Patronage and politics at Barking Abbey, c.950 - c.1200

This thesis is a study of the Benedictine abbey of Barking in Essex from the tenth to the twelfth centuries. It is based on a wide range of published and unpublished documentary sources, and on hagiographie texts written at the abbey. It juxtaposes the literary and documentary sources in a new way to show that both are essential for a full understanding of events, and neither can be fully appreciated in isolation. It also deliberately crosses the political boundary of 1066, with the intention of demonstrating that political events were not the most significant determinant of the recipients of benefactors’ religious patronage. It also uses the longer chronological scale to show that patterns of patronage from the Anglo-Saxon era were frequently inherited by the incoming Normans along with their landholdings. Through a detailed discussion of two sets of unpublished charters (Essex Record Office MSS D/DP/Tl and Hatfield, Hatfield House MS Ilford Hospital 1/6) I offer new dates and interpretations of several events in the abbey’s history, and identify the abbey’s benefactors from the late tenth century to 1200. As Part III shows, it has been possible to trace patterns of patronage which were passed down through several generations, crossing the political divide of 1066. Royal patronage is shown to have been of great significance to the abbey, and successive kings exploited their power of advowson in different ways according to the political atmosphere of England. The literary sources are discussed in a separate section, but with full reference to the historical narrative. I offer new interpretations of the hagiographic works of Goscelin of St-Bertin written for Barking in the late eleventh century, suggesting they were intended to promote the abbey’s interests and attract new donors, and that the choice of Latin for these works was intended to be politically neutral. I propose new dates for both the Anglo-Norman $\textit{Life of St Catherine of Alexandria}$ and the $\textit{Vie d’Edouard le Confesseur}$ written at late twelfth-century Barking, suggesting that they may have been far more politically motivated than previously thought, commissioned by Abbess Matilda to defend and promote her own family lineage. The thesis concludes that royal interest and interference in Barking’s affairs was a continuous factor throughout the period of the study; that aristocratic patronage often followed royal fashions, but in Barking’s case also frequently had more personal motivations; and that Barking’s literary activity can only be fully understood within the context of its political atmosphere, and should not be studied in isolation.Digitisation of this thesis was sponsored by Arcadia Fund, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin