Norman Anonymous Explained

The Norman Anonymous (sometimes Anonymous of Rouen or Anonymous of York) is the name given to the author of a collection of treatises, the Tractatus Eboracenses, dealing with the relationship between kings and the Catholic Church, written c. 1100.^[1] The author, whose identity remains a mystery, offered some of the most strongly worded defences of royal authority and even superiority to the Catholic Church ever uttered in the medieval West. Surviving in just a single manuscript, the text is the only contribution made by the Anglo-Norman realm to the Investiture Controversy.

See also

• Dominium mundi
• A Dispute Between a Priest and a Knight
• Proverbia Grecorum

Further reading

• The Norman Anonymous is available in a facsimile edition, Der Codex 415 des Corpus Christi College Cambridge : Facs.-Ausg. d. Textüberlieferung d. Normannischen Anonymus ed. Karl Pellens (1977)
• Sections are available in English translation in English Historical Documents II, ed. Douglas, pp. 675–8.
• George Huntston Williams, The Norman Anonymous of 1100 AD: Towards the Identification and Evaluation of the so-called Anonymous of York, Harvard Theological Studies, xvii (1951)
• K. Pellens, 'The tracts of the Norman Anonymous: Corpus Christi College Cambridge Ms. 415',. Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society (1965)

External links

• Web site: Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 415: The Norman Anonymous . parker.stanford.edu . Parker Library on the Web . 18 August 2022. (Tractatus Eboracensis online)
• A digital edition of the text, including facsimiles

Notes and References

1. G. Williams, The Norman Anonymous of 1100 AD: Towards the Identification and Evaluation of the so-called Anonymous of York, Harvard Theological Studies, xvii (1951).