A Rochester manuscript used as Norman propaganda
/Occasionally medieval manuscripts are looked at with fresh eyes and historians' perceptions of happenings in certain places at certain points of time change.
Textus Roffensis'
The manuscript is listed in the earliest extant post-Conquest book catalogue from any English monastic house in Textus Roffensis?. The catalogue lists the 93 manuscript books that were in Rochester Cathedral library in 11233. 49 of these Rochester manuscripts are in the British Library today.
The manuscript comprises books 17-35 of Gregory's Moralia in Job*. It was thought to have been written in the first half of the twelfth century but has recently been redated on the evidence of its palaeography and codicology to before the end of the eleventh century. This study of the iconographic evidence seems to confirm the earlier dating, suggesting the 1080's, for together with the highlighted text, the decorated initials appear to act as justification by the Norman Church, for the Norman Invasion of England in 1066 and events which occurred before 1087.
This is a time for which we have scant authentic documentary evidence from any part of England. The richly decorated manuscript is one of a group of early post-Conquest manuscripts written in Rochester. It is quite unlike the undecorated manuscripts of the Moralia written in twelfth century England. It has similarities with Moralia written in Normandy before the end of the eleventh century such as MS BM Rouen 4987 and MS Chapitre de Bayeux 58. All three manuscripts end with copies of grammatical notes written by Archbishop Lanfranc®.
Lanfranc
Lanfranc® was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1070 until his death ) in 1089. He was born in north liaiye. TOYO. He came to Normandy
•as did other north Italians establishing himself as a teacher in Avranches c. 1039. He became a monk at the newly founded monastery of Bec in 1042, becoming Prior in 1045. He moved on to become Abbot of St. Étienne, Caen in 1063 and on the death of Stigand in 1070 he became Archbishop of Canterbury. The Anglo-Saxon Cathedral in Canterbury had been burnt down in 1067.
Bodley MS569
G. Garnetti has shown that the major elements of the Norman argument for the legitimacy of William's claim to the throne were already in place very soon after the Conquest. This manuscript written at the time of the movements called the 'Peace of God' and the 'Truce of God'11 seems to present the case justifying the invasion from the Christian standpoint, through its decorated initials and through the way it alerts the reader to passages from the Moralia which are particularly appropriate to the Norman argument. Of course the text could not refer directly to the invasion but the subtext in the decorated initials and rubrication could do so.
Could it have been Lanfranc who conceived the idea of using this latter part of the Moralia, which had such generally apt beginnings to its books, as a pièce justificative? This would have been quite in accord with the author of the Moralia, Pope Gregory I who had stressed that the role of the Church was to teach, advocating a threefold method of interpretation of the Scriptures, historical allegorical and moral. He had said 'painting is used in churches so that those who do not know letters may at least by looking on the walls read what they cannot read in books 12. At a time of Gregorian Reform, the person who commissioned this manuscript seems to have been following the advice of Gregory I, to use painting as a visual aid, not only in fresco or tapestry, but also in a manuscript book.
It is likely that this manuscript was on view on special occasions, for it is the folios with the decorated initials that are the well-thumbed ones. Interpretation of the decorated initials may have been given by priest to people as Norman propaganda in the unstable political aftermath of the Conquest. Very few people indeed would have been able to read the Latin text; Gundulphi?, Bishop of Rochester from 1076-1103, was, in the opinion of his contemporaries, a great builder and litterarum non nescius, (not ignorant of letters), but certainly no scholar. Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, may have been the scholar and teacher able to locate the manuscripts in Normandy to use as exemplars, from his teaching in Avranches14, Bec'5 and Caen; to organise the copying of manuscripts, albeit with the help of some peripatetic scribes, setting the distinctive style of the Rochester scriptorium which makes it possible to recognize a manuscript written at Rochester, at this time, wherever its travels have taken it over the centuries.
The Eagle (reproduced on the back cover)
Let us search then for contemporary meaning in the decorated initials. Central to our understanding of this manuscript is this stylised representation of the nimbed eagle of St. John with turned head. Chapter 31 of the Moralia equates the eagle with 'earthly power'. As the eagle is perched securely on a bible perhaps this suggests earthly power brought about by the Church. Or is it indeed an eagle?
