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Nations and Loyalties: the Outlook of a Twelfth-century Schoolman (John of Salisbury, c. 1120–1180)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2016

John McLoughlin
John McLoughlin*
Affiliation:
London School of Economics
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Extract

By the twelfth century literate Europeans—and probably a far wider range of the population—were well aware of the differences between nations. The word most commonly used by twelfth-century writers to indicate nations or ethnic groups was gens. R. Bartlett in his work Gerald of Wales has observed that gens was a fluid concept: Gerald of Wales regarded the Welsh and Bretons as belonging to a single gens because of their ethnic relationship; the Irish and English were gentes; and the inhabitants of the Welsh Marches were also a gens —‘a gens raised in the Marches’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History Subsidia , Volume 6: Faith and Identity: Christian Political Experience , 1990 , pp. 39 - 46
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1990 

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References

1 The term ‘nation’ is used here to mean a people which has, or is perceived to have, a common origin as well as a culture and perhaps language, which are common and distinctive. For these concepts see Galbraith, V. H., ‘Nationality and language in medieval England’, TRHS, ser. 4, 23 (1941), pp. 113–28Google Scholar; Hoffmann, R. C., ‘Outsiders by birth and blood: racist ideologies and realities around the periphery of medieval European culture’, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, 6 (1983), pp. 1–34Google Scholar, which uses the terms ‘race’ and ‘racist’ in a clearly defined and precise way; Loud, G. A., ‘The gens Normannorum—myth or reality?’, Proceedings of the Battle Conference on Anglo-Norman Studies IV: 1981, ed. Brown, R. A. (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1982), pp. 104–16Google Scholar, which is more wide-ranging than its title suggests, and which develops issues raised by Davis, R. H. C., The Normans and their Myth (London, 1976).Google Scholar

2 See Bardett, R., Gerald of Wales, 1146-1223 (Oxford, 1982), p. 187.Google Scholar;see the discussion de gentis moribus, pp. 187—94.

3 Bardett, pp. 187-8.

4 For Ireland see especially Lydon, J. F., ed., The English in Medieval Ireland: Proceedings of the First Joint Meeting of the Royal Irish Academy and the British Academy, Dublin 1982, Royal Irish Academy (Dublin, 1984)Google Scholar; Lydon, J. F., ‘A Land of War’, A New History of Ireland II: Medieval Ireland, 1169—1534, ed. Cosgrove, A. (Oxford, 1987), pp. 240–74Google Scholar (esp. pp. 241-3 setting out the argument); Lydon, J. F., The Lordship of Ireland in the Middle Ages (Dublin, 1972)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, passim,; Watt, J.A., The Church and lhe Two Nations in Medieval Ireland (Cambridge, 1970)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Frame, R., English Lordship in Ireland, 1318-1361 (Oxford, 1982), passim.Google Scholar For Wales, issues of national identity and political loyalty are discussed in Davies, R. R., ‘Colonial Wales’, PaP 65 (1974), pp. 3–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘Race relations in post-conquest Wales; confrontation and coexistence’, Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, (1974—5), PP.32-56; Lordship and Society in the March of Wales, 1282-1400 (Oxford, 1978), cap. 14, pp. 302-18; Conquest, Coexistence and Change: Wales, 1063-1415 (Oxford, 1987) cap. 1, esp. pp. 12-20.

5 It is clear from John of Salisbury’s correspondence (The Letters of John of Salisbury, 1: The Early Letters, ed. Millor, W.J. and Buder, H. E., rev. Brooke, C. N. L., OMT, 10 (1) (1986)Google Scholar [hereafter Letters JS, 1] and The Letters of John of Salisbury, 2: The Later Letters, ed. Millor, W.J. and Brooke, C. N. L., OMT, 10 (2) (1979)Google Scholar [hereafter Letters JS, 2]) that amicitia was pragmatic and involved mutual obligations and service (obsequium). For me officia amicitiae, see, for instance, Letters JS, 2, ep. 262, p. 530; ep. 264, p. 534; ep. 273, p. 370. Other explicit references occur, e.g., in Letters JS, 1, ep. 39, p. 72, Letters JS, 2, ep. 263, p. 534.

6 See Wilks, M., ed., The World of John of Salisbury, SCH.S, 3 (1984)Google Scholar; for outlines of his career see Brooke, C. N. L., ‘John of Salisbury and his world’, ibid., pp. 1–20, and John of Salisbury’s Entheticus Maior and Minor, ed., Laarhoven, J. van, Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters, 17, 3 vols (Leiden, 1987), 1, pp. 3–13.Google Scholar

7 For John’s correspondents see the Indexes of Recipients to Letters JS, 1 and 2. His two lettet collections contain 213 letters written in his own name to 92 correspondents, and 112 letters written in other persons’ names to 36 correspondents. 12 correspondents fall into both categories.

