The conclusion of Christina of Markyate's Vita

Journal of Ecclesiastical History

Volumn 51, Issue 4, 2000, Pages 663-698

  Koopmans, Rachel M ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 60950125931     PISSN: 00220469     EISSN: 14697637     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0022046900005091     Document Type: Review

References (55)

1. R. W. Hanning, The individual in twelfth-century romance, London 1977, 50
2. The Life of Christina of Markyate: a twelfth-century recluse, ed. and trans. C. H. Talbot, Oxford 1959, repr. 1987, 192
3. For minor corrections in the text see Michael Winterbottom, 'The Life of Christina of Markyate', Analecta Bollandiana cv (1987), 281-7. See the frontispiece of Talbot's edition for a reproduction of the last page of the Tiberius manuscript, fo. 167v
4. For the date of Geoffrey's death, which Talbot mistakenly refers to as '1147' in his introduction, see David Knowles and C. N. L. Brooke, Heads of religious houses: England and Wales, 940-1216, Cambridge 1972, 67
5. Early charters of the cathedral church of St Paul, London, ed. M. Gibbs (Camden 3rd ser. lviii, 1939), nos 154, 156
6. is also published in English episcopal acta, I: Lincoln 1067-1185, ed. David M. Smith, London 1980, no. 49
7. The pipe rolls of 2-3-4 Henry II, London 1844, 22
8. Gesta abbatum monasterii Sancti Albani, ed. Henry Thomas Riley (Rolls Series, 1867-9), i. 127
9. Sally Thompson has pointed out that the pipe roll entry and the Gesta abbatum's reference to Christina's embroidery do not conclusively prove that Christina was alive in the 1150s: Women religious: the founding of English nunneries after the Norman Conquest, Oxford 1991, 18. On balance, however, the two references indicate that it is at least more probable than not that Christina was alive in the 1150s
10. An association between Christina of Markyate and St Alexis is also found in the St Albans Psalter. This psalter, once owned by Christina, contains a notably early translation of the legend of St Alexis into Old French: Carl J. Odenkirchen, The Life of St Alexius in the Old French version of the Hildesheim manuscript, Leyden 1978
11. The psalter, St Petersburg [Leningrad] Public Library, MS X. v. I, 62, was made for use at St Albans but was at Wherwell nunnery by 1189: Rodney M. Thomson, Manuscripts from St Albans abbey: 1066-1235, Woodbridge 1982, i. 37
12. See P. Grosjean, 'The life of Christina of Markyate', review article in Analecta Bollandiana lxxvii (1960), 197-206
13. and David Farmer, Oxford dictionary of the saints, 3rd edn, New York 1992, 97, for speculation that Christina shared a feast day with Roger and Sigar, speculation with no evidential basis
14. Christina's Vita has inspired a great deal of commentary, the most important of which is Christopher Holdsworth's, 'Christina of Markyate', in Derek Baker (ed.), Medieval women (Studies in Church History. Subsidia i, 1978), 185-204
15. Ruth Mazo Karras, 'Friendship and love in the lives of two twelfth-century English saints', Journal of Medieval History xiv (1988), 305-21
16. Sharon Elkins, Holy women of twelfth-century England, Chapel Hill 1988
17. and Thompson, Women religions
18. Roscarrock's digest is printed in Carl Horstmann, Nova legenda anglie, Oxford 1901, 532-7
19. See Thomas Smith, Catalogus librorum manuscriptorum bibliothecae Cottonianae, Oxford 1696, 28-9
20. On the compilation of the Gesta abbatum see Riley, Gesta abbatum, i, pp. ix-xix; ii, pp. ix-xx; iii, pp. ix-xxiii
21. Richard Vaughan, Matthew Paris, Cambridge 1958, 182-6
22. Antonia Gransden, Historical writing in England, c. 550-c. 1307, Ithaca, NY 1974, 374-78
23. and Claude Jenkins, The monastic chronicler and the early school of St Albans, London 1922
24. See Gesta abbatum, i. 107, 121, 145, 182, 206, for references to Adam the Cellarer
25. Thompson, Manuscripts from St Albans, i. 3, argues that Matthew Paris 'seems to have copied [Adam the Cellarer's roll] verbatim'
26. See Gesta abbatum, ii, pp. ix-xix, for speculation on the identity of the second compiler
27. On the dating of the Tiberius manuscript see Life of Christina, 1-2. The manuscript is dated not only by paleographical features but also by an inscription which notes that the manuscript was given to the cell of Redbourn by Thomas de la Mare (1349-96), abbot of St Albans
28. 'et sex pannos sericos, quorum unum assignavit ad cooperiendum dictum mausoleum, et alium ad cooperiendum tumbas Rogeri et Sigari heremitarum, et denarios ad emendandum feretrum': Matthew Paris, Chronica majora, ed. H. R. Luard (Rolls Series, 1872-84), v. 617
29. Eileen Roberts, The hill of the martyr: an architectural history of St Albans abbey, Dunstable 1993, 71-3, fig. 32
30. See Eadmer, The Life of St Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury, ed. R. W. Southern, London 1962, 150-1
31. For the most comprehensive study of the psalter see Otto Pächt, C. R. Dodwell and Francis Wormald, The St Albans Psalter, London 1960