Eagles in earlier manuscripts are usually naturalistically drawn and coloured. This parrot-like bird has an intricate, multi-coloured, patterned, harp-shaped wing in which a central stripe of red feathers predominates. It is like some of the birds shown in the borders of the Bayeux Tapestry' or described by the Dean of St.
Quentin 7 in the dream of Rollo. Birds generally in book 19 of the Moralia are seen as sometimes forces of good and sometimes forces of evil. The rubricated text. referring to the misfortunes of Job, of course, at the beginning of book 28 reads:
POST DÂNA RERÜ18 After loss of possessions/exile
POST FUNERA PIGNORUM After breaking of oaths/death of children
POST VULNERA CORPORIS After wounds of the body
Only one manuscript of theMoralia rubricates this passage similarly, MS Chaptre de Bayeux 5819. Perhaps it was intended that the reader should focus his mind on the breaking of the oath of allegiance to Duke Wiliam sworn by Harold on Hob Moralia dal inis ponal, althoug note ins Co nues st England, the tost g Moralia at this point, although referring to the misfortunes of Job, was so applicable to 1066. Was the Moralia being used as propaganda? K Waller posed the question as to why, when so few patristic texts were copied in late Anglo-Saxon England, were so many written afterwards? Were people, being encouraged to accept the Conquest as the will of God, almost as divine right of providence, in the way that job had learnt with patience to accept his afflictions as the will of God?
Job
Gregory's text at this point concerns the drawing out of meaning from history, of 'mystical interpretation'. The decorated initial at the beginning of book 17 shows the Old Testament prophet Job in the ashpit, reflecting the story in Ch. 2 v. 7 of the Old Testament book of Job, although the author of the Moralia intended book 17 to be comment on the book of Job from Ch. 24 v. 20 onwards. Job is shirtless, covered with boils, encircled by serpents - in a snakepit, clearly in a state of penitence. Job in Christian iconography represented the suffering of Christ and his Holy Church. The initial seems to be suggesting that the Anglo-Saxon Church had been in a state of sin, perhaps because of Harold's broken oath; because Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury until his death in 1070 had been a pluralist, retaining the episcopacy of Winchester after his elevation to Canterbury; because Stigand had committed the gravest sin by wresting the See of Canterbury from Robert of Jumièges during Robert's lifetime?', making both Stigand's appointment as Archbishop and his consecration of Harold Godwineson irregular. The Church penitent is being offered the eucharistic bread, the body of Christ, the essence of the doctrine of transubstantiation on which Archbishop Lanfranc had taken a firm stand in a
famous dispute with Berengar in 1059. Lanfranc had striven from this time to defend both the doctrine of transubstantiation and the peace and unity of the Church.
Some Rochester people may also have related this initial to their local lord Odo, Bishop of Bayeux and Earl of Kent, imprisoned for rebelling against his half-brother King William; or to the Norman oral and written tradition that came together in William of Jumièges' writings of the legendary Ragnar lothbrök killed in the snakepit of King Alla of Northumbria?, for the battle of Hastings may have been seen by people of Scandinavian origin as blood revenge.
seen by people of Scandinavian origin as blood revenge.
Lamb of God
fo. 15
This is an early depiction of the Agnus Dei with a sword/cross. From the fifth century the Lamb had usually been depicted solely with a halo. The Agnus Dei seems to refer to the taking away of the sins of the Anglo-Saxon Church, through the death of Harold at Hastings and the enthronement of a legally consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury;
Lanfranc himself.
The scene is set. Now for the Norman fleet's crossing from Normandy in open Viking type boats in late September. What a miracle that it happened at all!23
The Archangel St. Michael
QUID MIRUM si eterna Dei sapientia conspici non valet. (Is it any wonder that no one spotted the wisdom of God) 4. St. Michael is a well-established figure in Christian iconography but in the context of this manuscript it seems to refer to the invasion, for in 1066 a Norman fleet had set off from West Normandy and had been blown into St. Valéry sur Somme, having lost men if not ships. The fleet remained storm bound by a fortnight of stormy weather and contrary winds. It was when the feast of St. Michael was about to be celebrated, towards the end of September that there was a weather change; Quid Mirum indeed!
