four texts from St Albans Abbey featuring Thomas Becket and Alexander the Great, c. 1184

352 Pages·2015·36.65 MB·English

French Writing in the Cloister: four texts
from St Albans Abbey featuring Thomas
Becket and Alexander the Great, c. 1184 -
c. 1275.

Katharine Rachel Handel

Doctor of Philosophy
University of York
Medieval Studies
June 2015
Abstract
This thesis focuses on four insular French texts produced between c. 1184 and c.
1275 that can be connected to the abbey of St Albans: Beneit of St Albans' Life of
Thomas Becket, four fragmentary illustrated leaves known as the Becket Leaves,
Thomas of Kent's Roman de toute chevalerie (a romance about Alexander the Great),
and the anonymous Estoire le rei Alixaundre. Despite St Albans' wealth and status in
the Middle Ages, these texts have received very little attention from literary scholars.
I have rectified this by providing detailed readings of all four texts. My work also
considers the texts' potential audiences, taking into account both monastic and
secular reception, and reads them in the light of their contemporary literary, cultural,
and political circumstances. Throughout, the thesis considers the implications of the
choice of French as a language of composition. It uses predominantly literary
methodologies in a historicising mode, and also examines the manuscript culture of
each text.
This thesis is split into two parts, each with two chapters and an introduction
setting the St Albans texts into their wider literary contexts. The first half of the thesis
deals with the lives of Thomas Becket, with particular reference to how the two St
Albans texts are distinct in the corpus of biographies of Becket in their approaches to
Becket and Henry II. The second half covers the two narratives of Alexander the Great,
which are the only surviving insular French Alexander texts. Analysis of these four
exceptional texts provides an insight into the audiences St Albans was hoping to
attract and also the abbey's attempt to style itself as a counsellor to those in power.

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Table of contents

Abstract 2
Table of Contents 3
List of Tables 6
List of Figures 7
Acknowledgements 8
Author's declaration 10

General introduction 11
1. Introduction 11
2. Latin and French in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries 13
3. The monastery as a bilingual environment 16
4. St Albans 21
5. St Albans' ties to the secular world 22
6. Insular French at St Albans 26
7. Structure and methodology 30
Part 1: Thomas Becket 33
1. Introduction 33
2. The corpus of Becket lives 35
3. The Becket Leaves 44
Chapter 1. Beneit of St Albans' Life of Thomas Becket 46
1. Introduction 46
2. A reading of Beneit's Life of Thomas Becket 47
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3. Situating Beneit's text in a wider context 68
4. Consumption and reception 81
5. Conclusion 104
Chapter 2. The Becket Leaves 108
1. Introduction 108
2. Reading the Becket Leaves 110
3. Composition: literary and cultural context 157
4. Audience 165
5. Conclusion 170
Conclusion to part 1 173
Part 2: Alexander the Great 174
1. Introduction 174
2. Modern scholarship on Alexander 175
3. Medieval views of Alexander 178
4. Intertextuality 190
5. Conclusion 190
Chapter 3. The Roman de toute chevalerie 192
1. Introduction 192
2. Text, date, and production 193
3. A reading of the Roman de toute chevalerie 203
4. Reception: St Albans abbey and political counsel 235
5. Conclusion 238
Chapter 4. The Estoire le rei Alixaundre 240
1. Introduction 240
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2. The world of the Estoire: text and manuscript 242
3. A reading of the Estoire le rei Alixaundre 251
4. Intellectual contexts and audience 267
5. Conclusion 301
Conclusion to part 2 304
General conclusion 305
Appendix: Images of the Becket Leaves 311
Abbreviations 319
References 321

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List of tables

Chapter 1
Table 1.1 Manuscripts of Beneit's Life of Becket 82

Chapter 2
Table 2.1 Map of folio 1r of the Becket Leaves 122
Table 2.2 Map of folio 1v of the Becket Leaves 128
Table 2.3 Map of folio 2r of the Becket Leaves 132
Table 2.4 Map of folio 2v of the Becket Leaves 135
Table 2.5 Map of folio 3r of the Becket Leaves 139
Table 2.6 Map of folio 3v of the Becket Leaves 144
Table 2.7 Map of folio 4r of the Becket Leaves 150
Table 2.8 Map of folio 4v of the Becket Leaves 153

