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Kingship, Society, and the Church in

Anglo-Saxon Yorkshire Thomas Pickles


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Medieval History and Archaeology


General Editors
JOHN BLAIR HELENA HAMEROW

Kingship, Society, and the Church


in Anglo-Saxon Yorkshire
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 10/11/2018, SPi

MEDIEVAL HISTORY AND


ARCHAEOLOGY
General Editors
John Blair Helena Hamerow

The volumes in this series bring together archaeological, historical, and visual
methods to offer new approaches to aspects of medieval society, economy,
and material culture. The series seeks to present and interpret archaeological
evidence in ways readily accessible to historians, while providing a historical
perspective and context for the material culture of the period.

RECENTLY PUBLISHED IN THIS SERIES


ANGLO-SAXON FARMS AND FARMING
Debby Banham and Rosamond Faith
THE OPEN FIELDS OF ENGLAND
David Hall
PERCEPTIONS OF THE PREHISTORIC IN ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND
Religion, Ritual, and Rulership in the Landscape
Sarah Semple
TREES AND TIMBER IN THE ANGLO-SAXON WORLD
Edited by Michael D. J. Bintley and Michael G. Shapland
VIKING IDENTITIES
Scandinavian Jewellery in England
Jane F. Kershaw
LITURGY, ARCHITECTURE, AND SACRED PLACES
IN ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND
Helen Gittos
RURAL SETTLEMENTS AND SOCIETY IN ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND
Helena Hamerow
PARKS IN MEDIEVAL ENGLAND
S. A. Mileson
ANGLO-SAXON DEVIANT BURIAL CUSTOMS
Andrew Reynolds
BEYOND THE MEDIEVAL VILLAGE
The Diversification of Landscape Character in Southern Britain
Stephen Rippon
WATERWAYS AND CANAL-BUILDING IN MEDIEVAL ENGLAND
Edited by John Blair
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KINGSHIP, SOCIETY,
AND THE CHURCH IN
ANGLO-SAXON
YORKSHIRE

THOMAS PICKLES

3
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3
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© Thomas Pickles 2018
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OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 10/11/2018, SPi

Acknowledgements
The seeds from which this book grew were sown during undergraduate tutorials
on early medieval history and archaeology, which inspired BA, M.St., and
D.Phil. dissertations on aspects of the church in Anglo-Saxon Yorkshire. Twelve
years of teaching and research at four universities have contributed to its final
form. Many debts of gratitude are owed, institutional and personal.
Wadham College, Oxford, was my home for BA, M.St., and D.Phil. degrees,
elected me to a Senior Scholarship, and employed me as a Lecturer from 2004
to 2005. First and special thanks are owed to my Wadham tutors Cliff Davies,
Jane Garnett, Matthew Kempshall, Jörn Leonhard, and Alexander Sedlmaier.
John Blair was an outstanding supervisor and has been an unfailing source of
help and advice. John Nightingale nurtured my early medieval interests in
tutorials and wrote references. Juliane Kerkhecker provided excellent Latin
teaching. Richard Sharpe introduced me to Diplomatic. Tyler Bell oversaw the
construction of a relational database linked to GIS software. Jane Hawkes and
John Maddicott examined the D.Phil. thesis, provided excellent suggestions,
and wrote references.
Without financial support from several institutions the research would not
have been completed. The Arts and Humanities Research Council funded my
M.St. and D.Phil. research. The Vaughan Cornish Bequest provided money for
visiting sites with Anglo-Saxon stone sculpture in Yorkshire. The book evolved
during Lectureships at St Catherine’s College, Oxford (2005–9), the University
of York (2009–12), Birkbeck (2012–13), and the University of Chester (2013–
present). At Chester it benefited from the Faculty of Humanities Research
Fund and was completed during my first period of research leave. Amongst the
many wonderful people at these institutions, some deserve special mention: my
St Catherine’s History colleagues—Marc Mulholland and Gervase Rosser; my
Head of Department at Birkbeck—John Arnold; and three History colleagues
at York—Katy Cubitt, Guy Halsall, and Craig Taylor. The Centre for Medieval
Studies at York is an extraordinary place and I hope its staff will not mind
receiving collective mention.
Many individuals have contributed to the genesis of this book. Philip Rahtz,
Richard Morris, and Lorna Watts met with a green second-year undergraduate
in 1999 and all three have been generous with time and ideas. Lesley Abrams
began as a reserve supervisor for my D.Phil. but quickly became a friend, a trav-
elling partner, and an intellectual inspiration. Mary Garrison offered invaluable
comments on a letter of Abbess Ælfflæd of Streoneshalh (Whitby). Matt Townend
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vi Acknowledgements

shared a draft of his excellent book Viking Age Yorkshire before publication.
Jo Buckberry and Lizzie Craig-Atkins allowed me to use the results of their unpub-
lished doctoral dissertations. Steve Bassett, Stephen Baxter, Betty Coatsworth,
Rosemary Cramp, Tom Lambert, Ryan Lavelle, Steve Sherlock, and Alex Woolf
supplied copies of their work and answered queries by e-mail. Participants in
three Research Networks discussed some of the ideas: Ian Forrest and Sethina
Watson’s ‘Social Church’ network; Roy Flechner and Máire Ní Mhaonaigh’s
‘Converting the Isles’ network; and Gordon Noble and Gabor Thomas’ ‘Royal
Residences 500–800 AD’ network. Informal conversations with the following
people have shaped my thinking: Philip Bullock, Thomas Charles-Edwards,
Marios Costambeys, Andrew Dilley, Simon Ditchfield, Roy Flechner, Robin
Fleming, Sally Foster, Helen Gittos, Meggen Gondek, Jenny Hillman, Charles
Insley, George Molyneaux, Christopher Norton, Tom O’Donnell, David Parsons,
Chris Renwick, David Rollason, Sarah Semple, David Stocker, Alice Taylor,
Alan Thacker, Gabor Thomas, Elizabeth Tyler, Zoë Waxman, William Whyte,
Howard Williams, and Barbara Yorke. Students at Oxford, York, Birkbeck, and
Chester have taught me innumerable things. Dan Smith read and commented
on a complete draft.
Oxford University Press have been patient in awaiting the manuscript and
efficient in processing it. John Blair and Helena Hamerow supported the initial
proposal for the series. The two anonymous readers provided very positive and
helpful comments on the initial draft. Stephanie Ireland, Cathryn Steele, Santhosh
Palani, and Dorothy McCarthy have been exemplary editors. The Corpus of
Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture supplied most of the images and Derek Craig
was wonderfully efficient on their behalf. The Whitby Literary and Philosophical
Society and Whitby Museum gave permission to use the cover image. Paul
Gwilliam allowed me to use his images of the Dewsbury sculpture.
The greatest debt is to my family and the book is dedicated to them—my
parents, Uncle Graham, Anne, and Antony and Michelle and their families. My
father inspired my love of history and he and my mother have been unfailingly
supportive: I wish that she had lived to see the D.Phil. and book completed, but
I am extremely fortunate that he will read and appreciate the book. My wife
Katherine shares my passion for history and is responsible for this book in too
many ways to mention: I am even more fortunate that we will continue thinking
about it together. My daughter Isla should never have to read it, but if she
glances at the acknowledgements she will be reminded how important she is to
both of us.
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Contents
List of Images ix
List of Maps xi
List of Tables xiii
List of Abbreviations xv
Maps of Anglo-Saxon Yorkshire xix
Note on Names xxv