Providential'S you might say! God made the storms to cease, the sun to shine, turned the wind south and the Norman fleet led by Duke William? was able to sail out from St. Valéry sur Somme, across to Pevensey and thence to battle at Hastings.
The Stag
Gregory's text at this point refers to people who distress the Church. A young male deer is depicted, its antlers do not branch so it is not the older hart. When a stag occurs
45v
on early medieval coin or artefact there seems to be a
Scandinavian present in
element the
environment27. This stag
may have referred to Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, Earl of Kent, whose earlier help both in providing ships for the invasion?9 and building motte and bailey wooden castles afterwards, to subdue the English, had been so important to William; or it may have referred to Thomas of Bayeux30, Archbishop of York, 1070-1100, and to the subject of the disputed primacy between Canterbury and York, pleaded
before Pope Alexander II in 1071 and settled in favour of Canterbury. A reason for thinking the latter is that a later medieval reader drew attention, with a maniculum to the passage beneath the stag, a passage of the Moralia which refers to 'he who is first', and 'management of government?. It seems that later medieval people recognised this manuscript as Lanfranc's, for a late medieval hand has written his name at the end of the manuscript.
fo. 71v
The Norman Knight
Wearing chain-mail armour and conical helmet the knight is half-standing in his stirrups astride a well accoutred white horse. His lance appears to have been couched from how he is holding it as he has thrust it into the serpent/dragon. This suggests that although lances may not have been couched at Hastings or its associated skirmishes, they were by the 1080's. As there is no precedent in any manuscript for this depiction of a Norman knight, it might be deduced that it was taken from contemporary life; Gregory in book thirty-one of the Moralia, allegorised horses ready for battle with 'the righteous ready for trial'.
Pope Gregory
The text of book 27 concerns establishing a system of Christian doctrine and ethics. The Byzantine style miniature is of a man carrying a holy book. He has a black beaded halo which denotes the death of an apostle or, in the apostolic line, a pope. In the textual context and the context of the other decorated initials it must refer to Gregorian reform and to the death of Pope Gregory VII who instituted the reform. Pope Gregory died in 1085. People may also have been reminded of the author of the Moralia, Pope Gregory I.
Samson
A long-haired Samson with bees in his hair, (straight from Judges Ch. 40) is depicted at the beginning of book 29, astride a lion, with his hand in the lion's mouth, encircled with a serpent. This Samson may refer to the particular 11th century Samson, Norman by birth, protégé of Odo of Bayeux, ) Canon, Treasurer and, possibly, Dean of the large Cathedral Chapter of Bayeux33. It is possible that he was associated with the Domesday survey set underway in 1085, and was the recipient of the
fo. 152v
letter from Lanfranc to S.34 in which Lanfranc
confirms that in the counties which S. had been assigned the duty of making a survey he had no demesne land. This Samson was a strong survivor like his biblical namesake; he did not lose his English lands when Odo fell into disgrace in 1082, but at that time it was perhaps thought appropriate to depict him with his hand in the lion's mouth.
Conclusions
Clearly I cannot claim certainty in my interpretations of each decorated initial and as I have suggested, 11th century people may have interpreted them in several ways. I am certain, however, that an iconographic theme was used to explain and justify the role of the Norman Church in the Norman Conquest of England, to encourage passive acceptance of the Conquest as the will of God, and in terms that more than the scholarly few could understand. The late medieval hand that wrote that it was Lanfranc's manuscript probably got it right.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Professor A. C. de la Mare for inviting me to read a paper to the London Medieval Manuscripts Seminar on 3rd June 1993, from which this short article is drawn, and to the Editor, Revd. Canon Richard Lea M.A. for helpful
Questioning. Photographs of eight decorated initials from the manuscript are published with the kind permission of the British Library. The depiction ofLanfrane prom Bodley MS 569 fo. 1 is published with the permission of the Bodleian Library.
Christine Grainge is a research student in early medieval history at King's College London.
I am grateful to Stephen Dixon, Rochester Archivist at Strood, for allowing slides to be taken of fos. 224.
230 of Textus Roffensis.
