The Normans in Southern Italy: A Christian mission?

The Normans, who were Latin Christians, found that the peoples of Sicily and Southern Italy were just as divided religiously as they were politically. Sizable Jewish communities were scattered throughout the region.[1] The Sicilian emirates, especially the thriving metropolis of Palermo, were located at the centre of the vast Muslim community that dominated the Mediterranean from Spain to the Levant. The Muslim inhabitants of the island were thus tightly linked to the vast world of Islam. Even though their overlords were Muslims, the Greeks in Sicily were not forced to convert and instead managed to maintain their religious identity.[2] The Greek Christians in Sicily and on the mainland adhered to the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople and so practiced their religion according to the Greek tradition.[3] The Lombards on the mainland followed the rites as they were practiced in Latin Christendom and looked to the Popes of Rome for ecclesiastical guidance. Affirming the primacy of the See of St. Peter, the Popes dreamed of forcing the Greek Christians of Sicily and Southern Italy to acknowledge their hegemony and conform to the standards of Latin Christianity.[4]

The Normans would take advantage of this situation, since their conquest of the region could appear along the lines of a war fought on behalf of the Papacy in order to restore Muslim Sicily to the Christian world, and to compel the Greek Christians to recognise the supremacy of the Roman Pontiff[5]. This holy war was completed between 1059 and 1091. Roger II subsequently merged the Norman principalities into the Kingdom of Sicily in 1130.  In each case the Norman rulers had to receive the titles of legitimate prince, duke, count, or king by Papal investiture, obtained through vassalage to the Papacy that gave the Normans credibility in the eyes of their Norman followers, their subjects and their opponents. This would also, however, invoke the resentment of the Eastern and Western Emperors, both of whom claimed to be the true lords of Sicily and Southern Italy. This benefited the Popes because the Normans became their protectors at a time when the Papacy was on increasingly unpleasant terms with their traditional guardians, the ‘Roman’ emperors. The Holy Roman Emperors in Germany wanted to appoint Popes rather than allow canonical Papal elections and the Byzantines refused to recognise the primacy of the Roman Pontiff over the Patriarchs of Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem. The Normans, meanwhile, were happy to take on the attractive and intensely chivalric image of warriors charged with defending the Vicar of St. Peter. In addition, the Normans would be able to spread their influence throughout the region by taking charge of the process of reforming the Greek churches along the lines of Latin Christendom and according to the directions of the Papacy. They had a justification for appointing their allies as bishops and abbots of the sees and monasteries which held lands and commanded authority there.

The Normans pleased the Papacy by making wise appointments and expanding the limits of Papal jurisdiction by extending the borders of Latin Christendom. In the Normans, the Popes gained powerful allies against the Germans. They needed the protection of the Normans, who promised to secure Papal elections and prevent the German Emperors from installing their own appointees to the See of St. Peter.[6] The Normans throughout all their adventures in the eleventh century proved to be very successful in forging an alliance with the Papacy that was beneficial to both sides.  Church approval made the Norman conquests of Sicily and Southern Italy legitimate. Even before Roger II created the Norman Kingdom of Sicily in 1130, Norman leaders in the South made use of ecclesiastical support. Once the adventurers started in the eleventh century to carve out smaller lordships for themselves in the region, they inevitably sought to affirm their power over their territory and its inhabitants by winning approval and legitimate titles of office from the Church. Without this legitimisation, the Normans would have seemed on a par with barbarian invaders, such as their Viking ancestors who raided northern France before King Charles the Simple enfeoffed Rollo with the Duchy of Normandy in 911.[7]

Approval of Norman expeditions in Italy and Sicily was all the more potent because it most often came directly from the Pope himself. This had to do not only with the Papal territories’ geographic proximity to the Normans’ conquests, but also with the fact that the Normans were perceived by the Pope as reclaiming for Latin Christendom lands held previously by the Greek Church and the Muslims. The Pope thus had a vested interest in the Normans’ expansion: when the Normans, who were Latin Christians, stretched their influence over Sicily and Southern Italy, the area over which the Pope and the Western Christian Church could hope to command authority over religious affairs increased.  Furthermore, the Papacy in these years was trying to break free from the control of the German Emperors, who wanted to keep their customary right to appoint Popes; they did not want to comply with the Papal Election Decree issued by the reforming Pope Nicholas II in 1059, which stated that the Cardinal Bishops ought to elect each new Pope.[8] The Popes needed political and military protection from the Western Emperors, and they saw that their best hope lay with the fearsome Normans who had by the mid-eleventh century become the most dominant force in Southern Italy.

