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Royal Rage and the Construction of Anglo-Norman Authority, c. 1000-1250 pp 61–107Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

The Ecclesiastical Culture of Anger

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Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in the History of Emotions ((PSHE))

Abstract

Ecclesiastical attitudes toward anger were both complex and ambivalent. Churchmen recognized the destabilizing tendencies of anger, as it spread discord and conflict within a community. At the same time, however, the Bible is filled with various examples of God’s righteous anger and vengeance. In this chapter, I will examine how anger figured in medieval Christian theology with particular reference to the role it played in Benedictine monastic culture and practice during the eleventh and early twelfth centuries. The analysis of theological views about both human and divine anger in that emotional community shows that the latter was considered just, by definition, while the former was not condemned in all cases as sinful, but rather, was considered acceptable in certain contexts.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The Rule of Saint Benedict, trans. Anthony C. Meisel and M.L. del Mastro (Garden City: Image Books, 1975), chap. 4, nos. 22 and 23. Regula Sancti Benedicti, Il IntraText Edition (Eulogos, 2005), http://www.intratext.com/X/LAT0011.htm (accessed 27 June 2007).

  2. 2.

    See Patrick Geary, Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994), 77–94; and Belle Stoddard Tuten, “Disputing Corpses: Le Ronceray d’Angers versus Saint-Nicolas d’Angers, 1080–1145,” Medieval Perspectives 10 (1995): 178–188.

  3. 3.

    See also Anthony Tyrrell Hanson, The Wrath of the Lamb (London: SPCK, 1957) and Bruce Edward Baloian, Anger in the Old Testament (New York: Peter Lang, 1992).

  4. 4.

    Rosenwein, “Controlling Paradigms,” 233–234.

  5. 5.

    Nm 16:15. Translations are based on the Douay-Rheims edition. The Latin is from the Vulgate.

  6. 6.

    Nm 16:4.

  7. 7.

    Nm 16:4–7.

  8. 8.

    Nm 16:28–30.

  9. 9.

    Nm 16:28–30.

  10. 10.

    Ps 7:6.

  11. 11.

    Ps 7:11–12.

  12. 12.

    Ps 56:7.

  13. 13.

    Ps 78:21–22.

  14. 14.

    Ps 78:31.

  15. 15.

    PS 78:49–50.

  16. 16.

    Ps 78:44–50, 59–64.

  17. 17.

    H.G.L. Peels, The Vengeance of God: The Meaning of the Root Nqm and the Function of the Nqm-Texts in the Context of Divine Revelation in the Old Testament, ed. A.S. van der Woude, Oudtestamentische Studien (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1995), 102–103.

  18. 18.

    Ibid., 106.

  19. 19.

    Ibid., 233–234.

  20. 20.

    Hos. 11:8–9.

  21. 21.

    Hos. 11:10.

  22. 22.

    Mt 21:18–22, cf. Mk 11:21.

  23. 23.

    cf. Mk 11:15–17 and Lk 19:45–46.

  24. 24.

    Mt 21:12–13.

  25. 25.

    Mt 23:33–35. William V. Harris, Restraining Rage: The Ideology of Anger Control in Classical Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 392–393. He also notes the possibility for such a reading of Matthew 9:30 [“And their eyes were opened, and Jesus strictly charged them, saying, See that no man know this”], Mark 1:43 [“And he strictly charged him and forthwith sent him away”], John 11:33 [“Jesus, therefore, when he saw her weeping, and the Jews that were come with her weeping, groaned in the spirit and troubled himself”]; 38 [“Jesus therefore again groaning in himself, cometh to the sepulchre. Now it was a cave; and a stone was laid over it”]. Ibid., 393, no. 9.

  26. 26.

    William V. Harris points out, however, that the experience of anger is absent from the accounts of the withered hand miracle in Matthew and Luke. See Ibid., 392, no. 6.

  27. 27.

    Mk 3:1–5. Matthew and Luke, however, do not explicitly attribute anger to this scene.