Introduction1

1. The Kingdom of the Deirans, 450–650 15

2. The ‘Ecclesiastical Aristocracy’, 600–730 57

3. Politics, Conversion, and Christianization, 616–867 93

4. The ‘Ecclesiastical Aristocracy’ and the Laity, 600–867 128

5. Kingship, Social Change, and the Church, 867–1066 187

6. Religious Communities, Local Churches, and the Laity,


867–1066224

Conclusion 278

Appendix 1. Burials and Cemeteries from Anglo-Saxon Yorkshire 287


Appendix 2. Stone Sculpture from Anglo-Saxon Yorkshire 298
Bibliography 319
Index 365
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List of Images
1. CASSS VIII: Dewsbury 9A. 166
2. CASSS VIII: Dewsbury 4A. 167
3. CASSS VIII: Dewsbury 5A. 168
4. CASSS VIII: Dewsbury 3A. 169
5. CASSS VIII: Otley 1cA. 170
6. CASSS VI: Masham 1. 171
7. CASSS VIII: Collingham 1D. 172
8. CASSS VIII: Melsonby 1CD. 173
9. CASSS VIII: Ilkley 1C. 174
10. CASSS VIII: Sheffield 1A. 175
11. CASSS VI: York Minster 38A. 235
12. CASSS III: Nunburnholme 1aB–1bD. 237
13. CASSS III: York Minster 2A. 238
14. CASSS III: York Minster 34A. 240
15. CASSS III: York Minster 34D. 240
16. CASSS VIII: Addingham 1A. 241
17. CASSS VIII: Ripon 3A. 242
18. CASSS VIII: Ripon 4. 242
19. CASSS VIII: Barwick in Elmet 2A. 255
20. CASSS VI: Coverham 1. 256
21. CASSS VIII: Bramham 1A. 257
22. CASSS VIII: Bilton in Ainsty 3A. 258
23. CASSS VIII: Kirkby Wharfe 1A. 259
24. CASSS III: Kirkdale 1A. 260
25. CASSS VIII: Leeds 1C–6C. 263
26. CASSS III: Skipwith 1. 264
27. CASSS VI: Brompton 3D. 267
28. CASSS VI: Kirklevington 4A. 268
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List of Maps
1. The topographical regions of Yorkshire. xix
2. The bedrock geology of Yorkshire. xx
3. The superficial geology of Yorkshire. xx
4. The vegetation of Anglo-Saxon Yorkshire. xxi
5. British and Anglo-Saxon Yorkshire, c.450–c.650.xxii
6. The Kingdom of the Deirans, c.600–c.867.xxii
7. Anglo-Scandinavian Yorkshire, c.867–c.1066.xxiii
8. The mother parishes of Yorkshire. 155
9. The religious community of Streoneshalh (Whitby) and its satellites. 161
10. The distribution of kirkja-by(r) place-names. 246
11. Anglo-Saxon stone sculpture with figural images, c.867–c.1066.254
12. Anglo-Saxon stone sculpture schools, c.867–c.1066.272
13. Early to mid Anglo-Saxon burials and cemeteries in Yorkshire. 297
14. Mid to late Anglo-Saxon burials and cemeteries in Yorkshire. 297
15. Anglo-Saxon stone sculpture in Yorkshire. 317
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List of Tables
1. Anglo-Saxon coinage in Yorkshire, c.600–c.867.119
2. The topographical locations of Deiran religious communities,
c.600–c.867.138
3. References to mother churches and chapels in medieval Yorkshire. 146
4. Mother churches in medieval Yorkshire. 154
5. Soke estates in eleventh-century Yorkshire. 158
6. Kirkja-by(r) place-names. 245
7. Cist burials in Yorkshire. 287
8. Early Anglo-Saxon cremation burials and cemeteries in Yorkshire. 287
9. Early Anglo-Saxon inhumation burials and cemeteries in Yorkshire. 288
10. Early Anglo-Saxon mixed cemeteries in Yorkshire. 289
11. Early to mid Anglo-Saxon inhumation burials and cemeteries
in Yorkshire. 290
12. Mid Anglo-Saxon inhumation burials and cemeteries in Yorkshire. 292
13. Mid to late Anglo-Saxon inhumation burials and cemeteries
in Yorkshire. 294
14. Late Anglo-Saxon inhumation burials and cemeteries in Yorkshire. 295
15. Anglo-Saxon stone sculpture by date. 298
16. Anglo-Saxon stone sculpture by source. 308
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List of Abbreviations
Abt Laws of Æthelberht: Liebermann (ed.) 1903–16: I, 3–8;
Attenborough (ed. and trans.) 1922: 4–17.
Æthelweard, Chronicon Campbell (ed. and trans.) 1962.
Annales Cambriae Dumville (ed.) 2002.
Annals of Ulster Mac Airt and Mac Niocaill (ed. and trans.) 1983.
AO Ehwald (ed.) 1919.
APW Lapidge and Herren (trans.) 1979.
ASC A Anglo-Saxon chronicle MS A: Bately (ed.) 1986.
ASC B Anglo-Saxon chronicle MS B: Taylor (ed.) 1983.
ASC C Anglo-Saxon chronicle MS C: O’Brien O’Keefe (ed.) 2001.
ASC D Anglo-Saxon chronicle MS D: Cubbin (ed.) 1996.
ASC E Anglo-Saxon chronicle MS E: Irvine (ed.) 2004.
ASSAH Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History
ASE Anglo-Saxon England
BAACT British Archaeological Association Conference Transactions
BAR British Archaeological Reports
CASSS I Cramp (ed.) 1984.
CASSS II Bailey (ed.) 1988.
CASSS III Lang (ed.) 1991.
CASSS V Everson and Stocker (eds) 1999.
CASSS VI Lang (ed.) 2002.
CASSS VIII Coatsworth (ed.) 2008.
CASSS IX Bailey (ed.) 2010.
CAW Atkinson (ed.) 1879–81.
CBA Council for British Archaeology
CCSL Corpus Christiana Series Latina
Continuatio Baedae McClure and Collins (ed. and trans.) 1994: 296–8.
CPG Brown (ed.) 1889–91.
CSEL Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum
DA Æthelwulf, De abbatibus: Campbell (ed. and trans.) 1967.
DB Domesday Book: Morris (ed. and trans.) 1975–86.
DEC Offler (ed.) 1968.
DGRA De gestis rebus Ælfredi: Stevenson and Whitelock (eds)
1959; Keynes and Lapidge (trans.) 1983.
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xvi List of Abbreviations

Dialogus Dialogus Ecgberhti: Haddan and Stubbs (ed.) 1869–71: III,


403–13.
DPS Alcuin, De pontificibus et sanctis ecclesiae Eboracensis: Godman
(ed. and trans.) 1982.
EE Bede, Epistola ad Ecgberhtum: Grocock and Wood (ed. and trans.)
2013: 123–61.
EEA V Burton (ed.) 1988.
EEA XX Lovatt (ed.) 2000.
EHD I Whitelock (ed.) 1979.
EHR English Historical Review
EME Early Medieval Europe
EYC Early Yorkshire Charters: Farrer and Clay (eds) 1935–65.
EPNS English Place-Name Survey
FH Roger of Wendover, Flores Historiarum: Coxe (ed.) 1841–4.
HA Bede, Historia abbatum: Grocock and Wood (ed. and trans.) 2013:
21–75.
HB Historia Brittonum: Morris (ed. and trans.) 1980.
HE Bede, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum: Colgrave and
Mynors (ed. and trans.) 1969.
Hl Laws of Hlothhere and Eadric: Liebermann (ed.) 1903–16: I,
9–11; Attenborough (ed. and trans.) 1922: 18–23.
HR I Historia regum, first set of annals: Arnold (ed.) 1882–5: I, 3–95;
Stevenson (trans.) 1858: 11–69.
HR II Historia regum, second set of annals: Arnold (ed.) 1882–5: I,
95–128; Stevenson (trans.) 1858: 69–91.
HSC Historia de sancto Cuthberto: Johnson South (ed. and trans.)
2002.
Ine Laws of Ine: Liebermann (ed.) 1903–16: I, 20–7, 89–123;
Attenborough (ed. and trans.) 1922: 36–61.
II Ew Laws of Edward: Liebermann (ed.) 1903–16: I, 140–4;
Attenborough (ed. and trans.) 1922: 118–21.
IV Eg Laws of Edgar: Liebermann (ed.) 1903–16: I, 206–14; EHD I:
Nos. 40–1.
JBAA Journal of the British Archaeological Association
JEPNS Journal of the English Place-Name Society
LDE Symeon of Durham, Libellus de exordio: Rollason (ed. and trans.)
2000.
LPN Gelling and Cole 2000.
Mercian Register Taylor (ed.) 1983: 49–51.
MGH Monumenta Germaniae Historica
Nor Griđ Liebermann (ed.) 1903–16: I, 473.
Norđleod Norđleoda laga: Liebermann (ed.) 1903–16: I, 458–60; EHD I:
No. 51.
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List of Abbreviations xvii

Northu Northumbrian Priests’ Law: Liebermann (ed.) 1903–16: I, 380–5;


EHD I: No. 53.
PAS Portable Antiquities Scheme
PNChesh Dodgson and Rumble (eds) 1970–97.
PNCumb Armstrong, Mawer, Stenton, and Dickens (eds) 1950–2.
PNERY Smith (ed.) 1937.
PNLancs Mills (ed.) 1976.
PNLincs Cameron (ed.) 1985–2010.
PNNorthants Gover, Mawer, and Stenton (eds) 1933.
PNNotts Mawer and Stenton (eds) 1940.
PNNRY Smith (ed.) 1928.
PNWest Smith (ed.) 1967.
PNWRY Smith (ed.) 1952–9.
PT Poenitentiale Theodori: Haddan and Stubbs (eds) 1869–71: III,
173–204; McNeill and Gamer (trans.) 1938: 179–215.
P&P Past and Present
RRAN Davis, Whitwell, and Johnson (eds) 1913–19.
RRS Swanson (ed.) 1981–5.
RSB Rule of St Benedict: Fry (ed. and trans.) 1981.
RTC Brown and Hamilton Thompson (eds) 1925–8.
RTR Barker (ed.) 1974–5.
RWGray Raine (ed.) 1872.
RWGreen Brown and Hamilton Thompson (eds) 1931–40.
RWM Hill, Robinson, Brocklesby, and Timmins (eds) 1977–2011.
S 000 Sawyer 1968.
Sermo Anonymous Monk of Jarrow, Sermo on Ceolfrith: Grocock and
Wood (ed. and trans.) 2013: 77–121.
SSNEM Fellows-Jensen 1978.
SSNNW Fellows-Jensen 1985.
SSNY Fellows-Jensen 1972.
TRHS Transactions of the Royal Historical Society
VBon Willibald, Vita Bonifatii: Levison (ed.) 1905: 7–57; Talbot 1981:
25–62.
VCA Anonymous Monk of Lindisfarne, Vita Cuthberti: Colgrave (ed. and
trans.) 1940: 59–139.
VCB Bede, Vita Cuthberti: Colgrave (ed. and trans.) 1940: 141–307.
VCHER Allison, Kent, Neave, and Neave (eds) 1969–2012.
VCHLeics Page, Hoskins, McKinley, and Lee (eds) 1907–64.
VCHNR Page (ed.) 1914–23.
VCol Adomnán, Vita Columbae: Anderson and Anderson (ed. and trans.)
1991.
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xviii List of Abbreviations

VE Caley (ed.) 1825.


VG Anonymous Monk of Streoneshalh (Whitby), Vita Gregorii: Colgrave (ed.
and trans.) 1968.
VGuth Felix, Vita Guthlaci: Colgrave (ed. and trans.) 1956.
VLeo Rudolf of Fulda, Vita Leobae: Waitz (ed.) 1887: 118–31; Talbot 1981:
205–26.
VW Stephen, Vita Wilfridi: Colgrave (ed. and trans.) 1927.
VWil Alcuin, Vita Willibrordi: Levison (ed.) 1920: 81–141; Talbot 1981: 3–22.
Wi Laws of Wihtred: Liebermann (ed.) 1903–16: I, 12–14; Attenborough (ed.
and trans.) 1922: 24–32.
Wif Be wifmannes beweddung: Liebermann (ed.) 1903–16: I, 442–4.
YAJ Yorkshire Archaeological Journal
YASRS Yorkshire Archaeological Society Record Series
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Maps of Anglo-Saxon Yorkshire

Map 1. The topographical regions of Yorkshire. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and
database right 2018. An Ordnance Survey/EDINA supplied service.
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xx Maps of Anglo-Saxon Yorkshire

Map 2. The bedrock geology of Yorkshire. Reproduced with the permission of the British
Geological Survey © NERC. All rights Reserved.

