemed credible enough to be included in the Dialogus miraculorum by Jocelin’s near-contemporary and fellow Cistercian, Caesarius of Heisterbach.46 However, Jocelin’s failure to

43

44 45 46

The passage apparently quoted by Fordun (and incoporated by Bower into his Scotichronicon) has some minor differences to that found in the Herbertian Life. The editors of the Scotichronicon suggest that the variations in the version quoted by Fordun and Bower were made by Fordun himself. It is certainly possible that Fordun, as a chaplain of Aberdeen Cathedral, had access to the Herbertian Life. The Office of Taneu in the Aberdeen Breviary seems to be dependent on this text and indicates that the cathedral library possessed a copy of the Herbertian Life in at least its fragmentary form. John Fordun, Johannis de Fordun, Chronica gentis Scotorum, Vol. I, ed. and trans. W. F. Skene (Edinburgh, 1871), III.ix, pp. xiv, 94; Walter Bower, Scotichronicon II, III.ix, pp. 22, 23, 199; MacQuarrie, ‘Career of Saint Kentigern’, pp. 6–7, 21; MacQuarrie, Saints of Scotland, pp. 4, 122–3; Jackson, ‘Sources’, p. 280; Boyle, ‘St Servanus’, p. 43. Herbertian Life, c. i, p. 125, 245; ‘Officium Kentegerni’, ed. Metcalfe, p. 111. MacQuarrie, ‘Career of Saint Kentigern’, pp. 9–10. It should be noted that Jocelin’s version of the robin story corresponds to the other narratives set in Servanus’s school. Just as Kentigern is left to take the blame for the death of Servanus’s robin by his schoolfellows, on another occasion his rivals sabotage the saint’s morning duties by extinguishing all the fires used to light the church lamps for the day. Indeed, Kentigern’s departure from Culross is partly

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness include other details found in the Office is more problematic, such as specifying the Molendinar as a burn rather than an area or the additions made to the story concerning Servanus’s cook.47 MacQuarrie’s argument also depends on the idea that the author of the Office based his text on a single document and did not supplement it with details from other sources. On the one hand, the citation found in Lectio VII may support this – the author has highlighted the use of a different source, which may suggest that the rest of the Office is dependent on just one other text. On the other hand, however, it not only provides evidence that the author took some form of compilatory approach towards the composition of the Office, but that by flagging up the dependence of this passage on a single source, the implication could be that the other passages are based on a variety of sources. In short, MacQuarrie’s identification of the Office in the Aberdeen Breviary as an abbreviated version of the Scottic Life does not provide a secure foundation upon which to construct his argument. In contrast, although the traditional argument expounded by Jackson is flawed by the insistence that Jocelin’s Vita and the Herbertian Life are directly related, it offers an overall thesis more in tune with our other findings relating to the composition of Jocelin’s works. Jackson concluded that the Vita Kentegerni was dependent on three main sources: the Scottic Life, the Herbertian Life and an Anglo-Norman document of Welsh origin that provided the details for Kentigern’s sojourn in Wales. He also accounted for the possibility that Jocelin further supplemented the Vita with various insertions of his own.48 Although some of these conclusions need to be modified, as the following discussion will show, the general tenor of his argument (ignoring the claims concerning the Herbertian Life) seems to be correct.

The separate narrative strands in the Vita The Vita Patricii and the Vita Helenae offer two possible models for adapting earlier material that may have been used during the composition of the Vita

47

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blamed on the jealousy of the other boys at the school. Vita Kentegerni, cc. v, vi, xvi, pp. 42–5, 48, 59, 170–3, 175–6, 186–7; ‘Officium Kentegerni’, ed. Metcalfe, pp. 112, 114; MacQuarrie, ‘Career of Saint Kentigern’, p. 9; Jackson, ‘Sources’, pp. 303–4; Caesarius of Heisterbach, Caesarii Heisterbacensis monachi ordinis Cisterciensis, Dialogus miraculorum, Vol. II, ed. J. Strange (Cologne, 1851), IX.xxx, p. 187; Caesarius of Heisterbach, The Dialogue of Miracles, Caesarius of Heisterbach (1220–1235), Vol. II, trans. H. von E. Scott and C. C. Swinton Bland (London, 1929), p. 133. However, as John Durkan suggests, the name Molendinar may have been used to refer to the district surrounding the burn as well as the burn itself. ‘Officium Kentegerni’, ed. Metcalfe, pp. 112, 114; Vita Kentegerni, cc. vii, xxi, xxxix, pp. 46–7, 70, 106, 173–5, 197, 230; J. Durkan, ‘A “lost” manuscript Life of St Kentigern’, Innes Review 54 (2003), 228. Jackson, ‘Sources’, pp. 330–42.

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Restoring the Text Kentegerni. The first model, as seen in the composition of the Vita Patricii, is dependent largely on a single text. While this source provides the basic framework for the story, this account is updated by the insertion of additional material where appropriate. In the second model, represented by the Vita Helenae, the apparent absence of a single satisfactory base text means that the work is constructed around detailed accounts provided by a number of different sources. The various overlapping narratives of these sources are then harmonized to make a representative and cohesive whole. Although the lack of extant evidence for the textual transmission of the Kentigern legend prevents a conclusive judgement either way, it seems that of the two models a version of the former is the more plausible. Jocelin’s statement in the Vita Kentegerni that he has restored the text by combining the material found in his two acknowledged sources may represent a simplified account of the work, but there is no evidence to discredit it.49 By dividing the Vita according to the various narrative strands within it, we are able to examine Jocelin’s method of composition more closely. This approach modifies that taken by MacQuarrie, who divided the text into sections dependent upon probable original source. Because he was concerned to attribute these sections to either one of Jocelin’s two acknowledged sources, the Scottic Life and the Glasgow Cathedral Life, his sections rigidly maintained Jocelin’s chapter divisions and ignored the possibility of a more subtle integration of sources.50 Instead, my approach divides Jocelin’s Vita into sections that involve the same ancillary character, theme or place. These separate narrative strands are presented in the table below (Table 6), alongside the divisions designated by MacQuarrie for comparison. As can be seen in the table, although these separate narrative strands mostly follow the chapter divisions within the text, in a few places chapters appear to incorporate more than one narrative strand – these chapters are listed, therefore, under each of the different narratives involved. I have also noted the factual statements that appear to have been inserted by Jocelin and which present information tangential to the main theme of the narrative, for example, the account of British ecclesiastical history found in chapter 27.

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Vita Kentegerni, prol., pp. 30, 160. Where elements of the Gaelic-based Scottic Life appear to impinge upon a section believed to derive from the Glasgow Cathedral Life – or vice versa – MacQuarrie argues that it represents a different stratum of the base-text rather than an assimilation of the two sources. MacQuarrie, ‘Career of Saint Kentigern of Glasgow’, pp. 10–19; MacQuarrie, Saints of Scotland, pp. 127–38.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness Table 6: The Narrative Strands in the Vita S. Kentegerni This table presents the various narrative strands present in the Vita Kentegerni listed according to the main subject or event described by the episode. The table also includes those details potentially inserted into the text by Jocelin, which have only tangential relevance to the main narrative. The final column presents the narrative divisions used by MacQuarrie in his analysis of the Vita. The bracketed initials following these divisions refer to Jocelin’s direct source as identified by MacQuarrie: (GCL) refers to the Glasgow Cathedral Life and (SL) refers to the Scottic Life. 51

Jocelin’s Narrative Chapters Thread 1–4 Taneu 4–8 Servanus 9 Fregus 10 Tellyr and Anguen 11 Episcopal election 12–19, 35 Hagiographical topoi 20 Deer and wolf 21–23 Morken 23, 26 Dewi 24, 25, 31 St Asaph’s 27 Rome 28 Bad clerics 29–30, 33, 37, 45 Rederech 32–33 Hoddam 33, 36 Languoreth 34 Conversion of the north 37 Mulberries in winter 38 Milk turns to cheese 39–40 Columba 40 Thieves 41 Crosses 42 Kentigern’s old age 43–44 Kentigern’s death 45 Lailoken

Inserted Details Saxon law Oral source? Ninian?

MacQuarrie’s Divisions51 I: 1–3 (GCL) II: 4–8 (SL) III: 9 (SL) IV: 10–11 (GCL)

Ecclesiastical history Local detail V: 12–20 (SL) Culdee VI: 21–23 (GCL) Cumbrian mission? VII: 23–29 (GCL) Ecclesiastical history Papal privilege Woden

VIII: 30–34 (GCL)

IX: 35–38 (SL) Ripon

X: 39–40 (SL) XI: 41 (GCL?) XII: 42–45 (GCL)

Cow miracle

Since much of Jocelin’s source material is now lost, it is virtually impossible to analyse the way in which he assimilated the main threads of the Kentigern story. However, evidence does survive to suggest that Jocelin’s composition was more sophisticated than MacQuarrie allows. The presence of vernacular words and phrases from two distinct linguistic groups, in one case in the same chapter, indicates that Jocelin found elements of the same 51

MacQuarrie, ‘Career of Saint Kentigern of Glasgow’. pp. 10–19; MacQuarrie, Saints of Scotland, pp. 127–38.

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Restoring the Text narrative thread present in at least two sources. His reaction was to knit the two versions together, faithfully retaining the vernacular phrases of his source material.52 Although it may assume too much to assign all Gaelic terms to the Scottic Life and all Brittonic terms to the Glasgow Cathedral Life, this represents a strong possibility. The interpretations of Kentigern’s formal and informal names reveal the compilation of Gaelic and Brittonic sources. In contrast to the accepted original Brittonic meaning of the saint’s name, ‘hound-lord’, Jocelin’s translation of ‘Kentigern’ as ‘head-’ or ‘chief-lord’ is explicitly Gaelic (Albanice), based on the Gaelic word ‘cenn’, meaning ‘head’.53 Yet his interpretation of Kentigern’s informal name, ‘Mungo’, appears to be Brittonic-based. In chapter 4, we are told that Servanus called Kentigern ‘Munghu’ meaning ‘Karissimus Amicus’, ‘dearest friend’. This and the later interpretation of ‘Glesgu’ (Glasgow) to mean ‘Cara Familia’, ‘the Dear Family’, seems to reflect the Brittonic understanding of the component ‘cu’ as ‘dear’.54 However, Jocelin also includes the Gaelic form of Mungo in the exclamation made by Servanus on learning of Kentigern’s birth: ‘in the language of his country he exclaimed “Mochohe, Mochohe”, which in Latin means “Care mi, Care mi [my dear one, my dear one]”’.55 As Jackson has rightly pointed out, Jocelin’s description of both ‘Munghu’ and ‘Mochohe’ as the ‘patria lingua’ shows no concept of

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Jackson argues that Jocelin’s transmission of these words and phrases is faithful to his source material. The rendering of the name ‘Taneu’ in the Vita is believed to be more authentic to the Cumbric original than the Herbertian Life’s ‘Thaney’ since ‘th’ and ‘y’ are characteristic Anglo-Norman Latin corruptions. Likewise, Jocelin’s rendering of the name ‘Rederech’ may indicate a genuine Cumbric pronunciation. Since the Cumbric language is almost entirely lost – the names found in the Vita Kentegerni provide important examples of it – the term Brittonic, which provides a general classifier for the languages derived from this branch of Celtic (e.g. Cumbric, Welsh, Cornish and Breton) is used in the main text. Jackson, ‘Sources’, pp. 282–3, 319; G. Price, ‘British’, in Languages in Britain & Ireland, ed. G. Price (Oxford, 2000), p. 70; G. Price, ‘Cumbric’, in ibid., pp. 121–2. Jocelin’s translation of the name occurs at two points in the text: ‘Kyentyern, quod interpretur Capitalis Dominus’, ‘nam ken, capud Latine; tyern Albanice, dominus Latine, interpretatur’. Jackson, ‘Sources’, pp. 298–9; Walter Bower, Scotichronicon, II, 228; Vita Kentegerni, cc. iv, xxxiii, pp. 169, 218. Jackson notes that the Herbertian Life also implicitly interprets ‘Mungo’ as ‘my dear one’. Vita Kentegerni, cc. iv, xi, pp. 41, 55, 169, 182; Jackson, ‘Sources’, pp. 300–3; Herbertian Life, c. viii, pp. 132, 251; MacQuarrie, ‘Career of Saint Kentigern’, pp. 12–13; MacQuarrie, Saints of Scotland, p. 130. The Scottic Life presents itself as the most obvious source for Servanus’s exclamation, although it should be noted that the Herbertian Life, which may also have used this source, provides a different Gaelic sentence at this point – here Servanus is said to utter ‘“A dia cur fir sin,” which in Latin means “O utinam si sic esset!”’. Vita Kentegerni, c. iv, pp. 41, 169; Herbertian Life, c. viii, pp. 132, 251.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness their different linguistic origins.56 Although Jackson chooses to assert this as further proof of Jocelin’s dismissive attitude towards his sources (a perception based primarily upon Jocelin’s assumed dependence on the Herbertian Life), it is more probable that he simply did not realize the difference.57 The juxtaposition of these mixed traditions suggests that at this point the Vita assimilated at least two different sources into the same narrative strand. The chapters concerning Kentigern’s exile in Wales suggest a similar compilation of source material. Much of the narrative appears to represent an older framework into which various newer episodes have been inserted. Kentigern’s exile from the Cambrian kingdom and his meeting with St David seem to belong to this older legend, as does Kentigern’s vision of David’s death and his return to Glasgow on the succession of Rederech to the Cambrian throne.58 The absence of Kentigern from the extant Vitae S. Davidis written by Rhigyfarch and Gerald of Wales indicates that Jocelin’s David material comes entirely from the Kentigern legend.59 Jocelin’s apparent inability to adapt some of this narrative to reflect his own historical understanding suggests that it was a firmly established part of the tradition. Kentigern’s revelation of the death of David is followed by a second prophecy that Britiain will be invaded by pagans. As Jocelin concludes, the pagans referred to by this prophecy must have been the Angles.60 However, this contradicts Jocelin’s overview of ecclesiastical history found in the next chapter, where we are explicitly told that the missionary activities of Kentigern and Columba postdate the Angle invasion.61 In addition, Jocelin’s consistent references to David as ‘Dewi’ – in contrast to David’s appearance as ‘David’ in the Vita Patricii – indicate that the source of this David material may have been the same Brittonic source discussed above.62 The older framework provided by the David narrative appears to have been overlaid with newer material. The statement that after the saint’s meeting with David, King Cathwallain granted Kentigern land at Nautcharvan upon which to build a monastery is generally believed to refer to the abbey of Llancarfan, traditionally said to have been founded by St Cadog.63 However, the following chapter tells us that Kentigern, guided by a boar, founded a Welsh monastery on the banks of the river Elgu. This seems to refer to the site of the new diocese of St Asaph’s at Llanelwy, whose name means ‘church on 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63

Vita Kentegerni, c. iv, p. 169. Jackson, ‘Sources’, p. 303; MacQueen, ‘Yvain, Ewen and Owein’, p. 114. Vita Kentegerni, cc. xxiii, xxvi, xxxi, pp. 73–5, 81–2, 91–2, 199–201, 207–8, 216. Rhigyfarch, Life of St David; Gerald of Wales, ‘Vita Davidis’. Vita Kentegerni, c. xxvi, pp. 82, 207–8. Ibid., c. xxvii, pp. 84, 209. Ibid., cc. xxiii, xxvi, pp. 73, 74, 82, 200, 207, 208; Vita Patricii AASS, §146 (c. clxvii), p. 571A. Vita Kentegerni, c. xxiii, pp. 75, 201; Lives of Ninian and Kentigern, ed. and trans. Forbes, p. 350 n.TT; Jackson, ‘Sources’, p. 316.

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Restoring the Text the river Elwy’.64 Although Jocelin’s text implies that these two events – the grant of land at Nautcharvan and the building of the monastery on the banks of the Elgu – are directly related, it seems clear that the underlying narratives recount entirely separate incidents. The sandwiching of Cathwallain’s grant between references to David in the Vita suggests that the Nautcharvan story formed part of the David narrative, a text that has then been overlaid with the St Asaph’s narrative.65 The material concerning the foundation of the see of St Asaph’s seems to represent a recent addition to the Kentigern legend that probably postdates the appointment of the see’s first bishop in 1143.66 The original intention of this new narrative appears to have been to separate Asaph from his former cult and cult site at Llanasa in northern Flintshire and to realign his legend with the new foundation at Llanelwy.67 Jocelin’s text seems to incorporate various details from this new narrative: the foundation of a church on the banks of the Elgu at a site indicated by a boar; the blinding and restoration of sight to King Melconde Galganu; the elevation of the church to an episcopal seat; Asaph’s appearance as Kentigern’s disciple and the miraculous carrying of hot coals in his habit; the promotion of Asaph to the bishopric; and the custom of opening the north door of the church on St Asaph’s feast day.68 Although Jocelin cites his source for the Asaph material as ‘the little book of

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Vita Kentegerni, c. xxiv, pp. 75–6, 201–2; Harris, ‘St Asaf’, p. 7. It is interesting to note that the amalgamation of these two monastic foundations at this point does not infringe upon the tradition associating Llancarfan with St Cadog. Harris, ‘St Asaf’, p. 6; Jackson, ‘Sources’, p. 339. The historical Asaph also appears to belong to an earlier period than Kentigern. Harris, ‘St Asaf’, pp. 5, 13. An account in a charter in the Llyfr Coch Asaph includes a different version of the blinding of King Melconde Galganu and his cure by Kentigern – and indicates that these narrative features were closely associated with the foundation of St Asaph’s. The charter is said to have been found in an ancient book in London in 1256 by Anian, Bishop of St Asaph’s, but John Reuben Davies argues that it probably dates from the twelfth century. The narrative shares only limited similarities with Jocelin’s Vita: Kentigern is said to have had 300 followers and it includes a story concerning the blinding and restoration of sight to King Melconde Galganu/ Malginus, the context of which differs substantially in the two texts. The later account also includes two alleged grants of land and jurisdiction made to St Asaph’s by King Malginus, details which may well reflect the claimed thirteenth-century context of the work – Anian’s episcopacy saw strained relations with Llewellyn ap Gruffydd over the liberties of the church. Vita Kentegerni, cc. xxiv, xxv, xxxi, pp. 76, 77–8, 80–1, 90–1, 202, 203–4, 205–6, 215–16; [‘Excerpt from the Llyfr Coch Asaph’], ed. A. P. Forbes, Lives of S. Ninian and S. Kentigern Compiled in the Twelfth Century, ed. and trans. A. P. Forbes, Historians of Scotland 5 (Edinburgh, 1874), pp. lxxixlxxxi; J.  Reuben Davies, ‘Bishop Kentigern Among the Britons’, in Saints’ Cults in the Celtic World, ed. S. Boardman, J. Reuben Davies and E. Williamson, Studies in Celtic History 25 (Woodbridge, 2009), pp. 68, 84–5; DNB 2, 167.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness his life’, the inclusion of a rather commonplace miracle (the carrying of hot coals) combined with the limited information contained in the Vita has raised questions about the existence of this alleged source.69 However, there is no obvious reason why Jocelin would fabricate a narrative in order to associate Kentigern, and by extension the see of Glasgow, with the new diocese of St Asaph’s. Indeed, it seems more likely that this connection had already been made by Jocelin’s source material. Kentigern seems to have been an established figure in Welsh tradition by this time and his appearance in the foundation narrative of St Asaph’s is likely to represent part of an authenticating strategy for the new see.70 It also seems probable that the inclusion of this ‘banal’ miracle reflects Jocelin’s source material and may well represent the only such episode in Asaph’s vita to feature both saints.71 It is unclear at what point other narratives became associated with Kentigern’s period of exile from Glasgow. Kentigern’s visits to Rome, which are discussed in chapter 27, are explicitly linked to this part of the story.72 Yet aside from the statement (which may have been present in Jocelin’s source material) that Kentigern’s seven journeys to Rome were made from his Welsh monastery no other part of this passage justifies this association. The presence of a brief digression on British ecclesiastical history in the centre of this narrative provides some form of thematic unity with the preceding chapter, which includes similar historical material, and may have been partly intended further to integrate the narrative into this section. Also associated with Kentigern’s period of exile is the account of the saint’s missionary activities in modern-day northern Cumbria. Since this narrative is supported by a pattern of church dedications on the ground, it seems to represent a traditional part of the wider Kentigern legend.73 Interestingly, the evidence tells against the

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Harris found examples of this miracle in at least ten other vitae. He concluded that Jocelin knew nothing beyond Asaph’s name, his episcopal status and the date of his festival. Vita Kentegerni, c. xxv, pp. 80, 205; Harris, ‘St Asaf’, p. 12. Kentigern’s death is recorded by the Annales Cambriae and he makes brief appearances in the Welsh triads and the Bonedd y Saint. Reuben Davies makes the interesting suggestion that the man behind the association of Kentigern and Asaph was none other than Geoffrey of Monmouth, who served as bishop of St Asaph’s between 1151 and his death in 1154x1155. Annales Cambriae, ed. J. Williams Ab Ithel, RS 20 (London, 1860), p. 6; Troiedd Ynys Prydein, ed. and trans. Bromwich, §1, pp. 1, 319; ‘Bonedd y Saint’, in Vitae sanctorum Britanniae et genealogiae, ed. A. W. Wade-Evans, Board of Celtic Studies, University of Wales History and Law Series 9 (Cardiff, 1944), §14, p. 320; Reuben Davies, ‘Bishop Kentigern’, pp. 85–7; DNB 38, 630. Harris, ‘St Asaf’, p. 12. Vita Kentegerni, c. xxvii, pp. 83–5, 208–10. The cluster of Kentigern church-dedications in northern Cumbria is unique in England. These churches are Aspatria, Bromfield, Caldbeck, Castle Sowerby, Dearham, Great Crosthwaite, Grinsdale, Irthington, Kirkcambeck and Mungrisdale (although Mungrisdale may only have been associated with Kentigern from

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Restoring the Text narrative being the result of Jocelin’s own research in the area.74 Although the Vita comments that a church has recently been built at ‘Crosfeld’, the site where Kentigern erected a cross, Jocelin’s citation of this name suggests the indirect transmission of information. The church referred to appears to be that dedicated to St Kentigern at Great Crosthwaite. However, there is no evidence that Jocelin’s contemporaries ever referred to Great Crosthwaite as ‘Crosfeld’. Although the two names have very similar meanings, they represent two distinct linguistic origins: ‘thwaite’ is a Norse term, while ‘feld’ is, as Jocelin states, an English word.75 It is possible that the settlement was known by both names concurrently but this is more plausible for a period closer to the end of the Scandinavian settlement of Cumbria in the mid-tenth century.76 It seems probable, therefore, that Jocelin’s reference to ‘Crosfeld’ stems not from personal knowledge but indirectly via a written or oral source. The episodes concerning Columba in chapters 39 and 40 also seem to show the combination of several narrative strands. Initially the Columba narrative centres on the meeting of the two saints at Molendinar near Glasgow. As the saints and their respective disciples advance towards each other in

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the seventeenth century). Rex Gardner also notes that the church of Askham in Westmorland may have been dedicated to St Kentigern in the twelfth century. Six of these churches have wells dedicated to Kentigern associated with them, indeed, Bromfield boasts both a ‘St Mungo’s Well’ and ‘St Mungo’s Castle’ situated next to the church. That these churches are located in the same areas in which British village names have survived in reasonably large numbers indicates the narrative forms part of an older Kentigern tradition in this region. However, since none of the dedications is attested before the twelfth century, Reuben Davies argues that the cult of Kentigern was either dormant or absent before the Scottish occupation of this area during the reign of Stephen. Vita Kentegerni, c. xxiii, pp. 74, 200; Lives of Ninian and Kentigern, ed. and trans. Forbes, pp. lxxxii-lxxxv; Gardner, ‘Kentigern, Columba, and Oswald’, pp. 14, 23, 23 n.96; W. T. McIntire, ‘The Holy Wells of Cumberland’, TCWAAS 44 (1944), 6, 7, 8, 9, 13; T. H. B. Graham and W. G. Collingwood, ‘Patron Saints of the Diocese of Carlisle’, TCWAAS 25 (1925), 10; Bowen, Saints, Seaways and Settlements, p. 88; Reuben Davies, ‘Bishop Kentigern’, pp. 75–6, 81–3. James Wilson argued that Jocelin wrote this narrative with the Cumbrian dedications in mind, but I think this assumes too much knowledge on Jocelin’s part, particularly as he cites only one of these churches. VCH Cumb. II, pp. 2, 3 n.1. By 1198, when a charter granted the settlement and church to Fountains Abbey, it seems that the Norse name of ‘Crosthwaite’ had stuck (a later confirmation of this grant in 1327 refers to it as ‘Crostheweit’ – both come from a compilation of Fountains charters made soon after 1490). A charter dated c.1210 in the early fifteenth century Furness Coucher Book also refers to Crosthwaite as ‘Croshauit’, as does the 1291–92 Taxatio of Pope Nicholas IV (‘Crostwayt’). Vita Kentegerni, c. xxiii, pp. 74, 200; Memorials of the Abbey of St Mary of Fountains, Vol. II Part i, ed. J. R. Walbran, SS 67 (Durham, 1878), II i, I nos. 9, 19, pp. 1 n.1, 15, 16, 29; Furness Coucher Book, II ii, Borudale no. 11, p. 578; The Taxatio Database: http://www.hrionline.ac.uk/db/ taxatio/printbc.jsp?benkey=CR.CR.AL.09. N. Higham, The Northern Counties to AD 1000 (London, 1986), p. 333.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness three waves of song, Columba is able to spot Kentigern immediately by the divine light surrounding him.77 The following chapter tells the story of the theft of one of Kentigern’s sheep by men who had accompanied Columba. When the thieves sever the ram’s head, it turns to stone and their fingers become miraculously attached to it. Kentigern frees the thieves from their hold on the stone head, and he and Columba then exchange staffs. The Vita also notes that Columba’s staff was later preserved at Ripon.78 As in the case of the David material, the Columba narrative present in Jocelin’s text is omitted from Columba’s own textual tradition and seems to come entirely from the Kentigern legend.79 Jocelin’s introductory statement that Columba was known as ‘Columkillus’ by the Angles combined with the mention of Ripon led Jackson to suggest that the whole Columba narrative came from an English source.80 However, further analysis suggests that most of this narrative has a Scottish origin and that the Ripon part of the story may be a later accretion. Reinforcing the Glasgow setting of the saints’ initial meeting, the narrative concerning the thieves and the ram’s head forms the foundation legend of Glasgow’s Ramshorn Kirk.81 The source of the Ripon detail is more open to question. Probably originating in Ripon itself, it is unclear how this material reached Jocelin.82 The additional information concerning the decoration of Columba’s staff and a hymn written by Columba in honour of Kentigern found in Bower’s Scotichronicon suggest that part of this narrative was available in a source other than the Vita – a source that Jocelin himself may have used.83

77 78 79 80 81 82 83

Vita Kentegerni, c. xxxix, pp. 106–7, 229–30. Ibid., c. xl, pp. 107–9, 231–2. Adomnán, Life of Columba. Jackson, ‘Sources’, p. 327. MacQuarrie, Saints of Scotland, p. 136. Rex Gardner notes that there was also a St Mungo’s Well in the vicinity of Ripon. Gardner, ‘Kentigern, Columba, and Oswald’, p. 8. David McRoberts mistakenly believed that the staff held by Ripon was Kentigern’s rather than the one given to Kentigern by Columba and that Jocelin had visited Ripon in order to obtain a ‘correct’ description of it. However, this seems to refer to Walter Bower’s account of the staff, which tells us that the crozier was ‘sheathed in golden ornamentation and studded all round with various kinds of pearls which blessed Kentigern had received from blessed Columba [and which] is still preserved to this day with great reverence in the church of St Wilfrid of Ripon’. This stands in contrast to an earlier comment in Jocelin’s Vita that specifically criticizes the ornamentation of pastoral staffs. Although the Scotichronicon editors note that this part of the text seems to be based on Jocelin’s Vita, they make no comment about the additional material concerning the decoration of the staff. The hymn to Kentigern also present in Bower’s text is believed by the editors to come from a now lost Office and provides further evidence that Bower was compiling his sources at this point. Vita Kentegerni, cc. xiii, xl, pp. 57, 109, 184, 232; McRoberts, ‘Death of St Kentigern’, p. 44; Walter Bower, Scotichronicon, II, III.xxx, pp. 80, 81, 227.

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General structure As seen in some of the examples above, the positioning of various narratives in the Vita also provides some significant insights into how the text was compiled. While the placing of some of the episodes reflects the chronological order of events expected in a biography, a number of narratives owe their position in the Vita to decisions made by either Jocelin or the author of his source material. The basic events that provide the established structure for Kentigern’s life, and around which other episodes appear to have been inserted, are: • • • • • • • •

his his his his his his his his

conception and birth schooling departure from Servanus and his journey to Glasgow election as bishop of Glasgow conflict with King Morken exile in Wales return to Glasgow at the request of King Rederech old age and death.

Some of the additional episodes found in the Vita have a more fixed position than others. Since Jocelin’s version of the Lailoken/Merlin narrative concerned events after Kentigern’s death, he logically placed it at the very end of the Vita.84 Similarly, the narrative concerning the brothers, Tellyr and Anguen, incorporates several details that place it during the earlier part of Kentigern’s life. The saint’s stay with the brothers, one of whom converts and whose descendants are blessed, while the other remains obdurate and dies through his pride, not only provides an analogy to the conversion process but suggests that this occurred before Kentigern had become an established cleric in the diocese.85 In an inserted detail in chapter 20, we are told that when mature in both age and doctrine, the early clergy, including Kentigern, lived alone in cottages and were known as ‘Calledei’.86 Kentigern’s stay with the two brothers seems to predate this time and the position of this statement immediately after Kentigern’s arrival in Glasgow and before his consecration as bishop reflects these factors. 84

85 86

The presence of the Lailoken story (with its three-fold death motif) and the earlier account of Queen Languoreth’s infidelity in the Vita Kentegerni reflects the association of the two narratives in the Vita Merlini Silvestris and in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Vita Merlini. Although Jackson suggests that Jocelin has deliberately watered down his version of the Lailoken story, it seems more likely that the Vita’s version represents another variant of a widespread tale. Vita Kentegerni, cc. xxxvi, xlv, pp. 99–102, 118, 222–6, 229; Walter Bower, Scotichronicon, II, 229; Jackson, ‘Sources’, p. 329. Vita Kentegerni, c. x, pp. 52–4, 180–1. Ibid., c. xx, pp. 66, 193.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness Other narratives, which could not be so easily assigned to a particular period in Kentigern’s life, are inserted into the framework at appropriate places. Thus the six chapters concerning Kentigern’s ascetic life and religious practices, drawn mostly from hagiographical topoi, follow the chapter describing his consecration as bishop in chapter 11.87 By discussing these virtues after this event, Jocelin is able to contrast Kentigern’s simple piety with his episcopal status, while still including this information early enough firmly to establish his saintly credentials. Similarly, the chapter following Kentigern’s departure from Wales recounts his triumphant return to the north and the restoration of Christianity among his people. The details related to his preaching at this point do not seem to be chronologically specific: he flushes out terrible phantoms from the crowd; he persuades those gathered that their idols are false; at Hoddam the earth rises to form a hill beneath him as he preaches.88 However, the insertion of these details fits neatly within the scheme of the overall narrative. Rather than describing these events in the pre-exile chapter concerning his missionary activities, which remains much more generalized, this later emphasis on Kentigern’s preaching reflects his achievement: the permanent conversion of his people.89 The positioning of other episodes in the Vita indicates the perception of a shared theme. The chapters that join together two separate stories with similar narrative features provide good examples of this approach. Chapter 28 concerns Kentigern’s ability to spot a potential deviant. Among the clerics gathered to be ordained or promoted, Kentigern smells an intolerable odour and sees a sulphurous flame burning in the bosom of one of the waiting clerks. Kentigern immediately recognizes the clerk as a sodomite and the offending man is sent away. His death occurs soon afterwards. This episode is followed by another similar narrative. As Kentigern returns from the ordination ceremony, he meets a man preaching the Pelagian heresy. Unable to convert him, Kentigern expels him from the diocese. The preacher later drowns.90 That these two stories are united in a single chapter may imply that Jocelin found them together in his source material. However, the combination of these stories transforms what could have been two unusually short chapters into a single one of average length, making it feasible that this combination is Jocelin’s doing.91 Apart from postdating Kentigern’s appoint87

88 89 90 91

Although much in these chapters recalls general topoi relating to asceticism, some of these features have been specifically adapted to the Kentigern legend. For example, Jocelin states that Kentigern would chant the Psalter while standing in cold water and then dry off on the brow of the hill named Gulath. Ibid., c. xi–xvii, pp. 54–62, 181–9. Ibid., c. xxxii, pp. 92–3, 216–18. Ibid., c. xix, pp. 65–6, 192–3. Ibid., c. xxviii, pp. 85–7, 210–12. Chapter 13, which concerns Kentigern’s mode of dress, is noticeably much shorter than the other chapters in the Vita. Ibid., c. xiii, pp. 57, 184.

104

Restoring the Text ment as bishop, these stories could also be placed at any point in the text. As the chapter stands, it sits in the middle of the Welsh section but follows on from the rather general chapter concerning Kentigern’s trips to Rome. Since the main point of the saint’s journeys to Rome was explicitly to confirm his consecration as bishop, the focus on Kentigern’s episcopal duties found in chapter 28 presents a logical extension of this theme. Chapter 41 contains another combination of similarly themed stories. Jocelin tells us first of the enormous cross miraculously erected in Glasgow Cathedral’s churchyard and then of the cross at Lothwerverd (modern Borthwick) miraculously made from sand, both of which are said to be able to cure the insane.92 As with the previous pairing, these stories are not readily datable to a particular point in Kentigern’s career. Jocelin’s logic in placing these towards the end of the Vita, just before the narratives concerning Kentigern’s old age and death, is reflected in the discursive comments on the Crucifixion and the general resurrection that are appended to this chapter. Alone these episodes would, again, be very short chapters. However, combined together – with a significant amount of additional commentary – they form a chapter of average length. As before, the positioning of these narratives may well reflect Jocelin’s arrangement of the material. The placing of other narratives according to a perceived shared theme is not always so obvious. The deer and wolf narrative, which concerns the ploughing of a field first by deer and then, after the wolf kills one of the deer, by the wolf as well, contains little information to assign it to a particular point in Kentigern’s life. However, its current position before the Morken narrative seems to reflect the common crop theme found in both. At the end of the chapter concerning the deer and wolf narrative, Jocelin states that Kentigern’s diligent work in the fields, aided by God, produced the best wheat in the area. The following chapter continues this theme by describing the miraculous transportation of King Morken’s corn-filled barns to Kentigern’s dwelling.93 Although not a particularly strong link, it provides a relatively smooth narrative transition. The placing of chapter 36, concerning Queen Languoreth’s adultery, also seems to follow this rationale. The story hinges around the lost ring that is both a sign of the queen’s adultery and the proof of her ‘innocence’. Thrown into the river by her husband, Rederech, the ring is recovered with the aid of Kentigern, who sends the queen’s messenger to the river to catch a fish. The fish is then cut open and the ring found inside – a common folklore

92

93

This cross and its ability to cure the insane also appears in the Miracula sancte Margarite Scotorum regine (although there is no mention of Kentigern in this text). Ibid., c. xli, pp. 109–11, 232–4; ‘Miracula sancte Margarite Scotorum regine’, in Miracles of Saint Æbbe and Saint Margaret, ed. and trans. Bartlett, c. xx, pp. 114–15 n.52. Vita Kentegerni, cc. xx–xxi, pp. 66–70, 193–7.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness motif. This chapter is followed by another narrative concerning a well-known folk motif known as ‘berries in winter’, here a jester’s unseasonal request for blackberries.94 The juxtaposition of these two chapters suggests that either Jocelin or the author of his source material recognized the similar nature of these stories. Chapter 38, which follows these narratives, describes a miracle where milk spilt into the River Clyde turns to cheese, thus preserving Kentigern’s gift to his labourers.95 As none of the features of this story are acknowledged folk motifs, it does not seem that this miracle reflects the theme of the previous pair. Instead, this chapter may have been slotted in at an appropriate point – following two miracles where Kentigern’s role is crucial but minor and before the narratives associated with the period leading up to Kentigern’s death. The positioning of other narrative episodes is less easy to explain. For example, the Columba section has no features that assign it to a particular part of Kentigern’s life and its current position in the Vita does not appear to reflect any particular relevance to the miracles that come before or after it.96 Jocelin’s comment that after Columba and Kentigern left each other ‘they returned to their homes, never to meet again’ provides some form of justification for its position so late in the text, but whether this reflected an afterthought or founding principle is hard to tell.97 It may well be that its current position reflects the arrangement found in Jocelin’s source material.

Insertions made by Jocelin In addition to the Biblical parallels and comments on contemporary immorality that proved so frustrating to earlier scholars, Jocelin also inserted various pieces of historical and factual material into the Vita.98 The most interesting of these insertions is the overview of British ecclesiastical history found in chapter 27. As background to Kentigern’s journeys to Rome, Jocelin provides an outline of Britain’s ecclesiastical past that cites Gildas as its main source: For Britain, during the reign of the most holy King Lucius, in the papacy of Eleutherius, by the preaching of the most excellent teachers Faganus and

94 95 96 97 98

Ibid., cc. xxxvi–xxxvii, pp. 99–104, 222–8; Jackson, ‘Sources’, pp. 322–6, 350–6; Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk Literature, H1023.3, N211.1, III, p. 488, V, p. 87. Vita Kentegerni, c. xxxviii, pp. 104–6, 228–9. Ibid., cc. xxxix-xl, pp. 106–9, 229–32. Ibid., c. xl, pp. 109, 232. As with the Jocelin’s other vitae, the pervading influence of the Bible and other patristic texts has been noted by earlier scholars and will not be studied here. Forbes particularly noticed the influence of Gregory the Great’s Magna moralia on Jocelin’s text. Lives of Ninian and Kentigern, ed. and trans. Forbes, pp. 314–15 n.D.

106

Restoring the Text Divianus and others, whom Gildas the wise, the historian of the Britons, commemorates, received the faith of Christ.99

Jocelin’s account continues with Diocletian’s persecution of the Christians; the quelling of heresy in Britain by St Germanus; the invasion of the Picts, Scots and Angles; and the conversion of these pagan groups by Ninian, Columba, Kentigern and Augustine.100 However, although various parts of this outline are present in Gildas’s De excidio Britonum, none of Gildas’s extant works includes the details explicitly attributed to him by Jocelin.101 Indeed, since none of the information given by the Vita is specific to Gildas’s text alone, there is no firm evidence that Jocelin used Gildas’s text at all. Instead, Jocelin’s historical overview appears to be based on information found in Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica and Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae.102 Since these texts both cite Gildas, Jocelin’s reference may have been taken indirectly from either – although the context of Geoffrey’s citation makes the Historia regum the more likely candidate.103 The lion’s share of the information found in Jocelin’s overview appears to be based on Bede’s account of British history, with the insertion, of course, of St Kentigern and his activities.104 Further indications that Jocelin had access to this text include the later statement that Columba is known by the name ‘Columkillus’ (although this could reflect common knowledge) and an earlier reference to the rampart built in Britain by Emperor Severus.105 Jocelin echoes Bede’s 99

Vita Kentegerni, c. xxvii, pp. 83, 208. Ibid., c. xxvii, pp. 83–4, 208–9. 101 The elements present in both Gildas’s De excidio Britonum and Jocelin’s text are: the Diocletian persecutions and the martyrdom of Alban and others; the influx of Arianism and other heresies into Britain; the repeated invasions of the Picts and Scots and the eventual invasion of the Saxons (Jocelin’s Angles). Gildas, Gildas, The Ruin of Britain and other works, ed. and trans. M. Winterbottom, History from the Sources, Arthurian Period Sources 7 (London, 1978), cc. ix–xi, xiv, xvi, xix, xxiii–iv, pp. 19–20, 21, 23, 26–7, 91–2, 93, 94–5, 96–7. 102 The fifteenth-century inventory of Glasgow Cathedral lists two historiae ecclesiasticae among its books, however the identity of these works remains unclear. Registrum episcopatus Glasguensis, ed. Innes, II, no. 339, pp. 337, 338. 103 Bede makes only one explicit reference to Gildas, which concerns the lack of British attempts to convert the Angles – a criticism that goes unmentioned by Jocelin. Of Geoffrey’s several citations, one refers to a now lost ‘treatise’ (tractatu) written by Gildas that details Germanus’s activities in England. That both Geoffrey and Jocelin had access to this text also remains a possibility. Bede, Ecclesiastical History, I.xxii, pp. 68, 69; Historia regum Britanniae, VI.§101, pp. 130, 131. 104 Jocelin subsumed the two accounts of the Arian and Pelagian heresy into one sentence, which, although separate in Bede’s text, are not chronologically disparate. Bede, Ecclesiastical History, I.iv, vi–vii, xii, xvii, xxii–xxxiv, II.i–iv, III.iv, V.ix, pp. 24, 25, 28–35, 44, 45, 54, 55, 68–145, 220–3, 478, 479. 105 While Bede states that ‘some’ know Columba by this name, Jocelin specifies that it is the Angles who refer to him in this way. Vita Kentegerni, cc. xi, xxxix, pp. 55, 106, 183, 229; Bede, Ecclesiastical History, V.ix, pp. 478, 479. 100

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness words that Severus’s rampart stretched from ‘sea to sea’ and that the Romans helped to build a new defensive wall on the site of this rampart which was eight feet wide and twelve feet high.106 The Vita is also supplemented by details taken from Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae. In the overview of British ecclesiastical history, Jocelin follows Geoffrey’s text in naming the missionaries to Eleutherius as Faganus and Duvianus (as the name is correctly spelt in the British Library manuscript of the Vita Kentegerni) and in stating that after the Saxon/ Angle invasion, British Christians fled to Wales and Brittany.107 Jocelin’s later statement that the Angles dedicated the fourth day of the week to Woden also appears in Geoffrey’s text – although, again, this may well have been common knowledge.108 A further indication that Jocelin knew the Historia regum can be found in his remark concerning the debate over Kentigern’s conception: ‘for the present we may bury in silence what are found in more poetic songs or what we find inserted in histories’.109 As Forbes suggested, this may allude to the account of King Arthur’s conception found in Geoffrey’s work. Here, Merlin’s potion transformed Uther Pendragon into the likeness of Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall, so that he could enter Tintagel and make love to Gorlois’s wife.110 Jocelin’s apparent familiarity with Geoffrey’s text and its presentation of King Loth of Lodonesia as King Arthur’s brotherin-law and father of Gawain and Mordred, may also explain why Jocelin leaves Taneu’s father unnamed.111 Other insertions in the text provide less conclusive evidence for Jocelin’s ancillary sources. In an aside concerning the punishment of Taneu for fornication, Jocelin remarks that among the ancient Saxons, up nearly to modern times, the law remained in force that every virgin of her own will deflowered in her father’s house

106 107

108 109 110 111

Vita Kentegerni, c. xi, pp. 55, 182–3; Bede, Ecclesiastical History, I.v, xii, pp. 26, 27, 42–5. The Historia regum also mentions other details present in Jocelin’s historical overview: Diocletian’s persecutions; the martyrdom of St Alban and others; Germanus’s actions in combating the Pelagian heresy; and Augustine’s mission. The appearance of these two missionaries in William of Malmesbury’s De antiquitate Glastonie ecclesie reflects insertions made c.1220 using details taken from Geoffrey’s text. Vita Kentegerni, c. xxvii, pp. 83, 208, 208 n.5; Historia regum Britanniae, IV.§72, V.§78, VI.§101, XI.§§184–8, pp. 86–9, 94, 95, 130, 131, 256–9; William of Malmesbury, The Early History of Glastonbury: An Edition, Translation and Study of William of Malmes­ bury’s De antiquitate Glastonie ecclesie, ed. and trans. J. Scott (Woodbridge, 1981), c. ii, pp. 27, 48, 49, 187 n.18. Historia regum Britanniae, VI.§98, pp. 124, 125. Vita Kentegerni, c. i, pp. 34, 163. Lives of Ninian and Kentigern, ed. and trans. Forbes, p. 319 n.F; Historia regum Britanniae, VIII.§137, pp. 186, 187. Historia regum Britanniae, IX.§152, pp. 204, 205.

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Restoring the Text should be without remission buried alive and her lover hanged over her tomb.112

As Forbes found, the closest parallel for this claim is a statement in St Boniface’s letter to King Ethelbald. Boniface asserts that in Old Saxony the offending woman is sometimes compelled to hang herself with her own hand and that her lover is subsequently hanged above the pyre on which she has been burned.113 It is possible that Jocelin’s remark is a half-remembered version of this statement, particularly since his reference to Saxons here stands in contrast to his more frequent use of the term ‘Angle’. The later use of the word ‘Saxon’ in the Vita’s statement that Woden was not a god but a mortal king of the Saxons suggests that Jocelin used this term to refer to the ancient Germanic tribe, while ‘Angle’ referred to those who had invaded Britain and from whom the name ‘Anglia’ derived.114 The Vita also seems to allude to the work of Aldhelm. Jocelin’s comment that ‘a certain saint and sage invited his religious to consider the work of bees, that in their little bodies they might learn the beautiful discipline of service’, appears to be a reference to Aldhelm’s remarks concerning bees in the prose De virginitate.115 Jocelin’s failure to cite Aldhelm explicitly may indicate that he only knew this text via other sources, a suggestion supported by the indirect citation of the same text in the Vita Helenae.116 The source for Jocelin’s statement that Gregory the Great was known as ‘Golden Mouth’ may have been another early medieval text. This title appears in the oldest vita of Gregory written by an anonymous monk of Whitby, c.700, where it is said to have been the name given to the saint by the Romans. However, Irish sources frequently refer to the saint using ‘Golden Mouth’, and while Jocelin’s use of this name may reflect common knowledge, it is also possible that this comment came directly from Jocelin’s Gaelic source material.117 As with Jocelin’s citation of Gildas, another of the Vita’s explicit references has also proved problematic. Following Servanus’s departure from the main Kentigern narrative, Jocelin directs the audience to read more about 112 113

114 115

116 117

Vita Kentegerni, c. ii, pp. 36, 164. Die Briefe des Heiligen Bonifatius und Lullus, ed. M. Tangl, MGH Epistolae 4, Epistolae Selectae 1 (Leipzig, 1989), Ep. lxxiii, p. 150; The Letters of Saint Boniface, trans. E. Emerton, Records of Western Civilisation (New York, 2000), p. 105. Vita Kentegerni, cc. xxvi, xxvii, xxxii, pp. 82, 84, 92, 208, 209, 217. Jocelin refers to the bee metaphor again later in the Vita. Vita Kentegerni, cc. v, xxiv, pp. 42, 77, 170, 203; Aldhelm, ‘De virginitate’, ed. Ehwald, cc. iii-vi, pp. 231–4; Aldhelm, ‘De virginitate’, trans. Lapidge and Herren, pp. 61–3. See pp. 75–8. The Earliest Life of Gregory the Great by an Anonymous Monk of Whitby, ed. and trans. B. Colgrave, (Cambridge, 1968), c. xxiv, pp. 116–19, 155 n.99; Cummian, Cummian’s Letter De controversia paschali and the De ratione conputandi, ed. M. Walsh and D. Ó Cróinín, Studies and Texts 86 (Toronto, 1988) pp. 82–3 n.190; Lives of Ninian and Kentigern, ed. and trans. Forbes, p. 355 n.AAA.

109

The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness ­ ervanus’s deeds and virtues in ‘a little book written of his life’.118 This seems S to be a reference to the Vita S. Servani, a work that is bound with the Marsh’s Library manuscript of Jocelin’s Vita.119 This thirteenth-century manuscript corresponds to the fifteenth-century description of a book chained to the precentor’s stall at Glasgow Cathedral and indicates the long-held association of the two works.120 However, the extant Vita Servani bears little relevance to Jocelin’s text, not only omitting any reference to Kentigern, but giving Servanus an exotic Arabian background before his arrival in Scotland and his settlement at Culross.121 Such observations left Alexander Boyle doubtful that a text which omits any mention of the cathedral’s patron saint would have been kept in such a prominent position in the cathedral. Instead he suggested that the Vita Servani referred to by Jocelin represents a now lost text.122 However, if Jocelin was referring to the extant Vita Servani, the differences between the two legends may explain why he failed to cite this work earlier in the text and why he is reticent about Servanus’s origins – in contrast to the Herbertian Life where Servanus is said to have been converted by Palladius, the Vita leaves Servanus’s past unmentioned.123 Although this analysis has focused on Jocelin’s possible written sources, it is also necessary to consider the presence of oral sources in the text. At several points in the Vita, Jocelin makes specific reference to local traditions concerning Kentigern. The inhabitants of Glasgow and the local countrymen are cited as sources for the claim that 665 saints lay in the cathedral cemetery, while Jocelin refers to the countrymen alone for the assertion that a grove of hazel associated with Kentigern continues to produce extremely flammable firewood.124 The posthumous miracle included in chapter 44 may be another example of oral testimony. In contrast to Jocelin’s claim in the prologue that he had been unable to find any account of Kentigern’s posthumous miracles, the Vita states that various miracles ‘are known’ to have occurred at Kentigern’s tomb.125 Although part of the evidence to support this statement repeats the list of Christ’s healing miracles found in the Gospels, Jocelin also

118

Vita Kentegerni, c. viii, pp. 50, 177. Dublin, Marsh’s Library, V.3.4.16. 120 Registrum episcopatus Glasguensis, ed. Innes, II, no. 339, p. 335. 121 Vita Servani, ed. MacQuarrie, pp. 136–52, 144 n.1; MacQuarrie, Saints of Scotland, pp. 146–7; Boyle, ‘St Servanus’, p. 39. 122 MacQuarrie argues that evidence in the Office of St Serf in the Aberdeen Breviary suggests there were two different legends circulating about the saint. The Office omits Servanus’s eastern background and his connection with Culross but notes that there is another St Serf of Israelite nationality, which is presumably the saint of the Vita Servani. Boyle, ‘St Servanus’, p. 40; Vita Servani, ed. MacQuarrie, pp. 122, 126. 123 Herbertian Life, c. i, pp. 126, 250. 124 ‘incole loci et patriote’, ‘patriote’. Vita Kentegerni, cc. vi, xlv, pp. 45, 118, 173, 241. 125 Ibid., prol., c. xliv, pp. 31–2, 117, 161, 240. 119

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Restoring the Text appends a specific miracle in which a stolen cow was found bound to the foot of the dead thief.126 Since Jocelin appears to have discounted the possibility of a written source, this miracle presumably represents an oral one. As a final note to this section, it is worth discussing what evidence the source material provides for the location of Jocelin’s activities. Both the circumstances of the commission and evidence within the text itself imply that the research for the Vita was conducted in Glasgow. The work was written at the request of the current incumbent of Kentigern’s see and it updated the Vita of the cathedral’s patron saint. That Kentigern was not a particularly well-known figure outside the areas of his real or alleged missionary activity – he is notably absent from the works of Bede, Gildas and Nennius – further indicates the potentially localized nature of Jocelin’s source material. Faced with the task of writing the biography of such an obscure figure, it was only natural for the hagiographer to visit the sites where information regarding his subject was most likely to be stored: the places where he had exercised his ecclesiastical office; where he had spent the majority of his life; where he had died; or where he now lay. In the case of Kentigern, these sites were combined in one location: Glasgow. The text itself provides clear evidence of Jocelin’s presence in Glasgow. In the prologue Jocelin describes the difficulties of his research: not only did the cathedral seem to possess works of questionable quality, but his search through the streets of the city had failed to find any superior versions of the texts. Although the wording of this passage adapts a scriptural reference from the Song of Songs, there is no reason to doubt that it reflects some degree of reality. Indeed, David McRoberts believes that this allusion emphasized the eagerness with which Jocelin conducted his search.127 An analysis of the sources used by the Vita also does little to undermine Jocelin’s claims. Aside from the Kentigern material, the text bears little evidence of other written works – the inserted material, some of which is based on information found in Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica and Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae, may represent Jocelin’s own knowledge rather than works he had to hand. The number of localized narratives within the Vita also points to a brief sojourn in the city. MacQuarrie suggests that the presence of the foundation legend of the Ramshorn Kirk may reflect personal inquiries made by Jocelin.128 If so, the narrative concerning the transportation of Morken’s cornfilled barns to Molendinar may have a similar origin. MacQueen argues that the name of the Gorbals area of Glasgow derives from the medieval Latin adjective garbalis, normally found in the phrase decima garbalis, ‘the teind (or tithe) of corn-sheaves’. He claims that the miracle in which corn was trans126 127 128

Matthew 11. 5; Luke 7. 21; Vita Kentegerni, c. xliv, pp. 117, 240. Song of Songs 3. 2; Vita Kentegerni, prol., pp. 29, 159; McRoberts, ‘Death of St Kentigern’, p. 45. MacQuarrie, Saints of Scotland, p. 136.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness ported to the site of Kentigern’s dwelling probably formed the ‘charter-myth’ of the Gorbals as a site that housed the teinds owed to the cathedral by the medieval parish of Govan.129 Finally, it seems probable that Jocelin’s comment concerning the tomb of Fregus also represents knowledge gained through residence in the city. We are told that the tomb in Glasgow’s cemetery ‘is to the present time’ encircled by overshadowing trees.130 If, as is believed, this site lies under the Blackadder Aisle in today’s cathedral, it seems highly likely that this statement represents Jocelin’s own observations.131

Conclusion In conclusion, Jocelin’s claim that he created the Vita Kentegerni by amalgamating the two sources acknowledged in the prologue appears to be substantially true. This basic narrative structure was then augmented by the insertion of various historical and factual details, as well as the probable addition of oral accounts concerning the saint. As such, Jocelin’s approach to the Vita more closely reflects that taken for the Vita Patricii, where the text was based largely on a single source, than the more ambitious compositional technique used in the production of the Vita Helenae. This is far from surprising. Jocelin’s explicit reasons for rewriting the Vita Kentegerni refer to corrupted Latin and a suspect narrative – aside from this, there is no suggestion that the overall story provided by the source material was considered particularly inadequate. For the author, the commission therefore presented the relatively simple task of combining, updating and restyling the stories contained in two older texts. The above re-evaluation of Jocelin’s source material also forces us to reconsider the conclusions of earlier scholars concerning the author’s approach to his work. The status of the Vita and the Herbertian Life as independent texts means Kenneth Jackson’s allegation that Jocelin strove to remove anything deemed discreditable or overly localized from the Vita can no longer be sustained by the evidence.132 Admittedly, Jocelin appears to have censored

129 130 131 132

J. MacQueen, ‘The Dear Green Place: St Mungo and Glasgow, 600–1966’, Innes Review 43 (1992), 94–6. Vita Kentegerni, c. ix, pp. 52, 179. R. Fawcett, ‘Glasgow Cathedral’, in Glasgow, ed. E. Williamson, A. Riches and M. Higgs, The Buildings of Scotland (Harmondsworth, 1990), p. 113. Jackson calls Jocelin a ‘prude’ and a ‘prig’ who suppressed the strange or lewd details found in his source material. However, this characterization fails to explain Jocelin’s unambiguous description of Queen Languoreth’s affair with the soldier in the Vita. In addition, rape narratives were common in the educational texts used to teach Latin to boys during the Middle Ages so it seems unlikely that Jocelin would have found this aspect of Taneu’s legend overly scandalous. Jackson, ‘Sources’, pp. 293, 304; Vita Kentegerni, c. xxxvi, pp. 99, 222–3; M. Curry Woods,

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Restoring the Text a certain unorthodox element found in his source material, but otherwise the Vita seems remarkably inclusive. Indeed, Jocelin’s alleged reluctance to include unsuitable material is countered by his evident attempts to incorporate narratives which either appeared strange or whose meaning was unclear. For example, Jocelin’s description of the two rivers in chapter 8 is based on a misinterpretation of the words malinae and ledones. Details in this account indicate that, unlike Jocelin, the author of the original narrative knew that these terms related to the movement of the tides.133 The episode concerning Kentigern’s death provides another case in point. McRoberts argues that the Vita’s description of this event offers a corrupted reading of early medieval baptismal practice and he criticizes Jocelin for adapting it to fit with two other well-known accounts, the pool of Bethesda and the death of St Martin of Tours.134 However, while this probably does represent Jocelin’s manipulation of his source material, we should also recognize this as a careful attempt on the part of the author to engage with obscure material and to present what appeared to be a rather strange narrative in a way that could be more easily comprehended by his twelfth-century readers. As is confirmed by the analysis in chapters six and nine, the Vita Kentegerni was a text written with a contemporary audience firmly in mind.

133

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‘Rape and Pedagogical Rhetoric of Sexual Violence’, in Criticism and Dissent in the Middle Ages, ed. R. Copeland (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 56–69. As is stated by Bede in the De temporum ratione and De natura rerum. Vita Kentegerni, c. viii, pp. 49, 50, 176, 177; Jackson, ‘Sources’, pp. 307–9; Bede, ‘De temporum ratione’, in Bedae opera de temporibus, ed. C. W. Jones, Medieval Academy of America Publication 41 (Cambridge MA, 1943), c. xxix, pp. 234–5; Bede, Bede, The Reckoning of Time, trans. F. Wallis, Translated Texts for Historians 29 (Liverpool, 2004), p. 84; Bede, ‘De natura rerum liber’, in Bedae venerabilis opera, pars IV.i, ed. C. W. Jones, Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 123A (Turnhout, 1975), c. xxxix, pp. 224–5. Vita Kentegerni, cc. xliii–xliv, pp. 113–17, 236–40; McRoberts, ‘Death of St Kentigern’, pp. 43–50.

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CHAPTER FOUR

From the Testimony of Trustworthy Men: The Interaction of Oral and Written Sources in the Vita S. Waldevi

Jocelin’s second commission in Scotland brought the Furness monk to the Cistercian house of Melrose to write the Vita of a near-contemporary, Abbot Waltheof (d. 1159). As a text commemorating the life of a man who had died only fifty years or so previously, the composition of the Vita Waldevi posed several new challenges. In contrast to Jocelin’s other works, which were built on the foundation of various earlier written accounts, the Vita Waldevi appears to have been the first hagiographical text to document Waltheof’s cult. Consequently, the work was based largely on the abbey’s oral traditions, stories that had been recounted to Jocelin by ‘the trustworthy elders of the house of Melrose’.1 The text was also supplemented by the testimony of eyewitnesses drawn mainly from within the monastery, men who were able to testify personally to the authenticity of Waltheof’s posthumous powers. Jocelin’s use of these oral sources conformed to common historical and hagiographical practice.2 In a period where the written word was valued as a record of the distant past, but where recent events could be more than adequately recalled through memory, the testimony of these ‘trustworthy elders’ was accorded a very high value. Indeed, such was the authority of oral tradition that Jocelin seems to have been reluctant openly to acknowledge the presence of any written material behind the Vita. From the outset the text is styled as a product of oral history. The statement in the prologue, where we are informed that he has written ‘nothing herein opposed to truth but what I have accepted from the trustworthy elders of the house of

1 2

‘viris veridicis senioribus domus Melrosensis’. Vita Waldevi AASS, §5, p. 250B–C. For example, although making use of the various documents he found on his travels, William of Malmesbury also recorded the stories told to him by members of the religious houses and cathedral communities whom he visited. William of Malmesbury, Gesta pontificum Anglorum, I.xix.12–13, lxv.2–3, II.lxxxii.2–6, V.cclviii.2–3, pp. 40, 41, 194, 195, 282, 283, 614, 615. See also the chapter on ‘Saints’ Lives and ­Miracles’ in E. van Houts, Memory and Gender in Medieval Europe, 900–1200 (Basingstoke, 1999), pp. 41–62.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness Melrose’, implies that the work is based solely upon oral sources.3 Similarly, the introduction to Waltheof’s posthumous miracula is also suggestive of oral communication: ‘for inclusion in the previous book on the blessed Waltheof, we have diligently sought from those who knew material which might be worthy of remembrance’.4 Yet close analysis of the Vita reveals a number of textual sources underlying the work, written materials which both supported and interacted with the oral components of the cult. As will be shown below, it seems probable that when Jocelin arrived at Melrose, the community not only made themselves available for discussion and advice, but also provided him with access to an assortment of written material concerning Waltheof’s life and miracles. However, the recent nature of the narratives being recorded meant that Jocelin found it expedient to lay greater emphasis on the oral component of his source material as a way of reinforcing the authority of the text. Since oral narratives seem to predominate among Jocelin’s sources, this chapter will begin with the information that was, as Jocelin tells us, transmitted by word of mouth. The chapter will then explore the interplay between these oral sources and written texts, before turning to an examination of Jocelin’s written material. Finally, the chapter concludes with a discussion on how the presentation of Jocelin’s source material fits within the wider literary context of the period.

Oral sources Having stated his source once in the Vita, in the majority of cases Jocelin does not state it again. This means that the route of transmission from the implied originator of a narrative – usually the character who experienced the miraculous event – to the author, often over a significant number of years, remains unknown. In one notable instance, Jocelin even cites Waltheof’s own words in reference to the saint’s decision to join the Cistercian Order: ‘but he feared, as he used to recall, that such was the weakness of his powers he was incapable of bearing such a burden’.5 Although this statement gives the impression that Jocelin himself had heard the saint utter these words, this seems somewhat unlikely under the circumstances and implies the existence of an uncredited intermediary source. A number of Waltheof’s contemporaries also appear as potential witnesses in the text. The cellarer, Thomas Good, seems to be the original source for the saint’s miraculous feeding of the four thousand. It is

3

4 5

‘nullaque in eis veritati opposita, sed quod a viris veridicis senioribus domus Melrosensis, omni exceptione majoribus accepi, me scripsisse fideliter agnoscant’. Vita Waldevi AASS, §5, p. 250B–C. Vita Waldevi AASS, §92, p. 270B; Vita Waldevi, p. 313. ‘sed verebatur, ut referre solebat, virium suarum imbecillitati tali ac tanto oneri nimis incompetenti’. Vita Waldevi AASS, §31, p. 258B.

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From the Testimony of Trustworthy Men Thomas who fears a potential grain shortage in the abbey stores and it is Thomas who informs Waltheof of the approaching disaster – a disaster which is then miraculously averted by the saint’s prayers.6 Apart from Waltheof, Thomas is the only figure in the narrative with full access to the details of the story and therefore capable of recognizing the miracle that has occurred. Yet how this miracle was transmitted from Thomas to Jocelin remains unstated. Likewise, the miraculous cure of three anonymous men in the infirmary also reaches Jocelin through unknown channels. Each of the three men is informed in a vision that he will be healed by Waltheof’s blessing. This information is relayed to the infirmarer, who informs the confessor of the sick, who, in turn, persuades the abbot to visit the sick men.7 Again, although the original source of the story could have been the sick men, the infirmarer or the confessor – if not a combination of all of them – the source of Jocelin’s information is not expressly stated. A similar pattern can be seen in the posthumous miracula. Despite Jocelin’s introductory statement that he has appended accounts of visions and miracles ‘which were seen by trustworthy men whose testimony is to be believed’, both the sources and the routes of transmission for a number of these accounts remain unmentioned.8 The only implied sources for the visions of Brothers Henry and William are Henry and William themselves, and it is likewise for the accounts of several of those who experience miraculous cures.9 Since the full transmission of these stories is left unstated, we are left to assume that they form part of the oral history passed down by the elders of the monastery – some of whom may, of course, have been indirect eyewitnesses, having heard the original testimony of the men involved.10 In a number of instances, Jocelin implies that the story was well-known to the community, providing a partial glimpse of the route of transmission. For example, the laybrother and Melrose hospitarius, Walter, is the source of a

6 7 8 9

10

Vita Waldevi AASS, §§52–3, pp. 262E-3A; Vita Waldevi, pp. 267–9. Vita Waldevi AASS, §§82–3, p. 268A-C; Vita Waldevi, pp. 301–3. ‘quae a veridicis viris, quorum testimonia credibilia facta sunt nimis, visa’. Vita Waldevi AASS, §93, p. 270D. It is possible that Henry made a written record of his vision, but the verb used, ‘notavit’, is ambiguous and may refer to a mental rather than a physical act. Other examples of stories which mention potential witnesses but include no account of further transmission include: the mortally ill layman healed by Waltheof’s blessing; the posthumous healing miracles of the three laymen with dropsy; Brother Benedict; the anonymous monk with bowel problems; and the anonymous English clerk with a fever. Vita Waldevi AASS, §§84, 99, 109–10, 114–15, 117–19, pp. 268C, 271C–D, 273C-E, 274A–C, 274D–F; Vita Waldevi, pp. 303–4, 320–1, 331–3, 336–7, 338–40. Although McFadden makes a useful point in suggesting that Jocelin fabricated the stories without witnesses ‘or supplied them under the licence of exempla’, I think this underestimates the strength of oral tradition at Melrose. McFadden, ‘Edition and Translation’, p. 66.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness number of stories concerning Waltheof.11 However, since Walter was a direct contemporary of the abbot it seems unlikely that he was still alive at the time that Jocelin was writing and, indeed, the Vita makes no claim to represent Walter’s direct testimony. Instead, we are told that Walter often used to recount his experiences to others and, as is later stated, it is from these men that Jocelin received his material.12 Likewise, the visions seen by Waltheof are explicitly said to have reached Jocelin through the reports of various trustworthy men.13 Other narratives in the text also imply the transmission of material through the abbey grapevine. At several points we are told that a number of those who witnessed miraculous events during Waltheof’s lifetime were sworn to secrecy until after his death – with the implication, and sometimes explicit admission, that these experiences were then shared with the community. For example, Brother Lambert is able to speak to his fellow religious about the occasion when he saw Waltheof’s prayers fill a chapel with divine light only after the abbot’s death releases him from his vow of silence on the matter.14 The narrative concerning the heavenly letter sent to Waltheof via Sinuin, the proud laybrother, may also have been well-known among the brethren. According to the Acta Sanctorum version of the Vita, the letter is said to have been read out to the community and written on wax tablets for display in the chapterhouse.15 Similarly, when preaching to the laybrothers, Waltheof unintentionally revealed himself to have been the recipient of a vision – his audience then ‘told it to those who had not been present and to posterity’.16 The first of Waltheof’s posthumous miracles also seems to have been an occasion for open celebration within the community: the cure of the laybrother, Gillesperda, was said to be greeted by ‘the thanksgiving of all’.17 In addition, it seems highly probable that the preservation of Waltheof’s corpse was common knowledge: not only was it a major compo-

11

12

13 14

15

16 17

The vision foretelling Waltheof’s death that was seen by Nicholas, chancellor of the king of Scots, while on business in Rome, probably also comes from Walter. The Vita tells us that the two men were friends and that Nicholas recounted his vision to Walter on his return to Scotland. Vita Waldevi AASS, §§56–9, 94–8, pp. 263C–F, 270D–1C; Vita Waldevi, pp. 271–6, 315–20. The statement that Walter’s story was recounted to others who then passed it on to Jocelin is made in relation to Walter’s vision of Waltheof soon after the saint’s death. Vita Waldevi AASS, §§57, 98, pp. 263D-E, 271C; Vita Waldevi, pp. 273, 320. Vita Waldevi AASS, §61, p. 264E; Vita Waldevi, p. 278. Two other witnesses to miracles, Richard the laybrother and a messenger boy, were also sworn to silence until Waltheof’s death. Vita Waldevi AASS, §§71–2, 74–5, 77–8, pp. 266B–D, 266F–7B, 267C–E; Vita Waldevi, pp. 291–3, 294–6, 297–9. The Madrid manuscript version omits the display of the letter in the chapterhouse and gives the laybrother’s name as ‘Siminus’. Vita Waldevi AASS, §§85–7, p. 268C–F; Vita Waldevi, pp. 304–7; Bibl. del Palacio Real, MS II 2097, fol. 58va. Vita Waldevi AASS, §73, p. 266D–E, (p. 266E); Vita Waldevi, pp. 293–4 (p. 294). We are told that the miraculous cure of Bernulf of Roxburgh also became well known in the abbey due to the high status of the personage involved. Vita Waldevi

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From the Testimony of Trustworthy Men nent of the abbot’s claim to sanctity, but an account of the first discovery of the saint’s incorruption appears in the abbey’s chronicle.18 Despite its illicit nature, the second discovery of Waltheof’s incorruption made by a group of laybrothers in 1206 must also have been well known. The Vita records that rumours of the discovery circulated through the community and the event appears to have been the main reason for the commissioning of the text.19 Despite the absence of explicit statements concerning the transmission of Jocelin’s source material, it seems reasonable to assume that a significant proportion of the narratives in the text represent the communal memory of the Melrose brethren. Oral testimony, even when it provided accounts derived at second- or third-hand, formed a staple source for medieval hagiographical texts throughout this period and before.20 Certainly, there can be little doubt that stories commemorating Waltheof’s life and miracles were told and retold by successive generations of Melrose monks. For some, like the elderly monks of Malmesbury in the early twelfth century, the opportunity to reminisce about holy men known in their youth afforded the storytellers great personal pleasure.21 For others, the recounting of tales about saintly predecessors represented the expression of a communal identity that recalled and reinforced the origin of the community, as well as emphasizing its continued alliance with the saint. In his Historia ecclesiastica, Orderic Vitalis described the process of composition, presentation, memorization and transmission through which the monks of his own abbey had preserved ‘tales worthy of remembrance’ concerning their Frankish patron, St Évroul, and which he now passed on in a written format.22 The Vita Waldevi must be recognized as providing the same function: documenting a largely oral tradition that remained active and articulated within the contemporary Melrose community. Further evidence of this oral culture can be found in Jocelin’s account of Waltheof’s saintly grandfather, Earl Waltheof of Northumbria.23 The Vita makes an explicit reference to a ‘libellus’ of Earl Waltheof’s miracles written in the abbey of Crowland, which presumably refers to the set of early twelfth century miracula that survive today and can be found, along with other ­materials pertaining to the cult, in a manuscript of probable Crowland prov-

18 19 20 21 22 23

AASS, §§112–13, 124, pp. 273F-4A, 275F-6A (p. 274A); Vita Waldevi, pp. 334–5, 344–5 (p. 335). Vita Waldevi AASS, §§121–3, p. 275A-F; Vita Waldevi, pp. 341–4; Chronicle of Melrose, fol. 21r; ‘Chronicle of Melrose’, trans. Stevenson, pp. 133–4. Vita Waldevi AASS, §134, p. 277C–D; Vita Waldevi, pp. 353–4. See the examples provided by van Houts, Memory and Gender, pp. 42–4, 46, 47–9, 51–3. William of Malmesbury, Gesta pontificum Anglorum, V.cclviii.2–3, pp. 614, 615. Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, ed. and trans. M. Chibnall, Oxford Medieval Texts, 6 vols. (Oxford, 1969–80), III, VI.ix, pp. 284, 285. Vita Waldevi AASS, §§6–9, p. 251B–F; Vita Waldevi, pp. 207–12.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness enance.24 However, since Jocelin’s version of Earl Waltheof’s ‘martyrdom’ differs quite distinctly from the story that seems to have been promoted at Crowland, his knowledge of the miracula does not appear to be first-hand. Crowland’s main version of the legend is found in a collection of texts under the heading Vita et passio Waldevis Comitis, which was apparently written after the translation of the earl’s relics in 1219 and was based principally upon Orderic Vitalis’ account, itself written at the behest of the community.25 In contrast to Jocelin’s text, the Crowland legend generally conforms to the early twelfth century reports of Earl Waltheof’s death, implicating both the earl and his wife in a conspiracy against William the Conqueror and emphasizing the earl’s relationship with his confessor, Archbishop Lanfranc.26 Following Orderic Vitalis, the Crowland text also makes a claim for the incorruption of the earl’s body, similarly omitted by Jocelin.27 Neither is there any suggestion that Jocelin based his account upon the other versions of Earl Waltheof’s downfall available in Latin – those found in Orderic Vitalis’ Historia ecclesiastica, William of Malmesbury’s Gesta regum Anglorum and Gesta pontificum Anglorum, the chronicle of John of Worcester, Simeon of Durham’s Gesta regum and the Hyde Chronicle28 – or, more briefly, in the vernacular – the D 24

25 26 27 28

Douai Bibliothèque, MS. Cod. Duaci (AD 1838) No. 801. Appended to Earl Waltheof’s main Vita is a work, ‘Juetta’, concerning the earl’s wife and their descendants which, since it breaks off during the reign of William the Lion (1165–1214), may have been available to Jocelin – although, again, there is no evidence that he used this work. In his introduction to Felix’s Life of Saint Guthlac, Bertram Colgrave incorrectly stated that Jocelin ‘quoted’ from this earlier libellus. Vita Waldevi AASS, § 9, p. 251F; ‘Vita et passio Waldevi Comitis’, Vita quorundum Anglo-Saxonum, Original Lives of Anglo-Saxons and Others Who Lived Before the Conquest, ed. J. A. Giles (London, 1854), pp. 1–30; C. Watkins, ‘The Cult of Earl Waltheof at Crowland’, Hagiographica 3 (1996), 96–8; Felix, Felix’s Life of Saint Guthlac, ed. and trans. B. Colgrave (Cambridge, 1956), pp. 11–12. Watkins, ‘Cult of Earl Waltheof’, pp. 97, 101. The printed edition contains both a summary and a full text of the vita. ‘Vita Waldevi Comitis’, ed. Giles, pp. 1–5, 10–16. Ibid., p. 15. Orderic also states that Waltheof’s fate was due to the machinations of envious Normans, but includes other details not present in Jocelin’s account, including the earl’s alleged incorruption (also noted by William of Malmesbury). William of Malmesbury put forward the English view supporting the Earl and his claims to sanctity in the Gesta pontificum Anglorum but still maintained that Waltheof had agreed to the conspiracy. The account of this incident in Roger of Howden’s Chronicle is based on that in Simeon of Durham’s text – it is interesting that even though Howden’s account was written in or shortly after 1192, it still reflects this traditional view. Orderic Vitalis, Ecclesiastical History, II, IV, pp. 262, 263, 274–7, 312–25, 344–51; William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum Anglorum, III.ccliii, cclv.2, 468–71, 472, 473; William of Malmesbury, Gesta pontificum Anglorum, IV.clxxxii.4–6, pp. 486–9; John of Worcester, The Chronicle of John of Worcester, Vol. III: The Annals from 1067 to 1140 with the Gloucester Interpolations and the Continuation to 1141, ed. and trans. P. McGurk, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 1998), pp. 24–9; Simeon of Durham,

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From the Testimony of Trustworthy Men and E versions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and Geffrei Gaimar’s Estoire.29 Jocelin’s extreme pro-Waltheof bias has more in common with the skaldic tradition, which places a similar emphasis on William’s betrayal of the earl. However, despite the similarity in tone, there is, again, a difference in narrative detail.30 Instead, the version of Earl Waltheof’s martyrdom in the Vita strongly reflects the context in which the text was written. As Hugh Thomas argues, the late twelfth century saw an intensification of English identity among the elites in England which was reflected in a developing discourse of politically-based xenophobia, feelings that were further solidified by the loss of Normandy in 1204. This new focus on Englishness saw a reshaping of attitudes towards the English past, including those towards the Norman Conquest.31 This can be seen in the pro-English narratives found in two other works to emerge from this cultural environment. The Roman de Waldef is set in a fictional pre-Conquest past and, through the story of Waldef, son of King Bede, praises the chivalric values of the English. The Vita S. Haroldi attacks the legitimacy of the Norman Conquest by claiming that Harold did not die at Hastings but escaped the slaughter and ended his life as a hermit in

29

30

31

Symeonis monachi opera omnia, Vol. II: Historia regum, eadem Historia ad quintum et vicesimum annum continuata, per Joannem Hagulstadensem, accedunt varia, ed. T. Arnold, RS 75 (London, 1885), §§163–4, pp. 205–8; Simeon of Durham, ‘Simeon of Durham’s History of the Kings of England’, The Church Historians of England Vol. III Part II: The Historical Works of Simeon of Durham, trans. J. Stevenson (London, 1855), pp. 562–3; ‘Chronica monasterii de Hida juxta Wintoniam ab anno 1035 ad annum 1121’, in Liber monasterii de Hyda: Comprising a chronicle of the affairs of England from the settlement of the Saxons to the reign of King Cnut and a chartulary of the Abbey of Hyde in Hampshire, AD 455–1023, ed. E. Edwards, RS 45 (London, 1866), pp. 294–5; Roger of Howden, Chronica magistri Rogeri de Houedene, ed. W. Stubbs, 4 vols., RS 51 (London, 1868–9), I, 131–2; Roger of Howden, The Annals of Roger de Hoveden Comprising the History of England and of Other Countries of Europe , trans. H. T. Riley 2 vols. (Reprint of 1853 edn, Felinfach, 1994–6), I, 157–9; DNB 28, 463. Both versions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle acknowledge Waltheof’s role in the plot. Gaimar makes no judgement on either Earl Waltheof or his crime. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Revised Translation, ed. and trans. D. Whitelock, D. C. Douglas and S. I. Tucker (London, 1961), pp. 157–8; Geffrei Gaimar, Geffrei Gaimar, Estoire des Engleis/ History of the English, ed. and trans. I. Short (Oxford, 2009), ll. 5724–36, pp. 310, 311. The remaining stanzas of a skaldic poem commemorating Earl Waltheof were written by a member of his retinue, Thorkell Skallason. His emphasis on William’s betrayal is repeated in the thirteenth-century Hemings Þáttr, which records his veneration as a martyr. Thorkell Skallason, ‘Falls Haralds Guðinasonar’ and ‘Dráp Valþófs Jarls’, in Heimskringla Snorra Sturlusonar: Konungasögur III Bindi, ed. P. E. Ólason (Reykjavik, 1948), pp. 136–7; F. S. Scott, ‘Earl Waltheof of Northumbria’, Archaeologia Aeliana 4th Series 30 (1952), 149, 165–9; Watkins, ‘Cult of Earl Waltheof’, pp. 99–100. H. M. Thomas, The English and the Normans: Ethnic Hostility, Assimilation, and Identity 1066–c.1220 (Oxford, 2005), pp. 323–43.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness ­ hester.32 Jocelin’s account of Earl Waltheof as a completely innocent man, C himself the target of a Norman conspiracy, represents the similar development of the earl’s legend. Although Carl Watkins claims that any resurgence of interest in the cult at Crowland was largely a local reaction to the economic and political difficulties faced by the monastery, Jocelin’s version of events indicates that in the early thirteenth century there was a still wider interest in Earl Waltheof the ‘martyr’.33 With little evidence to indicate a written source for Jocelin’s account, it is not implausible that this variant version of the Earl Waltheof legend was based on a contemporary oral account, and one that may even have been specific to Melrose. In addition to the implied and explicit use of communal sources, Jocelin also includes references to first-hand oral sources. Since the Vita was written about fifty years after the saint’s death, very few – if any – of the witnesses cited are likely to have been contemporaries of Waltheof himself. Instead they provide evidence for events that seem to have occurred in the later years of the twelfth century. Of the twenty-two miracles included in the posthumous miracula, Jocelin cites direct first-hand sources – ‘he told me’, ‘as he told me himself’, ‘as he himself told me more than once’ – for six of the final seven miracles and seems to imply a specific source for the seventh.34 At first glance, the position of the eyewitness accounts at the end of the text hints at a chronological ordering of the posthumous miracula with the more recent, first-hand accounts following older, indirect narratives. However, a closer look reveals that the sequence of the miracles is more complex than this. The posthumous miracula can be divided into three sections, the first two divisions provided by Jocelin himself: ‘We come first, then, to visions of the Lord and revelations of Jesus Christ and after that to the miracles which the Lord deigned to manifest by the merits of His servant Waltheof.’35 Within these two divisions, the visions and miracles appear to form two separate chronologies, 32

33 34

35

Both texts were written c.1200. Ibid., pp. 356–7, 362–3; Le Roman de Waldef (Cod. Bodmer 168), ed. A. J. Holden, Bibliothèque Bodmeriana Textes 5 (1984); Vita Haroldi, ed. and trans. Gray Birch. Watkins, ‘Cult of Earl Waltheof’, pp. 108–11. ‘mihi retulit’, ‘sicut ipse mihi retulit’, ‘retulit mihi’, ‘mihi dum haec referret’ and ‘ut ipse mihi saepius referebat’. The two discoveries of Waltheof’s incorruption are included in this count. The miracles for which Jocelin has eye-witness accounts are: a messenger, Henry, is saved from drowning; the miraculous cures of four Melrose brethren (Roger of Appleby, a second Roger and the laybrothers Duramius and Henry); the discovery of Waltheof’s incorruption in 1206. Jocelin states that the clerk of Westmorland recounted his miraculous cure to a certain master of great age, who may be Jocelin’s source. The Madrid manuscript omits the statement ‘sicut ipse mihi retulit’ found in the Acta Sanctorum version of the cure of the second Brother Roger. Vita Waldevi AASS, §§127–34, pp. 276C–7E (pp. 276C, 276D, 276E, 277A, 277C); Vita Waldevi, pp. 347–54 (pp. 347, 348, 349, 350, 353); Bibl. del Palacio Real, MS. II 2097, fol. 66vb. Vita Waldevi AASS, §93, p. 270D; Vita Waldevi, p. 314.

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From the Testimony of Trustworthy Men both starting at or soon after Waltheof’s death and ending in c.1170 and 1206 respectively. The visionary material begins with Nicholas’s vision of Waltheof outside the gates of heaven which foretells Waltheof’s impending death and can, therefore, be dated to 1159.36 The second vision follows directly from the first. On his return to Scotland, Nicholas told this vision to his friend, Brother Walter, then seriously ill. Unfortunately, Walter misinterprets the meaning of the vision and, in the mistaken belief that Waltheof has been excluded from heaven, sinks into despair. Waltheof then appears to Walter in a dream, reassuring him of his – and Walter’s – salvation.37 Three other visions follow this, none of which contains datable material.38 However, the final vision, in which the approaching deaths of three monks are revealed to Brother William, must have occurred within a few years of 1170 – the date recorded for the second of the predicted deaths.39 The early date of the first vision and the later date of the last imply that the visions are arranged in chronological order. A similar rough chronology can be seen in the second half of the miracula, which concerns the miracles proper, and is a division that can itself be divided into two. Within this section, Jocelin orders the miracles by placing the second-hand material, apparently perceived as generally earlier, first and the directly collected information, apparently perceived as generally later, second. The first of the miracles transmitted indirectly to Jocelin, the cure of Gillesperda, a laybrother from the Melrose daughter house of Coupar Angus, seems to have occurred relatively soon after Waltheof’s death but presumably after 1161 when Coupar Angus was founded.40 The absence of any reference to other posthumous cures indicates that this miracle occurred during the early development of the cult. The second miracle is portrayed

36 37

38

39

40

Vita Waldevi AASS, §§94–6, pp. 270D–1A; Vita Waldevi, pp. 315–18. The second vision at least predates 1171, the year that Nicholas died, and probably occurred soon after Waltheof’s death. Vita Waldevi AASS, §§97–8, p. 271A–C; Vita Waldevi, pp. 319–20; Chronicle of Melrose, fol. 21r; ‘Chronicle of Melrose’, trans. Stevenson, p. 133. These are the vision of the laybrother, Henry, and the two visions of a second laybrother named Walter. Vita Waldevi AASS, §§99–107, pp. 271C–2F; Vita Waldevi, pp. 320–30. The text states that the three monks died in the foretold order ‘after the lapse of few years’. The death of Abbot Fulk of Coupar Angus, the second of the predicted deaths, is recorded in 1170. Vita Waldevi AASS, §§109–10, p. 273C–E; Vita Waldevi, pp. 331–3; A Scottish Chronicle Known as the Chronicle of Holyrood, ed. M. Ogilvie Anderson and A. Orr Anderson, Scottish History Society 3rd Series 30 (Edinburgh, 1938), pp. 151–2; Early Sources of Scottish History A.D. 500 to 1286, ed. and trans. A. Orr Anderson, 2 vols. (Edinburgh, 1922), II, 268. Jocelin tells us that Gillesperda sought a cure at the tomb ‘hearing and knowing of Abbot Waltheof’s sanctity while he had lived in the world’ (‘audiens et ­cognoscens sanctitatem abbatis Waldevi, adhuc in mundo spirantis’). Vita Waldevi AASS, §§112– 13, p. 273F; Vita Waldevi, pp. 334–5; Cowan and Easson, Medieval Religious Houses, p. 73.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness as a direct consequence of the first and is a good example of a miracle-cult developing its own momentum: a layman suffering from dropsy, ‘hearing that the kind hand of the Lord through the merits of St Waltheof had brought the cure that the laybrother had wished for… requested and obtained access to the tomb of the man of God’.41 Five miracles later, Jocelin seems to record the arrival of the first pilgrim from outside the immediate area, a clerk from a distant part of England drawn by Waltheof’s holy reputation.42 The next miracle concerns the discovery of Waltheof’s incorruption in 1171, which may well have reached Jocelin through direct oral witnesses, although he gives no indication of this.43 The two miracles which follow provide an intermediary stage between the presumably earlier miracles drawn from second-hand sources and the later first-hand accounts. In what seems to be an attempt to add further authenticity to the miraculous cure of Bernulf of Roxburgh, Jocelin tells us that ‘I have seen his son, a monk in the monastery of Melrose.’44 However, although this statement implies some form of firsthand communication, the son is not mentioned at any other point in the narrative. The cure of a madman continues this ambiguity. Jocelin states that ‘this man told a story worth recording, one that is not going to be passed over here’, and appends a first-person narrative – the only such account to appear in the text.45 Yet despite the inclusion of ‘he said’ at the beginning of this narrative and the comment that the man still lives, Jocelin does not explicitly state that he heard this story directly.46 In contrast to the eyewitness accounts that follow, it seems that these two episodes belong to the earlier subsection of accounts received at second-hand. The testimony of the madman includes the statement that Waltheof watched over Melrose with his co-abbot Laurence, which seems to date the narrative to the period of Laurence’s abbacy between 1175 and 1178.47 The miracle that follows this account, the first of the direct eyewitness accounts, appears to pick up this chronology and helps to draw these two subsections together. Jocelin recounts the story told to him by Henry, a messenger who

41

42 43 44 45

46 47

‘is audiens, manum Domini benignam meritis sancti Waldevi optatam salutem [contulisse] in Conversum, petiit et impetravit ad tumbum Viri Dei accessum’. Vita Waldevi AASS, §114, p. 274–B (p. 274A). Vita Waldevi AASS, §119, p. 274E–F; Vita Waldevi, pp. 339–40. Vita Waldevi AASS, §§121–3, p. 275D–F; Vita Waldevi, pp. 341–4; Chronicle of Melrose, fol. 21r; ‘Chronicle of Melrose’, trans. Stevenson, pp. 133–4. Vita Waldevi AASS, §124, pp. 275F–6A (p. 276A); Vita Waldevi, pp. 344–5, (p. 344). ‘Narravit autem homo ille quoddam memoria dignum, quod hic non censetur praetereundem.’ Vita Waldevi AASS, §§125–6 (§125), p. 276A–C (p. 276B); Vita Waldevi, pp. 345–7. Vita Waldevi AASS, §§125, 126, pp. 276B, 276C; Vita Waldevi, pp. 346, 347. Vita Waldevi AASS, §126, p. 276C; Vita Waldevi, p. 346; Chronicle of Melrose, fols. 22r, 22v; ‘Chronicle of Melrose’, trans. Stevenson, pp. 136, 137.

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From the Testimony of Trustworthy Men was miraculously rescued from drowning as he crossed a swollen river.48 The incident may well have occurred some years before Jocelin’s interview with him, since the description of Henry’s white beard suggests that by that time he was an old man. If this miracle did happen earlier, the later dates of the final miracles suggest that they have been placed in a roughly chronological order. It is certainly possible that the penultimate narrative, the cure of the clerk of Westmorland, may have occurred more recently. The miracle is said to have been recounted in full to ‘a certain master of great age’, a man who has been tentatively identified as Master John of Roxburgh, the former treasurer of Glasgow Cathedral, who retired to Melrose and died as a novice there in February 1196.49 If John of Roxburgh is the master referred to, then this miracle can be dated to 1195 or 1196, within John’s incomplete one-year novitiate. The final miracle, the second discovery of Waltheof’s incorruption, can be dated to 1206 and seems to be the event that prompted the community to commission the Vita.50 However, it is also possible that the arrangement of some of the episodes reflects a slightly different understanding of the material. The account of the white-haired messenger, Henry, is followed by an interview with another elderly man, Roger de Appleby. Roger’s testimony is then followed by the narrative of another Roger. It is not implausible to suggest that the sequence of these stories reflected commonalities between first the age, then the name of the testator.51 In addition, the presence amid the eyewitness accounts of the miracle concerning the clerk of Westmorland, whose source is not explicitly stated by Jocelin, may also be explained by other factors. The miracle includes the endorsement of Waltheof’s cult by Thomas Becket, who, appearing in a dream to the clerk, tells him not to go to Canterbury but to travel to Melrose instead.52 The placing of this miracle after the majority of Jocelin’s first-hand testimonies and before the second discovery of Waltheof’s incorruption – the event that immediately preceded the commissioning of the Vita – indicates that the promotion of the cult by St Thomas was felt to be as significant, if not more so, than the eyewitness accounts of the lesser mortals that preceded it. The limited use of eyewitnesses provides a partial glimpse into Jocelin’s authenticating criteria. For the majority of eyewitnesses, their testimony is accepted without the need for any further validating statement. The prologue assures the reader that the communal testimony of the Melrose brethren is

48 49 50

51 52

Vita Waldevi AASS, §127, p. 276C–D; Vita Waldevi, p. 347. Vita Waldevi AASS, §132, p. 277A–B (p. 277B); Vita Waldevi, pp. 350–2, 352 n.1 (p. 351); Chronicle of Melrose, fol. 26r; ‘Chronicle of Melrose’, trans. Stevenson, p. 147. The Vita actually dates this event to 1207, a statement that reflects Jocelin’s use of inclusive counting – see below p. 136 n.97. Vita Waldevi AASS, §§133–4, p. 277C–D; Vita Waldevi, pp. 352–4. Vita Waldevi AASS, §§127–9, p. 276C–E; Vita Waldevi, pp. 347–9. Vita Waldevi AASS, §132, p. 277A–B; Vita Waldevi, pp. 350–1.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness to be believed and this sentiment is repeated in the introduction to the posthumous miracula. Monastic accounts in the Vita are, therefore, presented without any further authenticating statements. The credibility of lay people as sources for miraculous narratives, however, appears to have been considered more problematic. The comment appended to the testimony of Henry the messenger suggests that his story required some form of further validation. Jocelin tells us that Henry’s beard, which was ‘as white as the head of a swan, forced me to banish any thought of lies emerging from his mouth’.53 This builds on an earlier comment made by Jocelin that Waltheof’s ‘face was the faithful interpreter of the inner man’.54 In the case of Henry, the physical purity of his white beard reflects the truth of his testimony. As an elderly man of reassuringly honest appearance, he is a witness whose credibility is second only to that of churchmen or the male religious.55 The authenticating statement present in the account concerning the miraculous cure of Bernulf of Roxburgh provides a different way of validating a predominantly lay narrative. Unlike the majority of other lay cures, which were effected following a period of residency in the abbey infirmary, Bernulf and his party came straight from Roxburgh and returned immediately after the miracle, reducing monastic mediation to a minimum. However, the statement that Jocelin has seen Bernulf’s son, now a monk at Melrose, appears to be an attempt to cast some form of monastic authority over this narrative. Jocelin’s comment not only reaffirms the association between Bernulf and the abbey but implies a degree of authenticity.56 The first-person account of the miraculous cure of the madman also includes subtle authenticating elements. The brief digression

53

54

55

56

‘Haec idem Henricus, qui in se expertus est, mihi retulit, cujus nivea barba vel [cigneum] caput ab ejus ore mendacium exulare compellit.’ The Madrid manuscript corrects the reading of ‘vel agaeum caput’ found in the Acta Sanctorum version of the text. Bibl. del Palacio Real, MS II 2097, fol. 66va; Vita Waldevi AASS, §127, p. 276C–D. This statement is followed by a reference to the saint’s white hair. Jocelin makes a similar comment concerning Kentigern’s appearance and gait in the Vita Kentegerni. Vita Waldevi AASS, §47, p. 261A; Vita Waldevi, pp. 259–60; Vita Kentegerni, pp. 59, 186. See the comments on preferable witness criteria made in Houts, Memory and Gender, pp. 58–9, and C. Watkins, ‘Memories of the Marvellous in the Anglo-Norman Realm’, in Medieval Memories: Men, Women and the Past, 700–1300, ed. E. van Houts (Harlow, 2001), p. 96. The other healing miracles concerning laymen who were not resident at the infirmary are the accounts of the householder stricken with dropsy, which appears among the earlier miracles, and the cure of the madman. The cure of the householder includes the common narrative pattern in which the protagonist experiences the same dream on three consecutive nights – the presence of this trope may have been considered sufficient to validate this story. Vita Waldevi AASS, §§116, 124–6, pp. 274C–D, 275F–6C; Vita Waldevi, pp. 337–8, 344–7.

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From the Testimony of Trustworthy Men on Abbot Laurence, a figure referred to in the man’s vision, adds a certain monastic aura to the account, while the statement that the cured man was still alive at the time that Jocelin was writing implies the possibility of direct oral testimony.57 The final authenticating statement in the text occurs in the account of a laybrother, Henry. Here Jocelin tells us that he was provided with the ‘visible evidence’ of the miraculous cure of Henry’s ulcers: ‘while he repeated this story to me, he displayed his scars for me to count – as I remember, there were nine of them’.58 This detail not only bolsters Henry’s status as a credible witness, but asserts the presence of tangible corroborating evidence for his story.

The interaction of oral and written sources It would be misleading, however, to overemphasize the boundaries between the oral and written aspects of Waltheof’s cult. Indeed, the recording of apparently oral narratives in the Vita is evidence in itself of the close relationship between literary and oral cultures. It was not a relationship that went one way. While written texts might record oral accounts, the documents created could then be read aloud and their contents memorized, adapted and further publicized by the audience, before being recorded again in their modified forms. This means that oral and literary traditions continually impacted upon each other. Although the nature of the evidence makes the interaction between these sources difficult to analyse, the Vita provides at least two clear examples of the interplay between spoken and written material. The account of Waltheof’s vision of the holy infant during the Mass reached Jocelin via a number of sources. He found a version of the narrative in Everard of Holmcultram’s written account and was also told the story by Swein, the abbey’s subcellarer, and by a number of other unspecified members of the community.59 While it remains possible that these accounts were transmitted entirely independently, it is likely that Swein and the other brethren knew of Everard’s account, even if they already had prior knowledge of the vision. A more problematic example is provided by the story of the heavenly letter sent to Waltheof via the laybrother Sinuin, which was then read out and displayed in the chapterhouse. Although the public reading and written display of the letter is extant only in the Acta Sanctorum recension of the text, it does

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Vita Waldevi AASS, §§125–6, p. 276A-C; Vita Waldevi, pp. 345–7. ‘indicium evidenter’, ‘mihique dum haec referret, novem, ut recordor, cicatrices foraminum numerandas exposuit’. Vita Waldevi AASS, §131, pp. 276F, 277A. For a discussion on the exact nature of Everard’s account see below. Vita Waldevi AASS, §§22–4, p. 256A–C; Vita Waldevi, pp. 227–9.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness provide a further indication of the acknowledged interaction between oral and written sources.60 A further example of this interplay can be found in the testimony of the madman cured at Waltheof’s tomb. By using the words ‘he said’ (inquit) and recording the madman’s experience as a first-person account, the Vita implies that this testimony came from a direct oral source. In addition, the simple, unliterary style of Latin found in this passage appears faithfully to represent the madman’s testimony, albeit in translation from the vernacular.61 However, the comment at the end of the passage indicates that the story only reached Jocelin indirectly: ‘And as for the madman who had been made clean… [he] is said to be now in the twilight of his days, still enjoying the sanity he recovered.’62 That this witness ‘is said to be now in the twilight of his days’ implies that Jocelin did not meet the testator in person. The firstperson account provided by the Vita must, therefore, come from a written source which documented the man’s experience. Yet while it seems clear that the passage was excerpted from a written record, Jocelin remains reluctant to acknowledge the underlying textual source. The Vita asserts that the man ‘told’ (narravit) a story that was ‘worth recording’ (memoria dignum), language that implies a more direct relationship between author and subject than actually appears to have been the case – the story had already been both told and recorded.63 It is likely that this account formed part of a larger set of texts that documented cult activity in the abbey and from which Jocelin found a number of other narratives present in the Vita.64 The keeping of such dossiers appears to have been common practice at major shrines. It is even possible that the recording of saintly narratives at Melrose began during Waltheof’s lifetime. William of St Thierry had started work on the Vita Bernardi while his subject was still alive and similar action was taken in preparation for the death of the English hermit, Godric of Finchale. As part of the research for the latter, Reginald of Durham conducted interviews with Godric and even presented the finished work to him shortly before his death.65 The accounts 60

61 62 63 64 65

See p. 118 n.15. Bulloch claims that a copy of this letter survived until Jocelin’s day. However, although this seems probable, it is not explicitly stated by the Vita. Vita Waldevi AASS, §87, p. 268E–F; Vita Waldevi, p. 306; Bulloch, ‘Saint Waltheof’, p. 125. Vita Waldevi AASS, §§125–6, p. 276B–C (p. 276B); Vita Waldevi, p. 346. Vita Waldevi AASS, §126, p. 276C; Vita Waldevi, p. 347. Vita Waldevi AASS, §125, p. 276B. Derek Baker also suggested the presence of a dossier on Waltheof at Melrose Abbey. Baker, ‘Legend and Reality’, pp. 71–2. There was a long history of such hagiographical forethought – Sulpicius Severus also completed the Vita S. Martini before the saint’s death. William of St Thierry et al., ‘Bernardi vita prima’, prol., cols. 225A–7A; William of St Thierry et al., Vita prima Bernardi, trans. Webb and Walker, pp. 9–11; Reginald of Durham, Libellus de vita et miraculis S. Godrici, heremitae de Finchale, auctore Reginaldo monacho Dunelmensi, ed. J. Stevenson, SS 20 (London, 1847), c. clxvi, pp. xi–xiv, 315–17; Sulpicius, ‘Life of St Martin’, ed. Hoare, p. 3.

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From the Testimony of Trustworthy Men of the miracles enacted during Waltheof’s lifetime suggest that some note was being made of their occurrence but whether this actually took written form is unknown. Among Waltheof’s posthumous miracula, we are told that the laybrother Henry made either a mental or written note (notavit) of his vision of the saint and this may imply a culture where people recorded miraculous occurrences in general, as well as those specifically associated with Waltheof.66 John of Salisbury’s statement that during his research for the Historia pontificalis he found ‘notes of memorable events’ in church archives indicates that this kind of activity was relatively common.67 However, considering the apparent suppression of Waltheof’s cult by his successor, Abbot William, it seems that if a formal record of the saint’s miracles was made, it probably postdates William’s resignation in 1170 – an explanation that may also account for the large degree of anonymity relating to those cured in the first decade of the cult.68 There is, however, a further component to the interaction of oral and written material: the impact of literary texts upon the formation of oral accounts. The monastery was a space where the written word frequently intersected with the spoken word, whether through private reading, public reading, the reading of sermons or more informal preaching. In such an environment, the influence of texts was all-pervading and the various written accounts that were read or heard must have provided some form of referential framework that affected both the actions of the brethren and the way that they interpreted certain events. Although the Vita contains two particularly good examples of this, this chapter will only discuss one of them in depth: Brother Walter’s vision of heaven and hell. The second example, the discovery of Waltheof’s miraculous preservation in 1171 which consciously mimics an earlier narrative concerning the incorruption of St Cuthbert, is examined later in chapter seven.69 The Vita tells us that Walter, a laybrother of Melrose, became secretly disaffected with the religious life to the extent that he began to prefer Judaism to the Catholic faith. One day during his midday rest, Abbot Waltheof appeared

66

67

68

69

Although Henry was a laybrother and therefore ‘illiterate’, he may have been able to make a written note of the date of the vision. Vita Waldevi AASS, §99, p. 271C–D (p. 271D); Vita Waldevi, p. 321. John of Salisbury, The Historia pontificalis of John of Salisbury, ed. and trans. M. Chibnall, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 1986), prol., p. 2; M. T. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record: England 1066–1307, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1993), pp. 100–1. Of the seven men cured before the first discovery of Waltheof’s incorruption, two are anonymous laymen, one is an anonymous householder, one is an anonymous clerk and another is an anonymous monk. Of the eight people cured after the first discovery of Waltheof’s incorruption, only two of those directly experiencing miracles are anonymous. Vita Waldevi AASS, §§114–16, 118–9, 125–6, 132, pp. 274A–D, 274D–F, 276A–C, 277A–B; Vita Waldevi, pp. 336–8, 339–40, 345–7, 350–2. See pp. 209–10.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness to the sleeping Walter and ordered him to be taken on a journey to see the fate of evildoers. Walter awoke from this vision traumatised and bloodied, and for many days after lived as a shadow of his former self. Walter was then visited for a second time by the saint and experienced a vision in which he was shown the rewards of the just. After this, Walter was a changed man. Previously simple and slow in speech, he was now able to compose rhythmic vernacular verse of such beauty that it brought tears to the eyes of those hearing it.70 The Vita also records that Walter was granted a vision foretelling his death, which later came to pass as predicted – a fact that implies Jocelin’s account of the vision is second hand.71 Jocelin probably found the vision in a written source, one that may have been authored by Walter himself.72 However, the presentation of the account as a third-person narrative is strongly suggestive of another intermediary. If so, it is possible that this author may have significantly reshaped the vision during its transmission from orality to written text. However, we should also be wary of underestimating Walter’s role in the formation of the account. The late twelfth century was the highpoint for narratives of the other world and, although Walter was a laybrother, there is

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The Acta Sanctorum edition provides an abridged account of Walter’s journey to hell. McFadden restored part of the narrative by inserting the text found in the abbreviated version of the Vita written by John of Tynemouth c.1350. However, the Madrid manuscript seems to preserve the full, original account of the vision. Vita Waldevi AASS, §§100–5, pp. 271D–2D; Vita Waldevi, pp. 170–7, 322–8; John of Tynemouth, ‘De sancto Walleuo Abbate’, in Nova legenda Anglie: As collected by John of Tynemouth, John Capgrave and others, and first printed, with new lives, by Wynkyn de Worde ad mdxvi, Vol. II, ed. C. Horstmann (Oxford, 1901), p. 410; Bibl. del Palacio Real, MS II 2097, fols. 61ra–62vb. Vita Waldevi AASS, §§106–7, p. 272D–F; Vita Waldevi, pp. 329–30. The ambiguity of Jocelin’s language leaves the extent of Walter’s new-found abilities unclear. The description of the pre-vision Walter as a ‘hominem illiteratum’ may indicate that Walter was totally illiterate or was merely poorly educated (as the term is used in the Vita Patricii). The use of ‘dictare’ to describe Walter’s new talent is similarly ambiguous. It may indicate the ability to compose as the stage prior to transcription, which is how the term is used by Bernard of Clairvaux in one of his letters. However, Jocelin’s earlier use of ‘dictatum’ and ‘dictata’ to refer to written material suggests that the post-vision Walter was a man able to write, potentially in Latin – as has been interpreted by McFadden, Bulloch and Megan Cassidy-Welch. Bulloch even argues that Jocelin’s text merely abbreviated accounts found in Walter’s poems. That the Vita’s written sources included transcripts of Walter’s poems is not implausible, but whether Walter himself wrote these transcripts remains unclear. Bulloch mistakenly refers to Walter as Robert. Vita Waldevi AASS, §§100, 105, pp. 271E, 272D; Vita Patricii AASS, prol., p. 536E; Bernard of Clairvaux, Lettere 1–548, ed. F. Gastaldelli, 2 vols., Opera di san Bernardo 6 (Milan, 1986–87), I, Ep. lxxxix, p. 442; Stock, Implications of Literacy, p. 409; Vita Kentegerni, p. 160; Vita Waldevi, p. 328; Bulloch, ‘Saint Waltheof’, p. 127; M. Cassidy-Welch, Monastic Spaces and Their Meanings: Thirteenth-Century English Cistercian Monasteries, Medieval Church Studies 1 (Turnhout, 2001), p. 188.

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From the Testimony of Trustworthy Men no reason to assume that he was not familiar with the tropes of the genre or that he was incapable of imitating behaviour found in textual models.73 Walter’s vision of the other world presents the reader with obvious, but implicit, parallels which place this account firmly within the boundaries of this literary genre. The divine gift of composition granted to Walter following the vision immediately brings Bede’s story of Caedmon to mind, although it is notable that Jocelin’s text makes no allusion to Bede either explicitly or by echoing his language.74 Likewise, the content of Walter’s vision is comparable in part to Bede’s account of Dryhthelm’s vision of heaven and hell – but again, this remains unacknowledged in the Vita.75 Since these parallels are concerned with the events of the narrative rather than the language, it is probable that if these texts did influence the account of the vision, then these similarities represent the input of the visionary himself. If we can assume that local interest may have affected the choice of reading matter in the abbey, then it seems likely that Walter would have been familiar with the story of Dryhthelm who, after his revelation, became a monk of Old Melrose. While Walter’s vision does include some unique touches, it also contains a variety of topoi associated with visions of the other world. The Tractatus de purgatorio Sancti Patricii, written in the mid-1180s, records elements similar to those found in Walter’s vision: the wasteland; the revolving wheel covered in hooks and driven by demons; the recognition of other souls in the fires; high walls; the verdant land full of song; and the divine explanation of the vision.76

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Robert Easting suggests that in monasteries such visions may have been regularly recounted at the bedside of the terminally ill or those on the point of death. However, whether this was true of Cistercian houses is unknown. P. Dinzelbacher, Revelationes, Typologie des Sources du Moyen Âge Occidental Fasc. 57. A-VI.D.3* (Turnhout, 1991), p. 30; Adam of Eynsham, The Revelation of the Monk of Eynsham, ed. R. Easting, EETS OS 318 (Oxford, 2002), p. lxxix. For an example of another illiterate visionary who seems to imitate textual models, see Brian Stock’s analysis of Leutard’s experience: Stock, Implications of Literacy, pp. 101–6. Both Walter and Caedmon also had premonitions of their own deaths. Vita Waldevi AASS, §§100–7, pp. 271D–2F; Vita Waldevi, pp. 322–30; Bede, Ecclesiastical History, IV.xxiv, pp. 414–21. Both Walter and Dryhthelm enter a place of darkness where they hear weeping and wailing, both later arrive at a pleasant, light place for imperfect souls before they reach heaven, a place of even greater light. Vita Waldevi AASS, §103, p. 272B–C; Vita Waldevi, pp. 172–3, 325, 326–7; Bibl. del Palacio Real, MS II 2097, fols. 61vb, 62rb-va; Bede, Ecclesiastical History, V.xii, pp. 490–5. Although the idea of the wheel seems to recall the wheels found in the Passio S. Katerine, the descriptions of the wheels in the Vita and the Tractatus bear little resemblance to those in the Passio and instead seem to represent a stock form of hellish torment. H. of Sawtry, ‘Tractatus’, ed. Easting, ll. 357–8, 429–42, 449–63, 753, 784–916, pp. 130, 132, 133, 141, 141–5; H. of Sawtry, Saint Patrick’s Purgatory, trans. Picard and Pontfarcy, pp. 56, 60–1, 65, 66–71; ‘Passio Katerine’, ed. D’Ardenne and Dobson, ll. 924–48, pp. 191–2; Vita Waldevi AASS, §§102–4, pp. 271F–2C; Vita Waldevi, pp. 172, 324–8; Bibl. del Palacio Real, MS II 2097, fols. 61va-b, 62ra–vb.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness Likewise, the vision of the monk of Eynsham, which occurred in 1196 and, as such, probably postdates that of Walter, also contains much comparable material: the visionary led on the journey by venerable persons dressed in white; the vast plain; the high mountain; the ability to quickly surmount high spaces; the recognition of some of the souls in torment; the region of great joy that is pleasant smelling and full of light; the high wall; and the region of even greater light.77 Although, to an extent, the recurrence of these infinite spaces and heights represents the limitless capacity of the dreamscape, it also seems to be an expected feature of the other world narrative which, along with a variety of other elements, can be found in a large number of texts. The content of Walter’s vision, therefore, generally conforms to what was expected of the genre. Although it is now impossible to tell whether the narrative accurately reflects the vision itself or whether it was subject to reshaping by the first redactor, what does seem probable is that, with the exception of minor literary or hagiographical touches to make it fit within the style of the Vita Waldevi as a whole, Jocelin made few changes to his source material.

Written sources Despite what seems to be the oral nature of much of the Vita’s source material, it is also clear that Jocelin’s account of Waltheof’s life and miracles was supplemented by a number of written sources associated with the cult. One of Jocelin’s most important literary sources appears to have been the now lost text written by Waltheof’s close friend, Everard, abbot of Holmcultram. As the Vita tells us, Everard had known Waltheof since his days at the Augustinian house of Kirkham, a community Everard had joined as a child oblate. The two appear to have converted to the Cistercian life together and on Waltheof’s appointment to the abbacy of Melrose, Everard accompanied him as his chaplain and confessor. He left Waltheof’s side in 1150, when he was appointed as abbot of the new Melrose daughter house of Holmcultram, a position he held until his death in 1192.78 It seems likely that much of Jocelin’s early information concerning Waltheof comes from Everard’s account, including the details of his role in the York election dispute while still prior of Kirkham.79 However, since Everard’s death predated the commissioning of 77

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See, for example, Adam of Eynsham, Revelation of Monk of Eynsham, ll. 467–72, 588–90, 683–6, 724–8, 1645–9, 2243–7, 2461–4, 2483–93, pp. 34, 42, 48, 50, 108, 146, 160, 166; Vita Waldevi AASS, §§101–4, pp. 271F–2C; Vita Waldevi, pp. 171–5, 323–8; Bibl. del Palacio Real, MS II 2097, fols. 61ra–2va. Vita Waldevi AASS, §49, p. 262B; Vita Waldevi, p. 263; Chronicle of Melrose, fols. 19r, 25v; ‘Chronicle of Melrose’, trans. Stevenson, pp. 127, 145. Vita Waldevi AASS, §§29–30, p. 257A–C; Vita Waldevi, pp. 234–6; Baker, ‘Legend and Reality’, p. 69.

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From the Testimony of Trustworthy Men the Vita by at least fifteen years, it is highly improbable that Jocelin’s information came directly from the man himself – even if this is the impression that the author tries to convey. Jocelin’s few explicit references to Everard are clothed in notably ambiguous terms. Instead of using phrases such as ‘ut legitur’, the Vita employs language suggestive of an oral source. Jocelin learnt of Waltheof’s vision of the Christchild from Everard’s account (narrante) which, having come ‘from the mouth of the saint’s confessor, I accept it’.80 Likewise, the ‘narrante’ of the saint’s confessor is cited for Waltheof’s vision of the crucifixion.81 Everard is also said to have ‘related’ (retulit) the story of Waltheof’s guilt over killing a horsefly.82 It is possible that the ambiguity surrounding the use of Everard’s account reflects Jocelin’s access to it. It has already been noted how the vision of the Christchild was also transmitted to Jocelin as an oral narrative and it may be that other stories from Everard’s work had counterparts in the abbey’s oral traditions. Everard’s text was probably well known within the community – indeed, it is likely that Jocelin sourced his information from a copy of the work held by the house. However, it is not entirely clear exactly what form Everard’s written account took. Following the Bollandists (who themselves followed an earlier ascription), Derek Baker asserts that Jocelin’s text is based on an earlier vita written by Everard.83 However, there are significant problems with Baker’s argument. He claims that Jocelin explicitly cites Everard on three occasions: the eucharistic miracle at Kirkham; Waltheof’s penance for killing a horsefly; and the exhumation of Waltheof’s remains in 1171.84 The final example is a misreading of the text. The Vita tells us that the abbot of ‘Helcon’ was present at the first discovery of Waltheof’s incorruption, a figure interpreted by Baker as being the abbot of Holmcultram.85 However, as the reading of ‘kelchu’ in the Madrid manuscript confirms, McFadden correctly identified

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‘ex ore confessoris ejus accepi’. Vita Waldevi AASS, §23, p. 256B. It seems highly probable that this is a reference to Everard’s account even if Jocelin does not cite Everard by name. Vita Waldevi AASS, §63, pp. 264F–5A (p. 164F); Vita Waldevi, pp. 280–1. Vita Waldevi AASS, §40, pp. 259F–260A (p. 259F); Vita Waldevi, pp. 250–1. Baker, ‘Legend and Reality’, pp. 59 n.2, 68–9, 71; DNB 56, 765; ‘De S. Waltheno’, in AASS Augusti I, p. 246E–F; T. Dempster, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Scotorum sive de scriptoribus Scotis, Vol. I Edition altera, (Edinburgh, 1829), V.§479, p. 260. Presumably led astray by the inclusion of Becket’s martyrdom under the Chronicle’s entry for 1171 – to which the discovery of Waltheof’s incorruption is appended – Baker asserts that the first discovery of Waltheof’s preservation occurred in 1170. However, the dating of Becket’s death on 29 December to 1171 reflects the Chronicle’s understanding of the Nativity (25 December) as the start of the new year. Baker, ‘Legend and Reality’, pp. 62, 66, 67, 70; Chronicle of Melrose, fols. 20v–21r; ‘Chronicle of Melrose’, trans. Stevenson, pp. 132–3; D. Broun and J. Harrison, The Chronicle of Melrose Abbey: A Stratigraphic Edition, Vol. I Introduction and Facsimile Edition (Woodbridge, 2007), p. 127. Baker, ‘Legend and Reality’, p. 69 n.44.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness this figure as the abbot of ‘Kelso’. Indeed, the reading of ‘Helcon’ for Holmcultram is unusual since the two previous mentions of the house referred to it as ‘Holcultran’ or ‘Holcutram’.86 Robert Bartlett also found little evidence to support claims of an earlier vita and instead argued that Everard’s input in the text reflected oral testimony.87 As abbot of Melrose’s daughter house and in accordance with Cistercian regulations, Everard must have been a regular visitor to the mother house. Such visits would have given ample opportunity for the exchange of stories concerning Waltheof, narratives which were then relayed to Jocelin at a later date. Jocelin’s phrasing may also indicate that the text was the product of an interview conducted with Everard, in which the monks sought to document stories of Waltheof’s earlier life while they still could. Although from a much earlier period, Elisabeth van Houts cites the example of the Vita S. Leobae, which was based largely on notes that recorded conversations between a priest and four nuns who had known the saint during her lifetime.88 However, there is also a third option. It is possible that Everard was the author of a written account but that this account did not take the form of a hagiographical text. Two significant pieces of evidence support this hypothesis. Firstly, Everard’s work is never referred to in terms indicative of a vita, such as the libelli or gesta mentioned by Jocelin in his other works.89 Secondly, none of the material that can be attributed to Everard relates to the miraculous. Instead the narrante seems to restrict itself to events during Waltheof’s life, providing evidence only of Waltheof’s humility and his status as a visionary. Such material would not have been out of place in the kind of biographical sketches that circulated on the death of any prominent religious figure and it is possible that Everard’s account formed such a panegyric.90 Without Everard’s account it remains impossible to say how much Jocelin adapted this text to the purposes of his narrative. What this new argument does suggest, however, is that Jocelin’s Vita offered the first official hagiographical account of St Waltheof – an idea that has important bearings upon the development of the cult and which is discussed later in chapter seven.

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Vita Waldevi AASS, §§40, 49, 122, pp. 259F, 262B, 275E; Vita Waldevi, pp. 189, 189 n.1; Bibl. del Palacio Real, MS II 2097, fols. 49vb, 51vb, 65vb. R. Bartlett, ‘Cults of Irish, Scottish and Welsh Saints in Twelfth-Century England’, in Britain and Ireland 900–1300: Insular Responses to Medieval European Change, ed. B. Smith (Cambridge, 1999), p. 83 n.49. Houts, Memory and Gender, pp. 44–6. McFadden also noted that Everard’s text appears to have been considered too modest to qualify for the term libellus. Vita Patricii AASS, §§18, 159 (cc. xxii, clxxxii), pp. 541B, 574C; Vita Kentegerni, c. viii, p. 177; Vita Helenae, l. 35, p. 153; Vita Waldevi, p. 280 n.1. For example, see the eulogy written for Bishop Jocelin: R. of Melrose, ‘Eulogium’, pp. 308–12.

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From the Testimony of Trustworthy Men Apart from the influence of classical, Biblical and patristic texts, the Vita provides only limited evidence of other written sources.91 As McFadden noted, the account of Waltheof’s meeting with St Malachy at York seems to be based on that given by Bernard of Clairvaux in his Vita S. Malachiae. Although generally repeating the information found in his source, Jocelin rewrites the passage, including the dialogue, and adds the conflicting opinions of the Irish and the canons of Kirkham regarding the miracle that followed, in which the dark-coloured horse given by Waltheof to Malachy turned white.92 It is not clear where Jocelin found this appended information. The claims of the Kirkham canons may have been present in Everard’s account – although the miraculous nature of the episode may tell against this.93 Equally, it could have been sourced from oral traditions at Melrose or even from those at Kirkham. Jocelin’s links to Ireland provide a good context for the inclusion of the Irish opinion concerning the miracle, although, again, exactly where he found this comment is unknown. Returning to the main source of this passage, it seems highly likely, considering Waltheof’s appearance in the text, that a copy of Bernard’s Vita Malachiae could have been found in the Melrose library – although Jocelin’s unnecessary adaptation of the dialogue may indicate that it was a text Jocelin knew well but did not have to hand during the composition of the Vita.94 Jocelin’s statement ‘let England rejoice that by divine gift 91

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This statement is based on McFadden’s analysis of the text. He also suggests William of Malmesbury’s Gesta regum Anglorum as the source for Jocelin’s reference to Tully and literary style in the prologue. McFadden, ‘Edition and Translation’, pp. 11, 13; Vita Waldevi AASS, §5, p. 250C; Vita Waldevi, p. 206, 206 n.2; William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum Anglorum, II.cxxxii, pp. 210, 211. McFadden’s commentary presents the two passages side by side. The Irish and the canons of Kirkham attribute this miracle to the virtue of their respective saints. McFadden, ‘Edition and Translation’, pp. 57–9, 60; Vita Waldevi AASS, §§27–8, pp. 256E-7A; Vita Waldevi, pp. 232–4; Bernard of Clairvaux, ‘De vita et rebus gestis S. Malachiae Hiberniae episcopi’, in S. Bernardi abbatis primi Clarae-Vallensis opera omnia, PL 182, c. xv, cols. 1093D–4C; Bernard of Clairvaux, The Life and Death of St Malachy the Irishman, trans. R. T. Meyer, Cistercian Fathers Series No. 10 (Kalamazoo, 1978), pp. 50–1. Baker states that he might have attributed Waltheof’s meeting with Malachy to Everard if he had not known that the episode also occurred in the Vita S. Malachiae. The Vita Waldevi also notes that Sigar, a priest of Newbald, foresaw St Malachy’s arrival at York. Although Sigar’s prophecy appears in Bernard’s text, the statement that he is a priest of Newbald represents new information. Since Newbald was a holding of Nostell Priory, the Augustinian house where Waltheof began his monastic career, it may be that this narrative passed through Augustinian hands at some point en route to Jocelin. Baker, ‘Legend and Reality’, p. 69; Vita Waldevi AASS, §§19, 27, pp. 255D, 256E; Vita Waldevi, pp. 224, 232, 232 n.2. There is only limited evidence for the contents of Cistercian libraries during this period. That the modest library at Flaxley held a copy of the Vita Malachiae in the early thirteenth century may indicate that the text was relatively widespread. The Libraries of the Cistercians, Gilbertines and Premonstratensians, ed. D. Bell, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues 3 (London, 1992), Z7. 26, p. 19.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness she has now received her seventh saint of incorrupt body, to shine out over the whole kingdom like a seven-branched candelabrum’ seems to refer to another source. It may have been intended to correct the list of five incorrupt saints – Aethelthryth, Wihtburh, King Edmund, Archbishop Aelfheah and Cuthbert – found in William of Malmesbury’s Gesta regum to which Jocelin adds Edward the Confessor and, of course, Waltheof.95 The Vita also shows little use of letters, charters or other such records.96 With regard to the abbey’s own chronicle, this is unsurprising. The Chronicle provides little additional information concerning Waltheof’s life or sanctity: it mentions only the abbot’s election, death and the first discovery of his incorruption.97 However, there is evidence that a Furness document influenced the work. As McFadden showed, King Stephen’s eloquent sermocinatio rebutting Earl Simon’s criticism of the saint has parallels with the foundation charter of Furness Abbey, granted by Stephen as Count of Mortain and Boulogne. In the Vita, Stephen remarks that noble man tramples everything worldly under his feet for God’s sake, and we abuse our souls and follow a fleeing world, we who are to pass

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Willam of Malmesbury, Gesta regum Anglorum, II.ccvii.4, pp. 386, 387; Vita Waldevi AASS, §135, p. 277E ; Vita Waldevi, p. 355. McFadden, ‘Edition and Translation’, p. 61. The apparent chronological inaccuracies present in the Vita, as compared to the dates recorded by the abbey’s own chronicle, can be explained by Jocelin’s use of inclusive counting. The Vita states that Abbot William II died in 1207, a year later than the date given by the Chronicle of Melrose. Instead, the Chronicle’s entry for 1207 records the death of the Vita’s original patron, Abbot Patrick, only a year into his abbacy. If, as Derek Baker argues, Jocelin completed the Vita soon after the death of Abbot Patrick, this mistake concerning near-contemporary events seems inexplicable. However, if we understand Jocelin’s statement to mean that Abbot William died in the 1,207th year – which would incorporate the time between the start of 1206 and the start of 1207 – the date of 1207 is correct. This argument also explains the dating of Waltheof’s death to 1160, as opposed to the date of 1159 recorded by the Chronicle of Melrose and Roger of Howden. Jocelin’s statement that Waltheof died during the papacy of Adrian IV, who also died in 1159, indicates that he was actually referring to the previous year. Again, if we understand Jocelin to mean the year 1159–60, the Vita’s date is correct. The use of inclusive counting also accounts for Jocelin’s statements that Waltheof’s incorruption was discovered thirteen years after his death and that Abbot William II’s death occurred fortyeight years after that of the saint. Since these apparent inaccuracies relate to dates occuring in June, August and September respectively, they remain unaffected by any differences resulting from the calculation of the year according to either the Nativity or the Annunciation. Vita Waldevi AASS, §§91, 121, 133, pp. 269E, 275D, 277C; Vita Waldevi, pp. 312, 342, 352; Chronicle of Melrose, fols. 19r, 19v, 21r, 27v, 28r; ‘Chronicle of Melrose’, trans. Stevenson, pp. 128, 133–4, 149; Baker, ‘Legend and Reality’, p. 62, 62 n.10; Roger of Howden, Chronica, ed. Stubbs, I, 216; Roger of Howden, Annals, trans. Riley, II, 256.

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From the Testimony of Trustworthy Men away, try to grasp what also passes. While we laugh at pride, sham power and false riches, as if crazed we still seek them – we risk our heads to lose our souls.

Stephen’s charter expresses a similar idea in similarly ornate language: Seeing that day by day our expanse of time is shrinking, that all the pomps of this world fail us, with the glory of earldoms, kingdoms, empire, glory that blooms like the rose with all wealth’s garlands and praises – they fade away and turn all at once to ashes, as we haste every one of us on the quick road to death.98

Although the Vita does not repeat the charter’s language, it certainly echoes its sentiment and suggests that Jocelin drew his characterization of Stephen from it.

Conclusion In contrast to his other works, Jocelin presents the Vita Waldevi as a product of in-house oral tradition. References to possible written sources are clothed in ambiguous language that helps to hide their mode of transmission. At first glance, this approach appears problematic. That the text would lose credibility or stylistic unity by admitting to the use of written sources seems implausible, while the continued implication of oral sources does not lend the Vita any particular immediacy – most of the text is written impersonally and largely concerns events that occurred around half a century previously. However, such assumptions underestimate the high value accorded to eyewitness authority by medieval authors. In terms of recent history, written accounts were considered poor substitutes for direct oral testimony. This concept followed the classical definition of history as given by Isidore of Seville that ‘history is of those times that we have seen’.99 As such, even indirect oral testimony, information that came at second hand, seems to have been considered as roughly equivalent to direct eyewitness accounts and preferable to a written source.100 Indeed, until the final vestiges of eyewitness testimony faded, dossiers of miraculous material were probably viewed more 98

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McFadden comments on the elaborate nature of Jocelin’s language at this point – Stephen’s speech forms a literary reflection of his high status. Vita Waldevi AASS, §45, p. 260E–F; Vita Waldevi, p. 258, 258 n.4; Furness Coucher Book, I i, no. xxxviii, pp. 122–3 (p. 123); McFadden, ‘Life of Waldef’, pp. 12–13. Isidore of Seville, Isidori Hispalensis Episcopi, Etymologiarum sive Originum libri XX, Tomus I, ed. W. M. Lindsay (Oxford, 1911), I.xliv.4; Isidore of Seville, The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville, trans. S. A. Barney et al. (Cambridge, 2006), p. 67. See P. Damian-Grint, The New Historians of the Twelfth-Century Renaissance: Inventing Vernacular Authority (Woodbridge, 1999), pp. 68–72.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness as aides memoire to further oral explanation than official accounts of a cult.101 Jocelin’s approach, therefore, reflects the fact that the events described by the Vita Waldevi were considered recent enough to be more authoritatively represented by oral rather than written sources. Consequently, the personal presence behind the corporate claims of the Melrose elders acted to substantiate the Vita’s narrative in a way that was deemed more reliable than the faceless support of contemporary documents found in the abbey archives. As will be discussed later, this approach was also an important aspect of what appears to have been the main purpose of the Vita: to secure the official papal canonization of Waltheof.

101

See Stock, Implications of Literacy, p. 7.

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Part II Contexts

CHAPTER  FIVE

Irish Ecclesiastical Politics and Anglo-Norman Sponsorship: The Patronage of the Vita S. Patricii

The commissioning of the Vita Patricii formed part of a wider project that involved the establishment of a new monastic community, the rededication and rebuilding of Down cathedral and the discovery of Patrick’s relics in the Cathedral cemetery. It was also a text that publicly attested to the strong alliance formed between its three patrons, Archbishop Tomaltach of Armagh, Bishop Malachy of Down and the new ruler of Ulaid, John de Courcy. However, although the Vita is a product closely associated with the Anglo-Norman conquest of Ireland, analysis of the text indicates that it was conceived as a vehicle to represent the interests of its two ecclesiastical patrons rather than its secular sponsor. This chapter will first investigate the historical context of the work before examining how the Vita reflects contemporary ecclesiastical and political concerns. It will then discuss the more specific question of ­Jocelin’s patronage and the author’s relationship to John de Courcy.

Jocelin’s patrons The 1177 invasion of Down established John de Courcy as the ruler of the kingdom of Ulaid, a province that corresponds to the modern-day counties of Down and Antrim.1 Despite sporadic bouts of local resistance, by the early 1180s de Courcy had consolidated his hold on the area.2 However, this was not simply a story of Anglo-Norman invasion and oppression. As Seán Duffy points out, it seems that Irishmen were to be found among de Courcy’s forces, while the relatively frequent appearance of the archbishop of Armagh, the bishops of Down and Connor, and the heads of the churches of Bangor and Saul in de Courcy’s charters suggests that he quickly gained Irish clerical

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S. Duffy, ‘The First Ulster Plantation: John de Courcy and the Men of Cumbria’, in Colony and Frontier in Medieval Ireland: Essays Presented to J. F. Lydon, ed. T. B. Barry, R. Frame and K. Simms (London, 1995), p. 3; DNB 13, p. 662. Gerald of Wales, Expugnatio Hibernica, II.xvii, xviii, pp. 174–9, 180, 181; DNB 13, p. 663.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness support.3 The joint commissioning of the Vita Patricii attests to the close relationship that developed between the new Anglo-Norman ruler of Ulaid and the two principal churchmen of the region, Tomaltach, archbishop of Armagh (1181–1201), and Malachy, bishop of Down (c.1176–1202). It was an alliance that benefited all parties. For de Courcy, it provided official and influential local acceptance, bolstering his political position. For the two churchmen, it provided necessary and welcome secular support. Apart from the desired local acceptance of the new ruling order, there were a number of other political advantages to be gained by de Courcy through his prominent support of ecclesiastical interests. Scholars have stressed the colonization aspect of de Courcy’s six religious foundations in Ireland.4 Largely populated by immigrant monks and canons, the houses helped both to secure the territory for the invaders and to provide centres of support and stability for the new regime.5 There was also an additional socio-political advantage. By both patronizing the new foundations and, consequently, their parent houses, de Courcy reinforced his links with a wider network of powerful families and associates across England, Ireland and Scotland.6 Yet it would be misleading to see these foundations solely as instruments of colonization and networking. The houses were also self-conscious demonstrations of de Courcy’s own broad religious sympathies.7 As Gerald of Wales noted, despite his other faults, de Courcy both greatly respected and honoured the church.8 Likewise, de Courcy’s interest in the cults of Irish saints should be recognized as a mixture of political pragmatism and pious intent.9 The veneration of native saints provided a valuable appearance of continuity between the new ruler and his predecessors.10 Consequently, the minting of coins in the saint’s name and the possible naming of an illegitimate son in the saint’s honour

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6 7 8 9

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DNB 13, 663. De Courcy is normally credited with founding seven new houses, but one of these, Grey Abbey, was actually founded by his wife, Affreca. R. Stalley, The Cistercian Monasteries of Ireland: An Account of the History, Art and Architecture of the White Monks in Ireland from 1142–1540 (London, 1987), p. 16; M. T. Flanagan, ‘John de Courcy, the First Ulster Plantation and Irish Church Men’, in Britain and Ireland 900–1300: Insular Responses to Medieval European Change, ed. B. Smith (Cambridge, 1999), p. 156. Duffy, ‘First Ulster Plantation’, pp. 5–11, 11 n.55. It is notable that each foundation was aligned with a different monastic order. Gerald of Wales, Expugnatio Hibernica, II.xviii, pp. 180, 181. De Courcy also seems to have had a particular interest in the cult of St Columba. In the Expugnatio, Gerald of Wales noted how de Courcy’s exploits, among others, appeared to fulfil the prophecies made by the saint. This was clearly recognized by de Courcy – Gerald tells us that de Courcy kept a copy of these prophecies close by him ‘as a kind of mirror for his own deeds’. Gerald of Wales, Expugnatio Hibernica, II.xvii, pp. 176, 177. Duffy, ‘First Ulster Plantation’, p. 8.

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Irish Ecclesiastical Politics and Anglo-Norman Sponsorship may represent calculated acts of self-promotion by de Courcy.11 However, de Courcy’s interest in Patrick should not be dismissed as wholly superficial. As a saintly patron, Patrick may have held a special appeal for the new ruler. De Courcy could identify with Patrick’s status as a stranger in a foreign land and could hope to emulate his success in conquering this territory, albeit in a secular rather than an ecclesiastical sense. Admittedly, Jocelin’s description of de Courcy as ‘a most special admirer and venerator of St Patrick’ had undoubted propaganda value, but this comment is not necessarily an empty hagiographic convention and should not be dismissed entirely.12 The two churchmen of the region also benefited from their association with de Courcy. For Archbishop Tomaltach it provided much-needed lay support during a distinctly uncomfortable period in the early 1180s. Tomaltach had been translated to the see of Armagh at the instigation of his uncle, Ruadrí Ua Conchobair, provincial king of Connacht and high-king of Ireland.13 Although the previous archbishop, Gilla in Choimded Ua Caráin, had died in the winter of 1179–80, Tomaltach does not appear to have been recognized as his successor until at least a year later in 1181.14 It has been suggested that this delay was caused by the absence of the relics that formed the insignia of the archbishop’s office – Armagh’s most important relics, including the

11

12 13 14

It has been suggested that Patrick, lord of Ringrone and Kinsale, was de Courcy’s illegitimate son. Gwynn and Hadcock state that de Courcy was also responsible for renaming the city of Down as Downpatrick, but there is no evidence that Down was known by this name until the seventeenth century. DNB 13, 663; Duffy, ‘First Ulster Plantation’, pp. 3 n.11, 13, 13 n.64; Gwynn and Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses, p. 69; J. F. Lydon, ‘Nation and Race in Medieval Ireland’, in Concepts of National Identity in the Middle Ages, ed. S. Forde, L. Johnson and A. V. Murray, Leeds Texts and Monographs New Series 14 (Leeds, 1995), p. 111. ‘S. Patricii specialissimus dilector et venerator’. Vita Patricii AASS, prol., p. 536F. Flanagan, Irish Society, p. 261. This summary of events incorporates much of the account given by Aubrey Gwynn. However, Gwynn’s argument that Tomaltach was consecrated as archbishop in early 1180 by Archbishop Lorcán Ua Tuathail of Dublin may be based on a misidentification of the latter. The evidence for this event rests on the witness list appended to the charter installing a new Benedictine chapter at Down. However, Gearóid MacNiocaill’s later edition of this charter reads ‘I Duvelinensis archiepiscopus’ rather than ‘L’, making it not Lorcán but his successor John Cumin. This seems to annul Gwynn’s evidence for Lorcán’s presence in Down in early 1180. While modern scholarship seems to have accepted the dating of this charter to John Cumin’s archiepiscopate, there appears to have been no attempt similarly to adjust Gwynn’s version of events. That there was a hiatus between the death of the previous archbishop and the new archbishop taking office seems clear, but it no longer seems certain that this delay came between the official appointment of Tomaltach as archbishop and his local acceptance as coarb. Gwynn, ‘Tomaltach Ua Conchobair’, pp. 245–6; Gwynn, ‘Saint Lawrence O’Toole’, pp. 234–6; ‘Cartae Dunenses XII–XIII Céad’, ed. G. MacNiocaill, Seanchas Ardmacha 5 (1970), no. 3, pp. 419–20.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness Staff of Jesus, had been captured and retained by Anglo-Norman forces.15 However, the experience of St Malachy half a century earlier indicates that the most probable cause of this delay was the opposition of local families to the appointment of an outsider.16 This seems to be confirmed by events in 1184, when there was an attempt to replace Tomaltach with the bishop of Airgialla.17 In such circumstances, an alliance with the new lord of Ulaid provided the outside political support needed to secure the archbishop’s position.18 Bishop Malachy, too, received significant benefits from his association with de Courcy. The two men had known each other at least since de Courcy’s invasion in 1177, when the bishop had been among those captured at Down before being quickly released.19 Positive relations between the two men are in evidence soon after. One of de Courcy’s earliest extant charters, dated

15

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17

18

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As Gwynn pointed out, the Staff of Jesus was not among the list of relics captured by de Courcy in 1177 and appears to have been seized before this date. Gerald of Wales tells us that William Fitz Audelin was responsible for the transfer of the Staff of Jesus from Armagh to Dublin, which presumably occurred before May 1177, when Fitz Audelin was replaced as custos of Dublin by Hugh de Lacy. ‘Mac Carthaigh’s Book’, ed. Ó hInnse, pp. 64–7; Gerald of Wales, Expugnatio Hibernica, II.xx, pp. 182, 183; Gwynn, ‘Tomaltach Ua Conchobair’, pp. 248–9; Orpen, Ireland under the Normans, pp. 30, 35. Although Malachy had been designated as successor by Archbishop Cellach himself, after the archbishop’s death in 1129 Malachy was obliged to wait until 1132 for his consecration and until 1134 for access to the temporalities of office. The main opposition to Malachy’s appointment came from the secularized clerical family of Uí Sinaích who had previously controlled the see. The delay that seems to have preceded Tomaltach’s entry into the see probably resulted from the unwillingness of the local conservative families to accept a Connacht man as archbishop. For Bernard’s account of Malachy’s struggle for full control of the archbishopric, see Bernard of Clairvaux, ‘Vita Malachiae’, cc. x–xii, cols. 1086A–91A; Bernard of Clairvaux, Life of Malachy, trans. Meyer, pp. 37–45. Flanagan, ‘John de Courcy’, p. 159; Gwynn, ‘Tomaltach Ua Conchobair’, pp. 246, 249–50; A. Gwynn, ‘Armagh and Louth in the Twelfth Century’, Seanchas Ardmacha 1 No. 1 (1954), 4. The challenge to Tomaltach’s archiepiscopate may have been precipitated by the temporary abdication of Ruadrí Ua Conchobair in 1183. Gwynn, ‘Tomaltach Ua Conchobair’, pp. 251–2; Gwynn, ‘Saint Lawrence O’Toole’, p. 236; Flanagan, ‘John de Courcy’, p. 172 n.80; Gwynn, ‘Armagh and Louth’, pp. 21, 24. The relationship formed between Archbishop Tomaltach and John de Courcy was both reasonably strong and of long duration. In 1205, when Hugh de Lacy waged war on the ruler of Ulaid, Tomaltach and a number of his suffragans showed their support by excommunicating those harassing de Courcy. Flanagan, ‘John de Courcy’, pp. 171, 173–4. Roger of Howden, Gesta regis Henrici Secundi Benedicti Abbatis, The Chronicle of the Reigns of Henry II and Richard I A.D. 1169–1192, Known Commonly Under the Name of Benedict of Peterborough, Vol. I, ed. W. Stubbs, 2 vols., RS 49 (London, 1867), p. 138; Roger of Howden, Chronica, ed. Stubbs, II, 120; Roger of Howden, Annals, trans. Riley, II, 439.

