David Rollason

Lists of saints' resting-places in Anglo-Saxon England

Secgan be þam Godes sanctum þe on Engla lande aerost reston is the title of a short document in Old English which is extant in two manuscripts, Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 201, pp. 149–51, and London, British Library, Stowe 944, 34v–39r. These manuscripts are dated to the middle and the first half of the eleventh century respectively on the evidence of their script. A third copy was once in London, British Library, Cotton Vitellius D. xvii but was destroyed in the fire of 1731. The only scholarly edition is that of Felix Liebermann. The document mentions the resting-places of eighty-nine saints: all but one of these places are in England and all but ten of the saints were active in England. The usual formula is of the type, ‘Ðonne resteð sanctus Congarus confessor on Cungresbirig’ (37b), but in many cases the place is further defined by reference to some topographical feature, most often a river, as, for example, ‘Ðonne resteð sanctus Iohannes biscop on þare stowe Beferlic, neah þare ea Hul’ (5a).

Engaging with Historical Source Work Practices, pedagogy, dialogue

Although primary source work is a major component of undergraduate history degrees in many countries, the topic of how best to support this work has been relatively unexplored. This article addresses the pedagogical support of primary source work by reviewing relevant literature to identify the challenges undergraduates face in interpreting sources, and examining how in two courses carefully articulated course design and supportive teaching activities assisted students to meet these challenges. This fine-grained examination of the courses is framed within a socio-cultural account of learning. The findings show how a skilful drawing of students into the interpretive/discursive practices of source analysis was associated with an epistemological reframing of historical knowledge and dialogical forms of teaching that helped the students to take forward a dialectical engagement with sources. The benefits of an ‘integrated’ approach to source work that fosters students’ affective and intellectual engagement with historical interpretive practices are highlighted.

The Architectural Setting of the Cult of Saints in the Early Christian West, c. 300-c.1200 (review)

This book is, in its author’s words, a “survey” of “the architectural forms deriving from the cult of saints.” Beginning with a lucid exposition of the cult of relics in the early Middle Ages (for example, burial ad sanctos and the relationship between relics and altars, as well as ideas of virtus and praesentia), the book moves on to consider physical arrangements for the cult down to c. 750 (for example, the construction of churches over the tombs of saints). There is then an interesting chapter on the influence of earlier Roman architecture on the crypts of the Carolingian renaissance, followed by a survey of rather different developments (notably the appearance of radiating chapels) from the ninth to the eleventh centuries. The focus of the book then becomes more English, with a chapter on relic cults in Normandy and England in the tenth and eleventh centuries,and another on relic cults in England in the twelfth century. A final chapter deals with the development of shrines across the whole period. This is a well-written, well-researched, and notably well-presented book. The plans and plates, which are generally Crook’s own, are of a very high standard. Moreover,Crook is often deploying firsthand knowledge of the sites discussed, and brings to bear on them the expertise of a specialist architectural historian. He brings into discussion a number of neglected or less well-known sites, which deserve the prominence given to them by his work.As a survey,the book is therefore a very useful contribution, and provides a mine of information. It nevertheless has limitations. Its underlying method is to interpret archaeological and architectural remains in terms of literary sources for the cult of saints, with the result that it tends to reinforce rather than modify existing interpretations. The aim seems often to be to explain the remains in question, rather than to seek to use them as evidence in their own right. Admittedly, Crook takes a step in this direction when he deals with England, and here he is at his best reevaluating the impact of the Norman Conquest on the English church in terms of the extent to which the cult of saints was—or was not—accommodated in churches constructed shortly after the Conquest, and the apparent resurgence of interest in English saints’cults in the twelfth century. Even here,however,the reader often feels the lack of a real synthesis,as Crook delves into example after example, handling some in a very detailed although admittedly fascinating way (his discussion of the ‘Holy Hole’ at Winchester, for example). His discussion of Carolingian crypts and their relationship to earlier Roman architecture is another good example of the author really using his material to re-evaluate history, although in fact he here moves little beyond the work of R. Krautheimer on Carolingian basilicas. In the end, we are left with “the persistent architectural influence of the cult of saints,” involving “a compromise between the needs of the clergy and those of the people who flocked to the body of the local saint.” This is not a revelatory conclusion, and it is to be hoped that Crook’s book will now stimulate scholars to come to grips with the material remains it surveys as free-standing evidence for the beliefs and attitudes of the 716 BOOK REVIEWS