Theobald of Bec
Theobald of Bec was a Norman archbishop of Canterbury from 1139 to 1161. His exact birth date is unknown; some time in the late 11th or early 12th century Theobald became a monk at the Abbey of Bec, rising to the position of abbot in 1137. King Stephen of England chose him to be Archbishop of Canterbury in 1138. Canterbury's claim to primacy over the Welsh ecclesiastics was resolved during Theobald's term of office when Pope Eugene III decided in 1148 in Canterbury's favour. Theobald faced challenges to his authority from a subordinate bishop, Henry of Blois, Bishop of Winchester and King Stephen's younger brother, his relationship with King Stephen was turbulent. On one occasion Stephen forbade him from attending a papal council, but Theobald defied the king, which resulted in the confiscation of his property and temporary exile. Theobald's relations with his cathedral clergy and the monastic houses in his archdiocese were difficult. Serving during the disorders of Stephen's reign, Theobald succeeded in forcing peace on the king by refusing to consecrate Stephen's son and heir, Eustace.
After Eustace's death in 1153, Stephen recognised his rival Henry of Anjou as his heir, Theobald was named regent of the kingdom after Stephen's death. After a long illness, Theobald died in 1161, following which unsuccessful efforts were made to have him canonised as a saint. Theobald was the patron of his successor Thomas Becket, a number of other future bishops and archbishops served as his clerks. During his time as archbishop Theobald augmented the rights of his bishopric. Historians of his time and were divided on his character and he is overlooked in the historical record because of the fame of his successor. Theobald's family was from the area around Thierville near Le Bec-Hellouin, in the Risle River valley; the modern historian Frank Barlow speculates that Theobald may have been a distant relative of his successor as archbishop, Thomas Becket, as Becket's family came from the same part of Normandy. The exact date of Theobald's birth is unknown, his father was a knight, but no contemporary reference gives his name.
His brother Walter became a priest, a bishop. Theobald entered the Abbey of Bec in Normandy as a Benedictine monk in the late 11th or early 12th century, while William was the third abbot, but as William was abbot from 1096 to 1124, that leaves a wide range of possible entry dates. Theobald was the 266th monk admitted under William, out of 346; the historian Avrom Saltman suggests that, if admissions were spaced throughout William's abbacy, Theobald would have become a monk in about 1117, but qualifies his estimate with the statement that 1117 "seems to be rather late". In 1127 Theobald was made prior of Bec. Theobald became abbot in 1137, following Boso's death in June 1136; the monks of Bec unanimously elected him to be their new abbot without first consulting the Archbishop of Rouen, Hugh de Boves, who threatened to void the result. Audoen, the Bishop of Evreux, brother of Thurstan, the Archbishop of York, intervened with Hugh and persuaded him to ratify the election. Another problem arose when Hugh demanded a written profession of obedience from Theobald, which Theobald refused to provide.
Theobald resisted for 14 months before a compromise was reached through the intercession of Peter the Venerable, Abbot of Cluny, allowing Theobald to give a verbal profession to Hugh. No documents survive from Theobald's tenure as abbot, nor is there any information on the administration of the monastery during his period of office, except that 47 monks were admitted to Bec while he was abbot. Theobald travelled to England on business for his abbey at least once during his abbacy, to supervise the monastery's lands in England, a trip that took place shortly before his selection as the new Archbishop of Canterbury in 1138. In 1138 King Stephen chose Theobald to fill the vacant archbishopric of Canterbury over Stephen's own brother Henry, the Bishop of Winchester, who had helped Stephen gain the throne of England. Stephen feared that Henry would be too powerful as archbishop, would attempt to control the king; the election took place on 24 December. Most historians consider. Henry believed that Theobald had been elected not only because of Stephen's concerns but because Waleran of Meulan, the lay patron of Bec, was attempting to put his own man in one of the most powerful positions in England.
