The Scots Monastery

The earliest reference of the Vision of Tnugdalus comes from the Scots Monastery in Regensburg, Germany. Why was it called "Scots" Monastery?

The Schottenkirche ("Scots Church"), or Schottenkloster ("Scots Cloister/Monastery") was founded about 1070. Schotten is actually the German word for Scotti, which at the time simply meant Gaels, including people from both Ireland and Scotland. In fact, the Irish founded it, and later it was used by Scottish monks. The specific founder was Marianus Scotus of Regensburg, who was born Muiredach Mac Robartaig. An Irish monk and scribe, he wound up in Regensburg on a pilgrimage to Rome, after becoming a Benedictine and deciding to found the monastery.

Regensburg was a central location for the Hiberno-Scottish mission to Europe, and within a hundred years or so daughter monasteries from Regensburg had been established in Würzburg, Nuremberg, Konstanz, Eichstatt, and Kyiv. The site was so popular that it could not handle all the Irish monks traveling to join, and a new abbey was started on a site outside the city walls within 30 years of the founding of the original. The completed Irish Benedictine Abbey Church of St. James and St. Gertrude was included within the city walls when the city was expanded in 1300. This church in the Romanesque style was expanded in the later 1180s, and can be seen today. 

Scottish monks came to dominate the place when the pope in 1577 transferred the rights from Irish monks to Scottish. Currently, it is a Roman Catholic seminary. The illustration is a 1640 drawing of the monastery complex.

The Hiberno-Scotish mission mentioned in paragraph three was a serious trend in the 6th through 11th centuries, and I'll tell you more about the next time.

Advent

We are now in the Christian season of Advent, from the Latin adventus, meaning "coming." It comprises the four Sundays leading to Christmas Day, leading you to think it was started as preparation for the coming off the Nativity. Good guess, but that's not how it began.

First let us talk about the timing. We are not sure when it was first established, but probably in the 4th century Christians in Spain and Gaul began a period of penance and fasting starting on 11 November, the feast day of St. Martin of Tours (c.316/336-397). They were preparing for the baptism of new christians, which would take place on January 6th, the Feast of the Epiphany. The activity spread, and Roman Christians in the 6th century started associating it with the coming of Christ's birth on 25 December.

These days, Advent begins on the Sunday nearest 30 November, the feast of St. Andrew the Apostle, and only lasts four Sundays. It is therefore a "floating holiday" like Easter, and can start any day from 27 November to 3 December. The change seems to have come about by the 9th century: Pope Nicholas I mentions the shortened span in a letter to the Bulgarians. The Eastern Orthodox Church celebrates from 15 November until Christmas.

The Advent wreath, like so many traditions involving evergreens, began in northern Europe. The wheel-shaped greens represented the cycles of the year and the promise of life after winter. The candles represented the warmth of hope in the returning Son/sun. Three purple candles represent hope, peace, and love, and are lit on the 1st, 2nd, and 4th Sundays. The pink candle, representing joy, is lit on the 3rd Sunday. Purple was not a cheap color to produce, and dyeing candles with a royal color indicated the significance of Christ the King's birth.

(The Advent calendar? That was concocted in Germany in the 1800s.)

Salt & Pepper: Two Ewalds

Statues of the two Ewalds, in the church at Cologne.

Although the Saxons were not converted to Christianity until Charlemagne did it by force in the 8th century, there were other attempts by missionaries to do so. One attempt was made by a pair of friends, both named Ewald.

Ewald the Fair and Ewald the Black were both born in Northumbria and educated in Ireland. Their nicknames were the result of their appearance and not an evaluation of their personalities. Struck with zeal for converting Germans, they traveled to Saxony c.690 where they made the acquaintance of the steward of one of the tribal chieftains in Aplerbeck. The steward said that he would (eventually) introduce them to the chieftain.

