Tintern Abbey
Tintern Abbey was founded by Walter fitz Richard de Clare the Anglo-Norman lord of Chepstow, in 1131. It was the second Cistercian Abbey in Britain and the first in Wales. Over the previous half-century the Normans had introduced Benedictine priories into England, founded as dependencies of large abbeys in England or France. Some of the impetus for this was to use religion to control the populace—first the Saxons in England, and then the Welsh in Wales, not an uncommon move for unpopular conquerors. Very often the monks who joined these abbeys were not native to the country in which the abbey was placed. Tintern was always closely associated with the lords of Chepstow, who were often generous benefactors. The most invlved was Roger Bigod, great-grandson of William Marshal. He undertook the rebuilding of the church in the late 13th century, Read more…
The Cistercians
As we talked about last week, one of the hallmarks of the Cistercians was their desire for a simpler life in a remote place where they could be self-sufficient, and for that they needed land and a location that was far from town life. In Wales, they found both those qualities in abundance. They were intent on reforming what they saw as excesses within the Benedictine order, particularly the Cluniac movement in France which they thought was too materialistic. In addition, because the Cistercians arose in France, they had no ties to the Norman Church, to Canterbury specifically, which was the seat of England’s Archbishop, or to the English king. That meant that both the Norman lords who conquered portions of Wales and the Welsh princes who fought them off did not feel that by endowing a Cistercian abbey they Read more…
Monastic Orders
Wales was home to many different monastic orders in the Middle Ages. As we’ve talked about this season, at first these saints founded monasteries and convents throughout Wales without the formalization of belonging to a particular worldwide order. In these early monastic communities, starting in the 5th century, the participants were seeking to model the life of Jesus Christ, who owned nothing and devoted his energies toward others. In founding these early monasteries, there was a very clear communal awareness and self-denial at odds with the human inclination toward self-interest and self-promotion. Over time, in other places (as in Wales), in the first centuries of Christianity, individual saints developed their own rules. The Rule of St. Augustine had the greatest following initially and gave rise to the Augustinian Order, which still exists today. These rules were further formalized in the Read more…
Bective Abbey
Bective Abbey was located within Norman controlled Ireland, called The Pale, which was the area around Dublin conquered by the Normans starting in 1171, and is the source of the phrase, ‘beyond the pale’. If something is beyond the pale, it is unacceptable or unseemly. In other words, here be dragons. Bective Abbey, and Trim Castle which is not too far away, are located on the River Boyne, which in some eras formed the barrier between Norman and Irish controlled Ireland—though Trim is on the inner bank and Bective on the outer. Dan: Does that mean it wasn’t always a Norman abbey? It was founded in 1147 by the king of the Irish Kingdom of Meath. I’m not pronouncing his name because I would only butcher it. It was a ‘daughter house’ of Mellifont Abbey, located close to Drogheda, and Read more…
Tintern Abbey Ireland
? The Tintern Abbey in Wales has been referred to as ‘Tintern major’ and the abbey in Ireland as “Tintern of the vow” Dan: It can’t be a coincidence they have the same name. It isn’t, anymore than New York is name for ‘York’ in England. In this case, both abbeys were founded by the Norman Lord of Chepstow. In the case of the Tintern Abbey in Wales, that was Walter de Clare, and that abbey will the subject of a video coming up. Tintern Abbey in Ireland was founded by William Marshal, who was a later Lord of Chepstow, and named the Irish Tintern after the Tintern Abbey in Wales. As we talked about last week, William Marshal married Isabel de Clare, daughter of Richard de Clare, who made himself Lord of Leinster by marrying the daughter of Diarmait, Read more…
Clonmines
Clonmines is one of my favorite spots in Ireland and one we were not supposed to go to. Sshh! We were driving beside the road and said, “what is that!” and we just had to see it. It turned out to be a medieval town, established by William Marshal, the great knight and Lord of Leinster, as an alternative port to one already established. What’s incredible about Clonmines is the way it is so intact. One of the things we remarked upon as we were traveling throughout the country was how few medieval sites there were. Clearly there is a variety of reasons for this, which I won’t go into today. Clonmines survival may in part be due to the fact that it is on private land. To be perfectly frank, we trespassed, if inadvertently, to take these pictures. The Read more…