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Irish Ecclesiastical Politics and Anglo-Norman Sponsorship to 1176x1183, granted lands within Down to the cathedral.20 Another early grant, the 1178x1179 foundation charter of Nendrum, conceded one third of the benefices of the church of Nendrum explicitly to Malachy – although Malachy’s subsequent charter explained that while these revenues remained in his hands, they were for the good of the church of Down.21 The cathedral was further favoured in a charter dated to 1183x1200, when de Courcy granted the church of Down the profits of legal jurisdiction over the men and lands under his lordship, in effect creating an ecclesiastical immunity.22 These amiable gestures were not all one way. As Marie Therese Flanagan argues, the concentration of some of de Courcy’s new religious foundations within the immediate vicinity of Down must have required the bishop’s consent and cooperation.23 Likewise, although a later source accuses de Courcy of changing the dedication of Down’s cathedral from Holy Trinity to St Patrick by force, such a rededication, which occurred at some point between 1177 and 1183, needed at least tacit consent from the bishop.24 More explicit proof of a reciprocal relationship between the two men can be found in an extant letter in which the bishop grants forty days’ indulgence to those giving property to de Courcy’s foundation of Inch.25 The establishment of the new monastic 20

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22 23

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‘Cartae Dunenses’, ed. MacNiocaill, no. 1, p. 419; S. Flanders, De Courcy: AngloNormans in Ireland, England and France in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Dublin, 2008), p. 149. The foundation of Nendrum is dated by most historians to 1179, but a note prefacing a compilation of charters relating to the Priory of St Bees found in British Library, Cotton Roll XIII. 21 explicitly dates the foundation of the house to 1178. ‘Illustrative Documents’, in The Register of the Priory of St Bees, ed. J. Wilson, SS 126 (Durham, 1915), II nos. 1, 5, pp. 520–1, 522–3. ‘Cartae Dunenses’, ed. MacNiocaill, no. 7, p. 421; Flanagan, ‘John de Courcy’, pp. 166–7. Three of these foundations were in the city and its suburbs: the new community at the cathedral, the house of Crutched Friars and the Augustinian house of St Thomas the Martyr. The Cistercian abbey of Inch, located on the opposite bank of the River Quoile, was also nearby. Flanagan, ‘John de Courcy’, p. 156. The fifteenth-century Laud Annals claim that de Courcy expelled the secular canons from the cathedral and replaced an image of the Holy Trinity with one of Patrick. Flanagan questions whether the cathedral was rededicated or whether another church dedicated to St Patrick was constructed. The latter may be supported by Jocelin’s statement concerning ‘a place in Down where now the church of St Patrick has been built’ (‘loco ubi nunc Duni aedificata est ecclesia S. Patricii’) – but this is far from conclusive evidence. Chartularies of St Mary’s Abbey, Dublin, with the Register of its House at Dunbrody, and Annals of Ireland, Vol. II, ed. J. T. Gilbert, RS 80 (London, 1884), p. 309; Flanagan, ‘John de Courcy’, pp. 164, 164–5 n.45; Vita Patricii AASS, §33 (c. xxxviii), p. 545B. As H. G. Richardson stated almost fifty years ago, this letter is evidence not of ‘compliance with a conqueror’s behest’ but ‘willing cooperation’ between the two men. More recently, Flanagan has emphasized the collaboration of the two men in the wider Patrick project. H. G. Richardson, ‘Some Norman Monastic Foundations in Ireland’, in Medieval Studies, Presented to Aubrey Gwynn, S. J., ed. J. A. Watt, J. B.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness chapter at Down in 1183 provides further evidence of their collaboration. The charter installing the new chapter is given in Malachy’s name and represents the bishop’s attempt to curb secular influence on the see – the active implementation of the reformist agenda that had been promised by his choice of ‘Malachias’ to represent his Irish name, Echilmid.26 However, the decision to form this chapter from monks of St Werburgh’s, Chester, seems to represent de Courcy’s influence. De Courcy had close links with the city, not least through his seneschal and probable kinsman, Robert de Chester.27 The secondary role played by de Courcy in the latter example of lay-episcopal collaboration also appears to be more representative of the new ruler’s part in the promotion of Patrick’s cult at Down.28 The main accounts recording the inventio of Patrick’s body in 1185, alongside the bodies of fellow saints Brigit and Columba, each stress de Courcy’s role in the immediate aftermath of the discovery.29 In contrast, the later Office for the translation of the saints credits Bishop Malachy with a formative role throughout the whole process. It was in response to the bishop’s daily prayers that the site of the burial place was revealed and it was only after he physically unearthed the bodies that Malachy turned to de Courcy for his aid in requesting papal permission to translate the relics.30 If we can assume that the feast of the inventio found

26

27 28

29

30

Morrall and F. X. Martin (Dublin, 1961), p. 37; A. Gwynn, ‘Archbishop John Cumin’, Reportorium Novum 1 (1955–6), 286; Flanagan, ‘John de Courcy’, p. 164. Flanagan argues that by using monastic chapters to ensure that episcopal elections would be less prone to outside influence Malachy was following the reform strategy of St Malachy, his predecessor at the see. ‘Cartae Dunenses’, ed. MacNiocaill, no. 3, pp. 419–20; Flanagan, ‘John de Courcy’, p. 165. Duffy, ‘First Ulster Plantation’, pp. 15–17. Richardson makes a similar comment but for different reasons than those outlined below: ‘however willing a participant de Courcy may have been, it is difficult to believe that he was the prime mover, in a strange country and among strange saints’. Richardson, ‘Norman Monastic Foundations’, p. 38. In the Topographia, Gerald tells us that de Courcy ‘took charge when these three noble treasures were, through divine revelation, found and translated’. The Expugnatio makes a similar statement: ‘The discovery in the city of Down of that noble treasure, I mean the three bodies of Patrick, Brigid and Colmcille. Their remains were translated under the auspices of John de Courcy.’ Gerald makes no mention of Malachy’s participation. Roger of Howden and the Chronicle of Melrose also record the discovery, but include no other details. Indeed, the Chronicle of Melrose not only mistakenly identifies Columba as Columbanus, but dates the event to the following year. Gerald of Wales, ‘Topographia Hibernica’, III.xviii, pp. 163–4; Gerald of Wales, Topography of Ireland, trans. O’Meara, p. 105; Gerald of Wales, Expugnatio Hibernica, II.xxxv, pp. 234, 235; Chronicle of Melrose, fol. 24r; ‘Chronicle of Melrose’, trans. Stevenson, p. 141; Roger of Howden, Gesta regis, p. 137; Roger of Howden, Chronica, ed. Stubbs, II, 120; Roger of Howden, Annals, trans. Riley, I, 439. The Office is, however, far from a transparent document. The text combines two different events into a single narrative. The first half of the Office describes the inventio by Malachy in 1185 and ends with John de Courcy’s missive to the Pope. As Flanagan has argued, the second part records the official translation of the bodies

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Irish Ecclesiastical Politics and Anglo-Norman Sponsorship in a contemporary calendar of St Werburgh’s, Chester, commemorated the actual date of discovery, then the selection of 24 March – a date within the Octave of the feast of St Patrick – seems a little too good to be true.31 That the discovery was manufactured by Malachy seems all too clear.32 However, John de Courcy’s role in this episode is less easy to define. While he may not have been an entirely passive observer, none of the evidence suggests that he was the main architect of the plan. It may well be that this secondary role reflects de Courcy’s participation in other aspects of the renewed Patrick cult at Down. It is certainly significant that although de Courcy’s name graces the prologue to the Vita, unlike his ecclesiastical collaborators, he appears to have had relatively little input into the finished work.33 In de Courcy, Malachy found the secular backing, in terms of both ­material wealth and reforming interests, that seems to have been wanting in the former rulers of Ulaid.34 De Courcy’s grants to Malachy and the church of Down, the establishment of new religious houses and his promotion of the cult of Patrick all portray de Courcy as a generous ecclesiastical benefactor. In addition, the fact that de Courcy’s main stronghold was built not in Down

31

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in 1202. It is possible that de Courcy sent letters in both 1185 and 1202, which may explain the telescoping of the narrative. What does seem likely is that, in keeping with Gerald’s statements that de Courcy translated the relics, the inventio was quickly followed by the repositioning of the relics at least to surface level if not removal into the cathedral itself. Buchanan and Wilson’s statement that the papal legate witnessed the reinternment of the saints’ bodies in 1185 appears to be inferred from the sources. ‘Historiam inventionis’, in ‘De S. Brigida virg. Scota thaumaturga Kildariae et Duni in Hibernia: Commentarius praevius’, AASS Februarii I, §§64–6, pp. 111E–12A; Flanagan, ‘John de Courcy’, pp. 175–6; Gerald of Wales, ‘Topographia Hibernica’, III.xviii, p. 164; Gerald of Wales, Topography of Ireland, trans. O’Meara, p. 105; Gerald of Wales, Expugnatio Hibernica, II.xxxv, pp. 234, 235; R. H. Buchanan and A. Wilson, Downpatrick, Irish Historical Towns Atlas 8 (Dublin, 1997), p. 3. English Benedictine Kalendars After A.D. 1100, Vol. I: Abbotsbury-Durham, ed. F.  Wormald, Henry Bradshaw Society 77 (London, 1939), pp. 95, 102; Flanagan, ‘John de Courcy’, p. 175. As Monika Otter states, although the standard inventio narrative carried the strong connotation of ‘truth’, inventiones were ‘almost always made-up history, either outright forgery or a bona fide reconstruction of what might have been’. M. Otter, Inventiones: Fiction and Referentiality in Twelfth-Century English Historical Writing (Chapel Hill, 1996), pp. 36, 38. Although this corresponds with de Courcy’s position as the third of the named patrons in the prologue, the order of this list is more likely to reflect contemporary courtesy than an acknowledgement of the differing demands made on the text by Jocelin’s patrons: the clergy before the laity and the clergy ordered by ecclesiastical status. Vita Patricii AASS, prol., p. 536F; Vita Patricii, p. 133; G. Constable, ‘The Structure of Medieval Society According to the Dictatores of the Twelfth Century’, in Religious Life and Thought (Eleventh–Twelfth Centuries), ed. G. Constable, Collected Studies Series 89 (London, 1979), Ch. XIII, pp. 253–4. Flanagan, ‘John de Courcy’, p. 170.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness but Carrickfergus must also have contributed to positive relations between the two men.35 This physical distinction between the secular and religious centres of the diocese seems to have reflected a deeper understanding of the division between the two spheres and one that appears to have been absent under the regime of de Courcy’s predecessors, the Mac Duinnshléibhe kings, rulers who had been based at Down.36

The influence of the patrons on the text Although the explicit purpose of the Vita was to provide a new account of Patrick’s legend in contemporary prose, analysis of the text shows that it was also intended as a propaganda tool for its two ecclesiastical patrons. Subtle adaptations of individual narratives as well as additions to the legend strongly reflect the contemporary interests and anxieties of the churches of Armagh and Down. As a reflection of what appears to be Malachy’s driving force behind the wider project to renew Patrick’s cult, this section will first examine the representation of the church of Down in the Vita, before investigating the Armagh narratives present in the text. The focus of the narratives relating to the church of Down confirms that the basic intention of the Vita was to help re-establish Down as the centre for the cult of St Patrick. Aside from the section dealing with the saint’s death and burial, there are only three other references to the city in the text. One of these is a passing mention in relation to St Malachy, another repeats a statement found in the Vita tripartita concerning the pig rent paid to Down by the church of Nendrum and the third notes that, after an angel freed Dichu’s

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Buchanan and Wilson, Downpatrick, p. 3; Flanders, De Courcy, pp. 153–4. It is possible that Malachy’s appreciation of the support given to him by de Courcy is reflected in the Vita’s unique description of de Courcy as ‘princeps Ulidiae’. Although these words carry an obvious secular meaning, ‘princeps’ was also a term used within the Irish church to denote the supreme leader of a church community or the lord of the lands with which a religious site was endowed. De Courcy’s interests in the church of Down may have led him to be recognized locally as the successor to the secularized clerical lineage who had previously controlled the position of erenagh of Down. If so, Jocelin’s description pays tribute to both his secular and ecclesiastical achievements. It should be noted, however, that the term ‘princeps’ was used by Innocent III in 1202 to refer to the secular rulers of this area (apparently including de Courcy) while the Vita itself also uses the term in its secular sense. Flanagan, ‘John de Courcy’, pp. 156–7, 176; Vita Patricii AASS, prol., §§120, 133, 140, 154, 163 (cc. cxxxviii, clii, clix, clxxv, clxxxvi), pp. 536F, 565B, 567F, 569B, 572F, 575C–D; E. Curtis, ‘Two Unpublished Charters of John de Courcy, Princeps Ulidiae’, Belfast National History Society Proceedings (1930), 5; K. Simms, ‘Frontiers in the Irish Church – Regional and Cultural’, in Colony and Frontier in Medieval Ireland: Essays Presented to J. F. Lydon, ed. T. Barry, R. Frame and K. Simms (London, 1995), pp. 188–9.

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Irish Ecclesiastical Politics and Anglo-Norman Sponsorship sons from captivity, he transported one of them to Down.37 The latter reference forms an addition to the extant source material and Jocelin takes this opportunity to state that one of Dichu’s sons was taken to ‘a place in Down where now the church of St Patrick has been built’ – a comment that reiterates the identification of the church of Down with Patrick and confirms what was only a recent change in dedication.38 However, as these largely incidental references indicate, the heart of Down’s interests in the Patrick legend lay elsewhere. It is clear that the main purpose of the Vita was to provide compelling evidence that Patrick was buried in Down.39 To do this the text built upon an earlier tradition that located the saint’s resting place in the city and carefully adapted various other stories associated with Patrick’s death to provide a new, encompassing narrative. The Vita tells us that Patrick, forewarned of his impending death, turned towards Armagh as his preferred resting place. However, an angelic messenger commands the saint to return to Down and be buried in Ulaid, just as he had promised his first converts, the sons of Dichu. Although much of this narrative can be found in a number of other sources, it is closest to the account given in the Vita tertia, which both specifies Down as Patrick’s divinely ordained resting place and recalls the saint’s promise to be buried in the lands owned by Trachim’s sons, i.e. Dichu and his brothers.40 Jocelin’s Vita then bolsters Down’s claims to be the site of Patrick’s final resting place by inserting a narrative paralleled only by an episode found in the Vita secunda-quarta. We are told that as Patrick addressed a number of religious and ecclesiastical persons, including St Brigit, a light descended from heaven to illuminate a certain spot on the eastern side of Down’s cemetery. When the crowd turns to Patrick to explain the meaning of this light, he forwards their questions to Brigit who tells them it denotes the burial place

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The second of these narratives also provides part of the context for de Courcy’s aforementioned grant of Nendrum revenues to Bishop Malachy and the church of Down. Vita Patricii AASS, §§32, 154 (cc. xxxvii, xxxviii, clxxv), pp. 544F–5B, 573A; Vita Patricii, pp. 176–8, 325; Vita tripartita, pp. 40, 41. ‘loco ubi nunc Duni aedificata est ecclesia S. Patricii’. Vita Patricii AASS, §33 (c.  xxxviii), p. 545B; Vita tertia, §35, pp. 140–1; Gloucester Vita, fol. 148va ll. 19–27, p. 350. For a summary of the historical association of Patrick, as well as saints Columba and Brigit, with the church of Down, see Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Down, Connor and Dromore, Consisting of a Taxation of those Dioceses Compiled in the Year MCCCVI, ed. W. Reeves (Dublin, 1847), pp. 223–9. This promise is not mentioned earlier in the text and seems to come directly from Jocelin’s source material, at this point a text closely related to the Vita tertia (which also omits the earlier promise). The Gloucester Vita also notes the choice of Down as Patrick’s resting place as part of this narrative. Vita Patricii AASS, §164 (c. clxxxvii), pp. 575F–6A; Vita Patricii, pp. 338–9; Vita tertia, §88, p. 183; Muirchú’s Vita, II.v, vii, pp. 116–19; Vita Probo, II.§32, p. 216; Vita tripartita, pp. 252, 253; Gloucester Vita, fol. 150ra ll. 31–42, p. 359.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness of a most illustrious saint. The first nun in Ireland, Ethembria, privately asks Brigit who is to be buried there. Brigit replies that it will be Patrick’s final resting place and announces her intention to provide the saint’s body with a shroud.41 Having now firmly established Down as the saint’s resting place, Jocelin assimilates the claim found in several of the extant sources that the angelic messenger told the saint to return to the monastery of Saul rather than Down by making Saul the site of Patrick’s final days and death.42 Jocelin also appends an episode concerning Brigit and the shroud that has a parallel in the Vita secunda-quarta, although, again, it does not seem to have been his direct source.43 Much of the subsequent narrative is based on events that were wellestablished parts of the Patrick legend. The administering of the last rites by Bishop Thasach, the angelic vigil, the absence of darkness for twelve days and the wall of water that separates the two parties vying for Patrick’s body all appear in Muirchú’s Vita, the Vita tertia, the Vita Probo and the Vita tripartita.44 The final part of Jocelin’s text contains similarly well-known episodes but combines what seem to have been two separate strands of narrative into a cohesive whole. The Vita tells us that an ox-drawn cart seemingly carrying the saint’s body appeared before each of the warring parties. The two groups follow the respective carts towards Down and Armagh but only the cart travelling to Down reaches its destination. The cart being drawn to Armagh disappears at the River Caucune and the disappointed people of Armagh

41

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In the Vita secunda-quarta, the nun identified as Ethembria is anonymous and Brigit announces her intention to provide the shroud to Patrick himself. The Vita prima Brigidae offers a very similar narrative to the Vita secunda-quarta at this point, but Jocelin’s version has more in common with the latter and indicates that he was using Patrician sources rather than Brigittine texts for this passage. Vita Patricii AASS, §165 (c. clxxxviii), p. 576A–B; Vita Patricii, pp. 339–40; Vita secunda-quarta, §91, p. 112; ‘Vita I Brigidae’, §56, p. 126A–B; ‘Vita prima Brigitae’, trans. S. Connelly, §58, p. 30. This claim is found in Muirchú’s Vita, the Vita Probo and the Vita Tripartia, the latter explicitly stating that this is where Patrick will die. Tírechán’s Vita also states that Patrick’s body is to be found in Saul, but this claim is attached to an entirely separate narrative involving Columba. Muirchú’s Vita, II.v.2, pp. 116, 117; Vita Probo, II.§32, p. 216; Vita tripartita, pp. 252, 253; Tírechán’s Vita, c. lv.2, pp. 164, 165. Vita Patricii AASS, §166 (c. clxxxix), pp. 576B–C; Vita Patricii, pp. 340–1; Vita secundaquarta, §93, p. 113. Tírechán’s Vita notes the absence of night for twelve days and the contention between the two groups, the latter is also mentioned in the Gloucester Vita. Vita Patricii AASS, §§167, 169–70 (cc. cxc, cxcii–cxiv), pp. 576D, 576F–7B; Vita Patricii, pp. 341, 344–6; Muirchú’s Vita, II.viii.1, ix, x, xiii, pp. 118, 119, 120, 121; Vita tertia, §§89–91, pp. 185–7; Vita Probo, II.§§34–6, 39, pp. 217, 218–19; Vita tripartita, pp. 62, 63, 170, 171, 254–7, 258–65; Tírechán’s Vita, c. lv.1, pp. 164, 165; Gloucester Vita, fol. 150ra ll. 44–6, p. 359.

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Irish Ecclesiastical Politics and Anglo-Norman Sponsorship return to their homes.45 Jocelin’s version forms a hybrid of details found in Tírechán’s Vita, the Vita tertia, the Vita tripartita and the Gloucester Vita (the appearance of two carts), and Muirchú’s Vita and the Vita Probo (the disappearance of the Armagh cart at the river Caucune).46 However, although it is only in Jocelin’s text and, implicitly, the Gloucester Vita that the cart narrative is concluded by the burial of Patrick at Down, a slightly different version of the cart story found in some of the other sources also ends with Patrick’s burial in the city.47 The section concerning Patrick’s death and burial brings together an array of material that is unlikely to have been found by Jocelin in a single written source. Indeed, that this final section is a careful compilation of various sources is suggested by the discussion of alleged source material that prefaces this part of the text. Although Jocelin’s list of sources has already been shown to be problematic, his statement that ‘from all of these, whatever I found to be worthy of belief and which I deemed pleasing to transmit for the knowledge of posterity, I have collected in this work’ seems to be accurate.48 It is also likely that the narratives relating to Patrick’s association with Down were reinforced by local oral traditions. The need to strengthen the affiliation of Patrick with the church of Down seen in the commissioning of the Vita – as well as in the inventio of the saint himself – should also be understood as a response to the competing claims of Glastonbury Abbey to possess the saint’s body. Considering Patrick’s statement in his Confessio that he wished to spend the rest of his life in Ireland, Glastonbury’s claim that the saint had relocated to Britain in his final years had never been particularly secure. However, despite lingering doubts, by the twelfth century the association of Patrick with Glastonbury had the authoritative support of a centuries-old tradition behind it. The commissioning of William of Malmesbury to write a series of texts emphasizing Glastonbury’s

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Vita Patricii AASS, §171 (c. cxcv), p. 577B–C; Vita Patricii, pp. 346–7. The Vita secunda-quarta states that the Armagh cart vanished but does not specify the location. The extracts from the Cottonian Vita made by James Ware record that the cart took Patrick’s body to Armagh where the saint was then buried. Tírechán’s Vita, c. lv.1, pp. 164, 165; Vita tertia, §91, p. 187; Vita tripartita, pp. 256, 257; Gloucester Vita, fol. 150ra–b ll. 47–2, p. 359; Muirchú’s Vita, II.xiv.2, pp. 120–3; Vita Probo, II.§40, p. 219; Vita secunda-quarta, §97, p. 114; Cottonian Vita, J. Ware, MS Oxford Rawl. B.479 fol. 77, p. 229. In Muirchú’s Vita, the Vita secunda-quarta and the Vita tripartita an angel instructs the saint’s body to be placed in a cart yoked to two oxen, which will then carry the body from Clogher to its divinely ordained resting place, Down. Gloucester Vita, fol. 150ra–b ll. 47–2, p. 359; Muirchú’s Vita, II.xi, pp. 120, 121; Vita secunda-quarta, §§95, 97, pp. 113, 114; Vita tripartita, pp. 252–5. See pp. 35–7. ‘De quibus omnibus quaecumque fide digna reperire potui, in hoc opus collecta communicare notitiae posterorum gratum duxi.’ Vita Patricii AASS, §163 (c. clxxxvi), p. 575D.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness ancient Christian past and laying particular stress on the presence of Patrick further augmented the monks’ claims.49 That Jocelin and his patrons were aware of Glastonbury’s interests in Patrick is indicated by the reference to a book about the saint’s life and miracles written by the saint’s nephew, also named Patrick. In what is both an implicit admission of a rival claim and a subtle denial of its validity, the Vita tells us that this second Patrick returned ‘to Britain after the death of his uncle, passed away and was honourably buried in the church of Glastonbury’.50 49

50

Glastonbury’s claim appears in B’s version of the Vita Dunstani, written c.1000, and in the early eleventh century Old English Secgan. William of Malmesbury produced a general history of the abbey and the vitae of four of the abbey’s greatest saints, including St Patrick. His De antiquitate Glastonie ecclesie, Vita S. Benigni and Vita S. Indracti not only claimed that Benignus had resigned his see in Ireland and followed his spiritual father to Glastonbury where he too had died, but that his fellow Irish saints Columba, Brigit and later the martyr, Indract, had visited Patrick’s resting place at Glastonbury – narratives that both extended and confirmed the abbey’s connection to Patrick. Comments in William’s Vita Dunstani further reinforced the tradition. William had clearly overcome earlier scepticism concerning Patrick’s association with Glastonbury voiced in his Gesta pontificum. His De antiquitate also records the presence (and removal) of similar doubts among the monks of Glastonbury. Patrick, ‘Confessio’, §37, pp. 30, 48; Memorials of Saint Dunstan Archbishop of Canterbury, ed. W. Stubbs, RS 63 (London, 1874), p. xi; ‘Sancti Dunstani vita auctore B.’, in ibid., c. v, p. 10; D. W. Rollason, ‘Lists of Saints’ Resting-Places in AngloSaxon England’, Anglo-Saxon England 7 (1978), 61, 92; William of Malmesbury, Early History of Glastonbury, cc. x–xiii, xviii, xxxiii, pp. 1, 3–5, 60–3, 66, 67, 86, 87; William of Malmesbury’s Vita, pp. 336–43; William of Malmesbury, ‘Vita Benigni’, in William of Malmesbury, Saints’ Lives: Lives of SS. Wulfstan, Dunstan, Patrick, Benignus and Indract, ed. and trans. M. Winterbottom and R. M. Thomson, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 2002), pp. 346–67; William of Malmesbury, ‘Vita Indracti’, in ibid., pp. 368–73, 380, 381; William of Malmesbury, ‘Vita Dunstani’, in ibid., I.iv.4, pp. 178, 179; William of Malmesbury, Gesta pontificum Anglorum, II.xci.6–7, pp. 310, 311; L. Abrams, ‘St Patrick and Glastonbury Abbey: Nihil ex Nihilo fit?’, in Saint Patrick, A.D. 493–1993, ed. D. N. Dumville et al., Studies in Celtic History 13 (Woodbridge, 1993), p. 235. ‘S. Patricius filiolus ejus (qui post decessum patrui sui Britanniam remeans in fata decessit, et in Glasconensi ecclesia sepultus est honorifice)’. Vita Patricii AASS, §163 (c. clxxxvi), p. 575D. Jocelin’s reference to a second Patrick at this point stands vaguely within the Irish tradition, but does not do so perfectly. Various eighth- and ninth-century Irish sources attest to the long-held tradition of a second Patrick, usually identified as the elder of the two. John Lanigan and C. H. Slover interpreted the creation of this second Patrick as an attempt by the Irish to reconcile Glastonbury’s claims to possess the body of St Patrick with their own. However, Glastonbury refused to acknowledge the diminished claim of holding the older Patrick and ‘B’, the author of the Vita Dunstani, staked their claim to Patrick Junior, i.e. Patrick the Apostle of Ireland (although, in the Cotton manuscript version of this text, this was later revised to ‘senior’ by the monks of St Augustine’s, Canterbury). While Jocelin seems to follow Glastonbury’s lead by placing the younger Patrick at Glastonbury, he is equally insistent that he is not Patrick the Apostle of Ireland and, presumably with reference to some now unknown source, assigns

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Irish Ecclesiastical Politics and Anglo-Norman Sponsorship The propaganda offensive mounted by the church of Down seen in both the commissioning of Jocelin’s text and, more significantly, in the inventio of 1185 seems to have fundamentally undermined the claims of Glastonbury Abbey to possess the body of the Apostle of Ireland. Although Glastonbury historians continued to press the Patrician associations of their house into the thirteenth century, by the early 1190s it is clear that the focus of cult interests at the abbey had substantially changed.51 The general downturn in the community’s fortunes caused by an extensive fire in 1184 and the struggle to gain independence from the bishop of Bath seems to have forced the monks to pursue more sensational connections.52 In a move that suggests the Patrick franchise was acknowledged to be less tenable than previously, in 1191 the bodies of Arthur and Guinevere were unearthed in a suspiciously theatrical ceremony attended by Gerald of Wales – whose presence was presumably intended to publicize this event in exactly the same way that he had made the inventio of St Patrick at Down widely known.53 The interests of Jocelin’s other ecclesiastical patron, Archbishop Tomaltach, are also articulated by the Vita. The text introduces a number of new Armagh narratives into the legend, the majority of which seem to reflect contemporary anxieties concerning the archbishop of Dublin and his rival claim to

51

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a clear familial relationship between the two. The confusion caused by multiple Patricks can also be seen in another twelfth-century text, H. of Sawtry’s Tractatus de purgatorio Patricii, where Patrick the Apostle is described as the younger of the two saints. C. H. Slover, ‘William of Malmesbury and the Irish’, Speculum 2 (1927), 272–3; Lanigan, Ecclesiastical History of Ireland, pp. 324–5; H. P. R. Finberg, West Country Historical Studies (Newton Abbot, 1969), p. 78; B., ‘Dunstani vita’, p. 10, 10 n.8; Memorials of Saint Dunstan, ed. Stubbs, pp. xxvii–xxix; Abrams, ‘St Patrick and Glastonbury Abbey’, pp. 238–42; H. of Sawtry, ‘Tractatus’, ed. Easting, ll. 78–9, p. 123; H. of Sawtry, Saint Patrick’s Purgatory, trans. Picard and Pontfarcy, p. 45. For an indepth examination of the two Patricks see, D. A. Binchy, ‘Patrick and His Biographers Ancient and Modern’, Studia Hibernica 2 (1962), 95–164. Various interpolations in the De antiquitate, including the so-called Charter of St Patrick and the statement that the saint’s body had been relocated to the south altar following the 1184 fire in the church, show that some interest still remained in Patrick’s cult at Glastonbury in the late twelfth century. William of Malmesbury, Early History of Glastonbury, cc. ix, x, pp. 27, 34–5, 54–9, 60, 61. The bones of St Dunstan were rediscovered after the fire. This inventio, however, clearly did not have sufficient impact to restore the fortunes of the house. William of Malmesbury, Early History of Glastonbury, c. xxv, pp. 27, 29, 76–9; A. Gransden, ‘The Growth of the Glastonbury Traditions and Legends in the Twelfth Century’, in Glastonbury Abbey and the Arthurian Tradition, ed. J. P. Carley (Cambridge, 2001), p. 31. The fact that there are no fully extant copies of William of Malmesbury’s pro-­ Glastonbury Vita Patricii, compared to the seven surviving manuscript copies of Jocelin’s text, offers conclusive evidence for the eventual failure of the Glastonbury claim. Gransden, ‘Growth of Glastonbury Traditions’, pp. 43–6; William of Malmes­ bury, Early History of Glastonbury, p. 29.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness primacy in the church of Ireland.54 Armagh owed its traditional seniority to its associations with St Patrick, a position that had been confirmed by the synods of Ráith Bressail in 1111 and again by Kells in 1152.55 In contrast, Dublin’s claims to episcopal status had been ignored by the Irish church until the Synod of Kells in 1152, when it was recognised both as a diocese and archdiocese in its own right.56 However, following the Anglo-Noman capture of Dublin in 1170, the city’s position as the main Anglo-Norman stronghold in Ireland meant that the ecclesiastical aspirations of the see constituted a new threat to Armagh’s position. In 1155, Pope Adrian IV’s grant of the bull ‘Laudabiliter’ had authorized English intervention in Ireland under the banner of religious reform, and the writings of Gerald of Wales show that these religious concerns remained at the forefront of Anglo-Norman interests into the 1180s.57 Significantly, the consecration of Dublin’s episcopate by the archbishops of Canterbury in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries meant that Dublin had strong historic ties to the English church.58 Considering the firm Anglo-Norman grip on Dublin, in contrast to the much weaker hold on Armagh, it seemed plausible that English religious interests would be served best by asserting the primacy of the church of Dublin.59 By the time that the Vita was commissioned, there was certainly some cause for the unease felt by Armagh. The Anglo-Norman seizure of the Staff of Jesus, a symbol of Patrician authority, and its transfer to Dublin in or before 1177 hinted that the invaders were setting up the latter as a rival primate.60 The prominence accorded to the Staff of Jesus in the Vita’s Dublin narratives may well reflect anxieties surrounding the presence of this relic in 54 55 56 57

58 59

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As noted by Duffy, DNB 13, 663. J. A. Watt, The Church and Two Nations in Medieval Ireland (Cambridge, 1970), p. 108. Ibid., p. 31. The pro-English focus found in the unique description of the Council of Armagh in 1170, in the 1172 Constitutions of Cashel and in the papal bulls granted by Adrian IV and Alexander III indicate the political agenda that lies behind Gerald’s Expugnatio. See also his chapters on the Irish and their clergy in the Topographia. Gerald of Wales, Expugnatio Hibernica, I.xviii, xxxv, II.v, pp. 68–71, 98–101, 144–7, 304 n.100; Gerald of Wales, ‘Topographia Hibernica’, III.xix–xx, xxvii–xxix, pp. 164–5, 172–6; Gerald of Wales, Topography of Ireland, trans. O’Meara, pp. 106, 112–14. For a recent reappraisal of the authenticity of Adrian’s bull see M. Haren, ‘Laudabiliter: Text and Context’, in Charters and Charter Scholarship in Britain and Ireland, ed. M. T. Flanagan and J. A. Green, (Basingstoke, 2005), pp. 140–63. Flanagan, Irish Society, pp. 7–31. Flanagan argues it is possible that since Ruadrí Ua Conchobair, the man to whom Archbishop Tomaltach owed his position, had acknowledged the over-kingship of Henry II in 1175, it may have been felt that Henry’s own appointee in Dublin, Archbishop John Cumin, ought not to be subject to Armagh’s authority. Flanagan, ‘John de Courcy’, p. 172 Flanagan notes that Dublin had already challenged the primacy of Armagh earlier in the twelfth century and cites the letter of the people of Dublin to Ralph, archbishop of Dublin, in 1121. Gerald of Wales, Expugnatio Hibernica, II.xx, pp. 182, 183;

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Irish Ecclesiastical Politics and Anglo-Norman Sponsorship the city.61 The growing relationship between the papacy and the church of Dublin also gave cause for concern. As will be outlined below, Jocelin’s text suggests that the recent appointment of an archbishop of Dublin to the office of papal legate had been conceived as an affront to Armagh’s dignity. The most impressive show of force, however, came in 1182, when Pope Lucius III not only placed the see of Dublin under papal protection and confirmed its rights and property, but also granted the archbishop autonomy from the see of Armagh. Whether this formed part of a real intention to challenge for primacy in the Irish church or was mere posturing remains unclear.62 It does, however, provide the context for many of the pro-Armagh narratives found in Jocelin’s text. The most obvious expression of Armagh’s anxiety in the Vita is the inclusion of Patrick’s conversion of the Norse kingdom of Dublin. Although the narrative seems to represent Dublin as a rival to Armagh by anachronistically elevating its conversion status, as was noted by Joseph Szoverffy and J. A. Watt, Jocelin’s Vita is careful to emphasize Dublin’s secondary position.63 Much of this pro-Armagh emphasis may have been present in Jocelin’s exemplar. Both the Vita and the version of the story found in the Book of Rights explicitly refer to the saint as ‘Patrick of Armagh’ and both state that an annual tribute was to be paid to Patrick by Dublin.64 However, Jocelin’s text is markedly more assertive with regard to Armagh’s supremacy. Explicit contemporary meaning is given to the narrative by the Vita’s statement that in Dublin ‘even to this day, honour and reverence is paid to St Patrick and his successors, the primates of Armagh’.65 In a similar vein, where the version in the Book of Rights cites Patrick, Jocelin’s text frequently appends his title ‘Archbishop of Armagh’, an additional detail that implies Dublin’s subjection to the person and to the office. For example, the Vita states that the king and citizens of

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63 64 65

Orpen, Ireland Under the Normans, p. 30; Gwynn, ‘Saint Lawrence O’Toole’, p. 234; Flanagan, ‘John de Courcy’, p. 172, 172 n.79. Vita Patricii AASS, §61 (c. lxx), p. 551F; Vita Patricii, ed. Colgan, c. lxxi, p. 81a; Vita Patricii, pp. 212, 214; Szoverffy, ‘Anglo-Norman Conquest’, pp. 12–13. John Cumin’s bull may have been intended in part to renew the bull secured from Pope Alexander in 1179 by Archbishop Lorcán Ua Tuathail. This ‘autonomy’ did not mean cutting all ties with Armagh – in 1192, the archbishop of Armagh presided over the consecration of St Patrick’s cathedral in Dublin. Watt characterizes it as a rejection of honour rather than jurisdiction. Watt, Church and Two Nations, pp. 109–10; Gwynn, ‘Archbishop John Cumin’, p. 296; Gwynn, ‘Saint Lawrence O’Toole’, p. 227; Pontificia Hibernica: Medieval Papal Chancery Documents Concerning Ireland 640–1261, Vol. I, ed. M. P. Sheehy (Dublin, 1962), nos. 9, 11, pp. 26–9, 35–7. Vita Patricii, ed. Colgan, c. lxxi, pp. 80b-1a; Vita Patricii, pp. 212–15; Szoverffy, ‘Anglo-Norman Conquest’, pp. 10–11; Watt, Church and Two Nations, p. 111. Vita Patricii, ed. Colgan, c. lxxi, pp. 80b, 81a; Vita Patricii, pp. 214, 215; Dublin Poem, ll. 1714, 1737, pp. 260, 261. ‘usque hodie beati Patricii et successorum eius Ardmachanorum primatum honor conservatur et reverencia’. Vita Patricii, ed. Colgan, c. lxxi, p. 81a.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness Dublin vow themselves and their posterity to the service of ‘St Patrick and the primates of Armagh’ and that a tribute is to be paid to Patrick as patron of the city and as archbishop of Armagh.66 This alleged tribute appears in both versions of the story but differs in the form it takes. While the Book of Rights specifies a screpall of gold per head, the Vita provides a list of goods to be levied from merchant ships, taverns and shops.67 Although Alfred P. Smyth doubts that the tribute recorded by Jocelin was ever actually paid, archaeological finds in Dublin confirm that a number of items, such as the shoes, gloves, knives and combs listed, were plausible in this context – even if this tribute was not a reality, it certainly could have been.68 Jocelin finishes the chapter with Patrick’s prophecy about the people of Dublin: they would be unconquered and fortunate if they paid the said tribute but weak and miserable should they ignore their promise to pay – as was plainly proven when this proud people forgot the blessing of St Patrick and neglected to pay the appointed dues.69

This prophecy seems to refer to the more recent history of the Norse kingdom of Dublin which, after Diarmait mac Máel na mBó assumed the kingship of Dublin in 1052, experienced Norse control only sporadically during the late eleventh and twelfth centuries.70 In addition to pleasing the Armagh camp, this prophecy should also have appeased the Anglo-Norman interests in the text since it provided additional justification for the conquest of Dublin.71 While it seems likely that the original conversion narrative behind the story probably originated in late eleventh century Dublin (as discussed in chapter one), the pro-Armagh additions such as the tribute and the prophecy seem to represent a slightly later Armagh filter.72 It is unclear how integrated these 66 67

68 69

70 71

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The italics are mine. Vita Patricii, ed. Colgan, c. lxxi, p. 81a; Vita Patricii, pp. 214, 215. Appended to the list of goods, Jocelin also notes that the king and his nobles each offered Patrick a talent of gold – a detail that clearly shares its origins with the tribute recorded by the Book of Rights. Dublin Poem, ll. 1729–32, p. 261; Vita Patricii, ed. Colgan, c. lxxi, p. 81a; Vita Patricii, p. 215. A. P. Smyth, Scandinavian York and Dublin: The History and Archaeology of Two Related Viking Kingdoms, Vol. II (Dublin, 1979), p. 202. ‘eos invictos fore et fortunatos, si dictis facta compensarent, imbelles vero et miseros eos redderet votorum prevaricacio. Quod liquido fuit comprobatum, quando superbiens populus oblitus benedictionis S. Patricii debitos redditus neglexit persolvere.’ Vita Patricii, ed. Colgan, c. lxxi, p. 81a. S. Duffy, ‘Irishmen and Islesmen in the Kingdoms of Dublin and Man, 1052–1171’, Ériu 43 (1992), 93–133. Szoverffy also suggested this episode included an attempt to justify the AngloNorman presence in Ireland but based his argument on the statement that the Norse had been granted Dublin by the Irish kings. Szoverffy concluded that Jocelin’s emphasis on the legality of Viking rule in Dublin allowed him to imply that the Anglo-Normans were their successors. Szoverffy, ‘Anglo-Norman Conquest’, p. 14. See pp. 44–7.

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Irish Ecclesiastical Politics and Anglo-Norman Sponsorship pro-Armagh additions had become by the time that Jocelin recorded the story. The presence of the saint’s description as ‘Patrick of Armagh’ and the inclusion of the tribute in both Jocelin’s text and the version in the Book of Rights suggests that they were accepted as part of the episode at an early stage in its transmission. However, the prophecy seems to reflect a later, more localized version of the story specific to Armagh, which may have emerged during the discussions concerning the incorporation of the see of Dublin into the Irish church during the mid-twelfth century. Another aspect of the rivalry between the two sees concerns the office of native papal legate. Significantly, it is only in relation to the primatial claims of Armagh that the links between Ireland and Rome find noticeably more emphasis in Jocelin’s Vita than in the extant source material. The description of Patrick’s first visit to Rome, his consecration as bishop by Pope Celestine and the assignment of the missionary expedition to Ireland seem to combine various versions of these events found in earlier Patrician texts.73 Patrick’s second visit to Rome also appears in a number of exemplars. However in these texts, Patrick’s journey is concerned solely with the procuring of relics and, consequently, their proper veneration.74 In contrast, Jocelin’s Vita provides notable additional details. We are told that Patrick’s journey to Rome is made with the intention of confirming the church of Armagh’s position as ‘the chief metropolitan and the mistress of all Hibernia’.75 Consequently, the text states that the pope acknowledged Patrick as the Apostle of Ireland, decorated him with the pall, and appointed him as papal legate.76 Since the papal gift of the pall to an archbishop seems to have become an established ritual only from the seventh century, the inclusion of this detail here is slightly anachronistic.77 However, it serves a clear purpose: by receiving the first pall to be granted to a prelate in the Irish church, Armagh underlines its historical claims to primacy. In addition, the subsequent appointment of Patrick as legate implies a direct relationship between the two offices and seems to reflect an asso-

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Jocelin’s version is closest to that found in the Cottonian Vita. Vita Patricii AASS, §22 (c. xxv), p. 542A–B; Vita Patricii, pp. 162–3; Cottonian Vita, fols. 11va–b, pp. 222–3. Other variants of this episode are: Pope Celestine sends Patrick to Ireland, Tírechán’s Vita, c. lvi.3, pp. 166, 167, Vita secunda, §25, p. 78; Patrick meets Pope Celestine and is sent to Ireland, Vita quarta, §29, pp. 77–8, Vita tertia, §§25–6, pp. 132–3, William of Malmesbury’s Vita, p. 326; Patrick enters ecclesiastical orders under Celestine, Vita tripartita, pp. 30, 31; Patrick journeys to Rome to receive the episcopal grade, Gloucester Vita, fol. 148ra ll. 41–2, p. 348; Patrick is blessed in Rome for his mission to Ireland, Vita Probo, I.§20, pp. 196–7. Vita tertia, §84, p. 179; Vita tripartita, pp. 238–41. Vita Patricii AASS, §144 (c. clxv), p. 570D; Vita Patricii, p. 313. Vita Patricii AASS, §145 (c. clxvi), p. 570E; Vita Patricii, p. 314. P. Johnstone, High Fashion in the Church: The Place of Church Vestments in the History of Art from the Ninth to the Nineteenth Century (Leeds, 2002), p. 17.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness ciation that was being made in the wider Church during this period.78 The inclusion of this statement also reveals the contemporary frustration felt by Armagh that the last churchman to hold the office of native papal legate had been an archbishop of Dublin.79 There does seem to be evidence that Armagh was being forced to defer to Dublin as holder of the legateship. The witness list to Bishop Malachy’s grant establishing the Benedictine chapter at Down places the archbishop of Dublin ahead of Archbishop Tomaltach due, presumably, to the former’s status as papal legate.80 That this narrative formed a response to the contemporary situation is further revealed by the fact that, despite the Vita’s emphasis on Armagh’s traditional rights to both the primacy and the office of papal legate, the legateship had not been held by Armagh at any point during the twelfth century.81 It was an ‘invented tradition’ designed to further frustrate the ambitions of Armagh’s rival.82 Anxiety about the threat to Armagh’s supremacy in the Irish church is also reflected in the narrative that describes the founding of the city. In a new addition to the legend, Patrick is said to have constructed Armagh under the guidance of angels and then to have brought twelve citizens to dwell in the city.83 The number twelve has strong Biblical resonances but its appearance in this context also seems to be an allegory for the structure of the Irish church 78

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Flanagan states that this was an association made by the English church, but evidence from Scotland suggests a wider acknowledgement of the relationship between the two offices. In 1159 and in the immediate aftermath of a disputed election, Pope Alexander III seems to have felt too insecure to grant King Malcolm’s request to make the see of St Andrews an archbishopric. However, he did appoint William, Bishop of Moray, as papal legate for the kingdom of Scotland with the suggestion that he be made bishop of St Andrews. The pope thus appeased both the English church by denying St Andrews’ request for autonomy and the Scottish king by playing on the implied link between papal legate and primatial authority. Flanagan, ‘John de Courcy’, p. 172; D. Broun, Scottish Independence and the Idea of Britain from the Picts to Alexander III (Edinburgh, 2007), p. 112. Gwynn, ‘Saint Lawrence O’Toole’, p. 224. This was stated by Gwynn, based on his belief that the charter was witnessed by Lorcán rather than John Cumin. See p. 143 n.14; MacNiocaill, ‘Cartae Dunenses’, no. 3, pp. 419–20; Gwynn, ‘Saint Lawrence O’Toole’, p. 235. St Malachy’s appointment as papal legate – which is mentioned by Jocelin – could be regarded as a possible exception. However, although Malachy had recently been archbishop of Armagh, his appointment as papal legate occurred while he was bishop of Down. Jocelin’s later incorrect statement that Malachy became bishop of Down and then archbishop of Armagh contradicts the account of Malachy’s career found in Bernard of Clairvaux’s Vita Malachiae and suggests that Jocelin relied either on oral accounts or his own assumptions at that point in the Vita. Vita Patricii AASS, §§86, 154 (cc. xcviii, clxxv), pp. 558A, 573A; Vita Patricii, pp. 248, 325; Gwynn, ‘Saint Lawrence O’Toole’, pp. 224–5; Bernard of Clairvaux, ‘Vita Malachiae’, cc. xii, xiv, cols. 1089A, 1092C; Bernard of Clairvaux, Life of Malachy, trans. Meyer, pp. 42, 47. E. Hobsbawm, ‘Introduction: Inventing Traditions’, in The Invention of Tradition, ed. E. Hobsbawm and T. Ranger (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 1–14 (pp. 1, 4–5). The Cottonian Vita also states that Armagh was constructed under the guidance

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Irish Ecclesiastical Politics and Anglo-Norman Sponsorship as designated by the Synod of Ráith Bressail in 1111.84 Under this arrangement, Armagh was placed at the head of the twelve sees that formed the northern province of Ireland. However, this structure was amended at the Synod of Kells in 1152, when the new provinces of Dublin and Tuam were added to those of Armagh and Cashel, and Armagh’s province was reduced to ten sees.85 Although the origin of the Vita’s narrative presumably dates to the period between the two synods, the absence of any attempt to update this tradition to reflect contemporary circumstances is suggestive.86 The inclusion of this nostalgic foundation narrative appears to transmit an encoded desire to return to the ecclesiastical structure of the early twelfth century, when the pretensions of Dublin to any episcopal status had been completely ignored. While the concerns of Jocelin’s ecclesiastical patrons find notable expression in the Vita, the influence of his secular patron is seen mainly in the author’s attempts to maintain political neutrality in the text. The collaboration of Irish and Anglo-Norman interests represented by the commissioning of the Vita was not to be undermined by the inappropriate presentation of potentially divisive material. Admittedly, the text still contains statements that, at first glance, appear prejudiced and antagonistic. For example, the Vita includes comments criticizing both the barbarity of earlier sources and Irish names. However, these statements are not without a degree of literary artifice. Jocelin’s decision to omit the Irish names of various persons and places lest ‘their uncouth barbarousness’ offend ‘cultivated ears’ echoes a statement made by Bernard in his Vita Malachiae and should be read as part of a discourse of Celtic barbarity that emerged during the twelfth century rather than a personal opinion.87 As Robert Bartlett notes, comments on barbarity tended to

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of angels but omits the twelve founding citizens. Cottonian Vita, fol. 10ra ll. 9–13, p. 228. See Genesis 35. 22, 49. 28; Exodus 28. 21, 39. 14; Matthew 10. 1–2. Watt argues that the creation of twelve sees in the Armagh and Cashel provinces was inspired by the structure of the English church as intended by Gregory the Great and Augustine. Watt, Church and Two Nations, pp. 15–17, 30–1. In oral tradition, the adaptation of older legends to reflect present circumstances is well-attested. See M. T. Clanchy, ‘Remembering the Past and the Good Old Law’, History 55 (1970), 166–8. The criticism of earlier Celtic sources found in the prologue to the Vita Patricii seems to have been modelled on the prologue to Aelred of Rievaux’s Vita S. Niniani. The prologue to the Vita Kentegerni includes similar sentiments relating to the barbarity of its source material. It is notable that the Vita Helenae, based on the texts of late antique writers, contemporary historians and the alleged English translation of a ‘British’ work, includes no such criticism. Vita Patricii AASS, prol., §80 (c. xciii), pp. 536E–F, 556D–E; Vita Patricii, pp. 132–3, 241; Bernard of Clairvaux, ‘Vita Malachiae’, col. 1099D; Bernard of Clairvaux, Life of Malachy, trans. Meyer, p. 61; Aelred of Rievaulx, ‘Life of Ninian’, prol., pp. 3–5, 137–9; Vita Helenae, ll. 32–41, p. 153; Thomas, English and the Normans, pp. 310–11; D. Scully, ‘Ireland and the Irish in Bernard of Clairvaux’s Life of Malachy: Representation and Context’, in Ireland and Europe

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness reflect a literary rather than a nationalistic agenda.88 These comments aside, the Vita seems to tread a careful path in relation to Irish and Anglo-Norman interests. Jocelin’s references to the Viking rulers, Gurmundus and Turgesius, provide evidence of a potentially neutral stand. In the Topographia Hibernica, Gerald of Wales tells us of a dispute between the English and the Irish over the identity of the first ruler to conquer Ireland. While the English claimed it was Gurmundus, the Irish argued it was Turgesius and each side refused to recognize the protagonist of the other.89 It is a debate that is sidestepped by Jocelin, who simply acknowledges both. Patrick’s vision of spiritual darkness in Ireland is said by the Vita to refer to the period in which ‘Gurmundus and Turgesius, heathen princes of Norway, conquered and ruled in Hibernia’ while, later, various sources are said to have been burnt ‘in the reigns of Gurmundus and Turgesius’.90 Another good, but problematic, example of similar tact also appears in the passage concerning Patrick’s vision of the lapse and restoration of Christianity in Ireland. The final part of the vision describes how the darkness that covered the land was dispersed by a light that rose in the north. Although the extant medieval manuscript copies of the text are united in including the Irish views on this light, only the version of the Vita found in the Paris manuscript provides the additional English interpretation and Jocelin’s response to both: the Irish assert that the light first appearing from the northern part and, after much conflict, banishing the darkness to be St Malachy, who was first at the church of Down and after presided over the archbishopric of Armagh, and who brought Ireland back to a state of Christian law. In contrast, the English think that the light should be attributed to their own coming, in so far as at that time the church seemed in their judgement to be advanced to a better state: religious observances planted and propagated, the sacraments of the Church and the institutes of Christian law observed in a more exact manner. I, however, wish neither to bring nor break the cord of contention between them, but think that the discussion and decision of these things should be left to divine judgement.91

88 89

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in the Twelfth Century: Reform and Renewal, ed. D. Bracken and D. Ó Riain-Raedel (Dublin, 2006), pp. 239–56 (pp. 247–53). Bartlett, ‘Cults of Irish, Scottish and Welsh Saints’, p. 86. Gerald also notes that some believed Gurmundus and Turgesius to have been the same man. Gerald of Wales, ‘Topographia Hibernica’, III.xxxviii, p. 183; Gerald of Wales, Topography of Ireland, trans. O’Meara, p. 119. Vita Patricii AASS, §§154, 163 (cc. clxxv, clxxxvi), pp. 572F, 575C–D; Vita Patricii, pp. 325, 337. ‘Lucem vero prius ex Aquilonari parte exorientem, et licet diutino conflictu tenebras exterminantem, Hibernigenae S. Malachiam asserunt; qui prius in Dunensi Ecclesia, postmodum in Ardmachana metropoli praefuit et Hiberniam ad Christianae legis statum reduxit. E contra Anglici lucem illam arbitrantur ascribendam suo adventui, eo quod tunc Ecclesia videbatur suo judicio in meliorem statum provehi; Religio plantari ac propagari, atque Sacramenta Ecclesiastica et Christianae legis instituta,

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Irish Ecclesiastical Politics and Anglo-Norman Sponsorship The presence of the first-person statement in the concluding part of this passage suggests that the Paris version may have preserved Jocelin’s original text at this point.92 If so, it may well be that the other copies of the text reflect changes made by later Irish redactors increasingly hostile to English involvement in Ireland. Jocelin’s politically neutral stance is also suggested by statements he could have included but apparently chose to omit from the Vita. Patrick’s requests to God on behalf of the Irish people form a well-established part of the Patrician legend, appearing in various forms and contexts in Muirchú’s Vita, the Vita tertia, the Vita Probo, the Vita tripartita and even in the summary of Patrick’s life found in Nennius’s Historia Brittonum.93 It is notable that among the requests transmitted by the Vita tripartita and the Historia Brittonum is the rather partisan statement that, to paraphrase Nennius, the Irish should never be destroyed by ‘barbarians’ or as the Vita tripartita states, ‘that the Saxons should not dwell in Ireland, by consent or perforce, so long as I abide in heaven’.94 Since Jocelin’s use of the Vita tripartita or the summary of Patrick’s life in the Historia Brittonum cannot be proven, it is possible that Jocelin was unaware of Patrick’s alleged opposition to the conquest of Ireland. However, the fact that Jocelin omits all of the saint’s requests found in the Vita tertia and the Vita tripartita – texts (or a text closely related to them) that provided

92

93

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ritu competentiori observari. Ego vero funem contentiosum inter eos nec porto, nec dirimo; sed hujus rei discussionem atque definitionem divino judicio reliquendum censeo.’ Vita Patricii AASS, §154 (c. clxxv), p. 573A; Bibl. Nationale, MS lat. 18314, fol. 85v. The Paris manuscript includes another statement absent from the other versions, which may have been similarly removed by later redactors. Appended to the narrative concerning Patrick’s temptation to eat meat, where the meat is miraculously turned to fish, the Paris manuscript tells how, on St Patrick’s day, the Irish plunge meat into water and then cook it, declaring it to be ‘Patrick’s fish’. Jocelin reminds the reader that the story teaches us to restrain our appetite, not to eat illicit meat on forbidden days ‘and not to pay attention to what stupid and foolish people are accustomed to do’ (‘nec attendat quid populus stultus et insipiens consuescat agere’). This passage cannot immediately be dismissed as a later addition to Jocelin’s text. The phrasing of the passage uses the semi-repetition of infinitive followed by the perfect participle found elsewhere in Jocelin’s works, while exactly the same phrase, ‘populus stultus et insipiens’, is used to describe the people of Glasgow who claim that Kentigern was the product of a virgin birth. As in the Kentigern narrative, the comment concerning ‘Patrick’s fish’ should be interpreted more as a response to unorthodox practice than a racial slur. Bibl. Nationale, MS lat. 18314, fol. 14v; Vita Patricii AASS, §20 (c. xxiii), p. 541E–F; Vita Patricii, pp. 159–60; Vita Kentgerni, c. i, p. 163. Other examples of this sentence structure can be seen in: Vita Patricii AASS, prol., p. 536E; Vita Kentegerni, c. xix, p. 192; Vita Helenae, ll. 38, 604–5, 879, pp. 153, 169, 176. Muirchú’s Vita, II.vi, pp. 116–17; Vita tertia, §§85, 88, pp. 180–1, 184; Vita Probo, I.§18, II.§32, pp. 196, 216–17; Vita tripartita, pp. 30, 31, 116–19; Nennius, British History, §54, pp. 34–5, 75. Nennius, British History, §54, pp. 34–5, 75; Vita tripartita, pp. 116, 117.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness the narrative basis of his work – indicates that he made a conscious decision to exclude them. While this may have been done in deference to his AngloNorman patron, John de Courcy, or even, simply, because it did not accord with his knowledge of Irish history, Jocelin’s silence on the subject of Patrick’s requests served to offend neither his Anglo-Norman nor Irish patrons.95 The subtle adaptation and reworking of Jocelin’s source material, as well as the introduction of new narratives into the legend, means that the Vita Patricii provides us with a fascinating glimpse into the conceptual landscape of mid1180s Down and Armagh. For Bishop Malachy, the Vita formed a vital part of the programme to re-establish the church of Down as the main centre for the cult of Patrick. The commissioning of such a substantial new Vita not only complemented the new ecclesiastical buildings at Down but also confirmed the permanence of recent changes in dedication, personnel and policy at the church. For Archbishop Tomaltach, the text provided the church of Armagh with the opportunity to assert its historic claims to ecclesiatical supremacy in Ireland in the face of the increasing threat posed by Dublin. In contrast, the third member of Jocelin’s patronage triumvirate appears to have been happy to sponsor the Vita without overly manipulating its content. Instead, the evidence indicates that de Courcy’s influence was active in another way. Just as he had provided the personnel to fill Malachy’s newly-established Benedictine chapter in Down, the choice of Jocelin as the author of the Vita also seems to be an expression of de Courcy’s personal patronage.

The commissioning of Jocelin The commissioning of Jocelin has been viewed by Seán Duffy as part of de Courcy’s general patronage of men and religious communities from northwest England.96 As Duffy states, the majority of de Courcy’s foundations have a clear connection to ‘Cumbria’ (a term he uses to refer to the coastal area stretching from the Clyde to the Mersey). The community at Nendrum was founded as a dependency of St Bees, Inch was a daughter house of Furness, the Augustinian priory of St Thomas the Martyr or Toberglory was dependent on the priory of Carlisle Cathedral and Grey Abbey was founded by Affreca de Courcy as a daughter house of Holmcultram.97 Two of de Courcy’s other foundations also had indirect connections to the area. The house of Premonstratensian canons at Carrickfergus was subject to the Scottish house of Dryburgh founded by Hugh de Morville, lord of Westmorland (d. 1162). 95

96 97

The interpretation of Patrick’s vision in the Vita shows a clear understanding that before the coming of the English, parts of Ireland had been subject to Viking rule. Vita Patricii AASS, §§153–4 (c. clxxv), pp. 572D–3A; Vita Patricii, pp. 323–5. Duffy, ‘First Ulster Plantation’, pp. 9, 11–12. Ibid., pp. 4 n.12, 6, 8, 9.

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Irish Ecclesiastical Politics and Anglo-Norman Sponsorship His son, Hugh, succeeded him in the lordship, while another son, Richard, married the heiress of Kentdale (south Westmorland) continuing the strong de Morville association with the area. Duffy also notes that a number of men who obtained lands in Ulaid under de Courcy were de Morville tenants.98 The installation of a Benedictine chapter from St Werburgh’s, Chester, in Down Cathedral in 1183 can also be traced back to Cumbria. Steve Flanders argues that de Courcy was the grandson of Ranulf Meschin, sometime lord of Appleby and the lands around Carlisle, but more widely known by the title earl of Chester. Significantly, both Ranulf and his brother William, lord of Copeland and Allerdale, were prominent patrons of St Werburgh’s, a house that had been founded by their uncle, Hugh d’Avranches.99 De Courcy also had other links to Chester. His constable, Roger of Chester, had been with him in Ulaid from the start and the two men clearly shared a close bond. In 1204, Roger’s son is described as being ‘John de Curcy, son of Roger de Chester’, which Duffy reasonably interprets to mean that Roger was a de Courcy relative.100 However, de Courcy’s patronage was not entirely Cumbria-centric. The foundation of de Courcy’s other two religious houses seem to lack the northwestern link. St-Andrew-in-Ards (also known as Black Abbey) was founded at some point after 1183 as a dependency of Stogursey Priory in Somerset, reflecting not only the location of Stogursey (originally Stoke Courcy) within de Courcy family lands, but the family’s long-term association with the house.101 De Courcy’s time in Ireland also created new lines of patronage. Several of his men appear to have been known to him through his links with Dublin and, although little evidence remains concerning de Courcy’s foundation of the Crutched Friars in Down, the evidence points to a similar connection.102 The cumulative evidence clearly vindicates Duffy’s thesis that de Courcy had significant ties with northwest England. However, the question of when these ties were created or consolidated is more problematic. In terms of our interests, it is particularly significant that there is no evidence that de Courcy

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100 101 102

Gwynn and Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses, p. 204; Duffy, ‘First Ulster Plantation’, pp. 10–11; DNB 39, 444. Duffy asserts that John de Courcy was probably the illegitimate son of William de Courcy II, husband of Avice de Rumilly, the daughter of William Meschin. However, more recently, Steve Flanders has identified de Courcy as the legitimate son of William de Courcy II’s brother, Jordan. Flanders also argues that William and Jordan were the sons of Ranulf rather than William Meschin. Gwynn and Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses, p. 170; Duffy, ‘First Ulster Plantation’, pp. 5–8; DNB 46, 52; VCH Ches. III, pp. 132–4; DNB 13, 662; Flanders, De Courcy, pp. 43–69, 154–5, 181 fig. 5. Duffy, ‘First Ulster Plantation’, pp. 15–16. Ibid., pp. 4–5; Flanders, De Courcy, pp. 45, 51–2, 63, 74–5, 155. Duffy, ‘First Ulster Plantation’, pp. 11 n.55, 12–14.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness had links with Furness prior to the foundation of Inch in 1180.103 There is also little evidence for the patronage of the abbey by de Courcy’s wider kinship group. William Meschin’s son, Ranulf, was involved in the endowment of the Furness daughter house of Calder, a house situated in the lordship of Copeland, while in the next generation, an early thirteenth century charter granted by William’s granddaughter, Alice de Rumilly, gave Furness all of Borrowdale and extensive rights through the barony of Allerdale and Copeland.104 However, as these two examples show, the focus of Meschin patronage reflected Meschin interests in the lands to the north of the Furness peninsula rather than a close association with the abbey itself. Instead, the early fifteenth century Coucher Book of Furness Abbey provides an alternative narrative for de Courcy’s patronage of the house.105 The events of this narrative can be summarized thus. In 1127 Magnellus Makenlefe, the king of Ulaid, founded the community of Carrig in Erenagh as a daughter house of Savigny. After the merger of the Savigniac and Cistercian Orders in 1147, the house was made a daughter of Furness, presumably due to the relative proximity of the mother house and its similar status as an ex-Savigniac community. During the 1177 conquest of Ulaid, the house was used as a fortress by the Irish and was subsequently destroyed by de Courcy’s forces. In 1180, in recompense, de Courcy founded Inch as a new daughter house of Furness, apparently on lands that had formed part of Makenlefe’s original grant to Carrig. The founding of Inch was thus said to fulfil the prophecy of Carrig’s first abbot, Evodius. As recorded by the Coucher Book, Evodius requested that his body be buried at the site of Inch, foreseeing that the house of Carrig would later be abandoned. Telling the brethren not to fear, he also prophesied that when the ‘good people’ arrived, the house would be formed once again but in a better position or state (statum).106 Other evidence indicates that this narrative glosses over a more complex situation on the ground. References to the church of Inch and its guardian, the erenagh, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries – including the erenagh’s appearance as a witness to a charter of Newry in c.1153 – mean that it is possible a religious community of some form remained active at the site in the years immediately before 1180.107 However, that Mackenlefe – identified 103

104 105

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The appearance of a certain Gilbert of Furness among other de Courcy tenants as witness to a charter granted by Archbishop Tomaltach must postdate 1181. Ibid., p. 17. Furness Coucher Book, II ii, Borudale nos. 1–2, pp. 568–71; VCH Lancs. II, p. 126. Although Duffy notes the presence of an earlier Furness daughter house in Ireland, he fails to mention the account of its history as given by the Coucher Book. Duffy, ‘The First Ulster Plantation’, p. 24. ‘populus bonus’. Furness Coucher Book, I i, no. v, pp. 12–13 (p. 12). If so, it is also possible to read the Cistercian resettlement of Inch in more colonial terms – as Roger Stalley remarks, it marked the effective replacement of an Irish community with a predominantly English one. The term ‘erenagh’ (airchin-

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Irish Ecclesiastical Politics and Anglo-Norman Sponsorship as the historical figure Niall Mac Duinnshléibhe – is said to have granted the site to the monks of Carrig suggests coenobitic life at Inch had already subsided by 1127, the year of both Carrig’s foundation and Mac Duinnshléibhe’s death.108 If so, it is possible that the Carrig monks established some form of cell there. Indeed, Gwynn suggests that it was actually Inch that was destroyed by de ­Courcy’s forces, the monks of Carrig having moved to the site after the death of Evodius.109 Our knowledge of activity on the site after 1180 is similarly clouded. The Annals of St Mary’s Abbey, Dublin date the foundation of Inch to 1187, a statement interpreted by previous scholars to refer to either the completion of the abbey buildings or to the full settlement of the house.110 H. G. Richardson suggests that this delay was caused by a dispute between the communities of Furness and Combe over the site, the outcome of which is recorded in a letter in the Coucher Book. Dated to 1183 or 1184, the letter tells us that the General Chapter decided in Furness’s favour and that the abbey was ordered to repay any expenses, presumably building costs, already incurred by Combe at the site.111 The date of 1183 given to the foundation of Inch in a list of Furness

108

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neach) signified a guardian of a church or monastery, usually a layman. Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Down, ed. Reeves, p. 93 n.d; A. Hamlin, ‘A Recently Discovered Enclosure at Inch Abbey, County Down’, Ulster Journal of Archaeology 3rd Series 40 (1977), 86; Gwynn and Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses, p. 37; Stalley, Cistercian Monasteries of Ireland, p. 246; K. Hughes, The Church in Early Irish Society (London, 1966), p. 223; Simms, ‘Frontiers in the Irish Church’, p. 177. Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Down, ed. Reeves, p. 31 n.n; Richardson, ‘Norman Monastic Foundations’, p. 35; Gwynn and Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses, p. 132. Although this is plausible, it does not seem to be supported by the Coucher Book’s statement that the community was transferred (‘transtulit’) to the new site by John de Courcy. Gwynn and Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses, p. 132; Furness Coucher Book, I i, no. v, p. 12. Ware records 1188 as an alternative date for the foundation of Inch, a date that also appears in a seventeenth-century list of Cistercian abbeys in Ireland said to have been compiled from statutes, bulls and other relevant matter (Dublin, Trinity College, MS E. 3. 8.). What form the building work at Inch took is unclear. The church does not appear to have been completed until c.1200 or later and only one piece of twelfth-century stonework has been found at the site (the details behind the discovery of this piece remain obscure). Chartularies of St Mary’s Abbey, ed. Gilbert, pp. ciii, cxii-cxiii, 218, 288; Gwynn and Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses, p. 135; Stalley, Cistercian Monasteries of Ireland, pp. 92–3, 95–6, 264 n.63; J. Ware, De Hibernia & antiquitatibus ejus (London, 1654), pp. 180–1; P. L. Janauschek, Originum Cisterciensium tomus I (Vienna, 1877), pp. 187–8; Government of Northern Ireland, Ministry of Finance, An Archaeological Survey of County Down, An Archaeological Survey of Northern Ireland (Belfast, 1966), pp. 279, 281; Hamlin, ‘Recently Discovered Enclosure’, pp. 86–7. The origin of Combe’s claims to the site are unknown. Furness Coucher Book, II iii, Irish Charters no. 1, pp. 715–16; Richardson, ‘Norman Monastic Foundations’, p. 36.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness daughter houses found earlier in the Coucher Book presumably reflects this settlement and may mark the beginning of the formal colonization of the site by Furness monks.112 A letter written by Bishop Malachy requesting financial support for ‘the abbey being built’ (ad abbatiam construendam) at Inch suggests that men were already present at the site before new construction began: leading churchmen are asked ‘to give your alms to the monks living there’.113 The confirmation of the right of burial and various other customary liberties found in this letter, as well as the statement that gifts would be rewarded by an indulgence to be granted ‘in the same church’, also attest to the site as an existing religious centre.114 It seems likely that, if Carrig was the house destroyed in 1177, Inch – inhabited or otherwise – would have provided a haven for the now homeless monks. Apparently within their patrimony and only three miles distant from the site of their former monastery, the isolated nature of Inch as an island surrounded by marshes must also have appealed.115 The year 1180 seems to have marked the official refounding of the house. The monks were to be given new buildings and their community augmented with additional brethren from Furness Abbey. Although the introducion of Furness monks may have been delayed by the dispute with Combe, they are likely to have been fully active on the site from at least 1183. Such a scenario would also provide a plausible context for Jocelin’s presence in Ulaid and the composition of the Vita c.1185. That de Courcy replaced the destroyed monastery indicates that the house of Carrig had not only been a functioning community in 1177, but one that still had reasonably close links with Furness. Although de Courcy’s remorse over the destruction of Carrig coupled with the possibly vocal complaints of its displaced residents may have been enough to initiate the founding of a new Furness daughter house, it seems significant that 1180 was also the year in which de Courcy married Affreca, daughter of the king of Man.116

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It must be noted that other dates on this list are not particularly accurate. Furness Coucher Book, I i, no. v, p. 11. ‘monachis ibidem commorantibus de elemosinis vestris succuratis’, Richardson, ‘Norman Monastic Foundations’, Document ii, p. 43. ‘in eadem ecclesia’. Ibid., p. 43. It is also possible that, as Richardson suggests, the Carrig community returned to their mother house of Furness. Hamlin, ‘Recently Discovered Enclosure’, p. 85; Ministry of Finance, Archaeological Survey of County Down, p. 279; Richardson, ‘Norman Monastic Foundations’, p. 36. This is the date recorded by the Annals of Inisfallen and, although Duffy warns that this eighteenth-century compilation is of ‘dubious merit’, there seems no reason to doubt it. De Courcy’s marriage to Affreca appears to have been a politically astute move and must have been made in the knowledge that Affreca’s father was allied by marriage to the neighbouring Mac Lochlainn dynasty of Cenél nEógain, the

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Irish Ecclesiastical Politics and Anglo-Norman Sponsorship In contrast to the absence of known links between de Courcy and Furness Abbey before 1180, the monastic house had been in close alliance with the ruling Manx dynasty from the early twelfth century. In the 1130s, King Olaf had not only founded the Furness daughter house of Rushen on Man, but had granted the Furness community the right to elect the bishop of the Isles, a charter confirmed by both his son and grandson in the second half of the century.117 Considering this close patronage connection, it is not implausible to suggest that de Courcy came under pressure from his new bride to right the wrong that had been done at Carrig. Such a suggestion would certainly make it easier to understand why the foundation of Inch occurred so early in de Courcy’s rule. The founding of Inch seems to have been second only to the foundation of Nendrum as a daughter house of St Bees in 1178x1179. Since this foundation has been interpreted as a tribute to de Courcy’s kinship with the founder of St Bees, William Meschin, it has been suggested that this was an act of great personal significance for de Courcy.118 The alleged Irish origin of St Bega and the relative proximity of the community also made St Bees a particularly appropriate mother house.119 Inch appears similar to Nendrum only in the fact that both were founded on sites of much older monastic activity – a policy that has been interpreted as an attempt on the parts of de Courcy and Bishop Malachy to reclaim secularized church lands.120 Be this as it may, it still seems best to read Inch’s early foundation as an expression of de Courcy’s formal alliance with the Manx dynasty. It is possible that de Courcy’s subsequent patronage of Furness, seen in the commissioning of Jocelin, also reflected the influence of his new Manx allegiances. It is notable that Jocelin was not the only literary figure within de Courcy’s sphere of influence in the late twelfth century. Everard of Holmcultram, the alleged author of the vitae of Cummene Ailbe and Adomnán, was recorded as a witness to the 1183 charter installing the new chapter at Down Cathedral and presented a potential candidate for the new work.121 Likewise, Lucian, a monk of St Werburgh’s, Chester, could also have been considered for the commission. Although his sole extant work, De laude Cestrie, dates to the early 1190s, it is likely that he was active in the years before this.122 As

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traditional enemies of Ulaid. Duffy, ‘First Ulster Plantation’, pp. 25 n.167, 25–6; DNB 13, 663. Furness Coucher Book, II iii, Manx Documents nos. 1, 4–5, pp. 708–9, 710–11. Duffy, ‘First Ulster Plantation’, pp. 6–7; Flanders, De Courcy, p. 155. ‘Illustrative Documents’, ed. Wilson, I, p. 498. Gwynn and Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses, pp. 37, 42; Flanagan, ‘John de Courcy’, pp. 168, 169. Everard is also credited with writing an earlier Vita Waldevi but I believe this is a misreading of the evidence (see pp. 132–4). Gwynn and Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses, p. 170; Dempster, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Scotorum, V.§479, p. 260. Lucian of Chester, Extracts from the MS. Liber Luciani de laude Cestrie, written about the year 1195 and now in the Bodleian Library Oxford, ed. M. V. Taylor, Record Society

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness a member of the community of St Werburgh’s, whose brethren had populated the new cathedral chapter at Down, Lucian was also firmly within de Courcy’s patronage network. In the face of these other potential choices, the appointment of Jocelin seems most plausibly explained by the patronage triangle recently formed between de Courcy, the ruling Manx dynasty and Furness Abbey. There is certainly evidence to suggest that a representative of Manx interests had some influence over the content of the Vita. The appearance of new, additional material concerning the Isle of Man and the Dublin-Norse community in the text – in spite of Jocelin’s own reservations in relation to the latter – indicates both the input of someone with a cultural background in these areas and whose word carried a certain amount of weight. John de Courcy’s wife, Affreca, fits both criteria. As the daughter of Godred, king of Man and the Isles, she was a member of an elite prominent in both the Isle of Man and the Norse kingdom of Dublin before it fell under Anglo-Norman control in 1170.123 It does not seem implausible to suggest that a royal Manx source lay behind the episode concerning the spring in St Maughold’s churchyard, particularly considering the reference to the inquisitive Norse king in the narrative.124 In addition, it is significant that the St Patrick’s Isle mentioned by the Vita was the seat of the ruling Norse dynasty on Man from the late eleventh century onwards.125 With regard to the Dublin material, the desire to assign Patrick’s conversion of the city to a Norse context is also suggestive of a source with an interest in the local ruling elite. In short, such local, cultural and personal connections to the Patrick legend make Affreca’s potential role in the formation of the text both possible and probable. It is, therefore, somewhat ironic, in light of the scenario being suggested here, that the current literature has a tendency to subsume Affreca into the persona of John de Courcy. All too often Affreca’s own agency, seen in the foundation of Grey Abbey in 1193, is read as a shorthand for her husband’s actions.126 Yet in comparison to John

123 124 125

126

for the Publication of Original Documents Relating to Lancashire and Cheshire 64 (Chester, 1912), pp. 8–10. DNB 13, 663; Duffy, ‘Irishmen and Islesmen’, p. 126. Vita Patricii AASS, §134 (c. clii), p. 568B; Vita Patricii, p. 301. The similarities between the architecture of Grey Abbey and the cathedral of St German’s, which replaced the earlier parish church on St Patrick’s Isle at some point in this period, suggest that Affreca may have been a patron of the new cathedral. Vita Patricii AASS, §79 (c. xcii), p. 556B–C; Vita Patricii, p. 240; D. Freke, Excavations on St Patrick’s Isle, Peel, Isle of Man, 1982–88: Prehistoric, Viking, Medieval and Later, Centre for Manx Studies Monographs 2 (Liverpool, 2002), pp. 14, 139; R. A. McDonald, Manx Kingship in its Irish Sea Setting, 1187–1229: King Rognvaldr and the Crovan Dynasty (Dublin, 2007), p. 210; R. A. McDonald, The Kingdom of the Isles: Scotland’s Western Seaboard, c. 1100–c. 1336, Scottish Historical Review Monographs 4 (Phantassie, 1997), pp. 208–9. Affreca is recorded as the founder of Grey Abbey by the Chronicle of the Kings of Man and by James Ware, who seems to have had access to a more detailed source.