During the intervening days, the Ewalds conducted themselves as expected of pious missionaries: they prayed regularly, said Mass for themselves, and recited the canonical hours (prayers meant for different parts of the day). Other Saxons, observing these rituals, feared that the Ewalds were going to try to convert their chieftain to Christianity and eliminate all of their cherished local religious customs and temples. They decided to eliminate the Ewalds instead.

On 3 October 695 (or 692) Ewald the Fair was killed with a sword. Ewald the Black, the cleverer of the two, was seen as the leader and deserving of something more. They tortured him, ripping his limbs apart. The bodies were thrown into the Rhine. According to Bede, when the chieftain heard of what happened, he had the murderers killed.

But the last was not heard of the bodies of the Ewalds: they floated upstream for 40 miles, a heavenly light shining above them, until they reached a place where the Ewalds' companions were camped. The two were buried nearby, but disinterred by Pepin the Short and moved to the church of St. Cunibert in Cologne.

Fathers & Sons in the HRE

Henry IV (center), with his sons Henry V & Conrad

Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV is best known for the Investiture Controversy and the Walk to Canossa, when he did penance so that Pope Gregory VII would lift an excommunication.

Henry was excommunicated again in 1084; however, this time he wasn't so penitent. He marched into Rome, deposed Gregory, and appointed his own pope, Clement III. The College of Cardinals had another idea, however, declared Clement III an "anti-pope," and appointed their own pope, Pope Urban II. Urban supported Gregory VII's ideas and opposed Henry, as did Pope Paschal II who followed him in 1099.

Henry was prepared to oppose the popes, but a further betrayal created worse trouble for him. His son, Henry (1086 - 1125; later Holy Roman Emperor Henry V). Sons in line for the throne often make designs on that throne before their predecessor departs by his own choice, and young Henry decided that his father's excommunication was good grounds for staging a rebellion.

In 1104, young Henry decided it was time to stand up and depose Henry IV. The Church was willing (naturally) to support the son against the father who had proven to be no friend to the papacy. Henry IV had been trying to maintain order in the Empire, and did not want a war. He agreed to a meeting to try to achieve a peaceful resolution; the meeting, however, was a ruse, and he was captured by his son's forces. Imprisoned in Böckelheim Castle in southwestern Germany, he was forced to renounce his creation of Pope Clement and to admit that he was unjustly hostile to Pope Gregory.

Henry IV was German, however, and Germany itself was not keen on having their king deposed and imprisoned by a teenager who then declared himself Holy Roman Emperor Henry V. In 1106, forces loyal to Henry IV opposed his son and the pope and freed Henry IV from his prison. Henry Senior started making alliances with other nations for support. Early in 1106, he defeated his son's forces, but he succumbed to an illness of several days and died on 7 August.

Because he was still excommunicated, his body was placed by order of the papal legate into an unconsecrated chapel until the excommunication was lifted in summer of 1111.

Henry V did become Holy Roman Emperor in his own right from 1111 until 1125

The Irminsul

Remains of an irminsul in Friedrichsgrund

The Royal Frankish Annals have an entry for 772:

The most gracious Lord King Charles then held an assembly at Worms. From Worms he marched first into Saxony. Capturing the castle of Eresburg, he proceeded as far as the Irminsul, destroyed this idol and carried away the gold and silver which he found. 

What was the Irminsul? Rudolf of Fulda, who wrote histories that include the biography of Saint Leoba, defines irminsul in his De miraculis sancti Alexandri ["On the miracles of Saint Alexander"] as "universal column, upholding all things." The irminsul was a pillar made either from a tree trunk or stone and used as a focal point of worship in non-Christian Europe. Records do not exist that would let us zero in on its meaning and purpose; it is simply clear that it was a symbol of paganism and a site of worship.

Attempts to determine the meaning of the name are inconclusive—none are met with universal agreement. The name irminsul, as well as the presence of a Germanic tribe Irminones (mentioned in Tacitus' Germania), suggest that there was a Saxon god named Irmin. Some scholars suggest that Irmin was an epithet of Odin, some say Tyr.

