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August 2014

Thomas of Monmouth, The Life and Passion of William of Norwich, trans. with an introduction by Miri Rubin London: Penguin, 2014.

Book: Paperback | 129 x 198mm | 300 pages | ISBN 9780141197487 | 28 Aug 2014 | Penguin Classics        
    
A fascinating surviving chronicle from 12th-century England which holds a unique and terrible place in the history of anti-Semitism The Life and Passion of William of Norwich gives a remarkable insight into life in a medieval cathedral city, brilliantly capturing the everyday concerns of ordinary people and focussing on the miraculous cures carried out at a shrine. But this was no ordinary shrine; fervent worshippers gathered around the burial-place where they believed that a boy was buried, a boy murdered by the Jews of Norwich. A chilling, highly significant document, The Life and Passion of William of Norwich is, as far as we know, the earliest version of what was to become the 'blood libel' which has haunted Europe ever since. Miri Rubin both superbly translates the book and in her introduction interprets the sequence of events that led to the monk Thomas of Monmouth's appalling narrative. The consequences of his fantasies have been incalculable.


April 2010

Between Magna Carta and the Parliamentary State: The fine rolls of King Henry III 1216–1272 and the project.

A fine in the reign of King Henry III (1216–1272) was an agreement to pay the king a sum of money for a specified concession. The rolls on which the fines were recorded provide the earliest systematic evidence of what people and institutions across society wanted from the king and he was prepared to give. They open a large window onto the politics, government, economy and society of England in the hinge period between the establishment of Magna Carta at the start of Henry’s reign and the parliamentary state which was emerging at its end.

February 2010: Crucifixion and Conversion: King Henry III and the Jews in 1255: Part 2
(David Carpenter)

January 2010: Crucifixion and Conversion: King Henry III and the Jews in 1255: Part 1
(David Carpenter)

 

March 2010

A recently published article of interest:

Denise L Despres, 'Adolescence and Sanctity: The Life and Passion of William of Norwich', Journal of Religion (January 2010), pp.33-62.


October 2009

The story of William of Norwich inspires Anne Rice to write Angel Time.

 

September 2009

Workshop I is discussed in the University of East Anglia's September 2009 issue of Broadview. Click here to read the article.