  28. 28.

    Ibid., 3:1–5.

  29. 29.

    Ibid., 3:1–5.

  30. 30.

    Ibid., 3:1–5.

  31. 31.

    For example, Philip Esler notes that the prominent interpretation of this episode by modern scholars is that it symbolizes the coming destruction of the Temple. He, however, posits that it has more to do with theological commentary on prayer and belief. See idem, “The Incident of the Withered Fig Tree in Mark 11: A New Source and Redactional Explanation,” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 28, no. 1 (2005): 41–67.

  32. 32.

    Ex 32:9–10.

  33. 33.

    Ex 32:11–13.

  34. 34.

    Ex 32:14.

  35. 35.

    Ex 32:19.

  36. 36.

    Ex 32:27.

  37. 37.

    Ibid., 32:27. cf. Ex 21:24, Lv 24:20, and Dt 19:21.

  38. 38.

    Mt 5:21–22.

  39. 39.

    For a full discussion see David Alan Black, “Jesus on Anger: The Text of Matthew 5:22a Revisited,” Novum Testamentum 30 (1988): 1–8. For alternate views of this passage, see Elaine Pagels, “The Rage of Angels,” in Rage, Power and Aggression, ed. R.A. Glick and S.P. Roose (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), 240.

  40. 40.

    Mt 5:21–22. It should be noted that two different versions of this passage existed in early copies of the text. In one version, as presented here as the larger consensus, Jesus seems to be implying all anger at one’s “brothers” was sinful. In the other version, however, “without good cause” was added, which allows for much greater latitude for human anger. See Harris, 391–392.

  41. 41.

    Eph 2:3–7.

  42. 42.

    Eph 2:4–6.

  43. 43.

    Eph 4:26. cf. Ps 4.4.

  44. 44.

    Eph 4:31–32. This is similar to Colossians 3:8: “But now put you also all away: anger [iram], indignation, [indignationem] malice, blasphemy, filthy speech out of your mouth.” The association of God’s love with humans’ obligations to love each other is also in 1 Corinthians 13:4–5: “Charity is patient, is kind: charity envieth not, dealeth not perversely, is not puffed up, is not ambitious, seeketh not her own, is not provoked to anger [inritatur], thinketh no evil.”

  45. 45.

    Jas 1: 19–20. Harris, 393.

  46. 46.

    Harris, 394.

  47. 47.

    Rom 12:17–29. cf. Dt 32:35; Jas 1:20. Harris, 394.

  48. 48.

    It should be noted that the Seven Deadly Sins were not the only organization and conceptualization of the vices in the medieval period. An alternative was the Three Temptations, based upon 1 John 2:15–16. They included “lust of the eyes,” “lust of the flesh,” and “the pride of life.” See Donald Howard, The Three Temptations: Medieval Man in Search of the World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966).

  49. 49.

    Michael McCarthy, “Divine Wrath and Human Anger: Embarrassment Ancient and New,” Theological Studies 70 (2009): 845–874.

  50. 50.

    Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, trans. J.A.K. Thompson (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 150.

  51. 51.

    Columba Stewart, “Evagrius Ponticus and the ‘Eight Generic Logismoi,” in In the Garden of Evil: The Vices and Culture in Middle Ages, ed. Richard Newhauser (Toronto: Pontifical Institute for Medieval Studies, 2005), 3. For a discussion of Evagrius, see Luke Dysinger, Psalmody and Prayer in the Writings of Evagrius Ponticus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), especially chapter one. For a good attempt to construct the palaeopsychology for Evagrius Ponticus, see Michael O’Laughlin, “The Anthropology of Evagrius Ponticus and Its Sources,” in Origen of Alexandria: His World and His Legacy, eds. Charles Kannengiesser and William L. Petersen (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1988), 357–373. For more on the formulation of the hermatology, see Morton W. Bloomfield, The Seven Deadly Sins: An Introduction to the History of a Religious Concept, with Special Reference to Medieval English Literature (East Lansing: University of Michigan Press, 1952); Richard Newhauser, The Treatise on Vices and Virtues in Latin and the Vernacular (Turnhout: Brill, 1993); and Lester Little, “Pride Goes before Avarice: Social Change and the Vices in Latin Christendom,” The American Historical Review 76 (1971): 16–49.