Map 3. The superficial geology of Yorkshire. Reproduced with the permission of the British
Geological Survey © NERC. All rights Reserved.
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Maps of Anglo-Saxon Yorkshire xxi

Map 4. The vegetation of Anglo-Saxon Yorkshire. Reproduced with the permission of


Emeritus Professor Brian K. Roberts, Durham University.
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xxii Maps of Anglo-Saxon Yorkshire

Map 5. British and Anglo-Saxon Yorkshire, c.450–c.650. Contains OS data © Crown


Copyright and database right 2018. An Ordnance Survey/EDINA supplied service.

Map 6. The kingdom of the Deirans, c.600–c.867. Contains OS data © Crown Copyright
and database right 2018. An Ordnance Survey/EDINA supplied service.
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Maps of Anglo-Saxon Yorkshire xxiii

Map 7. Anglo-Scandinavian Yorkshire, c.867–c.1066. Contains OS data © Crown Copyright


and database right 2018. An Ordnance Survey/EDINA supplied service.
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Note on Names
Place-names are given in the form in which they appear in Ekwall (1960).
County abbreviations are given for places outside Yorkshire and follow those in
Ekwall (1960).
Personal names are given in the form in which they appear in the Prosopography of
Anglo-Saxon England database (www.pase.ac.uk).
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Introduction

According to Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica, in 655 a confrontation took place


that was crucial to the conversion of the Northumbrians to Christianity and
the building of an institutional church. Penda, pagan king of the Mercians,
attacked Oswiu, Christian king of the Northumbrians. Oswiu offered Penda
‘an incalculable and incredible store of royal treasures and gifts as the price of
peace’, but Penda rejected the offer. Oswiu turned to God for assistance:
Oswiu therefore bound himself with an oath, saying, ‘If the heathen foe will not accept
our gifts, let us offer them to Him who will, even the Lord our God.’ So he vowed that
if he gained the victory he would dedicate his daughter to the Lord as a holy virgin and
give twelve small estates to build monasteries.

Penda and Oswiu fought at Winwæd (Went Bridge?):1 despite Penda’s super-
ior forces and the defection of Oswiu’s former ally Æthelwald, Oswiu was
victorious.
Then King Oswiu, in fulfilment of his vow to the Lord, returned thanks to God for the
victory granted him and gave his daughter Ælfflæd, who was scarcely a year old, to be
consecrated to God in perpetual virginity. He also gave twelve small estates on which,
as they were freed from any concern about earthly military service, a site and means
might be provided for the monks to wage heavenly warfare and to pray with unceasing
devotion that the race might win eternal peace.2

Either as a result, or as a subsequent act, Oswiu founded a monastery at


Streoneshalh (Whitby), which became a dynastic mausoleum for his family and
a centre for the training of bishops.3
Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica, like this book, is concerned with the relation-
ship between kingship, society, and the church. Writing for the benefit of King
Ceolwulf and his household, Bede produced a moral-didactic narrative that
focused on the central role and agency of kings in converting to Christianity,
enforcing Christianization, and constructing an institutional church. Bede sug-
gested that the Christian model of ministerial kingship charged kings with the

1
Breeze 2004, for discussion of the identification.
2
HE iii.24. 3
HE iii.24–5 and iv.23–4.
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2 Kingship, Society, Church in Anglo-Saxon Yorkshire

support and protection of the institutional church to fulfil their responsibility of


Christian correction. His story about Oswiu is exemplary. The king converted,
made a vow to God, and fulfilled it through his endowments. In turn, he achieved
victory and supplied centres for pastoral care. The Historia Brittonum version
of this story raises the possibility that Penda had been campaigning amongst the
Goddodin to the north and accepted the offering as a recognition of overlord-
ship, only for Oswiu to attack and defeat his retreating forces at Winwæd (Went
Bridge?).4 Either way, Bede’s version was carefully crafted to focus on the role
and agency of the king in conversion and Christianization. Bede’s work can be
placed alongside other sources that seem to support his position. Papal letters
were written to persuade kings of the advantages and obligations of ministerial
kingship. Written royal law codes were composed after conversion to Christianity,
revealing new protections afforded to the church. Royal diplomas presented
kings as generous donors to the church. Ecclesiastical reformers expected kings
to correct the church.
Nevertheless, this book re-examines the role and agency of kings in conver-
sion and Christianization. It emphasizes the social strategies of local kin groups
as the explanation for patterns of conversion, Christianization, and church
building. It does so through a regional case study of Anglo-Saxon Yorkshire. It
contributes to two major strands in the historiography of the Anglo-Saxon
church. First, it expands on recent analyses of the social forces driving conver-
sion between 600 and 867. Second, it engages with debates surrounding the
‘minster hypothesis’, using the development of the church in one region of
northern England from 600 to 1100 to move them forward. Closer attention
to each of these historiographical strands will situate its contributions and
explain why it is a case study of Yorkshire.

KINGSHIP, SOCIETY, AND THE CHURCH

For a long time Bede’s reputation as a historical scholar was so high that his
narrative was accepted almost verbatim, but critical analysis by historians
and archaeologists has produced a greater focus on the social dynamics of
conversion.5
Initially, historians reproduced Bede’s narrative of conversion and Chris­
tianization, with minor adjustments from additional written sources. They adopted
his emphasis on the role and agency of kings. Both Sir Frank Stenton and John
Godfrey took this approach.6 Growing recognition that Bede’s narrative was
partial, shaped by his sources and agenda, brought this approach into question.7

4
Charles-Edwards 2013: 394–6; endorsed by Higham 2015: 97–102; but disputed by Dunshea 2015.
5
Pickles 2016a: esp. 71–9, for a more detailed survey and critical analysis.
6
Stenton 1947: 102–28; Godfrey 1962. 7
Campbell 1966; Campbell 1968.
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Introduction 3

Bede’s omissions were observed: the contribution of British or Frankish eccle-


siastics, the growth of ecclesiastical wealth, the spread of monasticism, and the
prominence of some contemporary churchmen.8 Bede’s classical and biblical
influences were explored: his adoption of classical rhetorical principles to
extend the narratives of evangelization in the Acts of the Apostles to the con-
version of the Anglo-Saxons, presenting moral exemplars for contemporary
kings and churchmen.9
Awareness of the limitations of Bede’s narrative prompted historians and
archaeologists to seek wider perspectives on the dynamics of conversion and
Christianization. Working in parallel to critical analyses of the textual evidence
for ‘paganism’,10 historians and archaeologists produced new analyses of ‘pagan’
ritual specialists,11 ritual foci,12 and funeral rites,13 elucidating the relationship
between social status, political power, and belief.14 Comparisons with missions
outside England highlighted a broader range of factors that attracted kings to
Christianity and conditioned decisions to convert.15 Setting Bede’s work alongside
vernacular poetry suggested that conversion resulted in a fusion of secular noble
culture with Christian culture.16 Influences from anthropology and sociology
helped historians and archaeologists to look beyond kings at broader social
changes; to treat conversion, not as an event, but as a process.17 Nevertheless,
Bede’s emphasis on the role and agency of kings has remained dominant. Robin
Fleming’s recent analysis of conversion begins by accepting that ‘One of the
things our narrative accounts make clear about these developments [mission
and conversion] is that kings were crucial in this transformation, because again
and again we find that, once a king decided to convert, his people followed.’18
Nick Higham’s recent interdisciplinary analysis of the shift from tribal chieftains
to Christian kings sets conversion in the context of major economic, social, and
political change, but depicts it as a royal decision predicated on the practical
benefits of Christianity to kings.19
Of course, this book depends on the contributions of all these studies. More­
over, there are precedents for its general approach and some of its arguments.

8
Campbell 1971; Hughes 1971; Campbell 1973; Mayr-Harting 1972; Wood 1983; Wood 1994a;
Wood 1994b: 176–80.
9
Wallace-Hadrill 1971: 72–97; Markus 1975; Thacker 1976: esp. 186–234; Thacker 1983; McClure
1983.
10
Owen 1981; Meaney 1985; Meaney 1992; Page 1995; Church 2008; Barrow 2011.
11
Meaney 1989; Dickinson 1993; Knüsel and Ripley 2000.
12
Wilson 1992; Blair 1995a; Semple 2007; Carver, Sanmark, and Semple (eds) 2010.
13
Geake 2003; Williams 2006.
14
Williams 2001; Dickinson 2002; Dickinson 2005; Dobat 2006; Dickinson 2011; Price and
Mortimer 2014.
15
Angenendt 1986; Mayr-Harting 1994; Fletcher 1997: 97–129; Higham 1997; Scharer 1997;
Cusack 1998: 88–118; Yorke 1999; Yorke 2003a.
16
Wormald 1978; Fletcher 1997: esp. 100–253.
17
Bullough 1983; Boddington 1990; Halsall 1992b; Russell 1994; Geake 1997; Burnell and James
1999; Dunn 2009; Halsall 2010a.
18
Fleming 2010: 152. 19
Higham and Ryan 2013: 126–65, esp. 149–63.
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4 Kingship, Society, Church in Anglo-Saxon Yorkshire

Recent studies of the relationship between kingship, society, and the church in
Carolingian Europe have argued that local kin groups and their social strat-
egies lie behind patterns of kingship and church building.20 Investigating the
social context of child oblation, Mayke de Jong has emphasized the role of
Anglo-Saxon and Continental kin group strategies.21 In comparing post-Roman
political structures, Chris Wickham has reconsidered the power of early Anglo-
Saxon kings: his comparative discussion provides a basis for questioning their
ability to drive conversion and church building.22 Influenced by the anthropol-
ogy of conversion in modern, non-western societies, Henry Mayr-Harting has
raised the possibility that kings were dependent on the opinion of local kin
groups in seeking to convert and has suggested that the maintenance of a num-
ber of ‘pagans’ at court was a political strategy reflecting this reality.23 Inspired
by earlier analyses of Anglo-Saxon kings and conversion, Damian Tyler has
argued that the disadvantages outweighed the advantages and has highlighted
their reluctance to convert.24 In observing the way existing social structures
shaped the development of the Anglo-Saxon church, John Blair has posited
that the development of a new nobility in the sixth century was a factor in the
rapid investment in religious communities.25
To push these observations to their logical conclusion, this book reconstructs
Anglo-Saxon social, political, and religious structures at the moment of con-
version, arguing for the central importance of local kin groups. It suggests
that the social strategies of local kin groups explain patterns of conversion,
Christianization, and church building. It charts the origins and dynamics of a
new social fraction—the ‘ecclesiastical aristocracy’—along with its impact on
kingship and society from 600 to 867.