Waleran and his twin brother Robert, Earl of Leicester, were Henry's chief rivals for Stephen's favour, Henry disliked both of them intensely. Although Theobald was pious and well-educated, he had only become abbot the year before, his election was influenced by the reputation of his monastery, which had produced two archbishops of Canterbury and Anselm. Theobald had no important family connections to advance his career, few clerical allies. Theobald was consecrated on 8 January 1139 by Alberic of Ostia, he took part in the Second Lateran Council. As archbishop his behaviour was less political in comparison to that of his main rival, Henry of Blois. Henry was appointed a papal legate on 1 March 1139, which meant that Henry could now call church councils in England and had power equal to or exceeding that of Theo
Coronation
A coronation is the act of placement or bestowal of a crown upon a monarch's head. The term also refers not only to the physical crowning but to the whole ceremony wherein the act of crowning occurs, along with the presentation of other items of regalia, marking the formal investiture of a monarch with regal power. Aside from the crowning, a coronation ceremony may comprise many other rituals such as the taking of special vows by the monarch, the investing and presentation of regalia to the monarch, acts of homage by the new ruler's subjects and the performance of other ritual deeds of special significance to the particular nation. Western-style coronations have included anointing the monarch with holy oil, or chrism as it is called; the monarch's consort may be crowned, either with the monarch or as a separate event. Once a vital ritual among the world's monarchies, coronations have changed over time for a variety of socio-political and religious factors. In the past, concepts of royalty and deity were inexorably linked.
In some ancient cultures, rulers were considered to be divine or divine: the Egyptian pharaoh was believed to be the son of Ra, the sun god, while in Japan, the emperor was believed to be a descendant of Amaterasu, the sun goddess. Rome promulgated the practice of emperor worship. Coronations were once a direct visual expression of these alleged connections, but recent centuries have seen the lessening of such beliefs. Coronations are still observed in the United Kingdom and several Asian and African countries. In Europe, most monarchs are required to take a simple oath in the presence of the country's legislature. Besides a coronation, a monarch's accession may be marked in many ways: some nations may retain a religious dimension to their accession rituals while others have adopted simpler inauguration ceremonies, or no ceremony at all; some cultures use bathing or cleansing rites, the drinking of a sacred beverage, or other religious practices to achieve a comparable effect. Such acts symbolise the granting of divine favour to the monarch within the relevant spiritual-religious paradigm of the country.
Coronation in common parlance today may in a broader sense, refer to any formal ceremony in relation to the accession of a monarch, whether or not an actual crown is bestowed, such ceremonies may otherwise be referred to as investitures, inaugurations, or enthronements. The date of the act of ascension, however precedes the date of the ceremony of coronation. For example, the Coronation of Elizabeth II took place on 2 June 1953 sixteen months after her accession to the throne on 6 February 1952 on the death of her father George VI; the coronation ceremonies in medieval Christendom, both Western and Eastern, are influenced by the practice of the Roman Emperors as it developed during Late Antiquity, indirectly influenced by Biblical accounts of kings being crowned and anointed. The European coronation ceremonies best known in the form they have taken in Great Britain, descend from rites created in Byzantium, Visigothic Spain, Carolingian France and the Holy Roman Empire and brought to their apogee during the Medieval era.
In non-Christian states, coronation rites evolved from a variety of sources related to the religious beliefs of that particular nation. Buddhism, for instance, influenced the coronation rituals of Thailand and Bhutan, while Hindu elements played a significant role in Nepalese rites; the ceremonies used in modern Egypt, Malaysia and Iran were shaped by Islam, while Tonga's ritual combines ancient Polynesian influences with more modern Anglican ones. Coronations, in one form or another, have existed since ancient times. Egyptian records show coronation scenes, such as that of Seti I in 1290 BC. Judeo-Christian scriptures testify to particular rites associated with the conferring of kingship, the most detailed accounts of which are found in II Kings 11:12 and II Chronicles 23:11; the corona radiata, the "radiant crown" known best on the Statue of Liberty, worn by the Helios, the Colossus of Rhodes, was worn by Roman emperors as part of the cult of Sol Invictus, part of the imperial cult as it developed during the 3rd century.
The origin of the crown is thus religious, comparable to the significance of a halo, marking the sacral nature of kingship, expressing that either the king is himself divine, or ruling by divine right. The precursor to the crown was the browband called the diadem, worn by the Achaemenid rulers, was adopted by Constantine I, was worn by all subsequent rulers of the Roman Empire. Following the assumption of the diadem by Constantine and Byzantine emperors continued to wear it as the supreme symbol of their authority. Although no specific coronation ceremony was observed at first, one evolved over the following century; the emperor Julian was hoisted upon a shield and crowned with a gold necklace provided by one of his standard-bearers. Emperors were crowned and acclaimed in a similar manner, until the momentous decision was taken to permit the Patriarch of Constantinople to physically place the crown on the emperor's head. Historians debate when this first took place, but the precedent was established by the reign of Leo II, crowned by the Patriarch Acacius in 473.