It took a long time for the Normans to transform themselves into papally approved rulers from the professional mercenaries and pirates they were upon their arrival in Italy at the beginning of the eleventh century. The bandits committed many a sacrilege, for not even pilgrims traveling through the peninsula on their way to the Holy Land or the shrine of St. Michael at Monte Gargano were safe. According to Ordericus Vitalis, an English monk who lived in the abbey of St. Evroul in Normandy, the sons of Tancred de Hauteville, who became the most famous of the Normans in the South, at first used to surreptitiously disguise themselves as pilgrims to avoid capture.[9] In fact, the Normans became so hated by the inhabitants of Italy for the way they ruthlessly plundered and pillaged throughout the country that they induced the retaliation of the Pope himself.[10] Leo IX could no longer tolerate their violence against his flock and their encroachment on Papal lands, and so he organised and led an army against them. At the battle of Civitate on 23^rd June 1053, Leo’s troops, who came from the Holy Roman Empire and the Lombard principalities (even the Byzantine Emperor had promised his assistance, but the Greek army did not arrive in time for the fight), confronted the Norman warriors Humphrey de Hauteville, his younger brother Robert Guiscard, and their brother-in-law Richard of Aversa. The expedition failed, however. The Normans defeated Leo and held him in honorable captivity in Benevento until his death on 19^th April 1054.[11] This episode indicates that the Normans’ desire for conquest seems to have outweighed their inclination to defer to the Papacy with regard to secular concerns. That the Normans did not back down from a declaration of Holy War upon them by the Vicar of Saint Peter shows the extent of their ambition, audacity, and unwillingness to yield to the Papacy control over the way they handled their temporal affairs.[12]

The Normans were not entirely irreverent of the Pope. They had tried to avoid fighting with the Vicar of Christ and they begged his forgiveness after they defeated his army. According to Amatus of Montecassino, a monk who between 1075 and 1080 provides a contemporary account of the Norman conquests in his L’Ystoire de li Normant, the Normans treated the vanquished Pontiff with humility and respect: “The Pope was afraid and the clerics trembled. And the victorious Normans gave him hope, and offered the Pope safe conduct, and they took him and all his people to Benevento, and they continually gave him bread and wine and everything necessary.”[13]  Six years later, they again showed that they could indeed respect the Papacy’s spiritual authority demonstrating that their ambitions could also have a religious side. At a synod held at Melfi in 1059, Pope Nicholas II sought the Normans as allies. He was a reformer and needed help in defending his claim to the Papal tiara from the antipope Benedict X, who represented the old-guard of the Roman aristocratic families. Emperor Henry III had recently passed away, leaving the throne to his son Henry IV. The new German King (he could only become the actual Holy Roman Emperor by receiving consecration at the hands of the Pope) was only five years old at the time, so Nicholas could not look for help from him.[14] The Papacy had bitterly resented the Byzantine Emperor ever since he had failed to help them at Civitate; moreover, the Eastern and Western Churches had been in an official state of schism since 1054.[15]