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Irish Ecclesiastical Politics and Anglo-Norman Sponsorship de Courcy’s apparent influence over the narrative content of the work, it seems that Affreca exerted a much greater impact. Indeed, in spite of her absence from the list of official patrons of the Vita, we should now recognize the possibility that she played a significant role both in the production of the text and in the extended patronage of Furness Abbey seen in the foundation of Inch and the commissioning of Jocelin. Affreca is one of the few women of the Manx dynasty of this period to be known to us by more than just a name – and this fact alone indicates she was a more important figure in the social, political and religious milieu of the late twelfth century Irish Sea region than has previously been allowed.127 Of course, it also remains possible that de Courcy’s patronage of Jocelin reflected a personal relationship of unknown dimension between the two men. Even if their association stemmed merely from Jocelin’s appearance in connection with the new foundation of Inch, his talents as an educated scribe may have placed him in a prominent position within de Courcy’s circle. Robert Patterson’s research into scribal activity in the late twelfth and early thirteenth century Cistercian monastery of Margam in Wales argues that the scriptorium of the house also functioned as the comital writing office for the marcher barony of Glamorgan.128 If so, it is possible that the scriptoria of de Courcy’s monastic houses in Ireland provided similar services for the new Anglo-Norman ruler. Gerald of Wales attests to the presence of ‘historians’ employed by de Courcy to record his deeds in Ireland and it may well be that, as previous scholars have suggested, Jocelin was to be counted among them.129 Although no such gesta survive today, it is not implausible that Jocelin wrote an account of his patron’s exploits in addition to the Vita Patricii. Aelred of Rievaulx’s historical work, the Battle of the Standard, provides some kind of model for this: the work devoted no small amount of text to the activities of Rievaulx’s founder, Walter Espec, on and off the battlefield.130 There is certainly evidence to indicate that an account of de Courcy’s time in

127 128

129 130

Cronica regum Mannie, ed. Broderick, fol. 41r; Ware, De Hibernia, p. 181. Steve Flanders provides the most recent example of this rather dismissive approach to Affreca, see Flanders, De Courcy, pp. 156, 161–2. McDonald, Manx Kingship, pp. 127–8. Likewise, Keith Stringer notes the administrative role played by William, prior of the Augustinian house of St Mary’s Isle, in Alan of Galloway’s household. R. B. Patterson, The Scriptorium of Margam Abbey and the Scribes of Early Angevin Glamorgan: Secretarial Administration in a Welsh Marcher Barony, c.1150-c.1225 (Woodbridge, 2002); K. J. Stringer, ‘Reform Monasticism and Celtic Scotland: Galloway, c.1140–c.1240’, in Alba: Celtic Scotland in the Middle Ages, ed. E. J. Cowan and R. A. McDonald (East Linton, 2000), p. 158. Gerald of Wales, Expugnatio Hibernica, II.xviii, pp. 180, 181; Annála Rioghachta Éireann, ed. O’Donovan, III, 33 n.k; Bieler, ‘Jocelin von Furness’, p. 410. Aelred of Rievaulx, ‘De bello standardii’, in Beati Aelredi abbatis Rievallensis opera omnia, PL 195, 703D–7A; Aelred of Rievaulx, Aelred of Rievaulx: The Historical Works, trans. J. P. Freeland, Cistercian Fathers Series 56 (Kalamazoo, 2005), pp. 249–57.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness Ireland was in circulation during the medieval period. The editors of the Book of Howth, which survives today in a sixteenth-century manuscript, believed a text recounting the deeds of John de Courcy to have been among the sources for this work and it is notable that the Furness Coucher Book directs the reader to a ‘Record of the Chronicles of Ulster’ for a more detailed account of the foundation of Inch.131 However, in the absence of this text, any further statements concerning Jocelin’s relationship to his patron would be entirely speculative.

Conclusion As a work commissioned by the archbishop of Armagh, the bishop of Down and the new ruler of Ulaid, the Vita Patricii was a high-profile text and, consequently, one that was used by each party to express their own needs or interests. Most obviously, the Vita attests to the close alliance of the reformed church and the new Anglo-Norman regime in the north of Ireland, an open declaration that served to benefit all parties in the early 1180s. More discreetly, but with no less propaganda value, the content of the text was subtly adapted to represent the interests of Jocelin’s two ecclesiastical patrons. The Vita voiced both the church of Down’s claims to be the resting place of St Patrick and the church of Armagh’s anxieties over the threat to its metropolitan status. For the Vita’s secular patron, the patronage of Jocelin served to consolidate de Courcy’s new relationship with Furness and to further invest himself within the patronage network he had recently married into. Although the commissioning of Jocelin for a work of this scale and profile suggests that he was a writer of some standing by this point, the Vita Patricii must have confirmed and consolidated his position in the late twelfth century literary scene. It showcased not only his ability to compile and rework hagiographical material in a more contemporary style, but also his talent for adapting narratives to suit the current needs of his patrons. They were skills that were soon to be used again.

131

‘Registro Cronicis Ultoniae’. Calendar of the Carew Manuscripts Preserved in the Archiepiscopal Library at Lambeth, Vol. 5: Book of Howth, Miscellaneous, ed. J. S. Brewer and W. Bullen (London, 1871), pp. xi, xv; Furness Coucher Book, I i, no. v, p. 12; VCH Lancs. II, p. 129.

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CHAPTER  SIX

Scottish Independence and Ecclesiastical Reform: The Vita S. Kentegerni in Context

The Vita Kentegerni was commissioned by Bishop Jocelin at some point between 1175 and 1199 and represented the literary aspect of a wider programme of regeneration being undertaken at Glasgow Cathedral in the closing decades of the twelfth century. Just as the cathedral was enlarged and decorated with contemporary flourishes, so too the Vita of the cathedral’s patron saint was lengthened and embellished.1 And just as the architecture of Kentigern’s new shrine may have been designed to accommodate contemporary pilgrimage practices, the text, too, was adapted to reflect the needs of the late twelfth century diocese.2 Analysis of the text makes it clear that in addition to replacing the unorthodox version of the vita then in use at the cathedral, Jocelin’s work was also written with a variety of other interests in mind. The most important contemporary issues to leave their mark on the text were those relating to the independence of the diocese of Glasgow, of the Scottish church and of the Church in general. Since an understanding of the specific historical context of the work is necessary to fully appreciate how closely the text mirrored contemporary concerns, a brief summary of twelfth-century Scottish ecclesiastical politics is necessary before a more detailed examination of Jocelin’s Vita can begin.

The ecclesiastical and political background By the 1170s, the Glasgow diocese had grown accustomed to independence. Although English claims for authority over the Scottish church had received strong papal backing from the late eleventh century onwards, Glasgow’s bishops had both evaded and ignored attempts to extract a formal and permanent submission to the English church. Initially, this was partly down to good fortune. The elections of Bishop John (c.1118–47) and Bishop Herbert 1

2

R. of Melrose, ‘Eulogium’, p. 311; Chronicle of Melrose, fol. 23r; ‘Chronicle of Melrose’, trans. Stevenson, p. 139; S. T. Driscoll, Excavations at Glasgow Cathedral 1988–1997, Society for Medieval Archaeology Monograph 18 (London, 2002), pp. 82–3. Shead, ‘Jocelin, Abbot of Melrose’, p. 14; Yeoman, Pilgrimage in Medieval Scotland, p. 19.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness (1147–64) had coincided with periods of vacancy in the diocese of York, which allowed them to seek consecration directly from the pope. The passing of half a century without submission to York set a precedent and the bishops sought to continue the practice even when the archbishopric was occupied by an encumbent. Despite York’s protests, Bishop Ingram had been consecrated by Pope Alexander III in 1164 and Bishop Jocelin had been consecrated by Alexander’s representative in 1175.3 However, Glasgow’s episcopal autonomy was not only threatened by English aspirations. The church of St Andrews had received royal backing in its quest to become primate of a Scottish province. Although these claims had lain dormant since Alexander  III’s formal refusal to elevate the bishopric in 1159, the ambitious building programme that occupied the church of St Andrews in the 1160s and 1170s suggests that its aspirations remained intact.4 In 1174, the year of Bishop Jocelin’s election to the see, the situation took a dramatic turn for the worse. The capture of William the Lion by the forces of Henry II and the subsequent treaty negotiated at Falaise meant that the Scottish king, his barons and leading churchmen found themselves formally designated as vassals of the English Crown.5 Just over a year later, in August 1175, William, along with a number of Scottish nobles and prelates, including Bishop Jocelin, was made to perform the required homage to Henry II and his son at York.6 But the treaty of Falaise did not merely demand the submission of the Scottish bishops to the English king, it also required them to profess formal obedience to the English church. Consequently, arrangements were made for this profession to occur in Northampton in early 1176.7 It was a meeting to which Bishop Jocelin came prepared. When Archbishop Roger de Pont l’Evêque of York presented evidence for the submission of former bishops of Glasgow, Bishop Jocelin countered with a newly-obtained papal bull that declared Glasgow to be subject to papal authority alone.8 At this point Canterbury entered the fray by asserting its own claims to authority

3

4

5

6 7 8

A. D. M. Barrell, ‘The background to Cum universi: Scoto-papal relations, 1159– 1192’, Innes Review 46 (1995), 116, 118; Broun, Scottish Independence, pp. 110, 111, 136; Chronicle of Melrose, fols. 18v, 20r, 22r; Chronicle of Melrose, trans. Stevenson, pp. 126, 130, 136. Scotia Pontificia: Papal Letters to Scotland before the Pontificate of Innocent III, ed. R. Somerville (Oxford, 1982), no. 43, pp. 49–50; Broun, Scottish Independence, pp. 111–12, 136–7. The Treaty of Falaise is also known as the Treaty of Valognes. Chronicle of Melrose, fol. 22r; ‘Chronicle of Melrose’, trans. Stevenson, pp. 135–6; Anglo-Scottish Relations 1174–1328: Some Selected Documents, ed. and trans. E. L. G. Stones (London, 1965), no. 1, pp. 1–5; Broun, Scottish Independence, p. 107. Roger of Howden, Gesta regis, pp. 94–6. Anglo-Scottish Relations, ed. and trans. Stones, no. 1, p. 2. Registrum episcopatus Glasguensis, ed. Innes, I, no. 32, pp. 30–2; Scotia Pontificia, ed. Somerville, no. 76, pp. 76–7.

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Scottish Independence and Ecclesiastical Reform over the Scottish church and the council ended in disarray with no submission made.9 The granting of Glasgow’s exemption from archiepiscopal jurisdiction was a major coup for Bishop Jocelin. In 1175, exempt dioceses were very unusual outside Italy and Glasgow became the most distant exempt see from Rome.10 As Dauvit Broun’s recent analysis has concluded, the mastermind behind this initiative seems to have been Bishop Jocelin himself. In the months following his election, the bishop appears to have been acutely aware of the threats faced by his diocese and took significant steps to ensure its safety. In March 1175, he obtained a special privilege of liberty from Alexander III that granted immunity to sentences of interdict, suspension or excommunication promulgated by any other churchmen against either himself or the church of Glasgow.11 Yet while this provided a degree of protection in any attempts he might make to avoid the impending submission to York, it did not deny the validity of the submission itself. In contrast, the bull secured in April 1175 did. In essence, it was much the same as the bull confirming the see’s rights and properties that had been granted to Bishop Jocelin’s predecessor, Ingram.12 However, the insertion of the words ‘our special daughter with no intermediary’ represented a significant departure from convention.13 This phrase was normally found in bulls granted to religious houses that exempted them from episcopal jurisdiction. The monastic origin of this phrase suggests that Bishop Jocelin, who prior to his election in 1174 had been abbot of the Cistercian house of Melrose, was responsible for this innovation. It is notable that in 1165 a bull of exemption had been granted to the abbey of Kelso, a house in relatively close proximity to Melrose and potentially the inspiration behind Bishop Jocelin’s initiative.14 The attempt to enforce the submission of the Scottish episcopate by an English king whose recent interference in ecclesiastical politics had brought him into European-wide notoriety appears to have caused a dramatic turnaround in papal policy towards the Scottish church. In the wake of the 1176 Council of Northampton, a Scottish delegation secured the bull ‘Super anxietatibus’. It stated that the Scottish bishops were to regard the pope as their metropolitan until the issue of authority was reopened by York. The reason 9

10 11 12 13 14

Duncan suggests that the opportune resurfacing of the Canterbury-York dispute had been pre-arranged between Glasgow and Canterbury. Roger of Howden, Gesta regis, pp. 111–12; Roger of Howden, Chronica, ed. Stubbs, II, 91–2; Roger of Howden, Annals, trans. Riley, II, 411; Duncan, ‘St Kentigern’, p. 10. Broun, Scottish Independence, p. 130. Registrum episcopatus Glasguensis, ed. Innes, I, no. 37, pp. 34–5. Ibid., no. 26, pp. 23–4; Broun, Scottish Independence, p. 138. ‘specialem filiam nostram nullo mediante’. Registrum episcopatus Glasguensis, ed. Innes, I, no. 32, p. 30. Scotia Pontificia, ed. Somerville, no. 59, p. 62; Broun, Scottish Independence, pp. 138–40.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness for this privilege was explicitly stated: Henry II’s actions were an affront to God, to the pope himself and to ecclesiastical liberty.15 The temporary nature of this measure combined with the presence of the papal legate, Cardinal Vivian, in Scotland during 1176 and 1177, partly to address the issue of Scotland’s ecclesiastical status, seems to have caused Bishop Jocelin some anxiety.16 The renewal of Glasgow’s bull of exemption in April 1179 designated the see as ‘the special daughter of the Roman Church with no intermediary’, a subtle change that shows recognition of a potential flaw in the previous wording.17 The new bull made it clear that Glasgow’s exemption was not a favour dependent on the good will of the present pontiff but a permanent feature, and it was this version of the bull that was reissued by successive popes in 1182 and 1186.18 Viewed from a Glasgow perspective, the papal bull ‘Cum universi’ can be recognized as a direct descendant of Bishop Jocelin’s 1175 bull of exemption.19 Granted in 1192, ‘Cum universi’ took the unprecedented step of formalizing the structure of the Scottish church as a group of independent dioceses.20 Broun argues that this bull was the culmination of a plan formed by Bishop Jocelin following the initial breakthrough of 1175 and the interim measure of ‘Super anxietatibus’. In particular, Broun points to the similar procedure behind these two innovations. Just as the bull of 1175 saw the application of the phrase ‘special daughter’ to a new ecclesiastical context, ‘Cum universi’ saw the extension of an individual diocesan exemption to cover the entire Scottish church. Since the bull spelt an end to the aspirations of St Andrews, it seems unlikely that the plan came from this sector and there is no indication that any other bishop was thinking in quite the same way at this point.21 The 15 16

17 18

19 20

21

Registrum episcopatus Glasguensis, ed. Innes, I, no. 38, p. 35; Scotia Pontificia, ed. Somerville, no. 80, pp. 79–81. Barrell suggests that before 1179 Cardinal Vivian reported back to the Pope in York’s favour, which would provide the context for a bull listed in a York inventory and an undated bull from Alexander III that appear to reverse ‘Super anxietatibus’. If such a reversal had taken place, Bishop Jocelin may well have sought another charter to strengthen the position of his see. Broun, Scottish Independence, p. 142; Barrell, ‘Background to Cum universi’, pp. 120–2. ‘specialem nullo mediante Romane ecclesie filiam’. Registrum episcopatus Glasguensis, ed. Innes, I, no. 51, pp. 42–5 (p. 43); Scotia Pontificia, ed. Somerville, no. 86, p. 86. Urban III confirmed Glasgow’s status twice in June 1186. Registrum episcopatus Glasguensis, ed. Innes, I, nos. 57, 62, 69, pp. 49–51, 54–7, 62; Scotia Pontificia, ed. Somerville, nos. 111, 135, 136, pp. 104, 124–5; Broun, Scottish Independence, pp. 138, 143. Broun, Scottish Independence, p. 143. A. D. M. Barrell argues that the bull was first granted by Celestine’s predecessor in 1189 but, in the absence of this proposed bull, this argument has yet to gain general acceptance. Scotia Pontificia, ed. Somerville, no. 156, pp. 142–4; Anglo-Scottish Relations, ed. and trans. Stones, no. 5, pp. 14–16; Broun, Scottish Independence, pp. 124, 144; Barrell, ‘Background to Cum universi’, pp. 128–38. Broun, Scottish Independence, pp. 143–4.

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Scottish Independence and Ecclesiastical Reform similarity in approach and the fact that Glasgow was the main beneficiary of this outcome strongly suggests that the figure behind ‘Cum universi’ was Bishop Jocelin himself. This outline provides the immediate context for Jocelin’s Vita. It shows not only the difficulties faced by the diocese of Glasgow during this period, but provides an interesting insight into the personality of the Vita’s patron. There can be no mistaking the fact that Bishop Jocelin was a man of exceptional ability. His swift appraisal of the situation following his election as bishop was matched by a course of concrete action that was both innovative and effective. Since the Vita was one of the ways in which the church of Glasgow represented its interests to the outside world, it is unsurprising that a similar kind of religio-political manoeuvring is also present in Jocelin’s text. The Vita includes a number of pseudo-historical narratives intended to promote the see of Glasgow’s independent status and which also reflected wider concerns over secular influence in the twelfth-century Church. While the analysis of these accounts provides the primary focus for this chapter, attention will also be paid to the more personal imprint left on the text by its patron. An underlying Cistercian discourse present in the Vita creates an implicit parallel between the bishop and his saintly predecessor. The final part of this chapter argues that the combination of this discourse with the notably didactic tone of the text expressed the reforming intentions of Bishop Jocelin as a representative of the wider Cistercian mission.

The Vita as a reflection of Glasgow’s corporate interests The anxieties surrounding the independence of both Glasgow and the wider Scottish church are evident in the Vita. The most obvious example is the reference to Kentigern’s special relationship with the pope, a comment that can only refer to Bishop Jocelin’s bull of exemption: ‘He also had a privilege sent to him by the Supreme Pontiff so that he would be subject to no bishop but rather should be called and actually be the vicar and chaplain of the Lord Pope.’22 The presence of this statement in the chapter concerning the submission of the Cambrian king, Rederech, to Kentigern’s authority – rather than in the more appropriate earlier section dealing with Kentigern’s seven journeys to Rome and his attempts to confirm his ecclesiastical status – suggests that it was a new addition to the text.23 There are two main reasons for the inclusion of this comment at this point. Firstly, as noted by A. A. M. Duncan, this statement safeguards the Vita from claiming too much power for Kentigern: 22

23

‘Habebat etiam privilegium a summo pontifice sibi missum, ut nulli episcopo esset subjectus; sed pocius vocaretur et esset Domini Pape vicarius, et capellanus.’ Vita Kentegerni, c. xxxiii, p. 219. Ibid., cc. xxvii, xxxiii, pp. 84–5, 94–5, 209–10, 218–19.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness although the saint’s superior authority has been acknowledged by the king, he remains subject to the pope. Secondly, and perhaps more significantly, the placing of this comment here converted the passage into a subtle allusion to events at the start of Bishop Jocelin’s episcopate.24 The Vita depicts an alternative world, contextualized by the papal bull as being analogous to the present, where secular rulers voluntarily submit themselves to episcopal authority. The idealized nature of hagiography makes it a perfect medium for presenting an inverted account of contemporary events – what should have been rather than what is. Rederech’s submission forms part of another narrative of independence found in the text. This narrative seeks to portray the Glasgow diocese as an area ethnically and historically distinct from the regions surrounding it, and is an approach that also marks other Kentigern texts. Emphasis is laid upon the alleged British or Welsh identity of the see. Thus, the Office of Kentigern found in the late thirteenth century Sprouston Breviary refers to the geographical and ethnic setting of the Kentigern legend using the terms ‘northern Wales’, ‘the kingdom of the Britons’ and ‘the Cambrian people’.25 Likewise, the mid-twelfth century Herbertian Life stated that Kentigern had ‘enriched his country, Britain’ and that the saint’s miracles still occurred throughout ‘Cambria’.26 ‘Cambria’ is also the term used to refer to this region in Jocelin’s Vita. He describes the see of Glasgow as being coterminous with the ancient kingdom of Cambria, which he characterizes as a realm separating Anglia from Scotia.27 This discourse of ethnicity can also be found in the cathedral cartulary. The charter granted by David between 1114 and 1124, which officially refounded the diocese, acknowledges the distinct ethnic character of the see. Although it notes that the see’s original inhabitants had been replaced by a variety of other groups, the repeated references to the area in terms of ‘Cumbria’ and ‘Cumbrenses’ emphasize its British origins.28 Dauvit Broun also draws our attention to the important charter granted by Malcolm IV between 1153 and 1165, which reinforced the rights of Glasgow’s clergy. The document is addressed to ‘the French and English, Scottish, Welsh, Galwe-

24 25 26

27

28

Duncan, ‘St Kentigern’, p. 18. ‘septentrionali Wallia’, ‘regno Britannorum’, ‘Gens Cambrina’. ‘Office of S. Kentigern’, ed. Forbes, pp. xciv, xcix, c; Broun, Scottish Independence, p. 126. ‘patriam… ditavit Brittanniam’. Herbertian Life, prol., c. viii, pp. 124, 244, 252; Broun, Scottish Independence, p. 126; P. A. Wilson, ‘On the Use of the Terms “Strathclyde” and “Cumbria”’, TCWAAS 66 (1966), 8. ‘Cambrensis regni’, ‘regio Cambrina’, ‘Cambrinam regionem’, ‘Cambriam’, ‘habitatores Cambrie’, ‘regnum Cambrinum’, ‘regno Cambrie’. Vita Kentegerni, cc. xi, xxi, xxix, xxxi, xxxii, xxxiii, pp. 54, 55, 69, 88, 91, 93, 94, 182–3, 212, 216, 218, 219; Broun, Scottish Independence, p. 125. Registrum episcopatus Glasguensis, ed. Innes, I, no. 1, pp. 5–7; The Charters of David I: The Written Acts of David King of Scots, 1124–53, and of His Son Henry, Earl of Northumberland, 1139–52, ed. G. W. S. Barrow (Woodbridge, 1999), no. 15, p. 60.

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Scottish Independence and Ecclesiastical Reform gians and to all of the church of St Kentigern’, a statement that was retained in two reissues of the charter under William I.29 This ‘racial address’ and the rhetorical preamble at the start of the grant are not regular features of royal charters and indicate that the document had been drafted by the cathedral’s scribes rather than the king’s clerks. Although the ethnic origins of the see had been recognized at the refoundation of the diocese, the evidence suggests that the church of Glasgow had taken an active tole in promoting this Welsh identity from the mid-twelfth century. As Broun has revealed, the characterization of the diocese as the remnant of an earlier British kingdom created an important argument for the see’s independence. It is a concept most clearly articulated in Jocelin’s Vita. By presenting the diocese as an area equivalent to the Cambrian kingdom and the king, through his submission, as subject to the bishop’s authority, Glasgow promoted itself as a diocese ethnically distinct and historically autonomous. Since St Andrews’ claims to primacy were based on the argument that Scotland was a kingdom independent of England, Glasgow’s counter-attack lay in the assertion that the diocese represented its own separate kingdom. Indeed, by stating that Cambria divided Scotia from Anglia, and was thus part of neither, the Vita dismissed claims that the see was dependent on either the Scottish or English churches. In further support of his thesis, Broun provides the useful parallel of the campaign to elevate the see of St David’s to archiepiscopal status in the 1130s and 1140s. Unable to argue that his proposed province corresponded with the boundaries of a contemporary kingdom, Bishop Bernard instead sought to emphasize the cultural and linguistic differences between the Welsh and the English.30 However, the use of ‘Cambria’ to describe the area of the Glasgow diocese seems to be even more politically significant than Broun allows. ‘Cambria’ was a name more commonly associated with Wales and it had been used as such by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his widely read Historia regum Britanniae.31 That the earliest use of ‘Cambria’ to refer to the Glasgow diocese is found in the mid-twelfth century Herbertian Life, a text written by a member of the cathedral clergy, suggests that the appropriation of the term may have been an innovation of the cathedral community, perhaps inspired by the inclusion 29

30 31

‘francis et anglicis Scottis Walensibus Gauelensibus et omnibus ecclesie sancti Kentegerni de Glasgu’. That William’s second confirmation of the charter was given on 6 July 1211x1214 (probably 1212), the anniversary of the dedication of Bishop Jocelin’s cathedral in 1197, indicates that there was still much significance attached to this grant. Registrum episcopatus Glasguensis, ed. Innes, I, nos. 13, 70, 107, pp. 15, 63, 92; Broun, Scottish Independence, pp. 126–8. Broun, Scottish Independence, pp. 125–8, 144–6. Geoffrey used the term ‘Kambria’ to refer to Wales throughout his text. Historia regum Britanniae, II.§§23, 32, 34, III.§35, IV.§§68, 72, VI.§105, VII/Prophetiae.§§115, 116, VIII.§§119, 132, 133, pp. 31, 45, 47, 49, 85, 89, 137, 149, 153, 155, 161, 177, 179; Wilson, ‘Use of “Strathclyde” and “Cumbria”’, p. 84.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness of the ‘Walenses’ in Malcolm IV’s charter. However, Jocelin’s interpretation of Cambria seems to have been slightly different to that presented by the author of the Herbertian Life. Although Cambria’s borders are not defined in the remaining fragment of the Herbertian Life, the fact that it explicitly equates the kingdom of Taneu’s father with Lothian indicates that Cambria was conceived as a separate area.32 In contrast, Jocelin leaves both Taneu’s father and his kingdom anonymous and, as we will see, implies that Lothian comes within Cambria’s borders. Jocelin’s use of Cambria also contrasts with the varied and interchangeable terms found in the Office of Kentigern in the Sprouston Breviary. Whereas ‘kingdom of the Britons’, ‘Cambrian people’ and ‘north Wales’ are used as synonymous terms denoting a specific area or ethnicity, Jocelin carefully differentiates Glasgow’s ‘Cambria’ from Wales, ‘Wallia’.33 Broun suggests that Jocelin’s use of ‘Cambria’ reflected the precision of a professional writer as opposed to the more localized productions seen in the Sprouston Breviary and the Herbertian Life.34 While this certainly seems to be the case, we should also recognize that the Vita’s consistent use of ‘Cambria’ served a specific purpose within the text. More important than Jocelin’s careful distinction between ‘Cambria’ and ‘Wallia’ is his decision to use ‘Cambria’ over the more historically accurate term ‘Cumbria’. As has been noted above, the charter re-establishing the Glasgow diocese repeatedly referred to the area in terms of ‘Cumbria’ and ‘Cumbrenses’, terminology that reflected the centuries-old identity of the region and its people.35 The Vita’s consistent use of ‘Cambria’ is even more striking when we realize that David’s charter was far from a forgotten document in the late twelfth century. Oblique references to the charter appear in two papal letters, one in 1175 confirming the customs granted to the see by David and one in 1186 recalling David’s role as a propagator of the faith.36 Jocelin himself seems to refer to the text when he repeats a statement made in the charter that ‘Cumbria’ lay between Anglia and Scotia.37 Since the charter is found on the first folio of Glasgow’s episcopal register, the earlier part of which appears to date to the twelfth century, it seems likely that it would

32 33 34 35 36

37

Taneu’s father, Leudonus, is said to have given his name to the province of Leudonia, i.e. Lothian. Herbertian Life, c. i, pp. 125, 245. Vita Kentegerni, cc. xxvii, xxxi, pp. 209, 216. Broun, Scottish Independence, p. 126. C. Phythian-Adams, Land of the Cumbrians: A Study in British Provincial Origins A.D. 400–1120 (Aldershot, 1996), pp. 3, 112–16. A description of David’s actions in re-establishing Christianity in the region occurs in the preamble to the Inquest. Registrum episcopatus Glasguensis, ed. Innes, I, nos. 23, 66, pp. 21, 60; Scotia Pontificia, ed. Somerville, nos. 73, 137, pp. 75, 125. Vita Kentegerni, c. xi, pp. 55, 183; Registrum episcopatus Glasguensis, ed. Innes, I, no. 1, p. 5.

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Scottish Independence and Ecclesiastical Reform have been available to Jocelin.38 The substitution of ‘Cambria’ for ‘Cumbria’ therefore reflects a conscious decision not to use the latter term. Why? The answer seems to lie in the fact that ‘Cumbria’ covered a region that, for the majority of the twelfth century, straddled the Anglo-Scottish border. A comment in the charter refounding the Glasgow diocese clearly shows the problematic geo-political nature of the area. Having introduced David as the ‘prince of the Cumbrian region’, a note further down the text reminds the reader that he did not have full control over these lands.39 This indicates that the ‘Cumbria’ of this document refers to the former British kingdom that had extended from Clydesdale to the Eden Valley but whose southern part now lay in Anglo-Norman hands.40 Although David I had temporarily regained control of this area (and more) during Stephen’s reign, it remained within English borders for the majority of the Anglo-Norman period.41 Admittedly, by the later twelfth century, the term ‘Cumbria’ seems to have been used largely in a historical context.42 However, this does not mean that contemporaries lost sight of the geographical area it referred to. Indeed, that the Scottish demands for the return of these lands ceased only after a final settlement in 1237 suggests that the disputed nature of this area and its history remained at the forefront of border politics.43 With regard to the interests of the church of Glasgow, the potential repercussions of using the term ‘Cumbria’ to describe the diocese were serious indeed. ‘Cumbria’ incorporated a region that generally lay on the English side of the fluctuating border and which was practically equivalent to the diocese of Carlisle. Actively to assert a Cumbrian identity meant laying a claim to an area that had fallen under the informal authority of York from the late eleventh century and under York’s formal control following the creation of the Carlisle diocese in 1133.44 Thus any mention of ‘Cumbria’ on Glasgow’s part would have seriously undermined the see’s claims to independence from York. However, the promotion of the diocese as an area descended from a 38 39 40

41

42

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Registrum episcopatus Glasguensis, ed. Innes, I, xi. ‘David vero Cumbrensis regionis princeps’. Registrum episcopatus Glasguensis, ed. Innes, I, no. 1, p. 7. W. E. Kapelle, The Norman Conquest of the North: The Region and its Transformation 1000–1135 (London, 1979), pp. 34, 150; P. G. B. McNeill, H. L. MacQueen and A. M. Lyons, Atlas of Scottish History to 1707 (Edinburgh, 1996), p. 450. N. McCord and R. Thompson, The Northern Counties from AD1000 (A Regional History of England) (London, 1998), pp. 32–4; McNeill, MacQueen and Lyons, Atlas of Scottish History, p. 419. References to Cumbria in a contemporary sense are rare after the mid-twelfth century – the last reference to ‘Cumbria’ in the Chronicle of Melrose occurs under the entry for 1136. Scotia Pontificia, ed. Somerville, p. 6; Chronicle of Melrose, fol. 18r. Anglo-Scottish Relations, ed. and trans. Stones, no. 7, pp. 19–26; Phythian-Adams, Land of the Cumbrians, p. 161. Barrell, ‘Background to Cum universi’, p. 117; Phythian-Adams, Land of the Cumbrians, p. 25; McCord and Thompson, Northern Counties, p. 58.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness historically autonomous kingdom which had retained a distinct ethnic identity remained fundamental to Glasgow’s campaign for freedom from outside ecclesiastical control. What the Glasgow party needed was a new term that adequately expressed Glasgow’s British ancestry but which did not compromise its contemporary position – thus the initial appropriation of ‘Cambria’ at some point in the twelfth century. Jocelin’s depiction of Cambria also suggests that the term was a relatively recent borrowing.45 The Vita situates the kingdom within a recognized region of twelfth-century Scotland. The statement that Cambria lay between Anglia and Scotia reflected the contemporary meaning of Scotia as an area east of the highlands and south of Moray. And, in accordance with Jocelin’s statement, it was recognized as ending at the Forth.46 The Vita also tells us that the Cambrian kingdom stretched from sea to sea.47 This seems to represent an area incorporating Lothian, Galloway and Cumbria north of the Solway, which was equivalent to the holdings of the twelfth-century Scottish kings in the area south of Scotia. Since the Vita states that the extent of Kentigern’s diocese was coterminous with that of the Cambrian kingdom, the description of Kentigern’s extra-diocesan activities provides further evidence for the perceived limits of Cambria. Just as the twelfth-century diocese was sandwiched between the sees of St Andrews, Dunblane and Dunkeld to the north and Whithorn to the south, Kentigern’s missionary work took him out of the diocese into Galloway and the lands of Albania (the Latinized Gaelic equivalent of Scotia).48 The diocese is also implicitly presented as stopping at the twelfth-century Anglo-Scottish border. Although Kentigern’s conversion of people in the Lake District carries an implicit suggestion that Glasgow’s authority should extend into this area, the text makes no explicit claim that this region formed part of the Cambrian kingdom.49 Cambria is thus subtly

45

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Robert Bartlett’s statement that ‘Cambria’ was first used to denote the kingdom of Cumbria/Strathclyde in the tenth century is not borne out by the evidence. ‘Cumbria’, however, was a term in use at this point. R. Bartlett, Gerald of Wales 1146–1223 (Oxford, 1982), p. 185; Æthelweard, Chronicon Æthelweardi, The Chronicle of Æthelweard, ed. and trans. A. Campbell (London, 1962), p. 41. The term Scotia could also be used to refer to whole of the Scotland, but before the mid-thirteenth century it seems to have carried a more specific meaning. Vita Kentegerni, c. xi, pp. 55, 183; D. Broun, ‘Defining Scotland and the Scots before the Wars of Independence’, in Image and Identity: The Making and Remaking of Scotland through the Ages, ed. D. Broun, R. J. Finlay and M. Lynch (Edinburgh, 1998), p. 6. Vita Kentegerni, c. xi, pp. 55, 183. Ibid., c. xxxiv, pp. 96, 220; McNeill, MacQueen and Lyons, Atlas of Scottish History, p. 337; Broun, ‘Defining Scotland’, p. 6. Vita Kentegerni, c. xxiii, pp. 74, 200. It is an indicator of the threat posed by York’s claims for supremacy that the Glasgow party did not take the opportunity presented by the long vacancy at Carlisle from 1156 to 1204 to reclaim these Cumbrian lands for their diocese. For discussions concerning the spiritual jurisdiction in the Carlisle region pre-1133 and during the vacancy, see H. Summerson, Medieval

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Scottish Independence and Ecclesiastical Reform divorced from Cumbria. Interestingly, the kingdom-diocese of Cambria does not entirely coincide with twelfth-century ecclesiastical borders. Although the majority of the southern half of the Scottish kingdom fell under the care of Glasgow, Lothian was subject to the bishop of St Andrews. It is possible that the boundaries described in the Vita represent a prospective interest or perceived historical claim to this area on Glasgow’s part.50 The ambiguous presentation of Galloway, however, reflected contemporary secular and religious reality. From 1176 to 1189, Galloway was placed under the overlordship of the Angevin kings, English influence that either continued after this date or was revived in 1209 when William the Lion made his submission to King John. More significantly, in terms of our interests, the bishops of Whithorn had professed obedience to the archbishops of York from the early twelfth century and the see remained part of the English church’s Northern Province until the late fourteenth century.51 Jocelin’s use of the term ‘Cambria’ reflected the insecurity of Glasgow’s position in the late twelfth century. The appropriation of this term allowed the see to promote itself as an ethnically distinct diocese and formerly independent kingdom whose boundaries did not transgress those of the English church. In contrast to the Scottish kings, who maintained an active interest in regaining the former Cumbrian lands south of the Solway, the dangers inherent in claiming a Cumbrian connection meant that the church of Glasgow was forced to suppress any potential claims to this area during this period.52

50 51 52

Carlisle: The City and the Borders from the Late Eleventh to the Mid-Sixteenth Century, Vol. I, Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society Extra Series 25 (Kendal, 1993), pp. 33–5, 70–1. The Vita’s statement that Kentigern sent missionaries to the Orkneys, Norway and Iceland should probably also be seen as an implicit claim to authority over these areas. Although King David had sought papal approval to incorporate Orkney into the proposed Scottish province under St Andrews in 1151, the Orkneys, along with Iceland, Sodor and Man, were placed under the supervision of Nidaros when the ecclesiastical province of Norway was established in 1152x1153. John Reuben Davies asserts that these missionary activities and the foundation of other sees by Kentigern formed a key part of Glasgow’s strategy for independence, and likens it to the arguments presented by the bishops of St David’s in their efforts to gain metropolitan status. Vita Kentegerni, c. xxxiv, pp. 96, 220; B. E. Crawford, ‘The Bishopric of Orkney’, in Ecclesia Nidrosiensis 1153– 1537: Søkelys på Nidaroskirkens og Nidarosprovinsens Historie, ed. S. Imsen, Senter for Middelalderstudier, NTNU Skrifter nr. 15 (Trondheim, 2003), pp. 143, 146; Reuben Davies, ‘Bishop Kentigern’, p. 75. Wilson, ‘Use of “Strathclyde” and “Cumbria”’, p. 84; Reuben Davies, ‘Bishop Kentigern’, p. 88. See R. D. Oram, ‘In Obedience and Reverence: Whithorn and York c.1128–c.1250’, Innes Review 42 (1991), 83–100; Barrell, ‘Background to Cum universi’, p. 117. However, the cathedral community continued to take an interest in these lands: in c.1265 Bishop John of Cheam attempted to extend his diocese south to the Rere Cross at Stainmore, which was believed to mark the boundary of the former British kingdom of Cumbria/Strathclyde. Chronicon de Lanercost MCCI–MCCCXLVI e codice

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness The narrative concerning Kentigern’s consecration as bishop was also of great significance in the campaign for Glasgow’s episcopal independence. The consecration of the bishop was a key moment in the see’s political struggle: it was at this point that the submission of the bishop to an archbishop could most reasonably be demanded. Accordingly, the Vita is very careful to outline the validity of Kentigern’s consecration despite the absence of any archiepiscopal consent to his appointment. We are told that Kentigern was originally consecrated as bishop of Glasgow by a bishop from Ireland in accordance with the practices of the contemporary British church. As Jocelin points out, such a consecration would have been deemed uncanonical by contemporary standards since canon law demanded the attendance of at least three bishops to carry out specific functions, further details of which are noted in the text. However, given the difficulties faced by the early British church, we are told to overlook this lapse and view Kentigern’s consecration as legitimate.53 At first glance, the concerns of this passage seem to bear some relationship to a papal letter sent to the Scottish episcopate in 1119, which explicitly criticized the practice of consecration by a single bishop. However, although the letter cites six canonical authorities condemning the practice, the main message of these examples relates to York’s archiepiscopal right of consent to consecration. The letter mentions the minimum requirement of three bishops three times but, unlike the Vita, it leaves the function of each bishop in the ceremony unstated.54 Indeed, in comparison to the letter, references to the necessary consent of the archbishop are conspicuous by their absence in Jocelin’s text. The Vita’s conscious silence on this subject seems to reflect developments that had occurred in the mid-1160s. In 1164, Ingram had been consecrated bishop of Glasgow by Pope Alexander, despite strong resistance from the representatives of Archbishop Roger de Pont L’Evêque. At around the same time, Alexander also seems to have authorized the Scottish episcopate to consecrate Richard as bishop of St Andrews in the face of a petition from the archbishop that new bishops should be compelled to go to York for consecration.55 The discussion of Kentigern’s consecration in the Vita seems to reflect the relatively recent debates surrounding Scottish practices and the validity of consecrations which have not been subject to the archbishop’s consent.

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Cottoniano nunc primum typis mandatum, ed J. Stevenson (Edinburgh, 1839) p. 65. For a discussion of the history of this alleged boundary see D. Broun, ‘The Welsh identity of the kingdom of Strathclyde c.900–c.1200’, Innes Review 55 (2004), 173–80. Vita Kentegerni, c. xi, pp. 54–5, 182. Calixtus II sent two further letters on this matter but these are more explicitly concerned with York’s rights rather than the canonical validity of consecration by a single bishop. Scotia Pontificia, ed. Somerville, nos. 5, 7, 9, pp. 23–6, 27. Barrell interprets these actions as a reflection of the deteriorating relations between Alexander III and Henry II, and consequently the English church, during this period. Scotia Pontificia, ed. Somerville, no. 57, pp. 60–1; Barrell, ‘Background to Cum universi’, p. 118.

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Scottish Independence and Ecclesiastical Reform However, it is evident that this narrative alone was insufficient to ease the anxieties of the Glasgow community concerning the issue of consecration. In spite of the Vita’s own reassurances about the validity of Kentigern’s consecration, we are told that the saint himself remained unsatisfied about its canonical legitimacy. He therefore made his way to Rome to receive official confirmation of his appointment and, to remove all doubt on the matter, insisted on a new consecration being performed by the then pope, Gregory the Great.56 This is an important narrative. The emphasis on papal consecration provided a historical precedent for that which had become customary for the twelfth-century bishops of Glasgow. It also removed any charges of uncanonical practice relating to Kentigern’s original consecration that could be laid retrospectively at Glasgow’s door and which could have been used by contemporaries to undermine their current cause.57 The reference to Pope Gregory also acknowledged another facet of contemporary ecclesiastical politics – the sensitivity surrounding claims made by Bede in the Historia ecclesiastica. Bede’s statements about the intentions of Gregory the Great with regard to the ecclesiastical structure of Augustine’s new church in Britain underpinned York’s claim to authority over the Scottish church as well as Canterbury’s claims to authority over both.58 Bede’s text had even been cited with specific reference to Glasgow’s status. As part of the ongoing dispute between the archbishops of Canterbury and York, in 1119 Archbishop Ralph had responded to Archbishop Thurstan’s attempts to extract submission from the bishop of Glasgow by pointing out that since Pope Gregory had said all British bishops were to be subject to Augustine in the Historia ecclesiastica, by rights Glasgow owed its obedience to Canterbury.59 Gregory’s appearance in the Kentigern legend thus counteracted these claims by implying that Gregory had acknowledged and approved Glasgow’s independent status. Owing to the frequent citation of Bede’s text in the debates over primacy in the British church, this narrative seems unlikely to have been Jocelin’s innovation and may well have represented a much older tradition at Glasgow. The sensitivity surrounding Bede’s work also helps to explain Jocelin’s misleading reference to Gildas in the historical preamble that introduces the context for Kentigern’s journeys to Rome.60 Much of the historical material inserted into the text at this point bears little relation to Gildas’s extant work and it may well be that this information was actually taken from Bede rather than the cited 56 57

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Vita Kentegerni, cc. xi, xxviii, pp. 55, 84–5, 182, 209–10. Kenneth Jackson and the editors of the Scotichronicon also recognized the propaganda element of these narratives. Jackson, ‘Sources’, p. 345; Walter Bower, Scotichronicon, II, 228. Broun, Scottish Independence, p. 110; Bede, Ecclesiastical History, I.xxix, pp. 104–7. Ralph d’Escures, ‘Epistola Radulfi archiepiscopi Cantuariensis Calixto papae missa’, in The Historians of the Church of York and its Archbishops, Vol. II, ed. J. Raine, RS 71 (London, 1886), p. 247; Broun, Scottish Independence, p. 129. Vita Kentegerni, c. xxvii, pp. 83–4, 208–9.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness author.61 However, due to the political associations of Bede and his Historia, an ascription to Gildas presented a somewhat less controversial substitute. The Vita also includes narratives that reflected wider issues relating to ecclesiastical independence. The campaign for the Church’s freedom from secular control had returned to the forefront of European politics in the aftermath of Thomas Becket’s murder in 1170. Promulgated just under six years after Becket’s martyrdom and only three years after his canonization, the papal bull ‘Super anxietatibus’ reveals just how sensitive the Church remained about secular infringements of its authority – as the bull explicitly stated, ‘kings and princes had no right to arrange ecclesiastical matters’.62 It is unsurprising, therefore, that this dispute finds expression in Jocelin’s Vita. The text includes a number of narratives retold in terms that align Kentigern with England’s most famous twelfth-century saint, Thomas Becket. The Vita’s patron, Bishop Jocelin, appears to have been particularly affected by Becket’s death. The recent re-evaluation of the Melrose Chronicle indicates that in his final years as abbot of Melrose, Bishop Jocelin had instigated the creation of this text with the original intention that it would begin with Christ’s birth and end with the passage describing Becket’s martyrdom. As such, the Chronicle seems to express a sense of the then abbot’s personal reaction – the events of 1170 were seen to provide a clear watershed in recent history.63 Evidence dating to the period of Bishop Jocelin’s episcopate attest to a continued interest in Becket’s cult. He appears as the first witness to the 1178 charter founding the Abbey of St Thomas in Arbroath and seems to have been associated in some way with the majority of late twelfth century Scottish chapels dedicated to the saint.64 It is not unlikely that Bishop Jocelin visited the site of Becket’s shrine at Canterbury at some point, even that such a visit occurred, as Duncan argues, on his return from the Continent and his consecration as bishop in 1175.65 There was certainly a perceived connection between Kentigern and Becket at Glasgow: an inventory of cathedral goods made in 1432 recorded that the penitential garments (loricarum) of the two

61 62

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See pp. 106–8. ‘non aliquis regis vel principis de ecclesiis vel personis ecclesiasticis ordinare’. Broun’s translation is given in the text. Broun, Scottish Independence, p. 112; Registrum episcopatus Glasguensis, ed. Innes, I, no. 38, p. 35. Duncan also argues that the death of Becket prompted Bishop Jocelin to create the Chronicle but he goes no further than this. Chronicle of Melrose, fols 20v–1r; ‘Chronicle of Melrose’, trans. Stevenson, pp. 132–3; Broun and Harrison, Chronicle of Melrose, pp. 9, 29, 127; A. A. M. Duncan, ‘Sources and Uses of the Chronicle of Melrose, 1165–1297’, in Kings, Clerics and Chronicles in Scotland 500–1297: Essays in Honour of Marjorie Ogilvie Anderson on the Occasion of her Ninetieth Birthday, ed. S. Taylor (Dublin, 2000), pp. 150, 157. Duncan, ‘St Kentigern’, p. 11. Ibid., p. 10.

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Scottish Independence and Ecclesiastical Reform saints were held in the same silver chest and that other relics pertaining to them were kept elsewhere in the same purse (bursa).66 The association made between Kentigern and Becket in Glasgow’s relic collection is reflected by a similar but more subtle parallel in the Vita. Like Becket, Kentigern suffers at the hands of the native ruler, King Morken. Morken is introduced as a ‘tyrant… whom power, honour and riches had persuaded to exercise himself in great and wonderful matters, which were too high for him’.67 His additional traits of pride and greed make him recognizable as a Henry II-like figure, a man who interferes with the Church for his own gain.68 Just as Henry had come to hate Becket, Morken too is said to feel a deep antipathy towards Kentigern: He scorned and despised the life and doctrine of the man of God, in secret slandering, in public resisting him from time to time, putting down his miraculous power to magical illusion, and esteeming as nothing all that he did.69

When Kentigern approaches him about supplies, Morken mimics Henry’s attempts to humiliate Becket: ‘elated and haughty’, he responds to Kentigern’s requests only with insults.70 When a subsequent miracle allows Kentigern to gain at his expense, Morken is also accorded the legendary Angevin temper: ‘he belched forth many reproaches against the holy bishop... and he commanded that if ever again he appeared in his presence he should suffer severely as one that had made game of him’.71 Jocelin’s aside on the divine implications of good and bad rulers also points to the contemporary analogy present in this part of the text: And truly it is a great sign of Divine kindness, when the Lord places in the government of the holy Church and in the dominion of the earth, rulers and kings who make just decisions and live holily, who seek the good of their people, who bring good judgement and justice to the land. Thus, to sum up in the contrary, it is clear proof of the indignation of God due to the sins of the people when he causes a hypocrite to rule, when he says apostate to the king and he calls the leaders impious…72 66 67 68 69 70

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Registrum episcopatum Glaguensis, ed. Innes, II, no. 339, p. 330. ‘tyrannus… Cui potestas, honor, et divitie ambulare in magnis et in mirabilibus super se persuaserant.’ Vita Kentegerni, c. xxi, pp. 195–6. Ibid., c. xxi, pp. 69, 196. Ibid. For example, Becket’s public submission was sought at the Constitutions of Clarendon and, following Becket’s attempts to leave England without royal permission, Becket’s trial at Northampton. Ibid.; F. Barlow, Thomas Becket (London, 1986), pp. 98–116. Vita Kentegerni, c. xxii, pp. 71, 197–8. ‘Et vere magnum divine pietatis est indicium, quando Dominus in regimine Sancte ecclesie, et in principatum terre, constituit rectores et reges, qui juste decernant,

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness Although these allegations of hypocrisy, apostasy and impiety are not explicitly directed at a contemporary figure, they were charges with particular relevance for Henry II and, considering the late twelfth century date of this text, it is hard not to read the passage in this light. Jocelin’s apparent portrayal of Morken as a Christian ruler, despite the absence of any narrative concerning his conversion, further strengthens the parallels between Morken and Henry II. The Vita’s description of him as a ‘sacrilegious’ rather than a heathen king, combined with Morken’s taunting quotation of the Psalms, implies nominal Christianity.73 Likewise, in the wake of the miraculous transportation of the king’s grain, Morken slanders Kentigern using the terms ‘magician and sorcerer’, accusations more appropriate to a Christian rather than a pagan context.74 Otherwise, however, Morken is typical of the pagan aggressors found in the Vita Patricii.75 Indeed, his impious boasts to Kentigern suggest that the underlying narrative of the story originally cast Morken as a heathen king who resisted conversion: Therefore, while you fear God and observe his commands, you are in want of all goods, even necessary food. To me, however, one who seeks neither the kingdom of God nor his justice, all prosperous things are added and an abundance of everything smiles upon me… Therefore your faith is empty, your preaching false.76

Morken’s restyling as a Christian, indeed as a nominal Christian, seems to have been a conscious attempt to reinforce the Becket-Kentigern parallel. Although the narratives concerning Morken provide the most obvious analogy to the Becket affair, it is possible that further contemporary relevance could be read into the events that surrounded Kentigern’s exile and return. In what may have been seen as a rather neat reversal of events, and a narrative that again reflected what should have happened rather than what did, it is Morken as opposed to Kentigern who is struck down in the Vita. Unfortunately for Kentigern, the vengeance of Morken’s relatives forces the

73 74 75

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sancte vivant; qui bona populo suo querant, qui judicium et justiciam in terra faciant. Sic prorsus, e contrario, evidens experimentum indignationis Dei est quando regnare facit ypocritam propter peccata populi, quando dicit regi apostata et vocat duces impios’. Vita Kentegerni, c. xxix, p. 213. He quotes from Psalm 36. 10. Vita Kentegerni, cc. xxi, xxii, pp. 69, 72, 196, 198. Ibid., c. xxii, pp. 71, 198. For example, the pagan kings Milcho and Lóegaire. Vita Patricii AASS, §§10–11, 13, 27, 33, 35–43, 50 (cc. xiii–xiv, xvi, xxxii, xxxviii, xl–xlix, lvi), pp. 539B–E, 540A–B, 543C–E, 544C–D, 544F–5B, 545D–7E, 549A–B; Vita Patricii, pp. 147–9, 151–2, 169–71, 173–5, 178–8, 179–90, 197–8. ‘Tu ergo, cum timeas Deum, et mandata ejus observes, omnibus bonis, victu etiam necessario indiges. Ego autem, qui nec regnum Dei quero, nec justiciam ejus, omnia mihi adjiciuntur prospera; omnium rerum arridet affluentia… inanis est ergo fides tua, falsa predicatio tua.’ Vita Kentegerni, c. xxi, p. 196.

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Scottish Independence and Ecclesiastical Reform saint into self-imposed exile in Wales.77 While this has parallels with Becket’s own period of exile abroad, the fate of the Cambrian kingdom in Kentigern’s absence suggests an analogy with Henry II’s rule following the death of Becket. During Kentigern’s exile, we are told that God punished the people of Cambria with blindness, paralysis, madness and death. Christianity waned and famine stalked the land.78 The years immediately after 1170 also saw misfortune plague the English kingdom. Henry’s reputation had been badly tarnished by the Becket affair and in spite of his contrition before the papal legates in 1172, most of Christian Europe felt he had yet fully to account for his guilt. The rebellion of his son, the Young King, with the assistance of the kings of Scotland and France brought the Angevin empire to the brink of collapse by summer 1174 and was interpreted by Henry himself as a punishment from God.79 Yet just as Cambria was blessed with a new Christian king who fully submitted himself to Kentigern, so too were Henry’s fortunes reversed after he made full, public penance at Canterbury in July 1174.80 Having walked barefoot to the cathedral, Henry stripped to an undergarment worn over a hairshirt and was scourged by the monks of Canterbury. He then maintained an overnight vigil at the tomb, submitting himself fully to Becket’s mercy.81 Read in this light, the description of King Rederech’s submission to Kentigern is surprisingly apt: stripping himself of his royal robes, on bended knees and with hands joined, and with the consent and counsel of his magnates, he made homage to St Kentigern, and handed over to him the dominion and lordship over all his kingdom, and he willed that he should be called king, and himself the ruler of the country under him...82

Just as Kentigern’s return marked a shift in Cambria’s fortunes, so too Henry’s submission to Becket brought immediate benefits. On the following day, William the Lion was captured at Alnwick and by September, the crisis in the kingdom was over – although, of course, these were not developments that had been entirely welcome in Scotland.83 The Vita also associated Rederech’s submission with another pseudohistorical incident, which seems to have taken on emblematic status in terms 77 78 79 80 81 82

83

Ibid., c. xxiii, pp. 73–4, 199–200. Ibid., c. xxix, pp. 87–8, 212–13. Barlow, Thomas Becket, pp. 261, 269. Vita Kentegerni, cc. xxix, xxxiii, pp. 88, 94–5, 213, 218–19. Barlow, Thomas Becket, pp. 269–70. ‘Vestibus namque regiis se exuens, genibus flexis, et manibus junctis, cum consensu et consilio magnatum suorum, hominium suum Sancto Kentegerno optulit; eique dominium et principatum super universum regnum suum tradidit, illumque regem se patrie rectorem sub ipso nominari voluit’. Vita Kentegerni, c. xxxiii, p. 218. Chronicle of Melrose, fol. 22r; ‘Chronicle of Melrose’, trans. Stevenson, pp. 135–6; Barlow, Thomas Becket, p. 270.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness of Church-state relations in the medieval period.84 Rederech’s submission is said to have been made in imitation of that made by Constantine to Pope Silvester, an idea reaffirmed by the subsequent naming of Rederech’s son as ‘Constantine’ in commemoration of the event. The Vita also states that this episcopal sovereignty remained in place for as long as the Cambrian kingdom lasted, that ‘the prince was always subject to the bishop’.85 The ultimate source of this parallel is the Constitutum Constantini, an eighth-century forgery which placed the western half of Constantine’s empire under the jurisdiction of Pope Silvester and his successors.86 In a period of such open Church-state friction, Constantine’s alleged submission to Pope Silvester must have been a story of great interest to twelfth-century ecclesiastics and Jocelin, accordingly, is careful to draw out the parallels.87 The career of Constantine, king of Cambria, is presented in terms consciously evocative of Constantine the Great. Not only does Constantine make the submission made by his father and allegedly by his namesake, but ‘because the Lord was with him, he overcame all the barbarous nations in his vicinity without bloodshed’.88 This statement carries an implicit reference to Emperor Constantine’s bloodless victory at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge and to his subsequent victories over the ‘barbaras nationes’ recorded in Rufinus’s Historia ecclesiastica – information that is presented in greater detail in the Vita Helenae.89 However, while the open reference to Constantine and the underlying Kentigern-Becket analogy responded to a wider discourse of ecclesiastical independence, they must also be recognized as narratives of immediate rele-

84

85 86

87

88 89

H. Krause, ‘Das Constitutum Constantini im Schisma von 1054’, in Aus Kirche und Reich: Studie zu Theologie, Politik und Recht im Mittelalter, Festschrift für Friedrich Kempf zu seinem fünfundsiebzigsten Geburtstag und fünfzigjährigen Doktorjubiläum, ed. H. Mordek (Sigmaringen, 1983), pp. 131–2. Vita Kentegerni, c. xxxiii, pp. 94–5, 218–19. Duncan points out that the Constitutum makes no mention of any homage made by Constantine to Silvester. He suggests that this part of the Kentigern episode has its roots in the submission made by Louis VI to the abbey of Saint-Denis in the 1120s and was inserted to inspire similar devotion from King William towards the saint and his successor, Bishop Jocelin. This remains possible, but there is no further evidence to suggest that Jocelin interpreted the episode in this way. ‘Constitutum Constantini’, ed. Leo, pp. 123–35 (c. xvii, p. 134); ‘Edict of Constantine’, trans. Edwards, pp. xliii, xlv, 92–115 (pp. 112–13); Duncan, ‘St Kentigern’, pp. 18–19. In the Gemma ecclesiastica, Gerald of Wales also associates the alleged donation of Constantine with the Becket conflict – although, in Gerald’s view, Constantine’s grant marked the beginning of the problematic association of secular and ecclesiastical power. Gerald of Wales, Gemma ecclesiastica, II.xxxvii, p. 360; Gerald of Wales, Jewel of the Church, trans. Hagen, pp. 274–5. Vita Kentegerni, c. xxxiii, pp. 95, 219. Rufinus, Historia ecclesiastica, IX.ix.1–9, X.viii, pp. 827–33, 971; Rufinus, ‘Church History’, trans. Whatley, pp. 83–4; Rufinus, Church History, trans. Amidon, p. 18; Vita Helenae, ll. 208–46, 717–19, pp. 158–9, 172.

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Scottish Independence and Ecclesiastical Reform vance to the Glasgow cause. The Vita asserts that Rederech’s son, Constantine, surpassed all previous kings of Cambria in riches, glory, dignity and holiness – so much so that ‘to the present day he is called St Constantine by many’.90 This statement seems to refer to the cult site at Govan, now a suburb within Glasgow itself, which was dedicated to a St Constantine of unknown provenance.91 Govan had been the main religious centre in the region during the tenth and eleventh centuries, but seems to have been intentionally displaced by the church at Glasgow when the diocese was officially refounded in the early twelfth century.92 Archaeological investigation suggests that it was only after this re-establishment that Glasgow developed from rather humble origins to became the major centre known to Jocelin.93 The Vita bears witness to this change and what appears to be some residual insecurity on Glasgow’s part. Not only is Kentigern presented as the spiritual father of Constantine, thus implicitly asserting Glasgow’s seniority, but appended to this passage is an additional statement concerning Hoddam. We are told that Kentigern temporarily moved the seat of the diocese to Hoddam (‘Holdelm’ in the text) before transferring it back to Glasgow.94 The church at Hoddam is dedicated to Kentigern and seems to have been a significant ecclesiastical centre in the eighth century.95 The position of this comment at this point in the text suggests that its purpose was to refute any former claims made by Hoddam to be the main centre of Kentigern’s diocese.96 The juxtaposition of these two implicitly proprietary statements reinforces the message of Glasgow’s seniority over these earlier religious centres. Likewise, the Becket parallel also carried a message of more localized import for the Glasgow diocese. In addition to expressing a more general narrative of ecclesiastical independence, the equation of Kentigern with St Thomas presented Glasgow as a Canterbury of the north, an autonomous metropolitan that owed submission only to Rome. The Kentigern-Becket analogy was thus an implicit challenge to the claims of both St Andrews and York to authority over the see. However, the Vita was not just a testament to the corporate anxieties of the Glasgow ecclesiastical community. As the next section will make clear, the text also represented the wider reformist interests of its Cistercian patron.

90 91 92 93 94 95 96

Vita Kentegerni, c. xxxiii, pp. 95, 219. See the discussions in: Early Sources of Scottish History, ed. and trans. Anderson, I, 91–4; A. Woolf, Where was Govan in the Early Middle Ages? (Glasgow, 2007), pp. 7–13. S. T. Driscoll, ‘Church Archaeology in Glasgow and the Kingdom of Strathclyde’, Innes Review 49 (1998), 97, 105–6. Ibid., p. 114. Vita Kentegerni, c. xxxiii, pp. 95, 219. Driscoll, ‘Church Archaeology’, p. 107. Reuben Davies notes that a secondary function of this passage was to justify Hoddam as a possession of Glasgow. Reuben Davies, ‘Bishop Kentigern’, p. 78.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness

The Vita as a reflection of the patron’s interests The salutation that opens the prologue to the Vita Kentegerni is suggestive of a close personal relationship between patron and author: To his most reverend lord and dearest father Jocelin, the anointed of the Lord Jesus Christ, Jocelin, the least of the poor of Christ, with the feeling and performance of filial love and obedience, wishes the salvation of body and soul in our Saviour.97

Although the use of ‘father’ was within contemporary letter-writing conventions for addressing a senior churchman, the use of terms relating to ‘son’ seems to have been far less common and indicates that a special relationship existed between the two men.98 The fact that none of the prologues to Jocelin’s other works use these terms, despite the similar status of some of the patrons, also suggests that this language has a particular meaning. The Vita’s wording at this point offers a number of interpretations. The most literal would be that Jocelin is Bishop Jocelin’s son. This seems rather unlikely. Previous to his appointment as bishop of Glasgow, Bishop Jocelin had been abbot of the Cistercian house of Melrose. He is recorded as having joined the house as a youth c.1150, which could, at that point, indicate an age as young as 15.99

97

98

99

‘Domino suo reverentissimo, et patri karissimo, Jocelino Christo Domini Jhesu Christi, Jocelinus minimus pauperum Christi, cum filialis dilectionis et subjectionis affectu, et effectu, utriusque hominis salutem, in nostri salutari.’ Vita Kentegerni, prol., p. 159. A survey of the use of the word pater in the salutations of the letters of Bernard of Clairvaux shows that Bernard used this terminology to address senior ecclesiastics and religious (men from the higher ranks of the secular church and abbots of communities founded before Clairvaux). Bernard of Clairvaux, Lettere, Ep. xii, xlix, clviii, clxxviii, clxxxix, cxc, cxci, ccxviii, ccxxviii, ccxxxvi, ccxxxvii, ccxlvii, ccl, ccli, ccliv, cclxxiii, cccii, cccix, cccxii, cccxiv, cccxviii, cccxix, cccxxx, cccxxxi, cccxxxii, cccxxxix, cccxl, cccxli, cccxlii, cccxlvi, cccxlvii, cccxlviii, cccxlix, ccclvii, ccclxiv, ccclxv, ccclxix, ccclxx, ccclxxii, ccclxxvi, ccclxxvii, ccclxxix, ccclxxx, ccclxxxi, ccclxxxvii, ccclxxxix, cccxc, cccxcii, cccxciii, cccxcv, cccxcvii, cccxcix, cd, cdxviii, cdxx, cdxxvii, d, dii, dx, dxx, dxxii, dxxiv, dxxv, dxxvi, dxxvii, dxxviii, dxxxi, dxxxii, I, pp. 116, 262, 684, 746, 780, 788, 836, 840, II, pp. 20, 56, 82, 86, 138, 148, 152, 170, 222, 286, 308, 320, 328, 338, 340, 362, 366, 370, 382, 384, 386, 388, 396, 398, 400, 404, 416, 440, 442, 454, 456, 460, 470, 474, 478, 480, 496, 500, 502, 508, 512, 522, 526, 538, 540, 554, 574, 576, 584, 656, 660, 674, 692, 698, 704, 706, 708, 710, 712, 714, 716. In contrast, Bernard rarely uses the word ‘filius’ to refer to himself in salutations. It more commonly describes others, particularly other Cistercians. Bernard of Clairvaux, Lettere, Ep. i, xlix, cvii, cviii, cix, cxciv, ccxxxiii, cclxvii, cccxxii, cccxlv, cdxii, cdlix, I, pp. 4, 262, 500, 516, 522, 846, II, pp. 70, 208, 346, 394, 560, 564, 632. R. of Melrose, ‘Eulogium’, pp. 309–10; J. H. Lynch, ‘The Cistercians and Underage Novices’, Citeaux 24 (1973), 285–7.

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Scottish Independence and Ecclesiastical Reform Although a youthful indiscretion remains possible, we have no evidence to suggest he fathered any offspring. A more plausible interpretation would be to read ‘father’ and ‘son’ as referring to a spiritual bond, such as that between a baptismal sponsor and an infant, or between a monastic superior and a monk subject to his authority. The first of these suggested possibilities seems the less likely of the two. By the time of the author’s birth, probably at some point around the middle of the century, Bishop Jocelin would have been a relatively young man with little status – not qualities that particularly distinguished him as a potential godparent. There is also no reason to connect the men in terms of background: while Bishop Jocelin’s family seems to have been based in lowland Scotland, any evidence for Jocelin’s origins points to the area around Furness.100 In addition, Cistercian statutes prohibited monks of the Order from sponsoring infants at the font, although repeated references to this issue indicate that the practice continued to occur.101 Instead, it seems probable that the familial terms used by Jocelin relate to the most obvious connection between the two men: their status as Cistercians. Jocelin’s description of himself as ‘the least of the poor of Christ’ appears to confirm this. Although ‘the poor of Christ’ described many of the new religious movements of the twelfth century, it seems to have been given a particular emphasis in Cistercian circles.102 The term was applied to the first monks of Cîteaux by the mid-twelfth century Exordium Cistercii and it was used to describe Cistercians and Cistercian communities five times in Bernard’s letters.103 Abbot Maurice of Rievaulx also used these words to describe himself in a letter addressed to Archbishop Thomas Becket.104 In addition, Jocelin’s later use of the phrase ‘filial love’ to describe the bonds between the canons of Kirkham and St Waltheof also seems to imply that the ‘filial love’ mentioned here should be seen in a monastic context.105

100 101

102 103

104 105

See p. 14. Shead, ‘Jocelin, Abbot of Melrose’, p. 2. ‘Instituta generalis capituli’, ed. and trans. Waddell, c. xxix, pp. 467–8; TwelfthCentury Statutes, ed. Waddell, 1158/1, 1185/8, 1186/3, 1190/55, 1192/28, pp. 69, 123–4, 131–2, 209–10, 246–7, 575. H. Leyser, Hermits and the New Monasticism: A Study of Religious Communities in Western Europe 1000–1150 (London, 1984), pp. 52–6. ‘Exordium Cisterciae’, ed. C. Waddell, in Narrative and Legislative Texts from Early Cîteaux: Latin Text in Dual Edition with English Translation and Notes, ed. and trans. C. Waddell, Studia et documenta 9 (Cîteaux, 1999), c. ii, p. 180; ‘Early Cistercian Documents in Translation’, trans. B. K. Lackner, in L. J. Lekai, The Cistercians: Ideals and Reality (Kent, 1977), p. 444; Bernard of Clairvaux, Lettere, Ep. lxvi, lv, cdxi, cdlix, dxlvi, I, pp. 252, 272, II, pp. 556, 632, 738; A. H. Bredero, Bernard of Clairvaux: Between Cult and History (Edinburgh, 1996), pp. 263–4. It is possible that Jocelin’s description of Patrick as a ‘pauper Christi’ in the Vita Patricii may have had some Cistercian significance. Vita Patricii, ed. Colgan, c. lxxi, p. 81a. F. M. Powicke, ‘Maurice of Rievaulx’, EHR 36 (1921), Appendix II, p. 26. Vita Waldevi AASS, §33, p. 258D; Vita Waldevi, p. 239.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness The patronage of a fellow Cistercian as the author of the Vita Kentegerni fits well with the picture painted by Bishop Jocelin’s eulogy. The change from cloistered life to service in the secular church must have required no small amount of adjustment for the bishop. The appearance of Richard, a monk and bishop’s chaplain, in two charters that may belong to the very beginning of Jocelin’s episcopate suggests that he was accompanied to Glasgow by a fellow monk from Melrose. However, the presence of secular clerks as bishop’s chaplains thereafter indicates that this was a temporary measure, presumably to help Bishop Jocelin adapt monastic practices to his new lifestyle.106 His eulogy tells us that in line with the Cistercian statutes on the matter, he maintained fellowship with the Order in terms of food, clothing and observance of the hours. He was also careful to act not as a prelate to his fellow monks but as co-brother to his brothers.107 With no Cistercian houses in close proximity, it seems likely that Jocelin’s period of residence in Glasgow was spent as a welcome visitor to the bishop’s household and a valued companion during the monastic offices. In this situation, with Bishop Jocelin not only the patron of the author but the abbot of their community in miniature, the close relationship seen in the salutation may have been either created or consolidated. It is unfortunate that this greeting provides proof only of the relationship between the two men after the Vita had been completed and gives little indication of the original connection between them. The Cistercian background of both patron and author seems to have had a significant impact on the text. The recasting of some passages in the Vita in language evocative of the Cistercian model signals the reformist intent of both the text and its patron. As Martha Newman has argued, Cistercian interest in ecclesiastical reform during the twelfth century was built upon the premise that the encouragement of episcopal reform would allow the Order’s monks to remain undisturbed in the contemplative life. In Cistercian eyes, wider ecclesiastical reform was a goal best achieved from the top down. The Order was, therefore, more concerned to ensure that those in authority had the virtues necessary to administer their offices properly than to take an active interest in the spiritual development of the laity. As such, Cistercian bishops became instrumental in promoting the Order’s ideas of episcopal reform. These men formed a vanguard of exemplary prelates whose behaviour and actions were to provide inspirational models for both their contemporaries and their successors.108 Norman Shead’s analysis of Bishop

106 107

108

Shead, ‘Jocelin, Abbot of Melrose’, p. 16. Martha Newman’s comments show that such fellowship was common among Cistercian bishops in this period. R. of Melrose, ‘Eulogium’, p. 311; ‘Instituta generalis capituli’, ed. and trans. Waddell, cc. lxiii–lxiv, pp. 482–3; M. G. Newman, The Boundaries of Charity: Cistercian Culture and Ecclesiastical Reform, 1098–1180 (Stanford, 1996), pp. 149–55. Newman, Boundaries of Charity, pp. 119, 141, 148, 155–70.