32. While Pächt and his collaborators argued that the psalter was designed for Christina from the start, iconographic, paleographical and textual evidence best supports the theory that it was originally used by Roger and later altered at St Albans for Christina's use: Kristine E. Haney, 'The St Albans Psalter: a reconsideration', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes lviii (1995), 1-28
33. and A. Goldschmidt, Der Albanipsalter in Hildesheim, Berlin 1895
34. On the development of Christina's hermitage into a nunnery see Thompson, Women religious, 20-4, 57-61
35. While the Vita writer presents Geoffrey as Christina's only real object of affection, occasionally one can see a broader picture of her acquaintances, such as her friendship with Simon of Bermondsey. This picture is supplemented by other sources. Obits in the St Albans Psalter, for instance, include Abbot Geoffrey (on 25 Feb.) but many others are listed who do not appear in the Vita at all, such as Robertus monachus (19 Jan.), Adelaisa monialis (11 Feb.), Avicia priorissa de Sopewell (20 Mar.), Azo heremita (31 Mar.), Matildis monialis de Marzellis (12 July), Ailwardus heremita (28 July), etc: Pächt, Wormald and Dodwell, St Albans Psalter, 27-30
36. On the development of the immunity of St Albans see Jane Sayers, 'Papal privileges for St Albans abbey and its dependencies', in D. A. Bullough and R. L. Storey (eds), The study of medieval records: essays in honour of Kathleen Major, Oxford 1971, 57-85. I am grateful to Professor Sayers for pointing out to me the importance of St Albans's immunity
37. The payment to St Paul's from Markyate later appears in the 'Inquisitio maneriorum capituli ecclesiae S. Pauli Londin', compiled in 1222: The Domesday of St Pauls of the year MCCXXII, ed. William Hale (Camden o.s. lxix, 1857), 3
38. For master Laurence's dates as abbot of Westminster see Knowles and Brooke, Heads of religious houses, 77
39. Liber vitae ecclesiae Dunelmensis, London 1841, 143: 'et Aleiquinus prior Westmonasterii, monachus ecclesiae Sancti Albani'. No charter or other contemporary source from Westminster records Alchinus' name or position
40. On Westminster during this period see Emma Mason, Westminster abbey and its people, c. 1050-c. 1216, Woodbridge 1996
41. and Westminster abbey charters, 1066-c. 1214, ed. Emma Mason, London 1988
42. 'Epistola ad amicum', in Marvin L. Colker (ed.), Analecta Dublinensia: three medieval Latin texts in the library of Trinity College Dublin, Cambridge, Mass. 1975, 91-160
43. The authors of Heads of religious houses dated Ralph's abbacy to 1146-51 and Robert's to 1151-66 (p. 67)
44. As the Gesta abbatum is confused, they relied on a short passage in Matthew Paris's Chronica majora for the 1151 date. However, this late chronicle is not worthy of such confidence, especially as Robert's accession occurred in the context of a major dispute. The date of 1151 as the endpoint of Ralph's abbacy and the beginning of Robert's rates a question mark, at the very least. Robert may well have been in control of the abbey for some time before his official election as abbot, whenever that actually occurred
45. On King Stephen's visits to St Albans see Regesta regum Anglo-Normannorum, 1066-1154, ed. H. A. Cronne and R. H. C. Davis, Oxford 1968, iii, p. xliii
46. It is tempting to link the letter-writer's account of the king's visit to St Albans to Matthew Paris's account of his presence there in 1151 in connection with the election of Robert (Chronica majora ii. 187
47. based on Roger of Wendover's Flores historiarum, ed. Henry O. Coxe, London 1841, ii. 249-50). But while the letter-writer and Matthew Paris may have been referring to the same event, the dating of the incident remains questionable, and should be used cautiously, if at all. The king also seems to have been at St Albans in 1146 and 1148
48. On the attitudes of twelfth-century religious men to religious women see Giles Constable, The Reformation of the twelfth century, Cambridge 1996, 65-74
49. Elkins, Holy women. Due to restrictions of length, in this essay I have concentrated on the questions of the Vita's manuscript tradition and the specific circumstances of its composition. I am in the process of preparing an essay reading Christina's Vita in the context of contemporary models for female sanctity
50. Cartularium monasterii de Rameseia, ed. W. H. Hart and P. A. Lyons (Rolls Series, 1884-93), i, no. 59, p. 138
51. See Henry of Huntingdon, Historia anglorum, ed. and trans. Diana Greenway, Oxford 1996, 687-97. I am indebted to Professor Greenway for this reference
52. See Pächt, Dodwell and Wormald, St Albans Psalter, plate 13
53. On St Amphibalus see Wilhelm Levison, 'St Alban and St Albans', Antiquity XV (1941), 337-59
54. and J. E. van der Westhuizen, The life of Saint Alban and Saint Amphibal, Leiden 1974
55. On John of Tynemouth see Horstmann, Nova legenda, pp. ix-xii