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lace terminals and a strikingly old-fashioned lion-mask clasp, looking back to Anglo-Norman
motifs. It is thus comparable to the equally old-fashioned work in the almost-contemporary,
Rievaulx Chrysologus (now BL, MS Royal 8 D XXII). The latter has been explained as the
result of the use of an Anglo-Norman, Durham exemplar for the production of the Rievaulx
copy; that Durham initial styles lie behind the initials in the Sawley manuscript seems equally
likely.51 Throughout f. 87e165 are initials which use the repertoire shared by Durham, Foun-
tains, Rievaulx (and probably York). That is, they combine split-petals and split-wedges with
clusters of short-stemmed berries, and they divide up the stems of letters by the use of scallop-
ing and cable-patterns left in plain vellum. They also use the shared, restricted palette, as seen
already in Stowe 62; but here with the use of bistre shading, something which, amongst these
manuscripts, is largely restricted to the products of Durham and Fountains.52
This analysis has, firstly, emphasised once again how close were the connections between
Durham, the Cistercians and the Yorkshire Augustinians, in both their book-production and
their scholarship. It has secondly shown that the volumes here analysed, and their wide dis-
tribution amongst the Northumbrian houses, strongly suggest a shared concern for the estab-
lishment and dissemination of the truth about the history of the English. Individual houses
brought in their own selections of additional material, apparently including the historical
works of their own members. But the theme on which the greatest textual detective-work
was expended is that of the history of the English . The arrival of the Angles and Saxons
in Britain, and their defeat of the British, are repeatedly placed in the context of, and even
at the centre of, an encyclopaedic reconstruction of world history and geography. Strikingly
illuminated tables emphasise the kingdoms which they created, and the generations of their
rulers, as listed by William of Newburgh; and they are even given their place in the descent
from Noah and his sons. Just how advanced some of this scholarship was, is demonstrated
by the fact that the Mappa mundi illumination on f. 1v of the Sawley volume is related to
the considerably later Hereford World Map.53 Equally, the presence of Book One of Gildas
work in the Sawley volume bears out William of Newburgh s belief that he had access to
that work as used by Bede; whilst the same volume could also support his assertions in
relation to ancient kingdoms, rulers and their conquests, and recorded giants (and their lo-
cations). Knowledge of Geoffrey of Monmouth s Prophecies of Merlin is demonstrated in
the Liège/Kirkstall manuscript, where that work is juxtaposed with this English view of
history. Even William s arguments as to Geoffrey s erroneous account of the presence, num-
ber and location of archbishops in Britain and northern Europe before the arrival of Augus-
tine could be helped, not only by the shared lists of episcopal and archiepiscopal sees and
their rulers, but also by the work of Gilbert of Limerick on the structure and hierarchy of
the Church, included in two of these collections and emphasised by large, illuminated
diagrams.
51
For the Chrysologus comparison see A. Lawrence-Mathers, The artistic influence of Durham manuscripts , in:
Rollason et al, Anglo-Norman Durham, ed. Rollason, Harvey and Prestwich, 451e69 and plates 87 and 88.
52
See note 49.
53
See D.A. Harvey, The Sawley map and other world maps in twelfth-century England , Imago Mundi, 49 (1997),
33e42.
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A. Lawrence-Mathers / Journal of Medieval History 33 (2007) 339e357 353
However, whilst these manuscripts support the arguments of William of Newburgh and the
view of English history set out in his Prologue, it is clear, not least from the dates of the Liège/
Kirkstall volume and of the revisions to B II 35, that the careful research and calculations which
they represent began considerably before William undertook to write his Historia for the abbot
of Rievaulx in the 1190s. This raises the issue of how such an ambitious historical project was
first undertaken. Norton, whilst strongly emphasising the sophistication of the Sawley book,
stressed its embodiment of a monastic outlook and suggested that it may have been produced by
the Durham community as a weapon in their struggle against Bishop William of le Puiset.54
Clearly, a project as wide-ranging as the one outlined here could be used in a number of con-
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