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Scottish Independence and Ecclesiastical Reform Jocelin’s episcopate suggests that he was a prelate in this mould. Requests for papal support in dealing with a number of diocesan problems such as the payment of tithes, the avoidance of vacancies in parish churches, the removal of hereditary priests and clerical marriage, provide evidence of the bishop’s active interest in reform. Jocelin’s episcopate also seems to mark the beginning of a more clearly structured administration of the diocese.109 It seems to be no coincidence that a reform agenda is also evident in the Vita. The strong emphasis on clerical morality combined with the more explicitly didactic tone of the text in comparison to Jocelin’s other works promotes a more active reformist message than the implicit expectation of imitatio – aspects of the Vita that are examined more closely in chapter nine. More important to our purposes here is the recognition of an underlying Cistercian discourse in the Vita. This discourse created an implicit parallel between Bishop Jocelin and his saintly predecessor, which reinforced the reforming intentions of the text. Kentigern’s missionary activities thus mirrored Bishop Jocelin’s desire to promulgate reformed Christianity in the twelfth-century diocese. The effectiveness of this parallel lay in the shared monastic heritage of the two men. The Cistercians were among a number of new orders in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries who tried to emulate the life of the early church, specifically the apostolic community in Jerusalem described in Acts of the Apostles (2. 41–45).110 For the Cistercians this meant following the Rule of Benedict in its simplest form, shorn of all the elaborate customs that had been added to it over the centuries, and abandoning some of the economic practices of contemporary monasteries. The early adherents of the Order distinguished themselves by their refusal to appropriate churches or to own land that they did not cultivate themselves.111 Jocelin’s description of Kentigern and the early Scottish church reflects various aspects of this interpretation of the vita apostolica. We are told that the clerical community who established the newly founded church at Glasgow lived ‘in continence and according to the fashion of the primitive church under the apostles, without property, in holy discipline and Divine service’.112 The text’s second description of this community provides a more detailed account and again stresses the apostolic aspects of their coenobitic life:

109

110 111 112

Bishop Jocelin’s eulogy also suggests that he began a campaign of church building and endowment in the diocese. Shead, ‘Jocelin, Abbot of Melrose’, pp. 17–19; R. of Melrose, ‘Eulogium’, p. 311. C. H. Lawrence, Medieval Monasticism: Forms of Religious Life in Western Europe in the Middle Ages, 3rd edn (Harlow, 2001), pp. 147–8, 181–2. Knowles, Monastic Order in England, p. 211. ‘plurima servorum Dei continentium, et secundum formam primitive ecclesie sub Apostolis, sine proprietate, in disciplina sancta, et divino obsequio viventium’. Vita Kentegerni, c. xi, p. 182.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness Each with Godly envy, these men emulated his life and doctrine, accustomed to fasting and holy vigils, intent on psalms, prayers and meditation on divine laws, content with moderate food and clothing, occupied at fixed times and hours in manual labour. For in the custom of the primitive church under the Apostles and their successors, possessing nothing of their own, living quite soberly, justly, piously and most continently, just like St Kentigern, they dwelled in individual cottages where they matured in age and wisdom, and whence these ‘singulares clerici’ were called culdee in the vernacular.113

Although much of this description seems to have reflected the historical reality of the culdee, the emphasis on austerity and simplicity represented the monastic values of both Jocelin and his patron. Kentigern’s monastic status allows Jocelin to depict him as a paradigm of the Rule, a description that seems to work as both an exemplar for and mirror of his patron’s conduct as a Cistercian bishop. Following his appointment to the episcopate, Kentigern is said to have exercised greater austerity in his food, dress, vigils and mortification of the body.114 He abstains entirely from flesh, blood and drinks that could inebriate, and attempts to maintain this diet even when dining in the company of seculars – on such occasions, he diverts attention from his abstinence by preaching.115 For clothing he wears a hair-cloth next to the skin, then a leather tunic, followed by a cowl, a white alb and a stole over his shoulders. His plain wooden pastoral staff, unlike the ornamented staffs wielded by Jocelin’s contemporaries, continues this simplicity.116 Kentigern also appears to follow a version of the monastic timetable when, after a moderate amount of sleep, he begins his night vigils and continues until the second cock-crow.117 Jocelin’s description of Kentigern’s dress may have borne special meaning for both Bishop Jocelin and the Glasgow community. While the alb and stole represent Kentigern’s priestly status, the use of the monastic term ‘cowl’, cuculla, instead of the ecclesiastical ‘amice’, amicta, forms a subtle allusion to the semi-monastic status of both

113

114 115 116 117

‘Hii omnes emulabantur Dei emulatione vitam, et doctrinam ejus, jejuniis et vigiliis sacris assueti, psalmis, et orationibus, et divine legis meditationi intenti, victu et vestitu mediocri contenti, labore manuali certis temporibus et horis occupati. More namque primitive ecclesie, sub Apostolis et eorum successoribus, nichil proprium possidentes, satis sobrie, juste, et pie, et continentissime, viventes, in singulis tamen casulis ex quo etate et sapientia maturaverant, sicut et ipse Sanctus Kentegernus commorabantur, unde et singulares clerici a vulgo Calledei nuncupabantur.’ Ibid., c. xx, p. 193. Ibid., c. xii, pp. 56, 183. Ibid., cc. xii, xvii, pp. 56–7, 62, 184, 189. Ibid., c. xiii, pp. 57, 184. Ibid., c. xiv, pp. 57, 184–5.

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Scottish Independence and Ecclesiastical Reform Kentigern and Bishop Jocelin.118 Jocelin’s description must also have been written with the cathedral’s relic collection in mind. The penitential cuirass (lorica) and hairshirt listed in a fifteenth-century inventory correspond to the goatskin garment and hairshirt mentioned by the Vita – and also to a later statement in the text that after Kentigern’s death, some of his clothes were kept by the community as relics.119 Other aspects of the Rule also find expression in the Vita. Benedict’s emphasis on the importance of manual labour in combating idleness (otiositas) as ‘the enemy of the soul’ is reflected in the account of Kentigern’s activities.120 We are told that the saint went forth to his work in the morning, and to his labour till the evening, labouring mainly at agriculture, that he might not eat the bread of idleness (ociosus) but rather in the sweat of his brow afford an example of labour to his own and have to give to him who was suffering necessity.121

Echoes of the Rule appear more clearly in the passage concerning the saint’s manner of speaking. In accordance with the Rule’s emphasis on silence and its opening quotation from Psalm 38:2–3, we are told Kentigern ‘learned to set a watch before his mouth and to keep the door of his lips, that he might guide his words with discretion’.122 The Vita’s final comments in this passage that ‘the saint preached more by his silence than many doctors and rulers do by shouting, for his appearance, countenance, bearing, gait and gestures of his whole body, openly taught discipline’ also expressed the tenor of the Rule.123 A similar comment concerning the bishop’s humble gait made in his eulogy shows that it was also a model followed by Bishop Jocelin.124 Kentigern therefore became a lasting literary example of religious conduct which, during Jocelin’s episcopate, had been provided by a living exemplar. Admittedly, such descriptions of monastic virtue are not unusual features of hagiographical texts. Indeed, similar comments appear in the Vita Patricii. We are told that following his profession to the monastic life, Patrick too strives

118 119 120 121 122

123

124

Vita Kentegerni, c. xiii, pp. 57, 184; Johnstone, High Fashion, pp. 7, 8, 17; ‘Instituta generalis capituli’, ed. and trans. Waddell, cc. lxiii–lxiv, pp. 482–3. Vita Kentegerni, cc. xiii, xliv, pp. 57, 115, 184, 238; Registrum episcopatus Glaguensis, ed. Innes, II, no. 339, p. 330; Duncan, ‘St Kentigern’, pp. 11–12. Rule, c. xlviii, pp. 248–53. Vita Kentegerni, c. xx, pp. 66, 193. Jocelin paraphrases ‘posui ori meo custodiam’ (Psalm 38. 2), which forms part of a longer quotation that opens Benedict’s chapter on the restraint of speech. Vita Kentegerni, c. xv, pp. 58–9, 186; Rule, c. vi, pp. 190, 191. ‘plus predicabat Sanctus iste silendo, quam multi doctores aut rectores clamando. Quia aspectus ejus, vultus, habitus, incessus, et tocius corporis gestus, disciplinam profitebantur’. Vita Kentegerni, c. xv, p. 186. R. of Melrose, ‘Eulogium’, p. 311.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness to adopt an ascetic lifestyle.125 There are references to the saint’s daily and nightly observances as well as a brief mention of his daily manual labour.126 Descriptions of Patrick’s eating habits and monastic clothing also appear in the text, although these are sporadic and largely incidental.127 However, just because these statements reflect the hagiographical topoi associated with exemplary monastic conduct, it does not mean that these comments carry no additional meaning. The references to Kentigern’s monastic practices in the Vita Kentegerni seem to form part of a sustained attempt to transmit reforming concepts as understood by both Jocelin’s patron and the author himself. This also means that certain narratives and statements appear to have been given distinctly Cistercian overtones as a way of reinforcing the contemporary relevance of the text. Although an account of a saint set centuries earlier, certain features of the Vita are distinctly twelfth-century. For example, the description of the monastery founded by Kentigern in Wales has a particularly Cistercian slant. The 965 men who joined this monastery are divided into two main groups, dependent upon their literacy. The 365 literate men are ordered to remain within the monastic compound so that they may celebrate divine services both day and night. The remaining 600 illiterate men are further subdivided into two groups: 300 are to work on the lands outside the monastery, tending to the crops and animals, while the other 300 are to perform necessary tasks within the monastic enclosure.128 Although much of this narrative – not least the symbolic numbers – may have come from Jocelin’s source material, the Vita appears to interpret this information through a Cistercian filter. Most early medieval Benedictine communities seem to have been staffed by men who had entered the monastery as child oblates.129 The presence of such a large number of adult converts makes Kentigern’s monastery more akin to the reformed orders of the twelfth century who shunned child oblation as the main method of recruitment. More significantly, the presence of such a large number of illiterate converts delegated

125 126

127

128 129

Vita Patricii AASS, §18 (c. xxii), p. 541C; Vita Patricii, p. 158. Claims of Patrick’s dedicated religious routine also appear in Muirchú’s Vita, the Vita secunda-quarta, the Vita tertia, the Vita Probo, the Vita tripartita and the Gloucester Vita. Vita Patricii AASS, §§160, 162 (cc. clxxxiii–clxxxiv, clxxxv), pp. 574D–F, 575B; Vita Patricii, pp. 333–4, 336; Muirchú’s Vita, II.i, pp. 114, 115; Vita secunda-quarta, §63, p. 102; Vita tertia, §86, pp. 181–2; Vita Probo, II.§29, p. 216; Vita tripartita, pp. 124, 125; Gloucester Vita, fol. 149va ll. 42–6, p. 356. ‘cucullam’, ‘candidas cucullas’, ‘cuculla candida’. Patrick also wears the obligatory hair shirt. A narrative concerning the saint’s temptation to eat meat is found in Jocelin’s Vita and the Vita tripartita. Vita Patricii AASS, §§19–20, 97, 109, 160–1 (cc. xxiii, cxi, cxxv, clxxxiv–clxxxv), pp. 541C–E, 560C, 562F–3A, 574E–F; Vita Patricii, pp. 158–9, 260–1, 275, 334–5; Vita tripartita, pp. 25–6. Vita Kentegerni, c. xxv, pp. 79, 204, 204 n.11. M. de Jong, In Samuel’s Image: Child Oblation in the Early Medieval West (Leiden, 1996), p. 130.

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Scottish Independence and Ecclesiastical Reform to manual labour draws a direct parallel with the Cistercian Order, whose use of laybrothers as a monastic workforce formed one of the most innovative aspects of their movement.130 In short, the description of this community seems to be more representative of contemporary Cistercian practices than it is of the early British church. Certain parts of the text may also have allowed for a more personal identification between patron and subject. Although Kentigern’s humble response to his election as bishop follows the demands of the genre, it may also have mirrored Bishop Jocelin’s reaction to his own election in 1174. According to the Vita and the Chronicle of Melrose, both Kentigern and Bishop Jocelin are said to have been chosen by the agreement of the people, clergy and king, and it does not seem implausible that the arguments with which Kentigern resisted his appointment reflected the doubts that had accompanied Bishop Jocelin’s own promotion: For he objected to their election of him, that he was not fit on account of his youth; in return they argued the maturity of his conduct and the wealth of his knowledge and wisdom. He told them that he could not easily endure the lessening of inner peace and holy contemplation. They asserted, on the other hand, that it was healthy to break in on the Sabbath of the life of speculation in return for the salvation of many souls. Finally, he judged himself insufficient for this honour, or rather, burden, but the unanimous voice of all proclaimed that his sufficiency had been shown by God Himself, through many signs and indications of virtue.131

Likewise, the description of Kentigern’s sentiments towards his monastic community in the text may also have been intended to evoke the circumstances of the work’s patron. Throughout his episcopate, Bishop Jocelin seems to have maintained a close relationship with the brethren of his former house. Shead notes that over half of the forty surviving non-royal acts to which he bore witness were grants to Melrose Abbey.132 The bishop’s eulogy tells us that his death occurred during a visit made to Melrose in order to attend the Mass at which he had formally professed about fifty years earlier. Although it is not explicitly stated, this visit may have been one of many pilgrimages

130 131

132

Knowles, Monastic Order in England, p. 211. ‘Objiciebat namque electioni eorum non ydoneam esse adolescentiam; at illi perorabant morum in eo canitiem, et sapientie ac scientie affluentiam. Ille causabatur se non posse pati equanimiter interne quietis, et sancte contemplationis diminutionem. Illi econtra allegabant interpolandum esse salubriter sabbatum speculative vite, ob multarum animarum salvationem. Postremo se huic honori, immo oneri, insufficientem judicabat: illorum omnium vox sufficientiam suam a Deo esse multis signorum, et virtutum indiciis, propalatam conclamabat.’ Vita Kentegerni, c. xi, pp. 181–2; Chronicle of Melrose, fol. 22r; ‘Chronicle of Melrose’, trans. Stevenson, p. 135. Shead, ‘Jocelin, Abbot of Melrose’, p. 19.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness made by the Cistercian bishop to his home community.133 If so, this imbues the description of Kentigern’s feelings for the monastery of St Asaph’s with additional emotive force: For he went forth from his monastery to exercise his episcopal office, travelling through his diocese as time permitted. But as he never found where the foot of his desire could long find rest, he returned to the much-loved quiet of his monastery, like the dove to the ark, from the face of the deluge of the world…134

The subtle allusions to Cistercian practices and interests that appear in the Vita attest not only to Bishop Jocelin’s monastic background, but to the perception of his own role in the wider Cistercian mission. The exemplar of episcopal conduct represented by Kentigern in the Vita provided a lasting mirror of the bishop’s own actions that would outlive his transient mortality. The work was both a testament to his own reforming intentions and a guide for those who would enter the episcopal office in the future. Considering the presence of a secular rather than a religious chapter at Glasgow Cathedral, the monastic, indeed Cistercian, slant placed on the Vita is slightly surprising. However, although it must be recognised as an expression of Bishop Jocelin’s own interests, we should not assume that this was inserted without the approval of the cathedral community. Indeed, Bishop Jocelin’s Cistercian status had given them much to be grateful for. His membership of the Order had been instrumental in the granting of the important papal bull of March 1175. As the document itself states, Pope Alexander explicitly granted this privilege in recognition of the support given to him by both Bishop Jocelin and the Cistercian Order – support that had proven influential during the papal schism that had followed the pope’s election in 1159.135 This, the first of several papal favours bestowed upon Bishop Jocelin and the church of Glasgow, indicates that the bishop’s monastic status had created an initial foundation of goodwill between Alexander and the Scottish see that was to last until the pope’s death in 1181. The underlying Cistercian discourse of

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Newman argues that Cistercian bishops were no longer allowed to attend monastic assemblies or enter the cloister in Cistercian houses ‘because of their differences’. However, Waddell interprets the Cistercian statute stating this to refer largely to clothing. Although Cistercian bishops were required to wear the habit of the Order, they were also allowed to wear an additional cloak or head covering. It is when wearing these artefacts that their participation in communal life appears to have been curtailed. R. of Melrose, ‘Eulogium’, p. 311; Newman, Boundaries of Charity, p. 127; ‘Instituta generalis capituli’, ed. and trans. Waddell, c. lxiv, p. 483. Vita Kentegerni, c. xxiv, pp. 78, 204. Registrum episcopatus Glasguensis, ed. Innes, I, no. 37, pp. 34–5; I. S. Robinson, The Papacy 1073–1198: Continuity and Innovation, Cambridge Medieval Textbooks (Cambridge, 1990), p. 241.

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Scottish Independence and Ecclesiastical Reform the Vita was, in its own way, as important as the pseudo-historical narratives examined above in articulating the concept of Glasgow’s ecclesiastical independence.

Conclusion The commissioning of the Vita Kentegerni formed part of a wider programme of renewal at Glasgow Cathedral that aimed to present the see as a diocese worthy of independent status. In this campaign, the Vita Kentegerni had both an active and a commemorative function. Narratives in the text proclaimed the church of Glasgow’s historic independence and close association with Rome, passages which carefully mirrored contemporary advances made in the fight for Glasgow’s own ecclesiastical freedom. The text also provided a lasting literary guide to episcopal conduct as interpreted by its Cistercian patron and author. Although the Vita remains clearly recognizable as the product of a much longer hagiographic tradition, the text again shows the adaptability and responsiveness of this genre to contemporary needs. Despite the historical setting of the work, the text clearly represents a number of much more contemporary values, from the anxieties and aspirations of the late twelfth century church of Glasgow to the personal initiatives and ambitions of Bishop Jocelin himself.

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CHAPTER  SEVEN

Promoting Sanctity: The Vita S. Waldevi, Canonization and Cistercian Saintly Cults The second discovery of Waltheof’s incorruption at Melrose Abbey in mid-1206 seems to have been the event that reinvigorated interest in the saint’s cult and reopened older questions surrounding its promotion.1 The community’s response was to commission Jocelin, a fellow Cistercian, to write an official account of Waltheof’s life and deeds, a work that was begun during the brief abbacy of Abbot Patrick from 1206 to 1207.2 The main intention of the Vita was to raise the profile of Waltheof’s cult. The possession of an incorrupt corpse was, as the text makes clear, no common claim. Waltheof joined a select group of only six English saints, the shrines of whom were major sites of pilgrimage in the religious landscape of Britain: Canterbury, Bury St Edmunds, Durham, Ely and London.3 Yet despite the possession of such a rare gift, evidence in the Vita suggests that Melrose had still to make a significant impact on the wider pilgrimage circuit. Although the text records the journeys of two English pilgrims to the shrine, that this marked the extent of outside interest in the half century following the saint’s death indicates the cult’s rather limited appeal.4 At its most fundamental level, therefore, the primary function of the Vita was to raise wider awareness of Waltheof and his intercessory powers. The relatively recent nature of the cult also had significant implications for the intentions of the text. The cult’s novelty, its limited dissemination and the changing requirements of canonization procedure over the course of the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries meant that the Vita had more to prove than Jocelin’s other works. Despite the necessary presumption of sanc1

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An abridged version of this chapter appears under the title ‘The Struggle for Sanctity: St Waltheof of Melrose, Cistercian In-House Cults and Canonisation Procedure at the Turn of the Thirteenth Century’, in The Cult of Saints and the Virgin Mary in Medieval Scotland, ed. S. Boardman and E. Williamson, Studies in Celtic History 28 (Woodbridge, 2010), pp. 43–59; Vita Waldevi AASS, §134, p. 277C–D; Vita Waldevi, pp. 353–4. Vita Waldevi AASS, §3, p. 250A; Vita Waldevi, pp. 204–5; Chronicle of Melrose, fols. 27v, 28r; ‘Chronicle of Melrose’, trans. Stevenson, p. 149. Vita Waldevi AASS, §135, p. 277E; Vita Waldevi, pp. 355–6. Vita Waldevi AASS, §§119, 132, pp. 274E–F, 277A–B; Vita Waldevi, pp. 339–40, 350–2.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness tity behind the text, the Vita had to provide clear evidence to substantiate its claims for Waltheof’s saintly status. The holiness of the abbot’s life and deeds was, therefore, reinforced by the posthumous expression of this sanctity in the form of visions and miracles. In accordance with changes made to canonization procedure under the papacy of Innocent III, some of these miraculous accounts were given the added authority of eyewitness testimony. Indeed, the presence of what had now become obligatory eyewitness accounts, as well as the inclusion of narratives that show a certain level of anxiety over the lack of papal approval for the cult, strongly suggest that the Vita was written with official canonization in mind. However, there were also other motivations behind the commissioning of the text. The dedication of the work to the Scottish royal house held a dual function. In addition to fostering high-profile support for the formal canonization of Waltheof, the dedication of the work also seems to have been intended to renew the links between Melrose and the family of its founder, King David. The presence of statements praising members of the extended Scottish royal dynasty in the first part of the text clearly articulate the underlying patronage interests of the Vita. The commissioning of the text also coincided with a renewed interest in historical writing at Melrose, seen in the updating of the abbey chronicle during these years, and represented a wider movement across the Cistercian Order to document and record the history of individual houses. Jocelin’s text provides important evidence for the ongoing campaign formally to sanction Waltheof’s cult, of which the Vita itself was the latest contribution. It is a history that is of great importance in understanding the intentions of the text and will, therefore, be examined in the first half of this chapter. The chapter will then explore the other intended functions of the Vita, namely its significance as a promotional and commemorative text for the Cistercian house of Melrose.

The development of the cult Evidence in the Vita reveals that Jocelin’s text was the latest in a number of attempts to achieve formal recognition of Waltheof’s sanctity, the earliest of which had been initiated immediately after the saint’s death in 1159. The first signs that certain members of the community wished to accord Waltheof special status are found in the treatment of the abbot’s corpse during the preparation for its burial. Although the body had been washed and clothed in a monastic habit, ‘it seemed to some that he ought to be clothed in his vestments, as they had read of Blessed Bernard’.5 Further debate seems to have 5

As recorded in the Vita prima Bernardi, although it is also possible that the Melrose monks received this information from a more general Cistercian communication

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Promoting Sanctity produced a compromise measure: the body remained in the tunic and cowl of the Order but was wrapped in an additional waxed cloth.6 This attempt to imitate Bernard reflects a clear desire within the Melrose community to venerate Waltheof as a figure of comparable sanctity.7 As further contention over the location of Waltheof’s tomb reveals, it was a desire also felt by some outside the Order. By this point, news of Waltheof’s death had brought a number of other prominent religious and ecclesiastical figures to the monastery. Several of those gathered, including Bishop Herbert of Glasgow, argued that Waltheof should be buried in the church, a measure that would have allowed easier access to his tomb for any prospective pilgrims, and indicates the expectation that a cult would develop around his memory. However, others, including Eanfrith, abbot of the Cistercian house of Newbattle, urged otherwise and eventually Waltheof was laid to rest in the chapterhouse in the very place he had indicated during his lifetime.8 Although still a prestigious location and the customary burial place for an abbot, as an area restricted to monastic personnel, it seems likely that the choice of this site represented a deliberate attempt to limit the growth of the cult.9 The opposition of Eanfrith, the abbot of one of Melrose’s daughter houses, was to prefigure a deep political division within the Melrose community itself and one that would eventually force a change of leadership at the house. The growth of Waltheof’s cult during the 1160s seems to have been directly linked to the increasing discontent with the rule of Waltheof’s successor, Abbot William.10 William was, perhaps, unlucky to have stepped into Waltheof’s shoes. A much-loved abbot, Waltheof provided an exemplar of abbatial

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on the subject. The use of ‘blessed’ at this point should not be taken to indicate Jocelin’s reliance on source material predating Bernard’s canonization in 1174 – the words sanctus and beatus continued to be used interchangeably until the middle of the thirteenth century. Vita Waldevi AASS, §91, p. 269D; Vita Waldevi, p. 311; William of St Thierry et al., ‘S Bernardi vita prima’, V.ii, col. 360A; A. Vauchez, Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages, trans. J. Birrel (Cambridge, 1997), p. 85. The Vita is careful to record that this sheet, a contravention of Cistercian statues, had disintegrated by the time of the first discovery of Waltheof’s incorruption in 1171. Vita Waldevi AASS, §§91, 122, pp. 269D, 275E; Vita Waldevi, pp. 311, 343. Although Bernard was not formally canonized until 1174, those within the Order regarded him as a saint. In 1159, the General Chapter decreed that houses of the Clairvaux filiation, of which Melrose was a member, were to celebrate the Office for the Dead in Bernard’s honour. Twelfth-Century Statutes, ed. Waddell, 1159/7, p. 71; Bredero, Bernard of Clairvaux, p. 33. Vita Waldevi AASS, §§80, 91, pp. 267F, 269D–E; Vita Waldevi, pp. 300, 311–12. Although laybrothers were members of the community, even their presence in the chapterhouse was restricted to certain feast days. Cassidy-Welch, Monastic Spaces, pp. 105, 171. Both Derek Baker and A. A. M. Duncan have previously commented on this conflict but neither analysed it in depth. Baker, ‘Legend and Reality’, pp. 67–8 n.36; Duncan, ‘Sources and Uses’, pp. 149–50.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness rule to which his successor could be compared.11 The key quality valued by the pro-Waltheof faction within the monastery – and one emphasized by the Order as a whole – was the saint’s humility.12 Although Waltheof was a man with intimate links to the Scottish and English royal houses, he had chosen to shun both riches and status, not only by becoming a Cistercian, but in his general modes of social interaction.13 According to the Vita, the saint made careful efforts to ensure that he was not set apart from the rest of the community. He insisted on being subjected to exactly the same rules of discipline and bound other members of the house to punish him should he commit any wrongdoing.14 He also seems to have enjoyed a close relationship with the laybrothers. The Vita tells us that on one occasion when he was preaching to them, he inadvertently disclosed that it was he, not an anonymous third party, who had experienced a vision of Christ in the heavens.15 Such intimacy was evidently valued by the laybrother community – their devotion is shown by the amount of testimony in the Vita provided by conversi sources.16 In contrast, William’s abbacy is presented as a perversion of the Benedictine Rule. Whereas Waltheof closely followed Benedict’s instructions and strove to be more loved than feared, William is explicitly stated to have done the 11 12 13 14 15 16

Elizabeth Freeman provides a more general discussion of Waltheof’s representation as an exemplary abbot: Freeman, ‘Models for Cistercian Life’, pp. 112–14. Newman, Boundaries of Charity, pp. 162–3. Vita Waldevi AASS, §§14, 43, 45, pp. 252D–E, 260C, 260D–F; Vita Waldevi, pp. 218–20, 254–5, 257–8. Vita Waldevi AASS, §§39, 41, pp. 259E–F, 260A; Vita Waldevi, pp. 249–51. Vita Waldevi AASS, §73, p. 266D–E; Vita Waldevi, pp. 293–4. Waltheof’s cult had a significant laybrother following, however, I think that this has been overemphasized by Baker. Although the Vita cites more laybrother witnesses than monastic ones, the amount of monastic testimony from the early years of the cult is not inconsiderable. It should also be noted that in a number of cases the direct source of Jocelin’s narratives is unclear – the references below include the implied sources for narratives (i.e. the individuals mentioned within the narrative). In addition, the Vita’s use of ‘monachi’ and ‘conversi’ as interchangeable in the account of the 1206 discovery of Waltheof’s incorruption means that the sole use of the word ‘monachus’ cannot be taken to imply choir-monk status – only those early witnesses whose status can be confirmed by other information in the text are included in the lists that follow. Laybrother sources: Walter (the laybrother and Melrose hospitarius), Lambert, Richard, Sinuin, Henry, another Walter, William (hospitarius in a grange), Gillesperda (a laybrother of Coupar Angus). Choir-monk sources: Everard (former monk of Melrose, abbot of Holmcultram), William de Bredeshala, Swein (sub-cellarer of Melrose), Thomas Good (cellarer), the infirmarer in the laymen’s infirmary and the chief confessor of the sick. This list differs from Baker’s list which, in addition to monks of indeterminate status, includes Waltheof’s horse ‘Frater Ferrandus’. Vita Waldevi AASS, §§23, 40, 41, 52, 57, 71, 75, 82, 85, 96, 99, 100, 109, 112, 134, pp. 256B, 259F, 260A, 262E, 263D, 266B, 267A, 268B, 268C, 271A, 271C, 271D, 273C, 273F, 277C–D; Vita Waldevi, pp. 228, 250, 251, 267, 272, 291, 295, 302, 304, 318, 320, 322, 331, 334, 353–4; Vita Waldevi, pp. 65, 354 n.3; Baker, ‘Legend and Reality’, p. 70, 70 n.49.

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Promoting Sanctity opposite.17 A hint of William’s harsh rule is provided by the Vita’s statement that Prior Jocelin was a man whom William ‘had oppressed in many matters before’.18 If we can presume that William chose to exercise his power in the chapterhouse, one of the major sites of monastic confession and punishment, any sense of injustice experienced by Jocelin can only have been enhanced by the presence of Waltheof’s grave in the same space.19 In the chapterhouse, the juxtaposition of the two abbots provided not just a spiritual but a physical contrast. Analysis of the posthumous miracula in the Vita Waldevi attests to the rising tensions that centred around the memory of the former abbot. The sequence of healing miracles that precedes William’s eventual departure in the text records the growing unease surrounding access to Waltheof’s tomb. The first miraculous cure followed the apparently spontaneous action of the laybrother, Gillesperda. Upon hearing report of this miracle, a layman with dropsy requested and was granted similar access for an overnight vigil at the tomb.20 The third miracle provides evidence of increasing concern over this access: another man suffering from dropsy obtained permission only after he ‘most urgently requested’ entry.21 In the fourth miracle, the appearance at the abbey gate of a sick householder, accompanied by a sizeable procession of family and friends, must have done little to ease fears about the growth of the cult. Again, there is notable reluctance to grant the sick man access: it is only after ‘repeated and devout petition’ that he is allowed to observe an overnight vigil at the tomb.22 Strictures on access to the abbot’s tomb also affected those inside the monastery. The fifth healing miracle concerns a Melrose monk, Benedict, who suffered from an almost complete loss of sight and hearing. Jocelin describes how, in ‘pious and wholesome stealth’, he secretly crept to the tomb one night to pray for a cure.23 The sixth miracle provides some evidence of unchallenged access to the tomb, but only for those considered beyond all earthly help: an anonymous monk ‘filled onlookers with commiseration and despair of his life… He was led, therefore, to the saint’s tomb’.24 The recipient of the seventh miracle was met with a less accommodating

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Vita Waldevi AASS, §§37, 120, pp. 259B, 275C; Vita Waldevi, pp. 245, 341; Rule, c. lxiv. 15, pp. 282, 283. ‘quem ipse in multis ante gravaverat’. This may well refer to excess during punitive beatings, which would continue until the abbot decreed that the sinner had suffered enough. Vita Waldevi AASS, §121, p. 275D; Cassidy-Welch, Monastic Spaces, pp. 125–6. Cassidy-Welch, Monastic Spaces, pp. 120, 124, 125. Vita Waldevi AASS, §§112–14, pp. 273F–4B; Vita Waldevi, pp. 334–6. ‘obnixius postulato’. Vita Waldevi AASS, §115, p. 274B; Vita Waldevi, p. 337. ‘Ad crebram denique et devotam ejusdem petitionem’. Vita Waldevi AASS, §116, p. 274C; Vita Waldevi, pp. 337–8. Vita Waldevi AASS, §117, p. 274D; Vita Waldevi, pp. 338–9. Vita Waldevi AASS, §118, p. 274D–E; Vita Waldevi, p. 339.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness attitude. The appearance of a clerk from a distant part of England ‘drawn by the holy reputation of Abbot St Waltheof’ seemed to prove that despite any attempts to stall its development, the cult continued to gain in fame.25 It was only ‘by begging, wailing, [and] imploring’ that the clerk was able to overcome the reluctance to grant him entry.26 If the chronology of the miracles is correct, Abbot William’s reaction to the clerk’s visit was to announce a complete prohibition on access of the sick to the holy man’s tomb. That this suppression of the cult was characterized by some as William’s ‘envy’ serves to indicate the deep in-house division that devotion to Waltheof had come to symbolize.27 Although the cult had clearly taken on a momentum of its own, there are significant reasons to sympathize with William’s attempts to stop the tide. The chapterhouse was one of the holiest places within the monastic precinct and, as such, general access to this area was limited to choir monks only.28 The early secular dimension of the shrine, seen in the cure of laymen in the second, third and fourth healing miracles, posed a threat to the cloistered life of the community – a danger apparently confirmed by the appearance of a clerk from distant lands. As the Vita itself states, William’s actions represented the desire ‘that the monasteries of the Cistercian Order be free from endless crowds flowing in upon them from every side’.29 Although in-house cults had developed around the memory of other early abbots, the Cistercian General Chapter had shown itself wary of the potential problems that a successful healing cult could bring.30 Bernard’s hostile feelings towards cults 25 26 27 28

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Vita Waldevi AASS, §119, p. 274E; Vita Waldevi, p. 339. ‘obsecrando, plorando, implorando’. Vita Waldevi AASS, §119, p. 274E–F; Vita Waldevi, p. 340. Vita Waldevi AASS, §120, p. 275B-C; Vita Waldevi, p. 340. There was also the more practical side of a healing cult to consider – as Henry MayrHarting remarked about the shrine of St Frideswide, the canons ‘could have spent a great deal of time mopping up after miracles.’ That such mess might occur in a monastic space used as frequently as the chapterhouse could have posed serious problems. Cassidy-Welch, Monastic Spaces, pp. 105–6; H. Mayr-Harting, ‘Functions of a Twelfth-Century Shrine: The Miracles of St Frideswide’, in Studies in Medieval History Presented to R. H. C. Davis, ed. H. Mayr-Harting and R. I. Moore (London, 1985), p. 195. ‘coenobitae Cisterciensis Ordinis turbarum undique confluentium carerent immoderata frequentia’. Vita Waldevi AASS, §120, p. 275C. For example, the Vita itself provides evidence of the cult that had grown up around William, the first abbot of Rievaulx. A cult had also developed around Robert, the first abbot of Newminster, while at Savigny, the community venerated five of the abbey’s former monks, including their first abbot, Vitalis, and his successor, Geoffrey. Vita Waldevi AASS, §§67–9, pp. 265A–6B; Vita Waldevi, pp. 285–90; P. Fergusson and S. Harrison, Rievaulx Abbey: Community, Architecture, Memory, with Contributions from Glyn Coppack (Newhaven, 1999), p. 99; ‘Vita S. Roberti Novi Monasterii in Anglia abbatis’, ed. P. Grosjean, Analecta Bollandiana 57 (1939), 334–60; L. Grant, ‘Savigny and its Saints’, in Perspectives for an Architecture of Solitude: Essays on Cister-

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Promoting Sanctity that had developed around the tombs of saints were well known and must have played a significant role in the decision made by the Cistercian leadership to stem the development of such a cult at Clairvaux following Bernard’s death in 1153.31 Consequently, the final version of the Vita prima, which formed part of the material submitted for Bernard’s canonization in 1174, includes no posthumous miracula.32 Even the later general miracle collection, the Exordium magnum Cisterciense compiled between 1177 and 1221, records only four posthumous miracles relating to Bernard, three of which occurred before his burial. The third miracle, in which a disabled man gained the power to stand on reaching Bernard’s corpse, proved to be the final straw for the abbot of Cîteaux. Fearing that monastic discipline would be disrupted by subsequent hordes of pilgrims, he forbade the holy body itself from performing any more miracles.33 While this may have provided a model for William’s reaction, it did not make his decision any more palatable to the Melrose community. For the pro-Waltheof faction, it offered further evidence of William’s overbearing arrogance. Not only was it a denial of one of the core Cistercian values of charity, in stifling the nascent cult, it formed a denial of God’s works on earth, if not God himself. As the Vita stated, here was a man who had ‘dared to block up the fount of mercy’ and silence what the glory of heaven proclaimed to the world.34 William’s suppression of the cult seems to have alienated such a significant proportion of the community that he became unable to uphold the authority of his office.35 Consequently, on 22 April 1170, William resigned his abbacy in favour of Prior Jocelin, who immediately took up his new post.36 The swift

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cians, Art and Architecture in Honour of Peter Fergusson, ed. T. N. Kinder (Turnhout, 2004), p. 111; ‘Vitae BB Vitalis et Gaufridi primi et secundi abbatum Saviniacensium in Normannia’, ed. E. P. Sauvage, Analecta Bollandiana 1 (1882), 355–410. Bredero, Bernard of Clairvaux, pp. 57–8, 70, 72–3. For Bredero’s full argument concerning the lack of posthumous miracula see Bredero, Bernard of Clairvaux, pp. 65–73. The fourth posthumous miracle was an exorcism carried out using some of Bernard’s beard hair, which explicitly references the abbot’s prohibition to the dead body. William of St Thierry et al., ‘Bernardi vita prima’, VII.xxviii, cols. 447B–9B; Bredero, Bernard of Clairvaux, pp. 68–70. ‘misericordiae fontem audeat obstruere’. Vita Waldevi AASS, §120, p. 275C. Although the Rule stated that each monk owed absolute obedience to the abbot, Giles Constable argues that by the twelfth century, the interpretation of this obedience had changed. He cites the mid-twelfth century Bridlington Dialogue, which states that monks were by no means obliged to obey their abbot should he order them to commit wrongdoing. Vita Waldevi AASS, §120, p. 275C; Vita Waldevi, p. 341; Rule, cc. iii.5–6, iv.61, v, pp. 180, 181, 184, 185, 186–9; G. Constable, ‘The Authority of Superiors in Religious Communities’, in Monks, Hermits and Crusaders in Medieval Europe, ed. G. Constable, Collected Studies Series 273 (London, 1988), Ch. III, pp. 203–4. The events of April 1170 probably represent a forced resignation rather than a deposition. To suggest that a community had deposed its abbot was a serious charge

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness replacement of William stands in marked contrast to the evidence for earlier and later abbatial successions at Melrose during this period and suggests that William’s resignation was far from unexpected.37 The Vita’s description of Prior Jocelin as one of William’s principal adversaries and a man ‘who loved St Waltheof and had been loved by him’ suggests that he had become the figurehead for the opposition and the obvious choice as William’s successor.38 If we can recognize Waltheof’s cult as being the principal issue that divided the house against William, then Jocelin’s immediate appointment as abbot represents the culmination of a long-recognized alternative. As Giles Constable states, the choice of abbot was one of the most important ways in which the community could assert its wishes – by electing Jocelin, the monks reinstated Waltheof.39 That the replacement of Abbot William was directly related to the tensions surrounding the memory of Waltheof is confirmed by the subsequent action taken officially to authorise the cult. The Vita tells us that in 1171 Abbot Jocelin decided to replace the stone covering Waltheof’s tomb with a new slab of marble that was more in keeping with the saint’s sanctity and nobility.40 It was to be no small ceremony. Bishop Ingram of Glasgow was invited to oversee the exchange of tombstones, while a number of abbots and priors were also present to witness the event.41 The presence of the bishop suggests that the ceremony was intended formally to inaugurate Waltheof’s sanctity. Although the papacy was extending its authority over the canonization process during this time, the power of the bishop to authorize the veneration of minor saints still held strong before the end of the century.42

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and one that Jocelin had been careful to refute earlier in the text with regard to Waltheof’s predecessor, Abbot Richard. Chronicle of Melrose, fol. 20v; ‘Chronicle of Melrose’, trans. Stevenson, p. 132; Vita Waldevi AASS, §36, p. 259A–B; Vita Waldevi, pp. 243–5. For example, William himself was elected to the abbacy just under four months after Waltheof’s death in 1159. See also the appointments of new abbots in 1189, 1214, 1215 and 1216. Even when there is the suggestion that a change in leadership had been ordered by the abbot of Melrose’s mother house, Rievaulx, as in 1194, the resignation of one abbot and the installation of another occurred on consecutive days. Chronicle of Melrose, fols. 19r–v, 25r, 26r, 30v, 32r, 33r; ‘Chronicle of Melrose’, trans. Stevenson, pp. 128, 143, 146, 155, 160, 162–3. ‘qui sancti Waldevi dilector et dilectus extitit’. Vita Waldevi AASS, §121, p. 275D; Vita Waldevi, p. 341. Constable, ‘Authority of Superiors’, p. 197. Derek Baker incorrectly dates this event to 22 June 1170, just two months after Jocelin had been elected abbot. The Chronicle of Melrose is quite clear, however, that the discovery of Waltheof’s incorruption was made on 22 May 1171. Vita Waldevi AASS, §121 p. 275D; Vita Waldevi, p. 341; Baker, ‘Legend and Reality’, p. 70 n.49; Chronicle of Melrose, fols. 20v–1r; ‘Chronicle of Melrose’, trans. Stevenson, pp. 132–3. Vita Waldevi AASS, §121, p. 275D; Vita Waldevi, pp. 341–2. In 1102, the Council of Westminster decreed that episcopal approval was necessary for the veneration of saints. However, the impatience for official papal confirmation

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Promoting Sanctity If there were doubts over the bishop’s capacity to canonize the former abbot, then these were removed when the incorruption of the body proclaimed Waltheof’s sanctity for him. The Vita’s account of this discovery draws immediate parallels with the rediscovery of St Cuthbert’s incorrupt body in 1104.43 That these parallels are present within the narrative structure rather than the phrasing of the text indicate that Jocelin’s account reflects the story as he had either heard or read it. Indeed, if we can accept Jocelin’s account as an accurate rendering of events, it seems that those present at the opening of Waltheof’s tomb in 1171 reacted to the discovery in ways that consciously mimicked the account of St Cuthbert’s examination in 1104. Taking the role played by the abbot of Seez in Durham, Bishop Ingram also tugged and pulled at the corpse in what Barbara Abou-El-Haj describes as ‘a brutally tactile demonstration’ of the saint’s preservation.44 Such actions were not for the fainthearted and both accounts record a similar level of horror

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of Becket’s sanctity following his martyrdom in 1170 shows that by this point, there was a strong perception in England that the right to canonize belonged to the curia. But it must be noted that Becket’s martyrdom had attracted European-wide interest – it was clear that his cult was going to have a strong international following. The same cannot be said of Waltheof’s cult. E. W. Kemp, Canonization and Authority in the Western Church (Oxford, 1948), pp. 53–4, 87–9; Councils & Synods with Other Documents Relating to the English Church, Vol. I A.D. 871–1204 Part II 1066–1204, ed. D. Whitelock, M. Brett and C. N. L. Brooke (Oxford, 1981), Council of Westminster (1102) c. xxvii, p. 678. The anonymous account of the examination in 1104 was written at some point after 1123, possibly even after 1128. The testing of Waltheof’s body may also have drawn on the accounts of Cuthbert’s earlier examination in 698 found in the vitae written by an anonymous author (699x705) and by Bede (c.721). Although Reginald of Durham’s Libellus de admirandis beati Cuthberti virtutibus, written between 1165 and 1172, gives an extremely detailed description of the corpse, its coverings and the coffin, he does not give an account of the examination of the body by the abbot of Seez. ‘De miraculis et translationibus S. Cuthberti’, in Symeonis monachi opera, Vol. I: Historia ecclesiae Dunhelmensis, eadem Historia deducta, incerto auctore, usque ad A.D. MCXLIV, sequuntur varii tractatus…, ed. T. Arnold, RS 75 (London, 1882), c. vii, pp. 247–61; ‘The Anonymous Account of the Translation of St Cuthbert, 29 August 1104’, trans. R. A. B. Mynors, in The Relics of Saint Cuthbert, ed. C. F. Battiscombe (Oxford, 1956), pp. 99–107; Two Lives of Saint Cuthbert: A Life by an Anonymous Monk of Lindisfarne and Bede’s Prose Life, ed. and trans. B. Colgrave (Cambridge, 1940), pp. 13, 16; ‘Vita sancti Cuthberti auctore anonymo’, in ibid., IV.xvi, pp. 130–33; Bede, ‘Vita Sancti Cuthberti auctore Beda’, in ibid., c. xlii, pp. 290–5; Reginald of Durham, Reginaldi monachi Dunelmensis, Libellus de admirandis beati Cuthberti virtutibus quae novellis patratae sunt temporibus, ed. J. Raine, SS 1 (London, 1835), cc. xl–xliii, pp. 84–90; Reginald of Durham, ‘Illustration [B]’, The Church Historians of England Vol. III Part II: The Historical Works of Simeon of Durham, trans. J. Stevenson (London, 1855), pp. 779–85; B. Colgrave, ‘The Post-Bedan Miracles and Translations of St Cuthbert’, in The Early Cultures of North-West Europe, ed. C. Fox and B. Dickens, H. M. Chadwick Memorial Studies (Cambridge, 1950), pp. 329, 330. B. Abou-El-Haj, ‘Saint Cuthbert: The Post-Conquest Appropriation of an AngloSaxon Cult’, in Holy Men and Holy Women: Old English Prose Saints’ Lives and Their

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness among the bystanders, with Melrose’s Peter the cantor standing in for the anonymous disgruntled voices present at both Durham and Melrose. With his bathetic ‘My lord bishop… you are handling the holy body more roughly than you ought’, Peter’s interjection forces the narrative on to the examiner’s concluding statement.45 Here, informing the convent that ‘you have here with you a companion for St Cuthbert, once a monk of Melrose’, Ingram explicitly associates the two discoveries while hinting that this conformed to a preconceived expectation.46 As both a former monk of Old Melrose and one of the major saints of the north, Cuthbert would have been a well-known figure to the Melrose brethren and the ecclesiastics gathered for the 1171 ceremony. On being presented with this unexpected blessing, they recalled the examination of St Cuthbert in 1104 not only as a similar point of reference, but as a method of validating both their discovery and Waltheof’s sanctity.47 Ingram’s announcement that Waltheof had become ‘a companion for St Cuthbert’ seems to have been regarded as an official canonization of the saint. This is supported by the account in the Chronicle of Melrose where the discovery of Waltheof’s incorruption is accompanied by cries of ‘truly this was a man of God’ – an allusion to the words in the Gospel of St Mark that acknowledge Christ’s true nature. The discovery of Waltheof’s incorruption is presented as a similar revelation of status: Waltheof’s sanctity now made manifest.48 That Ingram’s declaration in the Vita is followed by a debate over where to place the shrine further confirms the official acceptance of Waltheof’s saintly status. As in 1159, the suggestion was again made, and again vetoed, that Waltheof’s body should be transferred to the church. The Vita makes the reasoning behind this decision clear: the body was to remain in

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Contexts, ed. P. E. Szarmach, SUNY Series in Medieval Studies (Albany, 1996), p. 192. ‘Domine, inquit, episcope, salva reverentia vestra, durius, quam decet, sanctum corpus contrectas.’ Vita Waldevi AASS, §122, p. 275E. Ibid.; Vita Waldevi, pp. 342–3; ‘De miraculis et translationibus Cuthberti’, ed. Arnold, c. vii.11, p. 259; ‘Anonymous Account’, trans. Mynors, pp. 105–6. Their actions may also have been guided by other incorruption narratives, such as the account in Aelred’s Vita S. Edwardi, that in Goscelin of Saint-Bertin’s Vita S. Wihtburge and the account of the examination of St Edmund’s body given by William of Malmesbury in the Gesta pontificum (although the manhandling of the corpse has negative repercussions in this text). However, given the local interest in Cuthbert, it is likely that the Durham accounts provided the main parallels for the Melrose discovery. Aelred of Rievaulx, ‘Vita S. Edwardi regis et confessoris’, in Beati Aelredi abbatis Rievallensis opera omnia, PL 195, 781D–3A; Aelred of Rievaulx, Historical Works, trans. Freeland, pp. 227–8; Goscelin of Saint-Bertin, ‘Vita sancte Wihtburge virginis’, in Goscelin of Saint-Bertin, The Hagiography of the Female Saints of Ely, ed. and trans. R. C. Love, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 2004), cc. xix–xxi, pp. 78–81; William of Malmesbury, Gesta pontificum Anglorum, II.lxxiv.30–2, pp. 246–9. Chronicle: ‘Vere hic homo dei est’. Mark 15. 39: ‘vere homo hic Filius Dei erat’. Chronicle of Melrose, fol. 21r; ‘Chronicle of Melrose’, trans. Stevenson, p. 134.

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Promoting Sanctity the chapterhouse ‘until the authority of the pope or the consent and permission of the Cistercian Chapter should sanction otherwise’.49 This statement makes a significant claim. Although it lends further support to the argument that papal authority over the translation of relics was widely recognized by this time, it also shows that this authority was far from absolute.50 The Vita explicitly states that the Cistercian General Chapter was also able to authorize the translation of Waltheof’s body – that in 1171, the power of the General Chapter to decide in this matter was seen as equivalent to that of the papacy.

The Vita as a canonization text However, by the time that the Vita was commissioned in the early thirteenth century, attitudes had changed. Over the course of Innocent III’s reign (1198– 1216), the papal hold over the process of canonization had tightened and by 1206, the idea that the papacy alone could authorize the declaration of sanctity was being taught in the schools.51 The investigation into the sanctity of Gilbert of Sempringham, beginning in 1200, had formalized this new canonization procedure. At the request of the Gilbertine Order, Archbishop Hubert Walter had commissioned an inquiry into the life and miracles of the saint. The report of this initial inquiry, along with numerous letters of support for the case, was submitted for consideration at the curia. In response, the pope instituted a second inquiry whose report would include written statements of eyewitness testimony and be accompanied by a select group of eyewitnesses to testify in person. With the successful conclusion of these proceedings, Gilbert was canonized in 1202.52 The same procedure was followed for the canonization of Wulfstan of Worcester in the following year.53 With the recent canonization of two English saints and the significant involvement of the Cistercians in the application for the first, it seems unlikely that the Melrose community would have been ignorant of the new developments in canonization procedure.54

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‘donec auctoritate summi Pontificis, vel consensu et concessu capituli Cisterciensis aliud sanciretur’. Vita Waldevi AASS, §123, p. 275F; Vita Waldevi, p. 343. Kemp, Canonization and Authority, pp. 80, 101–2. Ibid., p. 102. The Book of St Gilbert, ed. and trans. R. Foreville and G. Keir, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 1987), Ep. i–xxvii, pp. xcvi–ix, 198–253. Kemp, Canonization and Authority, p. 105. Cistercian abbots had been appointed to the panels of both the original inquiry and the one commissioned by the curia (although, in the case of the latter, the abbot of Warden was unable to attend – he had already left for the General Chapter). It is possible that William, the abbot of Swineshead present at the initial inquiry, became abbot of Furness in the early thirteenth century and, if so, this may mean Jocelin himself was particularly well-informed about contemporary canonization

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness Indeed, it is clear that by the time the text was written, the Melrose community no longer viewed the episcopal canonization as a sufficient authorization of Waltheof’s sanctity. As a result, the subsequent lack of any further attempts to promote the cult was viewed with no small disappointment. The perceived inaction of Abbot Jocelin, who was promoted to the bishopric of Glasgow in 1175, became a source of particular frustration. The Vita tells us that while he was ‘a man in many ways to be praised, because he took no steps to canonize St Waltheof, who particularly loved, encouraged and advanced him, he is seen by many to be blameworthy’.55 The simplest explanation for Jocelin’s conduct is that he had felt no need to reconfirm what had already been authorized.56 However, the Vita’s use of the present tense – ‘is seen by many’ – indicates that Jocelin was being judged by the standards of those commissioning the text rather than the standards of those a few decades previously. An earlier episode in the Vita shows further signs of the incorporation of contemporary concerns into the narrative. The first miracle to be recorded after the death of Waltheof is the vision of the king of Scotland’s chancellor, Nicholas, while on business in Rome in 1159. Detained at the curia until late, Nicholas is offered hospitality at the papal palace rather than being forced to cross the dangerous streets of Rome at night. In his sleep, he sees a vision of Waltheof approaching the gates of heaven but being refused entry. The next morning, Nicholas recounts his vision to the pope who asks him to make a note of the date and to send him a letter on his return to Scotland so that the vision’s full meaning can be understood. On Nicholas’s return, he discovers that Waltheof died on the day following his vision and Nicholas sends word to the curia. On the receipt of this news, the pope ‘absolved [Waltheof’s] soul and solemnly celebrated a Mass for him and for all the faithful’.57 That the account makes no mention of the papal changeover that occurred at this time – the pope to whom Nicholas sent his letter was not the same man as the

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procedures. However, the editors of The Heads of Religious Houses remain uncertain of the claims behind William’s abbacy. Book of St Gilbert, ed. and trans. Foreville and Keir, Ep. iii, xxiii, xxvi, pp. 200, 201, 201 n.1, 234–7, 240, 241; Knowles, Brooke and London, Heads of Religious Houses, p. 134. ‘vir in multis laudandus; sed in hoc, quod sanctum Waldevum, qui specialiter illum dilexit, erexit, provexit, canonizare non sategit, ut pluribus videtur, vituperandus’. Vita Waldevi AASS, §123, p. 275F. Although Duncan regards the 1171 ceremony as ‘the first steps to canonisation’, Bishop Jocelin’s subsequent behaviour is most easily explained by the assumption that he felt it marked the end rather than beginning of this process. Baker’s argument for an earlier, lapsed process of canonization is largely based on the assumption that Everard’s earlier text was a Vita written primarily for canonization purposes (see pp. 132–4). Duncan, ‘Sources and Uses’, p. 150; Baker, ‘Legend and Reality’, pp. 66–8, 70; DNB 56, 765. ‘Papa Deo gratis referens animam ejus absolvit, et pro eo et cunctis fidelibus Missam solemniter celebravit.’ Vita Waldevi AASS, §§94–6 (§96), pp. 270D–1A (p. 271A); Vita Waldevi, pp. 315–18.

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Promoting Sanctity pope to whom he had recounted his vision – underlines the main purpose of the narrative: to imply the papal approval of Waltheof’s cult by the pope as an ongoing institution rather than an individual.58 Although Jocelin is careful to state that the pope celebrated a mass for Waltheof and for the souls of the faithful, the text nevertheless insinuates that this mass was celebrated primarily in Waltheof’s honour. The performance of a divine office to commemorate the saint had been an important feature of the canonization procedure since the second century.59 That it remained so is shown by the Chronicle of Melrose’s description of the canonization of Thomas Becket in 1173, where it is noted that Pope Alexander sang the first mass in memory of the martyr.60 By suggesting that the pope performed this same ritual for Waltheof, the Vita implies that the process of papal canonization had already begun. The importance of this account is signalled in the Madrid manuscript by the insertion of a rubric above the narrative, ‘concerning the vision of a certain cleric that occurred in Rome’.61 Aside from those that introduce and conclude the Vita, this is the only such rubric to appear in the text. The careful wording of this episode – the implications of the account rather than its literal meaning – points to a divergence in the popular understanding of the cult as papally endorsed versus an official recognition that it is not. Since concern for papal approval marks the later development of the cult rather than its earlier years, it seems that this narrative represents an early thirteenth century interpretation of a much older story. Other features of the text suggest that the Vita was written with a view to the papal canonization of Waltheof. The presence of eyewitness accounts shows an appreciation of the new demands of the canonization procedure.62 Although, as the case of Gilbert of Sempringham demonstrates, these accounts would not have been considered adequate testimony in themselves, as part of an initial application they would have provided evidence that such witnesses were available. The vision of St Thomas of Canterbury recorded among the miracula also reveals much about the community’s ambitions for the cult. A clerk of Westmorland, who had originally intended to visit Canterbury, redirects his journey after St Thomas visits him in his sleep. That Thomas should advise the clerk to visit Waltheof’s tomb instead of his own shrine was praise 58

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Waltheof’s death occurred on 3 August and Pope Adrian IV died just under a month later on 1 September. The Chronicle of Melrose records that Nicholas travelled on from Rome to Agnani to see Adrian’s successor, Pope Alexander (who had been elected on 7 September). Chronicle of Melrose, fol. 19r–v; ‘Chronicle of Melrose’, trans. Stevenson, p. 128. Kemp, Canonization and Authority, p. 2. Chronicle of Melrose, fol. 21v; ‘Chronicle of Melrose’, trans. Stevenson, p. 134. ‘de visione cuiusdam clerici roma existenti’, Bibl. del Palacio Real, MS II 2097, fol. 59vb. Vita Waldevi AASS, §§127–31, 134, pp. 276C-7A, 277C-D; Vita Waldevi, pp. 347–50, 353–4.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness enough. However, the Vita is careful to take full advantage of this celebrity endorsement and Thomas’s final words to the clerk underscore the promotional nature of this story: ‘Believe me, the day will come when [Waltheof’s] name will be very famous and he will be honoured everywhere as one of the pre-eminent confessor saints of the Lord.’63 The placing of this miracle immediately after the eyewitness accounts and before the second discovery of Waltheof’s incorruption underlines the perceived importance of this narrative. Becket’s martyrdom has been described by Robert Bartlett as ‘the 1066 of English saintly cult’ and St Thomas became the standard by which nearcontemporary saints were measured.64 We should not be surprised, therefore, that Becket’s seal of approval was considered to be persuasive evidence for Waltheof’s sanctity. The aligning of Waltheof with Becket also signalled the wider potential of the cult as a whole. The Vita’s use of a specific Biblical allusion in reference to Waltheof’s sanctity also suggests that the text was written with papal canonization in mind. Following Waltheof’s earlier election as prior of Kirkham, Jocelin comments: No longer could the lamp that shed true light, be hidden under a bushel... Therefore the lamp, raised upon the lampstand, offered the health-giving light to all in the house of the Lord over which he presided and offered in himself the model of sanctity.65

This phrase was one of several stock allusions that had come to mark canonization bulls from the time of Pope Alexander III.66 That this phrase was also cited in seven of the extant seventeen letters written in support of Gilbert’s canonization, the report of the initial inquiry and the bull of canonization itself, indicates that by the early thirteenth century it had become a recognized part of canonization discourse.67 Jocelin’s use of this allusion in specific reference to Waltheof’s sanctity suggests that it should be understood in this 63

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‘Crede mihi, quia venient dies, in quibus nomen ejus celeberrimum habebitur, et ipse sicut unus de praecipuis sanctis Confessoribus Domini circumcirca honorabitur.’ Vita Waldevi AASS, §132, p. 277A–B (p. 277B); Vita Waldevi, pp. 350–1. Thomas makes similar appearances in a number of hagiographical narratives, see R. Bartlett, ‘The Hagiography of Angevin England’, in Thirteenth Century England V: Proceedings of the Newcastle Upon Tyne Conference 1993, ed. P. R. Coss and S. D. Lloyd (Woodbridge, 1995), pp. 40–1. ‘Non potuit lucerna diutius, disponente vera luce, latere sub modio… Lucerna ergo supra candelabrum levata lucem salutiferam omnibus in domo Domini, cui praeerat, praebebat, et semet sanctitatis exemplum expressum exhibebat.’ The allusion to the light and bushel refers to Luke 11. 33, Mark 4. 21 and Matthew 5. 15. Vita Waldevi AASS, §20 p. 255E. Kemp, Canonization and Authority, p. 100. This refers only to letters that are transmitted in full by the dossier (nos. 5–22). Book of St Gilbert, ed. and trans. Foreville and Keir, Ep. iii, v, vi, ix, xvi, xviii, xix, xxi, xxvii, pp. 202, 203, 210, 211, 214, 215, 216, 217, 224, 225, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 244, 245.

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Promoting Sanctity context.68 The carefully worded description of Waltheof’s heavenly status also suggests that the text was destined for scrutiny by a higher authority. In a phrase that combines allusions to the Psalms and Ecclesiasticus, we are told that Waltheof had been ‘led amid the splendour of the saints and made like them in glory’.69 For those who already believed in Waltheof’s sanctity, it read as an explicit confirmation of his status. For those yet to be convinced, it showed a careful deferral of judgement on this issue. Although there is no proof that the Vita was ever submitted as part of an official application for the papal canonization of Waltheof, evidence in the text indicates that this had been its intended purpose.70 By the early thirteenth century, papal authority over the canonization procedure had become widely accepted and application to the papacy was recognized as the principal means of securing the official endorsement and universal recognition of a new cult. It was also a powerful indicator of the saint’s perceived importance – and that of the community affiliated to him or her – in the wider religious landscape. Yet, the significance of papal canonization should not be overstated. For many, it merely confirmed what was already ‘an evident reality’.71 Indeed, however desirable official endorsement might be, the longterm success of a cult remained dependent on active support at a local level.72 That Waltheof’s cult had this in abundance, despite the apparent failure to secure papal authorization, is indicated by the reaction to the disappointing discovery in 1240 that the saint’s body was no longer incorrupt. Far from sounding the metaphorical death-knell for the cult, the discovery was treated as an opportunity to expand Waltheof’s cult through the distribution of relics – the immediate result being a sudden spate of healing miracles.73 Indeed, the discovery itself seems to have been the result of a building scheme partly

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This phrase also appears three times in Jocelin’s earlier work, the Vita Kentegerni: once as part of a criticism of contemporary morals, once in relation to Kentigern’s election to the bishopric of Glasgow and finally as background to his meeting with Columba. Although the use of the phrase in reference to Kentigern’s promotion is similar to its use in the Vita Waldevi, it is only in the latter that Jocelin seems to play on its associations with the canonization process. Vita Kentegerni, cc. ii, xi, xxxix, pp. 37, 54, 106, 165, 181, 229. Psalm 109. 3: ‘in splendoribus sanctorum’; Ecclesiasticus 45. 2: ‘similem illum fecit in gloria sanctorum’. The text in the two versions of the Vita differs slightly. Acta Sanctorum: ‘introductus in splendoribus Sanctorum, similis illis factus in gloria’. Madrid MS: ‘introductus in splendoribus Sanctorum, similis in gloria’. Vita Waldevi AASS, §136, p. 277F; Bibl. del Palacio Real, MS II 2097, fol. 68rb. Indeed, McFadden stated that the step towards formal canonization was never taken. McFadden, ‘Life of Waldef’, p. 8. Vauchez, Sainthood, p. 99. As the Book of St Gilbert states, papal canonization did little to change the minds of those who had previously opposed Gilbert’s veneration. Book of St Gilbert, ed. and trans. Foreville and Keir, prol., pp. 6–9. Chronicle of Melrose, fol. 45r; ‘Chronicle of Melrose’, trans. Stevenson, pp. 182–3.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness intended to provide easier access to Waltheof’s tomb. It was also around this time that a shrine-like memorial was erected over the saint’s resting place.74 The continuing success of the cult shows that while papal authorization was a desirable asset – so much so that the community appears to have commissioned the Vita in order to acquire it – it was more a way of keeping up with the ecclesiastical fashions of the day than the ultimate authenticator of Waltheof’s sanctity.

The promotional and commemorative functions of the text Yet although the desire to achieve formal canonization may have been a dominating factor in the decision to commission the Vita, the dedication of the work to the Scottish royal house provides evidence for some of the other intentions of the text. At its most basic level, the main purpose of the Vita was to raise the profile of Waltheof’s cult – and one of the most effective ways of doing this was to present the newly written work to a prominent patron. Whether the dedication of the text to King William, his heir, Alexander, and his brother, Earl David, reflected the original intention of the commissioning house or was an astute use of the opportunity afforded by the premature death of the Vita’s original patron, Abbot Patrick, is now unknown. However, flattering references to members of the Scottish royal house found in the first book of the Vita suggest that the dedication was more integral to the work than the prologue implies. Despite Jocelin’s claims that it was his idea to present the text to the king and his immediate heirs, the significant advantages of this dedication, combined with the fact that William and his family were direct descendants of the monastery’s founders, suggest it represented a more communal decision.75 Whatever the case, it was a shrewd piece of marketing that drew not only on the ties of kinship between Waltheof and the Scottish royal house, but targeted the family of Melrose’s original founders.76 The desire for royal patronage significantly colours the first part of Jocelin’s text. As a letter addressed directly to the king and his heirs, the prologue presents Waltheof’s virtues in an order designed to appeal to the dedicatees rather than the work’s original monastic patron: ‘He is the glory and honour of your race, the guardian of the kingdom, the protector of the country, the symbol of modesty, the gem of the canonical life, the mirror of monastic

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R. Fawcett and R. Oram, Melrose Abbey (Stroud, 2004), pp. 183–4, 186–8. Vita Waldevi AASS, §3, p. 250A; Vita Waldevi, p. 205. Melrose was founded in 1136 by King David and his heir, Henry. Cowan and Easson, Medieval Religious Houses, p. 76; Broun and Harrison, Chronicle of Melrose, p. 1.

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Promoting Sanctity discipline.’77 The text is offered as a homage to the illustrious lineage of the dedicatees, with reference first to the links between the Scottish royal house and those of mainland Europe, then to the deposed Anglo-Saxon dynasty and includes the assertion that William and his heirs would have been kings of England had not the Normans seized the throne.78 The prologue then focuses on the saintly inheritance that has passed through William’s Anglo-Saxon ancestors: from Æthelwulf, who tithed England, through to William’s brother King Malcolm.79 This holy lineage is bolstered by a later comment concerning the sanctity of Matilda, the sister of William’s grandfather, King David, and queen consort of Henry I, and Jocelin uses this as a further opportunity to emphasize the holy ancestry of the Vita’s dedicatees.80 As can be seen in the diagram at the end of the chapter, the text presents this sanctity as a kind of Anglo-Saxon recessive gene, which passed into the Scottish royal house through Queen Margaret, wife of Malcolm III and daughter of Edward the Ætheling. In what has been termed ‘a nursery of saints’ by David Knowles, Margaret’s holiness was transmitted to her son, David, to her daughter, Matilda, and to her great-grandson, Malcolm IV.81 Reflecting the fact that Abbot Waltheof was not a direct blood relation, the sanctity found in Waltheof and his grandfather, Earl Waltheof, is presented as a separate line that has no direct impact upon the inherited sanctity of the Scottish house – despite the fact that the saintly Malcolm IV is also a direct descendant of the earl.82 Jocelin’s prior emphasis on the Anglo-Saxon origin of this sanctity allows the saintly claims of Waltheof and Earl Waltheof to be seamlessly grafted onto this family tree, a relationship which is then cemented by two references to Waltheof as ‘your uncle’.83 The first chapter, an account of Earl Waltheof’s martyrdom, continues the main theme of the prologue and presents Earl Waltheof not only as a precursor to the sanctity of Abbot Waltheof but as

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‘Ipse est decus et decor prosapiae vestrae, regni tutor, tutela patriae, titulus pudicitiae, gemma vitae canonicae, speculum monasticae disciplinae.’ Vita Waldevi AASS, §3, p. 249F. Vita Waldevi AASS, §1, p. 249E; Vita Waldevi, pp. 201–3. Vita Waldevi AASS, §2, p. 249F; Vita Waldevi, pp. 203–4. In addition to ‘the good queen’ Matilda, Jocelin mentions St Margaret, St Edward the Confessor and Malcolm. David’s son, Henry, also receives praise as a charitable and kind man of recognized virtue. Vita Waldevi AASS, §14, p. 252D–E; Vita Waldevi, p. 219. Knowles, Monastic Order in England, p. 242. The saint ‘was called Waltheof after his grandfather and was the renewer of the name and the possessor of its sanctity’ (‘vocabatur Waldevus [avici] nominis et sanctitatis renovator et possessor’). The Madrid manuscript reading of ‘avici’ is to be preferred to the reading of ‘antiqui’ in the Acta Sanctorum version. Vita Waldevi AASS, §§3, 9, pp. 249F, 251F; Vita Waldevi, pp. 204, 213; Bibl. del Palacio Real, MS II 2097, fol. 43vb. Vita Waldevi AASS, §§3, 4, pp. 249F, 250B; Vita Waldevi, pp. 204, 205.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness proof of the Vita’s claim ‘that the best shoot should come from a natural and holy root, conspicuous in sanctity’.84 The bond between Waltheof and the Scottish royal house is strengthened by the generally negative representation of the saint’s other relatives. Waltheof’s closest blood relation, his brother Earl Simon, is represented as an anti-brother who differs from the saint in almost every way. Even in childhood, Simon’s war games and Waltheof’s make-believe masses foreshadow their diverging careers.85 The Vita tells us that Simon’s ambitions for Waltheof twice forced the saint to flee to areas outside his brother’s jurisdiction to allow him to pursue his chosen monastic career.86 Waltheof’s religious vocation is also criticized by another kinsman, William le Gros. Hearing that Waltheof had been touted as a potential candidate for the vacant archbishopric of York, William confronts the saint: ‘How long will you dishonour our family by your abasement, by hiding in the cave of your cloister? Get yourself out among the people more often, with gifts and promises endeavour to obtain the friendship and love of the king and the favour and help of his counsellors, and you can get whichever archbishopric you want, to the honour and advancement of your family.’87 He even proposes an agreement that would give Waltheof the seat of York in return for granting him the township of Sherburn. Waltheof’s response is telling: ‘It is not out of family feeling (consanguinitatem) that you seek this high promotion for me but rather for your own momentary advantage – not for my honour but for your own profit.’88 The saint reveals William’s ‘family feeling’ to be a pretext for his own worldly interests. Simon’s final appearance as the anti-brother sees him criticize Waltheof to their relative, King Stephen. However, his scathing comment ‘You see, my lord king… how my brother, your kinsman, honours us’ is soundly rebuffed. The king responds: ‘He honours us greatly and just as the carbuncle adorns the gold in which it is set, thus he adorns our whole

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85 86 87

88

‘quod ingenua et sancta radice processerit surculus optimus, sanctitate conspicuus’. This theme also appears in the Vita S. Werburge virginis and, with reference to the same family line, in Aelred’s Genealogia regum Anglorum. Vita Waldevi AASS, §6, p.  251B; Vita Waldevi, p. 207; Aelred of Rievaulx, ‘Genealogia regum Anglorum’, cols. 716B–17D; Aelred of Rievaulx, Historical Works, trans. Freeland, pp. 71–3; Goscelin of Saint-Bertin, ‘Vita sancte Werburge virginis’, in Goscelin of Saint-Bertin, The Hagiography of the Female Saints of Ely, ed. and trans. R. C. Love, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 2004), c. i, pp. 28–33. Vita Waldevi AASS, §11, p. 252A–B; Vita Waldevi, pp. 214–15. Vita Waldevi AASS, §§18–19, 33, pp. 255C–D, 258D-E; Vita Waldevi, pp. 223–4, 238–9. ‘Quamdiu latitando in antro claustri tui prosapiam nostram inhonoras abjectione tui? Effer te in publicum frequenter, donis et promissis nancisci satage familiaritatem et amorem regis, gratiam consiliariorum ejus et auxilium, et ad decus et exaltationem generis tui acquires archiepiscopatum, qualemcumque volueris’. Vita Waldevi AASS, §30, p. 257B. Vita Waldevi AASS, §30, p. 257B–C (p. 257C); Vita Waldevi, pp. 235–6 (p. 236).