  52. 52.

    See also Kevin Corrigan, Evagrius and Gregory: Views of the Soul in Late Antiquity (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006).

  53. 53.

    Stewart, 5.

  54. 54.

    Ibid., 8. He cites examples from the apocryphal Testament of Reuben, the rabbinic notion of yêser ha-rac, and Hermes’ The Shepherd. As Thomas Dixon has noted, all reference to emotional states during these period is referred to as passions. See idem, From Passions to Emotions: The Creation of a Secular Psychological Category (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).

  55. 55.

    Stewart, 27; Evagrius Ponticus, On the Thoughts, 3.5–7, in Évagre le Pontique: Traité pratique ou le moine, Sources Chrétiennes 268 (Paris, 1971), 160.

  56. 56.

    Ana del Campo sees a parallel in this, perhaps, in the connections between grief and rage in mourning rituals in Iberian literature. Idem, “Crying Tears, Tearing Clothes: Expressing Grief and Rage in the Middle Ages,” in Life and Religion in the Middle Ages, ed. Flocel Sabaté (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholar, 2015), 305–326.

  57. 57.

    Stewart, 32.

  58. 58.

    Evagrius Ponticus, Praktikos, 11.3–5, in Évagre le Pontique: Traité pratique ou le moine, 518. Cited in Stewart, 27.

  59. 59.

    Timothy Fay, trans., RB 1980: The Rule of St. Benedict (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1981), chap. 4, no. 20–23.

  60. 60.

    Lester Little, “Anger in Monastic Curses,” in Anger’s Past: The Social Uses of an Emotion in the Middle Ages, ed. Barbara Rosenwein (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998), 13.

  61. 61.

    Stewart, 13.

  62. 62.

    Ibid., 16.

  63. 63.

    Ibid., 3. See also Irénée Hausherr, “L’Origine de la théorie orientale des huit péchés capitaux,” Orientalia Christiana 30 (1933): 164–175.

  64. 64.

    Straw, “Gregory, Cassian the Cardinal Vices,” 36; Cassian, Collationes, 5.6, trans. and ed. E. Pichery, Sources Chrétiennes 42 (Paris: Cerf, 1966), 193–194.

  65. 65.

    Cassian, Collationes, 5.10, 42:197. See also Straw, “Gregory, Cassian the Cardinal Vices,” 37.

  66. 66.

    Michael Rota, “The Moral Status of Anger: Thomas Aquinas and John Cassian,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 81, no. 3 (2007): 398.

  67. 67.

    Little, “Anger in Monastic Curses,” 13.

  68. 68.

    Straw, “Gregory, Cassian the Cardinal Vices,” 37.

  69. 69.

    Ibid., 43.

  70. 70.

    Stewart, 3. See also René Waselynck, “Les ‘Moralia in Job’ dans les ouvrages de morale du haut moyen âge latin,” Recherches de Théologie Ancienne et Médiévale 31 (1964): 5–31; Carole Straw, Gregory the Great: Perfection in Imperfection (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988); and Dianne M. Bazell, “Medieval Christian Ethics,” in A Bibliographic Guide to the Comparative Study of Ethics, eds. John Carman and Mark Jurgensmeyer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 356–414.

  71. 71.

    Straw, “Gregory, Cassian the Cardinal Vices,” 47. Much of Gregory’s theology is outlined in his Moralia in Job.

  72. 72.

    Little, “Anger in Monastic Curses,” 12.

  73. 73.