THE ‘MINSTER HYPOTHESIS’

Almost a century ago William Page set out a general model of the church in Anglo-
Saxon England.26 Bede suggests that seventh-century preachers focused on the
conversion of kings and relied on royal patronage, so Page hypothesized that
the church developed within existing secular structures. Two forms of church
had been founded at secular estate centres: independent monasteries housing
monks and episcopal ‘minsters’ filled with clergy. These communities comprised
the earliest network of pastoral centres. ‘Over their own lands the monasteries
ministered to their parochiani, while the districts not under the rule of a
monastery continued to be served by the bishop from his minster of priests.’27
However, he identified two tensions that served to undermine this system. The
pastoral jurisdiction of monasteries and minsters was eroded by the foundation
20
Innes 2000; Hummer 2006; Costambeys 2007. 21
Jong 1996.
22
Wickham 2005: 318–24. 23
Mayr-Harting 1994. 24
Tyler 2007.
25
Blair 2005: 8–78. 26
Page 1914–15. 27
Page 1914–15: 65.
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Introduction 5

of proprietary churches on local manors. The Norman Conquest shifted power


decisively in favour of regular communities of monks: minsters of clergy and
proprietary churches were used to endow monasteries.
The church organization in England immediately before and after the Conquest reflected
the struggle between the seculars and regulars. Before the Conquest the country wavered
between the two opinions, but afterwards the regulars held the power and the secular
priests, whether incumbents of parish churches or members of communities, were forced
to relinquish much of their endowments to increase the wealth of the monks.28

Page used Domesday Book to review the state of the church in eleventh-century
England, observing the different degrees to which the original pattern of mon-
asteries and minsters had been distorted in each region.
Page’s seminal paper has exerted an enormous influence over study of
the church in Anglo-Saxon England. His model was reinforced by studies of
eleventh-century records from Canterbury—the Textus Roffensis, the Domesday
Monachorum, and the White Book of St Augustine’s.29 Building on this, Lennard’s
Rural England included an index of churches whose early status had been lost
after they were granted to monasteries, which he interpreted as a system of
minsters in the final stages of decay.30 Thanks to Page, Ward, and Lennard, this
model became the orthodox interpretation of the development of the parish—a
system of monasteries and minsters providing pastoral care, which had subse-
quently declined under the pressure of local church foundation and monastic
reform.31 Following W. G. Hoskins’s focus on landscape history, historians under-
took regional multi-disciplinary landscape studies, seeking signs of the same
structures.32 Two conferences brought together the fruits of this work. The first
considered local variations in the structural development of the Anglo-Saxon
church—the relationship between monasteries, minsters, local churches, and
parishes.33 The second considered the conceptual framework of the Anglo-
Saxon church—the terminology for ecclesiastical structures and the theology
of pastoral ministry—set in their British and Irish contexts.34
Nevertheless, reservations were also voiced about this model,35 culminating
in a formal debate about the merits of the ‘minster hypothesis’.36 Following this
debate the historiography has moved in two directions. There have been con-
tinuing doubts about the utility of the model.37 Yet there have been significant
studies that have continued to employ it.38 What follows will review the ‘minster
28
Page 1914–15: 102. 29
Ward 1932; Ward 1933.
30
Lennard 1959: Appendix 4, 396–404.
31
Addleshaw 1952; Addleshaw 1954; Deansley 1961: 191–210; Godfrey 1969.
32
Kemp 1966, parts of which were published as Kemp 1967–8 and Kemp 1968; Hase 1975;
Everitt 1986; Morris 1989: esp. 93–167; Sims-Williams 1990; Blair 1991.
33
Blair (ed.) 1988. 34
Blair and Sharpe (eds) 1992.
35
Cambridge 1984; Morris 1989: 120–34; Cubitt 1992; Rollason 1999, though originally presented
to the Harlaxton conference in 1994.
36
Cambridge and Rollason 1995; Blair 1995b; Palliser 1996.
37
Hadley 2000b: 38–9, 216–17; Rollason 2003: 168–9. 38
Blair 2005; Foot 2006.
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6 Kingship, Society, Church in Anglo-Saxon Yorkshire

hypothesis’ and the associated criticisms. The model remains an essential frame-
work for analysis, but care needs to be taken in how it is conceived and employed.
Debate derives partly from the different source base in northern England, which
makes a case study of the church in northern England desirable. Debate has
served a vital purpose in highlighting outstanding questions to which this study
will seek to provide some answers.

The minster model


Reducing a century of scholarship to a brief summary risks over-simplification,
but it is necessary to provide a touchstone for discussion.
Following the official conversion of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in the seventh
century, religious communities were introduced. These religious communities
were not governed by any normative rule, could be comprised of monks, clergy,
and nuns, in various combinations, and might include semi-monastic brethren.39
The Old English term mynster, ‘minster’, is often employed to distinguish them
from later reformed Benedictine monasteries,40 though the more neutral phrase
‘religious community’ is preferred here. Histories and royal diplomas reveal a
boom in the foundation of religious communities between the 670s and 730s
in particular.41 Their popularity has been explained by the emergence of a new
nobility seeking a means to consolidate its social position through investment
in an exotic external culture and its institutions.42 The enthusiasm for religious
communities over episcopal churches and local churches may reflect their com-
patibility with existing social institutions like kinship and the household, and
their potential to provide perpetual commemoration and hospitality.43 Grants
of land for founding religious communities were given on unusually advanta-
geous terms, to the individual abbot or abbess, in perpetuity and with freedom
of alienation, making them desirable assets.44
Religious communities became widespread and probably constituted the earli-
est pastoral centres in Anglo-Saxon England. Prescriptive canons from episcopal
councils expected all clergy and monks to live in religious communities and
envisaged bishops overseeing religious communities as providers of pastoral care.45
Didactic histories describe ideal religious communities from which clergy and
ordained monks pursued pastoral tours in the surrounding landscape.46 They
suggest that the cult of saints forged a close relationship between religious

39
Mayr-Harting 1972: 148–67; Wormald 1976: esp. 141–6; Sims-Williams 1990: 115–43; Blair 2005:
80–3; Foot 2006: 172–84.
40
Foot 1992; Blair 2005: 2–3; Foot 2006: 5–10.
41
Mayr-Harting 1972: 148; Wormald 1982a: 70–8; Blair 2005: 84–100.
42
Blair 2005: 49–57. 43
Blair 2005: 73–8.
44
Wormald 1984; Blair 2005: 84–91; Wood 2006: 109–39, 152–60.
45
Cubitt 1992; Cubitt 1995: 116–17; Blair 2005: 162–3; Foot 2006: 293–4.
46
Thacker 1983; Thacker 1992; Blair 2005: 162–4; Foot 2006: 291–6.
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Introduction 7

communities and local lay communities.47 Existing structures of lordship pro-


vided a territorial basis for this pastoral role—members of religious communities
may have ministered to the inhabitants of large royal resource territories in return
for dues and services.48 Tenth-century laws reveal religious communities already
possessed areas of pastoral jurisdiction and use the language of lordship to
describe these areas.49 Many religious communities re-emerge in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries as mother churches with authority over large mother par-
ishes; sometimes earlier royal resource territories bear a close relationship to the
extent of these mother parishes.50 Religious communities perhaps became the first
stable central places in Anglo-Saxon England.51
Enthusiastic investment in religious communities between the 670s and 730s
created tensions that in turn transformed their fortunes, which were outlined
in Bede’s Epistola ad Ecgberhtum in 734.52 Kings alienated too many resources
in founding religious communities, episcopal structures were neglected, and the
valuable terms of their endowments resulted in religious communities becom-
ing pawns in familial politics. All this resulted in royal, episcopal, and noble
expropriation of religious communities in the later eighth and ninth centuries.53
Scandinavian raiding, conquest, and settlement reduced the wider social sanc-
tion for religious communities and reduced their endowments.54 From the sec-
ond half of the ninth century onwards, lay aristocrats began to found proprietary
churches on their local estates, which gradually undermined the pastoral role
of religious communities.55 By the time Domesday Book was compiled in the
late eleventh century, many religious communities comprised just two or three
clergy holding 1–2 hides of land.56

The utility of the minster model


Criticism of the model developed in part from a concern that it might become
a ‘new orthodoxy’, inflexible and self-reinforcing.57 Reviewing the historiography
suggests instead that there has been a consistent dialogue between the broader
accounts of ecclesiastical organization and local and regional studies. Comparing
the cruder summaries by Addleshaw or Godfrey with the formulations set out
in the introductory sections of the two conference volumes or in the contribu-
tions to the debate quickly establishes the way the model has been modified over
time.58 Focusing on particular changes emphasizes this point. When the model
was summarized in 1985, it was stated that kings created coherent networks