Because Nicholas could not look to either Emperor for help in securing his election, and also because he recognised that the Papacy could no longer afford to have the Normans as enemies, he sought an alliance with them. This alliance was embodied in Richard of Aversa’s and Robert Guiscard’s submission to the Pope and agreement to become his vassals. Once they had proven themselves to be the most powerful military force in Italy, the Normans realised that they could make the fruits of their conquests permanent and legitimate by yielding to the Pope’s sovereignty. Robert promised, “I will support the Holy Roman Church in holding and acquiring the temporalities and possessions of St. Peter everywhere and against all men, and I will help you hold the Roman papacy securely and honorably.”[16] Robert swore, moreover, to safeguard Papal elections and make sure that no one challenged the properly elected Pope. This facet of the agreement shows that the Papacy wanted to use the Normans to gain a measure of independence from the German Emperors. The paradox is obvious. The reform Papacy wanted freedom from lay intervention in ecclesiastical matters but it needed lay protection from the Normans in order to preserve this freedom. Nicholas did not want the Emperors to be able to appoint Popes, and instead he wanted the terms of his decree on canonical Papal elections to be enforced. This decree, which Nicholas also issued in 1059, stated that only the consent of “the cardinal bishops…the other cardinal clergy, and then the rest of the clergy and the people” could determine who would become Pope.[17] The Normans assumed the grave responsibility of protecting the sanctity of Papal elections, and, as a result they became champions of the reform movement which aimed to free the Church from the control of laymen.  In exchange for this support, Nicholas proclaimed Richard Prince of Capua and Robert “Duke of Apulia and Calabria by the grace of God and of St. Peter; and, with their help in the future, Duke of Sicily.”[18] The Normans were no longer brigands, pirates, and mercenaries, but instead they were established European rulers, “by the grace of God and of St. Peter.” Beyond this, even, they had entered into an agreement with Nicholas similar to the one between Popes Zachary and Stephen II and the Frankish King Pepin the Short in 754, and the one between Pepin’s son Charlemagne and Pope Leo III in 800.[19] Now it was the Normans who had become guardians of the Papacy and they subsumed the role of the Frankish Kings and Holy Roman Emperors.

In practical terms, Richard and Robert held secular power over the Pope, since he was compelled to look to them for protection. But the agreement also implies that the Normans had a practical need to be Nicholas’ vassals. It was essential for the Normans that he confers these titles upon them in order to carry out their political ambitions, tighten their claims to power and provides them with prestige and recognition. They acknowledged that Nicholas held spiritual authority over them, since he was the source of their legitimacy. At this time, ecclesiastical reformers such as Nicholas were asserting more and more the principle of divine hierarchy: it was God’s will that spiritual authority be superior to secular authority. In order to be legitimate, secular authority needed to conform to this divinely ordained hierarchical ordering of Christian society, and so secular authority needed the approval and mediation of spiritual authority.[20] The Normans were willing to subscribe to this philosophy of Papal theocracy in exchange for the elevated status the Papacy could offer. They saw, as had Pepin the Short, Charlemagne, and their successors, that the promise of service and obedience was a fair trade for Papal endorsement, which could guarantee they would not have to resort to incessant warfare in order to stabilise their reign and keep their subjects obedient.

Richard upheld his obligations by making sure that Nicholas’ elected successor, Alexander II, was firmly established at Rome in 1061. William de Montreuil, another knight who traveled from Normandy to make his career in Italy, fought in Campania on behalf of Alexander.[21] Consequently, Alexander was very supportive of the Normans throughout his reign. He blessed Robert Guiscard and his younger brother Roger and gave them a Papal banner for their campaign against the Muslims of Sicily in 1061-2.[22] Most famously, he responded to William the Conqueror’s appeal for Papal endorsement of his invasion of England by sending him, as William of Poitiers says, “the gift of a banner as a pledge of the support of St. Peter whereby he might the more confidently and safely attack his enemy.”[23] The Normans had become legitimate rulers, protectors of the Papacy and holy warriors fighting under the aegis of St. Peter.