    William Mattison III, “Jesus’ Prohibition of Anger (MT 5:22): The Person/Sin Distinction from Augustine to Aquinas,” Theological Studies 68 (2007): 848. Mattison notes that this distinction stemmed from Gregory’s interpretation of Jesus’ apparent anger at the moneychangers in the Temple (Jn. 2:17) with Ps 69:10 “zeal for your house will consume me.” See note 26.

  74. 74.

    Richard Sorabji, Emotion and Peace of Mind: From Stoic Agitation to Christian Temptation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 397–399.

  75. 75.

    Stephen Butler Murray, Reclaiming Divine Wrath: A History of a Christian Doctrine and Its Interpretation (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2011), 70–71.

  76. 76.

    Ibid., 843.

  77. 77.

    Ibid., 846.

  78. 78.

    See Colin Morris, The Discovery of the Individual, 1050–1200 (London: Harper and Row, 1972); and E. Ruth Harvey, The Inward Wits: Psychological Theory in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (London: Warburg Institute, 1975).

  79. 79.

    See Avicenna, Avicenna Latinus: Liber de anima seu sextus de naturalibus IV-V, ed. S. van Riet (Leuven: Peeters, 1968). Also discussion by Kemp and Strongman, Anger Theory.

  80. 80.

    See Gerhart B. Ladner, “Homo Viator: Medieval Ideas on Alienation and Order,” Speculum 42 (1967): 233–259.

  81. 81.

    For more on Alcuin see John Marenbon, From the Circle of Alcuin to the School of Auxerre, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought: Third Series (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Andrew Fleming West, Alcuin and the Rise of the Christian Schools (Whitefish: Kessinger Publishing, 2007); and Eleanor Shipley Duckett, Alcuin, Friend of Charlemagne, His World and His Work (Hamden: Archon Books, 1965). For more on Anselm’s life and writings see R.W. Southern, Saint Anselm: A Portrait in a Landscape (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004); Giles E.M. Gasper, Anselm of Canterbury and His Theological Influence (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004); Dániel Deme, The Christology of Anselm of Canterbury (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003); and Marjorie Chibnall, “From Bec to Canterbury: Anselm and Monastic Privilege,” in Piety, Power and History in Medieval England and Normandy, Variorum Collected Studies Series (Aldershot, Hampshire: Ashgate, 2000), 23–44. For more on their influences, see G.R. Evans, “Anselms’ Life, Works, and Immediate Influence,” in The Cambridge Companion to Anselm, eds. Brian Davies and Brian Leftow (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 24–28; and Donald Bullough, Alcuin: Achievement and Reputation: Being Part of the Ford Lectures Delivered in Oxford in the Hilary Term 1980, Education and Society in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance 16 (Leiden: Brill, 2004).

  82. 82.

    Alcuin, De virtutibus et vitiis liber ad Widonem comitem, 31, PL 101, col. 631. Latin cited in Barton, “Zealous Anger,” 155, no. 7. For a detailed discussion of this work see Luitpold Wallach, “Alcuin on Virtues and Vices: A Manual for a Carolingian Scholar,” The Harvard Theological Review 48.3 (Jul. 1955): 175–195. As he notes, the text was probably composed for the Margrave Wado, c. 799 (176). See also Dom Rochais, “Le Liber de virtutibue et vitiis d’Alcuin: Note pour l’etude des sources,” Revue Mabillon 41 (1951): 77–86.

  83. 83.

    “Anger is one of the eight principal vices. If it is not controlled by reason, it is turned into raging fury, such that a man has no power over his own soul and does unseemly things. For this vice so occupies the heart that it banishes from it every precaution in acting and in seeking right judgment.” Alcuin, De virtutibus et vitiis, col. 634. Cited in Geneviève Bührer-Thierry, “‘Just Anger’ or ‘Vengeful Anger’? The Punishment of Blinding in the Early Medieval West,” in Anger’s Past: The Social Uses of an Emotion in the Middle Ages, ed. Barbara Rosenwein (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998), 75.

  84. 84.

