Nottingham Medieval Studies

Bede’s use of caveats, such as fertur or perhibentur, does not, as has tended to be assumed, universally betray a reliance on ‘hearsay’ evidence. Instead, these words or phrases tell us something about Bede’s conception of his sources and their reliability.

This study discusses the passages in Felix’s Vita Sancti Guthlaci which refer to the naming of the saint. It suggests that Felix’s ideas as to the source and meaning of the name are problematic in that they do not obviously reflect vernacular naming patterns and they were not passed on by Old English writers. It is argued that this might be because Felix’s obscure Latin has been mistaken, and that he might have wanted to refer to Guthlac’s ‘land’ and ‘tribe’ not as the source of his name, but as being named after him. It is pointed out that Felix’s vocabulary in the naming passages bears striking resemblance to that in a passage of Jerome’s translation of the Regula Pachomii which relates it to desert monasticism, the dominant paradigm for Felix’s hagiography.

This paper surveys the views on and the effects of war as expressed in medieval French verse written for or arising from specific occasions. The poems cited include epitaphs, encomia, crusading songs, siege narratives, protest and political verse, victory celebrations, and folk songs, both insular and continental. Many of them voice despair at the violence inflicted on civilian populations but there is also the glorification of exploits of war and worship of military leaders. The lengths of the poems vary greatly, as do their dates - from the late twelfth to the middle of the sixteenth centuries. The need for further work on this neglected part of Old French literature is emphasized.

The concept of lineage became important within English landed society in the fourteenth century because, with the decline of knighthood, lineage came to be the identifier of chivalric society. This was manifested in various ways but the most critical was in whether, or how, landholders chose to settle their lands. At this period, there was a tension between the preservation of the lineage and the claims of female heirs which ensured a wide variety of reactions and thus different types of settlements or none. The strongest reaction was displayed by those landholders who chose to settle their estates, or part of them, on one who would not otherwise have inherited upon condition that the beneficiary adopted the name and arms of the settlor.

‘L’exemple des angres / Þe exempil of angellis’ is a short tract which traces the origins of heraldry and the office of arms to the antediluvian patriarch Enoch. The text outlines the virtues of the herald through an elaborate acrostic, while his duties, expecially those related to the role of messenger, are compared to scriptural accounts of angels. The text, originally written in French (c. 1437-50), survives in three distinct French recensions (ranging from 1450 to 1680) and a Scots translation (c. 1494), all of which are edited here.

The role of the nobleman’s widow in preserving personal and dynastic legacy has long been a topic of historical studies on memoria. This article examines the mortuary rituals and tomb monument of John IV de Montfort (d. 1399), duke of Brittany, and how Joan of Navarre, widow and regent, participated in commemorating and shaping his memory and political contribution.