This ritual in
Henry II of England
Henry II known as Henry Curtmantle, Henry FitzEmpress or Henry Plantagenet, ruled as King of England, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, Count of Anjou and Nantes, Lord of Ireland. Before he was 40 he controlled England, large parts of Wales, the eastern half of Ireland and the western half of France—an area that would come to be called the Angevin Empire. Henry was the son of daughter of Henry I of England, he became involved by the age of 14 in his mother's efforts to claim the throne of England occupied by Stephen of Blois, was made Duke of Normandy at 17. He inherited Anjou in 1151 and shortly afterwards became the Duke of Aquitaine by marrying Eleanor of Aquitaine, whose marriage to Louis VII of France had been annulled. Stephen agreed to a peace treaty after Henry's military expedition to England in 1153, Henry inherited the kingdom on Stephen's death a year later. Henry was an energetic and sometimes ruthless ruler, driven by a desire to restore the lands and privileges of his grandfather Henry I.
During the early years of his reign the younger Henry restored the royal administration in England, re-established hegemony over Wales and gained full control over his lands in Anjou and Touraine. Henry's desire to reform the relationship with the Church led to conflict with his former friend Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury; this controversy lasted for much of the 1160s and resulted in Becket's murder in 1170. Henry soon came into conflict with Louis VII and the two rulers fought what has been termed a "cold war" over several decades. Henry expanded his empire at Louis' expense, taking Brittany and pushing east into central France and south into Toulouse. Henry and Eleanor had eight children -- five sons. Three of his sons would be king, though Henry the Young King was named his father's co-ruler rather than a stand-alone king; as the sons grew up, tensions over the future inheritance of the empire began to emerge, encouraged by Louis and his son King Philip II. In 1173 Henry's heir apparent, "Young Henry", rebelled in protest.
France, Brittany and Boulogne allied themselves with the rebels. The Great Revolt was only defeated by Henry's vigorous military action and talented local commanders, many of them "new men" appointed for their loyalty and administrative skills. Young Henry and Geoffrey revolted again in 1183; the Norman invasion of Ireland provided lands for his youngest son John, but Henry struggled to find ways to satisfy all his sons' desires for land and immediate power. By 1189, Young Henry and Geoffrey were dead, Philip played on Richard's fears that Henry II would make John king, leading to a final rebellion. Decisively defeated by Philip and Richard and suffering from a bleeding ulcer, Henry retreated to Chinon castle in Anjou, he was succeeded by Richard. Henry's empire collapsed during the reign of his youngest son, John. Many of the changes Henry introduced during his long rule, had long-term consequences. Henry's legal changes are considered to have laid the basis for the English Common Law, while his intervention in Brittany and Scotland shaped the development of their societies and governmental systems.
Historical interpretations of Henry's reign have changed over time. In the 18th century, scholars argued that Henry was a driving force in the creation of a genuinely English monarchy and a unified Britain. During the Victorian expansion of the British Empire, historians were keenly interested in the formation of Henry's own empire, but they expressed concern over his private life and treatment of Becket. Late-20th-century historians have combined British and French historical accounts of Henry, challenging earlier Anglocentric interpretations of his reign. Henry was born in France at Le Mans on 5 March 1133, the eldest child of the Empress Matilda and her second husband, Geoffrey the Fair, Count of Anjou; the French county of Anjou was formed in the 10th century and the Angevin rulers attempted for several centuries to extend their influence and power across France through careful marriages and political alliances. In theory, the county answered to the French king, but royal power over Anjou weakened during the 11th century and the county became autonomous.
Henry's mother was King of England and Duke of Normandy. She was born into a powerful ruling class of Normans, who traditionally owned extensive estates in both England and Normandy, her first husband had been the Holy Roman Emperor Henry V. After her father's death in 1135, Matilda hoped to claim the English throne, but instead her cousin Stephen of Blois was crowned king and recognised as the Duke of Normandy, resulting in civil war between their rival supporters. Geoffrey took advantage of the confusion to attack the Duchy of Normandy but played no direct role in the English conflict, leaving this to Matilda and her half-brother, Robert of Gloucester; the war, termed the Anarchy by Victorian historians, degenerated into stalemate. Henry spent some of his earliest years in his mother's household, accompanied Matilda to Normandy in the late 1130s. Henry's childhood from the age of seven, was spent in Anjou, where he was educated by Peter of Saintes, a noted grammarian of the day. In late 1142, Geoffrey decided t
Dynasty
A dynasty is a sequence of rulers from the same family in the context of a feudal or monarchical system, but sometimes appearing in elective republics. Alternative terms for "dynasty" may include "family" and "clan", among others; the longest-surviving dynasty in the world is the Imperial House of Japan, otherwise known as the Yamato dynasty, whose reign is traditionally dated to 660 BC. The dynastic family or lineage may be known as a "noble house", which may be styled as "royal", "princely", "ducal", "comital" etc. depending upon the chief or present title borne by its members. Historians periodize the histories of numerous nations and civilizations, such as Ancient Egypt and Imperial China, using a framework of successive dynasties; as such, the term "dynasty" may be used to delimit the era during which a family reigned, to describe events and artifacts of that period. The word "dynasty" itself is dropped from such adjectival references; until the 19th century, it was taken for granted that a legitimate function of a monarch was to aggrandize his dynasty: that is, to expand the wealth and power of his family members.
