Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-2l2gl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-01T08:47:14.473Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Promotion and Demotion of Whole Relics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 April 2011

Mark Spurrell
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

There are indications that some whole relics of saints in England, who had never been canonized officially, were subjected to a change in status during the Middle Ages, being demoted and sometimes promoted again. Some of these demotions follow the fourth Lateran Council of 1215 when it was decreed that relics newly found could not be venerated without papal permission. In this article a few of these cases are examined, in particular those of St William of Norwich, St Amphibalus and his companions at St Albans, and the Venerable Bede at Durham; and in the light of these, the movements of the relics of St Swithun and St Birinus at Winchester are also examined. The site of the last resting place of St William of Norwich is discussed in an Appendix.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 80 , Issue 1 , September 2000 , pp. 67 - 85
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Arnold, T (ed) 1882. Symeonis monachi opera omnia: historia ecclesiae Dunhelmensis, Rolls Series, 75, LondonGoogle Scholar
Arnold, T (ed) 1890. Memorials of St Edmund's Abbey, Rolls Series, 96, LondonGoogle Scholar
Atherton, I, Férnie, E, Harper-Bill, C and Bill, C (eds) 1996. Norwich Cathedral: Church, City and Diocese, 1096–1996, LondonGoogle Scholar
Bliss, W H (ed) 1893. Calendar of the Entries in the Papal Registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland: Papal Letters, I (1198–1304), LondonGoogle Scholar
Britton, J 1816. The History and Antiquities of the See and Cathedral Church of Norwich, LondonGoogle Scholar
Carlson, L H (ed) 1971. The Writings of Henry Barrow, 1587–90, LondonGoogle Scholar
Coldstream, N 1976. ‘English decorated shrine bases’, J Brit Archaeol Ass., 139, 15–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crook, J 1992. ‘King Edgar's reliquary of Saint Swithun’, Anglo-Saxon England., 21, 177–202CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crook, J (ed) 1993. Winchester Cathedral: Nine Hundred Years, 1093–1993, ChichesterGoogle Scholar
Crook, J 1997. ‘A hitherto undeciphered inscription from Winchester Cathedral ret-rochoir’, Winchester Cathedral Record., 66, 27–30Google Scholar
Darlington, R R 1928. Vita Wulfstani of William of Malmesbury, Camden Society, 40, LondonGoogle Scholar
Davies, A H (transl) 1934. William Thorne's Chronicle of St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Dearmer, P 1910. Fifty Pictures of Gothic Altars, Alcuin Club Collection, LondonGoogle Scholar
Edwards, A J M 1961–1964. ‘An early twelfth-century account of the translation of St Milburga of Much Wenlock’, Trans Shropshire Archaeol Soc., 57, 134–42Google Scholar
Finucane, R C 1995. Miracles and Pilgrims; Popular Beliefs in Medieval England, BasingstokeGoogle Scholar
Fowler, J T (ed) 1903. The Rites of Durham, Surtees Soc, 107, DurhamGoogle Scholar
Geary, P 1983. ‘Humiliation of saints’, in Saints and their Cults: Studies in Religious Sociology, Folklore and History (ed Wilson, S), 123–40, CambridgeGoogle Scholar
Gransden, A 1982. Historical Writing in England, II, 2 vols, LondonGoogle Scholar
Harper-Bill, C (ed) 1987–1991. The Register of John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1486–1500, Canterbury and York Soc, WoodbridgeGoogle Scholar
Hope, W H, St, J 1917. ‘Quire Screens in English churches, with special reference to the twelfth-century quire screen formerly in the cathedral church of Ely’, Archaeologia., 68, 43–110CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jessop, A and James, M R (eds) 1896. The Life and Miracles of Saint William of Norwich by Thomas of Monmouth, CambridgeGoogle Scholar
Kemp, E W 1948. Canonization and Authority in the Western Church, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Lapidge, M (ed) 1991. Anglo-Saxon Litanies of the Saints, Henry Bradshaw Soc, 106, LondonGoogle Scholar
Legg, J W and Hope, W St J 1902. Inventories of Christchurch, Canterbury, WestminsterGoogle Scholar
Love, R C 1996. Three Eleventh-century Saints' Lives, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Luard, H R (ed) 1859. Bartholomaei de Cotton, Monachi Norwicensis, Historia Anglicana, Rolls Series, 16, LondonGoogle Scholar
Luard, H R (ed) 1865. ‘Annales Monasterii de Wintonia’, in Annales Monastici, Rolls Series, 36.2, LondonGoogle Scholar
[Murray, J] 1881. Handbook to the Cathedrals of England; Western Division, LondonGoogle Scholar
[Murray, J] 1903, Handbook to the Cathedrals of England, Northern Division, II, 2 vols, LondonGoogle Scholar
Nilson, B 1998. Cathedral Shrines of Medieval England, WoodbridgeGoogle Scholar
O'Doherty, J F (ed) 1944. De Praesulibus Hiberniae (J Lynch), ii, 2 vols, DublinGoogle Scholar
Pevsner, N and Metcalf, P 1985. The Cathedrals of England: Southern England, HarmondsworthGoogle Scholar
Potts, R V 1926. ‘The tombs of the kings and archbishops of Canterbury in St Austin's Abbey’, Archaeologia Cantiana., 38, 97–112Google Scholar
Powicke, F M and Cheyney, C R 1964. Councils and Synodswith other Documents relating to the English Church, II, 2 vols, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Riley, H T (ed) 1867. Gesta abbatum monasterii sancii Albani, Rolls Series, 28, LondonGoogle Scholar
Riley, H T (ed) 1870. Chronica monasterii S. Albani a Johanne Amundesham, Rolls Series, 28, LondonGoogle Scholar
Saunders, H W (ed) 1939. The First Register of Norwich Cathedral Priory, Norfolk Ree Soc, II, NorfolkGoogle Scholar
Searle, W G (ed) 1902. Christ Church, Canterbury: I. The Chronicle of John Stone, Monk of Christ Church, Canterbury, 1415–1471. II Lists of Deans, Priors and Monks of Christ Church Monastery, Cambridge Antiq Soc, CambridgeGoogle Scholar
Simson, O von 1956. The Gothic Cathedral: Origins of Gothic Architecture and the Medieval Concept of Order, 3rd edn, PrincetownGoogle Scholar
Storer, J 1817. History and Antiquities of the Cathedral Churches of Great Britain, LondonGoogle Scholar
Stubbs, W (ed) 1882. Annales Paulini in Chronicles of the Reigns of Edward I and Edward II, Rolls Series 76.1, LondonGoogle Scholar
Tanner, N P (ed and transl) 1990. Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, LondonGoogle Scholar
Tolhurst, J B L (ed) 1948. Customary of the Cathedral Priory Church of Norwich, Henry Bradshaw Society, 82, LondonGoogle Scholar
Turner, D H 1976. ‘The customary of the shrine of St Thomas Becket’, Canterbury Cathedral Chronicle., 70, 16–22Google Scholar
Vallance, A 1947. Greater English Church Screens, LondonGoogle Scholar
Watkins, L and Chibnall, M (eds and transl) 1994. The Waltham Chronicle, Oxford Medieval Texts, OxfordGoogle Scholar