Clare Stancliffe

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Clare Stancliffe is a historian and medievalist. She teaches Ecclesiastical History in the Departments of History and of Theology & Religion at Durham University. [1] She is known for developing the idea of the "colors of martyrdom" [2] in early Irish Christianity.

Publications

Her publications include:

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bede</span> Anglo-Saxon monk, writer and saint (672/3–735)

Bede, also known as Saint Bede, The Venerable Bede, and Bede the Venerable, was an English monk and an author and scholar. He was one of the greatest teachers and writers during the Early Middle Ages, and his most famous work, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, gained him the title "The Father of English History". He served at the monastery of St Peter and its companion monastery of St Paul in the Kingdom of Northumbria of the Angles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oswald of Northumbria</span> King of Northumbria from 634 to 641/42; Christian saint

Oswald was King of Northumbria from 634 until his death, and is venerated as a saint, of whom there was a particular cult in the Middle Ages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Northumbria</span> Medieval kingdom of the Angles

Northumbria was an early medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom in what is now Northern England and south-east Scotland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cuthbert</span> 7th-century Anglo-Saxon bishop, monk, hermit and saint

Cuthbert of Lindisfarne was an Anglo-Saxon saint of the early Northumbrian church in the Celtic tradition. He was a monk, bishop and hermit, associated with the monasteries of Melrose and Lindisfarne in the Kingdom of Northumbria, today in north-eastern England and south-eastern Scotland. Both during his life and after his death, he became a popular medieval saint of Northern England, with a cult centred on his tomb at Durham Cathedral. Cuthbert is regarded as the patron saint of Northumbria. His feast days are 20 March and 4 September.

Wilfrid was an English bishop and saint. Born a Northumbrian noble, he entered religious life as a teenager and studied at Lindisfarne, at Canterbury, in Francia, and at Rome; he returned to Northumbria in about 660, and became the abbot of a newly founded monastery at Ripon. In 664 Wilfrid acted as spokesman for the Roman position at the Synod of Whitby, and became famous for his speech advocating that the Roman method for calculating the date of Easter should be adopted. His success prompted the king's son, Alhfrith, to appoint him Bishop of Northumbria. Wilfrid chose to be consecrated in Gaul because of the lack of what he considered to be validly consecrated bishops in England at that time. During Wilfrid's absence Alhfrith seems to have led an unsuccessful revolt against his father, Oswiu, leaving a question mark over Wilfrid's appointment as bishop. Before Wilfrid's return Oswiu had appointed Ceadda in his place, resulting in Wilfrid's retirement to Ripon for a few years following his arrival back in Northumbria.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Maserfield</span> Battle between the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Bernicia and various Welsh kingdoms (c. 641/642)

The Battle of Maserfield, a corruption of the Welsh Maes Elferth was fought on 5 August 641 or 642 between the Anglo-Saxon kings Oswald of Northumbria and Penda of Mercia allied with Welsh Kingdom of Gwynedd, ending in Oswald's defeat, death, and dismemberment. The location was also known as Cogwy in Welsh, with Welshmen from Pengwern participating in the battle, probably as allies of the Mercians. Bede reports the commonly accepted date given above; the Welsh Annales Cambriae is generally considered incorrect in giving the year of the battle as 644. The site of the battle is traditionally identified with Oswestry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">St Cuthbert Gospel</span> Early 8th-century Anglo-Saxon pocket gospel book

The St Cuthbert Gospel, also known as the Stonyhurst Gospel or the St Cuthbert Gospel of St John, is an early 8th-century pocket gospel book, written in Latin. Its finely decorated leather binding is the earliest known Western bookbinding to survive, and both the 94 vellum folios and the binding are in outstanding condition for a book of this age. With a page size of only 138 by 92 millimetres, the St Cuthbert Gospel is one of the smallest surviving Anglo-Saxon manuscripts. The essentially undecorated text is the Gospel of John in Latin, written in a script that has been regarded as a model of elegant simplicity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aldfrith of Northumbria</span> 7th and 8th-century King of Northumbria

Aldfrith was king of Northumbria from 685 until his death. He is described by early writers such as Bede, Alcuin and Stephen of Ripon as a man of great learning. Some of his works and some letters written to him survive. His reign was relatively peaceful, marred only by disputes with Bishop Wilfrid, a major figure in the early Northumbrian church.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reginald of Durham</span>

Reginald of Durham was a Benedictine monk and hagiologist, a member of the Durham Priory and associated with Coldingham Priory in Scotland.

