The essays in this book have as their theme Tradition and Change. They view institutions, groups and individuals responding and adjusting to changes in their world, whether in religious discipline or in the needs of government. They also explore the continuity of traditions in both ecclesiastical and secular society and trace how changes themselves crystallize into the traditions of the future. The topics chosen to illustrate this general theme reflect the wide interests of the honorand, whose publications, including her edition of the Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, have illuminated the twin cultures of England and Normandy and their joint influence on European society in the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
Henry of Huntingdon's narrative covers one of the most exciting and bloody periods in English history: the Norman Conquest and its aftermath. He tells of the decline of the Old English kingdom, the
This narrative of events between the years 1173 and 1202--as recorded by Jocelin of Brakelond, a monk who lived in the abbey of Bury St. Edmunds, in the region of West Suffolk--affords many unique in
