The influence of Merovingian Gaul on Northumbria in the seventh century

NOTES

• The substance of this paper was given in an abbreviated form to the Society's conference at Poitiers in March 1979.
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• H. Mayr-Harting, The Coming of Christianity (Bristol, 1972), 83–84. J. Hubert, L'Europe des Invasions (Paris, 1967), has printed a map showing those founded in the 7th century.
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• The Anonymous Life of Ceolfrid, ed. B. Colgrave (Cambridge, 1940), c. 6.
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• One of the perennial problems in this field is, when looking at a Romanesque edifice of the 11 th century or later which supersedes an earlier structure, to say how much of the underlying remains are Merovingian or Carolingian.
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• E.g. the description of the church at Nantes by Venantius Fortunatis in Opera Poetica III 7 and other texts mentioned by E.James, Merovingian Archaeology of South-West Gaul, I (Oxford, B.A.R. Int. ser. 25, pt. i, 1977), chapter 8.
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• J. Hubert, Europe in the Dark Ages (English trans, by S. Gilbert and J. Emmons, London, 1969), 42.
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• J. De Lasteyrie, L'Architecture Religieuse en France à l'Epoque Romane (Paris, 1929), 37.
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• ‘des constructeurs soucieux de les observer, et des ouvriers capables de construire des églises en grand appareil’. De Lasteyrie adds ‘Architectural art continued in a declining form until the Carolinian Renaissance. But it never fell so low with us as it did in Italy, and I doubt whether that country preserved, during the sad days of the 7th and 8th centuries the spirit of originality which our architects manifested.’
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• It has been suggested by P. Wormald in Famulus Christi, ed. G. Bonner (London, 1976), 149 that Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica IV 18 implies that Benedict Biscop (accompanied by the Archchanter John) visited Tours. From Historia Abbatum, ed. C. Plummer (Oxford, 1896), para. 3 and Plummer's note on p. 357 it is clear that Benedict Biscop came to Britain with Theodore in 669 and was not detained in Gaul with Hadrian.
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• The only authority I know for this is contained in L'Ile et L'Abbaye de Lérins (1930) by the Abbot of Lérins, p. 49
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• There is some doubt whether this was in 658/9 or later.
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• This subject is fully discussed in an article by Wormald, op. cit. note 9, 141, and also by H. Mayr-Harting, The Venerable Bede, The Rule of St Benedict, and social class (Jarrow lecture, 1976).
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• This is fully described with photographs and plans in an article by M. F. Benoit, ‘Les chapelles triconques Paléochrétiennes de la Trinité de Lérins et de la Gayole’, Rivista di Archaeologia Christiani, XXIII-XXV (1947–49), 129–42.
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• P. Mérimée, Notes d'un voyage dans le midi de la France (Paris, 1835).
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• There is a vast literature about Lérins in French. A full bibliography is contained in Dictionnaire d'Archéologie Chrétienne, Tome 8e (Paris, 1929). Cf. in particular Mérimée, op. cit. note 14; H. Morris, L'Abbaye de Lérins (Plons, 1909); and the Abbot of Lérins, op. cit. note 10.
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• M. F. Benoit, L'Abbaye de Saint-Victor à Marseilles (Petites monographies des grands édifices de France, Paris, 1936). See also F. Mâle, La Fin du Paganisme en Gaule (Paris, 1950), 155 and 326; and Hubert, op. cit. note 2, 10.
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• A. A. Miclot, La Petite Histoire de Port-Bail (1966).
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• P. D. C. Brown, Britannia, 11 (1977), 225–31 suggests that remains of a possible baptistry from Roman Britain survive at Richborough. There was possibly but doubtfully one at the Lullingstone House Church. It has also been suggested by N. Davey, Wiltshire Archaeol. and Nat. Hist. Mag., LIX (1964), 116–23, that there was a baptistry forming part of a 10th-century timber church at Potterne, Wilts.
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• Acts 8, 35.
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• Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica, I. 24. The Atlas of the Early Christian World (London and Edinburgh, 1958), 40, traces the conjectured route taken by Augustine.
