An unrealized cult? Hagiography and Norman ducal genealogy in twelfth‐century England
This article traces the adoption and ideological uses of the image of the pious Norman dukes in four consecutive hagiographical texts written in twelfth-century England. While this is a well-known topos of the earlier Norman tradition, its reception in England has been neglected in the existing scholarship. The article also examines further evidence of an interest in pious Norman dukes under Henry II, focusing on the translation of the remains of Richard I and Richard II at Fecamp in Normandy in 1162 and discussing whether the dukes' official cult could have been established. The conclusion situates the material in the general context of the development of the cults of lay rulers in twelfth-century Europe and sheds light on the interplay between hagiography, historical memory and politics at the time.
The Canonization of Edward the Confessor
ENGLAND'S Edward the Confessor was noted during his life for his religious fervor and faith and, within a few years after his death in 1066, acquired among some of his subjects the reputation of a saint. His first Vita, apparently written before the end of 1075, is the earliest evidence of the rumors of the deceased king's sanctity. This biography summed up the picture of Edward as a saint in its final paragraph.' "That he who was proved a saint in this world," the author wrote, "is now living as a saint in heaven the propitious Deity reveals through these signs at his grave; there, by his intervention, the blind are made to see and the lame to walk again, the sick are cured and the sad consoled; and God, the King of kings, allows these tokens of his piety to happen for the faith of everyone who invokes the Lord."2 In spite of this rapid "canonisatio per viam cultus," the official recognition of the saint by the Church was delayed and was not pronounced until a century later. A first official sanction of the cult may have been the translation of the king's body in 1102. This was perhaps "an episcopal translation performed by Gundulf of Rochester on behalf of the archbishop of Canterbury."3 But another thirty-six years passed by before a serious attempt
The autobiography of Giraldus Cambrensis
["edited and translated by H.E. Butler ; with an introductory chapter by C.H. Williams. Includes bibliographical references and index."]