Questions of identity: rewriting Anglo-Saxon female saints in post-conquest England c.1066-c.1500.

Abstract

The focus of this thesis is the production of identity arising from the writing and re-writing of the vitae of the Anglo-Saxon female patron saints of certain nunneries founded before the Norman Conquest in 1066, namely Wilton, Nunnaminster, Romsey and Barking. The vitae studied date from the eleventh century, shortly after the Conquest, through to the sixteenth century, just before the English Reformation. The re-writing of the vita of a patron saint, commissioned by the community who depends on her, is necessarily involved in the formation and reformation of identity of that community. However, the writers of these vitae, where they can be identified, often come from outside the community and, therefore, while trying to fulfil their brief, also bring their own agenda to their texts. In examining the uses and creations of identity in these texts, three layers are focused on: the identity of the saint, as the re-writings of her life alter her personality; the identity of the community around the saint which, as reflected in the changing of the vita, develops over the period in question; and the identity of the Englishness, as it develops after the Conquest to include the Normans. The function of patron saints' vitae in the creation and fostering of communal identity has previously been examined with relation to a single location or a single saint. This study draws on a wider range of places and saints in order to form a clearer idea of how saints were viewed in medieval England. The focus on local saints, on Anglo-Saxon saints, allows one to see how historical figures become sources of power, and how that power is utilised in the development of notions of identity. This, in turn, will provide a basis for future study of individual and groups of saints, in assessing how the use of the various identities changed over time, and in different locations. This study also serves to illustrate ways in which women's history can be recovered, and the involvement of women in the development of English identity.