The Life and Passion of William of Norwich (Penguin Classics)

by Thomas of Monmouth

  53. two ravens … either side: For a similar case of birds of prey keeping away from a dead stag in the presence of Columbanus, see The Life of St Columban by the Monk Jonas, trans. Dana Carleton Munro (Felinfach: Llanerch, 1993), chapter 27, pp. 47–8.

  54. he was unharmed and uncorrupted: The finding of an uncorrupted body was highly significant in twelfth-century writing, both secular and religious. These were interpreted by historians and hagiographers as highly significant signs of God’s favour to the people who witnessed such wonders. William of Malmesbury commented: ‘I believe Heaven’s purpose in this was that our nation […] might by considering the incorruption of the saints be kindled to a more confident hope in the resurrection,’ and described the bodies of five saints which still seemed to be alive; see William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum, pp. 386–7; on this theme, see Laura Ashe, Fiction and History in England, 1066–1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 137–8.

  55. the detriment of the forest: Like much English woodland at the time, Thorpe Wood was used heavily by those living near it; see Oliver Rackham, ‘Forest and Upland’, in A Social History of England, 900–1200, ed. Julia Crick and Elisabeth van Houts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 46–55.

  56. informed him of the body … advised him to do so: What was one expected to do when coming upon a corpse? English law of the twelfth century required that communities report such crimes; entries in the Pipe Roll of Henry I’s reign show that they were fined when they failed to do so. Men were bound into oath-groups of mutual responsibility to pursue thieves and report murders. To these appeals from below was added the role of sheriffs and justices to seek out crimes and prosecute them. Yet neither action seems to have been taken in the case of William of Norwich. Instead, a family member turned to the local bishop, into whose jurisdiction neither the Jews nor criminal law belonged. On twelfth-century criminal law, see Raoul C. van Caenegem, ‘Public Prosecution of Crime in Twelfth-Century England’, in Church and Government in the Middle Ages, ed. C. N. L. Brooke, D. E. Luscombe, G. H. Martin and Dorothy Owen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), pp. 41–76.

  57. striking the hearts … of astonishment: In italics: added at the bottom of the page in contemporary hand below the last line of column b.

  58. at that time: On Holy Week and attitudes to Jews, see David Nirenberg, Communities of Violence: Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), pp. 200–230.

  59. Leviva … maternal aunt: She is associated with the cult at Bury St Edmunds; see The Life and Miracles of St William of Norwich by Thomas of Monmouth, trans. and ed. Augustus Jessopp and Montague Rhodes James (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1896), p. xci (henceforward, Jessopp and James).

  60. Saturday before Palm Sunday: A common reading for that week (Lent 5) is John 8:46–59, which ends with the scene of the Jews intending to stone Christ.

  61. collapsed, as if dead: On maternal mourning, see Lett, L’Enfant des miracles, pp. 200–201.

  62. crying and wailing through the streets: On the medieval tradition of laments and its classical roots, see Jan M. Ziolkowski, ‘Laments for Lost Children: Latin Traditions’, in Laments for the Lost in Medieval Literature, ed. Jane Tolmie and M. J. Toswell (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), pp. 81–107.

  63. the day of the synod arrived … presided over it: By the reign of Stephen it was common for synods to take place once or twice a year and to function as an ecclesiastical court. Godwin Sturt brought his claim to the bishop on the first day, after the sermon which opened the proceedings; following his complaint, the bishop summoned the sheriff to answer for the Jews, who lived under royal protection. The sheriff appeared, brought the Jews, and then protected the Jews, who denied the accusations and refused trial by ordeal. They appealed to their right to be judged by the king. See Frank Barlow, The English Church 1066–1154 (London: Longman, 1979), pp. 154–5; and on English synods more generally, see C. R. Cheney, English Synodalia of the Thirteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1941), pp. 16–18. For the liturgy of an English synod in the twelfth century, which provides for three days, see The Pontifical of Magdalen College, ed. Henry Austin Wilson, Henry Bradshaw Society 39 (London: Henry Bradshaw Society, 1910), pp. 54–6.

  64. my property … is on fire: ‘meaque res agitur paries cum [pro]ximus ardet’; Horace, Satires, Epistles and Ars Poetica, trans. H. Rushton Fairclough, Loeb Classical Library 194 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978), Epistles, Book I, Epistle xviii, line 84, pp. 374–5: ‘nam tua res agitur, paries cum proximus ardet’; ‘It is your own safety that’s at stake, when your neighbour’s wall is in flames.’ Horace’s Satires were widely taught in English schools where Latin was studied, and favoured as a useful text for the acquisition of grammar, rhetoric and a wide vocabulary; see Suzanne Reynolds, Medieval Reading: Grammar, Rhetoric and the Classical Text (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 33–41, 62–3.