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Promoting Sanctity family.’89 This positive representation of Stephen should be seen as a reflection of both corporate and personal allegiances on the part of the author – Stephen was, of course, the founder of Furness Abbey.90 The hostility and venality attributed to Earl Simon and William le Gros is contrasted by the love and charity that binds Waltheof to his Scottish kinsmen. We are told that King David, Waltheof’s stepfather, ‘loved and cherished him as his own child’.91 David is also shown to support the saint’s religious vocation by founding the Melrose daughter house of Kinloss during Waltheof’s abbacy.92 Likewise, the Vita states that the saint’s stepbrother, Earl Henry, also patronized the houses in which Waltheof achieved prominence: he made grants to Kirkham and founded Holmcultram as a daughter house of Melrose. Finally, we are told that it was at Waltheof’s urging that William’s brother, the saintly Malcolm, established the Melrose daughter house of Coupar Angus.93 It is notable, however, that beyond the prologue and the reference made to the Scottish royal house in the first book of the Vita, the text firmly turns away from the interests of its dedicatees.94 The second book, which contains the accounts of Waltheof’s posthumous miracula, makes only one appeal to William and his family: ‘Let the royal line of Scotland and the whole kingdom rejoice at having so great a father and patron.’95 This rather muted plea is in stark contrast to the tone at the beginning of the work and indicates that the main function of the second book was to provide the evidence necessary for the formal canonization of Waltheof rather than to re-engage with the family of Melrose’s original founders. However, it should not be assumed that the dedication of the text to the Scottish royal house was a decision unrelated to the campaign to canonize Waltheof. Indeed, it is likely that the appeal to the Scottish king and his family was an integral part of the community’s initial application for the canonization of their former abbot. Royal support for the request to canonize Bernard of Clairvaux and Gilbert of Sempringham had proved influential with the curia.96 Such letters of support, accompanied by those from the wider ecclesiastical and religious commu89 90 91 92 93 94

95 96

‘valde nos honorat, et sicut carbunculus aurum, cui imponitur, sic totam prosapiam nostram condecorat’. Vita Waldevi AASS, §45, p. 260E; Vita Waldevi, p. 257. Furness Coucher Book, I i, no. xxxviii, pp. 122–3. Vita Waldevi AASS, §15, p. 252E; Vita Waldevi, p. 220. Vita Waldevi AASS, §49, p. 262B; Vita Waldevi, p. 264. Vita Waldevi AASS, §§49, 50, p. 262A–B, 262C; Vita Waldevi, pp. 263, 265. It is interesting that the Vita dates Waltheof’s death in reference to the regnal years of Henry II rather than those of Malcolm of Scotland. This may represent force of habit from the Furness scriptorium – as a fluent Latinist Jocelin almost certainly would have drafted charters and other documents for the monastery. Vita Waldevi AASS, §91, p. 269E; Vita Waldevi, p. 312. Vita Waldevi AASS, §136, p. 277F; Vita Waldevi, p. 356. ‘S. Bernardi canonizatio’, in S. Bernardi abbatis primi Clarae-Vallensis opera omnia , PL 185, Ep. ii, col. 623A–C; Bredero, Bernard of Clairvaux, p. 57; Book of St Gilbert, ed. and trans. Foreville and Keir, Ep. vii, xxiii, pp. 214, 215, 234, 235.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness nity, provided the papacy with vital confirmation of the cult’s potential for wide dissemination.97 The financial implications of royal backing were also important. The cost of a journey to Rome, plus the money needed to fund a prolonged stay in the city while the claim was pursued, meant that even the initial application for canonization could be an expensive business. The Vita S. Procopii, written c.1240, provides a useful account of such an attempt and indicates not only the potential reluctance of the curia to canonize, but the costs in time and money that such an application might entail. In 1203, Abbot Blasius of Sávaza experienced three visions in which St Procopius ordered him to seek his official canonization. The abbot travelled to Rome to fulfil his holy commission but found Innocent III unmoved by the oral and written evidence presented to him. After remaining in the city for a year to pursue his case, lack of funds forced the abbot to withdraw. At this point Procopius took measures into his own hands and secured his sanctity by appearing in a vision to the pope himself.98 The dedication of the Vita to the Scottish royal house represented a dual strategy to renew interest in the cult of Waltheof and the community behind it, and to ensure royal backing in any attempt formally to canonize the saint. Although we have no positive evidence regarding the canonization application we assume to have been submitted by Melrose, there is proof that the appeal to the abbey’s royal patrons met with greater success.99 Abbot Patrick’s successor, Adam, seems to have developed a particularly close relationship with the Scottish king. In 1209, he served as William’s ambassador to King John in the period preceding the Treaty of Norham.100 In 1214, he also became the fourth monk of the house to be promoted to the Scottish episcopate during William’s reign.101 His appointment as bishop of Caithness

97 98

99

100

101

Bredero, Bernard of Clairvaux, p. 57. ‘Latinský životopis sv. Prokopa’, in SV. Prokop, Jeho Klášter a Památka u Lidu, ed. F. Krásl (1895, Prague), c. xv, pp. 499–500; M. E. Goodich, ‘Vision, Dream and Canonization Policy under Pope Innocent III’, in Lives and Miracles of the Saints: Studies in Medieval Latin Hagiography, ed. M. E. Goodich, Collected Studies Series 798 (London, 2004), Ch. XII, pp. 160–1. Such dedications did not always achieve their aims. The first edition of William of Malmesbury’s Gesta regum Anglorum was prefaced with letters to David of Scotland and Empress Matilda with the object of encouraging the recipients to end the abbey’s long vacancy and give them an abbot – a gesture that was not successful. William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum Anglorum, Ep. i-iii, pp. 2–9; Thomson, William of Malmesbury, p. 35. W. W. Scott, ‘Abbots Adam (1207–1213) and William (1215–1216) of Melrose and the Melrose Chronicle’, in Church, Chronicle and Learning in Medieval and Early Renaissance Scotland: Essays Presented to Donald Watt on the Occasion of the Completion of the Publication of Bower’s Scotichronicon, ed. B. E. Crawford (Edinburgh, 1999), p. 165. Broun and Harrison state that only three Melrose monks were promoted by William in this period. They omit Simon de Tonei who, although formerly abbot

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Promoting Sanctity reflected the close alliance of the two men. The hostility of lay elites towards the extension of royal power in this region meant that this was a strategically important commission.102 Indeed, considering the relationship that developed between abbot and king, it may well be that Adam was the principal architect of the strategy that lay behind the dedication of the Vita. It is also notable that the youngest of the Vita’s dedicatees, Alexander, maintained particularly strong ties with the house. In early 1216, Melrose was the site of an important conference between the new Scottish king and the northern English barons seeking protection against King John. The barons made homage to Alexander in the chapterhouse, swearing fealty upon relics that must have included those of Waltheof.103 The Scottish king’s allegiance to Melrose was to be lifelong: in accordance with his request, he was buried in the abbey church.104 The dedication of the Vita to such influential patrons must also have been intended to extend Melrose’s wider social network. That this strategy too met with some success is indicated by the presence of William, second son of the earl of Dunbar and nephew of King Alexander, at the third opening of Waltheof’s tomb in 1240. Such was William’s interest and influence, he was fortunate enough to obtain one of the saint’s teeth which, he later informed the monks, subsequently cured many sick people.105 The continued royal support of Melrose, potentially reinvigorated by the dedication of the Vita, appears to have drawn those within the king’s circle to take a similar interest in the house. The Vita also represented the community’s realization that approximately fifty years after the abbot’s death, an authoritative account of Waltheof’s life and miracles had yet to be written – and it must have been recognized that the time for writing such an account was growing short. By 1206x1207, when the Vita was commissioned, there would have been very few in the Melrose community who had first-hand knowledge of Waltheof’s time as abbot. Indeed, it must be assumed that the earlier material recorded by the text represents information gathered at second, if not third, hand. The decision to record the past at this juncture corresponds to the pattern observed

102

103 104 105

of Coggeshall, was elected to the see of Moray from his position as a monk of Melrose. Early Sources of Scottish History, ed. and trans. Anderson, II, 196; Broun and Harrison, Chronicle of Melrose Abbey, p. 4; Chronicle of Melrose, fols. 21r, 30v, 63v; ‘Chronicle of Melrose’, trans. Stevenson, pp. 134, 155, 215. It was also a dangerous commission and one that eventually ended with Adam’s murder in 1222. B. Smith, ‘The Frontiers of Church Reform in the British Isles, 1170–1230’, in Medieval Frontiers: Concepts and Practices, ed. D. Abulafia and N. Berend (Aldershot, 2002), pp. 242–3; Chronicle of Melrose, fol. 39r–v; ‘Chronicle of Melrose’, trans. Stevenson, pp. 174–5. Chronicle of Melrose, fol. 32v; ‘Chronicle of Melrose’, trans. Stevenson, p. 161. Chronicle of Melrose, fol. 55v; ‘Chronicle of Melrose’, trans. Stevenson, p. 204. Chronicle of Melrose, fol. 45r; ‘Chronicle of Melrose’, trans. Stevenson, pp. 182–3, 183 n.1.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness by Elisabeth van Houts in relation to twelfth-century accounts of the Norman Conquest. The realization that events which were once common knowledge are no longer widely known occurs roughly two generations after the event and is accompanied by the need to collect and communicate information in both oral and written means.106 The writing of the cult’s history at this point allowed the text to preserve a reasonably detailed version of events. It is important to acknowledge that, although the Vita was primarily an account of Waltheof and his cult, it also provides an insight into the more general history of Melrose Abbey. The text includes allusions to a number of other abbots of the house: the turbulent reigns of Richard and William, and the well-respected rule of later abbots such as Jocelin, William II, Patrick and that devoted student of scripture, Abbot Laurence.107 It is also notable that the commissioning of the Vita coincided with a period of renewed activity on the abbey’s own chronicle.108 It is unclear whether this activity pre- or post-dated the initial composition of the Vita, i.e. whether the discovery of Waltheof’s incorruption in 1206 sparked the undertaking of a wider historical project at the abbey. It is certainly suggestive that one of the earliest events recorded in this section of the Chronicle is the previous discovery of ­Waltheof’s incorruption in 1171.109 The interest in historical narratives at Melrose reflects a wider movement among English Cistercian communities during this period. In addition to the chronicles being compiled at the monasteries of Margam, Waverley and Stanley around this time, the abbeys of Fountains, Kirkstall, Byland and Jervaulx all produced accounts of their foundation and early development.110 Although the Vita Waldevi largely lacks narratives comparable to the dramatic events that marked the founding of Fountains or Byland, it conveys the same feeling of nostalgia that influences these and other contemporary texts, such

106

107 108

109

110

Van Houts also states that two generations later still, attempts at detached historical analysis are made – but this is of less relevance in the case of the Vita Waldevi and hagiography in general. E. van Houts, ‘The Memory of 1066 in Written and Oral Traditions’, Anglo-Norman Studies 19 (1996), 168–9. Vita Waldevi AASS, §§3, 36, 120–1, 123, 126, 133, pp. 250A, 259A–B, 275B–D, 275F, 276C, 277C; Vita Waldevi, pp. 204–5, 243–4, 340–1, 344, 346–7, 352–3. The widest timespan for this burst of activity is 1199xmid-1214. Broun and Harrison suggest the first decade of the thirteenth century as the most probable date. Broun and Harrison, Chronicle of Melrose Abbey, pp. 129–31. However, since the Chronicle had previously broken off at the beginning of 1171, it is not entirely surprising that, on resuming the work, the abbey scriptorium chose to catalogue events that had occurred later in the same year. Broun and Harrison, Chronicle of Melrose Abbey, p. 130. E. Freeman, Narratives of a New Order: Cistercian Historical Writing in England, 1150– 1220, Medieval Church Studies 2 (Turnhout, 2002), pp. 138, 152, 174–5; The Foundation History of the Abbeys of Byland and Jervaulx, ed. and trans. J. Burton, Borthwick Texts and Studies 35 (York, 2006), p. ix.

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Promoting Sanctity as Conrad of Eberbach’s Exordium magnum Cisterciense.111 By the turn of the thirteenth century, Cistercian success had brought with it a prosperity that was at odds with the poverty and hardship of the Order’s beginnings. These foundation narratives represented the familiar recourse to the past that is born in alienation from the present.112 By promoting the aesthetics and ideals of these earlier communities, which included an emphasis on the spiritual leadership and miraculous powers of former abbots, the texts highlighted both that which had been lost and that which must now be regained.113 The Vita’s promotion of Waltheof as an exemplary abbot is very much along these lines. Although Jocelin generally chooses to contrast the saint’s conduct with the deeds of anonymous prelates, in one notable example, he specifically criticizes the abbots of his own Order. Whereas Waltheof relied on his faithful nag, ‘Frater Ferrandus’, Jocelin’s contemporaries ‘do not know on which cob they wish to sit, nor do they proceed on an overnight stay at a grange unless with many coverings, saddle-bags and cloaks of finest wool lined or trimmed with lambskin’.114 Repeating the words of Lamentations 4. 1, ‘how is the gold become dim! How is the most fine gold changed!’, the Vita’s conclusion on contemporary Cistercianism echoed sentiments expressed throughout the Order.115 The recording of Waltheof’s life and miracles was also an important step in ensuring the longevity of the cult. As Amy Remensnyder comments, ‘the sacredness and efficacy of relics depended on the construction of their identity’.116 By providing the cult with a history and defining Waltheof’s particular attributes, the Vita served as a promotional guide for those seeking his intercession. The significant number of local and monastic pilgrims suffering from dropsy who visited the tomb shows that the saint had developed a strong reputation for healing the disease. Indeed, such was ­Waltheof’s success in curing the dropsical, Jocelin even contemplates the theological

111 112 113 114

115

116

Freeman, Narratives of a New Order, p. 128. A. G. Remensnyder, Remembering Kings Past: Monastic Foundation Legends in Medieval Southern France (New York, 1995), p. 3. Foundation History of Byland, ed. and trans. Burton, pp. xxxi–xxxii. ‘De quibusdam abbatibus Ordinis Cisterciensis doleo, qui nesciunt, cui vel quali manno velint insidere, nec pergunt pernoctandi causa ad grangiolam nisi cum pergulis pluribus, clitellis, et mantellis subtilissimae lanae, pellibus agninis indutis sive foratis.’ The name ‘Frater Ferrandus’ is a play on ferrantus (referring to the iron-grey colour of a horse), ferrare (to shoe a horse) and fero (to bear). Vita Waldevi AASS, §§38, 41–4, 46, 76 (§46), pp. 259D–E, 260A–D, 260F–1A, 267B–C (p. 260F); Vita Waldevi, pp. 248–9, 251–6, 258–9, 296. The Exordium magnum is also concerned with the increase of negligentia creeping into the Order. Vita Waldevi AASS, §46, p. 260F; Vita Waldevi, p. 259; B. Ward, Miracles and the Medieval Mind: Theory, Record and Event 1000–1215, (London, 1982), p. 198. Remensnyder, Remembering Kings Past, p. 290.

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Table 7: The Scottish Royal Ancestry as Portrayed by the Vita Waldevi

Promoting Sanctity reasoning behind the saint’s particular talent in this area.117 However, although the saint’s miraculous powers extended to those outside the monastery, the Vita’s emphasis on his qualities as both an exemplary abbot and a Cistercian recognized the insular character of the Melrose cult. The restricted nature of the tomb’s location and the saint’s properties as a personal intercessor for his fellow brethren meant that the most significant supporters of the cult would always be those who resided within Melrose itself.

Conclusion In recounting the life and miracles of a figure who had died within the past fifty years or so, the Vita Waldevi presented a very different project to the accounts of the more historically distant protagonists that constitute Jocelin’s other works. It was a text that presented the author with a number of new challenges. The inclusion of the all-important eye-witness accounts as well as the suggestion that Waltheof’s sanctity had already received some form of papal approval attests to the work’s composition as a potential canonization document. The appeals to the Scottish royal family that mark the first part of the text also indicate that the Vita Waldevi was a work more interested in courting further patronage than Jocelin’s other Vitae. In addition, the text had a significant commemorative purpose. Commissioned at a time when the memories of both Waltheof and his miraculous deeds were beginning to fade, the Vita provided a narrative account of the abbey’s early history that complemented the more factual version available in the abbey’s own chronicle. As such, the text also formed part of a much wider movement within Cistercian houses across Europe that aimed to record and, in so doing, construct the Order’s ‘golden age’.

117

Jocelin notes that ‘Well might St Waltheof, in the body and out of the body, claim a special grace in curing the dropsical – he who strove to root out avarice from his heart and utterly to extinguish the thirst for carnal delights. For the dropsical, the more they drink, people say, the thirstier they get; just so with the avaricious: when they get what they desire, they only burn the more with thirst for something more.’ Vita Waldevi AASS, §§82–3, 112–16, (§116), pp. 268A–B, 273F–4D (p. 274C– D); Vita Waldevi, pp. 301–3, 334–8 (p. 338).

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CHAPTER  EIGHT

Locating the Text: The Patrons, Sources and Historical Context of the Vita S. Helenae

In terms of patronage, the Vita Helenae provides a significant contrast with Jocelin’s other works. Although the prologue states that the text was written at the request of others, the specific identity of Jocelin’s patrons remains unstated – we are told only that the work was commissioned by a monastic community dedicated to St Helena. The Vita also differs from Jocelin’s other texts in terms of purpose. Whereas the Vitae Patricii, Kentegerni and Waldevi were written for communities based at the foci of their respective cults, the Vita Helenae carries no suggestion that the commissioning house held a shrine of this type or, indeed, that it possessed any relics of the saint at all. While the text must still be considered as a promotional document with the basic function of reviving interest in Helena and her cult, it seems clear that other motivations were also at work. The absence of contemporary accounts among the Vita’s posthumous miracula suggests that if the text was written in response to recent developments, then these were factors not directly connected to the saint’s cult. The anonymity of Jocelin’s patrons poses considerable problems for the analysis of the work. We lack an immediate understanding of the local context of the Vita as well as any indicators for a potential date of composition. The first part of this chapter, therefore, reverses the analytical processes found in the preceding chapters and attempts to identify the commissioning community through an examination of the themes and interests that dominate the text. The range of sources used in the composition of the Vita also offers an opportunity to contextualize the work and the investigation into Jocelin’s possible patrons is therefore followed by an analysis of the distribution of his source material. However, it is also important to recognize that the anonymity of the Vita’s patrons carries significant meaning in itself. In Jocelin’s other works, the open acknowledgment of the patrons provides the reader with a key to unlocking the underlying meaning of the text, whether this was obvious – such as the formal promotion of Waltheof’s cult in the Vita Waldevi – or more subtle – such as the ecclesio-political agendas present in the Vita Patricii and Vita Kentegerni. In the case of the Vita Helenae, the absence of this information suggests that our understanding of the text should be 227

The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness governed by parameters wider than local interests or affiliations. As a result, the final section of the chapter moves away from the possible local circumstances of the Vita’s commission and instead reads the work in the wider context of Angevin Britain.

The patrons The only explicit reference to the patrons of the Vita Helenae occurs in the prologue where we are told that despite Jocelin’s own inclinations to write an account of the saint, he was urged to do so ‘by the entreaties of certain venerable and religious persons who, in the name of St Helena, have submitted themselves obediently to Christ under the yoke of the rule’.1 Jocelin’s refusal to specifically identify this community presents the possibility that these patrons were created by the author in order to provide a public justification for the writing of the work – a strategy that had been employed by other medieval writers.2 Here, the citation of an anonymous monastic community dedicated to St Helena provides just enough information to support Jocelin’s claim: the Vita concerns the community’s patron saint and is, therefore, a natural addition to their lectio divina. Yet the absence of any further details means that Jocelin’s claims of patronage cannot be fully substantiated. It remains possible that the Vita represents a more personal expression of Jocelin’s literary interests clothed in a false statement of commission. However, there are also strong reasons for accepting Jocelin’s statement at face value. His other works were all commissioned by historically documented patrons and, if Jocelin had become a Cistercian by this time, then his freedom to undertake this kind of project without external prompting would have been limited. In addition, although he claims that his own devotion to the saint would have compelled him to write the work had he not been urged by others to do so, these words echo a similar sentiment found in the Vita Patricii and indicate that this statement is a tool of literary artifice.3 There is, therefore, little reason to believe that Jocelin’s work was not composed at the request of another party. The attempt to identify the patrons of the Vita Helenae forces us to invert the investigative processes that have been used to study the context of Jocelin’s other works. Instead of showing how the text has been adapted to fit the intentions of known patrons, potential patrons will be identified by

1

2 3

‘uenerabilium tamen et religiosarum personarum propellor precibus que ad titulum sancte Elene sub regulari iugo Christi mancipantur obsequio’. Vita Helenae, ll. 42–4, p. 153. E. R. Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, trans. W. R. Trask (New York, 1953), p. 85. Vita Helenae, ll. 41–4, p. 153; Vita Patricii AASS, prol., p. 536F; Vita Patricii, p. 133.

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Locating the Text examining the themes and interests of the text. Admittedly, such an implied primary audience must be recognized as a construct that is not always to be identified with the real audience.4 However, the fact that Jocelin’s other works have been shown to reflect the interests and concerns of their respective patrons indicates that this is a valid approach in this context. The Vita provides a number of clues that allow us to flesh out the identity of the commissioning community. The description of Helena’s British birth and background and the repeated references to the saint herself as ‘Helena nostra’ establish not only the author, but also his patrons, as British.5 Indeed, considering Helena’s alleged birth in Colchester and the lack of any known religious houses dedicated to the saint in either Wales or Scotland, it is possible to narrow this focus to ‘English’.6 It is also seems probable that, aside from the spiritual patronage of the house, this community had no physical association with St Helena. The Vita decribes the translation of Helena’s relics from Rome to the monastery of Hautvillers in northern France but provides no suggestion that the commissioning community possessed any of her relics.7 This is strengthened by the statement in the text that wonderful signs of Helena’s virtue occurred not only at her tomb, but wherever there was a church, oratory or altar dedicated to her – that a dedication was enough to secure her aid as an intercessor.8 The act of commissioning such a text also provides certain information about Jocelin’s patrons. It implies that the community not only had the disposable income necessary to sponsor such a work, but also that it was home to Latin-literate men or women able to read the text. There are only a limited number of religious communities dedicated to St Helena that are known to have been active during the late Angevin period: 4 5

6

7 8

W. Iser, The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response (London, 1994), pp. 34–5. ‘Helena de Britannia’, ‘Helene nostre’, ‘nostra Helena’, ‘Helena nostra’. Her native birth is again emphasized when we are told of Helena’s alleged regency over Britain after the death of Constantius. Constantine’s Britishness also continues to be emphasized at intervals throughout the text. When Constantine goes to war with Maxentius, Jocelin highlights the British contingent of troops and he later implies that Constantine’s British birth forms an integral part of his destiny to spread Christianity throughout the Roman Empire. Vita Helenae, ll. 48–57, 89, 93, 173, 748, 815, 821, 913, pp. 154, 155, 157, 173, 175, 177. Citing Jocelin’s own Furness background and the conclusions of Frances ArnoldForster that church dedications to Helena are disproportionately numerous in the north, Harbus suggests that the Vita’s patrons are most likely to have been located in northern England. This is a reasonable assumption but it does not seem to bear the weight of the evidence cited here. Harbus, Helena of Britain, pp. 33, 100; F. Arnold-Forster, Studies in Church Dedications or England’s Patron Saints, Vol. I (London, 1899), p. 188. Vita Helenae, ll. 933–1056, pp. 178–82. Although a similar comment is made concerning Kentigern’s alleged miracles in the Vita Kentegerni, it follows a section that emphasizes Glasgow’s status as the resting place of Kentigern and other saints. Ibid., ll. 905–9, p. 177; Vita Kentegerni, c. xlv, pp. 118–19, 241–2.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness Birstall (Yorks.); St Helen’s Bishopgate, London; St Helen’s Hospital, Derby; Elstow (Beds.); Felley (Notts.); St Helen’s, the Isle of Wight; Mattersey (Notts.); and Nunkeeling (Yorks.).9 Of these, several can be ruled out immediately on grounds of size, poverty and nationality. It seems unlikely that the Cluniac monastery of St Helen’s on the Isle of Wight, whose inhabitants numbered just two by 1295 (and were subsequently temporarily dispersed), could have justified the commissioning of such a text.10 Likewise, the poverty that affected the Benedictine priory of Nunkeeling by the late thirteenth century probably reflects longstanding problems concerning the convent’s finances, making it unlikely that the house would have had the economic base or the social connections necessary to commission this work.11 The obscurity that surrounds the history of the hospital of St Helen in Derby suggests that we should have similar reservations in relation to this community.12 Finally, not only does Birstall Priory appear to have been founded c.1219 – just outside the latest date of Jocelin’s known activity – but the Benedictine monks who first inhabited the cell came from the mother house of St Martin d’Auchy in

9

10 11

12

Harbus also suggests the canons of Darley Abbey as possible patrons of the work. However, although the canons had originally been based at the church of St Helen in Derby, they left both the site and its dedication in the mid-twelfth century. Even before the move to Darley, the community seem to have shunned the patronage of St Helena in favour of St Mary. Knowles and Hadcock believe that the hospital that replaced the community at Derby remained a dependency of the abbey, but this is far from certain (see below). D. Knowles and R. N. Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses: England and Wales, 2nd edn (London, 1971), pp. 156, 355; Harbus, Helena of Britain, p. 100; The Cartulary of Darley Abbey, Vol. I, ed. R. R. Darlington (Kendal, 1945), pp. iii–iv; A. Binns, Dedications of Monastic Houses in England and Wales 1066– 1216 (Woodbridge, 1989), p. 131. VCH Hamps. II, pp. 215–16. In 1281–82, Archbishop Wickwane prohibited the house from accepting any more nuns, presumably in an attempt to help manage the nunnery’s finances. In 1294, the poverty of the house forced Wickwane’s successor to plea for its exemption in the collection of the tenth. VCH Yorks. III, p. 120. A small community consisting of a master, brethren and poor brothers and sisters appears to have existed at the church of St Helen’s in Derby following the relocation of the site’s previous inhabitants to Darley Abbey in the mid-twelfth century. Although Knowles and Hadcock state that the hospital remained dependent on the canons, the struggle by the nearby nunnery of Kingsmead to gain freedom from Darley Abbey indicates otherwise. Care of the nuns had originally been granted to the abbot in a charter of c.1154x1159, however in c.1180 the bishop confirmed that the nuns now owed no obedience to the abbey. Instead, by the early thirteenth century, the nuns’ activities were supervised by the prior of the hospital. It seems unlikely that Kingsmead would have been happy with this arrangement if there had still been a significant link between the hospital and the canons of Darley. Very little is known about the hospital at Derby – after 1306, it disappears from historical record. Knowles and Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses, pp. 156, 355; S. Thompson, Women Religious: The Founding of English Nunneries After the Norman Conquest (Oxford, 1996), pp. 47–8.

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Locating the Text the diocese of Rouen. Considering the prominent British interests found in the text, they seem unlikely to have been Jocelin’s patrons.13 The emphasis on female religious life found in the text suggests that it may have been written at the instigation of a female community. The prologue is particularly keen to assert the value of female piety. We are reminded that Adam and Eve’s descendants include people of both sexes, from among whom came not only the patriarchs before the law or the prophets or just men under the law… but also women of virtue, namely the matrons of the era of the patriarchs and prophets, [who] shone forth into the world with the brightness of their wisdom and holiness.14

Jocelin then cites the examples of Sarah, Rebecca, Rachael, Deborah, Ruth, Judith, Esther, Elizabeth and Anne, three of whom receive further mention later in the text.15 Moving forward to the early Church, the prologue emphasizes that it was ‘not only strong men but also strong women, tender virgins and decrepit old women’ who suffered in the Lord’s name.16 In the main text, the discovery of the True Cross is presented in terms of the role of women in salvation history. We are told that Helena’s achievement restores that which Eve had lost: ‘the cross of Christ, the tree of life, which Helena sought and found, was the vehicle that effectually restored Eve and her posterity from punishment to Paradise, from degradation to heaven’.17 According to the text, the inventio and its consequences place Helena second only to the Virgin Mary in terms of spiritual contributions made by ‘the daughters of Eve’.18 The Vita’s emphasis on virginity also seems particularly suited for a female religious audience.19 Although the references to virginity in the text reflect the saint’s legend as well as a more general hagiographical topos, it must be noted that virginity as a concept remained largely feminized. Male virginity lacked the physical markers used to designate the integrity of women and meant that this aspect of male sexuality was usually characterized in terms of chas13 14

15 16 17

18 19

VCH Yorks. III, p. 387. ‘Non solum patriarche ante legem aut prophete aut ceteri iusti sub lege... uerum eciam mulieres uirtutum uidelicet patriarchales et prophetales matrone sapiencie et sanctitatis iubare mundo prefulserunt.’ Vita Helenae, ll. 6–10, pp. 152–3. Ibid., ll. 11–12, 90–3, 134–7, 854–6, pp. 153, 155, 156, 176. ‘non solum uirorum forcium uerum eciam mulierum et tenerarum uirginum ac decrepitarum uetularum’. Ibid., ll. 17–21, (ll. 17–19), p. 153. ‘crux Christi arbor uite quam Helena quesiuit et inuenit efficaciter uehiculum reductiuum Eue et posteritati eius de pena ad Paradysum de ceno ad celum’. Ibid., ll. 709–20, p. 172. ‘filiabus Eue’. Ibid., ll. 912–14, (l. 913), p. 177. For example, it is notable that Aldhelm’s late seventh century treatise, De virginitate, was addressed only to the nuns of Barking despite Barking’s status as a double house. K. Coyne Kelly, Performing Virginity and Testing Chastity in the Middle Ages (London, 2000), p. 95.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness tity and celibacy.20 Helena’s admiration for virginity is a theme throughout the work. We are told that after the death of Cole, she disguised her beauty and went into hiding as a servant girl in order to preserve her physical integrity.21 Although it is a strategy that ultimately fails, Helena’s reverence for virginity continues throughout her life. The Vita repeats a narrative found in Rufinus’s text and the Historia tripartita in which the saint ministers to a community of virgins in Jerusalem.22 Appended to this account is the statement that Helena established a large number of religious houses for virgins, fully endowing them so that their inhabitants would not have to stray outside the safety of their enclosure.23 In the following chapter, these foundations are compared to the wooden casks given to Solomon by the Queen of Sheba. Just as these were affected by neither corruption nor fire, so too the communities of virgins founded by Helena proved resistant to corruption and the flames of sexual love.24 In addition, the text also briefly alludes to St Katherine, the virgin-martyr par excellence in its introduction to Maxentius.25 That none of the twelfth-century histories mentioning Maxentius refer to Katherine at this point suggests that her inclusion in the Vita represents the tailoring of the text for a potentially female audience. However, the Vita is also careful to present Helena as a model for more matronly piety. Again, this is an emphasis that bore more relevance for a female than a male readership. It allowed the text to offer a path to salvation for those women who had lost their physical purity and would have struck a chord with the widowed noblewomen who frequently retired to religious houses in their later years. The interest in matronly piety is indicated by the 20

21 22 23 24

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However, it must be admitted that in Jocelin’s works, inversely, it is the male rather than the female protagonists who are virgins. J. Wogan-Browne, ‘The Virgin’s Tale’, in Feminist Readings in Middle English Literature: The Wife of Bath and All her Sect, ed. R. Evans and L. Johnson (London, 1994), p. 166; Coyne Kelly, Performing Virginity, pp. 3, 6, 93–4. Vita Helenae, ll. 115–19, p. 156. Ibid., ll. 784–90, p. 174; Rufinus, Historia ecclesiastica, X.viii, pp. 970–1; Rufinus, Church History, trans. Amidon, p. 18; Historia tripartita, II.xviii.14, p. 116. Vita Helenae, ll. 792–4, p. 174. I Kings 10. 11–12; II Chronicles 9. 10–11. The references to religious houses in the text provide only inconclusive evidence with regard to Jocelin’s patrons. Helena is said to have founded many monasteries of virgins, various xenodochia and to have instituted clerks and male religious in the restored churches of the Holy Land. The reiteration of the xenodochia theme later in the text may represent an interest in providing hospitality and medical care on the part of the Vita’s patrons, but since this was a basic function of many religious communities, this does little to establish a more specific identity for the patronizing house. It should also be noted that much of Helena’s interest in xenodochia represents a skilful incorporation of Ambrose’s stabularia narrative on the part of Jocelin (see p. 65). Vita Helenae, ll.  78–82, 117–19, 516–17, 731–6, 792–4, 807–11, 818–19, pp. 154–5, 156, 167, 172–3, 174, 175; Thompson, Women Religious, p. 38. Vita Helenae, ll. 189–92, p. 158.

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Locating the Text Biblical examples cited in the prologue, all of whom were famous wives, widows and/or mothers. The main text presents the ways in which such women could follow a spiritual life. The fasting and prayers of Helena’s later years allow her to attain martyrdom by ascesis, while her foundation of religious houses and the encouragement of virginity enable the saint spiritually to reclaim what she has physically lost: although she had herself at some time experienced the embraces of a man, nonetheless by loving the honour of virginity and by sustaining, indeed multiplying it, she will share in the reward of that virtue [i.e. virginity].26

In spite of her impure physical state, the Vita even presents Helena as a potential sponsa Christi. The paradox of this representation is evident in the text. Although Helena conveys the spiritual yearning for union with Christ that is an essential part of this topos, she is only to communicate these feelings through virginal intermediaries: With numerous prayers and holy desires she compelled the daughters of Jerusalem to announce to her beloved that she was weak with continuous love and longing both for release and to be with Christ so that she would be able to see the King Himself in his beauty.27

The presentation of other aspects of Helena’s sanctity may also be more appropriate for a female audience. Despite a number of typically masculine actions attributed to Helena by her contemporary legend – her period as regent of Britain, her judgement in a court case in Constantinople, her command of soldiers in Jerusalem – the text consistently emphasizes the more feminine aspects of the saint’s deeds.28 The early part of the Vita acknowledges Helena’s beauty as one of her most fundamental attributes. It is beauty that raises the saint from her role as stabularia to imperial consort, mother of the future emperor and, consequently, affords her the platform for her most famous achievements: The beauty of our Helena provided the occasion for the promotion of the Christian faith, the exaltation of the Church of God, the removal of idolatry, the oppression of the Jewish sect, the elimination of many heresies.29

26

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‘licet aliquando uiriles amplexus experta fuerit diligendo tamen decus uirgineum et sustenando immo multiplicando uirtutis eius preclare premio seu participio non carebit’. Ibid., ll. 790–7, 815–20, 854–6 (ll. 794–7), pp. 174, 175, 176 (p. 174). ‘Crebris oracionibus et sacris desideriis conpellebat filias Ierusalem ut annunciarent dilecto quia amore languebat continuo et cupiens dissolui et esse cum Christo ut ipsum uidere posset regem in decore suo.’ Ibid., ll. 856–8, p. 176. Ibid., ll. 165–74, 501–14, 585–9, pp. 157, 166–7, 169. ‘Helene nostre decor occasionem prebuit promocioni Christiane fidei, ecclesie Dei exaltacioni, ydolatrie euacuacioni, Iudaice secte depressioni, plurimarum heresium eliminacioni.’ Ibid., ll. 93–5, p. 155.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness Helena’s beauty is inextricably bound to her virginity and, following its loss, the text instead emphasizes the saint’s role as pious matron and holy queen. Through her intervention, Constantine rules justly: he advances the good and oppresses the bad, ‘obeying the excellent advice of his most wise mother’.30 Helena also encourages her son to promote the interests of the Church by founding and endowing churches, and by charging him to defend Christianity after her death.31 At two points in the text, Helena’s behaviour closely echoes that of Pope Silvester, presenting her as the pope’s female counterpart and Constantine’s spiritual mother.32 Indeed, Helena overshadows Silvester in her role of primary intercessor for her son. The saint’s discovery of the cross is said to provide the emperor with vital divine backing in his wars against the barbarian nations.33 This quasi-religious status is cemented shortly before Helena’s death when she blesses Constantine in the name of the Holy Trinity and commends him to heaven.34 The portrayal of Helena’s sanctity remains largely enclosed by a combination of gendered and hierarchical constraints. Although she actively encourages her son’s promotion of Christianity, most of her own actions take place within the domain provided by prior or subsequent male authorization.35 Even Helena’s activities in the Holy Land appear to have been previously ratified by the emperor: we are told that Helena’s journey to Jerusalem was made with the blessing of her son and that he opened the imperial coffers to finance the subsequent restoration programme undertaken by her.36 However, there is one area in which Helena’s actions appear independent: her intellec-

30

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33 34 35

36

‘sapientissime namque matris consiliis optimis obsecundans’. She also charges him to maintain this just rule after her death. Ibid., ll. 177–9, 868–72, (ll. 179), pp. 157, 176 (p. 157). Ibid., ll. 333–4, 346–50, 825–8, 872–9, pp. 161, 162, 175, 176. They are said jointly to encourage Constantine to build and beautify the churches of Rome and both also manage to exert influence on the Nicaean synod despite their inability to attend – Silvester is represented by a cardinal while Helena makes her concerns known to Constantine through official messengers. Ibid., ll. 333–4, 538–9, 547–51, pp. 161, 167, 168. Ibid., ll. 717–24, p. 172. Ibid., ll. 865–8, 879–81, pp. 176–7. After intervening in the court case concerning the Jew and his debtor, Helena makes a law that prohibits Jews and pagans from having jurisdiction over Christians. Constantine both celebrates and sanctions this judgement by rebuilding a city and naming it ‘Helienopolis’ in her honour. Helena’s independent actions in the public sphere are the adornment of Helenopolis and the institution of laws there, and her decision to provide Jerusalem with grain during a famine. It is notable that her desire to exhibit holy relics in Gaul goes unfulfilled because she does not receive Constantine’s consent. Ibid., ll. 501–18, 745–6, 843–7, pp. 166–7, 173, 175–6. As noted by Stacey Klein in relation to Cynewulf’s Elene. Vita Helenae, ll. 585–9, 741–4, pp. 169, 173; S. S. Klein, Ruling Women: Queenship and Gender in Anglo-Saxon Literature (Notre Dame, 2006), p. 82.

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Locating the Text tual accomplishments. Indeed, it is in this capacity that the text allows her to rise above a more feminized role and to attain ‘virago’ status: Moreover when this venerable virago had reached the age suitable for learning, her father sent her to a master to be instructed in letters... Indeed, she advanced in the studies of letters in such a way that after only a moderate passage of time, her mind seemed to be a school of liberal arts.37

Helena’s intellectual curiosity fuels the saint’s religious development. Her attempts to convert Constantine to Judaism after her own study of Jewish texts lead to a debate between Christians and Jews in Rome, which ends with Helena’s full conversion to Christianity.38 After this, the saint refocuses her scholarly attention on Christian works: Truly the blessed Helena brought all her study and practice to bear in the knowledge and performance of evangelical and apostolic doctrine, and thus her mind, which had once been a library of worldly philosophy, exercised itself in sacred matters and became a sacred repository of both testaments of Holy Scripture.39

However, it is Helena’s use of her learning to instruct her son in the Christian faith that makes it such a powerful attribute.40 It is also significant that the Vita limits Helena’s opportunities publicly to display this learning. While the original Inventio crucis narrative allows Helena to address the Jews three times and to debate separately with Judas, Jocelin’s text includes just one speech, which is given to the final assembly of the Jews and summarizes the themes of the first three speeches found in his source material.41

37

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‘Cum autem uirago uenerabilis annos habiles ad discendum attigisset, traditur a patre magistris litteris inbuenda... Ipsa uero ita proficiebat in studiis litterarum ut aliquanto tempore [emenso] pectus eius liberalium arcium uideretur esse gignasium.’ (The substitution of ‘emenso’ for ‘emerso’ in both Harbus’s edition and the Gotha manuscript makes more sense in this context.) That she is also said to excel above all others in the playing of musical instruments and the singing and composing of songs, suggests Jocelin had the quadrivium in mind. Vita Helenae, ll. 57–60, p. 154; Gotha, MS Memb. I 81 fol. 204rb. Vita Helenae, ll. 280–318, pp. 160–1. ‘Beata uero Helena euangelice et apostolice doctrine totum suum adhibuit studium dinoscende et adimplende exercicium, et sic pectus eius quod quondam mundane philosophie fuerat armariolum iam usu sacraciori effectum est sacre scripture sacrarium immo utriusque testamenti reconditorium.’ Ibid., ll. 328–31, p. 161. Ibid., ll. 331–3. Klein noted that this narrative can also be gendered as feminine since Helena is pitted against what is presented as an all-male faith sustained through a masculine intellectual tradition. The Vita’s restriction of Helena’s public voice contrasts with the emphasis placed on the debates between virgins and their pagan aggressors found in virgin-martyr texts. However, this appears to be dependent on the different contexts of the debates (Helena deals with Jews rather than pagans) and

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness Despite Helena’s momentous actions in the Vita, the representation of her sanctity in the text remains carefully within the boundaries of gendered soical norms. The text lays emphasis on her feminine virtues: her virginal beauty, her maternal instruction, her queenly intercession and advice. This characterization is partly a consequence of her earthly status. Helena’s loss of virginity and marriage symbolize her submission to temporal hierarchies and her sanctity is made to reflect this. Consequently, Helena’s story presented contemporaries with an example of female spiritual achievement attained within a social hierarchy that was familiar to them. Although it would be misleading to gender the intended reader as female just because Helena’s sanctity is largely feminized, it is notable that the saint’s only explicitly masculinized trait, that of private study, was one of the most important occupations of cloistered communities.42 In short, it seems that in terms of imitatio, the Helena of Jocelin’s Vita offered more to a female audience than to a male one. If the Vita was written primarily for a female audience, then this leaves only two houses remaining on the list of English communities dedicated to St Helena: the Abbey of Elstow and St Helen’s, Bishopgate.43 In terms of English nunneries, the Benedictine house of Elstow was at the wealthier end of the scale and, from the thirteenth century, it seems to have been considered and treated as a royal foundation.44 Although the dual dedication of the house to the Blessed Virgin Mary and St Helena meant that it was generally referred to only by the former patron, the belief that the house’s name derived from ‘Helen-stow’ makes this emphasis on Mary less striking.45 There certainly

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the greater freedom of action accorded to virgin-martyrs compared to that allowed to holy matrons. Vita Helenae, ll. 603–24, pp. 169–70; Inventio crucis, §§4–6, 8, pp. 155–6, 157, 258–61, 263–5; Klein, Ruling Women, p. 84; J. Wogan-Browne, Saints’ Lives and Women’s Literary Culture c.1150–1300: Virginity and its Authorizations (Oxford, 2001), pp. 106–7. It was also an occupation that contemporary anchoresses and noblewomen were encouraged to pursue. Wogan-Browne, Saints’ Lives, p. 32. The house of Augustinian canons at Felley was founded c.1151 on the site of a hermitage. The Gilbertine house of Mattersey was originally founded c.1185 for six canons. Although it remains possible that either of these communities commissioned the Vita, my reading of the text suggests it is unlikely. VCH Notts. II, pp. 109, 140; Binns, Dedications, pp. 133, 171. Knowles and Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses, p. 258; D. N. Bell, What Nuns Read: Books and Libraries in Medieval English Nunneries, Cistercian Studies Series 158 (Kalamazoo, 1995), p. 10; VCH Beds. I, p. 353. The Domesday Book referred to them as the ‘nuns of St Mary’ at ‘Elnestou’, while a charter dated 1124x1135 was granted to ‘the Church of S. Mary of Helenstowe’. Likewise, both Gervase of Canterbury and Abbess Cecily de Chanvill noted that the abbey of ‘Helenstoe’ or ‘Helenestow’ was dedicated to St Mary. S. R. Wigram, Chronicles of the Abbey of Elstow, with Some Notes on the Architecture of the Church by M. J. C. Buckley (London, 1885), pp. 3, 14, 15, 17; VCH Beds. I, p. 353, 353 n.9; Gervase of Canterbury, ‘Mappa mundi’, in The Historical Works of Gervase of Canterbury, Vol. II: The Minor Works Comprising the Gesta Regum with its Continuation, the

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Locating the Text appears to have been a strong interest in St Helena at the abbey. Henry II granted the house the right to hold a fair for four days beginning on the Vigil of the Invention of the Holy Cross which, although not Helena’s actual feast day, was one with obvious relevance to the saint.46 In addition, there is clear evidence that the nuns of Elstow were not only Latin-literate but had some amount of purchasing power in this period. Hugh, bishop of Lincoln (1186–1200), is said to have sent a young Robert of Noyon to be taught letters at Elstow, while in 1191–92, Abbess Cecily de Chanvill commissioned a volume of Latin theological works ‘for the instruction and advancement of her convent and of others who consult it’.47 This not only indicates that members of the Elstow community were educated to a high level but also shows that the house was actively commissioning texts.48 It is also possible to establish a potential link between the abbey of Elstow and the other monastic house to commission a work by Jocelin. Elstow was founded by Judith, niece of William the Conqueror and widow of Earl Waltheof, in c.1078. Patronage passed to Judith’s daughter, Matilda, from Matilda to her husband, King David, and thereafter to the Scottish royal house.49 Earl Waltheof’s earldom of Huntingdon also formed part of this inheritance and, after its forfeiture in 1174, was officially restored to the Scots and King William’s brother, Earl David, in 1185. Unlike other houses in the honour, the Scottish patronage of Elstow was not token – although, admittedly, it does not seem that Earl David (d. 1219) can be regarded as their major benefactor.50 The community of St Helen’s, Bishopgate must also be considered for the role of Jocelin’s patron.51 The church of St Helen, which had stood on the site since the reign of Henry II at least, had been granted to the dean and chapter of St Paul’s, who gave its patronage to William, son of William the Goldsmith. Permission was granted to William to found a nunnery there, probably c.1212 (certainly before 1216), on the condition that newly elected prioresses were to be presented to the dean and chapter, would swear fealty to them and would pay half a mark from the church as a pension.52 Accommodating twenty-six

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Actus Pontificum, and the Mappa Mundi by Gervase the Monk of Canterbury Edited from MS C.C.C. 438, ed. W. Stubbs, RS 73 (London, 1880), c. xxi, p. 432; Bell, What Nuns Read, p. 137. Wigram, Chronicles of Elstow, pp. 42–3. Bell, What Nuns Read, pp. 39, 137; Adam of Eynsham, Magna Vita sancti Hugonis, The Life of St Hugh of Lincoln, ed. and trans. D. L. Douie and D. H. Farmer, 2 vols., Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 1985), I, III.xiv, pp. 132–3. Bell, What Nuns Read, p. 63. Wigram, Chronicles of Elstow, pp. 1, 15, 27; Thompson, Women Religious, p. 221. K. J. Stringer, Earl David of Huntingdon, 1152–1219: A Study in Anglo-Scottish History (Edinburgh, 1985), pp. 28, 36, 109, 142. As suggested by Robert Bartlett. Harbus, Helena of Britain, p. 100, 100 n.51. VCH London I, p. 457, 457 n.1; Knowles and Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses, p. 260.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness nuns, it was a relatively large house and although not among the five richest nunneries in England, it was on the level immediately below.53 St Helen’s, Bishopgate would certainly appear to have had the financial resources necessary to fund a project such as the Vita Helenae, while the volume itself may have been considered an appropriate work to present to the newly established house. In addition, the reputation of the nuns and their devotion to St Helena was strong enough for Edward I to grant the house a piece of the True Cross taken during his Welsh campaigns in 1285.54

The sources An analysis of the availability of Jocelin’s source materials provides further insights into the context of the Vita. In contrast to Jocelin’s other works, there is no suggestion that the patrons of the text had any link with St Helena other than the dedication of their community. Although there was clearly more than a passing interest in the saint, the house does not appear to have been a major cult centre and is, therefore, unlikely to have possessed a large store of oral or written records documenting Helena’s activities. The community may well have owned a couple of the works accessed by Jocelin but it is unlikely to have had the full range of texts apparently used in the Vita’s composition. Indeed, the range of Jocelin’s source material sets the Vita Helenae apart from his other works. Whereas it is not implausible to suggest that the Vita Kentegerni, the Vita Waldevi and probably the Vita Patricii were written in a single location using the materials directly available, as we shall see, there were few houses in this period that possessed a library as extensive as the one potentially required by Jocelin for the composition of the Vita Helenae. It certainly seems unlikely that these works reflect the holdings of a contemporary Cistercian house.55 Admittedly, the evidence for English Cistercian libraries is far from conclusive: only a small proportion of library contents remain and we have only the library catalogues of three Cistercian houses to indicate what we have lost.56 Although the paucity of evidence makes it difficult to generalize, Cistercian libraries of the late Anglo-Norman period seem to have reflected both the comparative novelty of the Order and its austere character. Studies by David Bell and Christopher Cheney have noted the largely theological holdings of these libraries, which were geared

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Knowles and Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses, p. 260; Bell, What Nuns Read, p. 10. VCH London I, p. 457. The use of the term library here refers to the overall book collections of an individual house. Only the catalogues of Flaxley, Meaux and Rievaulx remain. Libraries of the Cistercians, ed. Bell, Z7, Z14, Z19, Z20, pp. 16–26, 35–82, 89–137.

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Locating the Text towards lectio divina rather than academic study.57 There also seems to have been a notable disparity in the holdings of individual houses. The late twelfth century library catalogues from Rievaulx provide evidence of a relatively extensive library, a fact that attests to the literary interests of the house in the late Anglo-Norman period. It cannot be a coincidence that at least three notable writers emerged from the house at this time: Aelred, Walter Daniel and Matthew of Rievaulx.58 However, in communities without such active literary interests, libraries may have been smaller with a more restricted range of material. The difference between the size of the book collections at Rievaulx and another Cistercian house, Flaxley, exemplifies this point. At the end of the twelfth century, Rievaulx’s catalogues listed 225 books. In the early thirteenth century, Flaxley had just 80.59 Bearing these caveats in mind, with no extant library catalogue and only two later medieval books remaining from the Furness library, there is little that can be safely said about the abbey’s book collection in Jocelin’s time.60 57

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Libraries of Cistercians, ed. Bell, pp. 15, 35; C. R. Cheney, ‘English Cistercian Libraries: The First Century’, in Medieval Texts and Studies, ed. C. R. Cheney, (Oxford, 1973), pp. 328–45; ‘The Books of Meaux Abbey’, ed. D. N. Bell, Analecta Cisterciensia 40 (1984), 28–9. The character of monastic libraries could be strongly influenced by individual interests within the community, whether this related to the book-gathering activities of a bibliophile abbot, such as Abbot Alexander of Meaux (1197–1210), or the volumes that might accompany the entry of a new brother, such as Dean Hugh of York who brought various valuable books to Fountains Abbey in 1134. Likewise, the Buildwas library inherited the teaching books of a late twelfth century Parisian master, Robert Amiclas. Cheney, ‘English Cistercian Libraries’, p. 330; J. M. ­Sheppard, The Buildwas Books: Book Production, Acquisition and Use at an English Cistercian Monastery, 1165c.1400, Oxford Bibliographical Society Publications Third Series 2 (1997), pp. lvi– lviii; Thomas of Burton, Chronica monasterii de Melsa a fundatione usque annum 1396 auctore Thoma de Burton, abbate, Vol. I, ed. E. A. Bond, RS 43 (London, 1866), p. 326; Libraries of Cistercians, ed. Bell, p. 34. Libraries of the Cistercians, ed. Bell, Z7, Z19, pp. 16–25, 89–121. This does not include the Furness Coucher Book, the abbey’s cartulary. The remaining books are: Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Jones 48 (s.xiv in) and Urbana, University of Illinois Library, 132 (s.xiv ex). David Bell recently added another manuscript, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, lat. 5370, to the list of extant Furness books, presumably based on the attribution given by the eighteenth-century library catalogue. However, after examination of this manuscript, I believe that the partially preserved ‘Liber de St Marie Fulcordie…’ found on the final folio refers not to Furness (Furnesiensis) but to the Cistercian house of Foucarmont (Fulcardimons) in France. Today Furness Abbey is noted for the two large book cupboards that stand on either side of the entrance to the chapter house, which was rebuilt at some point after the 1220s. While this may suggest an increasingly extensive book and muniments collection, it should be noted that the book cupboard standing between the chapterhouse and the south transept of the abbey church has taken the usual place of the sacristy and may have had a dual function. N. R. Ker, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books, Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks 3, 2nd edn (London, 1964), p. 89; N. R. Ker and A. G. Watson,

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness It is possible that the local interest in the cult of Helena, seen in the dedication of both a chapel and a well to the saint in nearby Dalton-in-Furness, meant that the Furness library held more than the average amount of Helena material.61 However, wells dedicated to Helena were not uncommon and the abbey records show no particular interest in the saint.62 The holdings of Buildwas, which, like Furness, was a former Savigniac house, may provide some idea of the kind of works that constituted Furness’s lost library. Jennifer Sheppard’s work on the Buildwas book collection has identified 49 extant volumes, making it the largest group of books to survive from any English Cistercian house.63 These books reflect an almost continuous campaign of book production and acquisition from 1167 until the early to mid-thirteenth century which, from even the earliest phase, included an interest in recent historical works such as William of Malmesbury’s Gesta regum Anglorum and William of Newburgh’s Historia rerum Anglicarum.64 Although the predominance of patristic texts among the Buildwas books is undeniable, there is no reason to assume that the historical interests of the Buildwas community differed from those in other Cistercian houses. Indeed, Bell’s comparison of the different types of material found in the library catalogues of Rievaulx and Meaux, the Augustinian house of Llanthony and the Benedictine house of Peterborough suggests that the Cistercian interest in historical texts was not dissimilar to that in other houses during the medieval period – indeed, in this comparison Rievaulx had the highest proportion of historical texts.65 However, Cistercian historical interests appear to have had a largely British focus.66 Cheney’s survey of 240 pre-1230 extant manuscripts of Cistercian provenance noted the presence of Gildas, Nennius, Bede and the twelfthcentury writers William of Malmesbury, Henry of Huntingdon and Roger of Howden, while Bell’s more recent survey placed Geoffrey of Monmouth’s

61 62 63 64 65 66

Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books, Supplement to the Second Edition, Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks 15 (London, 1987), p. 37; Bibliothèque Nationale, France, Catalogus codicum manuscriptorum bibliothecae regiae, pars tertia, tomus quartus (Paris 1744), pp. 110–11; F. Madan, A summary catalogue of western manuscripts in the Bodleian Library at Oxford which have not hitherto been catalogued in the quarto series, Vol. III (collections received during the eighteenth century) (London, 1895), pp. 41–2; D. Bell, An Index of Authors and Works in Cistercian Libraries in Great Britain, Cistercian Studies Series 130 (Kalamazoo, 1992), p. 4; Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, lat. 5370, fol. 135v; D. Robinson et al., The Cistercian Abbeys of Great Britain: Far from the Concourse of Men (London, 2002), p. 117; Knowles, Monastic Order in England, p. 527. Graham and Collingwood, ‘Patron Saints’, p. 21. G. Jones, ‘Holy Wells and the Cult of St Helen’, Landscape History: Journal of the Society for Landscape Studies 8 (1986), 59. Sheppard, Buildwas Books, p. xlix. Ibid., pp. l–lii. ‘Books of Meaux Abbey’, ed. Bell, p. 29. As similarly concluded by Freeman, Narratives of a New order, pp. 104–16.

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Locating the Text Historia regum Britanniae in the libraries of at least three houses in this period.67 In contrast, the wider histories of the late antique and early medieval period used by Jocelin are less well-represented: Forde had a copy of Rufinus’s Historia ecclesiastica, Bordesley held Cassiodorus’s Historia tripartita and Rievaulx’s library contained a copy of Orosius’s Historia adversus paganos.68 That some of the works used by Jocelin during the composition of the Vita Helenae were not readily available in English Cistercian libraries seems to be supported by evidence from the extant library catalogues.69 Flaxley’s early thirteenth century library contained none of the works used by Jocelin for the composition of the Vita Helenae.70 The more extensive holdings recorded in Rievaulx’s late twelfth century catalogues are more promising but, again, list only a handful of Jocelin’s sources. The library held three of Jocelin’s earlier texts: Orosius’s Historia aduersus paganos (as noted in the extant works above), the Vita Silvestri and, if Bell’s identification is correct, Rufinus’s Historia ecclesiastica.71 Of Jocelin’s later sources, only two appear to be present: Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum and, unsurprisingly, Aelred’s Lamentatio Davidis Regis Scocie, which was usually transmitted with De Genealogia regum Angliae.72 Although compiled around two centuries later than Jocelin’s period, the 1396 inventory of the library at Meaux includes a variety of works that seem to have been known to Jocelin and which may represent the holdings of a much earlier period, if the book-gathering interests of Jocelin’s contemporary Abbot Alexander (1197–1210) extended in this direction.73 With regard to the Helena material, the holdings are similar to those at Rievaulx: the Vita Silvestri, the Lamentatio Davidis by Aelred of Rievaulx and Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum.74 In addition, the Meaux catalogue also lists an Inventio crucis and a ‘Brutus’, a name often given to Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum

67

68 69

70 71 72 73 74

Geoffrey’s text appears to have been present in Jervaulx, Margam and Kirkstall (where it was combined with Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum). Cheney, ‘English Cistercian Libraries’, pp. 329, 339; Bell, Index of Authors, pp. 64, 70. Bell, Index of Authors, pp. 53, 59, 108. The exact identification of individual works from the title listed in these catalogues is not always possible. It is also often the case that the work listed in the entry represents only the first or most significant text in the volume, leaving the other contents of the manuscript unrecorded. We are fortunate in the unusual visibility of the Vita Silvestri – with a feast day on 31 December, it is generally the first text in vitae collections ordered according to the calendar year. Libraries of Cistercians, ed. Bell, Z19.170, p. 114. Libraries of Cistercians, ed. Bell, Z7, pp. 17–26. Ibid., Z19.112, 119a, 170, Z20.118, 119, 159, pp. 106, 107, 114, 130, 133. There appear to have been two copies of each work. Ibid., Z19.43b, 55b, 75g, 114, pp. 97, 98, 100, 106. See above p. 239 n.58. Libraries of Cistercians, ed. Bell, Z14.267b, 269b, 291, pp. 69, 70, 74.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness Britanniae – although it is possible that this refers to a Latin version of the Brut text.75 Again, while this attests to the wider availability of a handful of Jocelin’s sources for the Vita Helenae, the list is not overly impressive. By the time of Jocelin’s latest securely dated work, the Vita Waldevi (1207x1214), even the oldest English Cistercian house had not yet reached its centenary. The restricted scope of these Cistercian library holdings reflects their comparative youth. In contrast, Benedictine libraries often represented the fruit of centuries of intellectual inquiry. The library catalogues from these houses, which, admittedly, survive in greater numbers, provide evidence of book collections with a slightly different character to those of their Cistercian contemporaries. Three of Jocelin’s earlier sources for the Vita Helenae were apparently not uncommon in Benedictine libraries of this period. Rufinus’s Historia ecclesiastica repeatedly appears in book lists from English Benedictine houses, often in the company of Orosius’s Historia adversus paganos and Cassiodorus’s historical compilation, the Historia tripartita.76 These three works were joined by a Vita Silvestri in Durham’s late twelfth century library.77 In contrast, the appearance of texts by more contemporary historians is less frequent. As well as a number of other works, Abbot Benedict (1177–93) ordered a copy of Aelred’s De Genealogia regum Anglorum to supplement Peterborough’s library.78 Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia seems to have been present in the libraries of Norwich and Reading, while Rochester’s library contained a copy of William of Malmesbury’s Gesta regum Anglorum.79 Glastonbury appears to

75 76

77

78 79

Ibid., Z14.170b, 268c, 288a, pp. 57, 70, 73. These texts appear in catalogues written within a century either side of Jocelin’s latest securely dated work: Bury St Edmunds, Crowland, Peterborough, Reading, Rochester, Whitby and Worcester. The texts written by Orosius and Rufinus also appear in the catalogue from Bermondsey, which was a Cluniac house before 1399. English Benedictine Libraries: The Shorter Catalogues, ed. R. Sharpe, et al., Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues 4 (London, 1996), B10.24, 86, B13.23a, 239, 240, B24.75, 76, B71.80, 126a, B77.55, 58a (repeated in B79.73, 96), B109.18, B115.2, 48, pp. 25, 30, 55, 85, 123, 432, 440, 483, 484, 506, 509, 635, 654, 658; Peterborough Abbey, ed. K. Friis-Jensen and J. M. W. Willoughby, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues 8 (London, 2001), BP2.7, 9, pp. 8, 9. The catalogue lists an ‘Ecclesiastica historia’ followed by an ‘Orosius’ which probably refer to Rufinus’s text and the Historia adversus paganos. Catalogi veteres librorum ecclesiae cathedralis Dunelm, Catalogues of the library of Durham Cathedral, ed. B. Botfield, SS 7 (London, 1838), pp. 2, 3; R. A. B. Mynors, Durham Cathedral Manuscripts to the End of the Twelfth Century (Oxford, 1939), p. 2. Peterborough Abbey, ed. Friis-Jensen and Willoughby, BP3.42b, pp. 15, 20–1. A volume that contains both texts is also present in the catalogue of Bermondsey Priory. Rochester also seems to have held a copy of the Pseudo-Isidorean Decretals, as did Whitby Abbey. This text contained a version of the Constitutum Constantini. English Benedictine Libraries, ed. Sharpe et al., B10.47, B57.8, B71.50b, B77.56, B79. 97, 120 (probably repeated in B81.19), B109.26, pp. 27, 294–5, 427, 483, 509, 512, 531, 636.

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Locating the Text have been rather unusual in holding both.80 The abbey’s 1247/48 library catalogue also shows itself to be notable in relation to Jocelin’s source materials.81 Glastonbury’s library contained Orosius’s Historia aduersus paganos in both Latin and English, a Vita Silvestri and the Liber pontificalis (a text also held at Rochester).82 The Glastonbury catalogue also reveals the presence of some much more unusual works: an ‘Inuentio et exaltacio crucis’ and a ‘conuersionem Helene matris Constantini’.83 The late twelfth or early thirteenth century catalogue believed to record the holdings of the Augustinian canons at Bridlington also includes a number of titles that were used by Jocelin.84 The usual suspects from the Benedictine catalogues make an appearance: Rufinus’s Historia ecclesiastica (apparently occurring twice), the Historia tripartita and Orosius’s Historia adversus paganos.85 With reference to the twelfth-century historians, the titles in the catalogue indicate the presence of Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae and a ‘Historia Anglorum’ which might refer to either William of Malmesbury’s Gesta regum Anglorum or to Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica.86 While, again, it remains impossible to say how representative this was of Augustinian libraries as a whole, it does provide another possibility for Jocelin’s research. The early fourteenth century Franciscan Registrum Anglie de libris doctorum et auctorum veterum, a catalogue of the holdings of ninety British libraries according to author, provides further evidence for the distribution of Jocelin’s source materials.87 Although there are questions regarding its accuracy – apparently common titles, such as the Historia triparita and Orosius’s Historia adversus paganos seem to be seriously under-represented on the list – it does provide some indication of general library holdings.88 The two entries for the Historia ecclesiastica (it is listed under both Eusebius and Rufinus) note its presence at one Cistercian house (Woburn), two Augustinian houses (St Andrews and Kenilworth) and four Benedictine houses (Battle, Eynsham, 80

81 82 83 84 85 86 87

88

B39.191 records a ‘Brutus’ which may refer to Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae. English Benedictine Libraries, ed. Sharpe et al., B39.191, 192, 197b, p. 191. Ibid., B39, p. 167. Ibid., B39.186, 200, 222, B78.25 (repeated in B79.135), pp. 190, 192, 194, 496, 514. Ibid., B39.73f, 245b, pp. 175, 196–7. The Libraries of the Augustinian Canons, ed. T. Webber and A. G. Watson, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues 6 (London, 1998), A4, p. 9. Ibid., A4.31, 32, 37, 58, pp. 13, 16. Ibid., A4.54, 75, 76, pp. 15, 17. The Registrum originally intended to document the patristic holdings of Furness’s library. However, like many of the other northern houses on the list, no report was made. Registrum Anglie de libris doctorum et auctorum veterum, ed. R. H. Rouse, M. A. Rouse and R. A. B. Mynors, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues (London, 1991), pp. xiii, 6. Ibid., nos. 14.1, 79.1, pp. 133, 218–19.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness Canterbury and Nunnaminster), roughly corresponding to the pattern of holdings outlined above.89 The Registrum also suggests that some of Jocelin’s source materials may have been comparatively rare. Only Salisbury Cathedral and the Cistercian house of Forde are listed as holding copies of Ambrose’s De obitu Theodosii.90 Flodoard’s Historia Remensis is conspicuous by its absence and Rodney Thomson’s work on William of Malmesbury’s sources suggests that Lactantius’s De mortibus persecutorum was also a text uncommon in England.91 There remains an outside possibility that Jocelin stayed in Furness during the composition of the Vita Helenae and was able to borrow some of the texts required. Earlier in the twelfth century, Geffrei Gaimar had thanked his female patron for obtaining a copy of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia from Walter Espec – a loan which allowed him to complete his work.92 Likewise, a miracle attributed to Godric of Finchale incidentally records how the monks of Fountains Abbey made a copy of the Vita S. Godrici from a manuscript lent to them by Durham during this period.93 A statute of the 1199 General Chapter provides further evidence for the lending of books: the abbot of the English house of Stratford Langthorne was accused of withholding a volume belonging to the abbot of Valasse, a Cistercian house in Normandy.94 However, the sheer number of works that Jocelin seems to have consulted, combined with the apparent purpose of research rather than enlargement of the Furness library, suggests that he went to the texts rather than waiting for the texts to come to him. Indeed, the evidence indicates that the commission to write the Vita Helenae involved a degree of itinerant research that took Jocelin to a variety of libraries. Such research trips find parallels in the earlier activities of Orderic Vitalis and William of Malmesbury, both of whom visited the libraries of other houses in order to collect information for their historical works.95 It does not seem implausible to suggest that Jocelin’s research was carried out in libraries that were situated reasonably near the commissioning house. In terms of textual resources, the abbey of Elstow seems to be the less well-placed of the two most probable patrons. It was located close to two Augustinian priories, the houses of Newnham and Caldwell, and within 89

90 91 92 93 94 95

The Premonstratensian house of Welbeck owned a copy of Rufinus’s Historia ecclesiastica in the late twelfth century, which again seems to attest to the relatively common nature of this text. Ibid., nos. 13.6, 24.3, pp. 132, 152; Libraries of Cistercians, ed. Bell, P9.29, pp. 255, 258. Registrum, ed. Rouse, Rouse and Mynors, no. 3.55, p. 70. Thomson, William of Malmesbury, p. 42, 42 n.15. Geffrei Gaimar, Estoire des Engleis, ll. 6436–59, pp. 348–51. Reginald of Durham, Vita Godrici, c. ccxii, pp. 466–8. Twelfth-Century Statutes, ed. Waddell, 1199/17, pp. 427–8. Thomson, William of Malmesbury, pp. 73–74; Orderic Vitalis, Ecclesiastical History, I, 25–7.

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Locating the Text a reasonable distance of the Cistercian houses of Warden and Woburn, as well as the twelfth-century Benedictine priory of Beaulieu and the Gilbertine house of Chicksands.96 Among the extant remnants of Warden’s library are contemporary copies of works by Cassiodorus, Ambrose and Aelred, but there is no evidence that it contained works consulted during the composition of the Vita.97 There is also no sign of an older, well-established library that could have provided much of Jocelin’s earlier materials. In contrast, the house of St Helen’s, Bishopgate was situated within easy distance of several potentially well-stocked libraries. The two oldest foundations in London, Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s Cathedral, are likely to have had extensive holdings. Indeed, there is a late twelfth century copy of Rufinus among the remaining books of St Paul’s.98 The Augustinian priory on Aldgate may also have held some useful works. The house had been granted a piece of the True Cross by Henry I and the possession of such a relic may have resulted in a search for narratives relating to its history.99 In addition, the first prior of the house was a Kentishman named Norman (d. 1147) who famously introduced the Augustinian rule to England at the Priory of St Botolph in Colchester.100 Although it is somewhat speculative, it is possible that this connection with Colchester resulted in the presence of works relating to a British-born Helena in the priory’s library. The Liber revelationum, a large compilation of visionary material written between 1200 and 1206 by the prior of the house, Peter of Cornwall, provides some indication of the library’s possible contents. In terms of Jocelin’s interests, it is notable that the Liber includes excerpts from the Vita Silvestri and Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia as well as accounts of the exaltation of the cross and the vision of Constantine.101

The historical context However, despite the identification of potential patrons for the work and the kind of libraries to which Jocelin had access, the question of why the text was commissioned remains unanswered. It is clear that the Vita Helenae differs from Jocelin’s other works in terms of purpose. The Vita does not seem to have been written to promote the site of a specific cult nor did it serve openly to align its patrons more closely with a particular community or interest. 96 97 98 99 100 101

VCH Beds I, p. 351, map facing p. 346. Ker, Medieval Libraries, pp. 193–4. Ibid., p. 121. The Cartulary of Holy Trinity Aldgate, ed. G. A. J. Hodgett, London Record Society 7 (Leicester, 1971), App. c. xiii, p. 230. Ibid., App. cc. iv, vi-x, pp. xiv, 224–8. M. R. James and C. Jenkins, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Lambeth Palace (Cambridge, 1930), pp. 79, 82, 83; C. J. Holdsworth, ‘Eleven Visions Connected with the Cistercian Monastery of Stratford Langthorne’, Citeaux 13 (1962), 186–7.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness Indeed, Jocelin’s reticence concerning his patrons suggests that any underlying messages transmitted by the text were not intended to be associated with the commissioning house. Instead the themes and interests that pervade the work seem to reflect a broader context. The anxiety over the Jewish presence in Christian society, the interest in the Holy Land and the discourse on Christian kingship correspond so closely with some of the major issues of the period that it is hard not to read the text as a mirror for these wider concerns. The Vita Helenae contains a strong and prolonged anti-Jewish message that distinguishes it from Jocelin’s other works.102 It is a message that largely reflects the contents of the Vita’s sources. No additional anti-Jewish material has been inserted into Jocelin’s account of the debate between the Jews and the Christians in Rome, which is based on a narrative found in the Vita Silvestri.103 Similarly, the greater part of the narrative concerning the discovery of the cross reiterates that found in the Inventio crucis text.104 However, Jocelin’s comments on the setting of some of the crucifixion relics in the imperial diadem appear to be unique to his work: With wonderful skill and holy craft, the wise and holy woman raised to glory that which the wicked deceit of the Jews intended and the rage of the gentiles devised for the culmination of Christ’s punishment and abuse. And because anyone who spurned to bow his head and to worship the emperor crowned with the diadem was considered guilty of offending the royal majesty, now even the Jews and Gentiles had to worship the stigmata of the Lord’s passion against their will or be punished. A beautiful spectacle appeared: as the sons and daughters of Zion, that is the Church, were coming out, they saw King Constantine in the diadem in which his mother had crowned him in days of solemnity and with joy in his heart that they could rejoice in the Lord, and the Jews and the Gentiles who looked on with uncircumcised heart and ears were confounded by the Lord or were converted to life to rule with the Lord.105

102

103 104 105

The only other text to mention Judaism is the Vita Waldevi. However, the focus of this narrative is not the potential Jewish conversion of a laybrother but his visions of the other world. Vita Waldevi AASS, §§100–5, pp. 271D-2D; Vita Waldevi, pp. 322–8. Vita Helenae, ll. 293–318, pp. 160–1; ‘Vita Silvestri’, ed. Mombritius, pp. 514–29. Vita Helenae, ll. 603–717, pp. 169–72; Inventio crucis, pp. 154–61, 257–71. ‘Miro satis artificio sanctaque calliditate mulier sancta et prudens sublimauit ad gloriam quod Iudeorum ficcio maligna meditabatur et machinabatur rabies Gentilis ad Christi consummari contumeliam et penam. Et quia reus regie maiestatis censebatur quisquis capud flectere et adorare imperatorem diademate fastigatum aspernabatur, nunc eciam adoraret inuitus uterque Iudeus et Gentiles dominice passionis stigmata ne puniretur. Perpulcrum spectaculum apparuit ut egredientes filii et filie Syon, id est ecclesie uiderunt regem Constantinum in dyademate quo coronauit eum mater sua in diebus sollempnitatis et letiticie cordis eius ut letarentur in domino, aspicerent Gentiles et Iudei incircumcisi corde at auribus confunderentur a domino, aut ad uitam conuerterentur regnaturi cum

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Locating the Text Likewise, because there is no extant exemplar for the narrative concerning the Jew and the Christian debtor, it is unclear whether Jocelin’s characterization of the Jew as ‘pitiless’, ‘merciless and inflexible’ represents the author’s source material or his own innovation.106 The presence of this anti-Jewish discourse certainly fits with the mood of the times. The late twelfth century was a period of particular turbulence in terms of Judeo-Christian relations in England. Following the claim that a little boy, William, had been murdered by the Jews in Norwich in 1144, similar accusations were made in Gloucester (1168), Bury St Edmunds (1181), Bristol (1183), and Winchester (1192).107 In 1189 and 1190 a wave of anti-Jewish violence spread through England, affecting Jewish communities in a number of towns and cities including London, Norwich, Lincoln and, most notoriously, York.108 Tensions remained high into the early thirteenth century. In 1202, Jews were suspected of the murders of children in Lincoln and Bedford, while 1215 saw the looting and destruction of Jewish homes and synagogues in London.109 The fear of Jewish influence was not confined to the urban centres in which the Jews of England lived.110 Jocelin’s story of the visionary laybrother at Melrose who came to prefer Judaism to Christianity as well as the claim in the abbey’s chronicle that the 1216 sack of Berwick had been partly directed by Jews – despite the absence of any known Jewish settlement north of Newcastle during this period – attests to the wider spread of these fears.111 Indeed, concerns over the Jewish presence in Christian society were

106 107 108

109 110 111

domino.’ Ambrose also discusses the Jews in relation to the diadem but the interests of his passage are somewhat different. Vita Helenae, ll. 769–89, pp. 173–4; Ambrose, ‘De obitu Theodosii’, ed. Faller, §49, p. 397; Ambrose, ‘Oration on the Death of Theodosius’, trans. Liebeschuetz and Hill, pp. 200–1. ‘inmitis’, ‘inmisericordem et inflexibilem’. Ibid., ll. 485–514 (ll. 497, 501), pp. 165–7 (pp. 165, 166). C. Roth, A History of the Jews in England, 3rd edn (Oxford, 1964), pp. 9, 13, 21–2. Incidents also occurred in King’s Lynn, Stamford, Bury St Edmunds, Colchester, Thetford, Ospringe and Dunstable. Roth, History of the Jews, pp. 19–25, 21 n.4; R. B. Dobson, The Jews of Medieval York and the Massacre of March 1190, Borthwick Papers 45 (York, 1974), pp. 24–8; J. Hillaby, ‘Jewish Colonisation in the Twelfth Century’, in The Jews in Medieval Britain: Historical, Literary and Archaeological Perspectives, ed. P. Skinner (Woodbridge, 2003), pp. 29–31. Roth, History of the Jews, pp. 22 n.1, 36. See map in Hillaby, ‘Jewish Colonisation’, p. 14. That two other narratives of Cistercian Jewish conversion are recorded by Gerald of Wales points to a particular anxiety over Jewish influence within the Cistercian Order. This is confirmed by a statute from the 1198 General Chapter that orders the correction of a monk from a Spanish house who had been learning Hebrew from a Jew. Vita Waldevi AASS, §100, p. 271D–E; Vita Waldevi, pp. 322–3; Chronicle of Melrose, fol. 32v; ‘Chronicle of Melrose’, trans. Stevenson, p. 161; Statuta capitulorum generalium, ed. Canivez, I, 1198/27, p. 227; Roth, History of the Jews, p. 92; Gerald of Wales, ‘Speculum ecclesiae’, in Giraldi Cambrensis opera, scilicet, Speculum

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness felt throughout Europe and found expression in the anti-Jewish legislation of the Third and Fourth Lateran Councils in 1179 and 1215.112 Although the widest dates for Jocelin’s known hagiographical activity are 1175 to 1214, the contemporary interests evident in the text place the composition of the Vita Helenae in the latter half of this time period. Considering the narrative emphasis on the recovery of the cross and the restoration of the Holy Land, the most obvious context for this work are the years post-dating the fall of Jerusalem in 1187. The success of the First Crusade in 1099, the widespread growth of international orders associated with the Holy Land and the new transfer of relics westwards brought Western Christendom into much closer physical and spiritual contact with the east.113 Despite the increasingly ominous warnings emanating from the Holy Land, by the late twelfth century there was a clear sense of complacency concerning the Christian right to rule in the lands of Christ’s birth and death. The events of 1187 therefore came as a profound shock. In July, the army of the kingdom of Jerusalem was defeated by Saladin and its primary religious emblem, a piece of the True Cross, fell into Muslim hands. In October, Jerusalem itself was taken by the infidels.114 The subsequent attempts to recover the city – the Third Crusade of 1189–92, the aborted expedition of 1197, the Fourth Crusade of 1202–05, the attack on Egypt in 1217–21 – meant that concerns over the Holy Land and its relics remained at the forefront of Western consciousness.115 The Vita also presented more immediate parallels with the situation in the East. Constantine’s adoption of the cross as his emblem during the battle of the Milvian Bridge and his subsequent wars against various barbarous nations must have carried significant contemporary associations for Jocelin’s readers, reminding them of those who had borne the sign of the cross on crusade as well as those who fought under the current military insignia of the kingdom of Jerusalem.116 Indeed, if we acknowledge that the True Cross itself came to symbolize Christian rule in the Holy Land, then the Vita becomes even more emotive.117 For a contemporary audience, the account of Helena’s

112

113 114 115 116

117

Ecclesiae, De vita Galfridi archiepiscopi Eboracensis sive Certamina Galfridi Eboracensis archiepiscopi, ed. J. S. Brewer, RS 21 IV (London, 1873), III.i, pp. 139–40. Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, Vol. I: Nicaea to Lateran V, ed. and trans. N. Tanner (London, 1990), Lat. III c. xxvi, Lat. IV cc. lxvii–lxx, pp. 223–4, 265–7; Dobson, Jews of Medieval York, pp. 18–19. C. Morris, The Sepulchre of Christ and the Medieval West from the Beginning to 1600 (Oxford, 2005), pp. 180, 205, 223. Ibid., p. 256. Ibid., pp. 260–1. Vita Helenae, ll. 208–14, 244–6, 717–19, pp. 158, 159, 172; G. Ligato, ‘The Political Meanings of the Relic of the Holy Cross among the Crusaders and in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem: An Example of 1185’, in Autour de la Première Croisade: Actes du Colloque de la Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East (ClermontFerrand, 22–25 Juin 1995), ed. M. Balard (Paris, 1996), p. 316. Ligato, ‘Political Meanings of the Relic of the Holy Cross’, p. 319.

