Turbulent Priests
A research blog by Charles West (Department of History, Sheffield)
Latest posts
20 September 2022
Around 1025, Burchard, the bishop of the Rhineland city of Worms, wrote a text known as the ‘Law of the dependants of the church of Worms’ (Lex familiae Wormatiensis ecclesiae). The text sets out 32 regulations for the people living under the church’s control (Latin: familia).
18 January 2021
A draft translation of a prayer for driving away a storm (or a ‘Wettersegen’ in German), from a tenth-century manuscript described as the ‘pastoral handbook’ of Bishop Abraham of Freising (d. 994).
18 November 2020
Here’s a ‘research postcard’ hastily written amidst the turmoil of term-time – some early reflections on a topic I’m hoping to work on more in future, prompted by the opportunity to present at a department seminar on the theme of intellectual plurality.
21 September 2020
At some point in the mid-ninth century an auxiliary bishop called Osbald had a serious problem with a turbulent priest in Carantania. Osbald was told to investigate whether or not this priest was responsible for the death of a deacon. We don’t know the outcome, but a look now at this very, very cold case is revealing about justice and clerics in the early Middle Ages.