47
Blair 2002a; Blair 2005: 141–9; Foot 2006: 307–11. 48
Blair 2005: 153–60.
49
Blair 2005: 427–51. 50
Blair (ed.) 1988: 1–19 and the studies that follow; Blair 2005: 157–8.
51
Blair 2005: 246–90. 52
Blair 2005: 100–8.
53
Brooks 1984: 129–52, 175–206; Sims-Williams 1990: 144–76; Blair 2005: 121–34, 279–90, 323–9.
54
Blair 2005: 292–323.
55
Blair 1987; Blair (ed.) 1988: 1–19; Morris 1989: 140–67; Blair 2005: 368–425.
56
Blair 1985. 57
Rollason 1999: 61, 68–71.
58
Addleshaw 1952; Godfrey 1969; Blair 1985; Blair and Sharpe 1992: 1, 6; Blair 1995b.
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8 Kingship, Society, Church in Anglo-Saxon Yorkshire

of religious communities in the seventh and early eighth centuries to facilitate


pastoral tours,59 based on the work of Brian Kemp in Berkshire, Hase’s study
of Hampshire, and Blair’s survey of Surrey.60 By 1992, Blair and Sharpe had
conceded that it was probably misleading to assume that the majority of com-
munities were founded at an early date, or that they were founded primarily
for pastoral care, proposing a longer period during which the network of reli-
gious communities were founded between the seventh and tenth centuries;61
this reflected the work of Richard Morris on Yorkshire and Patrick Sims-Williams
on Worcestershire, and responded to the reservations voiced by Katy Cubitt.62
Equally, regional variation has been highlighted by employing the model as
a benchmark for comparison and contrast in local case studies. Observing the
comparatively late date of the foundation of parishes in the Leominster area,
Brian Kemp argued that this reflected the remote location of the parishes and
the strong controlling influence of the crown and the nunnery of Leominster.63
Seeking to explain the comparatively uneven spread of religious communities
in Worcestershire, Bond used Domesday Book to investigate the correlation
between areas of relatively dense settlement and the foundation of religious
communities.64 Placing his dissertation on the religious communities of Wiltshire
in a wider context, Jonathan Pitt provided a general overview of the regional
differences in church development that have emerged as a result of such case
studies.65 This dialogue between model and case study prompted John Blair to
include two regional surveys of varying ecclesiastical structures in his overview
of the church in Anglo-Saxon society.66
Since the dialogue between model and case studies can be effective, it may seem
odd that historians remain concerned about its value and viability, but this is
understandable. Part of the answer lies in the rhetoric of debate. Referring to
the model as the ‘minster hypothesis’ or ‘minster model’ is a necessary shorthand,
because the range of scholarship cannot always be invoked, but it lends an
air of rigidity to an evolving explanatory framework. Invoking a single ‘minster
hypothesis’ or ‘minster model’ can suggest ‘an inflexible model, destined to
stand or fall in its entirety’;67 it justifies selection of older formulations for
criticism, rather than the most up-to-date summary.68 It can create an unhelpful
dichotomy between those who are ‘for’ and ‘against’ the model that does an
injustice to the range of opinions within the field.69 It encourages historians to
59
Blair 1985. 60
Kemp 1967–8; Kemp 1968; Hase 1975; Blair 1991.
61
Blair and Sharpe 1992: 1, 6.
62
Morris 1989: 120–34; Sims-Williams 1990: 115, 144–76; Cubitt 1992: 207–11.
63
Kemp 1988: 83, 92. 64
Bond 1988: 126, 133–4. 65
Pitt 1999: 10–11, 174–9.
66
Blair 2005: 149–52, 295–32. 67
Blair 2005: 5.
68
For example, during the 1995 debate, Cambridge and Rollason consistently cited the 1988 formu-
lation, despite the fact that some of their criticisms had been acknowledged and incorporated into a
revised version in 1992.
69
Rollason 1999: 68, implies that Morris is an opponent of the model, and Hadley 2000b: 39, cites
Cubitt and Sims-Williams as opponents of the model, when all three simply offered critiques that have
been incorporated into subsequent formulations. The (understandable) result is the kind of summary by
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Introduction 9

consider only the summary of the model and not the case studies on which it is
based. It is insufficient to take a fossilized form of the model and challenge it
wholesale, for this would require the reinterpretation of a considerable body of
local studies. Instead it should be envisaged as the best approximation on the
evidence available.
Questions about the value and viability of the model were also prompted by
tensions and circularities in the way it has been applied. The term ‘minster’ is
employed to acknowledge the variety amongst religious communities. Yet at times
‘minsters’ have been attributed universal characteristics—examples include the
role of all ‘minsters’ in providing pastoral care, the common topography and
regular distribution of ‘minsters’, and the idea that all ‘minsters’ became mother
churches. Religious communities were founded for a range of reasons, of which
pastoral care was only one,70 and were involved in pastoral activities along a
spectrum from writing to provision of the sacraments to preaching in the local
landscape;71 they may or may not have subscribed and responded to the pastoral
ideals set out in didactic and prescriptive texts.72 Documented religious com-
munities occupied comparable topographical positions and were often distrib-
uted evenly through a region, but the difficulties of identifying undocumented
communities, the variations in topography and distribution observed in some
regions, and our ignorance about the topography of secular sites, precludes cer-
tainty about all religious communities.73 Regional differences exist in the number
of religious communities that re-emerge as mother churches,74 yet sometimes
historians have defined ‘minster’ along the lines of ‘an early religious community
that developed into a mother church with a mother parish’, which cannot be
sustained.75 The model should not be set aside because of these tensions and
circularities, but regional studies should avoid them.
A final explanation for doubts about the value and viability of the model
probably rests in the differing evidence available for studying the church in
northern England.

Studying the church in northern England


Critics of the model have been predominantly, though not exclusively, historians
and archaeologists working on the church in northern England. Richard Morris
had investigated religious communities and local churches in Anglo-Saxon
Yorkshire.76 Eric Cambridge had studied the distribution of religious communities

Thompson 1999: 17, placing Blair and Rollason at diametrically opposed extremes, with Sarah Foot
‘somewhere in the middle’.
70
Foot 2006: 77–87. 71
Foot 2006: 283–331. 72
Blair 2005: 164–5.
73
Cambridge 1984; Hase 1994; Pestell 2004: 21–64.
74
Blair 2005: 295–323, with map at 296, fig. 35.
75
Rollason 1999: 67–71; Blair 2005: 4. Examples include Higham 1993: 234, 248–58, and Davies,
1980a.
76
Morris 1989: 93–167.
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10 Kingship, Society, Church in Anglo-Saxon Yorkshire

in County Durham.77 David Rollason had, of course, analysed Anglo-Saxon


hagiography across England,78 but he based his criticism of the minster model
in the particular evidence from the kingdom of the Northumbrians.79 Dawn
Hadley’s reluctance to engage with the minster model was partly a result of
earlier debate, but partly also of her research on the church in the northern
Danelaw—Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Lincolnshire, and Yorkshire.80 The
particularities of the evidence from regions of northern England have been a
key factor in producing these different perspectives.
Scholarship on the church in southern and western England combines
diplomas,81 wills,82 dispute narratives,83 and conciliar canons,84 with Domesday
Book85 to chart the foundation, constitution, and fate of religious communities
and their endowments. Scholars of northern England are faced with very dif-
ferent material. Diplomas, wills, dispute narratives, and conciliar canons are
almost entirely absent from northern England, despite the fact that diplomas
were written and ecclesiastical councils were held. Domesday Book preserves
information for much of northern England. Nevertheless the commissioners for
Circuit VI of Domesday, within which many of the counties fell, asked different
questions from those in other Circuits; their experimentations in the presentation
of the returns created a different picture from that provided for other regions;
and they omitted County Durham and Northumberland from the enquiry.86
Conversely, histories are more abundant. Thanks to an anonymous author at
Lindisfarne, Stephen of Ripon, and Bede, there is an exceptional crop of histor-
ies from early eighth-century Northumbria.87 Largely because of the career of
Alcuin of York there are important letters and a long poem throwing light on
the history of York in the eighth century.88 The astute dealings of the Community
of Cuthbert with the Scandinavian rulers of York facilitated their survival and
fostered a series of historical compilations in eleventh-century Durham.89 The
accessibility of good quality stone and an enthusiasm for constructing stone
monuments produced a corpus of stone sculpture that ‘provides the ecclesias-
tical geography with something like the lapidary equivalent of a barium meal’.90
Faced with this disparity it is unsurprising that a model for ecclesiastical
organization formulated in southern and western England has been criticized
by scholars of northern England. Histories promote an ideal type of monasti-
cism closer to later reformed Benedictine monasticism, whereas diplomas, wills,
dispute narratives, and conciliar canons tend to reveal the idiosyncrasies of

77
Cambridge 1984. See also for context: Cambridge 1989; Cambridge 1995.
78
Rollason 1982; Rollason 1989.
79
Rollason 1999; Rollason 2003: 168–9. See also for context: Rollason 1987: 45–61.
80
Hadley 1996b; Hadley 2000b: 216–97.
81
Kelly 1990 for an introduction to diplomas; Sawyer 1968.
82
Whitelock (ed. and trans.) 1930. 83
Wormald 1989.
84
Whitelock, Brett, and Brooke (eds) 1981. 85
Morris (ed.) 1975–86.
86
Roffe 1990a; Baxter 2001. 87
VCA; VCB; VW; HA; HE.
88
Dümmler (ed.) 1895; DPS. 89
HSC; LDE. 90
Morris 1989: 153.
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Introduction 11

individual communities on the ground. Stone sculpture points to the existence of


a whole range of ecclesiastical sites for which no written records survive, which
can be difficult to reconcile with patterns of ecclesiastical organization observed
elsewhere. The absence of diplomas, dispute narratives, and wills, along with the
less forthcoming evidence from Domesday Book, makes it difficult to observe
the origins, extent, and development of ecclesiastical endowments. All this is
compounded by the absence of a comprehensive attempt to test the minster model
with reference to the church in northern England.
Filling this lacuna is not just important to test the minster model in a new
region. Outstanding questions remain within the scholarship, some of which
were highlighted by the contributors to these debates. Such questions can be
approached through this distinctive evidential base.

