Sarah Hamilton - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Sarah Hamilton
The Medieval Low Countries, 2019
The liturgical evidence for bishops remains underexplored. What work there is tends to focus on t... more The liturgical evidence for bishops remains underexplored. What work there is tends to focus on those rites reserved to the bishop collected in pontificals and therefore ignores the potential of more mundane books in daily use. This case study of a sacramentary used by the bishop of Noyon in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries reveals, through a comparison with similar materials produced for contemporary communities within northern France, the ways in which the bishop's roles in the secular world were reflected in minor changes made to the liturgy in use in one of his churches. It thus casts fresh light on the less well-known see of Noyon, and at the same time demonstrates the importance of incorporating such mundane materials into modern studies of episcopacy in this period. Recent work on the early and central medieval episcopate has greatly improved our understanding of how bishops, and the clerical communities in which they participated, understood, constructed and reconstructed their own roles in this period. 1 It is striking, however, that almost all of this scholarship focuses either on the political and secular aspects of episcopal lordship, through the study of charters, vitae and other narrative writings, or upon the evidence of letters, sermons, church councils and church law for the development of episcopal office. What has been largely neglected from these studies are those texts produced to support the main business of episcopal communities, that of prayer. Similar criticisms have been made of research into monastic communities; as the musicologist Susan Boynton has observed, the 'privileging of property and politics' risks marginalising liturgical evidence. 2 1 The research for this paper was conducted with the support of funding for the 2016-19 project Humanities in the European Research Area: After Empire: Using and not using the past in the crisis of the Carolingian world, c. 900-c.1050 (HERA.15.076). I should like to thank Steven Vanderputten and especially Brigitte Meijns for her help as editor, and the reviewer for their constructive comments.
Traditio, 2019
Through an Anglo-Norman case study, this article highlights the value of normative liturgical mat... more Through an Anglo-Norman case study, this article highlights the value of normative liturgical material for scholars interested in the role that saints’ cults played in the history and identity of religious communities. The records of Anglo-Saxon cults are largely the work of Anglo-Norman monks. Historians exploring why this was the case have therefore concentrated upon hagiographical texts about individual Anglo-Saxon saints composed in and for monastic communities in the post-Conquest period. This article shifts the focus away from the monastic to those secular clerical communities that did not commission specific accounts, and away from individual cults, to uncover the potential of historical martyrologies for showing how such secular communities remembered and understood their own past through the cult of saints. Exeter Cathedral Library, MS 3518, is a copy of the martyrology by the ninth-century Frankish monk, Usuard of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, written in and for Exeter cathedral...
Studies in Church History, 2019
Scholars interested in those medieval clergy charged with the delivery of pastoral care have high... more Scholars interested in those medieval clergy charged with the delivery of pastoral care have highlighted the flourishing of reforming movements in the ninth and thirteenth centuries. Thus the period between the fall of the Carolingian empire and the beginnings of the so-called pastoral revolution is generally viewed as one of episcopal neglect. Focusing on case studies drawn from the Carolingian heartlands of north-east Frankia and Lotharingia, as well as what had been the more peripheral regions of northern Italy and southern England, this article offers a revised interpretation of the education of the local clergy in the post-Carolingian world. Exploring the ways in which higher churchmen sought to innovate on the texts they inherited from their Carolingian predecessors, it demonstrates how they paid considerable attention to the preparation and ordination of suitable candidates, to the instruction and monitoring of local clergy through attendance at diocesan synods and local epis...
Understanding Medieval Liturgy, 2017
This book provides an introduction to current work and new directions in the study of medieval li... more This book provides an introduction to current work and new directions in the study of medieval liturgy. It focuses primarily on so-called occasional rituals such as burial, church consecration, exorcism and excommunication rather than on the Mass and Office. Recent research on such rites challenges many established ideas, especially about the extent to which they differed from place to place and over time, and how the surviving evidence should be interpreted. These essays are designed to offer guidance about current thinking, especially for those who are new to the subject, want to know more about it, or wish to conduct research on liturgical topics. Bringing together scholars working in different disciplines (history, literature, architectural history, musicology and theology), time periods (from the ninth to the fifteenth centuries) and intellectual traditions, this collection demonstrates the great potential that liturgical evidence offers for understanding many aspects of the Middle Ages. It includes essays that discuss the practicalities of researching liturgical rituals; show through case studies the problems caused by over-reliance on modern editions; explore the range of sources for particular ceremonies and the sort of questions which can be asked of them; and go beyond the rites themselves to investigate how liturgy was practised and understood in the medieval period.
