A Companion to the Abbey of Le Bec in the Central Middle Ages (11th–13th Centuries)

This Companion to the Abbey of Le Bec in the Central Middle Ages (11th-13th Centuries) offers the first major collection of studies dedicated to the medieval abbey of Le Bec, one of the most important, and perhaps the single most influential, monastery in the Anglo-Norman world. Following its foundation in 1034 by a knight-turned-hermit called Herluin, Le Bec soon developed into a religious, cultural and intellectual hub whose influence extended throughout Normandy and beyond. The fourteen chapters gathered in this Companion are written by internationally renowned experts of Anglo-Norman studies, and together they address the history of this important medieval institution in its many exciting facets. The broad range of scholarly perspectives combined in this volume includes historical and religious studies, prosopography and biography, palaeography and codicology, studies of space and identity, as well as theology and medicine.
Contributors are Richard Allen, Elma Brenner, Laura Cleaver, Jean-Hervé Foulon, Giles E.M. Gasper, Laura L. Gathagan, Véronique Gazeau, Leonie V. Hicks, Elizabeth Kuhl, Benjamin Pohl, Julie Potter, Elisabeth van Houts, Steven Vanderputten, Sally N. Vaughn, and Jenny Weston.

Benjamin Pohl, Ph.D, is Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Bristol. He has published widely on Anglo-Norman history, manuscript studies, monastic culture, and cultural memory, including his monograph Dudo of Saint-Quentin’s Historia Normannorum: Tradition, Innovation and Memory (2015).
Laura L. Gathagan, Ph.D, is Associate Professor of History at SUNY Cortland. She is editor of the Haskins Society Journal and publishes on Anglo-Norman queenship, female lordship, and gender, including her recent chapter in Virtuous or Villainess? The Image of the Royal Mother from the Early Medieval to the Early Modern Era (2016).