The 12th century Middle High German Kaiserchronik ["Chronicle of Emperors"] uses the term irminsul a few times, such as when discussing Nero:

"He climbed upon an Irminsul
the peasants all bowed before him"

There were likely irminsuls in many locations, constructed of different materials; see the picture above for the remains of one. The best known one was probably that mentioned in the Royal Frankish Annals above, destroyed by Charlemagne. The consequences of that act are worth a look; but that's for tomorrow.

St. Leoba

[source]

This blog has mentioned before that St. Boniface called for help from women as well as men when he attempted to christianize Germany. One of those women was a nun—later a saint, due to several miracles—named Leoba.

Actually, her very existence was a miracle. Her parents were old and barren, but her mother one night had a dream in which she was told she would bear "a beloved child of Christ.". The woman vowed that she would give her daughter over to the Church. Her biographer, Rudolf of Fulda, tells us:

Shortly after the woman had made this vow she conceived and bore a daughter, whom she called Thrutgeba, surnamed Leoba because she was beloved, for this is what Leoba means. And when the child had grown up her mother consecrated her and handed her over to Mother Tetta to be taught the sacred sciences. [Life of Leoba, Abbess of Bischofsheim, by Rudolf of Fulda]

Leoba's exemplary behavior made her a natural fit for Boniface's mission to Germany (also, her mother and Boniface were cousins). A dream of Leoba's, that she would have great influence and accomplish many things, prompted her to join the mission.

Boniface established Leoba as the abbess of a convent in Tauberbischofsheim. (Tauberbischofsheim is the capital of the Main-Tauber district; its first mention in history is in St. Leoba's biography.) He gave her jurisdiction over all the nuns of the mission, and when he later left for Frisia, he gave her his cowl to indicate that she was his steward while he was gone. (He never returned, being martyred in Frisia.)

Later, she was given an estate by Charlemagne near Mainz, where she retired with several nuns. After she died, on 28 September 782, miracles were attributed to her intercession. When her relics were translated 50 years later as a result of her canonization, and placed behind the altar of a church in Fulda, Rudolf was given the task of recording her life. Rudolf says he witnessed some of her miracles himself: a man from Spain had terrible twitching in his limbs that was cured after lying prostrate before Boniface's shrine. Her explained that he had a vision of a woman who presented him to Boniface for his blessing, after which he woke up and had no more twitching. (Why this is a miracle of the woman and not of Boniface, I cannot say.) In another case, however, a man who had been bound by iron rings had them come off while praying before Leoba's shrine.

Trial by Combat—Marriage Edition

There is a lot more to say about Trial by Combat than can be put into a brief post. The history includes interesting anecdotes and surprising facets. One such facet is seen in the picture to the left. It comes from the 1467 Fechtbuch [German: "fight book"] of Hans Talhoffer (c.1415-1482), who was mentioned in the above link on Trial by Combat. Talhoffer produced at least five books on fencing, and apparently trained people for Trial by Combat.

As for the picture, translations of the captions should explain all:

Here is how a man and woman should fight each other, and this is how they begin.
Here the woman stands free and wishes to strike; she has in the cloth a stone that weighs four or five pounds.
He stands in a hole up to his waist, and his club is as long as her sling. [source]

That is correct. Trial by Combat was available to women—at least, it was as late as 15th century Germany. Supposedly, this was a method used by married couples to settle disputes...serious disputes. Since men were considered the superior sex, something needed to be done to even the odds between them, hence the hole in which he stands, reducing his mobility. Note also that they do not use cutting weapons: their blunt instruments are intended to bludgeon the opponent into submission, not cause the opponent to bleed to death.

Remember that non-aristocracy had to seek permission from a court to engage in a lawful Trial by Combat; hence the term "judicial duels." Husbands and wives could not just decide to dig a hole in the front yard and fight it out amongst the neighbors. There are no known recorded examples of such trials or their outcomes, but the casual way in which Talhoffer describes his sample fight (there are more illustrations in his manuscript) suggests that there was nothing shocking about this in his time.