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• Vita Clari (A. A. ss Jan. 1st, Vol. 1, 55–56). This information is taken from an article by I. Wood, ‘A prelude to Columbanus: the monastic achievement in the Burgundian territories’, to be published shortly.
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• Hubert, op. cit. note 2, 27; and De Lasteyrie, op. cit. note 7, 43.
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• A. W. Clapham, English Romanesque Architecture before the Norman Conquest (Oxford, 1930), 42.
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• Hubert, op. cit. note 2, plan no. 71.
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• James, op. cit. note 5, 271.
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• As P. Lasko puts it in The Dark Ages, ed. D. Talbot Rice (London, 1965), 215, the floodgates were open to monastic expansion between 610 and 650 and by the end of the 7th century there were over 400 monasteries in existence.
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• Mémoires et Documents Publiés par la Société de L'Ecole Des Charles (1964), being a collection of articles by J. Hubert.
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• M. Fleury, ‘La Cathédrale mérovingienne Saint-Etienne de Paris’, Landschaft und Geschichte, Festschrift für Franz Petri (1970), 211–21, reviewed by F. Salet, Bulletin Monumental, CXXVIII (1970), 320. Fleury has supplemented his research by further excavations reported in Gallia—Fouilles el Monuments Archaéologiques en France Metropolitaine, XXXIII (1975), Fascicule 2.
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• A photograph is published in L'Archéologie à Paris (1976).
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• Cf. W. Levison, England and the Continent in the eighth century (Oxford, 1946), 7.
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• The most authoritative account in English of the Abbey of St Denis is Professor Crosby's first volume, The Abbey of St. Denis 475–1122 (Yale Univ. Press, Hist. Pubs. in the History of Art, Vol. III (1942)), chapter IV, 65–73. Further light on the church in Dagobert's time must await Professor Crosby's report on the important excavations currently in progress. The measurements in the accompanying figure follow the plan published by M. Fleury, Document-Archéologia, XXXII (jan.-fev. 1979).
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• Clapham, op. cit. note 23, 45.
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• J. Campbell has pointed out in his stimulating article, ‘The first century of Christianity in England’, Ampteforth Jnl., LXXVI pt. i (Spring, 1971), 12–29, that it is not only in monastic associations that there is considerable evidence of close relationship between Britain and Merovingian Gaul in the 7th century.
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• Cf. Levison, op. cit. note 30, 9, 10.
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• Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica, IV, 23.
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• St Milburga's Testament drawn up by St Milburga herself has been translated by H. P. R. Finberg, The Early Charters of the West Midlands (Leicester Univ. Press, 1961), 197–216, and other medieval manuscripts relating to Much Wenlock have been considered by A. Edwards in an unpublished Ph.D. thesis for the Univ. of London. See also E. D. C. Jackson and E. G. M. Fletcher, ‘The pre-Conquest churches of Much Wenlock’, Jnl. British Archaeol. Assoc., XXXVIII (1965), 16–38.
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• Marquise de Maillé, Les Cryptes de Jouarre (Paris, 1971).
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• Thanks to the research of the present archivist at Jouarre, R. M. Teichilde de Montessus, the manuscript notes of Abbé Thiercelin have recently come to light and were made available to the Marquise de Maillé.
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• J. Hubert, Les Cryptes de Jouarre (4th Congress de l'Art du Haut Moyen Age, Melum, 1952).
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• G. T. Rivoira, Lombardic Architecture, 11 (London, 1910), 51.
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• De Lasteyrie, op. cit. note 7, 113.
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• Campbell, op. cit. note 33, 25, observes that the Gallic monasteries were supplied with buildings of some splendour.
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• Near Caudebec on the right bank of the Seine, and near Jumiège, and opposite to the celebrated (and later) Abbey of Bec.
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• M. Deanesley, ‘Early English and Gallic minsters’, Trans. Royal Hist. Soc., 4th ser., XXXIII (1941), 40.