Prior to the 20th century, dynasties throughout the world have traditionally been reckoned patrilineally, such as under the Frankish Salic law. In nations where it was permitted, succession through a daughter established a new dynasty in her husband's ruling house; this has changed in some places in Europe, where succession law and convention have maintained dynasties de jure through a female. For instance, the House of Windsor will be maintained through the children of Queen Elizabeth II, as it did with the monarchy of the Netherlands, whose dynasty remained the House of Orange-Nassau through three successive queens regnant; the earliest such example among major European monarchies was in the Russian Empire in the 18th century, where the name of the House of Romanov was maintained through Grand Duchess Anna Petrovna. In Limpopo Province of South Africa, Balobedu determined descent matrilineally, while rulers have at other times adopted the name of their mother's dynasty when coming into her inheritance.
Less a monarchy has alternated or been rotated, in a multi-dynastic system – that is, the most senior living members of parallel dynasties, at any point in time, constitute the line of succession. Not all feudal states or monarchies were/are ruled by dynasties. Throughout history, there were monarchs. Dynasties ruling subnational monarchies do not possess sovereign rights; the word "dynasty" is sometimes used informally for people who are not rulers but are, for example, members of a family with influence and power in other areas, such as a series of successive owners of a major company. It is extended to unrelated people, such as major poets of the same school or various rosters of a single sports team; the word "dynasty" derives from Latin dynastia, which comes from Greek dynastéia, where it referred to "power", "dominion", "rule" itself. It was the abstract noun of dynástēs, the agent noun of dynamis, "power" or "ability", from dýnamai, "to be able". A ruler from a dynasty is sometimes referred to as a "dynast", but this term is used to describe any member of a reigning family who retains a right to succeed to a throne.
For example, King Edward VIII ceased to be a dynast of the House of Windsor following his abdication. In historical and monarchist references to reigning families, a "dynast" is a family member who would have had succession rights, were the monarchy's rules still in force. For example, after the 1914 assassinations of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his morganatic wife Duchess Sophie von Hohenberg, their son Duke Maximilian was bypassed for the Austro-Hungarian throne because he was not a Habsburg dynast. Since the abolition of the Austrian monarchy, Duke Maximilian and his descendants have not been considered the rightful pretenders by Austrian monarchists, nor have they claimed that position; the term "dynast" is sometimes used only to refer to agnatic descendants of a realm's monarchs, sometimes to include those who hold succession rights through cognatic royal descent. The term can therefore describe distinct sets of people. For example, David Armstrong-Jones, 2nd Earl of Snowdon, a nephew of Queen Elizabeth II through her sister Princess Margaret, is in the line of succession to the British crown.
On the other hand, the German aristocrat Prince Ernst August of Hanover, a male-line descendant of King George III of the United Kingdom, possesses no legal British name, titles or styles. He was born in the line of succession to the British throne and was bound by Britain's Royal Marriages Act 1772 until it was repealed when the Succession to the Crown Act 2013 took effect on 26 March 2015. Thus, he requested and obtained formal permission from Queen Elizabeth II to marry the Roman Catholic Princess Caroline of Monaco in 1999. Yet, a clause of the English Act of Settlement 1701 remained in effect at that time, stipulating that dynasts who
Bury St Edmunds
Bury St Edmunds referred to locally as Bury, is a historic market town and civil parish in Suffolk, England. Bury St Edmunds Abbey is near the town centre. Bury is the seat of the Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich of the Church of England, with the episcopal see at St Edmundsbury Cathedral; the town called Beodericsworth, was built on a grid pattern by Abbot Baldwin around 1080. It is known for brewing and malting and for a British Sugar processing factory, where Silver Spoon sugar is produced; the town is the cultural and retail centre for West Suffolk and tourism is a major part of the economy. The name Bury is etymologically connected with borough, which has cognates in other Germanic languages such as the German burg meaning "fortress, castle", they all derive from Proto-Germanic *burgs meaning "fortress". This in turn derives from the Proto-Indo-European root *bhrgh meaning "fortified elevation", with cognates including Welsh bera and Sanskrit bhrant-; the second section of the name refers to Edmund King of the East Angles, killed by the Vikings in the year 869.