Trial by Combat

The dueling area was typically
60 feet square.

One of the things "everyone knows" about the Middle Ages is the idea of Trial by Combat: the act of fighting to determine who is right in a dispute. It was a custom followed primarily by Germanic culture; it was later brought to Great Britain.* It was recognized as a valid part of German tribal law as far back as the early 8th century in the Lex Alamannorum [Latin: "Law of the Alemanni"; the Alemanni were a Germanic tribe on the Upper Rhine].

The Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, in an effort to tamp down this sanctioned violence, tried to ban Trial by Combat in favor of Trial by Jury. "Judicial duels"—that is, a fight sanctioned by the local legal system—were too unpredictable a measure of justice. German countries kept up the practice, however. The 15th century fencing master, Hans Talhoffer, detailed the ways in which judicial duels could be carried out, and listed seven offenses that merited such a trial: murder, treason, desertion of your lord, unlawful captivity, heresy, perjury, rape.

Commoners were required to take their dispute to court first in order to have Trial by Combat sanctioned by the local legal system. Nobility, however, could take it upon themselves to duel over a dispute, leading to the "gentleman's duel" of later years. The combatants would each bring a "second" to help arrange the particulars, everything from the location to making sure the horses are saddled properly. Sometimes these seconds would meet separately to discuss a more peaceful solution that the combatants could not discus face to face due to their pride.

The combatants had some duties, too, besides fighting. They would attend (separate) church services prior to combat, and make a donation to the church. They had to be ready to begin the combat by noon, and it had to be concluded by sundown.

The last official judicial duel is unknown, but we know that King Charles I of England intervened to prevent a couple, one in 1631 and one in 1638. In 1818, Abraham Thornton, already acquitted of the murder and rape of Mary Ashford, had an accusation brought by Mary's brother, William. Thornton claimed the right to Trial by Combat; the court decided that he was justified, since the "evidence" for his guilt was circumstantial and disputable, and because Parliament had never removed the right to Trial by Combat from the books. Ashford backed down. The following year, Parliament abolished Trial by Combat.

*It is not to be confused with Trial by Ordeal which involved causing an accused to suffer some ordeal that would "prove" his guilt or innocence.

Button, Button

Bronze-Iron Age buttons as ornament. [source]

Although evidence of buttons exists as far back as the classical era, it appears that they were used as ornamentation on clothing rather than a way to fasten clothing,

the earliest known being found at Mohenjo-daro in the Indus Valley [now Pakistan]. It is made of a curved shell and about 5000 years old. [Ian McNeil, An Encyclopedia of the History of Technology]

Rows of buttons as a necessary part of clothing were unknown. Usually a single button—a flat decorated surface with a loop attached to the back—was put on clothing to pin up a single fold of fabric.

The first evidence of "functional buttons"—used to attach clothing so that it fit snugly about the body—is found in art. Statuary on the Adamspforte ("Adam's gate") at Bamberg Cathedral (carved c.1235) in Germany shows a button holding clothing together.

By the late 1300s, buttons were being applied to all sorts of clothing in order to make it fit more closely to the body. One of the modifications that made buttons work well was the addition of reinforced button holes to clothing, which spread in the later 1200s.

A late medieval button from England [source]

Besides a change in fashion, was the addition of buttons and buttonholes significant? Well, one theory (shared by James Burke of Connections fame and Lynn White, author of several essays and books on the history of technology) is that the spread of better-fitting clothing made people warmer in cold weather and therefore increased their health...or, at least, decreased susceptibility to any illnesses that were exacerbated by cold temperatures.

This seems odd to the modern age, because we take form-fitting clothing for granted. Didn't they have looms and weaving? Of course. But much form-fitting fabric in the Middle Ages didn't appear until the development of knitting.

But that's a story for another day.

Hildegard of Bingen

Hildegard of Bingen shown with a psaltery.

One of the oldest known composers of liturgical music—and perhaps the earliest medieval dramatist—was a nun who lived in Germany in the 12th century known as Hildegard of Bingen (c.1098-1179).