Chapter 4
Table 4.1 Beginnings of books in the St Albans 284
Compilation and the Estoire le rei Alixaundre
Table 4.2 Endings of books in the St Albans 288
Compilation and the Estoire le rei Alixaundre

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List of figures in the Appendix
Fig. 1 The Becket Leaves, High Wycombe, Wormsley 311
Library, BM 3570, f. 1r. Image reproduced
by kind permission of the Wormsley Library
Fig. 2 The Becket Leaves, High Wycombe, Wormsley 312
Library, BM 3570, f. 1v. Image reproduced
by kind permission of the Wormsley Library
Fig. 3 The Becket Leaves, High Wycombe, Wormsley 313
Library, BM 3570, f. 2r. Image reproduced
by kind permission of the Wormsley Library
Fig. 4 The Becket Leaves, High Wycombe, Wormsley 314
Library, BM 3570, f. 2v. Image reproduced
by kind permission of the Wormsley Library
Fig. 5 The Becket Leaves, High Wycombe, Wormsley 315
Library, BM 3570, f. 3r. Image reproduced
by kind permission of the Wormsley Library
Fig. 6 The Becket Leaves, High Wycombe, Wormsley 316
Library, BM 3570, f. 3v. Image reproduced
by kind permission of the Wormsley Library
Fig. 7 The Becket Leaves, High Wycombe, Wormsley 317
Library, BM 3570, f. 4r. Image reproduced
by kind permission of the Wormsley Library
Fig. 8 The Becket Leaves, High Wycombe, Wormsley 318
Library, BM 3570, f. 4v. Image reproduced
by kind permission of the Wormsley Library
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Acknowledgements
There are many people who deserve my gratitude and appreciation for their help and
support in preparing this thesis. Firstly, I would like to thank my supervisors, Dr Sethina
Watson and Professor Elizabeth Tyler, for their guidance and encouragement. I would
also like to thank Dr Thomas O' Donnell and Professor Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, who were
involved in the early stages of my project and who were very generous with their time
and expertise when I visited Fordham University in New York.
I would also like to thank Gillian Galloway and Brittany Scowcroft at the Centre
for Medieval Studies for the myriad ways in which they have helped me over the years
with all of the administration required to produce this thesis.
This work was made possible by a scholarship from the Arts and Humanities
Research Council, and I am very grateful to have been given this opportunity to pursue
my studies.
During my studies I have had the good fortune to participate in several different
academic communities, including the postgraduate communities at the Centre for
Medieval Studies in York and Fordham University, and the Anglo-Norman Reading Group
at Oxford, and I would like to thank them for their support and for being the best places
to share my love of insular French.
I am very grateful to the Wormsley Library for providing me with images of the
Becket Leaves, and to the staff at the Fitzwilliam Museum Library in Cambridge for their
help with the manuscript of the Estoire le rei Alixaundre.
Finally, I have had an extremely varied and vocal moral support team throughout
my studies. My family, especially my parents and brothers, have all been a great source of
encouragement during my studies, especially at the last minute. Jane-Héloïse Nancarrow,
Hollie Morgan and especially Els Schröder gave me invaluable and very generous
feedback on earlier drafts of my chapters, and I am extremely thankful. To my head
cheerleader, Elizabeth Alderson, and to Claudia Esch, Sarah Burton, and Els Schröder, I
would like to give particular thanks. My "little sister" Jennie England also deserves a
special mention. I would also like to thank Daniel Reeve, Courtnay Konshuh, Beth Tovey,
Claire Etty, John Shimmin, Edward Lacey, Kat Steiner, Ruth Drury, and all the inhabitants
of my favourite bar for their friendship and support.
Most of all, I would like to thank my husband, Adam Handel, for his endless
patience, kindness, and optimism, and for listening to all of my excited ramblings about
Old French for the past ten years.
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Author's declaration

I declare that this thesis and the research upon which it is based is my own work. Where
reference is made to the works of others, the extent to which that work has been used is
indicated and duly acknowledged in the text and bibliography.

This work has not been already accepted in substance for any degree, nor is it being
concurrently submitted in candidature at any other university, or for any other degree.

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