1100-1154: Cathedral Building and Abbey Foundations

Archbishop Anselm died in 1109. His see remained vacant until Ralph, Bishop of Rochester, was appointed to it in 1114.We will not otherwise list the Archbishops of Canterbury and York and will only refer to those who are the most prominent or interesting from a political point of view. The accession of Henry II in 1154 will eventually bring out the inherent tension between Crown and Church. This would be expressed in the tense and ultimately violent relationship with Thomas A Becket and the King which we will review in a later posting. Until then, the symbiotic relationship between national Church and the miltary Norman aristocracy continued regardless of civil strife. Indeed, it is the return of a strong Kingship that precipitates a crisis - and we should remember that the Church was largely staffed at the highest levels from the literate members of the same international class whose Anglo-Norman branch ran England.

As we have noted in our posting on Henry I, cathedral and church building began again after a long gap following the start of construction of Durham Cathedral in 1093: Southwark Priory (1106 - the basis of the later Southwark Cathedral), Southwell Minster (1108), Exeter (1112), Peterborough (1117) and with Llandaff and Bangor asserting Church authority in Normanised Wales (1120). Building work then shifted to Abbey foundations within a couple of decades: Hexham (1113), Tintern (1131), Quarr (1131), Buildwas (1135) and Jervaulx (1145), all but the first Cistercian in origin.

These buildings are not to be assumed to be under direct royal patronage by any means (for example, the Cistercians were introduced to England by Walter Fitz Richard, of the powerful Clare family who funded Tintern Abbey) but there is always a political aspect to the foundations if only in terms of aristocratic status. It is not accidental that the last two of the new cathedral foundations were in the borderlands with Wales which were in the process of being 'tamed'. The slowing down of cathedral foundation after 1120 was both a sign of internal civil strife but also of the natural expansion of Norman power to its English and Welsh limits at that time. Internal strife (as we will see in the next posting) was as much a sign of the collapse of any form of English alternative to Norman rule as of the potential for anarchy arising from a warlord Norman aristocracy during periods of central weakness. Similarly the abbey foundations represent the exploitation of the conquest by aristocrats and churchmen alike.

An example of the growing militarisation (albeit defensive) of religion and its close marriage of interest to the Anglo-Norman aristocracy and their English subjects comes from the Battle of the Standard in 1138 where it is Archbishop Thurston of York who organises an army to counter a Scottish invasion. The Archbishop himself carried into battle the banner of St. John of Beverley alongside those of St. Cuthbert, St. Peter of York and St. Wilfred, all hung from a large pole 'like the mast of a ship' on a four wheeled cart on which the Archbishop stood. The Battle was a resounding victory for the English.

This is also the period of the Second Crusade (1147-1149) which offers us yet another example of the militarisation of religion as if the civilising influence of the Church on barbarian use of unbridled force had been bought at the cost of the Catholic Church itself becoming an agent for the redirection of that violence onto the 'other', in this case the Muslims and often the Eastern Orthodox Church. The period is also notable for having the first and only English Pope in Nicholas Breakspear, elected in December 1154 as Adrian IV, although this only tells us what we knew already - that the Catholic Church was a Universal Church (at least in Western Europe). What is more interesting perhaps is that there was no English Pope after the middle of the Twelfth Century.

Cathedrals and Minsters under Henry I

[Please note, once again that, the Norman element in these buildings, unless specified, is usually well hidden under later accretions. Many Cathedrals, such as Exeter, were fundamentally rebuilt later in the Middle Ages.]

Norman Nave of Peterborough Cathedral started after 1117

The Nave of Southwell Minster started in 1108

Norman Arch in Llandaff Cathedral started after 1120

Norman Nave of Durham Cathedral started in 1133

Abbey Building in the First Half of the Twelfth Century

Hexham Abbey rebuilt as an Augustinian Priory in 1117

Tintern Abbey founded in 1131

Ruins of Quarr Abbey founded in 1131

The Norman Holcroft of Fountains Abbey started in 1132

Rievaulx Abbey founded in 1133

Buildwas Abbey founded in 1135

1087-1100: William II 'Rufus'

We are about to move into a duller period of English history, one of state formation in slow motion, two steps forward, one step back, a succession of dynasts, rebellions, civil wars and spats between Church and State, punctuated by major external events like the Black Death. This was the history of Britain between two revolutions - that of the introduction of feudalism by the Normans and that of the expulsion of the Roman Church under Henry VIII. England now moved from being a divided state with periodic bouts of unity constantly besieged by foreign warlords and kings to a unified state, with periodic bouts of division, that imperialistically expanded both against its own Celtic fringe and into Europe itself. From being the predated, it becomes the predator - a testament in itself to the Norman Revolution.

The Conqueror died at Rouen after falling from his horse in 1087. His third son William II, known as 'Rufus' or the Red, was crowned within a few weeks that same January. His right to rule was challenged by his eldest brother, Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy. There was never much love lost between the brothers - it is said that Robert's rebellion against his father in 1077 was caused by  his brothers pouring a full chamber pot over his head and the failure of his father to punish them for the misdeed. It was also said that William only reluctantly granted the Duchy of Normandy to a son who was widely regarded as weaker than his siblings. There was a failed rebellion in England in 1088 in Robert's favour - a number of barons preferred a weak king to a strong one - but the Duke failed to turn up to lead it. William then took the war to Robert in Normandy, leading to the Treaty of Caen in 1091 in which the brothers agreed that the survivor of the two would inherit the other's domains.This would create a problem a decade later when William died before Robert.

Rebellions also took place in 1094 amongst both the Welsh and the barons while William was frequently absent from the Kingdom, treating the country like a milch cow from afar. The long absences reached their peak when Robert of Normandy decided to join the First Crusade in 1096. Desperately short of funds (he was said to be so poor that he stayed in bed because of a lack of suitable clothes), he mortgaged Normandy to his brother for 25,000 marks (about 25% of William's English and private revenue) which William covered by levying a burdensome tax on England. This was the first but not the last of many fiscal depredations on the English people by post-Norman dynasts and their successor States. It would later become part of the legend of the Norman Yoke that would play its role in the English Civil War of the seventeenth century. William acted as regent in Normandy until his death in a hunting accident in 1100. Whether he was murdered or not will never be known for sure but there are circumstantial reasons for believing that this very unpopular figure's demise was no accident. Robert returned to Normandy within a month.