    Alcuin, De virtutibus, col. 634. Cited in Barton, “Zealous Anger,” 156, no. 7.

  85. 85.

    Alcuin, Epistolae, PL 100, Epistola 205, col. 479D.

  86. 86.

    Allott, letter 11, 17.

  87. 87.

    Alcuin, Opusculum Secundum. Enchiridon seu exposito pia ac brevis in psalmos poenitentiales, in psalmum cxviii et gradales, PL 100, col. 576D. As PL notes, however, this part is only in one manuscript, Codd. Mss.

  88. 88.

    Ibid., col. 575B.

  89. 89.

    Ibid., col. 575B.

  90. 90.

    Ibid., col. 575B.

  91. 91.

    Ibid., col. 576B.

  92. 92.

    Ibid., col. 576BS.

  93. 93.

    Alcuin, De virtuibus, col. 631. Cited in Barton, “Zealous Anger,” 156, no. 11.

  94. 94.

    Alcuin, De animae ratione, PL 101, 640 C-D. Cited in Wallach, 189.

  95. 95.

    Wallach, 189.

  96. 96.

    Allott, letter 66, 81.

  97. 97.

    Ibid.

  98. 98.

    Ibid.

  99. 99.

    For more on Hrabanus and his theology, see Linda Archibald, “Latin Prose: Latin Writing in the Frankish World, 700–1100,” in German Literature of the Early Middle Ages, ed. Brian Murdoch, The Camden House History of German Literature, 2 (Rochester: Camden House, 2004), 73–85; Mary Garrison, “Alcuin, carmen IX, and Hrabanus, ad bonosum: A Teacher and His Pupil Write Consolation,” in Poetry and Philosophy in the Middle Ages: A Festschrift for Peter Dronke, ed. John Marenbon, Mittellateinische Studien und Texte, 29 (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 63–78; and John Contreni, “Rabanus Maurus: Frankish Theologian and Scholar,” in Great Lives From History: The Middle Ages, 477–1453, ed. Shelley Wolbrink (Pasadena: Salem Press, 2005), 870–873.

  100. 100.

    Hrabanus Maurus, De rerum naturis, ed. W. Schipper, http://www.mun.ca/rabanus (accessed 3 Nov. 2004), bk. 1, chap. 1.

  101. 101.

    Ibid.

  102. 102.

    For more on Hincmar, see Mary E. Sommar, “Hincmar of Reims and the Canon Law of Episcopal Translation,” Catholic Historical Review 88, no. 3 (2002): 429–445; and John Cavadini, “Harmony and Tradition: Latin Theology, 4th–10th Centuries,” in Christian Thought: A Brief History, eds. Adrian Hastings, Alistair Mason, and Hugh Pyper (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 63–72. For more on Thomas, see Gillian R. Evans, “Thomas of Chobham on Preaching and Exegesis,” Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale 52 (1985): 159–170; and Claire Catalini, “Luxuria and Its Banches,” in Sex, Love and Marriage in Medieval Literature and Reality: Thematische Beitrage im Rahmen des 31th International Congress on Medieval Studies an der Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo-USA), 8.–12. Mai 1996, eds. Danielle Buschinger and Wolfgang Spiewok (Greifswald: Reineke Verlag, 1996), 13–20.

  103. 103.

    Barton, “Zealous Anger,” 156–157.

  104. 104.

    Hincmar of Rheims, De Cavendis vitiis et virtutibus exercendis, ad carolum calvum regem, PL 125, col. 878B. For discussion on the composition and transmission of this text, see Rosamund McKitterick, “Charles the Bald (823–877) and His Library: The Patronage of Learning,” The English Historical Review 95, no. 374 (1980): 28–47.

  105. 105.

    Hincmar of Rheims, De cavendis vitiis et virtutibus, col. 880. See also Barton, “Zealous Anger,” 156.

  106. 106.

    Throop, “Zeal, Anger and Vengeance,” 185.

  107. 107.