  65. brought his speech to an end: The peroratio sees the summation of the speech, when in a trial the orator turns to the court; see Quintilian, The Orator’s Education [Institutio Oratoria], Book 6, c. 1, ed. and trans. Donald A. Russell (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), pp. 9–45, and Cicero, De Inventione Book I, lii, cc. 98–109, trans. H. M. Hubbell (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1949), pp. 147–63. It was discussed and taught by rhetoricians of the twelfth century; see Medieval Grammar and Rhetoric, pp. 38–47, 394–9.

  66. dean of Norwich: Being a monastic cathedral, the community of monks in Norwich Cathedral Priory was headed by a prior, and the diocese by the bishop; unlike secular cathedrals whose chapter of canons was headed by a dean. So here the dean may mean one of the archdeacons of Norwich, whose roles were disciplinary and judicial, most likely William, Archdeacon of Norwich, as in Book Two, note 57, p. 225.

  67. Aimar: See note 75, p. xliv.

  68. purge themselves: On the clearing of an accused from guilt by the taking of an oath, see John Hudson, The Formation of the English Common Law (London: Longman, 1996), pp. 76–7.

  69. by ordeal: For the use of ordeal in this period, see ibid., pp. 72–5.

  70. bier: feretro. The Latin feretrum is habitually used to describe a shrine and arises from the word for ‘bier’, a device for carrying a body. In the Middle Ages biers ranged from elaborate metal containers in the shape of a chest or box or even a cross; see Ben Nilson, Cathedral Shrines of Medieval England (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1998), pp. 16–18, 32–42. By 1305 William’s feretrum in the cathedral was painted and gilt; see Jonathan Finch, ‘The Monuments’, in Norwich Cathedral: Church, City and Diocese, 1096–1996, ed. Ian Atherton, Eric Fernie, Christopher Harper-Bill and Hassell Smith (London: Hambledon Press, 1996), p. 470. The word is used by Thomas’s contemporary, Thomas of Marlborough, for the shrine of St Wigstan; see Thomas of Marlborough, History of the Abbey of Evesham, ed. and trans. Jane Sayers and Leslie Watkiss (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003), chapter 521, p. 488.

  71. Holy Cross: See Barbara Baert, A Heritage of Holy Wood: The Legend of the True Cross in Text and Image, trans. Lee Preedy (Leiden: Brill, 2004). On the arrangements related to the cult of saints in cathedrals, see Nilson, Cathedral Shrines of Medieval England. On the efforts of Norman bishops to build suitable shrines at places of worship, see Thomas of Marlborough, History of the Abbey of Evesham, pp. l–li.

  72. cloth: I shall consistently translate the word tapetum as a ceremonial cloth, a pall, a covering laid out as a sign of reverence.

  73. choir screen: ‘pulpitum’, here in the sense of a choir screen; see Aymer Vallance, Greater English Church Screens (London: B. T. Batsford, 1947), pp. 43–6, and plate 45; see also William St John Hope, ‘Quire Screens in English Churches, with Special Reference to the Twelfth-Century Quire Screen Formerly in the Cathedral Chruch of Ely’, Archaeologia 68 (1916/17), pp. 43–110; esp. pp. 43–55.

  74. funerary ritual of washing: The monastic constitutions composed b
y Archbishop Lanfranc (c. 1005–1089) regulated many aspects of monastic life in twelfth-century England, including a detailed description of the rituals of death and burial; see The Monastic Constitutions of Lanfranc, ed. and trans. David Knowles, revised by Christopher N. L. Brooke (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002), chapters 112–13, pp. 178–93. It was required that the intimate ritual be conducted by those of the same ecclesiastical order as the deceased: ‘priests for a priest, deacons for a deacon and so forth […] A child’s corpse shall however not be washed by children but by converses,’ p. 183. In this case Thomas describes a much more elaborate provision for the washing of William’s body, arising from the special circumstances of the boy’s death and the miracles already imputed to him. For another description, see The Pontifical of Magdalen College, ed. Wilson, p. 194. On the funerals of children, see Lett, L’Enfant des miracles, pp. 203–205. For a more general discussion, see Michel Lauwers, La Mémoire des ancêtres, le souci des morts: Morts, rites et société au Moyen ge, diocèse de Liège, XIe–XIIIe siècles (Paris: Beauchesne, 1997).

