Gale R. Owen-Crocker

Charles Insley

The five authoritive papers presented here are the product of long careers of research into Anglo-Saxon culture. In detail the subject areas and approaches are very different, yet all are cross-disciplinary and the same texts and artefacts weave through several of them. Literary text is used to interpret both history and art; ecclesiastical-historical circumstances explain the adaptation of usage of a literary text; wealth and religious learning, combined with old and foreign artistic motifs are blended into the making of new books with multiple functions; religio-socio-economic circumstances are the background to changes in burial ritual. The common element is transformation, the Anglo-Saxon ability to rework older material for new times and the necessary adaptation to new circumstances. The papers originated as five recent Toller Memorial Lectures hosted by the Manchester Centre for Anglo-Saxon Studies (MANCASS).

Toller Lectures on Art, Archaeology and Text

Transformation in Anglo-Saxon Culture

Louise J. Wilkinson

Paul Dalton

Cathedrals dominated the ecclesiastical (and physical) landscape of the British Isles and Normandy in the middle ages; yet, in comparison with the history of monasteries, theirs has received significantly less attention. This volume helps to redress the balance by examining major themes in their development between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. These include the composition, life, corporate identity and memory of cathedral communities; the relationships, sometimes supportive, sometimes conflicting, that they had with kings (e.g. King John), aristocracies, and neighbouring urban and religious communities; the importance of cathedrals as centres of lordship and patronage; their role in promoting and utilizing saints' cults (e.g. that of St Thomas Becket); episcopal relations; and the involvement of cathedrals in religious and political conflicts, and in the settlement of disputes. A critical introduction locates medieval cathedrals in space and time, and against a backdrop of wider ecclesiastical change in the period. Contributors: Paul Dalton, Charles Insley, Louise J. Wilkinson, Ann Williams, C.P. Lewis, Richard Allen, John Reuben Davies, Thomas Roche, Stephen Marritt, Michael Staunton, Sheila Sweetinburgh, Paul Webster, Nicholas Vincent

Charles Insley

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