8 For Franci see Letters JS, 1, ep. 13, pp. 21-2; for Galli, ihid., ep.17, p.28, ep.33, p.58. For the Lexovienses:Letters JS, 1, ep.110, pp.175-8 (to Master Ralph of Lisieux). For the Pictauenses (or Pictaves): Letters JS, 2, ep. 272, pp. 566—70; ep. 277, p. 598; ep. 279, pp. 602-6; ep. 280, p. 614. For the contrast between Normans and French see Entheticus, lines 135-40: ‘Hoc onus, ecce iugum, quod vitans nostra ieuventus/ad summum currit prosperiore via:/admittit Soloen, sumit quod barbaras affert/inserit haec verbis, negligit arte loqui./Hoc ritu linguam comit Normannus, haberi/dum cupit urbanus, Francigenamque sequi’. For the changing meanings of the word Francia see Bloch, M., The Ile-de-France: the Country around Paris, trans. Anderson, J. E. (London, 1971), cap. 1, pp. 1–15Google Scholar and the references cited there.

9 Discussed by Bartlett, p. 158.

10 Vita Sancti Malachiae, in Sancti Bernardi Opera Omnia, ed. Leclercq, J., Talbot, C. H., and Rochais, H. M., 8 vols (Rome, 1957-77), 3, p. 325.Google Scholar

11 Letters JS, 2, ep. 175, pp. 161-3.

12 Reuter, T., ‘John of Salisbury and the Germans’ in Wilks, ed., John of Salisbury, pp. 415–25 at p. 425.Google Scholar

13 See Thomson, R. M., ‘England and the twelfth-century Renaissance’, PaP 101(1983), pp. 3–21.Google Scholar

14 Peter of Celle, Epistolae, PL 202, cols 574D-75A.

15 Letters JS, 1, ep. 33, p. 56.

16 Ibid., p. 58.

17 Ibid., p.58.

18 Letters JS, 2, ep. 135, p. 7.

19 Ibid., ep. 225, p. 394.

20 Ibid., ep. 277, p. 592.

21 Ibid., ep. 225, p. 394.

22 MHTB, 3, pp.407-8.

23 Letters JS, 2, ep. 270, p. 547.

24 Brooke, ‘John of Salisbury and his world’, p.9, n.44.

25 John’s attachment to Salisbury is brought out well in Brooke, , ‘John of Salisbury and his world’. For revenues from benefices: Letters JS, 2, ep. 152, p. 52Google Scholar; as a canon of Salisbury see MHTB, 3, p. 46; for the cathedral as mater mea see Letters JS, 2, ep. 137, p. 16.

26 Letters JS, 2, epp. 216-18. For Jocelin’s activities during the dispute see Knowles, D., The Episcopal Colleagues of Archbishop Thomas Becket (Cambridge, 1951), pp. 17—22.Google Scholar

27 Policraticus, ed. Webb, C.C.J., 2 vols (Oxford, 1909), 2, p. 47Google Scholar, line 14 to p. 48, line 3, and 2, p. 371, lines 14-19.

28 Policraticus, 2, p. 371, line 16: ‘… a quo genti meae nomen est…’.

29 Letters JS, 2, ep. 225, p. 394.

30 Policraticus, 2, pp. 44-6.

31 This is suggested by the fact that 43 of the 136 letters from the early letter collection (Letters JS, 1) deal with appeals, and 59 are addressed to the Pope. For a discussion of these, and for what follows, see cap. 5 of McLoughlin, J.P., ‘John of Salisbury (c. 1120-1180): The career and attitudes of a schoolman in church politics’ (Dublin Ph.D. thesis, 1988).Google Scholar

32 Letters JS, 1, epp. 51, 53, 56, 58, 62-5, 73, 77, 84-5.

33 Letters JS, 1, ep. 51.

34 See Saltman, A., Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury (London, 1956), p. 60.Google Scholar

35 Ibid., p. 58.

36 Ed. Chibnall, M., The ‘Historia Pontificala’ of John of Salisbury, NMT (London 1956).Google Scholar

37 Ibid., pp. 2-3.

38 Ibid., caps 8-14.

39 The ‘Theobald theme’ dominates the following chapters: 2 (most), 15, 17-20, 22, 40 (part), 42-3,45, 46 (fragment, final extant chapter).

40 Historia, cap. 15, p. 42.

41 Ibid., cap. 19, pp. 47-9.

42 Ibid., cap. 2, p. 7; cap. 19, pp. 48-9.

43 Chibnall’s hypothesis (Historia, p. xxv) of 1164 as the probable date of composition has no supporting evidence. The date cannot be convincingly narrowed down further than to the years 1164-70. The dating is reviewed in McLoughlin,’John of Salisbury’, cap. 3:3.

44 For example, Letters JS, 2, ep.181, p.201, MHTB, 5, p. 138.