He became venerated as a saint and a martyr, his shrine made Bury St Edmunds an important place of pilgrimage. The formal name of both the borough and the diocese is "St Edmundsbury", the town is colloquially known as Bury. An archaeological study in the 2010s on the outskirts of Bury St Edmunds uncovered evidence of bronze age activity in the area; the dig uncovered Roman coins from the first and second centuries. Samuel Lewis, writing in 1848, notes the earlier discovery of Roman antiquities, as with several other writers connects Bury St Edmunds with Villa Faustini or Villa Faustina, although the location of this Roman site is discussed by E. Gillingwater who notes the lack of evidence for it being here; the town was one of the royal boroughs of the Saxons. Sigebert, king of the East Angles, founded a monastery here about 633, which in 903 became the burial place of King Edmund, slain by the Danes in 869, owed most of its early celebrity to the reputed miracles performed at the shrine of the martyr king.
The town grew around a site of pilgrimage. By 925 the fame of St Edmund had spread far and wide, the name of the town was changed to St Edmund's Bury. In 942 or 945 King Edmund had granted to the abbot and convent jurisdiction over the whole town, free from all secular services, Canute in 1020 freed it from episcopal control. Edward the Confessor made the abbot lord of the franchise. Sweyn, in 1020, having destroyed the older monastery and ejected the secular priests, built a Benedictine abbey on St Edmund's Bury. Count Alan Rufus is said to have been interred at Bury St Edmunds Abbey in 1093. In the 12th and 13th centuries the head of the de Hastings family, who held the Lordship of the Manor of Ashill in Norfolk, was hereditary Steward of this abbey. On 18 March 1190, two days after the more well-known massacre of Jews at Clifford Tower in York, the people of Bury St Edmunds massacred 57 Jews; that year, Abbot Samson petitioned King Richard I for permission to evict the town's remaining Jewish inhabitants "on the grounds that everything in the town... belonged by right to St Edmund: therefore, either the Jews should be St Edmund’s men or they should be banished from the town."
This expulsion predates the Edict of Expulsion by 100 years. In 1198, a fire burned the shrine of St Edmund, leading to the inspection of his corpse by Abbot Samson and the translation of St Edmund's body to a new location in the abbey; the town is associated with Magna Carta. In 1214 the barons of England are believed to have met in the Abbey Church and sworn to force King John to accept the Charter of Liberties, the document which influenced the creation of the Magna Carta, a copy of, displayed in the town's cathedral during the 2014 celebrations. By various grants from the abbots, the town attained the rank of a borough. Henry III in 1235 granted to the abbot two annual fairs, one in December and the other the great St Matthew's fair, abolished by the Fairs Act of 1871. In 1327, the Great Riot occurred; the burghers were angry at the overwhelming power and corruption of the monastery, which ran every aspect of local life with a view to enriching itself. The riot destroyed a new, fortified gate was built in its stead.
However, in 1381 during the Great Uprising, the Abbey was looted again. This time, the Prior was executed. On 11 April 1608 a great fire broke out in Eastgate Street, which resulted in 160 dwellings and 400 outhouses being destroyed; the town developed into a flourishing cloth-making town, with a large woollen trade, by the 14th century. In 1405 Henry IV granted another fair. Elizabeth I in 1562 confirmed the charters; the reversion of the fairs and two markets on Wednesday and Saturday were granted by James I in fee farm to the corporation. James I in 1606 granted a charter of incorporation with an annual fair in a market. James granted further charters in 1608 and 1614, as did Charles II in 1668 and 1684. Parliaments were held in the borough in 1272, 1296 and 1446, but the borough was not represented until 1608, when James I conferred on it the privilege of sending two members; the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885 reduced the representation to one. The borough of Bury St Edmunds and the surrounding area, like much of East Anglia, being part of the Eas
Peterborough Chronicle
The Peterborough Chronicle, one of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, contains unique information about the history of England after the Norman Conquest. According to philologist J. A. W. Bennett, it is the only prose history in English between the Conquest and the 14th century; the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles were composed and maintained between the various monasteries of Anglo-Saxon England and were an attempt to record the history of Britain throughout the years AD. The chronicles began with the birth of Christ, went through Biblical and Roman history continued to the present; every major religious house in England kept its own, individual chronicle, the chronicles were not compared with each other or in any way kept uniform. For example, in the opening paragraph of this chronicle it is said that the Britons that settled in South Britain came from "Armenia". However, whenever a monastery's chronicle was damaged, or when a new monastery began a chronicle, nearby monasteries would lend out their chronicles for copying.
