TY - CHAP
T1 - Local churches and the conquest of the North
T2 - elite patronage and identity in Saxo-Norman Northumbria
AU - McClain, A.
N1 - This is an author produced version of a chapter to appear in 'Early Medieval Northumbria: Kingdoms and Communities'.
PY - 2011
Y1 - 2011
N2 - The social implications of the Saxo-Norman transition are particularly intriguing in Northumbria, where Anglian, Scandinavian, and Norman social structures, identities, and traditions of material culture converged. In the north, where royal control was less secure and there was a history of political independence, negotiating the transition required a calculated balance of imposed authority and regard for the institutions of the past. Local churches, already established as a focal point of religious and secular manorial life, were one of the primary arenas in which this dialogue of power was carried out. Through an examination of the evidence for stone church buildings and funerary monuments in eleventh and twelfth-century Northumbria, this paper demonstrates how the elite utilized church patronage to negotiate authority and identity in a period of acute transition, and how the particular political and cultural characteristics of Yorkshire, County Durham, and Northumberland could affect this process.
AB - The social implications of the Saxo-Norman transition are particularly intriguing in Northumbria, where Anglian, Scandinavian, and Norman social structures, identities, and traditions of material culture converged. In the north, where royal control was less secure and there was a history of political independence, negotiating the transition required a calculated balance of imposed authority and regard for the institutions of the past. Local churches, already established as a focal point of religious and secular manorial life, were one of the primary arenas in which this dialogue of power was carried out. Through an examination of the evidence for stone church buildings and funerary monuments in eleventh and twelfth-century Northumbria, this paper demonstrates how the elite utilized church patronage to negotiate authority and identity in a period of acute transition, and how the particular political and cultural characteristics of Yorkshire, County Durham, and Northumberland could affect this process.
U2 - 10.1484/M.SEM-EB.1.100494
DO - 10.1484/M.SEM-EB.1.100494
M3 - Chapter (peer-reviewed)
SN - 9782503528229
T3 - Studies in the Early Middle Ages
SP - 151
EP - 178
BT - Early Medieval Northumbria
A2 - Petts, David
A2 - Turner, Sam
PB - Brepols
CY - Turnhout
ER -