What little we know of her early years tells us that she was the youngest of several children born to a lower-class family in Sponheim, Germany. Whether because she was sickly, or because she was very young and not likely to be able to inherit much, or because she was said to have mystic visions at an early age, she was given to the church while still very young (between the age of eight and 14).

Although cloistered, she was exposed to some education, learning enough rhetoric to be a forceful and compelling speaker and enough music to play the psaltery (a dulcimer-like instrument, shown above). She used a Latin in her writing that was very simple (she devised her own letters and made words up). There is some debate regarding whether this was due to a lack of formal education or the deliberate need to create her own form of expressing herself. Her writings on theological matters and on her visions led to attempts to canonize her. The canonization process stretched over centuries, until two recent popes (John Paul II and Benedict XVI) started referring to her as a saint; Benedict XVI declared her officially a saint in 2012. Her feast day is 17 September.

Outside of the church, she is mostly known for her music. Sixty-nine musical compositions are known to have been produced by Hildegard, and many modern recordings of them are available. They are monophonic, possessing a single melody, and are often closely related to the text with which she accompanies each musical piece. Because she does not use musical notation as we know it today, there is much room for interpretation of her work.

Here is a sample:

Lohengrin

Henry being offered the position of
King of Germany, while working with his nets.
(1900, Hermann Vogel)

Richard Wagner's opera, Lohengrin (1850), portrayed a king who was trying to gain the support of the Duchy of Brabant against the Hungarian Magyars. For Wagner, this king was a symbol of a unified Germany. His name in the opera was Heinrich der Vogler, but we know him better as Henry the Fowler.

Henry (876-936) was the son of King Otto the Illustrious, Duke of Saxony. When his father died in 912, Henry proved to be an able ruler. In his lifetime, the empire assembled by Charlemagne  was now divided into seven different kingdoms, none of them wanting to be ruled by the others. Henry strengthened the standing of Saxony and defended it able against territorial incursions from neighboring states, such as Franconia to the south.

Conrad I, Duke of Franconia, was Henry's rival for years over rights to Thuringia. When Conrad died in December 918, however, he told his nobles that Henry of Saxony was the right man to follow in a united Germany. At a meeting of nobles in 918, it was agreed that they would seek out the Duke of Saxony and ask him to lead. A delegation was sent to offer Henry their loyalty.

Henry, like many aristocrats of the Middle Ages, enjoyed hunting of all kinds. Henry was supposedly known for being an avid fan of hunting birds. He is supposed to have been hunting high up in the Hartz mountains and working at his nets when they found him, as portrayed in the picture above; hence the name Henry the Fowler.

No sooner was he enthroned than the Germans were invaded by the Magyars. In the process of countering it, Henry's forces took as hostage the son of the Magyar king, which paused the wars for many years. When the Magyar king asked for the return of his son, Henry offered him terms that were too good to pass up: Henry wanted a nine-year truce, during which he would pay 5000 gold pieces per year for there to be no threats from Hungary. The Magyar king agreed.

Henry spent the next nine years building up and drilling his army to make them a fearsome fighting force. He also built fortresses along his borders. When the Magyars tried to invade during the tenth year since the truce, Henry's forces defeated them. The German army also easily defeated an invasion from the Danes. When Henry died in 936, he left behind him a peaceful Germany and a son, Otto, who claimed Charlemagne's old title of emperor, ruling over a united federation of German duchies.

Hedwig (Not the Owl)

The name "Hedwig" is now familiar to millions as the name of Harry Potter's owl, but it has a long history that predates its use by Rowling. Hedwig is from Old High German Haduwig (hadu=battle + wig=fight), and would have been pronounced het-vich. Hedy (as in Lamarr) is a diminutive form of the name. The best-known Hedwig in history (that is, prior to 1997) was a 12th century saint.