Studies in the Early Middle Ages, 2010
Nederlands Archief voor Kerkgeschiedenis, 2004
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 2021
ABSTRACTThe principle that church buildings constitute sacred spaces, set apart from the secular ... more ABSTRACTThe principle that church buildings constitute sacred spaces, set apart from the secular world and its laws, is one of the most enduring legacies of medieval Christianity in the present day. When and how church buildings came to be defined as sacred has consequently received a good deal of attention from modern scholars. What happened when that status was compromised, and ecclesiastical spaces were polluted by acts of violence, like the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral? This paper investigates the history of rites for the reconciliation of holy places violated by the shedding of blood, homicide or other public acts of ‘filthiness’ which followed instances such as Becket's murder. I first identify the late tenth and early eleventh centuries in England as crucial to the development of this rite, before asking why English bishops began to pay attention to rites of reconciliation in the years around 1000 ce. This paper thus offers a fresh perspectiv...
Journal of Medieval History, 2001
The young emperor Otto III (983-1002) has a reputation for great piety, recorded in various accou... more The young emperor Otto III (983-1002) has a reputation for great piety, recorded in various accounts written soon after his death. Recent scholarship has shown how much these descriptions of the devout young king owe to literary convention and clerical expectation. It is argued here that the evidence of the prayerbook (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 30111) made for the young ruler suggests that attempts were made to educate him in the practice of daily personal devotions. Further, it is suggested that the prayerbook is much more in line with contemporary practice than has previously been thought, as revealed in other prayerbooks of the period. The Munich prayerbook, it is suggested, provides evidence that a reality underlies the descriptions of the young ruler's anxious piety.
Annual Bulletin of Historical Literature, 2004
Viator, 2010
... libri VI; Phrenesis; Dialogus confessionalis ; Exhortatio et preces; Pauca de vita sancti Don... more ... libri VI; Phrenesis; Dialogus confessionalis ; Exhortatio et preces; Pauca de vita sancti Donatiani; Fragmenta nuper reperta; Glossae, ed. Peter LD Reid et al., CCCM 46A (Turnhout 1984) 5.13, 152; for translation, see The Complete Works of Rather of Verona, trans. ...
... Page 6. Frank Barlow Painting b\ Michael Noakes 1976 Page 7. Writing Medieval Biography 750-1... more ... Page 6. Frank Barlow Painting b\ Michael Noakes 1976 Page 7. Writing Medieval Biography 750-1250 ESSAYS IN HONOUR OF PROFESSOR FRANK BARLOW EDITED BY David Bates,Julia Crick and Sarah Hamilton THE BOYDELL PRESS Page 8. ...
Traditio, 2019
Through an Anglo-Norman case study, this article highlights the value of normative liturgical mat... more Through an Anglo-Norman case study, this article highlights the value of normative liturgical material for scholars interested in the role that saints’ cults played in the history and identity of religious communities. The records of Anglo-Saxon cults are largely the work of Anglo-Norman monks. Historians exploring why this was the case have therefore concentrated upon hagiographical texts about individual Anglo-Saxon saints composed in and for monastic communities in the post-Conquest period. This article shifts the focus away from the monastic to those secular clerical communities that did not commission specific accounts, and away from individual cults, to uncover the potential of historical martyrologies for showing how such secular communities remembered and understood their own past through the cult of saints. Exeter Cathedral Library, MS 3518, is a copy of the martyrology by the ninthcentury Frankish monk, Usuard of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, written in and for Exeter cathedral’s canons in the mid-twelfth century. Through investigation of the context in which it was produced and how its contents were adapted to this locality, this article uncovers the various different layers of the past behind its compilation. It further suggests that this manuscript is based on a pre-Conquest model, pointing to the textual debt Anglo-Norman churchmen owed to their Anglo-Saxon predecessors.