Norman-Irish Christianity
Is Norman-Irish Christianity different from just plain Norman? It is different in the sense that the Normans didn’t conquer parts of Ireland until a hundred years after they conquered England. Dan: I don’t recall talking about the Norman conquest of Ireland last year. Weirdly, we didn’t really, or at least not very much. So, in a nutshell, in 1169 Richard de Clare, known to history as Strongbow, who was the Earl of Pembroke in Wales, took it upon himself to aid Diarmait, the King of Leinster, against his enemies. In exchange, Diarmait promised to give Richard his daughter in marriage as well as the throne of Leinster upon Diarmait’s death. The glitch in this plan was that King Henry of England did not think that one of his vassals should become a king in his own right. As a result, Read more…
Lanercost Priory
Lanercost was founded roughly in 1169 by a 12th century nobleman, Robert de Vaux, who later became the Sheriff of Cumberland. Robert’s family had been granted a barony on the border with Scotland, as reward for their part in the Norman Conquest, but the area had only come under English rule in 1157. According to English Heritage, the founding of a priory was a symbol of Robert’s permanence in the area and of his wealth, as well as an act of piety. He gave the priory considerable lands and the living from churches nearby, and allowed the canons the freedom to elect their own prior. Much of the work on the priory is from the late 13th century, using stones taken from Hadrian’s Wall—as evidenced by the fact that you can still see Roman inscriptions on some of the stones. Read more…
Rievaulx Abbey
Rievaulx was the first Cistercian Abbey in the north of England, begun in the 1130s under the patronage of Walter Espec, a lord who came to England with William the Conqueror. He was one of the justiciar’s of northern England under William and his descendants, and one of the most powerful men in England as a result. The Abbey is located in Yorkshire, in a wooded dale by the River Rye, which the monks actually diverted to the west in order to have enough flat land to build on. They also used the river to provide fresh water to their monastery. By mining lead and iron and raising sheep to sell their wool, the abbey eventually built itself up to be one of the most powerful in England, with a hundred and forty monks (Norman, of course) and over five Read more…
Battle Abbey
Aren’t ‘Battle’ and ‘Abbey’ a bit contradictory? Not to Normans! And not to the Norman church either, in that the idea of a religious war was not very far down the road (the first Crusade was 1096). The battle in question, however, had already taken place, because William the Conqueror built Battle Abbey on the site of the Battle of Hastings, at which he defeated/killed Harold, the Saxon King of England and took his throne. Dan: So he built the abbey in honor of the battle? From its shape and size, that’s pretty much the case, though ostensibly the reason for building the abbey was out of guilt or to atone for the number of people he killed in conquering England. According to the Chronicle of Battle Abbey, William made a speech along those lines after that battle: I make Read more…
Halloween in Wales
As I sit here munching candy corn (which my son at one point declared ‘the best candy’–even better than chocolate–though he can’t have any because he’s allergic to corn), I’m thinking about the Gareth & Gwen Medieval Mystery, The Fallen Princess, which takes place at Halloween. Except that during the Middle Ages, it was called ‘All Hallow’s Eve’, the day before All Saint’s Day, and it was less about candy and more about a belief in actual spirits. All Hallow’s Eve, or Halloween, has its roots in an older, pagan tradition, called Nos Calan Gaeaf , Welsh for Samhain, a Gaelic word meaning ‘Summer’s End’. This is the most well-known Halloween tradition in Wales. http://www.controverscial.com/Samhain.htm The Welsh translation, interestingly, is ‘the first of winter’. From the National Museum of Wales: “A pagan holiday dating back to the Iron Age Celts, Samhain was Read more…
Norman Christianity
Today we’ll be talking about Norman Christianity. Dan: In an earlier video, you said the Normans were descended from Vikings, who were pagan. But they weren’t pagan when they conquered England? No, they had converted to Christianity in the same time period as most of the Danes from whom they were descended, such that by 1066, when Duke William fought Harold at the Battle of Hastings, his people had been Christian for a hundred and fifty years. To recap, because I think it’s worth repeating, the Normans are called “Norman” because they came from Normandy, a province in France. But as we said in a prior video, ‘Viking’ is an occupation, not an ethnic group. They are descended from the same Danish diaspora that invaded Ireland, Britain, Sicily, and western Russia. They were eventually either defeated or assimilated in all Read more…
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