Outstanding questions
If the chronology of conversion to Christianity and the incidence of investment
in religious communities are now clearly established, the social context requires
further analysis. Using the exceptional historical sources, this study argues that
conversion was the result of local kin groups seeking new strategies to stabilize
their social position, a process which resulted in the formation of a new social
fraction—an ‘ecclesiastical aristocracy’. Taking this approach helps to explain
the chronology of conversion and the incidence of investment in religious com-
munities. Setting the historical texts alongside the material remains from
northern England offers the opportunity to move beyond existing scholarship
on pastoral care and the distribution of religious communities in the landscape.
Didactic and prescriptive sources reveal that religious communities were expected
to fulfil pastoral responsibilities, but it is unclear how many responded to these
expectations.91 Multivalent images on stone sculpture provide one way to address
this issue, revealing that a number of religious communities presented them-
selves as pastoral centres.92 Historical sources reveal that religious communities
controlled satellite centres such as daughter houses, oratories, and estates, but
these can be difficult to identify in the landscape.93 Patterns in the distribution
of stone sculpture in northern England facilitate the investigation of such
­satellites.94 For over twenty years it has been clear that the locations of reli-
gious communities were chosen with care and consistency, yet relatively little
attention has been focused on why such locations were considered suitable for the
construction of sacred places.95 Reviewing the biblical and patristic associations

91
Blair 2005: 160–5.
92
The potential of this approach is clear from: Lang 1999; Lang 2000; Hawkes 2003a; Ó Carragáin
2005.
93
Blair 2005: 212–20.
94
The potential is clear from: Cambridge 1984; Cambridge 1989; Cambridge 1995.
95
Blair 2005: 191–204.
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12 Kingship, Society, Church in Anglo-Saxon Yorkshire

of landscape features and their reception in historical and hagiographical works


helps to reconstruct how religious communities were understood as sacred places.
Whereas it was once axiomatic that Scandinavian raiding, conquest, and
settlement destroyed the church in northern and eastern England, it is now
understood that there was a great deal of regional variation in the experiences
of the church in these regions.96 Nevertheless the relative impact of Scandinavian
activity in comparison with the West Saxon conquest remains unclear and there
has been no satisfactory survey of continuity and change at a local level. The
fact that early religious communities continued to be used for burial or com-
memoration is signalled by the existence of stone monuments at the sites of
earlier religious communities dated to the tenth and eleventh centuries; the
correlation between some religious communities and mother churches suggests
some level of continuity in the pastoral framework.97 Yet the mere existence
of such sculpture reveals reuse rather than continuity of use or continuity of
function.98 To investigate this further, two alternative approaches can be taken.
Art historical studies of stone sculpture can reveal the advertisement of continuity
of tradition through style, the involvement of literate communities in promoting
Christianity, and the desire of local elites to invest in pre-existing religious places
or establish new ones.99 Place-name studies can help to establish cases where reli-
gious communities retained endowments and how ecclesiastical endowments
were treated across the period relative to other regions.100

KINGSHIP, SOCIETY, AND THE CHURCH


IN ANGLO-SAXON YORKSHIRE

The state of the historiography justifies a reconsideration of the relationship


between kingship, society, and the church, and a study of the church in northern
England. Yorkshire is a particularly suitable focus for a number of overlapping
reasons.
To begin with, Yorkshire was a meaningful socio-political unit throughout
the period. The Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the Deirans probably had its ori-
ginal core around the Chalk Wolds in the East Riding of Yorkshire, but its
kings extended their authority over people across a region between the North
Sea, the Humber and Mersey, the Pennines or the Irish Sea, and the Tees.101
Though the kingdom of the Deirans became part of the kingdom of the
Northumbrians in the seventh century, its independent status was remem-
bered throughout the eighth century, as the works of Bede and Alcuin testify.

96
Contrast Stenton 1947: 427, with Hadley 2006: 192–236.
97
Hadley 2000b: 216–97; Blair 2005: 295–323.
98
Rollason 1999: 72. 99
The potential has been shown by: Bailey 1980; Lang 1993; Lang 1997.
100
Pickles 2009b. 101
See Chapter 1, pp. 17–32.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 10/10/2018, SPi

Introduction 13

This region re-emerged as a separate socio-political unit in the ninth and tenth
centuries. The Scandinavian kings based at York from 867 to 954 seem to
have aspired to rule the Northumbrians as a whole, but their administration
was probably restricted to the area between Humber and Tees and Scandinavian
migration seems to have occurred up to the Tees but not beyond.102 When the
West Saxon kings incorporated the region into an English kingdom from 954
onwards, they established an earldom of southern Northumbria, apparently
reflecting its separate administrative status.103 As a result of this process the
new name for the region—Eoforwicscire, Yorkshire—emerged sometime in
the mid eleventh century: it is first recorded in a writ of King Edward from
the early 1060s,104 and its emergence may be charted through the entries in the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which shift from including York within Northumbria
to distinguishing the men of Yorkshire from the Northumbrians.105 Domesday
Book (1086x1088) shows that English kings had extended their administrative
structures up to the Tees but not beyond and that areas west of the Pennines
were considered part of Yorkshire.106
Moreover, there is an excellent range of textual and material sources for the
history of Anglo-Saxon Yorkshire in good modern scholarly editions, catalogues,
and studies. Eighth-century histories offer exceptional levels of historical infor-
mation for Yorkshire, County Durham, and Northumberland, but the Whitby
Vita Gregorii, Stephen of Ripon’s Vita Wilfridi, and Alcuin’s De pontificibus et
sanctis Ecclesiae Eboracensis make our evidence for Yorkshire particularly rich.
Domesday Book is a useful if problematic source for Yorkshire, whereas it offers
no information north of the Tees. Eleventh- and twelfth-century charter evidence
is equally important and profuse across northern England, but the work of
William Farrer and Charles Clay has produced an invaluable edited collection
of the Yorkshire material.107 Anglo-Saxon stone sculpture survives in impressive
quantities across northern England, but is most prolific in Yorkshire, and the
sculpture is catalogued in three excellent volumes.108
The following study is divided into two broad historical periods. The first
considers the relationship between kingship, society, conversion, and the con-
struction of the church from 450 to 867. The second considers the impact of
Scandinavian and West Saxon rule on the church from 867 to 1066. This div-
ision is prompted by the political history of the kingdom of the Deirans: Christian
kings ruled the Deirans from Edwin (r. 616–33) until Osberht and Ælle (d. 867),
whereas pagan Scandinavian and Christian West Saxon kings ruled from 867
to 1066. Considerably more space is devoted to the history of the earlier period
because the sources allow for its reconstruction in greater detail. However, nei-
ther the wealth of sources, nor this uneven attention to the two periods, should

102
See Chapter 5, pp. 192–8, 201–3. 103
See Chapter 5, pp. 214, 216–18.
104
Woodman (ed.) 2012: No. 13, 220–3. 105
ASC CDE s.a. 1016 & CD s.a. 1065.
106
DB. 107
EYC. 108
CASSS III, CASSS VI, CASSS VIII.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 10/10/2018, SPi

14 Kingship, Society, Church in Anglo-Saxon Yorkshire

be considered accidental or artificial. The disparity in sources is probably the


product of a real difference in the history of the church: first religious commu-
nities flourished in the seventh and earlier eighth centuries, then the archiepisco-
pal see at York did in the later eighth and ninth centuries, whereas the archbishops
and surviving religious communities experienced more challenging circumstances
in the tenth and eleventh centuries. Hence the later period can be analysed as the
impact on these earlier patterns of social and political change under Scandinavian
and West Saxon rule.
Chapter 1 reconstructs social, religious, and political structures in the period
450–650: it argues that social structures were the framework for religious
beliefs and the foundation on which political power rested, locating power
with local kin groups and emphasizing the dependence of Anglo-Saxon kings
on those kin groups. Chapter 2 focuses on the conversion of those kin groups
from 600 to 867: it argues that the social strategy of local kin groups and their
members produced conversion and the building of the church, resulting in the
forging of a new social fraction with its own identity and dynamics—the ‘eccle-
siastical aristocracy’. Chapter 3 reconsiders the relationship between kingship,
conversion, and the building of a church from 600 to 867: it argues that kings
reacted to the conversion of local kin groups and remade kingship in the pro-
cess. Chapter 4 charts the impact of the ‘ecclesiastical aristocracy’ on local lay
society between 600 and 867: it argues that the formation and dynamics of this
new social fraction resulted in a network of religious communities that helped
to Christianize local lay populations. Chapter 5 considers the relationship between
kingship, social change, and the church from 867 to 1066: it observes that both
Scandinavian and West Saxon rulers were dependent upon the church and an
existing, Christianized lay population, which may allow us to envisage greater
continuity in ecclesiastical patronage and structures than has hitherto been sug-
gested. Chapter 6 then reviews the textual, material, and linguistic evidence for
continuity and change at a local level in the church across the region.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 10/11/2018, SPi