    Hincmar of Rheims, De divortio Lotharii regis et Tetberge reginae, Praefatio, in Hincmari Archiepiscopi Remensis opera, ed. J. Simmond, 2 vols. (Paris, 1645), I, 564; PL 125, 626A-B. For a discussion of this text and passage see Stanley, “The Administration of Law in Anglo-Saxon England,” in Germanic Texts and Latin Models, Medieval Reconstructions, eds. K.E. Olsen, A. Harbus, and T. Hofstra, Mediaevalia Groningana 2 (Leuven: Peeters, 2001), 69.

  108. 108.

    Thomas of Chobham, Summa confessorum, ed. F. Broomfield, Analecta Medievalis Namurcensia 25 (Louvain: Éditions Nauwelaerts, 1968), 414. Latin cited in Barton, “Zealous Anger,” 157, no. 15.

  109. 109.

    Barton, “Zealous Anger,” 158.

  110. 110.

    Benedicta Ward, The Prayers and Meditations of St Anselm (New York: Penguin Books, 1973), 232.

  111. 111.

    Charles Hartshorne, Saint Anselm: Basic Writings, 2nd ed. (Le Salle: Open Court Publishing, 1966), 202.

  112. 112.

    Deans, 207.

  113. 113.

    Murray, 75. Marc B. Cels, “Interrogating Anger in the New Penitential Literature,” 203–220.

  114. 114.

    Ward, St. Anselm, 110.

  115. 115.

    Ibid., 110–111.

  116. 116.

    Stephen D. White, “Garsinde v. Sainte Foy: Argument, Threat and Vengeance in Eleventh-century Monastic Litigation in the Liber Miraculorum Sanctae Fidis,” in Lay and Religious: Negotiation, Influence, and Utility, eds. Janet Burton and Emilia Jamroziak (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), 172.

  117. 117.

    Little, “Anger in Monastic Curses,” 9.

  118. 118.

    Ibid., 33.

  119. 119.

    Ibid., 28–29. Little, however, argues that this process of legitimizing the display of monastic anger had the effect of eliminating emotions from liturgical curses. He writes, “For these [liturgical curses] to work, so many conditions had to be met that virtually all elements of passion—that explosive mix of unthinking feeling and unplanned speech—were removed.” Ibid., 29. As a result, Little argues that excommunication liturgies were a restraint on monastic anger.

  120. 120.

    Stephen D. White, “Politics of Anger,” 137.

  121. 121.

    Wendy Davies, “Anger and the Celtic Saint,” in Anger’s Past: The Social Uses of an Emotion in the Middle Ages, ed. Barbara Rosenwein (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998), 195.

  122. 122.

    Ibid., 198.

  123. 123.

    Little, “Anger in Monastic Curses,” 10.

  124. 124.

    Davies, 201.

  125. 125.

    Genevieve Steele Edwards, “Ritual Excommunication in Medieval France and England, 900–1200” (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1997), 147.

  126. 126.

    Ibid., 151.

  127. 127.

    Ibid., 213. It is worth noting the similar between the language used here and the language that Orderic used in the episode that we discussed in this chapter. In both passages, the plunderers of the monastery are described as “wolves.”

  128. 128.

    Ibid., 145.

  129. 129.

    Ibid., 152.

  130. 130.

    Ibid., 148.

  131. 131.

    Ibid., 148.

  132. 132.

    Little, “Anger in Monastic Curses,” 10.

  133. 133.

    Edwards, 213–214.

  134. 134.

    Ibid., 202–203.

  135. 135.

    Ibid., 202–203.

  136. 136.

    Ibid., 202–203.

  137. 137.

    Ibid., 202–203.

  138. 138.

    Ibid., 202–203.

  139. 139.

    Lester Little argues that these scripts could and were repeated on successive days, often in the vernacular. Idem, “Anger in Monastic Curses,” 10.

  140. 140.

    Ibid., 10.

  141. 141.

    Edwards, 204.

  142. 142.

    Ibid., 136–138.

