Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Order and Interlace: the Guthlac Poems of the Exeter Book
- 2 Sites of Economy: Power and Reckoning in the Poetic Epitaphs of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
- 3 ‘Absens ero … presens ero’: Writing the Absent Patron
- 4 Power and Performance: Authors and Patrons in late Anglo-Saxon Texts
- 5 Remembering Anglo-Saxon Patronage: the Libellus Æthelwoldi Episcopi and its Contexts
- Afterword
- Bibliography
- Index
- ANGLO-SAXON STUDIES
5 - Remembering Anglo-Saxon Patronage: the Libellus Æthelwoldi Episcopi and its Contexts
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Order and Interlace: the Guthlac Poems of the Exeter Book
- 2 Sites of Economy: Power and Reckoning in the Poetic Epitaphs of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
- 3 ‘Absens ero … presens ero’: Writing the Absent Patron
- 4 Power and Performance: Authors and Patrons in late Anglo-Saxon Texts
- 5 Remembering Anglo-Saxon Patronage: the Libellus Æthelwoldi Episcopi and its Contexts
- Afterword
- Bibliography
- Index
- ANGLO-SAXON STUDIES
Summary
The Libellus Æthelwoldi Episcopi (or Libellus Æthelwoldi, or simply the Ely Libellus) is an early twelfth-century Latin translation of a collection of Old English charters which attest the lands acquired for Ely by Æthelwold during the period of the tenthcentury Benedictine Reform and re-foundation of the abbey. Produced at the instigation of Hervey, first bishop of Ely, between 1109 and 1131, the Libellus Æthelwoldi both commemorates the ‘Golden Age’ of the monastic community at Ely in the late Anglo-Saxon period, and does important political work in establishing the legitimacy of the new Ely bishopric in the early twelfth century. Both of these potential contexts for the Libellus and its integral documents – the re-foundation of Ely as a reformed monastic community in the late tenth century and its division into abbey and see in the early twelfth century – are moments of transition and tension, involving protracted disputes over land-rights and possessions and the re-negotiation of power and authority. The Libellus Æthelwoldi makes use of the Anglo-Saxon past to legitimise its twelfth-century present, presenting Æthelwold as an authorising mirror for Hervey and appropriating ideas of reform, zeal and saintliness to construct a powerful image for the new bishop and his administration.
Most interestingly from the perspective of this study, the Libellus Æthelwoldi constructs a strong ideology of power and patronage, and a compelling image of the patron as a charismatic figure who champions the needs and claims of his community. Æthelwold himself drives change, pursues goals and achieves successes for Ely, and the text repeatedly attaches sole agency to him as the procurer and protector of Ely's lands.
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- Writing Power in Anglo-Saxon EnglandTexts, Hierarchies, Economies, pp. 145 - 170Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2012