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Locating the Text successful search for the cross strengthened the hope that a Christian state could soon be resurrected in the East. The text’s references to Constantinople may also have reflected contemporary circumstances. Although the foundation of Constantinople is part of the more general legend surrounding Helena and Constantine, Jocelin is careful to accord Helena a more active role in the narrative than was found in his source material.118 The desire to incorporate this episode more fully into the Vita may reflect a greater interest in the city that resulted from contemporary events, namely the sack of Constantinople in 1204. Constantine’s city was an important site in the cult of the Holy Cross: it had been the recipient of one of the two reliquaries made by Helena after the inventio and was also the home of three portions of the cross from the relic subdivided by the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius.119 The looting of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade brought an influx of important relics into Western Europe, not least among them a large number of pieces of the True Cross. Abbot Martin of the Cistercian house of Pairis returned from the East with over forty relics, including a portion of the cross, while fellow crusading clerics, Bishop Nivelo of Soissons and Bishop Conrad of Halberstadt, similarly enriched their churches with pieces of the crucifix.120 The portion of the cross sent to Constantinople by Helena was said to have resurfaced in the cathedral of St Lawrence, Genoa, while an early fourteenth century source claimed that the piece of cross carried into battle by Constantine now lay in the church of St Mark, Venice, having been despatched from Constantinople by the Doge shortly after the ravages of April 1204.121 In short, it is easy to imagine how accounts of the Fourth Crusade and its spoils could have fuelled interest in the original discovery of the cross in the years after 1204. The presence of a strong discourse on kingship in the Vita may also tie the work to a particular historical context. Considering the frequent citations of Helena as an exemplar of queenship throughout the late antique and medieval periods, the attention given to kingship in Jocelin’s text is, at first, rather surprising.122 This is not to say that Helena’s regal qualities go unrecognized in the Vita. The humility, justice and mercy that distinguish the saint’s queenship receive due mention during her period as empress to Constantius and 118 119 120

121 122

See pp. 76–7. Vita Helenae, ll. 756–8, p. 173; A. Frolow, La relique de la vraie croix: Recherches sur le développement d’un culte, Archives de l’Orient Chrétien 7 (Paris, 1961), p. 310. Gunther of Pairis, Gunther von Pairis, Hystoria Constantinopolitana, ed. P. Orth (Hildesheim and Zurich, 1994), c. xxiv, pp. 175–7; Gunther of Pairis, The Capture of Constantinople, The Hystoria Constantinopolitana of Gunther of Pairis, trans. A. J. Andrea (Philadelphia, 1997), pp. 125–7; J. Phillips, The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople (London, 2005), pp. 262–3; J. Godfrey, 1204: The Unholy Crusade (Oxford, 1980), pp. 130–1. Frolow, Relique de la vraie croix, pp. 381–2. Klein, Ruling Women, pp. 53–5.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness as regent of Britain following his death.123 After the birth of Constantine and his sister, Constantia, she is lauded as a ‘fertile queen’, while her quest for the True Cross later accords her the title ‘holy queen’.124 However, Jocelin’s infrequent references to her regal status contrast with the numerous royal epithets – ‘victorious queen’, ‘battle queen’, ‘people-queen’, ‘noble queen’, ‘glorious queen’ and so on – that are used to characterize the saint’s queenship in Cynewulf’s poem, Elene, and indicate that the Vita’s interests in the discourse of governance lie elsewhere.125 The sustained tenor of the comments on Constantine’s rule and the presence of two chapters dedicated solely to extolling his virtues as a ruler suggest that a certain agenda is being played out by the text. Jocelin portrays Constantine as an ideal ruler. He has ‘wisdom and courage… leonine ferocity and lamblike gentleness’ and, after his conversion, expresses his piety both publicly and in private.126 The grand founding and endowment of churches is matched by a similar devotion in his personal life: during times of peace, we are told that the emperor ‘was neither inactive in leisure nor squandered his time in empty spectacles or in running to and fro in the chase [i.e. hunting] but it gave him delight and joy to read and hear the Holy Scripture’.127 Constantine’s dedication to Christianity and Christian rule is exemplified by the setting of the relics of the cross in the imperial diadem. They provide both an outward sign of divine approval and a lesson for Constantine himself: ‘for in this the mother gave her son a wholesome example, that by humbling and submitting his inner self he could bring himself closer to the highest King, Jesus Christ, who had been crucified for him.’128 The consequences of this wise and dutiful kingship are made clear in the text. Jocelin presents Constantine’s empire as a golden age in which the sun seemed brighter than usual, the air more salubrious, the earth richer in fruit and crops, the ports more laden with ships and more bountiful in fish, the face of the whole world abounding in greater grace and beauty, and peace continued for a longer time.129

123 124 125 126 127

128

129

Vita Helenae, ll. 134–47, 165–74, pp. 156, 157. ‘fetu regina’, ‘sancta regina’. Ibid., ll. 143, 607, pp. 156, 169. Klein, Ruling Women, p. 62. ‘sapienciam et fortitudinem… leoninam feritatem cum agnina mansuetudine’. Vita Helenae, ll. 174–5, p. 157. ‘non ocio torpuit aut uacuis spectaculis siue discursibus uenatoriis tempus perdidit sed legere et audire sacras scripturas dulce et iocundum habuit’. Ibid., ll. 333–69, 388–90, 825–40, (ll. 388–90), pp. 161–2, 163, 175 (p. 163). ‘Dabat etiam in hoc mater salutare documentum filio ut humiliando et obsequendo penitus se subderet summo regi Ihesu Christo pro se crucifixo.’ Ibid., ll. 766–9, 779–81, pp. 173, 174. ‘Eo namque regnante uidebatur sol solito serenior, aer salubrior, tellus fetibus fructibus frugibusque fecundior, nauigantibus portus pacacior piscibusque profusior et tocius mundi facies habundanciore decore uenustior et continua pace diutur-

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Locating the Text The more significant of the two chapters devoted to Constantine’s virtues as a ruler is found midway through the text.130 Although this chapter is devoid of any references to Helena, the principal purpose of this section is not to represent Constantine as a model of competing sanctity (indeed, he is not described as a saint at any point in the Vita), but to allow the author to criticize the behaviour of contemporary rulers.131 Constantine’s qualities are summarized thus: ‘he showed himself amiable to the good, terrible to the impious, subject and full of awe to ministers of churches, affable to his friends and allies, gentle and generous to the poor, useful and friendly to all’.132 Most importantly, however, and, that which is now rarely found on earth, he believed and asserted that it is particularly appropriate for the peak of royal dignity to exercise no earthly power in the Church of God. He said, ‘The supreme and most excellent honour of a king is that in the kingdom of God, that is his Church, he is to know that he is not a king but a citizen, that he should not command priests by his laws but obey the laws of Christ which they have sanctioned.’133

Constantine’s speech continues with the statement that just as any heathen king would not allow insults or violence to be hurled down upon his mother, so too must Christian rulers avenge the injuries done to Holy Mother Church.134 The text then turns to address Jocelin’s contemporary audience: Let the kings of the land or, rather, kinglets, hear this out of respect for Constantine, lord of the world, they who disembowel the Holy Church, hurl down its dignity, put payment in the balance and place it for sale before the eyes of the ambitious. They who bear down upon the abbeys of the religious and, sweating, take them for their evil purposes, they who are not only unwilling to found churches or monasteries but even plunder

130 131

132

133

134

nior.’ This echoes phrases used to describe Cambria following Kentigern’s return to the kingdom in the Vita Kentegerni. Ibid., ll. 919–23, p. 178; Vita Kentegerni, c. xxxii, pp. 94, 218. Vita Helenae, ll. 395–438, pp. 163–4. As Harbus correctly states, the majority of Constantine’s achievements are given in the context of Helena’s developing sanctity rather than impinging upon the overall focus of the text. Harbus, Helena of Britain, p. 103. ‘Ita enim bonis se amabilem, impiis terribilem, ecclesiarum ministris subditum et pauidum, sociis et amicis iocundum, pauperibus se mitem exhibuit et largum, omnibus utilem et necessarium’. Vita Helenae, ll. 398–401, p. 163. ‘et quod raro nunc inuenitur in terris, illud maxime spectare credidit et asseruit ad cumulum regie dignitatis in ecclesia Dei nichil exercere terrene potestatis. “Suppremus,” inquid, “et superexcellens regis honor est in regno Dei quod est ecclesia eius, se nec regem sed ciuem cognoscere, non sacerdotibus legibus suis imperare sed legibus Christi quas ipsi sanxerunt obtemperare.”’ Ibid. ll. 402–6, p. 163. Ibid. ll. 408–16, p. 163.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness farms, estates and revenues from those that have been founded. Not so ­Constantine…135

Instead, we are reminded that during his vicennalia (the celebrations commemorating the twentieth year of his rule), Constantine not only granted the city of Rome and the Lateran Palace to the pope, but ‘professed that as ruler of the Romans rather than king, he governed under the supreme pontiff’.136 It is also significant that Jocelin’s direct attack on contemporary rulers contrasts with the more circumspect criticisms made in his other works. In line with the scriptural statement cited by Jocelin as ‘a wicked king always has wicked ministers’, comments in the Vita Patricii, Vita Kentegerni and Vita Waldevi blame the corrupt rule of kings not only on the character of the rulers themselves, but on the malicious intentions of their advisers.137 In contrast, the Vita Helenae places the blame squarely on the shoulders of those in power. The most obvious context for a criticism of this kind is the papal interdict imposed on England from March 1208 until June 1214, following the dispute over Stephen Langton’s appointment as archbishop of Canterbury. The implication in the Vita that contemporary rulers should mimic Constantine and submit to papal authority has an obvious application in this context. The interdict severely disrupted both clerical and lay religious life.138 With 135

136 137

138

‘Audiant hoc reges terre immo reguli respectu Constantini orbis domini qui sanctam ecclesiam euiscerant, eius dignitatem deiciunt, redditus in trutina ponunt, eiusque uenales ambiciosorum oculis exponunt. Abbacias opprimunt religiosorum, [sudores] sinistris usibus [suis] insumunt, ecclesias aut cenobia non solum fundare nolunt sed eciam fundatis fundos predia census diripiunt. Non sic Constantinus…’ The square brackets indicate additional words found in the Gotha manuscript. Ibid., ll. 416–21, p. 163; Gotha, MS Memb. I 81, fol. 207rb. ‘Romanorum rectorem pocius quam regem se sub summo pontifice ministrantem profiteri consueuit.’ Vita Helenae, ll. 422–9, (ll. 428–9), p. 164. In the Vita Patricii and the Vita Kentegerni Jocelin cites this phrase as ‘Rex iniquus omnes ministros habet impios’ and ‘Dux enim impius… omnes ministros habet impios’ respectively. This seems to refer to Proverbs 29. 12: ‘if a ruler listens to falsehood, all his officials will be wicked’ (‘princeps qui libenter audit verba mendacii omnes habebit impios’). Although Jocelin does not explicitly cite Scriptural authority in the Vita Waldevi, that he attributes Earl Waltheof’s downfall to the machinations of his enemies in court as well as the ill-feeling of William the Conqueror indicates that the same sentiment is at work. Vita Patricii AASS, §42 (c. xlix), p. 547C; Vita Patricii, p. 189; Vita Kentegerni, c. xxii, pp. 71, 198; Vita Waldevi AASS, §8, p. 251C–D; Vita Waldevi, pp. 209–10. This outline is largely dependent upon the work of Christopher Cheney: C. R. Cheney, ‘King John and the Papal Interdict’, in The Papacy and England TwelfthFourteenth Centuries: Historical and Legal Studies, ed. C. R. Cheney, Collected Studies Series 154 (London, 1982), Ch. IX, pp. 297–300, 315; C. R. Cheney, ‘King John’s Reaction to the Interdict on England’, in ibid., Ch. X, p. 135; C. R. Cheney, ‘A Recent View of the General Interdict on England’, in ibid., Ch. XI, pp. 162–3. For a more detailed study of the practice of interdict, with frequent reference to the English example, see particularly chapters four and five in P. D. Clarke, The

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Locating the Text the clergy forbidden to provide any sacraments other than baptism, confession in articulo mortis and, from late 1212, the viaticum, the doors of churches remained closed and their bells silent. In the monasteries, the daily round of divine offices also ceased until a papal concession in 1209 allowed conventual churches to celebrate a weekly Mass in private. This period proved to be a particularly turbulent time for the Cistercians. Assuming that their various privileges exempted them from the prohibitions of the interdict, they seem to have continued life as normal until early 1209 when a papal letter called them sharply to order. As a result of their disobedience, the concession granting the weekly celebration of the Mass within religious communities was withheld from English Cistercian houses for two months. The events of 1210 proved far more costly. The ill-judged refusal by the Cistercians to provide King John with a requested sum of money resulted in the levying of an extremely large fine later in the year. Recorded by contemporaries as ranging from 27,000 marks to more than 33,000, the payment of this sum within a strict elevenweek time-scale crippled the Cistercian houses of England.139 As John of Forde recorded, ‘even the very clothes the community had to wear, not to mention our very food, our books as well, and our sacred vessels, all, all were sold’.140 Some communities, no longer able to provide for themselves, were forced temporarily to disband. Considering the trauma and anger that these events must have engendered, it is not implausible to suggest that Jocelin’s comments on the royal plundering of the monasteries refer specifically to this context. Although unusual, the inclusion of this strong discourse of kingship in the Vita was not entirely a departure from tradition. The account of Helena found in Ambrose’s De obitu Theodosii formed part of a text whose primary function

139

140

Interdict in the Thirteenth Century: A Question of Collective Guilt (Oxford, 2007), pp. 130–234. After receiving a request for leniency, the King added a penalty of 100 marks for every day’s delay. The actual sum collected by the Exchequer was 24,027½ marks. ‘Annales de Margan’, in Annales monastici, Vol. I: Annales de Margan (A.D. 1066– 1232), Annales de Theokesberia (A.D. 1066–1263), Annales de Burton (A.D. 1004–1263), ed. H. R. Luard, RS 36 (London, 1864), p. 30; ‘Annales monasterii de Waverleia’, in Annales monastici, Vol. II: Annales monasterii de Wintonia (A.D. 519–1277), Annales monasterii de Waverleia (A.D. 1–1291), ed. H. R. Luard, RS 36 (London, 1865), p. 265; Thomas of Burton, Chronica de Melsa, p. 346; ‘Continuatio Chronici Willelmi de Novoburgo ad annum 1298’, Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II and Richard I, Vol. II Part II, ed. R. Howlett, RS 82 (London, 1885), p. 512; Knowles, Monastic Order in England, p. 368 n.5; C. J. Holdsworth, ‘John of Ford and the Interdict’, EHR 78 (1963), 706. John of Forde, Ioannis de Forda, Super extremam partem Cantici Canticorum sermones CXX, ed. E. Mikkers and H. Costello, CCCM 17–18 (Turnhout, 1970), c. lxxxi.9, p. 532; John of Forde, John of Ford, Sermons on the Final Verses of the Song of Songs Vol. V, trans. W. M. Beckett, Cistercian Fathers Series 45 (Kalamazoo, 1983), p. 180.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness was to promote the ideals of Christian kingship to Theodosius’s successors.141 The discourse of kingship in Jocelin’s text therefore both corresponded to and developed a pattern established by Ambrose. In addition, the legend of Constantine’s submission to the pope seems to have become closely associated with issues of ecclesiastical independence in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. Jocelin’s use of the narrative as a coded reference to the Becket dispute in the Vita Kentegerni seems to be confirmed by its reappearance immediately after an explicit criticism of contemporary kingship in the Vita Helenae.142 Indeed, the partisan use of the Constantine narrative may have played a significant part in the decision to commission the text during this period. But it is also important to recognize that while the Vita may have been a critique of contemporary circumstances, it also provided consolation and the hope of both better rulers and better times.143 The suggested interdict context also works well with the evidence for ­Jocelin’s itinerant research. The range and availability of his sources seem to reflect a wider search for materials relating to the Helena legend. The journeys made by William of Malmesbury during his research for the Gesta regum and Gesta pontificum present some form of an analogy, albeit on a much grander scale. William’s search for information took him to many of the major cathedral cities and monasteries in England, an itinerary that must have represented at least one grand tour and an extended absence from Malmesbury of at least a year. Thomson reasons that William’s continued literary productivity and absences from his home community must have occasioned his release from regular discipline.144 Likewise, Jocelin’s commission must also have been the result of some form of agreement regarding his status. Under most circumstances, a tour of English libraries, such as the one being proposed here, would have been highly unusual for a Cistercian monk. However, if the Vita Helenae can be placed in an interdict context, such a tour becomes not only possible but potentially enforced.

141

142 143

144

Admittedly, in Ambrose’s text the actions of Helena completely overshadow those of her son – but this reflects the ambiguous feelings towards Constantine’s reign before his legend blotted out the execution of his wife and son and re-wrote his associations with Arianism. Ambrose, ‘Oration on the Death of Theodosius‘, trans. Liebeschuetz and Hill, pp. 174–6. See pp. 187–8. Cf. the Dialogues of Gregory the Great, a work written primarily to edify and instruct, but also to comfort his countrymen in the wake of devastating wars, barbarian incursions, plagues and famines earlier in the sixth century. Gregory, Dialogues, trans. Zimmerman, p. vi. By 1125, William’s search for knowledge appears to have taken him to Canterbury, Oxford, Thorney, Rochester, Sherborne, Crowland, Hereford, York, Carlisle, Shaftes­bury, Bath, Durham, Wareham, Corfe, Gloucester, Bangor, Coventry, Winchester and perhaps also Tavistock. Thomson, William of Malmesbury, pp. 4, 73–4.

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Locating the Text As has been stated earlier, the payment of King John’s fine in 1210 forced a number of Cistercian houses temporarily to disband. The monks of Meaux were granted refuge by St Mary’s Abbey in York, Bridlington Priory and the Cistercian houses of Scotland. Others, presumably the laybrothers, found hospitality in towns and castles.145 The communities of Waverley and Fountains were also dispersed at this time, finding shelter at other monastic houses and among the laity.146 Reiterating a narrative found in the chronicle on which it is based, the Furness Chronicle states that monks and laybrothers of the Order were scattered throughout cities, castles and towns, and accommodated by those Benedictine and Cistercian abbeys who remained able to offer hospitality. The recording of these events at a distance and in general terms makes it unclear whether the monks of Furness itself joined this mass exile.147 What can be said is that the interdict provides a context for the freer movement of Cistercian monks and makes Jocelin’s possible activities during this period, particularly after the Cistercians’ fine of 1210, much more comprehensible. Under such circumstances, the commission to research a work such as the Vita Helenae may well have found a more favourable response than could normally be expected. In practical terms, the commission meant the absence of at least one monk, if not more, from the community and helped to alleviate the burden of care. It may also have included some form of reciprocal payment, whether in food, accommodation or money. The interdict not only allowed for the freer movement of Cistercian monks, it also provided the time needed to undertake research of this scope. The suspension of the divine offices left religious communities with very little to do. Following an interdict placed on Beverley Minster in the mid-twelfth century, Alfred the sacrist rescued himself from a ‘pit of despair’ by engaging in the creative editing of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s masterpiece, the Historia regum Britanniae.148 Jocelin’s direct contemporary, Abbot John of Forde, used this period of enforced leisure to finish off the Song of Songs sermon project

145

146

147 148

The Chronicle of Waverley records the dispersion of its community and comments that English Cistercians in general were forced to seek refuge in the houses of monks and canons. The brethren of Waverley were first taken in by Earl Baldwin of Craven but this seems to have been intended only as a short-term measure. Thomas of Burton, Chronica de Melsa, pp. 328, 353–4. ‘Annales de Waverleia’, ed. Luard, p. 265; Hugh of Kirkstall, ‘Narratio de fundatione Fontanis monasterii in comitatu Eboracensi’, in Memorials of the Abbey of St Mary of Fountains, Vol. I, ed. J. R. Walbran, SS 42 (Durham, 1863), p. 126. The Furness Chronicle is dependent upon the Stanley Chronicle until 1263. ‘Continuatio Chronici’, ed. Howlett, pp. 506 n.7, 512; VCH Lancs. II, p. 130. ‘baratro desperacionis’. Alfred of Beverley, Aluredi Beverlacensis annales sive Historia de gestis regum Britanniae libris IX: E codice pervetusto, calamo exarato, in bibliotheca viri clarissimi Thomae Rawlinson, armigeri, ed. T. Hearne (Oxford, 1716), prol., pp. 1–2 (p. 2). Christopher Norton has investigated the context of Alfred’s work, see C. Norton, St William of York (Woodbridge, 2006), pp. 127–30.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness started by Bernard of Clairvaux some seventy years previously.149 Jocelin’s Vita Helenae presents a similarly formidable work. By amassing and carefully integrating various narratives concerning the saint, Jocelin created a text that more accurately reflected the contemporary version of the Helena legend. With the possibility of access to the libraries of various foster-communities, the interdict would have provided Jocelin with an unusual opportunity to pursue his research. Indeed, this context may also account for Jocelin’s other burst of activity during this period: the composition of the Vita Waldevi almost certainly overlapped with the disruption to religious life caused by the interdict in England.

Conclusion Although identifying the potential patrons of the Vita Helenae forms an interesting exercise, it is clear that, in terms of understanding the text, the identity of the commissioning community was considered by the author and/or his patrons as somewhat tangential to the work’s meaning. Admittedly, the primary function of Jocelin’s work was to modernize the literary representation of Helena in a way that adequately reflected the contemporary legend. However, we must also recognize that the real impetus behind the writing of the Vita may well have been the narrative’s symbolic meaning with regard to the contemporary religious context. The Vita should be understood as both a window on to the Helena legend and a mirror of contemporary failings – both an idealized biographical study and a religio-political commentary on the early thirteenth century. Not only do the themes of the work seem to broadcast wider concerns about the Jewish presence in society, the recovery of Jerusalem and the True Cross, but they respond to the frustrations of the immediate religious situation represented by the interdict. Indeed, even the act of commissioning the Vita may have been seen as an appeal for Helena’s intercession during this troubled period – the invocation of the saint recalled a powerful historical precedent that state and Church could act in unison.150 The strong presence of Constantine in the Vita reiterates this discourse and extends it. His submission to the pope and his repeated statements that kings are not to interfere in ecclesiastical affairs show that underneath this unity of purpose there must also be a clear division of jurisdiction between Church and state. Jocelin’s reference to Constantine’s alleged submission in the Vita Kentegerni indicates that the emperor’s legend had become closely associated with debates concerning ecclesiastical independence in this period. The 149

150

Hilary Costello dates the composition of John of Forde’s sermons on the final part of the Song of Songs to c.1210x1212. Hilary Costello, ‘John of Forde: Transfiguration Out of Adversity’, Cistercian Studies Quarterly 35 (2000), 201, 201–2 n.2. Klein, Ruling Women, pp. 7, 54–5.

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Locating the Text incorporation of Constantine into the Vita Helenae therefore forms an integral part of the work’s political message, providing an exemplar of kingship that implicitly critiques the actions of contemporary rulers. In conclusion, the anonymity of the commissioning community reflects, and indeed emphasizes, the apparent intentions of the work. Although fulfilling the basic need for a comprehensive version of the contemporary Helena legend, the immediate interests of the text are national and international rather than local. What can be read now as an innocent synthesis of various hagiographical narratives could well have been, for its contemporaries, a potentially subversive document born in a context of extreme religious and political frustration.

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CHAPTER  NINE

Exemplary Narratives: Contemporary Reforming Discourses in Jocelin’s Vitae

As an explicitly didactic genre, hagiographical texts presented the reader with clear models of moral and religious behaviour. While much of this instruction was grounded in centuries-old traditions of Christian piety, as has been shown, vitae also reflected the particular religious interests and circumstances of those writing or commissioning the texts. It is, therefore, unsurprising that a number of contemporary religious concerns are articulated in Jocelin’s works. Explanatory additions and first-person asides not only direct the reader to a particular understanding of the narrative but clearly situate the Vitae in the ecclesiastical environment of the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. The following discussion will analyse the presence and significance of these strands in Jocelin’s texts and will provide a synoptic overview of all four Vitae as a close to this study.

Discourses of orthodoxy Although the extent to which the issues mark each text varies significantly, all four of Jocelin’s Vitae engage with the concerns relating to orthodox belief and practice that dominated late twelfth and early thirteenth century ecclesiastical thought. The root of these concerns lay in the growing religious awareness and enthusiasm in Western Christendom that had accompanied the increasing urbanization and economic prosperity of Europe from the 1050s onwards. This religious zeal found expression in the creation of new orders and popular religious movements, many of which were absorbed into the body of the wider Church. However, other groups, such as the Cathars and Waldensians, continued to challenge the structure and practices of traditional ecclesiastical authority. The desire to see uniformity in belief and ritual throughout Christian Europe, combined with anxieties over these heretical groups, resulted in the introduction of new doctrines and practices in the medieval Church. It was a response that sought to elevate the status both of the faith and of those who practised it. Yet although these doctrines had been widely accepted among the ecclesiastical hierarchy by the time that Jocelin 259

The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness was writing, the drawn-out process of implementation on the ground still had a long way to go. Concerns over orthodoxy find particularly vocal expression in the Vita Waldevi, where they are combined with comments that explicitly acknowledge the threat posed by contemporary heretical movements. This reflects not only the near-contemporary setting of the Vita itself, but also the Cistercian context of the commission and the ongoing involvement of the Order in the campaign against heresy during this period. As Beverley Mayne ­Kienzle’s study of Cistercian activities in Occitania illustrates, Cistercian monks were at the forefront of the Church’s response to heresy in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. From 1125 to 1229, monks of the Order were sent on preaching missions against dissident Christians in southern France and were repeatedly assigned prominent roles in wider anti-heresy campaigns.1 Indeed, during the period in which the Vita Waldevi was being written, the situation in southern France had taken a dramatic turn for the worse. The assassination of the Cistercian legate, Peter of Castlenau, in 1208 led to the launch of the Albigensian Crusade the following year.2 Disagreements over the nature and validity of the sacraments were among the most significant dividing lines between orthodox and heretical thought during this period. Over the course of the twelfth century, the Eucharist had become the focal point for both doctrinal and disciplinary matters and meant that attitudes towards the Mass became an area of particular contention.3 In the Vita Waldevi, Jocelin uses narratives concerning the Mass to emphasize the miraculous nature of the sacrament and, in so doing, to offer a rebuttal to the claims of those who deny its validity. The first of the three Eucharistic narratives in the text describes a vision experienced by Waltheof as he celebrated Mass on Christmas Day and presents a clear confirmation of orthodox teaching on the sacrament: As he elevated the Host during the Consecration, having uttered the operative sacramental words when transubstantiation of the bread and wine into the Lord’s body and blood occurs, he found in his hands an infant of more than mortal beauty.4

Waltheof caresses the Christchild until the vision evaporates, leaving the Host in his hands and his heart filled with joy.5 Jocelin’s comment that this

1 2 3

4 5

B. Mayne Kienzle, Cistercians, Heresy and Crusade in Occitania, 1145–1229: Preaching in the Lord’s Vineyard (York, 2001), pp. 4–6. Ibid., pp. 150–1. M. Lambert, Medieval Heresy: Popular Movements from the Gregorian Reform to the Reformation, 3rd edn (Oxford, 2002), p. 416; Gerald of Wales, Jewel of the Church, ed. Hagen, p. xvii. Vita Waldevi AASS, §22, p. 256A; Vita Waldevi, p. 227. Vita Waldevi AASS, §22, p. 256A–B; Vita Waldevi, p. 227.

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Exemplary Narratives account reached him through a number of sources indicates that this simple but powerful story was a favourite among the Melrose community.6 It was also a narrative of more widespread popularity. In addition to appearing in much older works, the recording of similar incidents in the near-contemporary vita of Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, as well as Caesarius of Heisterbach’s Dialogus miraculorum point to a widespread contemporary interest in this narrative.7 The second of Waltheof’s Eucharistic miracles tackles the practical problem of what to do if the sacrament becomes polluted. Although this issue had attracted the attention of scholars such as Peter Comestor, there appears to have been little canonical guidance on the matter and the Vita’s narrative therefore serves a basic didactic purpose. The text tells us that during Waltheof’s time as prior of the Augustinian house of Kirkham, a poisonous spider fell into the Eucharistic wine during the Mass. The celebrant drew Waltheof’s attention to the matter and the saint advised him to continue the office as normal. In a narrative that seems to have been relatively common among Jocelin’s contemporaries, the spider later emerged through a swelling in the celebrant’s skin and was subsequently captured and burnt.8 While the celebrant attributed the miracle to the prayers of Waltheof and Waltheof attributed it to the celebrant’s obedience, Jocelin ascribed it to the devotion of both ‘but especially to the virtue of the most powerful divine sacrament’. As the text concluded, it was unthinkable ‘that from the cup of life there should proceed the peril of death’.9 In the third and final of the Vita’s Eucharistic miracles, Waltheof repels an apparition of the devil using the pyx containing the sacrament.10 This emphasis on the miraculous nature of the Eucharist is reflected in other Cistercian works of this period. Caesarius of Heisterbach devoted the ninth book of his Dialogus miraculorum to miracles concerning the body and blood of Christ, while Miri Rubin comments on the Eucharistic preoccupations of the Queste del Saint Graal, written by a Cistercian author 6 7

8

9 10

Vita Waldevi AASS, §23, p. 256B; Vita Waldevi, p. 228. Visions of the host as the Christchild can also be found in older hagiographical sources such as the Vita S. Basilii. Adam of Eynsham, Magna vita Hugonis, II, V.iii, pp. 85–91; Caesarius of Heisterbach, Dialogus miraculorum, ed. Strange, VIII.ii, IX.ii, pp. 82, 167–8; Caesarius of Heisterbach, Dialogue of Miracles, trans. Scott and Bland, pp. 3, 108–9; ‘Amphilochii episcopi Iconii in vita et miraculis sancti Basilii archiepiscopi Cappadociae’, in Ælfric’s Life of Saint Basil the Great: Background and Context, ed. G. Corona, Anglo-Saxon Texts 5 (Cambridge, 2006), c. v, p. 229. Further examples are cited in M. Rubin, Corpus Christi: The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 116–17. Gerald records four such anecdotes, the majority of which appear to have been relatively recent events. He also states that he had heard Peter Comestor speak on the matter personally. Gerald of Wales, Gemma ecclesiastica, I.xlv, pp. 122–3; Gerald of Wales, Jewel of the Church, trans. Hagen, p. 94; Vita Waldevi AASS, §§25–6, p. 256C–E; Vita Waldevi, pp. 230–1. Vita Waldevi AASS, §26, p. 256E; Vita Waldevi, p. 231. Vita Waldevi AASS, §§65–6, p. 265B-D; Vita Waldevi, pp. 282–5.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness c.1220.11 As well as representing what seems to be a wider interest on the part of the Order, these narratives performed two specific functions in the Vita. They not only attested to the holiness of the text’s protagonist but, through expounding the properties of the consecrated host, upheld orthodox doctrine – as Jocelin put it, they served ‘to confound the detestable error of heretics who deny the mystery of the Lord’s Body and Blood’.12 By the time that Jocelin was writing, denial of the resurrection had also come to be an important indicator of heretical thought and the tensions around this doctrine are openly transmitted in the Vita Waldevi.13 At the conclusion of the text, Jocelin cites the incorruption of Waltheof’s corpse as evidence against those who doubt orthodox teaching on the issue: Let the Holy Mother Church rejoice over her son, Waltheof, for after paying the debt of nature he now presents an image of the resurrection to come, preaching the faith of the future incorruption after death, destroying the mad assertion of the heretics who deny the resurrection of the body.14

The explicit agenda of this statement suggests that an earlier reference to the resurrection should also be read as part of an orthodox discourse on this issue, particularly as it occurs in one of the Eucharistic narratives discussed above. In the account of Waltheof’s vision of the Christchild, we are told that the saint had felt no change in the weight of the Host during its transformation to the holy infant and back again. For Jocelin this was neither wondrous, nor undeserved, that in holding all, carrying all, he should have so little weight in his now glorified body, since the members of his body believe that, through his favour, their bodies will be present in like fineness and agility after the general resurrection.15

11

12

13 14

15

Caesarius of Heisterbach, Dialogus miraculorum, ed. Strange, IX, pp. 164–217; Caesarius of Heisterbach, Dialogue of Miracles, trans. Scott and Bland, pp. 103–69; Rubin, Corpus Christi, pp. 139–41. Gerald of Wales makes a similar comment about a miracle that occurred in Arras. Vita Waldevi AASS, §24, p. 256C; Vita Waldevi, p. 229; Gerald of Wales, Gemma ecclesiastica, I.xi, pp. 40–1; Gerald of Wales, Jewel of the Church, ed. Hagen, p. 33. C. Walker Bynum, The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200–1336, Lectures on the History of Religions New Series 15 (New York, 1995), pp. 215–20. ‘Gaudeat sancta mater Ecclesia super Filio suo Waldevo, post naturae debitum persolutum futurae jam resurrectionis simulachrum praesentando praeferente, fidem incorruptionis futurae post mortem praedicante, haereticorum resurrectionem corporum negantium vesanum assertionem destruente.’ Vita Waldevi AASS, §135, p. 277D–E. ‘Nec mirum, nec immerito, si omnia tenens, omnia portans, parum ponderis haberet in corpore suo jam glorificato, cum membra corporis ejus post generalem resurrectionem credant suis corporibus affuturam similitudinem subtilitatis et agilitatis ex ipsius beneficio.’ Ibid., §24, p. 256C.

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Exemplary Narratives Although the Vita Waldevi is the only one of Jocelin’s works openly to acknowledge the threat of contemporary heretical movements, his other texts each include narratives that refer to heresies appropriate to their historical context and which may have been read in a more contemporary light by his readers. The mixture of pagans, apostates and unorthodox Christians found in Kentigern’s Britain means that while conversion narratives remain an important part of the Vita Kentegerni, much of Jocelin’s text focuses on the reformation and reintegration of nominal and lost members of the flock. These lapsed Christians are portrayed largely as victims of circumstance. Due to the repeated suppression of Christianity, the structures of the British Church had been severely eroded and, consequently, many had fallen away from the faith or had ‘wandered aside from a sound belief into the teaching of some heretical sect’.16 The remedy for this was simple: ‘the provincials required the counsel of a good pastor and the healing of a good governor’.17 Yet just as the Vita emphasizes that those who renew their faith and renounce their deviant practices can be reincorporated in the orthodox Church, the penalty for those who remain intransigent is made equally clear. On his return from Rome, we are told that Kentigern encountered a foreign cleric who ‘asserted that he was a preacher of the truth, teaching the way of God in truth, and that he had come into these parts for the salvation of souls’.18 However, after a brief conversation, it becomes apparent that the cleric is a Pelagian. Unable to bring the preacher back to orthodoxy, Kentigern recalls the words of St Paul: ‘A man that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition, avoid; knowing that he that is such is subverted’.19 Denounced by the saint as ‘the son of death and that the death of both body and soul was in his gates’, the cleric is expelled from the diocese.20 Divine punishment follows soon after: the cleric drowns while crossing a river and descends into hell.21 The simple message transmitted by this narrative is reiterated in Kentigern’s final commands to the brethren of St Asaph’s: ‘shun entirely the communion and society of heretics and schismatics, and observe strictly the decrees of the

16 17

18 19 20 21

Vita Kentegerni, c. xix, pp. 65, 192. See also ibid., cc. xi, xxiii, xxiv, xxvii, xxix, xxxiv, pp. 55–6, 74, 78, 83–4, 88, 95–6, 183, 200, 204, 208–9, 212, 219–20. Jocelin’s use of the word ‘provincials’ (provinciales) here is potentially significant. In addition to the standard meanings of the word, it may also have referred to the inhabitants of Provence, an area within the Cathar heartlands of southern France. Provinciales is not a word Jocelin uses with any frequency and its appearance at this point in the narrative suggests that a dual reading may have been intended, particularly since it follows the statement that many in Kentigern’s diocese were Christians in name only and were being ‘taught by the ministry of men who were unskilled and ignorant of the law of God’. Ibid., c. xi, pp. 56, 183. Ibid., c. xxviii, pp. 86, 211. Titus, 3. 10–11. Ibid., c. xxviii, pp. 87, 211–12. ‘filius mortis, et mors utriusque hominis in januis esset’. Ibid., c. xxviii, p. 211. Ibid., c. xxviii, pp. 87, 212.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness holy fathers and especially the laws and customs of Holy Church, the mother of all’.22 The presence of an extended discussion on the resurrection in the Vita underlines the contemporary meaning to be found in the text. Following the miraculous creation of a cross from sand at Lothwerverd, Jocelin begins his digression with a closed rhetorical question to his readers: For who ought to contend that the Lord might not resurrect our earthly bodies although turned to dust, since He promised this with his blessed mouth, and when, by praying in his name, this saint of similar passions to ourselves created a cross from the sand?23

As with all such questions, the confidence of the statement is somewhat belied by the implicit admission that such doubters might exist. This question, and the explanation that follows, hints at an underlying disquiet over the wider understanding of the doctrine of resurrection and suggests that, in addition to its basic didactic function, this passage was written in direct response to heretical claims on this issue. The Vita Helenae also contains an anti-heretical narrative which, again, is both in keeping with the historical context of the work and contains contemporary resonances. The Vita’s account of the Arian controversy and its official condemnation at the council of Nicaea largely follows the outline given by Rufinus. However, along with various other amendments made to his exemplar, Jocelin places a greater emphasis on the diabolical nature of Arius’s creed.24 The shades of grey that temper Rufinus’s version are entirely removed in Jocelin’s narrative of good versus evil. Whereas Rufinus points to Arius’s human failings as a man ‘shamefully desirous of glory, praise and novelties’, the Vita states that ‘the devil entered into the heart of Arius’.25 Likewise, whereas Rufinus admits that not all those present at the council were prepared to denounce him, Jocelin stresses the unity behind the decision to reject both Arius and his teachings:

22 23

24

25

Ibid., c. xlii, pp. 112–13, 236. ‘Quis enim ambigere debet quod Dominus non resuscitet mortalia corpora nostra, licet resoluta in pulverem, quandoquidem hoc ipse ore suo benedicto promisit, cum in ejus nomine iste Sanctus, similis nobis passibilis, de arena maris orans ad Dominum crucem extruxit?’ Ibid., c. xli, pp. 110–11, 234. See pp. 63–4. Jocelin’s more damning interpretation of these events also contrasts with the brief mention of Arius in his other late antique sources, the Historia tripartita and the Liber pontificalis. Vita Helenae, ll. 520–73, pp. 167–8; Rufinus, Historia ecclesiastica, X.i–ii, v, pp. 960–1, 964–5; Rufinus, Church History, trans. Amidon, pp. 9–10, 13; Historia tripartita, II.xvii.7, VII.xxiv.2–3, pp. 112, 421–2; Liber pontificalis, ed. Mommsen, c. xxxiv.4, pp. 48–9; Book of Pontiffs, trans. Davis, p. 15. ‘Intrauit ergo dyabolus in cor Arii’. Vita Helenae, l. 522, p. 167; Rufinus, Historia ecclesiastica, X.i, p. 960; Rufinus, Church History, trans. Amidon, p. 9.

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Exemplary Narratives At last with the judgement having been made by the entire general council that this dry wood was suitable only for the flames of hell, the incorrigible Arius and his followers were damned, anathematized and separated from the Church of God; and, embracing it just as if their sentence had been divinely revealed to him, they were banished into exile by the emperor. Then, after the expulsion of Satan, after the removal of pestilential wood, the council admirably explained the Catholic faith and put this explanation into writing.26

Jocelin’s use of such emotive language is intended to inspire fear and hostility in the reader not only with regard to Arius but, by implicit extension, to all those who lurk outside the boundaries of the contemporary orthodox Church.27 As in the Vita Kentegerni, the underlying sentiment of this message is made explicit in the mouth of the saint. Among Helena’s final words to Constantine is the order that, above all, the emperor must ‘protect and preserve the holy, universal and apostolic Church undefiled from the contagion of all forms of heresy’.28 Similar shadows of anxiety fall across the Vita Patricii. The Vita contains two narratives relating to resurrection. The first narrative tells the story of a certain Irish prince who asked Patrick to raise his grandfather from the dead, an exemplar of which can be found in the Vita tripartita. However, while the older version leaves the specific reason for this request unmentioned, Jocelin’s Vita inserts a fitting back story.29 We are told that despite his conversion, the prince remained unconvinced about certain aspects of Christianity: when the saint instructed him about the belief in the general resurrection, he could not easily bend his faith to it, because he would in no way believe

26

27

28

29

‘Generali tandem iudicio tocius concilii ut arbor arida et apta igni gehenne Arrius incorrigibilis cum suis sequacibus est dampnatus et anathematizatus atque ab ecclesia [dei] separatus et ab imperatore (iuxta) sententiam illorum tamquam diuinitus prolatam [amplexante] in exilium relegatus. Post expulsionem ergo Sathane, post abscisionem arboris pestifere, catholicam fidem luculenter exposuerunt, expositam conscripserunt.’ The square brackets indicate additional words present in the Gotha manuscript. The word supplied by Harbus, ‘iuxta’, is unnecessary for the meaning of the text. Vita Helenae, ll. 568–73, p. 168; Gotha, MS Memb. I 81, fol. 208vb; Rufinus, Historia ecclesiastica, X.v, p. 965; Rufinus, Church History, trans. Amidon, p. 13. See Malcolm Lambert’s comments on the account concerning heresy in early eleventh century Orléans written by Paul, a monk of St Père de Chartres. Lambert, Medieval Heresy, p. 18. ‘et super omnia protegere et seruare sanctam et catholicam et apostolicam ecclesiam ab omnimode heresis contagione immaculatam’. Vita Helenae, ll. 874–6, p. 176. Vita Patricii AASS, §72 (c. lxxxii), p. 554C–D; Vita Patricii, pp. 228–9; Vita tripartita, pp. 182, 183.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness that bodies reduced to dust could be raised again in the pristine state of their proper but improved nature.30

Despite the use of Scipture, signs and miracles to persuade his pupil, it is only when Patrick revives the prince’s dead grandfather that he fully subscribes to all aspects of the Christian faith. In contrast to the clear doctrinal message transmitted by this narrative, the second episode concerning the resurrection in the Vita is more problematic. In a story with explicit Biblical resonances, Patrick feeds fourteen thousand people on the meat of five animals, including a cow that had belonged to Bishop Triamus. On the following day, the appearance of a cow grazing at the site, which looked very much like the animal that had been owned by the bishop, leads to the rumour that the saint has revived the animal. Jocelin’s comment suggests a definite unease about this story: ‘We, however, say that nothing is impossible unto God, but that this was done we neither deny nor assert.’31 Jocelin’s disquiet on this matter seems to be related to the theological implications of resurrecting an animal that had been consumed. Issues concerning nutrition and growth had been addressed by the schools earlier in the twelfth century, particularly the question of whether digested food was incorporated into the substance of the human body. Although it generally seems to have been concluded that it was not – and which therefore meant that the resurrection of the cow would not have involved removing this matter from the humans who had eaten it – Jocelin’s noncommital reaction suggests that questions about this issue still lingered.32 Another aspect of the orthodox discourses present in the Vitae can be seen in the approach to infant baptism. As a sacrament administered before the child could make any conscious decisions of its own, the rejection of infant baptism was among the most common features of heretical thought in the twelfth century.33 Jocelin’s few references to the subject indicate an awareness of the tensions surrounding this doctrine. For example, the Vita Helenae makes a concerned effort to explain why the saint was not baptised in her youth. Jocelin tells us that not only had the persecutions of Diocletian severely undermined the Christian Church, but that the customs of the time

30

31

32 33

‘Cum autem Sanctus illum super generali resurrectione credenda instrueret, non facile fidem accommodavit; quia corpora in pulverem resoluta, in statum pristinum naturae propriae, sed meliorandae, resuscitanda nullatenus credere volebat.’ Vita Patricii AASS, §72 (c. lxxxii), p. 554C. A remaining exemplar of the story in the Vita tertia also implies that the cow found in the field is the same as that eaten the previous day, but it makes no additional comments concerning this. Ibid., §68 (c. lxxvii), pp. 553B–D (p. 553D); Vita Patricii, pp. 222–3 (p. 223); Vita tertia, §63, pp. 161–2. Bynum, Resurrection, pp. 124–30 Lambert, Medieval Heresy, p. 391.

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Exemplary Narratives emphasized the last rites over the baptism of children.34 Although no such explanations are necessary in the Vitae Kentegerni and Patricii, both texts are careful to underline the significance of baptism in the formation of individual, Christian identity. In contrast to the Herbertian Life, where Kentigern’s mother is introduced by name on her initial appearance in the text, Taneu remains anonymous in Jocelin’s Vita until both she and her newly-born son are christened by St Servanus.35 Likewise, the accounts of the baptism of St Patrick and the nun Treha in the Vita Patricii differ from the extant source material by presenting baptism as both a ritual of salvation and a naming ceremony.36 This emphasis on the naming aspect of baptism may have been particularly important in an Irish context, where even in the late twelfth century infant baptism does not appear to have been widely practised.37 Another significant discourse present in the Vitae is that relating to clerical purity. Although Catholic doctrine stated that the morality of those celebrating the Mass had no bearing on the power of the sacrament itself, questions relating to the spiritual purity of those handling the body and blood of Christ had dominated reformist thought since the late eleventh century. The prohibition of clerical sexual activity meant that over the course of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, secular clergy were forced to adopt an increasingly monasticized lifestyle. In order to promote this new policy and reinforce clerical gender identity, texts employed a militaristic discourse that extolled the manly virtue of fighting one’s own desires. This ‘battle for chastity’ enabled both the secular clergy and the religious to accept the strictures placed upon them without undermining conceptions of their own masculinity.38 It is, therefore, unsurprising that the male protagonists of the Vitae Patricii, Kentegerni and Waldevi provide exemplars of masculine restraint. Patrick, Kentigern and Waltheof are said to have preserved their virginity throughout their lifetime and each are shown to have been engaged in a struggle to do so. 34 35 36

37 38

Vita Helenae, ll. 71–8, p. 154. Herbertian Life, c. i, pp. 125, 245; Vita Kentegerni, c. iv, pp. 41, 169. It is only in Jocelin’s Vita that the naming of Patrick is associated with his baptism. Although a parallel version of Jocelin’s story concerning Treha can be found in the Vita tripartita, the statement that Treha was named at baptism is found only in the later text. Vita Patricii AASS, §§1, 75 (c. i, lxxxviii), pp. 537B, 555C–D; Vita Patricii, pp. 136, 235–6; Vita tripartita, pp. 168, 169. See the second of the statutes promulgated at Cashel in 1172. Gerald of Wales, Expugnatio Hibernica, I.xxxv, pp. 98, 99. The ‘battle for chastity’ was the term coined by Foucault to describe John Cassian’s discourse on the monastic struggle against the spirit of fornication. D. Elliott, Fallen Bodies: Pollution, Sexuality, and Demonology in the Middle Ages (Philadelphia, 1999), pp. 116–17; J. Murray, ‘Masculinizing Religious Life: Sexual Prowess, The Battle for Chastity and Monastic Identity’, in Holiness and Masculinity in the Middle Ages, ed. P. H. Cullum and K. J. Lewis (Cardiff, 2004), pp. 24–42; M.  Foucault, ‘The Battle for Chastity’, trans. A. Forster, in Western Sexuality: Practice and Precept in Past and Present Times, ed. P. Ariès and A. Béjin (Oxford, 1985), pp. 14–25.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness The Vita Waldevi describes a brief romance between the saint and a girl at King David’s court. The mocking comment of one of his peers marks a moment of revelation for Waltheof and, consequently, he rejects both the girl and womankind for the rest of his life.39 The saint’s sexual purity is confirmed by the incorruption of his corpse, which is ‘steeped in the balsam of virginity’.40 Likewise, Patrick and Kentigern also emerge from the sexual temptations of youth unscathed and both continue to conquer their desires by submitting to the hagiographic commonplace of prolonged submersion in cold water.41 The presentation of Patrick and Kentigern also attests to the monasticization of the secular clergy. Jocelin follows a narrative in the Vita tripartita in stating that Patrick became a monk under the tutelage of Martin of Tours, while Kentigern’s lifestyle is also depicted as recognizably monastic.42 In addition to the implicit models for imitatio provided by the saints, digressions on the faults of contemporaries offer a more explicit guide to clerical purity in the Vitae. The concern over the sexual morality of those in holy orders is succinctly expressed in the Vita Helenae. Among the posthumous miracula is the story of a strong youth who finds himself unable to lift the saint’s relics due to his spiritually polluted state – afterwards the youth confesses that he had experienced a carnal dream during the night. For Jocelin, this is a narrative with much wider implications: For if this man was prevented from access and contact with the holy relics for a perhaps inevitable lapse, how can those polluted by fornication, adultery and shameful crimes or deeds deserve without fear to approach and touch the holy things of the saints, but also to handle, take and consecrate the body and blood of the Lord, than which nothing in this world is holier?43

These anxieties are reiterated at greater length in the Vita Kentegerni. Clerical celibacy is first discussed following the persecution of Kentigern’s mother for 39 40 41

42

43

Vita Waldevi AASS, §§16–17, pp. 252F-3B; Vita Waldevi, pp. 221–3. ‘virginitatis balsamo delibutum’. Vita Waldevi AASS, §134, p. 277D. For example, this narrative also occurs in the vitae of saints Bernard, Aelred and in a story concerning a hermit told by Gerald of Wales. Vita Patricii AASS, §§9, 160 (cc. xii, clxxxiv), pp. 539A, 574E–F; Vita Patricii, pp. 146, 334; Vita Kentegerni, cc. xiv, xxv, pp. 57–8, 80, 184–6, 205–6; William of St Thierry et al., ‘Bernardi vita prima’, I.iii, col. 230C; William of St Thierry et al., Vita prima Bernardi, trans. Webb and Walker, pp. 20–1; Walter Daniel, Life of Ailred, c. xvi, p. 25; Gerald of Wales, Gemma ecclesiastica, II.xi, pp. 220–1; Gerald of Wales, Jewel of the Church, trans. Hagen, pp. 168–9. Vita Patricii AASS, §18 (c. xxii), p. 541C; Vita Patricii, pp. 157–8; Vita tripartita, p. 25; Vita Kentegerni, cc. xii, xiii, xiv, xx, xxi, xxiv–xxv, xxx–xxxi, pp. 55, 57, 66, 69, 75–81, 89–92, 182, 184–5, 193, 196, 201–6, 213–16. ‘Si enim homo iste pro lapsu forsitan ineuitabili ab accessu et contactu sanctarum reliquiarum arcetur, quid fornicacione uel adulterio seu flagiciis siue facinoribus polluti promerentur qui non solum accedere et tangere sancta sanctorum, uerum eciam tractare, sumere, consecrare corpus et sanguinem Domini, quo nichil in hoc mundo sanctius est, non uerentur?’ Vita Helenae, ll. 950–65 (ll. 961–5), p. 179.

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Exemplary Narratives fornication, when Jocelin contrasts the pagan response to illicit sexual relations with that of his contemporaries. Although the digression begins with a wider social focus, the text quickly turns its attention to the lack of chastity among those in clerical and religious orders: and not only is the vilest rabble polluted by such moral contagion, but those who hold ecclesiastical benefices and devote themselves to the divine offices, and are the more abominable the happier they think themselves to be. But that which wields the hammer of the whole world, namely the spirit of fornication, has now passed through them. They who in their outer bearing display the appearance of sanctity but deny its virtue; they who by their works in the world observe the faith but who, through their impure life, are known to God to lie by their sacred habit and tonsure.44

Yet anyone ‘who burns with the love of justice and honour’ and attempts to speak out against these offences is condemned as a sycophant or detractor.45 As Jocelin concludes, because the offenders are protected by others implicated in the same vice, the problem is too widespread to allow correction.46 Kentigern’s identification of a homosexual cleric provides Jocelin with another opportunity to launch an attack on the sexual misconduct of his contemporaries. This time, the digression is placed in the mouth of the saint himself: If the sacred canons forbid women, on account of the infirmity of their sex – which is by no means their fault – from promotion to the priestly rank; then all the more men who are perverters of their sex and abusers of nature, who in contempt of their Maker, in insult to themselves, in injury to all creatures, cast off that in which they were created and born and assume the part of women, must be kept at a distance from so sacred a rank and office. Nowhere read we of more severe vengeance exercised in judgement than on that monstrous race of men in which that execrable crime originally took place.47

44

45 46 47

‘et non solum vilissimum vulgus tali contagio polluitur, verum hii qui ecclesiasticis beneficiis sustentati, et divinis officiis applicati, quanto sunt fediores, tanto sese feliciores esse arbitrantur. Sed nunc illos pertransit ille malleator universe terre, spiritus scilicet fornicationis. Qui ymaginariam quidem speciem sanctitatis in habitu exteriori preferentes, virtutem vero ejus abnegantes, operibus quidem seculo servant fidem, per vitam impuram Deo mentiri noscuntur per sacrum habitum et tonsuram.’ Vita Kentegerni, c. ii, pp. 164–5. ‘qui amore justitie et honestatis ignescat’. Ibid., c. ii, p. 165. Ibid., c. ii, pp. 37, 165–6. ‘Si sacri canones mulieres ob infirmitatem sexus, que nullatenus est in vicio, ad sacerdotalem gradum promoveri prohibent; multo magis viros sui sexus perversores, nature abusores, qui in contemptum conditoris, in contumeliam sui, in tocius creature injuriam, quod creati sunt, et nati, exuunt, et feminas induunt, a tam sacro gradu et officio arceri debent. Nusquam legimus graviorem vindictam excercuisse

269

The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness Kentigern then goes on to outline the punishments experienced by those in Sodom and Gomorrah before offering a grim picture of the fate that awaits those who continue to debase themselves in this way, namely ‘the unquenchable flame, the intolerable stench, the indissoluble chains, the horror of darkness and eternal death’.48 Sexual immorality was not the only vice to defile the contemporary clergy. At an earlier point in the Vita, Jocelin briefly turns his attention to those who receive money in return for spiritual offices. The text contrasts the secular preoccupations of these men with the sweet smells, luminous clouds and fiery illumination witnessed by Kentigern during the celebration of the Mass: While I am silent for the time being concerning those who come simoniacally to sacrifice and with Judas sell the body of the Lord, namely those who do not offer it unless for a price; I speak of those who are covered with sin, destroyed by vices, and polluted in body and soul, and who presume to touch and contaminate the purifying sacrifice with their impure hands. Alas, in how many priests today can the stench of filth rather than the odour of spiritual sweetness be perceived! Oh, how many more today are blinded by the dark storm of possessiveness than are overshadowed by the bright cloud! Woe, woe, I say to many today for whom the sulphurous flame awaits rather than the surrounding column of fire!49

In addition to these more specific attacks on clerical immorality, the Vita also decries the general failure of the contemporary clergy to live up to reformist ideals. The condemnation of this hypocrisy is given even greater force by being framed as Kentigern’s own speech: ‘Beware dearest ones,’ he said to them, ‘of the vice of hypocrisy, which in a way is the renunciation of faith, the abandonment of hope, the emptying of charity, the cancer of chastity, the blinding of truth, the prison of sobriety, the fetters of justice, the little fox of obedience, the short cloak of patience. And, to speak briefly, it is the moth of religion, the extermination of virtue,

48 49

censuram, quam in illud mostruosum genus hominum, in quibus illud execrabile flagitium primordialem sumpsit materiam.’ Ibid., c. xxviii, p. 211. Ibid., c. xxviii, pp. 86, 211. ‘Ut enim interim taceam de hiis qui symoniace ad immolandum accedunt, aut cum Juda corpus dominicum vendunt, qui videlicet illud non nisi pro precio offerunt; de illis loquor, qui criminibus obvoluti, et flagitiis dissoluti corpore et corde polluti, purificatorium sacrificium impuris manibus contrectare, et contaminare, presumunt. Heu in quantis sacerdotibus hodie sentitur putor feditatis, potius quam odor spiritualis suavitatis! O quam plures hodie tenebrosus turbo possidendi obcecat, quam lucida nubes obumbrat! Ve, ve, inquam pluribus hodie, in quibus potius attenditur flamma sulphurea, quam circumfulgens columpna ignea!’ Ibid., c. xvi, p. 187.

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Exemplary Narratives the hiding place of vices, the refuge of all iniquity, the dwelling place of crimes.’50

In no few words, hypocrisy is then shown to be the source of all evils and hypocrites to be the special servants of the devil. Indeed, the saint argues that the Church is harmed more by hypocrisy than it was during the periods of open persecution.51 The significant number of words devoted to this subject underlines the perceived importance of this issue in terms of the Vita’s particular didactic interests. The Vita Patricii also engages with this topic. The narrative concerning Bishop Asychus, who went into self-imposed exile after telling a lie, is a traditional part of the Patrician legend.52 However, unlike earlier versions of the story, Jocelin takes the opportunity fully to explain the fault and its implications. He tells us that Asychus believed himself ‘no longer worthy to exercise the pontifical office, since a lie had come forth freely from his mouth, which the sacred canons define as sacrilege in the mouth of a priest’.53 Jocelin then compares the bishop’s penitence with that of his contemporaries: For many shameful men, wicked and detestable in their lives (which cannot be mentioned without grief) take upon themselves the task of governing souls and seek to wash away the filth of others with stained hands; some even who are themselves bound by the bonds of mortal sin, seek to loosen the bonds of others. When their desire is fulfilled by divine judgement, their state becomes much worse than it was previously known to be.54

That Jocelin’s digression at this point is one of the few such comments to be found in the Vita Patricii emphasizes the apparent significance of this issue for both the author and his audience.

50

51 52

53

54

‘“Cavete,” inquit ad suos, “karissimi, ab ypocrisis vitio, que est quodam modo fidei abrenuntiatio, spei alienatio, caritatis exinanitio, cancer castitatis, veritatis excecatio: carcer sobrietatis, compes justicie, vulpecula obedientie, pallium breve pacientie. Et, ut breviter inferam, ipsa est religionis tinea, virtutum exterminium, latibulum vitiorum, totius iniquitatis asilum, flagitiorum domicilium.”’ Ibid., c. xviii, p. 190. Ibid., c. xviii, pp. 63–4, 190–1. Tírechán’s Vita offers a slightly different version of the story but includes the main features of this narrative. Vita Patricii AASS, §95 (c. cvii), p. 559D–F; Vita Patricii, pp. 257–9; Tírechán’s Vita, c. xxii, pp. 140, 141; Vita tripartita, pp. 96, 97. ‘indignum se judicans ad officium Pontificale ulterius exercendum de cujus ore mendacium processit spontaneum, quod sacri Canones definiunt esse sacrilegium in lingua Sacerdotum’. Vita Patricii AASS, §95 (c. cvii), p. 559E. ‘Multi namque homines flagitiosi, scelerati, abominabiles in vita sua (quod absque dolore dici non debet) animarum regimini seingerunt, et manibus inquinatis alienas sordes diluere appetunt, funibus etiam mortalium criminum constricti ceteros ligatos solvere gliscunt: quorum desideriumdum divino judicio adimpletur, multo pejores fiunt, quam antea fuisse noscuntur.’ Ibid., §95 (c. cvii), p. 559E–F.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness Generally, however, the reformist message in the Vita Patricii is conveyed through more subtle additions to the source material. Comparisons between the Vita’s version of certain narratives and those found in other Patrician texts indicate that Jocelin inserted various minor details to provide a fuller illustration of correct ecclesiastical procedure. The issue of secular interference in ecclesiastical appointments seems to have been given particular emphasis by Jocelin. The narrative concerning Fortchern explicitly tackles this problem by undermining claims that the practice of clerical inheritance had been approved by the early Church. The text tells us that Fortchern was forced to hold the episcopal seat of a church founded and endowed by his father but abdicated after three days thus fulfilling both a promise made to his predecessor and the calls of his own conscience. This episode is also found in the Additamenta and the Vita tripartita but neither assert the moral of the story as forcefully as Jocelin.55 The Vita tells us that Fortchern at first refused, protesting that it was consonant with neither reason nor justice that he should take on the guidance of souls in the church or allod of his father, lest he might seem to hold by inheritance the sanctuary of the Lord.56

The meaning of the story is then reiterated towards the end of the passage: ‘thus he took care that he should not set the example of selling the rights of the Church or the heritage of his parents’.57 A problem closely associated with those of family interests and clerical appointments was simony. A staple of reformist interest throughout this period, it is in Jocelin’s Vita Patricii that it receives the most sustained attention.58 The Vita tells us that a certain powerful man wished to appoint his son as bishop of the church that he had built and endowed. Finding Patrick too busy to consecrate his son, the man asked two of the saint’s disciples to perform the ceremony. Although one refused to do so without the saint’s consent, the other ‘induced either by entreaty or reward’ duly consecrated the man’s son. On discovering what had happened, Patrick condemned the bishop to a perpetual want of bread and the man’s church to poverty.59 The variant versions of this episode found in the Vita tripartita and in the notes 55 56

57 58

59

Vita Patricii AASS, §46 (c. lii), p. 546B–C; Vita Patricii, pp. 192–3; Additamenta, c. iii.1–3, pp. 168, 169; Vita tripartita, pp. 68, 69. ‘allegante non esse rationi seu justitiae consentaneum, ut in ecclesia vel allodio patris sui regimen susciperet animarum, ne videretur haereditate possidere Domini sanctuarium’. Vita Patricii AASS, §46 (c. lii), p. 548C. Vita Patricii AASS, §46 (c. lii), p. 548C; Vita Patricii, p. 193. In addition to Jocelin’s criticism of those who sell the Eucharist referred to earlier in this chapter, he also includes simony among Kentigern’s deathbed admonitions. The Vita Waldevi includes a narrative where Waltheof is advised by his kinsman to use presents and flattery in order to advance in the Church. Vita Kentegerni, c. xlii, pp. 112, 236; Vita Waldevi AASS, §30, p. 257B–C; Vita Waldevi, pp. 235–6. Vita Patricii AASS, §107 (c. cxxiii), p. 562D–E (p. 562E); Vita Patricii, p. 273.

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Exemplary Narratives prefacing Tírechán’s Vita in the Book of Armagh focus on the issue of clerical disobedience represented by the unauthorized consecration and make no mention of venality.60 In contrast, Jocelin chooses to emphasize the simoniacal aspect of the tale and concludes with the remark ‘whereby the wise man may take heed, lest blinded by ambition he should presume to attempt the like’.61 The presence of other comments relating to simony indicate that it was perceived to be an important issue in the Vita. In two new additions to the legend, the text carefully disassociates Patrick from the possible implications of accepting secular donations. We are told that in return for helping the youngest of twelve brothers to receive his inheritance, Patrick was given the larger part of this wealth in order to build and endow a church. However, ‘lest he should seem to have sold his intervention, he refused to receive it’ and ordered it to be conferred on one of his disciples.62 Jocelin reiterates this sentiment later in the text. The Vita notes that Patrick kept his hands clear from any gift, always judging it more blessed to give than to receive. Therefore, if at any time a gift was given to him by a rich man, as soon as he could he bestowed it upon a poor person, alleviating himself from such gifts as if from a heavy burden.63

The Vita also approaches the subject of secular influence through a repeated emphasis on the education of prelates and their advancement through the correct ecclesiastical procedures. The statement that Patrick makes the journey to Rome so that the pope might sanction his actions and that he might gain a greater understanding of ecclesiastical doctrine is unique to Jocelin’s account.64 Although it represents something of a hagiographical topos in relation to Christian orthodoxy (indeed a similar comment is made in relation to Kentigern’s visit to Rome), the repeated emphasis on the education of the clergy found in the text suggests that these statements articulate a particular agenda.65 For example, the Vita makes it clear that the advancement of both Fortchern to the priesthood and Ruadhan to the episcopate is dependent on sufficient learning – statements which are not found in the versions of these

60 61 62 63

64 65

Tírechán’s Vita, §6, pp. 122–5; Vita tripartita, pp. 156–9. ‘Qua in re sapiens quisque commonetur, ne caecatus ambitione simile quiddam attentare praesumat.’ Vita Patricii AASS, §107 (c. cxxiii), p. 562E. ‘quam Sanctus, ne suam interventionem vendidisse videretur, suscipere renuit’. Ibid., §119 (c. cxxxvii), p. 565A–B (p. 565B); Vita Patricii, pp. 285–6. ‘Excutiebat manus suas a munere; beatius semper judicans dare quam accipere. Si igitur aliquando ei munus collatum esset a divite, quam citius potuit, illud pauperi studuit erogare, ab illo se allevians velut a gravi onere.’ Vita Patricii AASS, §161 (c. clxxxv), p. 574F. Patrick’s desire for the papal blessing of his mission is also found in the Vita Probo. Vita Patricii AASS, §21 (c. xxiv), p. 541F; Vita Patricii, p. 160; Vita Probo, I.§19, p. 196. Vita Kentegerni, c. xxvii, pp. 83, 84, 208, 209.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness episodes present in the extant source material.66 The comments concerning Olcan’s study in Gaul and the scholars taught by him on his return to Ireland, many of whom became bishops, also represent additions to the parallel version of this story found in the Vita tripartita.67 Likewise, the education of prelates is emphasized in reference to Mancenus and Connedus, episodes which are unique to Jocelin’s text.68 But education was not the only essential qualification for ecclesiastical office. The experience gained by correctly advancing through the orders was also of great importance and is an aspect of clerical training that finds expression in the text. Patrick himself attains entry to the priesthood only after advancing through several degrees of holy orders ‘according to the instructions of the canons’, a statement that is absent from the extant source material.69 Despite the claims that both Mochua and Fiacc are said to have mastered the Psalter and Holy Scriptures in extremely short spaces of time, both receive their eventual promotion to bishoprics only after they have ministered in the preceding degrees – again statements that are omitted by the extant source material.70 With regard to Fiacc, a widower, Jocelin also takes the opportunity to fully expound the underlying message of the narrative: ‘Behold the husband of one wife who, according to the apostle, may worthily be advanced to the priesthood and even the episcopate.’71 A similar addition is also made at the very start of the text. We are told that, following Patrick’s birth, his parents vowed themselves to chastity by mutual consent after which Patrick’s father entered holy orders. Although several earlier sources note that Patrick’s father was a priest, only Jocelin’s text feels the need to justify this canonically.72 In contrast to the Vita Patricii and the Vita Kentegerni, where the focus of Jocelin’s reforming discourse falls largely on the secular clergy, the Vita Waldevi is more concerned to tackle problems among the higher levels of

66 67 68 69 70

71

72

Vita Patricii AASS, §§46, 124 (cc. lii, cxlii), pp. 548B–C, 565F–6A; Vita Patricii, pp. 192–3, 290; Additamenta, c. iii.1–3, pp. 168, 169; Vita tripartita, pp. 66–9, 142, 143. Vita Patricii AASS, §74 (c. lxxxvi), p. 555A; Vita Patricii, p. 234; Vita tripartita, pp. 160–3. Vita Patricii AASS, §§54, 78 (cc. lix, xci), pp. 550A, 555F–6A; Vita Patricii, pp. 201, 238–9. ‘secundum instituta Canonum’. Vita Patricii AASS, §18 (c. xxii), p. 541C. Vita Patricii AASS, §§32, 100 (cc. xxxvii, cxv), pp. 544E–F, 561B–C; Vita Patricii, pp. 175–6, 265–6; Muirchú’s Vita, I.xix.3, pp. 92, 93; Additamenta, c. xiii, pp. 176, 177; Vita secunda-quarta, §38, p. 93; Vita Probo, I.§41, pp. 203–4; Vita tripartita, pp. 40, 41, 52, 53, 188–93, 194, 195. ‘Ecce vir unius uxoris tantum, qui secundum Apostolum digne promoveri poterit in Sacerdotium et etiam Pontificatum.’ The scriptural reference is to I Timothy 3. 2. Vita Patricii AASS, §100 (c. cxv), p. 561B. Ibid., §1 (c. i), p. 537B; Vita Patricii, p. 136; Muirchú’s Vita, I.i.1, pp. 66, 67; Vita Probo, I.§1, p. 192; Vita tripartita, pp. 8, 9; William of Malmesbury’s Vita, pp. 316–17.