It is clear, however, that Robert Guiscard did not believe that the provisions of his oath to Nicholas II meant that he had to heed to the Papacy in every matter. He did not relinquish his Viking heritage when he became Duke of Apulia. In subsequent years, he showed very little regard for the wishes of the Pope. Despite two sentences of excommunication from Pope Gregory VII between 1074 and 1080, he went ahead and conquered the Pope’s allies, Amalfi in 1073 and Salerno in 1077, and in 1078 he besieged Benevento, which was technically the property of the Papacy. Gregory eventually came to realise that there was no use in opposing such a powerful individual and that the Papacy could have much more to gain from an alliance with him. Moreover, King Henry IV of Germany, Gregory’s opponent in the famous controversy over lay investiture, was threatening to invade Rome, depose Gregory, and appoint his own Pope. Gregory was in dire need of military protection, and so in 1080 he reaffirmed the pact Robert had made with Nicholas II in 1059. Robert again swore to be “the vassal [fidelis] of the Holy Roman Church and of the Apostolic See and of you, my lord Gregory, universal pope.” He promised to pay tribute and protect Papal elections, revenues, and property. He also promised to hand over to Rome the government of all churches and church possessions within his territory, and he promised to stop raiding and pillaging Papal lands. In return he received Gregory’s formal investiture “with the lands granted to you by my predecessors of blessed memory, Nicholas [II] and Alexander [II],” as well as his acquiescence on the issue of Robert’s possession of Salerno and Amalfi.[24] Shortly thereafter, Gregory also blessed Robert’s invasion of the Byzantine Empire.[25]

Gregory would make use of this agreement in 1082, when Henry IV attacked and occupied part of Rome, forcing the Pope to barricade himself behind the walls of his fortress, Castel Sant’ Angelo. Gregory appealed to Robert Guiscard for help, who was at the time on the other side of the Adriatic, marching steadily through the Balkans on his way to Constantinople. Robert had returned to Apulia and was in the process of organising his army to come to Gregory’s rescue, when the Romans surrendered to and allied themselves with Henry in 1084. After this occurred, Henry had just enough time for his anti-Pope, Clement III, to crown him Holy Roman Emperor before Robert at last began approaching with his forces. Clement and Henry with his army fled north before Robert arrived, but the Romans remained true to their agreement with the Germans and held out against the Normans. When the Guiscard finally forced his entry past the city walls, he plundered and burned the Holy City and enslaved many of its citizens. In his and Gregory’s eyes, the Romans were not entitled to any clemency for betraying the Pope; but such a ruination of the Eternal City and the See of St. Peter is difficult to justify. The savagery of Pope Gregory’s Norman vassals, which recalled the sack of Rome by the barbarian Visigoths in 410 and the Arabs in 846 (Robert in fact employed Arabs in his army), earned them and Gregory himself the hatred of the Romans. Robert decided to withdraw and escort Gregory under his protection to Benevento, where the exiled Pope died a year later.[26]

From this point on, Norman protection of the Papacy, and even Papal dependence on the Normans, was an established fact. In 1086, Prince Richard of Capua’s son and successor, Jordan, installed the canonically elected Pope Victor III at Rome, in the face of opposition from Henry IV’s anti-Pope, Clement III. Robert Guiscard’s sons Roger Borsa (who succeeded him as Duke of Apulia) and Bohemund did the same for Pope Urban II in 1087.[27] The alliance between the Normans and the Papacy seems to have been strongest at this point, when a legacy of Papal service and vassalage had been established. Having quelled opposition in Southern Italy, the Normans were happy to undertake the duty of defending the Supreme Pontiff, probably because of the distinction and heroic image such a responsibility conveyed. Both the Normans and the Papacy enjoyed mutual benefits from this alliance, since it furnished the Papacy with security and the Normans with the same prestige the Holy Roman Emperors had enjoyed when they had been the official Papal protectors. Indeed, it was an alliance the Papacy could not do without, since the Normans’ military protection had become such an indispensable asset against the German King’s aggression; the Normans, meanwhile, gained respectability and unquestioned authority to supplement their military strength.