R. P. Coates, 'Catalogue of the Library of the Priory of St. Andrew, Rochester', from Textus Roffensis, Archaeologia Cantiana, 1887, vol. 2, pp. 120-128.
N. R. Ker English Manuscripts in the Century after the Norman Conquest, (Oxford, 1960) dated Textus Roffensis to "probably not very much after 1123, on the grounds tha the death of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Ralph d'Escures, which occurred in 1122, is recorded in the main hand, that is the hand ofthe scribe known as the Textus Roffensis scribe, which occurs in at least 12 other Rochester Cathedral manuscripts.
C.C. Series Latina ed. M. Adriaen, Gregorii Magni Opera Moralia in Job, (Turnholti, 1979 and 1985).
N. R. Ker, The English Manuscripts of the Moralia of Gregory the Great', Kunsthistorische Forschungen Otto Pacht zu Ehren, ed. A. Rosenauer and G. Weber, Salzburg, 1972, pp.77-89, was the starting point for my research. K. Waller, unpublished Liverpool University Ph.D. thesis, 1987 'Rochester Cathedral Manuscripts' and J. P. Gray unpublished Courtauld Institute Ph.d. thesis, 1992 'The Iconography of the Illuminated Manuscripts of Gregory's Moralia in Job' both echoed Ker's dating.
M. Gullick, The investigation of scribes, scripts and scriptoria c. 1050 - c. 1150', an Annual Public Lecture, King's College London, 16 December 1993.
T. Davidson, Studies in Cistercian Art and Architecture, III (Cistercian Studies Series, LXXXIX) ed. M. P. ilich, Kalamazoo, 1987, pp. 46-68, suggested that there were iconographic links between BL Royal 6C.Vi and an earlier Norman Moralia in Rouen. I have observed iconographic links with MS BM Rouen 498 which I hope to follow up.
Sir Richard Southern first noticed these Lanfracian notes on the Moralia in BL Royal MS 6C.VI and MS BM
Rouen 498, (See M. Gibson, 'Lanfranc's notes on Patristic texts', Journal of Theological Studies, N.S., vol.
XXIII, Pt. 2, Oct. 1971, p. 440). I was the first to notice these Lanfrancian notes in MS Chapitre de Bayeux 58 in July 1992.
See M. Gibson, Lanfranc of Bec, (Oxford, 1978).
G. Garnett, 'Coronation and Propaganda: some implications of the Norman claim to the throne of England in 1066' Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 1985.
Eds. T. Head and R. Landes, The Peace of God, (Cornel University Press, 1992). See p. 5, Map 1, Places associated with the early 'Peace of God', c. A.D. 1000. Normandy, and Brittany which had been under the control of the Dukes of Normandy since 966, were not part of the movement.
J. P. Migne ed., Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Latina (P.L.), vol 77, col 1027, Epistola CV, Ad Serenum Massiliensem Episcopum: 'Id circo enim pictura in Ecclesiis abhibetur, ut hi qui litteras nesciunt, saltem in parietibus videndo legant quae legere in Codicibus non valent'.
P.L. CLIX, col. 829. 'in opere caementari plurimum sciens et efficax. See R. A. L. Smith, The Place of Gundulph in the Anglo-Norman Church', English Historical Review, Ivii July, 1943.
J. J. G. Alexander, Norman Illumination at Mont St. Michel, 966-1100, (Oxford, 1970) and M. Dosdat, l'Enluminure romane au Mont St. Michel, Xe-XIle Siècles, (Association des amis de la bibliothèque municipale d'Avranches/Editions Ouest-France, 1991). A great many of the manuscripts listed in Textus Roffensis were in the scriptorium at Mont St. Michel. The monastery of Mont St. Michel had been refounded by Duke Richard I of Normandy in 966. T. Webber, Scribes and Scholars at Salisbury Cathedral.
(Oxford, 1992) p. 44, notes that Abbot Paul from St. Albans had a number of books produced for his community 'from exemplars supplied by Lanfranc'.
Véronique Gazeau, Université du Maine, told me that the monastery of Bec was very poor in the 11th century and that little was written there until the mid 12th century.
