Regularis Concordia (Winchester)

King Edgar seated between St Æthelwold and St Dunstan. From an eleventh-century manuscript of the Regularis Concordia (British Library, Cotton, Tiberius A III, f2v).[1]

The Regularis Concordia was the most important document of the English Benedictine Reform, sanctioned by the Council of Winchester in about 973.[2]

The document was compiled by Æthelwold, who was aided by monks from Fleury and Ghent. A synodal council was summoned to construct a common rule of life to be observed by all monasteries. The document served as a rule for how monastic life should be performed and included monastic rituals like the procedure for the election of bishops that differed from Continental practice, and which led to a predominantly monastic episcopacy.[3]

  1. ^ Cannon, John; Ralph Griffiths (1997). The Oxford Illustrated History of the British Monarchy. Oxford University Press. p. 25. ISBN 0-19-822786-8.
  2. ^ Kornexl, Lucia (2014). "Regularis Concordia". In Lapidge, Michael; et al. (eds.). The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England (2nd ed.). Wiley Blackwell. pp. 399–400. ISBN 978-0-631-22492-1.
  3. ^ Blair, Peter Hunter (1960). An Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England. Cambridge University Press. p. 178.