  75. To be part … good fortune: This is a somewhat awkward attempt at the rhetorical device of antithesis.

  76. alb: A liturgical vestment in the shape of a tunic with sleeves; see Joseph Braun, Die liturgische Gewandung im Occident und Orient nach Ursprung und Entwicklung, Verwendung und Symbolik (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herdersche Verlagshandlung, 1907), pp. 57–92; esp. pp. 69–89, on the twelfth century.

  77. telling signs of martyrdom … feet and side: Marks like those on the body of the crucified Christ.

  78. first founders: The first generation of monks; see the Introduction, pp. xxv–xxvi.

  79. inner cemetery: The monks’ cemetery at Norwich Cathedral Priory was situated to the south of the east end, as was the custom; cloister alleys were also used for the burial of important patrons, see Gilchrist, Norwich Cathedral Close, pp. 96–7.

  BOOK TWO

  1. satire: ‘satyrico’; here ‘satire’, a writing style associated with these rude imaginary wood deities, is more suitable.

  2. Philistines: Allophili occurs in the Vulgate translation of Psalm 55:1: ‘in finem pro populo qui a sanctis longe factus est David in tituli inscriptione cum tenuerunt eum Allophili in Geth’; ‘Unto the end, for a people that is removed at a distance from the sanctuary for David, for an inscription of a title [or pillar] when the Philistines held him in Geth.’ The word in Hebrew is Plishtim, hence ‘Philistines’ in the Douay-Rheims version, and as in Jessopp and James, pp. 58–9. Here Thomas remembers ‘Allobroga’ as a pun on the biblical allophili, but he ignores the fact that the nominative is Allobrox, as pertaining to the Allobrogici people of Gaul, which came to mean ‘a person of barbarous speech’.

  3. Goliath: The encounter between David and Goliath is told in 1 Samuel 17.

  4. famed in all parts of England: According to William of Malmesbury there were five quintessentially English saints revered in the twelfth century – Etheldreda, Werburga, Edmund, Elphege and Cuthbert – although people in ‘other places boasted of more’, William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum, Book II, ch. 207, pp. 384–7. The emphasis here is on English saints, as opposed to local ones; here Thomas extends the hierarchy to those known by all Christians. On this passage, see Robert M. Stein, ‘Making History English: Cultural Identity and Historical Explanation in William of Malmesbury and Laʒamon’s Brut’, in Text and Territory: Geographical Imagination in the European Middle Ages, ed. Sylvia Tomasch and Sealy Gilles (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998), pp. 97–115; esp. p. 99. On the reach of Cuthbert’s renown, see Maureen C. Miller, ‘The Significance of St Cuthbert’s Vestments’, Studies in Church History 47 (2011), pp. 90–102.

  5. Greece and Palestine: A similar attempt to describe the extent – and variety – of Christian regions, where reference is made to Greece and Palestine, is to be found in Guibert de Nogent, The Deeds of God through the Franks: Gesta dei per Francos, trans. Robert Levine (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1997), p. 31: ‘Syria, Palestine, and Greece, the seed-beds of the new grace, have lost their internal strength at the roots, while the Italians, French, and English, who migrated there, have flourished’; for the original, see Dei gesta per Francos, ed. R. B. C. Huygens, Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis 127A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1996), Book I, ll. 208–11, p. 92.

  6. detracting from the glory of the saints: In his collection of miracles of Thomas Becket, Benedict of Peterborough discusses the effect of detractors upon the manner of his writing: ‘Miracula S. Thomae auctore Benedicto’, in Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, ed. James Craigie Robertson (London: HMSO, 1876 [Wiesbaden: Kraus Reprints, 1965]), I.9, pp. 39–40.

  7. Paul: 2 Corinthians 12: 2–4: ‘scio hominem in Christo ante annos quattuordecim sive in corpore nescio sive extra corpus nescio Deus scit raptum eiusmodi usque ad tertium caelum et scio huiusmodi hominem sive in corpore sive extra corpus nescio Deus scit quoniam raptus est in paradisum et audivit arcana verba quae non licet homini loqui’; ‘I know a man in Christ above fourteen years ago (whether in the body, I know not, or out of the body, I know not; God knoweth), such a one caught up to the third heaven. And I know such a man (whether in the body, or out of the body, I know not: God knoweth), That he was caught up into paradise, and heard secret words, which it is not granted to man to utter.’

