French Monasteries and their English Towns: the Issues of Administration and Communication

Anna Aleksandrovna Anisimova PhD in History, Senior Research Fellow, Institute of World History, Russian Academy of Sciences (Leninskiy prospekt 32a, Moskva, Russia, 119334)
cantiana@yandex.ru

Anisimova A. A. French Monasteries and their English Towns: the Issues of Administration and Communication, Religiya. Tserkov’. Obshchestvo. Issledovaniya i publikatsii po teologii i religii [Religion. Church. Society: Research and publications in the field of theology and religious studies], Saint-Petersburg, 2022, vol. 10, pp. 278–299.

doi: 10.24412/2308-0698-2022-10-278-299

Language: Russian

One of the results of a close contact between England and different French lands, as a consequence of, firstly, the Norman dukes and, then, the Plantagenets on the English throne, were the endowments of the French monasteries with lands in England. The remoteness, and later political disassociation, as well as further and further complication of the relationship between England and France, greatly influenced the interactions between the monasteries and their foreign lands, their methods of administration. The article considers the case of those English monastic towns that occurred on the lands under the lordship of French monastic houses, their seigneurs’ methods of governance, and the role of those monasteries in their towns’ development. The research is based on the examples of two monasteries — the Abbey of Holy Trinity in Fécamp, Normandy, and the Abbey of Our Lady in Fontevrault, Anjou. While in the former case it is possible to speak about the direct management of the lands by the monastic house, in the latter case there was an attempt to found a daughter house (priory) in order to manage the lands. Although three towns that appeared on the lands of Fécamp in Sussex, i.e. Rye, Winchelsea, and Steyning, most probably did not owe their origin to their monastic lord, the monastery was one of the favourable factors of this development and possibly played an important role in the forming of urban self-government in these towns. Leighton (Buzzard), which was under lordship of Fountevrault, demonstrates a less impressive and slower urban development; however, the monastic house also positively influenced its growth.

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Key words: monastic town, medieval town, French monasteries, monastic lands, Fécamp, Fontevrault, Anglo-French relationship

URL: http://rcs-almanac.ru/en/anisimova-2022-en/

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