Family of St. Hedwig*

Hedwig (1174-1243) was born at the castle of Andechs, and became duchess of Silesia. She is alternately known as St. Hedwig of Silesia or St. Hedwig of Andechs. According to what records we have, she was educated at a monastery at Kitzingen, and married off at the age of 12 to Henry I "The Bearded" of Silesia (1165-1238). Although Henry was Polish, his mother was German and he had been educated in Germany; with his marriage, his ties to Germany and its ruling class became stronger. He preferred the German culture over the Polish, and under him "Silesia became German in language and customs."[note]

Hedwig's reputation was built on her piety and fortitude in supporting established monasteries and founding new ones. These monasteries helped spread the German culture of which Henry was fond. As well as establishing monasteries of Augustinian Canons and Cistercians, Hedwig also brought Dominicans (at Bunzlau and Breslau) and Franciscans (at Goldberg and Krossen) to Silesia.

Hediwg did not just spend her husband's money in doing good works. She tended leper women at Neumarkt. Her behavior inspired Henry to establish (at his own expense) the first religious foundation for women in Silesia: a convent of Cistercian nuns at Trebnitz in 1203. The second abbess was said to have been the Blessed Gertrude (c.1200-1268), the sixth child of Hedwig and Henry.

Hedwig had seven children that we know of—only one of which, Gertrude, outlived her—after which she convinced her husband that they should take vows of chastity. Henry even took on the tonsure of a monk and let his beard grow out (hence his nickname). Hedwig began to spend much of her later life in prayer at the Abbey at Trebnitz. On Henry's death in 1238, she settled into Trebnitz permanently, wearing the gray of a Cistercian (although she never took monastic vows), and died there 5 years later.

The piety and care she showed in life impressed more than her husband. In 1227, Henry was captured by Conrad of Masovia after a military engagement over the possession of Cracow; Conrad hauled him off to captivity. Hedwig immediately traveled to Conrad's location, where her appearance and eloquent pleas for her husband made such an impression that Henry was released.

Upon her death, she was buried in the church attached to Trebnitz.  Clement IV took time out from asking Roger Bacon to write books to make her a saint on 26 March 1267.

*From left to right: (front, kneeling) daughter Sophia, son Conrad the Curly; (back, standing) daughter Gertrude, eldest daughter Agnes, son and heir Henry II the Pious, son Boleslaw; (back, sitting) St. Hedwig, Henry I the Bearded.

Good King Wenceslaus

It's far from St. Stephen's Day, but yesterday was the anniversary of the death of the man who is associated with that holiday.

Wenceslaus (c.907-935) was the eldest son born to the Christian Duke of Bohemia, Wratislaw, and Dragomir. Dragomir was the daughter of a chief of a Hevelli tribe from eastern Germany; she was baptized a Christian at her marriage, but remained pagan. When Wratislaw died in 921, the 13-year-old Wenceslaus was sent to his paternal grandmother, (who would later be Saint) Ludmilla, for a good Christian education. Dragomir, angry at losing the influence over the new duke, had Ludmilla strangled, took Wenceslaus back into her care, and started introducing him to her religion (Bohemia was not entirely or steadfastly Christian). Her son secretly continued to practice Christianity, however.

Around 924-5, he became Duke in his own right and gathered the nobles who were Christians to depose his mother. This did not make all well in Bohemia, however, since there were still plenty of pagan nobles who did not appreciate the religion of their ruler. Wenceslaus' younger brother, Boleslav, was pagan, and some of the nobles tried to create a faction around him, hoping to replace Wenceslaus.

But Wenceslaus had plenty of external political difficulties as well. Henry I, the Christian King of Germany, attacked Bohemia with help from Duke Arnulf of Bavaria. The probably reason is that Henry I needed a tribute from Bohemia that had first been established in 895 and had recently been stopped. Henry himself owed tribute to the Magyars, and Germany very likely needed the money it could get from Bohemia in order to make his own payments.* Rather than engage in a war, Wenceslaus swore fealty to Henry and made the payment. The nobles—especially the pagan nobles—would not have appreciated becoming subservient to another country, especially a Christian one.