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Exemplary Narratives the ecclesiastical hierarchy – an interest that reflected the focus of a wider reforming discourse disseminated by the Cistercian Order.73 A major strain of the criticism in the text concerns those overbearing prelates who abuse the power of their office.74 In contrast to Waltheof, who encouraged his brethren to chastise him for any wrongdoing, Jocelin denounces the lack of humility among his contemporaries: How many prelates act otherwise! Though they do many perverse things, not only do they scorn to be reprimanded by their subordinates, but even, if these utter the least little words against their pleasure, they nurse implacable ill-will against them and strive to remove them from their assembly. I recall hearing a certain prelate repeating his sentence over and over as he listened to a subordinate who was not speaking to him in accordance with his will. ‘What? Speakest thou thus to me? Dost thou not know that I have power to crucify thee?’75

One of the main areas of tension associated with the abuse of power in the Vita is confession and penance. The text tells us that Waltheof himself denounced those men who continued to refer to past offences for which penance had been done and noted that such accusers had often committed similar, if not the very same, offences.76 Jocelin directly addresses contemporary prelates in his comments concerning confessors who subvert the secrecy of confession by imposing penances that reveal the nature of the offence. Allusions to the Benedictine Rule indicate that this was perceived to be a problem particularly associated with the monastic hierarchy. In a barbed reference to the Rule, these ‘physicians of souls’ are shown to invert Benedict’s instructions to abbots on the care of their brethren by exacerbating rather than curing moral illness. As Jocelin states, men ‘who exercise such power over their patients are rather to be called poisoners, who pretend a poisonous draft is a healing drink’.77 A secondary strain of Jocelin’s commentary lays emphasis on the avarice and vanity of those in high office. In his youth, Waltheof’s rejection of sexual activity is symbolized by the casting of a love token, a gold ring, into the fire. 73 74

75 76 77

Newman, Boundaries of Charity, pp. 157–9, 162–3. The importance of these passages for the medieval audience of the text is shown by the selection of extracts from the Vita under the heading ‘Pro praelatorum regimine erga subditos’ found in a fifteenth-century manuscript from the Carthusian priory of St Alban in Trier. I am grateful to Dr Emily Richards for drawing my attention to this manuscript. Trier, Stadtbibliothek, MS 685/427, fols. 148v–50r; G. Kentenich, Beschreibendes Verzeichnis der Handschriften der Stadtbibliothek zu Trier, ­Sechstes Heft: Ascetische Schriften (Trier, 1910), p. 30. Cf. John 19.10. Vita Waldevi AASS, §41, p. 260A–B; Vita Waldevi, pp. 251–2. Vita Waldevi AASS, §37, p. 259C; Vita Waldevi, pp. 246–7. ‘qui talem potestatem super aegros suos exercent, venefici vocantur, qui pro theriaca toxicum propinare probantur’. Vita Waldevi AASS, §38, p. 259D–E; Vita Waldevi, pp. 248–9 (p. 249); Rule, c. xxvii, pp. 222–5.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness For Jocelin, however, the true wonder of the saint’s action lies more in his rejection of gold than in the vanquishing of Venus.78 As the Vita notes, contemporary prelates were keen to flaunt their status. Waltheof’s own humility is contrasted with those prelates who boasted of their alleged noble origins. Jocelin underlines the vanity of such men, who earn only derision from the knights and nobles whom they have paid to acknowledge distant kinship with them. Jocelin also comments on those with a real claim to high birth but who remain overly concerned with their family’s fortunes.79 Likewise, Waltheof’s preferences for his favourite nag and a small number of servants are contrasted by ‘those abbots who ostentatiously go to the royal court with their great retinues, countless riders and numerous pack animals, thinking that this will make them more greatly admired by princes and magnates’.80 The retinues of Benedictine abbots come under specific criticism in the Vita. They are said to travel with so many carts and packhorses that ‘those meeting them think they are bishops or rulers of provinces rather than fathers of monasteries’.81 Yet the Cistercians too were guilty of excess. As Jocelin lamented the decline of his own Order, he implored those hearing the text to imitate Waltheof and ‘cut yourselves off from such vicious extravagance’.82

Conclusion Each of Jocelin’s Vitae engage with the religious concerns of the time. The promulgation of reform interests bears witness to the wider ecclesiastical context of the period, which is matched by the marked unease concerning heresy present in the texts. However, as the above examples have shown, these themes are not represented equally in each work. Indeed, it is clear that the transmission of these concerns was strongly influenced by the intended audience of the Vitae in terms of both status and location, and the narrative content of the text. The reformist discourses in the two Vitae commissioned by episcopal sponsors, the Vita Patricii and the Vita Kentegerni, focus primarily on problems associated with the secular clergy. This is relatively unsurprising. Each text commemorates the spiritual father of the region and the patron saint of all the clergy within it. Consequently, each saint is represented as the iconic 78 79 80

81 82

Vita Waldevi AASS, §17, p. 253A–B; Vita Waldevi, p. 222. Vita Waldevi AASS, §§42–3, p. 260B–C; Vita Waldevi, pp. 252–5. ‘abbates, qui cum cuneis multis et equitaturis innumerosis atque pluribus clitellariis regum curias curiosius adeunt, putantes se in hujusmodi a principibus et magnatibus magis magnificari’. Vita Waldevi AASS, §§45–6, 76 (§46), pp. 260D–F, 267B (p. 260F); Vita Waldevi, pp. 256–8, 296. ‘quibus obviantes non putant advenire coenobiorum Patres, sed praesules et provinciarum principes’. Vita Waldevi AASS, §46, p. 260F; Vita Waldevi, p. 259. Vita Waldevi AASS, §46, pp. 260F–1A; Vita Waldevi, p. 259.

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Exemplary Narratives churchman of the see, a figure to whom all those ministering within the diocese or archdiocese can look for guidance and intercession. The ecclesiastical status of the saints in question also made the Vitae particularly appropriate educational texts in which to outline the ideals of contemporary clerical conduct. However, the methods by which this message is transmitted differ substantially between the two works. The Vita Kentegerni is a much more discursive text than the Vita Patricii. The limited content of the Kentigern narrative allows Jocelin to insert lengthy digressions, often tangential to the story, to explain certain aspects of ecclesiastical teaching and policy. Jocelin’s updated version of the Kentigern story was intended to correct not only the misconceptions concerning Kentigern’s birth found in his source material, but any other variant beliefs or practices that might have been present in the diocese. Indeed, some of the digressions in the text, particularly those placed in the mouth of Kentigern himself, could easily have been excerpted to provide material for sermons. In contrast, the Vita Patricii includes very few discursive passages. Almost overburdened with narrative content, the text allows little additional space for extended commentary of this kind. As a result, the reformist discourse is interwoven within the narrative itself in the form of subtle additions to the text. Although broadly aimed at the secular clergy, the particular reforming interests of the two Vitae also reflect the individual circumstances of their commissions. Each text responded to the perceived needs of the see. This is most apparent in terms of the Vita Patricii. Whereas the commentary in the Vita Kentegerni focuses on issues relating to clerical celibacy, the reformist discourse in the Vita Patricii is most visible in narratives concerning simony and the appointment of properly qualified clergy. This emphasis reflects the problems associated with the contemporary Irish church. Although efforts had been made to undermine the entrenched system of secularized clerical dynasties, secular influence on the Irish church remained a problematic issue. Indeed, the resistance of local families encountered by Jocelin’s patron, Archbishop Tomaltach, attests to the continuing interference of the laity in ecclesiastical appointments.83 That the Vita barely touched upon the issue of clerical celibacy also reflected the situation of the Church in Ireland – the strong reputation of the Irish clergy for piety and morality was even acknowledged by Gerald of Wales.84 In contrast, the concerns of reformers in mainland Britain seem to have centred on clerical lifestyle. The second half of the Gemma ecclesiastica, a reference manual written by Gerald of Wales for the instruction of the clergy in the diocese of St David’s, is almost entirely devoted to issues

83 84

See pp. 143–4. Gerald of Wales, ‘Topographia Hibernica’, III.xxvii–xxxi, pp. 172–8; Gerald of Wales, Topography of Ireland, trans. O’Meara, pp. 112–15.

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness of clerical morality and, as such, provides a parallel for the concerns of the Vita Kentegerni.85 The contemporary commentary in the Vita Waldevi also reflects the influences of audience and content. Just as the narrative of the Vita Kentegerni allowed space for extended reflection on contemporary morality, the Vita Waldevi was also able to incorporate a number of digressions on matters of contemporary interest without overloading the text. These interests largely represented those of the work’s primary audience, the Cistercian monks of Melrose. The relative absence of comments concerning the wider problems of the secular clergy, such as statements relating to celibacy and simony, mirrored the circumstances of the cloistered community. Although illicit sexual activity still posed a problem within monasteries, the communal lifestyle of single-sex religious groups provided less opportunity to succumb to temptation. Likewise, simony was a vice associated with wealth and ambition and was not easily applied to the religious life. Indeed, although the term ‘prelate’ (prelatus) could refer to a number of high ranking ecclesiastics, the context of several of Jocelin’s comments and the presence of allusions to the Rule indicate that the Vita was largely concerned with the faults of contemporary abbots. In terms of reformist discourses, the Vita Helenae represents a slightly different text. Although comments relating to heresy and clerical conduct can be found in the Vita, the main focus of the text’s contemporary commentary is Christian kingship.86 The relative absence of more practical ecclesiastical reform interests in the Vita reflects the circumstances of the commission. As the Vita of a female, maternal saint, the narrative content of the text did not as readily open itself to reforming discourses associated with male clerical behaviour or the vices of ecclesiastical office. In addition, the absence of external pressures concerning the need to educate a large intended clerical audience or to apply for papal canonization meant that there was little need to assert the more aggressive reformist messages found in the Vitae Kentegerni and Waldevi or even those more subtly voiced in the Vita Patricii. However, the fact that some of these reformist themes are present in the Vita Helenae attests to a certain unity of purpose behind each of Jocelin’s works and reinforces the idea that these exemplary narratives were far more than abstract literary creations. Although hagiography offered idealized, often historicized and frequently fictionalized accounts of the saints, it was a genre with intentions and interests firmly anchored in the reality of the present.

85 86

Gerald of Wales, Gemma ecclesiastica, II, pp. 165–364; Gerald of Wales, Jewel of the Church, ed. Hagen, pp. xvii, 131–277. See pp. 249–54.

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Conclusion By analysing Jocelin’s hagiographical works in the contexts in which they were written, this study has presented a more sympathetic appraisal of the author and his achievements than has previously been offered. Through an investigation into Jocelin’s working methods and the treatment of his sources, the first part of this book showed how the author integrated and adapted this material into his texts. Jocelin structured his Vita Patricii largely according to the framework provided by an earlier account of the legend, to which he added narratives taken from other written and oral sources. The Vita Kentegerni was compiled in a similar fashion but this time the work was based on two main texts. The method used to create the Vita Helenae was slightly different. Apparently dissatisfied with the legend presented in an earlier version of the vita, Jocelin based different episodes of his work upon different sources, choosing those accounts that provided the most detailed record of events. Jocelin then harmonized these accounts with the narratives found in his other source material by inserting, where possible, the statements that were absent from his chosen base texts. The fourth of Jocelin’s works presented other challenges. As both the first official hagiographical text to commemorate Waltheof and a work that documented the life and afterlife of a near contemporary, the contents of the Vita Waldevi were drawn largely from oral traditions at Melrose Abbey. The second part of the study explored how Jocelin’s texts were tailored to reflect the interests of his patrons. By synthesizing the different traditions concerning Patrick’s death, Jocelin was able to set out the full case for Down’s possession of the saint’s body and provide the evidence to support or preempt the inventio of 1185. The Vita Patricii also acted in the interests of Jocelin’s second ecclesiastical patron, the archbishop of Armagh, by including narratives that undermined Dublin’s potential claims for primacy in the Irish church. The Vita Kentegerni communicated similar religio-political anxieties. The text includes a strong discourse of independence that supported the see of Glasgow’s claims to be a special daughter of Rome. It was a discourse firmly rooted in the contemporary needs of the diocese and drew on the significant – and clearly recognized – parallels provided by the Constitutum Constantini and the growing cult of Thomas Becket. The Vita Waldevi too responded to the needs of the community behind the cult. The text appears to have been commissioned as part of an initial application for the formal canonization of Waltheof and included the now obligatory eyewitness accounts required by the curia. It also recorded the early history of the house at a point when communal memory was at the point of fading. The Vita Helenae is a slightly 279

The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness different kind of work. Unlike the other Vitae it does not appear to have been written for a community situated at the centre of the cult – indeed, aside from the dedication of the house, it does not seem that the community had any substantial connection to the saint at all. This means that although the text did serve some form of basic publicizing function, this is unlikely to have been the main purpose of the work. Instead, the primary intention of the Vita was to provide a version of the contemporary legend that included all of the well-known British aspects of Helena’s past. However, the themes and interests of the Vita correspond so closely to the circumstances of the early thirteenth century that it is hard not to interpret this text as an inverted mirror of the contemporary ecclesiastical and political situation. It is a work steeped in the hopes and desires of a wider religious community appalled at the current turn of events at home and abroad. The traditional hagiographical framework of the texts – the use of longacknowledged tropes and topoi – invested the Vitae with a longevity that outlived the more contextually specific narratives that mark each text. The previous use of Jocelin’s works as evidence for the lives of their saintly subjects has prevented the underlying purposes of the works from being fully recognized and the author’s skill in articulating them from being fully acknowledged. This study provides further proof of the adaptable, responsive and, ultimately, historically informative nature of hagiographical texts. Although the evidence has meant that much of this book focuses on the context of the works rather than the context of the author himself, this study has also revealed much about Jocelin’s career and his place within the contemporary Cistercian community. Firstly, it is clear that Jocelin was a hagiographer of some standing in the late Angevin period. The Vita Patricii and the Vita Kentegerni were high-profile commissions, both in terms of patronage and intended audience. Excerpts from the works are likely to have been used in the offices that celebrated the saints’ feast days and probably played a key part in the liturgical celebration of the translation of Patrick’s body into the church at Down and the dedication of Bishop Jocelin’s new cathedral at Glasgow.1 It is probably on the strength of these two projects that Jocelin was later commissioned to write the Vita Waldevi and the Vita Helenae. Jocelin’s commissions also seem to have required him to travel outside the abbey walls, an itinerancy that was by no means uncommon for hagi1

Kathleen Hughes states that the two and half lectiones remaining for the ‘Office of St Patrick’ in a Brussels manuscript of Irish provenance (Brussels Bibl. Roy. MS 8590–8598, fols. 166–7) are based on chapters from Jocelin’s Vita. The manuscript appears to have been written under Anglo-Norman influence and is dated to the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century. Alexander Boyle noted that some of the lectiones for St Patrick found in the sixteenth-century Aberdeen Breviary also carried echoes of Jocelin’s Vita Patricii. K. Hughes, ‘The Offices of S. Finnian of Clonard and S. Cíanán of Duleek’, Analecta Bollandiana 73 (1955), 344–5; Boyle, ‘Saints’ Lives in the Breviary of Aberdeen’, pp. 95, 102.

280

Conclusion ographers in the twelfth century.2 In practical terms, it enabled the writer to access both the written and oral sources stored on site, while allowing the patron to monitor the progress of the work and probably ensuring the immediate presentation of the finished article. There is certainly no reason to doubt that Jocelin worked in situ for his two Scottish commissions. The largely localized nature of Kentigern’s cult and evidence in the text itself imply that the research for the Vita Kentegerni was conducted in Glasgow. Likewise, the limited spread of Waltheof’s cult combined with the inclusion of monastic eyewitness accounts strongly indicates that the Vita Waldevi was written on location at Melrose Abbey in southern Scotland. The location of Jocelin’s other literary activities is not so certain. The Vita Patricii was commissioned by the archbishop of Armagh, the bishop of Down and the new Anglo-Norman ruler of Ulaid, John de Courcy, and it seems reasonable to assume that the Vita Patricii took Jocelin to Ireland. Despite the apparent absence of the Book of Armagh from among Jocelin’s source materials, the clear articulation of interests relating to the communities of Down and Armagh suggest close communication between Jocelin and his patrons. In addition, the foundation of a Furness daughter house in the vicinity of Down by Jocelin’s secular patron, John de Courcy, provides a plausible context both for Jocelin’s commission and his potential presence in the area. Jocelin’s final work, the Vita Helenae, may well have taken the author to south-eastern England. The evidence suggests that the work was most plausibly commissioned by either the community at Elstow Abbey in Bedfordshire or the house of St Helen’s, Bishopgate, London. Whether Jocelin carried out his research in the locality of these houses is now impossible to tell. Analysis of the source material used in the composition of the Vita indicates that Jocelin probably used libraries that were more extensive than those likely to have been available at either commissioning house or, indeed, his own monastery of Furness. The apparent interdict context of the work strengthens the possibility that Jocelin wrote away from home and points to a potentially extended period of itinerant research by the author. Jocelin’s movements fit within a wider pattern of hagiographical activity in this period. Various Anglo-Norman writers are known to have worked in situ for their patrons. After his arrival in Sherborne in the early 1060s, Goscelin of Saint-Bertin spent the following fifty years moving from religious house to religious house, writing the vitae of saints associated with St

2

Robert Bartlett’s survey of hagiography in Angevin England noted that texts were being produced at relatively isolated monasteries such as Crowland, Furness and Forde. However, in reference to Jocelin and Furness, the evidence that Jocelin carried out some – if not all – of his commissions away from his home monastery seems relatively secure. Bartlett, ‘Hagiography of Angevin England’, p. 37.

281

The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness Augustine’s Canterbury, Barking, Ramsey and Ely.3 Orderic Vitalis, a monk of Saint-Évroul in Normandy, spent a brief sojourn in Crowland at some point between 1114 and 1123, where he completed a commission to write the vita of Earl Waltheof.4 While in residence at Glastonbury Abbey in the late 1120s, William of Malmesbury composed the Vitae Dunstani, Patricii, Benigni and Indracti as part of a project that included writing the De antiquitate Glastoniensis ecclesiae for his hosts.5 He also wrote the Vita Wulfstani between c.1124 and 1142 during his second visit to Worcester Cathedral priory.6 More examples can be found later in the century. Aelred of Rievaulx’s Vita Edwardi Regis et Confessoris, commissioned by Lawrence of Westminster for the translation of the saint’s relics in 1163, may well have been written on site – Aelred’s appearance in the witness list of a concord between the bishop of Lincoln and the abbot of St Albans attests to his presence in Westminster at this time.7 Jocelin’s contemporary, Gerald of Wales (c.1146–1223), also appears to have worked on location. The Vita Ethelberti, patron saint of Hereford, and the Vitae Remigii and Hugonis, bishops of Lincoln, were probably written during periods of residence and study in those two cities.8 The commissioning of outside writers to provide new hagiographical accounts of saints was evidently a recognized literary practice in AngloNorman Britain. In the earlier part of the period, these hagiographers seem to have been predominantly monastic and specifically Benedictine. The patrons of these authors were often Benedictines themselves and such commissions took the writers to a home from home, allowing them to maintain their monastic discipline while carrying out their research. The second half of the century seems to have seen a change in this profile. Reflecting the back seat taken in intellectual matters by the older Benedictine houses, the later writers represented the two new career paths open to the most able and wellconnected men of the age: the reformed monasticism of the Cistercian Order and the growing royal administration. There is also a difference in the pattern of commission. Although Gerald of Wales apparently wrote his vitae at the request of cathedrals with secular chapters, being himself a member of the secular church, none of the patrons of Aelred’s hagiographical works came from within the Cistercian Order, while only two of Jocelin’s patrons can be identified as Cistercians. In many ways, this is unsurprising. The newly

3 4 5 6 7

8

Goscelin of Saint-Bertin, Goscelin of Saint-Bertin, The Hagiography of the Female Saints of Ely, ed. and trans. R. C. Love, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 2004), pp. xx–xxii. Orderic Vitalis, Ecclesiastical History, I, 25; Watkins, ‘Cult of Earl Waltheof’, p. 96. William of Malmesbury, Saints’ Lives, p. xv. Thomson, William of Malmesbury, p. 5. D. Roby, ‘Chimaera of the North: The Active Life of Aelred of Rievaulx’, in Cistercian Ideals and Reality, ed. J. R. Sommerfeldt, Cistercian Studies Series 60 (Kalamazoo, 1978), p. 159. Bartlett, ‘Rewriting Saints’ Lives’, p. 600.

282

Conclusion built Cistercian abbeys lacked the associations with earlier saints that were so common among British cathedrals and Benedictine houses. The early Cistercians were also loath to propagate saint’s cults that might bring their houses into unnecessary contact with the outside world – an attitude that, as the Vita Waldevi shows, had changed within Jocelin’s lifetime. Yet even by the early thirteenth century, British cults surrounding Cistercian abbots were still relatively low key. Instead, the majority of Jocelin’s Vitae seem to have required him to work, at least partly, amid the archives of communities and libraries that were not Cistercian. The degree of movement that marks Jocelin’s career is a testament to the high value placed on his literary talent during the late Angevin period. As a Cistercian monk for, probably, the duration of his hagiographical career, such movement seems to set him apart from the majority of his monastic brethren. The reformed monasticism of the Cistercian Order emphasized withdrawal from the world and a closer adherence to the Rule of St Benedict, a document that itself placed strong restrictions on the movement of monks.9 Attempts at the General Chapter in 1203 to force all monks who had joined the Crusade to return to their monasteries reveal the continuing unease over unregulated monastic movement.10 Previous scholarship would have interpreted Jocelin’s unusually itinerant career as further evidence for the decline of Cistercian ideals believed to have affected the Order from the mid-twelfth century onwards. However Louis Lekai’s influential argument that these ideals were, in practice, moderated by circumstances, has opened up new avenues for exploring the Order’s early development.11 Martha Newman has emphasized the continuous tension in Cistercian life between the ideal of withdrawal from the world and the monks’ involvement with wider ecclesiastical reform.12 Other studies, such as that on Rievaulx by Emilia Jamroziak, underline the local variation in Cistercian practice, which differed not just from region to region, but from monastery to monastery.13 Jocelin’s activities fit well within these more flexible parameters of Cistercian behaviour, which offer an environment in which his travels could be both tolerated and sanctioned.

9

10 11

12 13

See chapters 1, 50 and 67 in the Rule. Early Cistercian statutes reinforced this separation. Rule, cc. i, l, lxvii, pp. 170, 171, 252–5, 288, 289; ‘Instituta generalis capituli’, ed. and trans. Waddell, cc. i, vi, xliv, li, liii, liv, lxxiii, pp. 458, 459, 475–6, 478–80, 489. Statuta capitulorum generalium, ed. Canivez, I, 1203/47, p. 294. L. J. Lekai, The Cistercians: Ideal and Reality (Kent, 1977) and the elaboration of this hypothesis in L. J. Lekai, ‘Ideals and Reality in Early Cistercian Life and Legislation’, in Cistercian Ideals and Reality, ed. J. R. Sommerfeldt, Cistercian Studies Series 60 (Kalamazoo, 1978), pp. 4–29. Newman, Boundaries of Charity. E. Jamroziak, Rievaulx Abbey and its Social Context, 1132–1300: Memory, Locality and Networks, Medieval Church Studies 8 (Turnhout, 2005).

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The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness It is particularly enlightening to measure Jocelin against the model provided by Aelred. Throughout his monastic career, Aelred was active in the secular world – his widespread network of important social connections, combined with a natural flair for diplomacy, meant that he was valued as an important mediator and judge in a variety of monastic, ecclesiastical and secular cases. His status as an abbot must also have allowed him slightly more freedom in terms of movement. Cistercian abbots were expected to visit their mother and daughter houses annually and to carry out a variety of other administrative functions that may have entailed leaving the monastic precinct.14 Despite the lack of evidence concerning Jocelin’s abbatial status, particularly later in his career, it is certainly plausible to think of Jocelin fulfilling a role similar to Aelred’s as the public face of his community and as an ambassador for Furness and Cistercian interests. The commission to write the Vita Patricii is most easily understood in terms of the religious affiliations of John de Courcy and his wife, Affreca. By patronizing Jocelin, de Courcy consolidated the older bonds of patronage that tied Furness to the Manx royal house and confirmed the new bonds that had been created between de Courcy and Furness by the founding of Inch. Jocelin’s commission to write the Vita Kentegerni was a work of similar high profile and must have cemented his status as one of the major hagiographers of his day. It seems probable that the commission to write the Vita Waldevi built upon the prestige of these earlier works. As a writer who had already been commissioned by a former member of the house, Bishop Jocelin of Glasgow, Jocelin must have been an obvious choice for the community at Melrose, as well as a safe one. He was an author who could be trusted to represent Waltheof as a figure of conventional sanctity within a specifically Cistercian model. The commissioning of Jocelin must also have helped to strengthen the relationship between Furness and Melrose. Although both members of the Cistercian community, the two houses represented different filiations: Melrose was descended from Clairvaux, while Furness was an ex-Savigniac community. The contact between these two communities during this period was reinforced by, if not, indeed, the product of, Jocelin’s work during this period. Between 1189 and 1194, Bishop Jocelin and the then abbot of Melrose, Reiner, appear as witnesses on three charters granted to Furness which represented a mutually beneficial exchange of land for money from the de Morville family – agreements that may well have grown out of Bishop Jocelin’s commissioning of Jocelin to write the Vita Kentegerni.15 Later, at approximately the same time as Jocelin was engaged in compiling the Vita Waldevi, the Melrose Chronicle 14 15

See Roby, ‘Chimaera of the North’, pp. 152–69. There is also an undated agreement between the cellarers of the two houses concerning a roadway in Boston but this probably postdates the first grant of right of way in Boston in 1235. Furness Coucher Book, II ii, Selesset nos. 1–3, Botulfstan nos. 4, 9, pp. 334–7, 509–10, 512–13.

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Conclusion records that the abbot of Furness was present in Melrose, along with the abbots of Calder and Fountains, to receive a blessing from a former monk of the Scottish house, Bishop Ralph of Down.16 Jocelin’s commissions must have made him an important intermediary between Furness Abbey and the outside world, a figure whose activities helped to increase and consolidate the monastery’s wider patronage network. Indeed, Jocelin’s commissions may have represented more personal relationships between patron and author, which then became subsumed into the larger web of the abbey’s corporate interests. Although this study has illuminated the qualities and contexts of Jocelin’s hagiographical works, much still remains to be done. An examination of the scriptural references and parallels present in the Vitae will help to further contextualize the works in terms of the contemporary devotional and conceptual landscape. The manuscript analysis undertaken as part of this study has also highlighted the need to reconsider the transmission of Jocelin’s works. Further research into the textual filiation of the extant manuscripts, as well as their provenance, will advance our understanding of the later reception, use and adaptation of the texts. For the time being, however, it is hoped that this study provides sufficient evidence for a wider re-evaluation of Jocelin and his works to take place. The Vitae can now be recognized for the complex, carefully constructed and communicative texts that they are. Jocelin, too, must be reconsidered. As an author whose movements and patronage have been shown to straddle various geo-political, ecclesiastical and cultural boundaries, he emerges from this study as a potentially significant figure for our understanding of wider British history during this period, a time which saw the increasing permeability of these borders. This is not to make an extravagant claim about Jocelin’s importance but merely to bring greater attention to the work of a writer who has been undervalued for far too long.

16

Chronicle of Melrose, fol. 29r; ‘Chronicle of Melrose’, trans. Stevenson, p. 152.

285

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312

Index Persons active prior to 1500 are indexed by first name. References to tables are printed in bold.

Aberdeen Breviary  91–4, 280 n.1 Adam, bishop of Caithness, formerly abbot of Melrose  12, 220–1 Adam of Eynsham, Visio monachi de Eynsham  132 Adomnán, Vita S. Columbae  38–9 see also Columba Aelfheah, St  136, 201 Aelfric  79 Aelred of Rievaulx  19, 282, 284 De bello standardii  169 De genealogia regum Angliae  63–4, 84, 241, 242 Lamentatio Davidis Regis Scocie  241 Vita S. Niniani  159 n.87 Vita S. Edwardi  19, 210 n.47, 282 Aethelthryth, St  136, 201 Æthelwulf, king  217, 224 Affreca de Courcy  142 n.4, 162, 166–9, 284; see also John de Courcy Albania  180 Alexander II, king of Scotland  216, 221, 224 Alexander III, pope  158 n.78, 172, 173–4, 182, 198, 213 Aldhelm, De virginitate  74, 75–6, 78, 80, 109 Alfred of Beverley  255 Alice de Rumilly  164 Altmann, Vita S. Helenae  67 n.39, 72–3, 77 n.95, 82 n.112, 83, 84 Ambrose, De obitu Theodosii  64, 84 availability of text  244 bona stabularia  65 Christian kingship  253–4 conversion of Constantine  69 True Cross  67, 68, 247 n.105

Angles  98, 102, 107, 108, 109 Anglia  109, 176, 177, 178, 180 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle  120–1 Anguen  96, 103 Annals of St Mary’s Abbey, Dublin  165 Arius  63, 264–5 Armagh founding  33, 158–9 potential resting place of Patrick  149, 150–1 presence of Jocelin in  49–50 primacy of archbishop  153–9, 170, 279 relics  30, 49–50, 143–4, 154–5 subjection of Dublin to  45, 46, 153–9, 279 see also Book of Armagh; Tomaltach; Staff of Jesus under Patrick, St Arthur, king  108, 153 Asaph, St  99–100 Asychus  271 Áth Cliath  45; see also Dublin Augustine of Canterbury, St  107, 159 n.85, 183 Augustinian canons  240, 243 baptism  113, 266–7 Baker, Derek  5, 12, 203 n.10, 208 n.40 sources for the Vita Waldevi  128 n.64, 133–4, 135 n.93, 204 n.16, 212 n.56 Bartlett, Robert  134, 159–60, 180 n.45, 214, 237 n.51, 281 n.2 Battle of Milvian Bridge  60–2, 188, 248

313

Index Bede De temporum ratione and De natura rerum  113 n.133 Historia ecclesiastica  111, 131 availability of text  240, 243 Helena  79–80 Old English adaptation  74, 79 Patrick  31 n.28 source for Vita Kentegerni 107–8, 183–4 homily on invention of cross 79–80 Bega, St  167 Bell, David  238, 239–40 Benedict, monk of Melrose  117 n.9, 205 Benedictine Order  276, 240, 242–3, 282–3 Benén see Benignus Benignus, St  35–6, 152 n.49 Bernard of Clairvaux, St  159, 190 n.98, 191, 202–3, 206–7, 219 Vita S. Malachiae  135, 158 n.81, 159 see also William of St Thierry Bernulf of Roxburgh  118 n.17, 124, 126 Bethlehem  82 Bethu Phátraic see Vita tripartita under Vita S. Patricii Bieler, Ludwig  3, 5, 29–32, 33–4, 35 sources for Jocelin’s Vita Patricii 28, 37–8 Birstall Priory  229–31 Black Abbey  163 Bollandists  16–17, 133 Boniface, St  109 Book of Armagh  27, 37, 38, 39, 49–50, 272–3; see also Muirchú; Tírechán; Additamenta under Vita S. Patricii Book of Rights  36, 47, 54, 155–7 Bordesley Abbey  241 Borthwick  105, 264 Breudwyt Maxen Wledic  79 Bridlington Priory  243, 255 Brigit, St  40–41, 149–50, 152 n.49 see also Vita S. Brigidae discovery of relics at Down  3, 6, 7 n.32, 146–7

Brittany  108 Broun, Dauvit  173–5, 176–8 Buildwas Abbey  239 n.58, 240 Bury St Edmunds  10 n.49, 201 Byland Abbey  222 Caesarius of Heisterbach, Dialogus miraculorum  93, 261 Caedmon  131 Cadog, St  98, 99 n.65 Calder Abbey  164 Cambria  176–81 Canterbury primacy of archbishop  172–3, 183, 189 relationship with Dublin  154 shrine of St Thomas Becket  125, 184, 187, 213–14 see also Aelfheah; Thomas Becket Canóin Phátraic see Book of Armagh canonization  201–2, 208–16, 219–20, 225, 279 Carrickfergus  147–8 Carrickfergus Priory  162 Carrig Abbey  164–5, 166–7 Cassiodorus see Historia tripartita Carlisle Cathedral Priory  162 diocese  179 Catherine see Katherine Caucune, river  150, 151 Cecily de Chanvill, abbess of Elstow 237 chastity  231–2, 267–70, 274; see also virginity; celibacy under clergy Cheney, Christopher  238, 240, 252 n.138 Chester  146, 163; see also Roger de Chester; Lucian of Chester; St Werburgh’s Chronicle of Furness Abbey  255 Chronicle of Melrose Abbey abbot of Furness  284–5 Bishop Jocelin  9, 11, 197 Cumbria  179 n.42 discovery of relics at Down  7 n.32, 146 n.29

314

Index discrepancies with Jocelin’s dates 136 n.97 Glasgow Cathedral  9, 11 Jews  247 renewed activity on  202, 222 St Thomas Becket  184, 213 Waltheof  119, 133 n.84, 136, 210, 222 Chronicle of the Kings of Man  42, 43–4, 168 n.126 Cistercian Order attitude to written works  15–16, 222–3, 225, 228, 244, 282 Cistercian bishops  192–3, 194–5, 198, 274–5 Cistercian monasticism  193–4, 283 Cistercian parallels in Vita Kentegerni  192–8 concern over prosperity  222–3, 275–6 cult of saints  206–7, 210–11, 282–3 effect of interdict on  253, 255–6 Jews  247 n.111 libraries  135 n.94, 238–42, 243, 244 ‘poor of Christ’  14, 190, 191 prohibition of baptismal sponsorship  191 response to heresy  260–2 clergy celibacy  267–70, 274, 277–8 education  273–4, 277 training  274, 277 Cole, king  72, 74, 75, 83 Colchester  72, 74 n.79, 75, 245 Colgan, John  14 n.68, 17, 25, 36–7 Collectio canonum Hibernensis  39 Colman, St  40 Columba, St  96, 98, 101–2, 106, 107, 152 n.49 John de Courcy  142 n.9 discovery of relics at Down  3, 6, 7 n.32, 146–7 see also Adomnán Combe Abbey  165 Conall  40 Conall, son of Enda  47–8

Constantine the Great, emperor association with Britain  72 n.66, 74, 78, 229 n.5 Battle of Milvian Bridge  60–2, 188, 248 conversion  69 Council of Nicaea  63–4 founder and patron of churches 70 n.55, 71, 76–7, 234, 250 Helenopolis  81, 234 n.35 model of kingship  234, 250–2, 256–7 restoration of Constantinople 75–8, 249 submission to Pope Silvester  71, 188, 252, 254, 256 True Cross  66, 68, 246, 249, 250 see also Constitutum Constantini Constantine, saint and king  188–9 Constantinople  75–7, 81, 249 Constantius Chlorus, emperor  72, 74, 82–3 Constitutum Constantini  71–2, 84, 188, 279 Coupar Angus Abbey  123, 219; see also Gillesperda; Fulk Crosthwaite, Great  101 Crowland Abbey  119–20, 122 crusades  248–9 culdee  96, 103, 194 Culross  88, 93–4 n. 46, 109 Cumbria  96, 100–1, 162–3 Cumbria  176–81 Cuthbert, St  136, 201, 209–10 Cynewulf, Elene  79, 250 Dalton-in-Furness  240 Danube, river  61, 72 Darley Abbey  230 nn. 9, 12 David, earl of Huntingdon  216, 224, 237 David, St  41, 96, 98–9; see also Rhigyfarch; Vita S. Davidis under Gerald of Wales David I, king of Scotland  4, 217, 219, 224, 237 founder of Melrose Abbey  202, 216 n.76

315

Index Erc, St  30 Erenagh Abbey see Carrig Abbey Ernald, abbot of Rievaulx  16 Ethembria  150 Eucharist  253, 267, 268, 270 Kentigern  92, 93, 270 Waltheof  212–13, 260–2 Eusebius Historia ecclesiastica see Rufinus Vita Constantini  60 n.4 Everard, abbot of Holmcultram  127, 132–4, 167, 204 n.16 Evinus, St  36–7 Evodius, abbot of Carrig  164 Ewen, son of Erwegende  86–87, 92, 93

proposed Scottish province  181 n.49 refounding of Glasgow diocese 176, 178–9 Dewi see David, St Dichu  148–9 Divianus  107, 108 Down cathedral  6–7, 144–53, 162, 163 discovery of relics  3, 6–7, 146–7 invasion in 1177  49, 141, 144 see also Malachy, bishop of Down Downpatrick see Down Dream of Maxen Wledic  79 Drepanum  72 dropsy  117 n.9, 124, 126 n.56, 205, 223–4 Dryburgh Abbey  162–3 Dryhthelm  131 Dublin city  45–6, 47, 50–1, 154–6, 163, 168 conversion by St Patrick  16, 44–7, 155–7, 168 Dublinia  45, 47 presence of Jocelin in  50–1 threat to primacy of Armagh  49, 153–5, 157–9, 279 Duffy, Seán  51 n.131, 154 n.54, 141–2, 162–3, 164 n.105, 166 n.116 Dumbarton  41–2 Duncan, A. A. M.  173 n. 9, 184 Kentigern  10–11, 86 n.4, 175–6, 188 n.86, Waltheof  203 n.10, 212 n.56 Durham Cathedral Priory  201, 209–10, 242, 244 Duvianus see Divianus Eanfrith, abbot of Newbattle  203 Edmund, saint and king  10 n.49, 136, 201, 210 n.47 Edward the Confessor, saint and king of England  136, 201, 217 n.80; see also Vita S. Edwardi under Aelred Éimhín see Evinus Eleutherius, pope  106 Elstow Abbey  13, 229–30, 236–7, 244–5, 281

Faganus  106, 108 Falaise, Treaty of  172 Feidhelm see Fidelma Felley Priory  229–30, 236 n. 43 Fergus see Fregus Fiacc, St  274 Fiechus see Fiacc Fidelma  48 Flanagan, Marie Therese  51 n.131, 145, 146 n.26, 146–7 n.30, 154 nn.59, 60, 158 n.78 Flanders, Steve  163, 169 n. 126 Flaxley Abbey  135 n.94, 239, 241 Flodoard of Reims, Historia ecclesiae Remensis  73, 84, 244 Forbes, A. P.  5, 8, 18, 106 n.98, 108–9 Forde Abbey  241, 244; see also John of Forde Forkernus see Fortchern Fortchern, St  272, 273–4 Forth, river  92 Fountains Abbey  222, 239 n.58, 244, 255 Fourth Crusade  248, 249 Freeman, Elizabeth  14, 204 n.11, 240 n.66 Fregus  92, 96, 112 Fulk, abbot of Coupar Angus  123 n.39

316

Index Furness Abbey Chronicle of Furness Abbey  255 Coucher Book  11–12, 136–7, 164–5, 170 library  239–40, 243 n.87, 244 patronage by John de Courcy  162, 163–70, 281, 284 patronage by Manx dynasty  51, 166–9, 284 relationship with Melrose Abbey 11–12, 284–5 see also Jocelin of Furness; Jocelin of Pennington; Stephen Galloway  180–1 Gardner, Rex  6 n.29, 89–90 Geffrei Gaimar, Estoire des Engleis 120–1, 244 Geoffrey of Burton, Vita S. Modwennae 19 Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia regum Britanniae alleged British source  80 availability of text  240–1, 242–3, 244, 245 Cambria  177 source for Vita Helenae  74–5, 83, 84 source for Vita Kentegerni  103 n.84, 107–8 Gerald of Wales  19–20, 142, 153, 154, 160, 169, 188 n.87, 277–8, 282 Expugnatio Hibernica  142, 144 n.15, 146 n.29, 154, 169, Gemma ecclesiastica  31, 277–8, 188 n.87 Topographia Hibernica  7, 31, 56, 146 n.29, 154, 160, 277 Vita S. Davidis  19, 41 n.84, 98 Vita S. Ethelberti  20, 282 German, saint and bishop of Man 42–3 Germanus of Auxerre, St  40, 107 Gervase of Canterbury, Gesta regum 75, 84 Gervase of Tilbury, Otia imperialia  74 n.79, 75 n.81, 82–3 Gilbert O’Caran see Gilla in Choimded Ua Caráin

Gilbert of Sempringham, St  211, 213, 214, 215 n.72, 219 Gildas, De excidio Britanniae  106–7, 111, 183–4, 240 Gilla in Choimded Ua Caráin, archbishop of Armagh  49, 143 Gillesperda, laybrother of Coupar Angus  118, 123, 204 n.16, 205 Giovanni Fiorentino, Il Pecorone  81 Glasgow campaign for independence 171–89, 198–9, 279 cathedral  9–11, 105, 110–12, 171, 198, 199, 280 city  101–2, 103, 110–12 Jocelin’s presence in  111–12, 192, 281 Registrum episcopatus Glasguensis 18, 107 n.102, 110, 176–7, 178, 184–5 vita in use at cathedral  85, 88–91, 95–7, 96 see also Gorbals; Herbert; Ingram; Jocelin, bishop of Glasgow; John, bishop of Glasgow; Molendinar; Ramshorn Kirk Glastonbury Abbey  27, 29 n.17, 35–6, 151–3, 242–3, 282 Godric of Finchale, St  128, 244 Gorbals, Glasgow  111–2 Goscelin of Saint-Bertin  89 n.27, 210 n.47, 281–2 Govan  112, 189 Great Crosthwaite  101 Gregory the Great, saint and pope 106 n.98, 109, 135, 159 n.85, 183, 254 n.143 Grey Abbey  142 n. 4, 162, 168 Gurmundus  160 H. of Sawtry, Tractatus de purgatorio sancti Patricii  7–8, 50 n. 126, 131, 153 n.50 Hagiography changing approaches  1–2, 4–6, 280 in Anglo-Norman period  19–20, 281–2

317

Index revision of earlier material  18–20, 25–113, 127–37, 159 n.87 Harbus, Antonina  6, 18, 229 n.6, 230 n.9, 251 n.131 sources for Vita Helenae  69, 72 n.64, 79 n.103, 80 n.106 Hautvillers Abbey  73, 229 Helen of Troy  72 Helena, St association with Britain  72, 74, 75, 229, 233 bona stabularia  65 comparison with others  72–3, 231 conversion  69 founder and restorer of churches 71, 82, 232, 234 model of queenship  234, 249–50 relics  73, 229 sponsa Christi  233 True Cross  64, 65–8, 248–9 virago  234 Welsh legend  79, 80 see also Altmann; Vita S. Helenae; Vita S. Helenae under Jocelin of Furness Helenopolis  81–2, 234 n.35 Henry, earl of Northumberland  216 n.76, 219, 224 Henry, messenger  122 n.34, 124–5, 126 Henry, laybrother of Melrose (healing miracle)  122 n.34, 127 Henry, laybrother of Melrose (vision) 117, 129, 204 n.16 Henry II, king of England  172, 173–4, 182 n.55, 185–7, 237 Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum  74, 75, 84, 240, 241, 243 Herbert, bishop of Glasgow  86, 171–2, 203 Hercus see Erc heresy  104, 233, 259–65 Henry of Avranches  20 Historia ecclesiastica see Orderic; Rufinus; under Bede Historia tripartita  60, 78, 84 availability of text  241, 242, 243 Battle of the Milvian Bridge  61, 78

churches founded by Constantine 77 Constantius  82 Council of Nicaea  64, 264 n.24 True Cross  67–8 virgins in Jerusalem  68, 232 Hoddam  96, 104, 189 Holmcultram Abbey  132, 133–4, 162, 219; see also Everard Holy Trinity Priory, Aldgate, London 245 homosexuality  104, 269–70 horses  34, 135, 223, 276 Houts, Elisabeth van  126 n.55, 134, 221–2 Hugh, saint and bishop of Lincoln 237, 261 Hugh d’Avranches, earl of Chester 163 Hugh de Morville  163 Hyde Chronicle  120 hypocrisy  270–1 Iceland  181 n.49 Inch Abbey  145, 162, 163–70, 281, 284 Ingram, bishop of Glasgow  172, 173, 182, 208–10 Innocent III, pope  202, 211, 220 insanity  105, 124, 126–7, 128 interdict  252–7 Inventio crucis  61, 65–8, 84, 235, 241, 246 Old English adaptation  79 Istanbul see Constantinople Jackson, Kenneth  5, 88–9, 90–1, 94, 97–8, 102, 103 n.84, 112 Jerusalem  63, 65–8, 80–1, 82, 233, 234, 248 Jervaulx Abbey  12, 222, 241 n.67 Jews  69, 81, 233, 234 n.35, 235, 246–7 contemporary attitude to  247–8 True Cross  65–6, 246 Jocelin, abbot of Rushen  14 Jocelin, bishop of Glasgow, formerly abbot and prior of Melrose abbot and prior of Melrose  184, 205, 207–8, 212, 222

318

Index bishop of Glasgow  8, 9–12, 171, 172–6, 184, 188 n.86, 212, 284 parallels with Kentigern  192–9 relationship with Furness Abbey 11–12, 284 relationship with Jocelin of Furness 14, 190–2, 284 Jocelin of Furness career and movements  6–16, 115–16, 167–70, 190–2, 280–5 England  24, 244–5, 254–6, 281 Ireland  48–51, 281 Isle of Man  44, 51, 281 Scotland  111–12, 115–16, 192, 281 criticism of  4–5, 35, 98, 112–13 chronological inaccuracies  39 n.75, 136 n.97 possible identification with others 14 relationship with Bishop Jocelin 14, 190–2, 284 relationship with John de Courcy 167–70, 284 Vita S. Helenae  279–80 dating  13, 245–56 edition  18 historical context  245–57, 281 intended audience  231–6 manuscripts  18, 19 patrons  13, 227–38, 281 reforming discourses  264–5, 266–7, 268, 278 sources and composition  59–84, 84, 238–45 Vita S. Kentegerni  279, 280–1, 284 dating  8–12 debate over sources material 85–96, 96 edition  18 historical context  171–99 manuscripts  18, 19, 110 reforming discourses  263–4, 267–71, 276–8 sources and composition  85–113, 96 Vita S. Patricii  279, 280, 281, 284 dating  6–8 editions  16–17

historical context  141–70 manuscripts  17, 19 reforming discourses  265–6, 267–8, 271–4, 276–7 sources and composition  25–52, 52–7 Vita S. Waldevi  279, 280–1, 284 dating  12 editions  17 historical context  201–25 manuscripts  17–18, 19 reforming discourses  260–2, 267–8, 274–6, 278 sources and composition  38, 115–38 works attributed to  3–4, 13 Jocelin of Pennington, abbot of Furness  14 John, bishop of Glasgow  171–2 John, king of England  252–3 John Cumin, archbishop of Dublin 143 n.14, 154 n.59, 155 n.62, 158 n.80 John de Courcy  6, 49–50, 141–8, 149 n.37, 159–70, 281, 284; see also Affreca de Courcy John Fordun, Chronica gentis Scotorum 92–3 John of Forde  253, 255–6 John of Worcester  120 John of Roxburgh  125 Josaphat, Valley of  82 Judas Cyriacus, St  65–7, 68, 84 Judith, wife of Earl Waltheof  237 Julius I, pope  64 Katharine, St  61, 232 Kelso Abbey  133–4, 173 Kentigern, St Columba  101–2, 106 conception  86–7, 88–90, 108, 161 n.92 episcopal consecration  182–3 interpretation of name  97–8 missionary activities  100–1, 180 parallels with Bishop Jocelin 193–8

319

Index parallels with St Thomas Becket 184–7 St Asaph’s  98–100 shrine  9–11 see also Vita S. Kentegerni; Vita S. Kentegerni under Jocelin of Furness Kinloss Abbey  219 Kirkham Priory  132, 135, 191, 214, 219, 261 Kirkstall Abbey  222, 241 n. 67 Lactantius, De mortibus persecutorum 61–2, 82 n.116, 84, 244 Lailoken  96, 103 Lambert, laybrother of Melrose  118, 204 n.16 Languoreth, queen  92–3, 96, 103 n.84, 105–6, 112 n.132 Laurence, abbot of Melrose  124, 126–7, 222 Laurence O’Toole see Lorcán Ua Tuathail Lawrence of Durham, Vita S. Brigidae  19 Laȝamon, Brut  75, 83, 84 Lebor na Cert see Book of Rights Lekai, Louis  283 Leudonus, king  86, 87, 88, 92, 93, 108, 178 Liber Pontificalis  69–71, 84, 243, 264 n.24 Licinius, emperor  62, 63 n.16 Llancarfan  98–9 Llanelwy  98–9 Llanthony Priory (Gloucs.)  240 Llyfr Coch Asaph  99 n.68 Lóegaire mac Néill, high-king of Ireland  30 Loman, St  35–6 Lórcan Ua Tuathail, saint and archbishop of Dublin  143 n.14, 155 n.62, 158 n.80 Loth see Leudonus Lothian  87–8, 178, 180, 181 Lothwerverd  105, 264 Lucian, St  82 n.112 Lucian of Chester  167–8

Lucius, king  106 Mac Carthaigh’s Book  49 Mac Duinnshléibhe kings  148, 164–5 Macarius of Jerusalem, saint and bishop  64, 67 MacQuarrie, Alan  86–9, 90–7, 110 n.122, 111 MacQueen, John  88, 111–12 Magnus III (Barefoot), king of Norway 43–4 Malachy, saint and archbishop of Armagh  135, 144, 146 n.26, 148, 158 n.81, 160 Malachy, bishop of Down collaboration with John de Courcy 141, 144–8, 166, 167, 170 cult of Patrick  6, 141, 146–7, 148–53, 162, 170 Malcolm IV, king of Scotland  158 n.78, 176–77, 217, 219, 224 Malginus see Melconde Galganu Man, Isle of  42–4, 51, 168, 181 n.49 Margam Abbey  169, 222, 241 n.67 Margaret of Scotland, saint and queen  217, 224 Martin of Tours, St  30, 113, 128 n.65, 268 Mass see Eucharist Matilda, queen consort of David I 224, 237 Matilda, queen consort of Henry I 217, 224 Mattersey Priory  229–30, 236 n.43 Maughold, Isle of Man  44 Maughold, saint and bishop of Man 43–4 Maurice, abbot of Rievaulx  191 Maxentius, emperor  61–2, 74, 78, 232 Maximianus Herculius, emperor 61–2 Maximinus Daia, emperor  61–2 McFadden, George  5, 17, 130 nn.70, 72, 133–4, 215 n.70 Jocelin of Furness  3–4, 8–9, 13, 14 n.67

320

Index sources for Vita Waldevi  117 n.10, 135, 136–7 McRoberts, David  1 n.2, 102 n.83, 111, 113 Meaux Abbey  239 n.58, 240, 241–2, 255 Mel, saint and bishop  35–6, 42 Melchom see Melconde Galganu Melconde Galganu, king  92, 99 Melrose Abbey cult of Waltheof  115–38, 201–25, 260–1, 278, 279, 281, 284 Jews  247 relationship with Furness Abbey 284–5 see also Adam; Benedict; Chronicle of Melrose; Henry, laybrother of Melrose (vision); Henry, laybrother of Melrose (miracle); Jocelin, bishop of Glasgow; Lambert; Laurence, abbot of Melrose; Patrick, abbot of Melrose; Peter, cantor of Melrose; Reiner; Richard, abbot of Melrose; Richard, laybrother of Melrose; Roger, monk of Melrose; Roger de Appleby; Sinuin; Swane; Thomas Good; Walter, laybrother of Melrose; Walter, laybrother and hospitarius of Melrose; Waltheof, abbot of Melrose; William, laybrother of Melrose; William I, abbot of Melrose; William II, abbot of Melrose; William de Bredeshala Merlin  103, 108 Mochua, St  274 Molendinar, Glasgow  92, 94, 101, 111 Morice Regan  28–9 Morken, king of Cambria  96, 105, 185–6 Mount Olivet  82 Muirchú maccu Machteni, Vita S. Patricii  26, 39, 49, 55, 57 Benignus  28 death and burial of Patrick  149 n.40, 150–1

Fiacc  274 n. 70 Germanus  40 n.77 Maughold  43 nescio, Deus scit  37 Patrick’s asceticism  196 n.126 Patrick’s parents  274 n. 72 Patrick’s requests concerning Ireland  161 prophecy of Patrick’s arrival in Ireland  33 Mungo see Kentigern Nautcharvan  98–9 Nazareth  82 Nendrum  148, 167 Nendrum Priory  145, 149 n.37, 162, 167 Nennius, Historia Brittonum  40 n.77, 111, 161, 240 Newman, Martha  192, 198 n.133, 283 Niall Mac Duinnshléibhe  164–5 Nicaea, Council of  63–4, 234 n.32, 264–5 Nicholas, chancellor of Scotland  118 n.11, 123, 212–13 Nidaros  181 n.49 Ninian, St  96, 107 Norman, prior of Holy Trinity, Aldgate, London  245 Norman Conquest  121, 217 Northampton  172–3 Norway  160, 181 n.49 Norwich Cathedral Priory  242 Nostell Priory  135 n.93 Nunkeeling Priory  229–30 Office of St Kentigern see Aberdeen Breviary; Sprouston Breviary Olaf, king of Man and the Isles  51, 167 Olcan, St  274 Orderic Vitalis, Historia ecclesiastica 119, 120, 244, 282 Orkney Islands  181 n.49 Papacy see Alexander III; Gregory the Great; Innocent; Julius; Silvester papal legate  157–8

321

Index Passio S. Katerine  61, 62 n.12, 131 n.76 Patrick, abbot of Melrose  12, 136 n.97, 201, 216, 222 Patrick, bishop of Dublin  45 Patrick, St conversion of Dublin  16, 44–7, 155–7, 168 conversion of Isle of Man  42–3, 168 cult sites near Dumbarton  41–2 death and burial  149–51 dedication of Down cathedral  145 discovery of relics at Down  6–7, 146–7, 280 expulsion of snakes  31 Glastonbury  35–6, 151–3 monastic lifestyle  195–6 ‘Patrick’s fish’  161 n.92 requests concerning Ireland  161–2 St Patrick junior  8 n.37, 35–6, 152 St Patrick’s Stone  36, 42 Staff of Jesus  8 n.37, 45, 49–50, 143–4, 154–5 writings  37–8, 151 see also Muirchú; Probus, Tírechán; Vita S. Patricii; Vita S. Patricii under Jocelin of Furness; Vita S. Patricii under William of Malmesbury Paulinus of Nola  67 n.39 Paulus Orosius, Historia adversus paganos  62–3, 68, 84, 241, 242, 243 Peter, cantor of Melrose  210 Peter Comestor  261 Historia scholastica  80–1 Peter of Cornwall, prior of Holy Trinity, Aldgate, London  245 Peterborough Abbey  240, 242 ‘poor of Christ’  14, 190, 191 Probus, Vita S. Patricii  26–7, 55, 56, 57 Benignus  28 death and burial of Patrick  149 n.40, 150–1 Fiacc  274 n.70 Germanus  40 n.77 Maughold  43

Patrick in Rome  157, 273 n.64 Patrick’s asceticism  196 n.126 Patrick’s parents  274 n.72 Patrick’s requests concerning Ireland  161 prophecy of Patrick’s arrival in Ireland  33 Procopius of Sázava, St  220 Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals  71 Queen of Sheba  72–3, 232 Ralph de Diceto, Abbreviationes chronicorum  83 Ramshorn Kirk, Glasgow  102, 111 Ranulf Meschin, earl of Chester  163 Ranulf Meschin, son of William Meschin  164 Reading Abbey  242 Rederech, king of Cambria  96, 97 n.52, 98, 175–6, 187–8 Reginald, king of Man and the Isles  14 n.69 Reginald of Durham  128, 209 n.43 Registrum Anglie de libris doctorum et auctorum veterum  243–4 Reiner, abbot of Melrose  11–12, 284 Remensnyder, Amy  223 resurrection  105, 262, 264, 265–6 miracles  16, 48, 68, 69, 92, 266 Rhigyfarch, Vita S. Davidis  41, 98 Rhydderch Hen see Rederech Richard, abbot of Melrose  207–8 n.36, 222 Richard, laybrother of Melrose  118 n.14, 204 n.16 Richard de Morville  12, 163, 284 Richardson, H. G.  145 n.25, 146 n.28, 165, 166 n.115 Ridyard, Susan  18 Rievaulx Abbey  16, 206 n.30, 239, 240, 241, 283 Ripon  96, 102 Rochester Cathedral Priory  242, 243 Rodanus see Ruadhan Roger, monk of Melrose  122 n.34, 125

322

Index Roger de Appleby, monk of Melrose  122 n.34, 125 Roger de Chester  146, 163 Roger de Pont l’Evêque, archbishop of York  172, 182 Roger of Howden  120 n.28, 146 n.29, 240 Roman de Waldef  121 Rome  61, 71, 72, 73, 234 n.32, 252 papal curia  70–1, 100, 157, 183, 212–13, 220, 252, 273 Ruadhan, St  273–4 Ruadrí Ua Conchobair, high-king of Ireland  143, 144 n.17, 154 n.59 Rufinus of Aquileia, Historia Ecclesiastica  60, 78, 84 availability of text  241, 242, 243, 244 n.89, 245, Battle of the Milvian Bridge  60–1, 188 Constantius  82 Council of Nicaea  63–4, 264 True Cross  67–8 virgins in Jerusalem  68, 232 Rule of Benedict  193, 194, 195, 204–5, 207 n.35, 275, 283 Rushen Abbey  51, 167; see also Jocelin, abbot of Rushen Sabhall Padraig see Saul St-Andrew-in-Ards Abbey  163 St Andrews  158 n.78, 172, 174, 177, 181, 189 St Asaph’s  96, 98–100, 198 St Bees Priory  162, 167 St David’s  177, 181 n.49, 277 St Helen’s Hospital, Derby  229–30 St Helen’s Priory, Bishopgate, London 13, 229–30, 236, 237–8, 245, 281 St Helen’s Priory, Isle of Wight  229–30 St Mary’s Abbey, Dublin  51 St Mary’s Abbey, York  255 St Patrick’s Isle  42–3, 168 St Patrick’s Purgatory  7–8; see also H. of Sawtry St Paul’s Cathedral, London  237, 245 St Werburgh’s Abbey, Chester  14 n.68, 145–6, 146–7, 163, 167–8

Salisbury Cathedral  244 Saul  35 n.44, 141, 150 Saxons  107 n.101, 108–9, 161 Scotia  176, 177, 178, 180 Serf see Servanus Servanus, St  86, 88, 89, 96, 97, 109–10, 267; see also Vita S. Servani associated miracles  92, 93, 94 Shakespeare, William, The Merchant of Venice  81 Shead, Norman  192–3, 197 Sheba see Queen of Sheba Sigar, priest of Newbald  135 n.93 Silvester, saint and pope  64, 69, 71, 188, 234 Simeon of Durham, Gesta regum  120 Simon de Senlis II, earl of Northampton and Huntingdon 136, 218–19 simony  270, 272–3, 277, 278 Sinuin, laybrother of Melrose  118, 127–8, 204 n.16, Slover, Clark H.  29, 152 n.50 Socrates Scholasticus see Historia tripartita sodomy  104, 269–70 Song of Dermot and the Earl  28–9 Sozomen see Historia tripartita Sprouston Breviary  92 n.40, 176, 178 Stephen, king of England  136–7, 218–19 Stogursey Priory  163 Stratford Langthorne Abbey  244 Strathclyde see Cumbria Swein, subcellarer of Melrose  127, 204 n.16 Szoverffy, Joseph  45 n.104, 46 n.108, 47, 155, 156 n.71 Taneu, St  86–90, 96, 97 n.52, 112 n.132, 267 Tellyr  96, 103 Thaney see Taneu Theodoret see Historia tripartita Thomas Becket, saint and archbishop of Canterbury  11 n.52, 125, 184–7, 189, 213–14, 254

323

Index Thomas Good, cellarer of Melrose 116–7, 204 n.16 Thomas, Hugh  121 Thorkell Skallason  121 n.30 Tírechán  26, 39, 49, 55 Asychus  271 n.52 Conall  48 Croagh Patrick  7 n.33 death and burial at Patrick  150 nn.42, 44, 151 Pope Celestine  157 n.73 unauthorized consecration  272–3 Toberglory Priory  162 Tomaltach Ua Conchobair, archbishop of Armagh  6, 50, 277 collaboration with John de Courcy 141–2, 143–4, 170 primacy of Armagh  153–9, 162, 170, 279 Trier  72 Tripartite Life of St Patrick see Vita Tripartita under Vita S. Patricii True Cross discovery  65–8, 231, 248–9 relics  66, 68, 238, 245, 246, 248, 249, 250, 256 Turgesius  160 Ulaid  49, 141, 149, 163, 164, 166; see also John de Courcy; Mac Diunnshléibhe kings; Niall Mac Diunnshléibhe Ulster see Ulaid virginity  231–3, 234, 236, 267–8; see also chastity; celibacy under clergy visions Constantine  60–1, 75–7, 245 Kentigern  98, 270 other world  18, 129–32 Patrick  160 Vita Waldevi  117, 118, 122–3, 125, 126–7, 127, 129, 212–14 Waltheof  118, 127, 133, 204, 260–1, 262 vita apostolica  193 Vita et passio Waldevis Comitis  119–20

Vita S. Brigidae anon.  3 Vita prima  40–1, 55, 57, 150 n.41 see also Lawrence of Durham Vita S. Colmani  40, 57 Vita S. Comgalli  28, 38–9, 55 Vita S. Davidis see Rhigyfarch; under Gerald of Wales Vita S. Haroldi  3, 121–2 Vita S. Helenae English Life  79–80 see also Altmann; under Jocelin of Furness Vita S. Kentegerni Herbertian (Fragmentary) Life baptism of Kentigern  267 Cambria  176, 177–8 interpretation of names  97 nn. 52, 55 relationship to Jocelin’s Vita 86–91, 94, 112 Servanus  86, 88, 89, 90, 110, 267 source for John Fordun  92–3 ‘Scottic’ Life  85–6, 90–4, 95–7, 96 vita in use at Glasgow cathedral 85, 86, 88–91, 95–7, 96 see also under Jocelin of Furness Vita S. Patricii Additamenta  27, 55, Fiacc  274 n.70 Fortchern  272, 274 n.66 Cottonian Vita  26, 53, 56, 57 death and burial of Patrick  151 n.46 founding of Armagh  158–9 n.83 Maughold  43 n.90 Patrick in Rome  157 n.73 prophecy of Patrick’s arrival in Ireland  33 relationship to Jocelin’s Vita 31–2, 33–4, 53, 56, 57 Gloucester Vita  27, 57 Croagh Patrick  7 n.33 death and burial of Patrick  149 n.40, 150 n.44, 151 Dichu’s sons  148 n.38 Germanus  40 n.77 Maughold  44 n.90

324

Index Patrick in Rome  157 n.73 Patrick’s asceticism  196 n.126 Vita quarta (and Vita secunda)  26, 52–7 Brigit  40–1, 149–50 Confessio  38 Croagh Patrick  7 n.33 cross restored to grave  31 death and burial of Patrick 149–50, 151 nn.46, 47 disciples perform miracle  35 n.44 Germanus  40 n.77 Gornias  42 n.86 Fiacc  274 n.70 Maughold  43 Patrick’s asceticism  196 n.126 Pope Celestine  157 n.73 prophecy of Patrick’s arrival in Ireland  33 rain miracle  31 St Patrick’s Stone  36, 42 source for Vita tertia  29–30 Vita secunda see Vita quarta (and Vita secunda) Vita tertia  26, 29–33, 49, 52–4, 56–7 cow  266 n.31 Croagh Patrick  7 n.33 death and burial of Patrick  149, 150–1 Dichu’s sons  149 n.39 Fidelma  48 Germanus  40 n.77 Gornias  42 n. 86 Maughold  43 nescio, Deus scit  37 Patrick’s asceticism  196 n.126 Patrick’s requests concerning Ireland  161–2 Pope Celestine  157 n.73 prophecy of Patrick’s arrival in Ireland  32–33 recensions  29–33 relics in Armagh  50 n.128, 157 n.74 resurrection at Fearta  48 St Patrick’s Stone  36, 42

sixty-six books  39 source for Jocelin’s Vita  27–35 Vita tripartita  25–6, 36–7, 52–7 altar and chalices  46 n.106 Asychus  271 n.52 Brigit  40–1 Colman  40 Conall  48 Confessio  38 Croagh Patrick  7 n.33 death and burial of Patrick  149 n.40, 150–1 disciples perform miracle  35 n.44 Fiacc  274 n.70 Fidelma  48 fort at Dumbarton  42 n.85 Fortchern  272, 273–4 Germanus  40 n.77 Gornias  42 n.86 Maughold  43 Martin of Tours  268 Mochua  274 n.70 Nendrum  148 Olcan  274 Patrick’s asceticism  196 nn.126, 127 Patrick’s parents  274 n.72 Patrick’s requests concerning Ireland  161–2 Pope Celestine  157 n.73 prophecy of Patrick’s arrival in Ireland  33 proverbs  38 n.65 relics in Armagh  157 n.74 resurrection of prince’s grandfather  265 Ruadhan  273–4 St Patrick’s Stone  36, 42 source for Jocelin’s Vita  27–9, 31, 51 Treha  267 n.37 unauthorized consecration  272–3 see also Muirchú; Probus; Tírechán; under Jocelin of Furness; under William of Malmesbury Vita S. Servani  18, 86 n.4, 109–10; see also Servanus

325

Index Vita S. Silvestri  69, 84, 246; see also Silvester availability of text  241, 242, 243, 245 Vita S. Winwaloei  41, 57 Vivian, cardinal and papal legate  174 Wales  41, 94, 98–100, 108, 186–7 Wallia  176–8 Walter Map, De nugis curialium  74 n.79 Walter, laybrother and hospitarius of Melrose  117–18, 123, 204 n.16 Walter, laybrother of Melrose  18, 129–32, 123 n.38, 204 n.16, 246 n.102, 247 Walter Bower, Scotichronicon  4, 93 n.43, 102 Waltheof, abbot of Melrose canonization  201–2, 208–16, 219–20, 225, 279 date of death  136 n.97 family  216–19, 224 growth of cult  202–11 incorruption  118–19, 124, 133 n.84, 136, 201, 209–10, 215, 268 miracles  116–18, 127–8, 128–9, 133, 135, 212–3, 223–5, 260–2 posthumous miracles  117, 118, 122–7, 128, 129–32, 205–07, 213–14, 215, 223–5 see also Vita S. Waldevi under Jocelin of Furness Waltheof, earl of Northumbria 119–22, 217–18, 224, 252 n.137 Ward, H. L. D.  91 Warden Abbey  244–5 Watt, J. A.  155, 159 n.85 Waverley Abbey  222, 255 Westmorland, clerk of  122 n.34, 125, 213–14 Wihtburh, St  10 n.49, 136, 201, 210 n.47 William, laybrother of Melrose  117, 123, 204 n.16 William, son of Patrick fourth earl of Dunbar  221

William, son of William the Goldsmith 237 William I, abbot of Melrose  129, 203–8, 222 William II, abbot of Melrose  136 n.97, 222 William de Bredeshala, monk of Melrose  204 n.16 William le Gros, count of Aumale  218, 219 William of Malmesbury  60 n.4, 70 n.56, 151–2, 240, 244, 254, 282 De antiquitate Glastonie ecclesie  108 n.107, 152 n.49, 153 nn. 51, 52 Gesta pontificum Anglorum  12–13 n.60, 119, 120, 210 n.47 Gesta regum Anglorum  67 n.41, 75–8, 84, 120, 135 n.91, 136, 220 n.99 availability of text  240, 242, 243 Vita S. Patricii  27, 52, 53, 57 Germanus  40 Glastonbury  151–2, 153 n.53 Maughold  43 Patrick’s parents  274 n.72 Pope Celestine  157 n.73 relationship to Vita Tertia  29–31 St Patrick’s Stone  36, 42 William of Newburgh, Historia rerum Anglicarum  16, 240 William of St Thierry, Vita S. Bernardi 128, 202 n.5 William the Conqueror, king of England William the Lion, king of Scotland 172, 177, 187, 220–1, 224 dedicatee of the Vita Waldevi 12, 216–17, 219 William Meschin  163, 167 Winwaloe, St  41, 57 Whithorn  180, 181 Wrdistan, Vita S. Winwaloei  41, 57 Wulfstan of Worcester, St  211 York city  135, 247 archdiocese  132, 171–3, 179–84, 189, 218

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spine 31mm 24 Jun 10

Helen Birkett is a Mellon Fellow at the Pontifical Institute of

Mediaeval Studies, Toronto. Cover: An illustration from a late twelfth century copy of De rota verae et falsae religionis by Hugh of Fouilloy (London, Lambeth Palace Library, MS 107, f. 84v), from the Cistercian abbey of Buildwas (reproduced by permission of Lambeth Palace Library).

Hagiography, Patronage and Ecclesiastical Politics

The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness

Jocelin of Furness (fl. 1175–1214) composed four substantial and significant saints’ lives; varying widely in both subject and patron, they offer a rich corpus of medieval hagiographical writing. Jocelin’s Vita S. Patricii and Vita S. Kentegerni provide updated versions of each saint’s legend and are carefully adapted to reflect the interests of their respective patrons in Ireland and Scotland. The Vita S. Helenae was probably commissioned by a female community in England; it represents an idealized narrative mirror of its early thirteenth century context. In contrast, the Vita S. Waldevi was written to promote the formal canonization of a new saint, Waltheof (d. 1159), abbot of the Cistercian house of Melrose. This is the first full-length study of the Lives. It combines detailed analyses of the composition of the texts with study of their patronage, audiences and contemporary contexts, and provides new insights into Jocelin’s works and the writing of hagiography in the period. Cistercian hagiographer

Hel en B i rkett

The

The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness

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