  143. 143.

    EH, II, 341.

  144. 144.

    EH, II, 341.

  145. 145.

    Douglas and Greenway, English Historical Documents, vol. II, 340–341; R. Howlett, Chronicles and Memorials of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II, and Richard I (London: Rolls Series, 1886), III, 151ff.

  146. 146.

    Ibid., 341.

  147. 147.

    Ibid., 341.

  148. 148.

    The language and imagery used to describe the Scots is very similar to the rhetoric used by ecclesiastical authors to describe the Vikings. This may be because, as Daniel Baraz notes, “the border between violence and cruelty can be observed with the greatest clarity in descriptions of violence attributed to external ‘others’ who threatened the medieval West. … In the early medieval period the Vikings seem to present such violence in its purest form.” Daniel Baraz, “Violence or Cruelty? An Intercultural Perspective,” in ‘A Great Effusion of Blood?’ Interpreting Medieval Violence, eds. Mark D. Meyerson, Daniel Thiery, and Oren Falk (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004), 167. Robert Bartlett also argues that the violence of the Vikings served as a model, because causing terror was an essential part of their strategy to fighting their enemies. See idem, The Making of Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 85–90.

  149. 149.

    John Gillingham notes, however, that unlike Ireland, Scotland and Wales quickly adopted the “English style” after the Conquest. For Gillingham, this style is represented as “the convention of sparing the life and limb of defeated high-status enemies.” Idem, “Killing and Mutilating Political Enemies in the British Isles from the Late Twelfth to the Early Fourteenth Century: A Comparative Study,” in Britain and Ireland, 900–1300: Insular Responses to Medieval European Change, ed. Brendan Smith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 114. See also pp. 123–125.

  150. 150.

    EH, III, 518. For a full discussion of these accounts, see Gillingham, English in the Twelfth Century, 44.

  151. 151.

    HH, 710–711.

  152. 152.

    Little, Benedictine Maledictions. Some Anglo-Norman authors, such as Richard of Hexham, emphasize this more fully by labeling the Scots as ‘Picts’.

  153. 153.

    Dominique Barthélemy demonstrates ways in which these relationships shaped how ecclesiastical authors represented the aristocracy. See idem, La chevalerie, 243–275.

  154. 154.

    Marjorie Chibnall and Kathleen Thompson both point out that she was probably using the monastery as a military base while protecting and extending her family’s lands. See Chibnall, World of Orderic Vitalis, 22–23; and Thompson, “Family and Influence to the South of Normandy in the Eleventh Century: The Lordship of Bellême,” Journal of Medieval History 11, no. 3 (1985): 215–216.

  155. 155.

    EH, III, 55.

  156. 156.

    Ibid., VI, 459. This is also discussed in Strickland, War and Chivalry, 15–16.

  157. 157.

    Ibid., VI, 459.

  158. 158.

    Ibid., VI, 459.

  159. 159.

    Ibid., VI, 459.

  160. 160.

    Ibid., VI, 459. This episode is also discussed by Matthew Strickland. He concludes, “The occasion of an attack on Saint-Evroul itself shows how much Orderic’s perception of correct conduct was shaped by his own monastic status and by membership of an element of society which, being especially vulnerable to the effects of war, could only benefit by the propagation of notions of behavior restraint.” Idem, War and Chivalry, 15–16.

  161. 161.

    See Little, Benedictine Maledictions, esp. 17–51 and 88–120. See also Patrick Geary’s discussion of the ritual for humiliating saints in Idem, Living with the Dead, 95–115; and also his general discussions of monastic persuasion of saints, Ibid., 116–124.

  162. 162.

    See also Rosenwein, Emotional Communities; Peter Brown, Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989); and Richard Kaeuper, Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).

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McGrath, K. (2019). The Ecclesiastical Culture of Anger. In: Royal Rage and the Construction of Anglo-Norman Authority, c. 1000-1250. Palgrave Studies in the History of Emotions. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11223-3_2

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