GuthredHardacnutsson was the second viking king of Northumbria from circa 883 until his death.

<i>Libellus de exordio</i>

The Libellus de exordio atque procursu istius, hoc est Dunhelmensis, ecclesie, in short Libellus de exordio, is a historical work of marked literary character composed and compiled in the early 12th-century and traditionally attributed to Symeon of Durham. It relates the history of bishopric and church of Durham and its predecessors at Lindisfarne and Chester-le-Street (Cunecacestre). It is sometimes also known as the Historia Dunelmensis ecclesiae.

David W. Rollason is an English historian and medievalist. He is a Professor in history at Durham University. He specialises in the cult of saints in Anglo-Saxon England, the history of Northumbria and in the historical writings of Durham, most notably producing a modern edition and translation of the Libellus de exordio and co-operating on an edition of the Durham Liber Vitae.

The Cambrai Homily is the earliest known Irish homily, dating to the 7th or early 8th century, and housed in the Médiathèque d'agglomération de Cambrai. It is evidence that a written vernacular encouraged by the Church had already been established alongside Latin by the 7th century in Ireland. The homily is also the oldest single example of an extended prose passage in Old Irish. The text is incomplete, and Latin and Irish are mixed. Quotations from the Bible and patristic sources are in Latin, with the explication in Irish. It is a significant document for the study of Celtic linguistics and for understanding sermons as they might have existed in the 7th-century Irish church. The homily also contains the earliest examples in written Irish of triads, a form of expression characteristic of early Irish literature, though the text taken as a whole is not composed in triads.

Indract or Indracht was an Irish saint who, along with his companions, was venerated at Glastonbury Abbey, a monastery in the county of Somerset in south-western England. In the High Middle Ages Glastonbury tradition held that he had been an Irish pilgrim — a king's son – on his way back from Rome who was molested and killed by a local thegn after he had stopped off to visit the shrine of St Patrick. This tradition synchronised his life with that of King Ine (688–726), though historian Michael Lapidge has argued that he is most likely to represent a 9th-century abbot of Iona named Indrechtach ua Fínnachta.

<i>Historia de Sancto Cuthberto</i>

The Historia de Sancto Cuthberto is a historical compilation finished some time after 1031. It is an account of the history of the bishopric of St Cuthbert—based successively at Lindisfarne, Norham, Chester-le-Street and finally Durham—from the life of St Cuthbert himself onwards. The latest event documented is a grant by King Cnut, c. 1031. The work is a cartulary chronicle recording grants and losses of property as well as miracles of retribution, under a loose narrative of temporal progression. The text survives in three manuscripts, the earliest of which dates from around 1100. The original version of the text is not thought to be extant; rather, all surviving manuscripts are thought to be copies of an earlier but lost exemplar. The Historia is one of the sources for the histories produced at Durham in the early 12th century, particularly the Historia Regum and Symeon of Durham's Libellus de Exordio.

The Vita Sancti Cuthberti is a prose hagiography from early medieval Northumbria. It is probably the earliest extant saint's life from Anglo-Saxon England, and is an account of the life and miracles of Cuthbert, a Bernician hermit-monk who became bishop of Lindisfarne. Surviving in eight manuscripts from Continental Europe, it was not as well read in the Middle Ages as the prose version by Bede. It was however Bede's main source for his two dedicated works on Cuthbert, the "Metrical Life" and the "Prose Life".

Bertram Colgrave was a medieval historian, antiquarian and archaeologist, specializing on the lives of the early saints in Anglo-Saxon England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">St Cuthbert's Well</span>

St Cuthbert's Well, known locally as Cuddy's Well, is an ancient holy well in the village of Bellingham, adjacent to St Cuthbert's Church, an eleventh-century church associated with the cult of the seventh century monk, bishop and hermit St Cuthbert.

Saint Berchert was an early mediaeval English monk, commemorated in several churches in Ireland. He probably came to Ireland as part of the wave of Northumbrian exiles led by Bishop Colman of Lindisfarne following the Synod of Whitby in 664 AD. His feast day is celebrated on the 6th December.

References

  1. Dr Clare Stancliffe at Durham University.
  2. Clare Stancliffe, "Red, White and Blue Martyrdom," in Ireland in Early Mediaeval Europe: Studies in memory of Kathleen Hughes (Cambridge University Press, 1982), esp. pp. 29, 35 and 41.