1
The Kingdom of the Deirans, 450–650

The geology, topography, and resources of Yorkshire influenced the formation


of the kingdom of the Deirans. The principal regions of Yorkshire (Map 1)
result from the underlying bedrock geology (Map 2) and overlying superficial
geology (Map 3). There are seven solid geological systems: Ordovician,
Silurian, Carboniferous, Permian, Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous. Moving
from west to east, they produce four principal physiographic regions: the
Pennines (Carboniferous Limestone and Millstone Grit), the Vale of York
(Permian Magnesian Limestone and Triassic Sandstone), the North York
Moors (Jurassic Sandstone and Shale), and the Yorkshire Wolds (Cretaceous
Chalk).1 During the Devension period (26,000–10,000 years ago) two ice
sheets converged on Yorkshire: one from the Lake District via Stainmore and
Teesdale and the other from the Cheviots down the North Sea Coast. When
the temperature rose, they retreated northwards, leaving glacial deposits, a
dendritic river system draining into the River Ouse and the Humber estuary,
two proglacial lakes—Lake Humber and Lake Pickering—and a series of
moraines (ridges of drier land).2
For human societies engaged in settled agriculture there were regions with
different levels of agricultural potential. Nick Higham modelled the arable and
pastoral agricultural potential of northern England based on the interaction of
a series of factors: effective transpiration, the length of the grazing season, the
edaphic quality of the soils, the grass-drought index, the annual rainfall, the
altitude, and the degree of exposure.3 Within Yorkshire, the Chalk Wolds of
the Holderness Peninsula and their adjacent lowlands provide the best agricul-
tural environment: undulating areas of lowland provide good soils for arable
cultivation and chalk uplands facilitate seasonal grazing. The next best areas are
the lowlands of the Vale of York and Vale of Mowbray, and the dales of the
north-eastern coastal plains, which are good for pastoral farming. The third most
attractive areas are the Pennine valleys. Building on Oliver Rackham’s work,4

1
Gaunt and Buckland 2003. 2
Atkinson 2003.
3
Higham 1987: esp. 38, fig. 2, and the data on 42, fig. 5.
4
Rackham 1980: 111–28; Rackham 1994: 7–11.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 10/11/2018, SPi

16 Kingship, Society, Church in Anglo-Saxon Yorkshire

Brian Roberts combined the Old English and Old Norse place-name evidence
for woodland or woodland clearance with Domesday Book entries recording
woodland and 1930s woodlands and common lands: his composite map
(Map 4) reveals that the Chalk Wolds and surrounding lowlands had the ­largest
areas of land cleared for arable and non-woodland pasture, followed by the
western edge of the Vale of York and the Vale of Mowbray, and the north-
eastern coastal plains.5
By c.450, Late Prehistoric and Roman activity had created a network of
routes connecting these regions (Map 5). The two hubs were the former legion-
ary headquarters and colonia at York, and the Vale of Pickering and Ryedale.
Roman York was established in a strategic position between the Chalk Wolds
and the western edges of the Vales of York and Mowbray, controlling the junc-
tion of the Ouse with the York moraine. Thanks to the effects of Lake Pickering,
Ryedale and the Vale of Pickering constituted a strategic region between the
Chalk Wolds, the Vales of York and Mowbray, and the north-eastern coastal
plains: they comprised a marshy lowland with narrow strips of drier land along
its edges, accessing the Vale of York via the Kirkham gap, and the Vale of
Mowbray via the Coxwold-Gilling Gap; in the Roman period they acquired
a network of roads focused on the fort at Malton. Extending from these
hubs, a network of Roman roads connected the regions of Yorkshire and
continued north, south, and west via the Vales of York and Mowbray and the
Pennine River valleys.6
During the sixth century two peoples and perhaps three polities occupied
these regions (Map 4). ‘Pagan’ Anglo-Saxons inhabited the kingdom of the
Deirans, apparently focused on the Chalk Wolds and their surrounding low-
lands. Christian Britons inhabited the region and kingdom of Elmet in the
south-west of the Vale of York. Either Britons or Anglo-Saxons inhabited
Catraeth at the northern end of the Vale of Mowbray, perhaps under the lord-
ship of a British kingdom of Rheged. The formation and dynamics of the king-
dom of the Deirans provide essential context for understanding the relationship
between kingship, society, conversion, and church building in Yorkshire. First,
the evidence for these peoples and polities will be set out. Second, the evidence
for the formation of the kingdom of the Deirans will be explored, through
processes of migration, social emulation, social stratification, political central-
ization, ethnogenesis, and expansion, which were continuing at the point of
conversion. Third, the evidence for the social, religious, and political structures
of the kingdom in the sixth and earlier seventh centuries will be analysed. This
will emphasize that connections between these structures posed potential prob-
lems to conversion, and presented social and political instabilities that shaped
the decisions of converts.

5
Roberts 2010. 6
Ottaway 2013: 2 (Ill. 1.1), 126–8.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 10/11/2018, SPi

The Kingdom of the Deirans, 450–650 17

THE PEOPLES AND POLITIES OF SIXTH-CENTURY YORKSHIRE

The Deirans
The name Deirans first appears in the eighth century.7 A common Brittonic
root probably lies behind the River Derwent in eastern Yorkshire, the Roman
fort Derventio (Malton or Stamford Bridge), and Deirans.8 Bede refers to
Beverley as the place in the wood of the Deirans (inderauuda).9 This suggests
they occupied eastern Yorkshire. Stephen of Ripon and Bede name a number
of places associated with kings of the Deirans in the seventh century, but by
this time they had authority over most of Yorkshire.10 Nonetheless, there may
be hints of an earlier focus in eastern Yorkshire. Bede associates King Edwin
of the Deirans (r. 616–33) with a royal vill on the River Derwent, a pagan
shrine at Goodmanham on the Wolds, and three further locations—Catterick,
Campodunum, and York.11 The vill on the Derwent and the shrine at
Goodmanham may reflect the original focus of the kingdom; Catterick and
Campodunum were in territories taken under Deiran authority in the later
sixth and early seventh centuries. Bede relates that King Æthelwald of the
Deirans (r. c.651–5) founded a dynastic mausoleum at Lastingham in Ryedale,
perhaps indicating longer-term dynastic associations.12 Origins in eastern
Yorkshire are consistent with archaeological evidence. A few cremation ceme-
teries signal the arrival of migrants from northern Germany and southern
Scandinavia in the fifth and sixth centuries, the largest at Sancton on the
Chalk Wolds; more furnished inhumation cemeteries reflect the spread of
‘Germanic’ material culture amongst other communities living around the
Wolds.13 Those who were cremated are unlikely to have been Christian because
cremation was antithetical to Christian notions of bodily resurrection; aspects
of the material culture considered later seem to confirm that the Deirans were
not publicly or officially Christian in the sixth century; and Bede’s account of
the conversion of King Edwin fits with this idea.14

7
VW cc. 15 (rex Deyrorum), 20 (rex Derorum), 54 (rex Derorum); Vita Gregorii, c. 9 (tribus, Deire);
Bede, HE ii.1 (provincia, Deiri), ii.14 (provincia Deirorum), iii.1 (regnum Deirorum), iii.6 (provincia
Derorum), iii.14 (provincia Derorum), iii.23 (regnum Derorum), iii.24 (provincia Derorum), iv.12 (pro-
vincia Derorum). Higham 2006: 401–4. The poem attributed to Aneirin and known as Y Gododdin
also refers to the Deor—see pp. 20–1, 30–1 for discussion and references.
8
Jackson 1953: 419–21, 701–5, proposed that Deira meant ‘land of the waters’; Hind 1980,
suggested instead that Deira might mean ‘oak country’.
9
HE v.6. Blair 2001 for confirmation of the connection between the two places.
10
See pp. 31–2. Rollason 2003: 45–8 for this approach to observing the key foci of Deira after
expansion and incorporation within the kingdom of the Northumbrians in the seventh century.
11
HE ii.9 (vill on the Derwent), ii.13 (shrine at Goodmanham), ii.14 (Campodunum, Catterick
and York).
12
HE iii.23. 13
See pp. 23–5. 14
See pp. 40–5, 54; HE, ii.9–14.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 10/11/2018, SPi

18 Kingship, Society, Church in Anglo-Saxon Yorkshire

Elmet
Bede tells us Edwin had a royal vill at Campodunum where Paulinus built a
church, afterwards burnt down: the vill was replaced with one in the regio Loidis
and the stone altar was preserved in a religious community in the wood of Elmet
(in silva Elmete).15 He also tells us Edwin’s nephew Hereric was poisoned in exile
under a British king Cerdic.16 The Historia Brittonum mentions a King Ceredig
of Elmet and the Annales Cambriae record the death of a King Ceredig in 616.17
The Tribal Hidage lists the Elmed sætna, assessed at 600 hides.18 Elmet was
apparently a region with a people, a king, and notable woodland.
Elmet was in the south-west of the Vale of York. Place-names in several
townships preserve the name Elmet—Barwick, Clifford, Micklefield, Saxton,
Sherburn, South Kirby, and Sutton.19 The Antonine Itinerary places Campodunum
20 Roman miles from Calcaria (Tadcaster) towards Mamucio (Manchester):
Margaret Faull and Stephen Moorhouse argued for a location near Leeds.20
The Brittonic element *Lāt, ‘violent or boiling one’, is probably the root of
Loidis.21 This occurs in the place-names Leeds, Ledsham, and Ledston.22 Elmet
probably included Campodunum and the regio Loidis, hence the altar moved
to the community in silva Elmete. The Tribal Hidage begins with the Mercians
and runs clockwise from the north-west, placing the Elmed sætna between the
Pecsætna of the Peak District and the Lindesfarona of Lincolnshire.23
Further onomastic evidence indicates its extent. Brittonic derived place-names
reflect regions where the language survived longest: the largest concentration is
in south-west Yorkshire, from the Magnesian Limestone belt to the Pennines.
Place-names including the elements wealh, ‘foreigner, Briton, slave’, and brettas,
‘Britons’, designate surviving British speakers in the seventh, eighth, ninth, and
tenth centuries: a cluster occurs in the same region.24 Place-name elements
denoting woodland or woodland clearance suggest dense woodland to the
south and west of Leeds, perhaps the silva Elmete.25 Elmet possibly extended
from the River Wharfe in the north to the River Sheaf in the south, taking in
the Magnesian Limestone strip on the western edge of the Vale of York and the
Pennines in the west.26 Elmet probably included smaller regions: the regio Loidis
may be one; Craven may be another, deriving from a Brittonic term craf for the
Limestone scars, known as Cravenshire in Domesday Book, and preserved as a
rural deanery.27

15
HE ii.14. 16
HE iv.23 (21). 17
HB c. 63; Annales Cambriae s.a. 616.
18
Davies and Vierck 1974: 223–36; Dumville 1989b: 226–7.
19
Faull and Moorhouse (eds) 1981: IV, Map 10.
20
Faull and Moorhouse (eds) 1981: I, 157–63. 21
Jackson 1946.
22
Faull and Moorhouse (eds) 1981: IV, Map 10. 23
Dumville 1989b: 226–7.
24
Faull 1975; Cameron 1978–9; Gelling 1978: 93–6; Gelling 1993.
25
Faull and Moorhouse (eds) 1981: IV, Map 10.
26
Jones 1975: 10–27; Faull 1980: 21–3; Faull and Moorhouse (eds) 1981: I, 158–61, 171, 174–5;
Taylor 1992; Gruffydd 1994.
27
Wood 1996.
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Follow recipe above—mix into dough 1½ tsp. grated orange rind
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Drop rounded teaspoonfuls 2″ apart on ungreased wrapping paper


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about 2″ in diameter. Wrap in waxed paper, and chill until stiff
(several hours or overnight). With thin, sharp knife, cut in thin slices
⅛″ to ¹⁄₁₆″ thick. Place slices a little apart on ungreased baking sheet.
Bake until lightly browned.
temperature: 400° (mod. hot oven).
time: Bake 8 to 10 min.
amount: About 6 doz. 2″ cookies.

OATMEAL REFRIGERATOR COOKIES


Nice and chewy, with a molasses-lemon tang.
Voted the best oatmeal cooky ever tasted ... when sent to our
Recipe Contest by Mrs. J. A. Gmeinder of St. Paul, Minnesota. The
distinguishing molasses-lemon
flavor was an idea from Mrs.
Richard Nugent, Brooklyn, New
York.
Mix together thoroughly ...

½ cup soft shortening


½ cup sugar
½ cup brown sugar
1 egg
1½ tsp. grated lemon rind
1½ tbsp. molasses
½ tsp. vanilla

Sift together and stir in ...

⅞ cup (¾ cup plus 2 tbsp.) sifted GOLD MEDAL Flour


½ tsp. soda
½ tsp. salt

Mix in ...

1½ cups rolled oats

Mix thoroughly with hands. Press and mold into a long, smooth roll
about 2½″ in diameter. Wrap in waxed paper, and chill until stiff
(several hours). With thin, sharp knife, cut in thin slices ⅛″ to ¹⁄₁₆″
thick. Place slices a little apart on ungreased baking sheet. Bake
until lightly browned.
temperature: 400° (mod. hot oven).
time: Bake 8 to 10 min.
amount: About 4 doz. 2½″ cookies.
PRETTY FOR PARTIES
to make Petticoat Tails match your color scheme: Tint the dough with
a few drops of red food coloring and use rose flavoring for a pink
party. Use wintergreen
flavoring and a few drops of
green coloring for a green
party.
miscellaneous COOKIES Popular through
the years ...

SNICKERDOODLES
Fun to say ... to sniff ... to eat!
Pat Roth of our Staff said, “It’s one of my happy childhood memories. My mother
would be baking when we came home from school and we would have
Snickerdoodles hot out of the oven with a glass of milk.”
Mix together thoroughly ...

1 cup soft shortening


1½ cups sugar
2 eggs

Sift together and stir in ...

2¾ cups sifted GOLD MEDAL Flour


2 tsp. cream of tartar
1 tsp. soda
½ tsp. salt

Chill dough. Roll into balls the size of small walnuts. Roll in mixture
of 2 tbsp. sugar and 2 tsp. cinnamon. Place about 2″ apart on
ungreased baking sheet. Bake until lightly browned ... but still soft.
(These cookies puff up at first ... then flatten out with crinkled tops.)
temperature: 400° (mod. hot oven).
time: Bake 8 to 10 min.
amount: About 5 doz. 2″ cookies.

GOLD COOKIES
Really awfully good ... and they use up those extra egg yolks!
Mix together thoroughly ...
½ cup soft shortening
1½ cups sugar
4 egg yolks

Stir in ...

2 tbsp. milk
1 tsp. vanilla

Sift together and stir in ...

1½ cups sifted GOLD MEDAL Flour


½ tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. salt

Chill dough. Roll into balls the size of walnuts ... then roll balls in a
mixture of ¾ cup finely chopped nuts and 2 tsp. cinnamon. Place 3″
apart on ungreased baking sheet. Bake until golden brown ... but still
soft.
temperature: 400° (mod. hot oven).
time: Bake 12 to 15 min.
amount: About 5 doz. 2″ cookies.

★ MOLASSES CRINKLES
Thick, chewy, with crackled, sugary tops.
When served at Mrs. Fred Fredell’s in St. Paul, Minnesota, they were so delicious I
begged the recipe. Thanks to her, thousands of homes have enjoyed these spicy
cookies.
Mix together thoroughly ...

¾ cup soft shortening


1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
¼ cup molasses

Sift together and stir in ...


2¼ cups sifted GOLD MEDAL Flour
2 tsp. soda
¼ tsp. salt
½ tsp. cloves
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. ginger

Chill dough. Roll into balls the size of large walnuts. Dip tops in
sugar. Place, sugared-side-up, 3″ apart on greased baking sheet.
Sprinkle each cooky with 2 or 3 drops of water to produce a crackled
surface. Bake just until set but not hard.
temperature: 375° (quick mod. oven).
time: Bake 10 to 12 min.
amount: About 4 doz. 2½″ cookies.

WASHBOARDS
Coconut-taffy bars.
Mix together thoroughly ...

1 cup soft shortening (half butter)


2 cups brown sugar
2 eggs

Stir in ...

1 tsp. soda dissolved in ¼ cup hot water


1 tsp. vanilla

Sift together and stir in ...

4 cups sifted GOLD MEDAL Flour


1½ tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. salt

Mix in ...
1 cup moist shredded coconut (cut up any long shreds)

Chill dough 2 hr. Roll into balls the size of walnuts. Place 2″ apart on
ungreased baking sheet. With fingers, flatten each ball into a 1½″ ×
2½″ oblong ¼″ thick. (And we do mean ¼ inch!) Press each cooky
lengthwise with tines of floured fork in washboard effect. Bake until
lightly browned.
temperature: 400° (mod. hot oven).
time: Bake 8 to 10 min.
amount: About 5 doz. 2″ × 3″ cookies.
BAR COOKIES Perennial favorites ...
cut in squares or bars.

HOW TO MAKE BAR COOKIES (preliminary steps on pp. 14-15)

1 Spread dough in 2 Cut into squares or


3 Remove from the pan
greased pan and bake as bars when slightly
with a wide spatula.
directed. cool.

BROWNIES ( Recipe) Chewy, fudgy squares ... everyone loves


them!
Melt together over hot water ...

2 sq. unsweetened chocolate (2 oz.)


⅓ cup shortening

Beat in ...

1 cup sugar
2 eggs

Sift together and stir in ...

¾ cup sifted GOLD MEDAL Flour


½ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
Mix in ...

½ cup broken nuts

Spread in well greased 8″ square pan (8 × 8 × 2″). Bake until top has
dull crust. A slight imprint will be left when top is touched lightly with
finger. Cool slightly ... then cut into squares.
temperature: 350° (mod. oven).
time: Bake 30 to 35 min.
amount: 16 2″ squares.

CHOCOLATE-FROSTED BROWNIES
“Lickin’ good!” ... youngsters say.

Follow recipe above—and spread cooled bars or squares before


cutting with

MARIE’S CHOCOLATE ICING


Melt over hot water 1 tbsp. butter and 1 sq. unsweetened chocolate
(1 oz.). Blend in 1½ tbsp. warm water. Stir and beat in about 1 cup
sifted confectioners’ sugar (until icing will spread easily).

DAINTY TEA BROWNIES


Picturesque ... very thin. A highlight of the silver teas at a Minneapolis church.
Follow recipe above—except chop nuts finely and spread dough
in two well greased oblong pans (9 × 13 × 2″). Sprinkle with ¾ cup
blanched and finely sliced green pistachio nuts. Bake 7 to 8 min. Cut
immediately into squares or diamonds. Remove from pan while
warm.

PLANTATION FRUIT BARS


Little sugar and shortening ... but delicious. Sent to us by Mrs. Charles Willard of
Chicago.
Mix together thoroughly ...
¼ cup soft shortening
½ cup sugar
1 egg
½ cup molasses

Stir in ...

½ cup milk

Sift together and stir in ...

2 cups sifted GOLD MEDAL Flour


1½ tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. soda
½ tsp. salt

Mix in ...

1 cup broken nuts


1 to 2 cups cut-up raisins or dates

Spread in greased oblong pan (9 × 13 × 2″). Bake. Cool slightly ...


spread with Lemon Icing (see below) and cut into bars.
temperature: 350° (mod. oven).
time: Bake 25 to 30 min.
amount: 4 doz. 1″ × 2″ bars.

LEMON ICING (for Plantation Fruit Bars)


Gradually beat ½ cup sifted confectioners’ sugar into 1 stiffly beaten
egg white. Add dash of salt, ¼ tsp. lemon extract.

Confection-like squares for special entertaining.

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