Wenceslaus, pursued, tries to enter church

Eventually, and for whatever reason, Boleslav and his supporters saw a chance and took it. Boleslav invited Wenceslaus to celebrate the feast of Saints Cosmas and Damian together. He was stabbed on his way to the church by three of Boleslav's friends.

A cult venerating him built up immediately after his death. The hagiographies written about him stressed how he would give alms to poor people. Whether this were true did not matter years later when it became celebrated as fact. Although he had only been a duke, the Holy Roman Emperor Otto I proclaimed him a King, hence the title given in the holiday song. (There was an actual King Wenceslaus of Bohemia, but that was 300 years after the saint.)

His reign was short, and we cannot confirm the piety attributed to him. His legend became very powerful, however, enough to have him proclaimed the patron saint of Czechoslovakia. His feast day is the day of his death, 28 September, but he will forever be associated with 26 December, the Feast of St. Stephen, because of the 1853 song written by the English priest and scholar, John Mason Neale.

And just for the sake of completion.

*The politics of this situation were complicated, and might need their own post to clarify.

Lanfranc, Part 1 (of 2)

Scholar and Teacher, Priest and Politician

There are two reasons why I want to mention Lanfranc today. One is because today is the 923rd anniversary of his death.* The second is because I want to discuss his most famous pupil in the future, and this is nice background for that.

Lanfranc (c.1005-1089) was born in Italy, educated in the liberal arts, and moved to France to teach, finally deciding to join the abbey at Bec in Normandy in 1042. In 1045 the abbot persuaded him to open a school in the abbey. His reputation drew students from France, Flanders, Germany and Italy.

His understanding and teaching of religious doctrine produced powerful thinkers who rose high in ecclesiastical ranks. Lanfranc himself ultimately became Archbishop of Canterbury, but not before a strange political somersault.

Duke William of Normandy, also called William the Bastard (and later William the Conqueror) wished to marry Matilda of Flanders. Two items stood in his way (three, if you want to believe the legend): his bastardy (he was the son of his father's mistress), and the fact that they were too closely related to satisfy custom and law. (The third thing is that Matilda supposedly refused to marry a bastard; and I guess there's a fourth thing, if you want to assume that she didn't like the fact that he was so angry with her that he angrily dragged her off her horse by her braids and threw her to the ground.) Lanfranc publicly opposed the marriage as inappropriate. Duke William (of Normandy, and Bec Abbey is in Normandy, remember) sent Lanfranc into exile; on the point of departure, however, he was forgiven and took on the task of persuading the pope to consent to the marriage! (I would love to tell you that he was the man for the job because the pope had been a student of Lanfranc's, but Pope Alexander II, who had been a student of Lanfranc's, didn't become pope until 1061.) Lanfranc's arguments succeeded, however, William and Matilda got married, William later decided to conquer England, and the rest is (English) history.

So when an Archbishop of Canterbury was needed years later, Lanfranc was rewarded for helping out William. His first job was to straighten out Thomas of Bayeaux, the Archbishop of York, who thought that York was empowered to operate independently of Canterbury's authority. Lanfranc was having none of that, and figured Thomas owed him one, since Lanfranc had given him passing grades years ago. Thomas, however, did not give in to his former teacher, so Lanfranc turned to Pope Alexander II who was now on the throne of Peter and agreed to allow Lanfranc to get it settled by a council of the English church, which met at Winchester. Lanfranc got the primacy he wanted, agreed to by the king and queen with their "X"s on the document. Before Alexander II could ratify the ruling on the Canterbury-York dispute, however, he died and was replaced by Gregory VII, who wasn't inclined to rubber-stamp England's rulings. The argument stretched out for years.

Lanfranc was a powerful help to the king, among other things foiling a conspiracy against the king and helping to ensure the succession of the next king. But what history cares about is his contributions to theological doctrine, of which more soon.

*To be honest, that date is disputed; some say it was May 24.