See C. Hicks, The Borders of the Bayeux Tapestry', in England in the Eleventh Century, Proceedings of the
1990 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. C. Hicks, (Paul Watkins, 1992).
De moribus et actis primorum Normanniae Ducum auctore Dudone Santi Quintini Decano, ed. Jules Lair.
(Caen, 1967), p. 146.
ed M. Adriaen, 1985, p. 1395
18. ed M. Adriaen, 1985, p. 1395.
MS Trin. Coll. Camb. B.4.9, has an expanded rubrication but with no graphic impact and DAMNA not DANA. This is one of the earliest post-Conquest manuscripts written at Christ Church, Canterbury in the 1090's, dated by Ker to XII" and by T. Webber more recently, to the 1090's (T. Webber, 1992).
K. Waller, 'Rochester Cathedral Library An English Book Collection based on Norman Models', p.246 in Les Mutations socio-culturelles au tournant des Xle-XIle siècles, ed. R. Foreville, (Paris, 1984), pp. 237-50.
I. N. Brooke, 3he English Genurch and the Papacy from the Conquest to the Reign of King John,
(Cambridge, 1931), Ch. V. identified MS Trin Coll Camb. B. 16.44. as Lanfranc's personal abbreviated copy of the Pseudo-Isidorean Decretals. These stated that a bishop was the life tenant of his diocese. Bi Royal MS 6C.VI is written, in parts, in a very similar hand to that of B. 16.44.
E. M. C. van Houts mentioned this in conversation, March 1993.
Christine and Gerald Grainge, The Pevensey Expedition: brilliantly executed plan or near disaster', The Mariner's Mirror, Vol. 79, No. 3 (August 1993).
Translation by Father Leonard Boyle O.P. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana.
S. Lindgrén and J. Neumann, 'Great Historical Events that were Significantly Affected by the Weather:
'Protestant Wind* - 'Popish Wind'. The Revolution of 1688 in England', American Meteorological Society, Vol. 66, No. 6, June 1985. See Appendix. William I, The Conqueror, and William III, p.643.
See C. Morton and H. Muntz, eds., The Carmen de Hastingae Proelio of Guy Bishop of Amiens (Oxford,
1972), pp.8-9.
For example in the facing bust/stag type coins struck at Hedeby, mid-ninth century; see M. M. Archibald,
'Against the tide: coin movement from Scandinavia to the British Isles in the Viking Age', Norsk
Numismatisk Forening, (Oslo 1991).
See D. R. Bates, The Character and Career of Odo, Bishop of Bayeux 1049/50-1097, Speculum 1975, See E. M. C. van Houts, The Ship List of William the Conqueror', Anglo-Norman Studies X, (Woodbridge, 1987).
Normandy was settled by Vikings c. 911. E. Searle, Predatory Kinship and the Creation of Norman Power
840-1066, (Univ. of California Press, 1988), has shown that Bayeux in West Normandy remained until the
11th century more distinctively Scandinavian than East Normandy.
Moralia, ed. M. Adriaen, 1979, p. 1006: 'Qua in re quid aliud docemur, nisi non quod talis debet esse dispensatio regiminis ut is qui praeest .
A. Oakley, unpublished Ph.D. thesis 1970, 'Dean and Chapter of Rochester', notes that Siward, Bishop of Rochester, who died in 1075 was 'not mentioned as having been at Hastings with King Harold as were many of the Anglo-Saxon bishops and abbots, and that the house put up no opposition to William I when he seized their lands and gave them to his half brother Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, whom he had created Earl of Kent'. She also notes that very little is known about the pre-Conquest house after Bishop Putta's translation to Hereford in 676.
See V. H. Galbraith, 'Notes on the career of Samson, Bishop of Worcester, 1096-1112, in E.H.R., 1967. F.
Barlow, 'Domesday Book: A letter of Lanfranc', E.H.R. 1963, pp.284-9, but see P. Chaplais, William of St.
Calais and the Domesday Survey', in J. C. Holt, Domesday Studies, (Woodbridge, 1987) pp 65-77,
H. Clover and M. Gibson, The letters of Lanfranc Archbishop of Canterbury, (Oxford, 1979) letter 56, p. 170.
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