The Medieval Low Countries, 2019
The liturgical evidence for bishops remains underexplored. What work there is tends to focus on t... more The liturgical evidence for bishops remains underexplored. What work there is tends to focus on those rites reserved to the bishop collected in pontificals and therefore ignores the potential of more mundane books in daily use. This case study of a sacramentary used by the bishop of Noyon in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries reveals, through a comparison with similar materials produced for contemporary communities within northern France, the ways in which the bishop's roles in the secular world were reflected in minor changes made to the liturgy in use in one of his churches. It thus casts fresh light on the less well-known see of Noyon, and at the same time demonstrates the importance of incorporating such mundane materials into modern studies of episcopacy in this period. Recent work on the early and central medieval episcopate has greatly improved our understanding of how bishops, and the clerical communities in which they participated, understood, constructed and reconstructed their own roles in this period. 1 It is striking, however, that almost all of this scholarship focuses either on the political and secular aspects of episcopal lordship, through the study of charters, vitae and other narrative writings, or upon the evidence of letters, sermons, church councils and church law for the development of episcopal office. What has been largely neglected from these studies are those texts produced to support the main business of episcopal communities, that of prayer. Similar criticisms have been made of research into monastic communities; as the musicologist Susan Boynton has observed, the 'privileging of property and politics' risks marginalising liturgical evidence. 2 1 The research for this paper was conducted with the support of funding for the 2016-19 project Humanities in the European Research Area: After Empire: Using and not using the past in the crisis of the Carolingian world, c. 900-c.1050 (HERA.15.076). I should like to thank Steven Vanderputten and especially Brigitte Meijns for her help as editor, and the reviewer for their constructive comments.
Traditio, 2019
Through an Anglo-Norman case study, this article highlights the value of normative liturgical mat... more Through an Anglo-Norman case study, this article highlights the value of normative liturgical material for scholars interested in the role that saints’ cults played in the history and identity of religious communities. The records of Anglo-Saxon cults are largely the work of Anglo-Norman monks. Historians exploring why this was the case have therefore concentrated upon hagiographical texts about individual Anglo-Saxon saints composed in and for monastic communities in the post-Conquest period. This article shifts the focus away from the monastic to those secular clerical communities that did not commission specific accounts, and away from individual cults, to uncover the potential of historical martyrologies for showing how such secular communities remembered and understood their own past through the cult of saints. Exeter Cathedral Library, MS 3518, is a copy of the martyrology by the ninth-century Frankish monk, Usuard of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, written in and for Exeter cathedral...
Studies in Church History, 2019
Scholars interested in those medieval clergy charged with the delivery of pastoral care have high... more Scholars interested in those medieval clergy charged with the delivery of pastoral care have highlighted the flourishing of reforming movements in the ninth and thirteenth centuries. Thus the period between the fall of the Carolingian empire and the beginnings of the so-called pastoral revolution is generally viewed as one of episcopal neglect. Focusing on case studies drawn from the Carolingian heartlands of north-east Frankia and Lotharingia, as well as what had been the more peripheral regions of northern Italy and southern England, this article offers a revised interpretation of the education of the local clergy in the post-Carolingian world. Exploring the ways in which higher churchmen sought to innovate on the texts they inherited from their Carolingian predecessors, it demonstrates how they paid considerable attention to the preparation and ordination of suitable candidates, to the instruction and monitoring of local clergy through attendance at diocesan synods and local epis...
Understanding Medieval Liturgy, 2017
This book provides an introduction to current work and new directions in the study of medieval li... more This book provides an introduction to current work and new directions in the study of medieval liturgy. It focuses primarily on so-called occasional rituals such as burial, church consecration, exorcism and excommunication rather than on the Mass and Office. Recent research on such rites challenges many established ideas, especially about the extent to which they differed from place to place and over time, and how the surviving evidence should be interpreted. These essays are designed to offer guidance about current thinking, especially for those who are new to the subject, want to know more about it, or wish to conduct research on liturgical topics. Bringing together scholars working in different disciplines (history, literature, architectural history, musicology and theology), time periods (from the ninth to the fifteenth centuries) and intellectual traditions, this collection demonstrates the great potential that liturgical evidence offers for understanding many aspects of the Middle Ages. It includes essays that discuss the practicalities of researching liturgical rituals; show through case studies the problems caused by over-reliance on modern editions; explore the range of sources for particular ceremonies and the sort of questions which can be asked of them; and go beyond the rites themselves to investigate how liturgy was practised and understood in the medieval period.