The Papacy was in very many ways just like any other player in the secular politics of Medieval Europe: it had its own territory to look after and independence to protect. Evidence of this is apparent in the Papacy’s relationship with the Normans. Neither the Papacy nor the Norman leaders shied away from making war on each other, and the Papacy repeatedly found itself in the position of granting concessions to the Normans in order to protect its own safety; moreover, the Popes had clearly political motives for forging an alliance with the Normans, since they wanted to ward off Henry IV’s attempts at ousting them from the Papal throne. It is tempting, then, to liken this relationship to those between all the other Medieval European feudal powers.  But the fact that the Normans so consistently sought out and made use of pretentious Papal blessings and confirmations of their political rights shows that they, their subjects and their competitors placed great value in Papal support. The way the Normans treated Popes as secular rulers was separate from the way they treated Popes as religious authorities. The Normans proved by their actions that they were in persistent need of protection from the Papacy as a religious institution, even though they had no trouble in subjugating their enemies and subjecting other secular magnates to their authority. In this period, it is impossible to underestimate the importance of religion. Rulers yearned to number the support of the Church among their resources as much as they yearned for a strong military and rich treasury. Medieval European society was marked by almost perpetual warfare, and rulers’ authority was constantly challenged from every angle; thus it was natural for them to solicit whatever aid holy men could offer, and to employ non-military means of maintaining their subjects’ obedience and loyalty whenever possible. The Normans were no exception; and since even the Papacy was vulnerable to challenges and attacks (not least from the Normans themselves), it was natural for it to look to strong secular rulers like the Normans for political and military aid.

---

[1] Donald Matthew, The Norman Kingdom of Sicily, Cambridge University Press, 1992, pages 92f.

[2] Aziz Ahmad, A History of Islamic Sicily, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1975, page 22.

[3] Donald Matthew, The Norman Kingdom of Sicily, Cambridge University Press, 1992, pages 93-97.

[4] Donald Matthew, The Norman Kingdom of Sicily, Cambridge University Press, 1992, page 13f.

[5] This was certainly the view of contemporaries like Geoffrey Malaterra in his biography of Roger I of Sicily.

[6] David C. Douglas, The Norman Achievement, 1050-1100, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1969, pages 53-56.

[7] Dudo of St. Quentin 2.25.165-2.29.169: translated E. Christiansen pages 46-50.

[8] Decree on papal election (April 1059), ed. E. Friedburg, Corpus Iuris Canonici, volume I, Leipzig, 1879, columns 77-79: translated in Tierney pages 42f.

[9] Ordericus Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History of England and Normandy, translated in four volumes by Thomas Forester, New York: AMS Press, 1968, 3.5 (volume 1, page 437 of the translation).

[10] John Julius Norwich, The Normans in Sicily, Penguin Books, 1992, pages 81f.

[11] David C. Douglas, The Norman Achievement, 1050-1100, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1969, pages 99f. John Julius Norwich, The Normans in Sicily, Penguin Books, 1992, page 95.

[12] John Julius Norwich, The Normans in Sicily, Penguin Books, 1992, page 7.

[13] Aime, Moine du Mont-Cassin, L’Ystoire de li Normant, ed. M. Champollion-Figeac, Paris: Societe de l’Histoire de France, 1835, 3.38. John Julius Norwich, The Normans in Sicily, Penguin Books, 1992, pages 91-94.

[14] John Julius Norwich, The Normans in Sicily, Penguin Books, 1992, page 120.

[15] George Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State, translated Joan Hussey, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1995, pages 334-337. In that year, Cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida, Leo IX’s papal legate, and Michael Cerularius, the Patriarch of Constantinople, had met in Constantinople to discuss various issues, especially that of Papal primacy over the four other Patriarchal Sees, upon which the Latin Christians and the Greek Christians disagreed. The meeting ended in disaster as Humbert and Michael each threw excommunications at the other.

[16] Oath of Robert Guiscard to Pope Nicholas II (August 1059): P Fabre and L. Duchesne (eds.), Le Liber Censuum de l’eglise romaine, Paris, 1910, page 422: translated in B. Tierney The Crisis of Church and State: 1050-1300, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988, page 44.

[17] Decree on papal election (April 1059): translated in B. Tierney  The Crisis of Church and State: 1050-1300, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988, page 42f.

[18] Oath of Robert Guiscard to Pope Nicholas II (August 1059): translated in B. Tierney The Crisis of Church and State: 1050-1300, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988, page 44.

[19] B. Tierney, The Crisis of Church and State: 1050-1300, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988, pages 16-23. When barbarian invasions pushed the authority of the Eastern Roman Empire out of Italy, and the Greeks’ heresy of Iconoclasm alienated Eastern Christians from Western Christians, the Papacy looked to the Franks for protection. Zachary authorised the coronation of Pepin, who then donated the cities he conquered from the Lombards and the Greeks in Italy to Stephen. Charlemagne went to Rome to protect Pope Leo from the attacks of a dissident faction, and Leo subsequently crowned him Holy Roman Emperor.