  8. even to the blind and to the barbers: This proverbial saying is twice cited in The Letters of John of Salisbury, II: The Later Letters (1163–1180), ed. W. J. Millor and C. N. L. Brooke (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), Letter 223, at pp. 386–7 ‘all the riffraff’, and Letter 322, at pp. 790–1 ‘to the blear-eyed and the barbers’. It is based on Horace, Satires, 1, 7, 3.

  9. in the house … many mansions: See Christ after the Last Supper, John 14:2: ‘in domo Patris mei mansiones multae sunt si quo minus dixissem vobis quia vado parare vobis locum’; ‘In my Father’s house there are many mansions. If not, I would have told you: because I go to prepare a place for you.’

  10. everything is good … evil which is absent: The idea of evil as the privation of good was most influentially developed by Augustine, as in the Enchiridion: ‘Since therefore the Creator of all natural existences without exception is supremely good, all natural existences are good […] But for goodness to be decreased is an evil,’ Saint Augustine’s Enchiridion or Manual to Laurentius Concerning Faith, Hope and Charity, trans. Ernest Evans (London: SPCK, 1953), IV, 12, p. 9; ‘sed bonum minui malum est’, Aurelii Augustini Opera XIII/2, ed. M. P. J. van den Hout et al. (Turnhout: Brepols, 1969), p. 54.

  11. lamb of the Lord: ‘In qua nimirum inestimabili gloria agnum illum dominicum,’ which echoes Revelation 7:17: ‘quoniam agnus qui in medio throni est reget illos’; ‘For the Lamb, which is in the midst of the throne, shall rule them.’

  12. grazes among the lilies: ‘qui pascit inter lilia sequuntur uirginum chori quocunque ierit’; see Song of Songs 2:16: ‘dilectus meus mihi et ego illi qui pascitur inter lilia’; ‘My beloved to me, and I to him who feedeth among the lilies’; or, more distantly, Song of Songs 6:2: ‘sicut lilium inter spinas sic amica mea inter filias’; ‘As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters.’

  13. to celebrate in song … excellent novelty that is His alone: ‘quod soli illius excellentissime nouitatis concinunt canticum’, an echo here, perhaps, of Psalm 97:1: ‘psalmus David cantate Domino canticum novum quoniam mirabilia fecit salvavit sibi dextera eius et brachium sanctum eius’; ‘A psalm for David himself. Sing ye to the Lord a new canticle: because he hath done wonderful things. His right hand hath wrought for him salvation, and his arm is holy.’

  14. stole: The stole (stola) is a band of embroidered silk which clerics wear around the neck, from the order of deacon upwards. On the stole as priestly insignia, see Roger E. Reynolds, ‘Clerical Liturgical Vestments and Liturgical Colors in the Middle Ages’, in Roger E. Reynolds, Clerics in the Early Middle Ages: Hierarchy and Image (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999),
VI, 1–16; esp. pp. 6–7. Different ways of wearing the stole indicate the status of the wearer; see Braun, Die liturgische Gewandung, esp. pp. 582–601. For a good picture of a later stole, see Juliane von Fircks, Liturgische Gewänder des Mittelalters aus St Nikolai in Stralsund (Riggisberg: Abegg-Stiftung, 2008), pp. 236–7.

  15. Welney: A village in Norfolk, on the River Well. A report of this vision may have inspired an entry in Hélinand of Froidmont’s Chronicon, as discussed above, pp. xxxi–xxxii. On this and such accounts, see C. S. Watkins, History and the Supernatural in Medieval England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 176–7.

  16. various places … known in life: Narratives depicting voyages to other worlds became a common genre in the twelfth century, often based on earlier descriptions; see Aaron Gurevich, Historical Anthropology of the Middle Ages, ed. Jana Howlett (Cambridge: Polity, 1992), pp. 50–64 and 65–89. For a vision of the otherworld reused in the early thirteenth century, see Chris Wilson, ‘The Vision of St Fursa in Thirteenth-Century Didactic Literature’, Studies in Church History 47 (2011), pp. 159–70.

  17. Virgin Mary: By the twelfth century the cult of the Virgin Mary was widespread and central to both monastic devotion and parish practices. Thomas of Marlborough, sacrist and then prior of Evesham Abbey, was a devotee of the local saint, Ecgwin, but he was equally active in supporting the cult of Mary in the crypt of the monastic church; see Thomas of Marlborough, History of the Abbey of Evesham, cc. 521, 525–7, pp. 488–96.