Thus, a new chronicle would be identical to the lender's until they reached the date of copying and would be idiosyncratic. Such was the case with the Peterborough Chronicle: a fire compelled the abbey to copy the chronicles from other churches up to 1120; when William the Conqueror took England and Anglo-Norman became the official language, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles ceased. The monks of Peterborough Abbey, continued to compile events in theirs. While the Peterborough Chronicle is not professional history, one still needs Latin histories, it is one of the few surviving first-hand accounts from the period 1070 to 1154 in England written in English and from a non-courtly point of view, it is a valuable source of information about the early Middle English language itself. The first continuation, for example, is written in late Old English, but the second continuation begins to show mixed forms, until the conclusion of the second continuation, which switches into an early form of distinctly Middle English.
The linguistic novelties recorded in the second continuation are plentiful, including at least one true innovation: the feminine pronoun "she" is first recorded in the Peterborough Chronicle. The chronicle from the original copied text through the continuations shows the history of the loss of grammatical gender in West Saxon English, going from the copied portion which while conforming to Old English grammatical gender does have some discrepancies, through the first continuation in which modifiers are re-adapted to other functions and there is a large discrepancy with Old English grammatical gender, to the second continuation in which grammatical gender is lost or nearly so. Today, the Peterborough Chronicle is recognised as one of the four distinct versions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, but it is not wholly distinct. There was a fire at Peterborough that destroyed the monastery's library, so the earliest part of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle at Peterborough is a copy of Winchester Cathedral's chronicle.
For the 11th century, the chronicle at Peterborough diverges from Parker's, it has been speculated that a proto-"Kentish Chronicle", full of nationalistic and regionalistic interests, was used for these years. The Peterborough copyists used multiple sources for their missing years, but the Dissolution of the Monasteries makes it impossible to be sure. Regardless, the entries for the 12th century to 1122 are a jumble of other chronicles' accounts, sharing half-entries with one source and half with another, moving from one source to another and back to a previous one; this shifting back and forth raises, the vexatious possibility of a lost chronicle as a single, common source. It is after 1122. Therefore, the document called The Peterborough Chronicle is divided into the "first continuation" and the "second continuation" from the time of the fire and the copying; the two continuations are sui generis both in terms of the information they impart, the style they employ, their language. The first continuation covers 1122–1131.
The second continuation includes the reign of King Stephen. The copied portion uses grammatical gender and inflections like in Old English, but there are discrepancies. Although the second continuation holds the most importance, the first continuation has unique records of events in the Peterborough area and provides an insight into ordinary people's lives; the first continuation records the Conquest, the incursion of Sweyn of Denmark, rumours of other turbulence about the throne. However, it has no evidence at all for Saxon rebellion against William and his sons. An arguably eyewitness account describes the burning of Peterborough Abbey itself, due to the drunkenness of the monks, it covers ecclesiastical scandals, such as the Abbot of Glastonbury bringing in mercenaries to control his religious house. Further, there is a significant change in language from the previous late Old English that begins with the entry for the years 1122–1131, with mixtures of Old English and Middle English vocabulary and syntax.
Both the first and second continuation authors have
Faversham Abbey
Faversham Abbey was a Cluniac style monastery to the north-east of the town of Faversham, in Kent, England. It was founded by King Stephen and his wife Matilda of Boulogne in 1148. A party of monks from Bermondsey Abbey provided the first abbot. At the Dissolution of the Monasteries, Sir Thomas Cheney assigned the abbey to Thomas Arden and it was destroyed in 1538. Thereafter the site of the abbey came into the possession of the Sondes family and now lies within the grounds of Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School; the Abbey was the burial place of King Stephen, Queen Matilda, their eldest son, Eustace IV of Boulogne. Their bones were thrown into the nearby Faversham Creek when the abbey was demolished, their empty tombs were unearthed in 1964 near. However, there is a canopy tomb with no contemporary inscription in the nearby Parish Church, where it is said that their bones were re-interred
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. 9 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 956–957.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the 