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• L. Musset, Normandie Romane—La Haute-Normandie (1974), 259. The accompanying plan (Fig. 6) is taken from a recent article by B. Hernad, Cahier (Univ. of Paris X—Nanterre Centre de Recherche sur L'Antiquité Tardive et le Haut Moyen Age), XI (1977), 124.
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• L. Musset, ‘Deux Jumeaux, Resultat des fouilles sur le site de l'ancien prieuré (1958–1961)’, Bulletin de la Société des Antiquaires de Normandie, LVI (1961), 469–568. There is also a summary and review by M. de Bouard in Gallia, XXII (1964), 284.
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• L. Musset, ‘L'Eglise d'Evrecy (Calvados) et ses sculptures préromanes’, Bulletin des Antiquaires de Normandie, LIII (1955–56), 116–68.
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• Cf. Campbell, op. cit. note 33, 25.
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• Eddius, Vita Wilfridi, c. XIV: ‘Cementariis omnisque paene arlis institoribus’.
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• G. Baldwin Brown, The Arts in Early England, 11 (London, 1925), 150.
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• Eddius, op. cit. note 49 c. XVII.
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• Ibid., c. XXIII. For a sustained examination of Wilfrid's abbey at Hexham, see Baldwin Brown, op. cit. note 50, 149 seqq. See also H. M. and J. Taylor, Anglo-Saxon Architecture, 1 (Cambridge, 1965), 297–312, and articles by E. Gilbert, ‘Saint Wilfrid's church at Hexham’, Saint Wilfrid at Hexham, ed. D. P. Kirby (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1974). 81–114; and by R. N. Bailey, ‘The Anglo-Saxon church at Hexham’, Archaeologia Aeliana, IV (1976), 47–67; and by R. N. Bailey and D. O'Sullivan, ‘Excavations over St. Wilfrid's crypt at Hexham, 1978’, Archaeologia Aeliana, VII (1979), 144–57.
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• ‘Benedictus oceano transmisso Gallias petens cementarios qui lapideam sibi ecclesiam juxta Romanorum quern semper amabat morem facerent’, Historia Abbatum, op. cit. note 9, c. 5. The Anonymous Life of Ceolfrid, op. cit. note 3, c. 7 written some fourteen years before Bede reads ‘Secundo fundati monasterii anno, Benedictus mare transiens architectos a Torthelmo abbate, dudum in amicitiis juncto, quorum magisterio et opere basilicam de lapide faceret, petiit, acceptos que de Gallia Britanniam perduxit’. It has been necessary to spell out in detail the authorities for Biscop's visit to Gaul for his builders because even R. H. Hodgkin erroneously stated that they came from Italy, in A History of the Anglo-Saxons, 1 (Oxford, 1935), 348.
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• Cf. G. Baldwin Brown, The Arts in Early England, 11 (London, 1903 edition), 32. It is not necessary to assume as Sir Alfred Clapham did that the Roman manner of building survived only in Southern Gaul and that Biscop sought his masons from Provence (op. cit. note 23, 50, and note on 41). Monastic buildings were much more prolific in Biscop's time in the northern parts of Merovingian Gaul.
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• Bede, Historia Abbatum, op. cit. note 9, c. 5.
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• R. Cramp. ‘Monastic sites’, in The Archaeology of Anglo-Saxon England, ed. D. M. Wilson (London, 1976), 201–52.
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• Ibid., 219–22.
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• Eddius, op. cit. note 4g, c. XVI.
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• Bede, Historia Ecclesiaslica, 11, 16. The foundations of this church at Lincoln have recently been recovered by excavation, and reported in Medieval Archaeology, XXIII (1979), 214.
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• Cramp, op. cit. note 56, and reports in Medieval Archaeology, VIII (1964), 232; IX (1965), 171; and X (1966), 170.
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• The Anonymous Life of Ceolfrid, op. cit. note 3, c. 12.
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• In preparing this paper for publication, I am grateful for valuable suggestions received from Dr C. A. Ralegh Radford, Professor Rosemary Cramp. Dr Richard Gem and Mrs Susan Youngs.
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