Studies in the Early Middle Ages, 2010
Nederlands Archief voor Kerkgeschiedenis, 2004
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 2021
ABSTRACTThe principle that church buildings constitute sacred spaces, set apart from the secular ... more ABSTRACTThe principle that church buildings constitute sacred spaces, set apart from the secular world and its laws, is one of the most enduring legacies of medieval Christianity in the present day. When and how church buildings came to be defined as sacred has consequently received a good deal of attention from modern scholars. What happened when that status was compromised, and ecclesiastical spaces were polluted by acts of violence, like the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral? This paper investigates the history of rites for the reconciliation of holy places violated by the shedding of blood, homicide or other public acts of ‘filthiness’ which followed instances such as Becket's murder. I first identify the late tenth and early eleventh centuries in England as crucial to the development of this rite, before asking why English bishops began to pay attention to rites of reconciliation in the years around 1000 ce. This paper thus offers a fresh perspectiv...
Journal of Medieval History, 2001
The young emperor Otto III (983-1002) has a reputation for great piety, recorded in various accou... more The young emperor Otto III (983-1002) has a reputation for great piety, recorded in various accounts written soon after his death. Recent scholarship has shown how much these descriptions of the devout young king owe to literary convention and clerical expectation. It is argued here that the evidence of the prayerbook (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 30111) made for the young ruler suggests that attempts were made to educate him in the practice of daily personal devotions. Further, it is suggested that the prayerbook is much more in line with contemporary practice than has previously been thought, as revealed in other prayerbooks of the period. The Munich prayerbook, it is suggested, provides evidence that a reality underlies the descriptions of the young ruler's anxious piety.
Annual Bulletin of Historical Literature, 2004
Viator, 2010
... libri VI; Phrenesis; Dialogus confessionalis ; Exhortatio et preces; Pauca de vita sancti Don... more ... libri VI; Phrenesis; Dialogus confessionalis ; Exhortatio et preces; Pauca de vita sancti Donatiani; Fragmenta nuper reperta; Glossae, ed. Peter LD Reid et al., CCCM 46A (Turnhout 1984) 5.13, 152; for translation, see The Complete Works of Rather of Verona, trans. ...
... Page 6. Frank Barlow Painting b\ Michael Noakes 1976 Page 7. Writing Medieval Biography 750-1... more ... Page 6. Frank Barlow Painting b\ Michael Noakes 1976 Page 7. Writing Medieval Biography 750-1250 ESSAYS IN HONOUR OF PROFESSOR FRANK BARLOW EDITED BY David Bates,Julia Crick and Sarah Hamilton THE BOYDELL PRESS Page 8. ...
Traditio, 2019
Through an Anglo-Norman case study, this article highlights the value of normative liturgical mat... more Through an Anglo-Norman case study, this article highlights the value of normative liturgical material for scholars interested in the role that saints’ cults played in the history and identity of religious communities. The records of Anglo-Saxon cults are largely the work of Anglo-Norman monks. Historians exploring why this was the case have therefore concentrated upon hagiographical texts about individual Anglo-Saxon saints composed in and for monastic communities in the post-Conquest period. This article shifts the focus away from the monastic to those secular clerical communities that did not commission specific accounts, and away from individual cults, to uncover the potential of historical martyrologies for showing how such secular communities remembered and understood their own past through the cult of saints. Exeter Cathedral Library, MS 3518, is a copy of the martyrology by the ninthcentury Frankish monk, Usuard of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, written in and for Exeter cathedral’s canons in the mid-twelfth century. Through investigation of the context in which it was produced and how its contents were adapted to this locality, this article uncovers the various different layers of the past behind its compilation. It further suggests that this manuscript is based on a pre-Conquest model, pointing to the textual debt Anglo-Norman churchmen owed to their Anglo-Saxon predecessors.