A Tale of Two Monasteries: Westminster and Saint-Denis in the Thirteenth CenturyA Tale of Two Monasteries takes an unprecedented look at one of the great rivalries of the Middle Ages and offers it as a revealing lens through which to view the intertwined histories of medieval England and France. This is the first book to systematically compare Westminster Abbey and the abbey of Saint-Denis--two of the most important ecclesiastical institutions of the thirteenth century--and to do so through the lives and competing careers of the two men who ruled them, Richard de Ware of Westminster and Mathieu de Vendôme of Saint-Denis. |
Contents
England and France in the Early Thirteenth Century | 1 |
Two Great Monasteries and Two Young Men | 25 |
The Treaty of Paris | 49 |
The Best of Times the Worst of Times | 66 |
A Monumental Rivalry | 100 |
Two Royal Successions | 130 |
The Abbeys in the New Regimes | 159 |
Diplomacy and Governance | 182 |
Epilogue | 216 |
223 | |
243 | |