[20] Humbert on priesthood and kingship, Libri II Adversus Simoniacos (1054-1058), F. Thaner, (ed.), Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Libelli de Lite, volume I, Hanover, 1891, page 225: translated in B. Tierney The Crisis of Church and State: 1050-1300, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988, page 41f. Also see The Dictatus Papae (March 1075), translated S. Z. Ehler and J. B. Morrall Church and State Through the Centuries, London, 1954, pages 43f, reprinted in Tierney, pages 49f.

[21] Ordericus Vitalis 3.3, translated Forester volume 1, page 413.

[22] David C. Douglas, The Norman Achievement, 1050-1100, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1969, pages 102, 133.

[23] William of Poitiers, The Deeds of William, Duke of the Normans and King of the English (c. 1071), translated David C. Douglas and George W. Greenaway, English Historical Documents II, 1042-1189, New York: Oxford University Press, 1981, page 233.

[24] Letters 8.1(a), (b), and (c) in The Correspondence of Pope Gregory VII: Selected Letters from the Registrum, translated Ephraim Emerton, New York: Columbia University Press, 1990.

[25] David C. Douglas, The Norman Achievement, 1050-1100, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1969, page 102.

[26] John Julius Norwich, The Normans in Sicily, Penguin Books, 1992, pages 234-243.

[27] David C. Douglas, The Norman Achievement, 1050-1100, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1969, page 135.

Sources for Chartism: Chartist Women 3

Chartism and temperance

Source 7: ‘Address of the East London Female Total Abstinence Association’, The Northern Star, 30^th January 1842, page 1

Sisters and Countrywomen,

The age in which we live is perhaps the most remarkable and important page in the world’s history. We see multitudes anxiously searching for the fountain of knowledge. The light of the glorious sun of truth is dispelling the clouds of superstition and the mists of error, from the human mind. Almost incredible improvements are making in the arts and sciences: the bountiful Author of all good showers down his blessing, and causes the earth to bring forth abundantly; yet, strange to relate, amidst all this prosperity, at no period of time was society in a more unhappy and miserable condition. Starving people and plenteous harvests; the markets glutted with provisions, warehouses with clothing; with an industrious, hungry and naked working population. The principal causes which have produced this sad state are three in number - namely, selfishness, competition and ignorance. Our rulers have legislated, and still continue to legislate, unjustly. They derive the principal of their revenue from the necessaries of life, and the vices of the people. Parliamentary documents will prove, that the duty on malt, spirits, wine and tobacco, comprise the greater portion of this revenue. Add to this the taxes on food, &c, and it will be found that three fourths of the revenue is derived from these two sources. Our clergy preach contentment and passive obedience to the toiling and care worn hungry mechanics and labourers while a numerous standing army of red and blue-coated soldiers are ready, at the bidding of their officers, to enforce submission to arbitrary laws, with the bayonet and truncheon. The only practicable means to remedy the evil under which we labour, and renovate society, is to abandon the use of all intoxicating drinks, to become a thinking and strictly moral people, and acquire sound political knowledge. It is necessary to abstain from all strong drinks -

1st. Because the most valuable medical testimony, and individual experience, prove them to be highly injurious to health; and their certain effects are likewise to demoralise and destroy the power and energies of the mind.

2nd. It is necessary to abstain as an example to our husbands and children; for how can we expect our offspring to be sober, virtuous, and dutiful, if we do not influence them by our good conduct. Dear sisters, remember it is at the fire side, on the domestic hearth, in the social circle, at home, when the first relish for these insidious drinks is imbibed. It is the first treacherous glass of friendship, the sip from the mother’s hand that sows the seed of future drunkenness.

3rd. It is necessary to abstain, because that portion of hard-earned wages which is now squandered away at the pot house and gin palace would enable us to secure a sound and proper education for our children, in accordance with our views and feelings. We should no longer submit to our children wearing the garb of charity, and the degrading policy number badge of slavery. Only think of the working man's sons and daughters being ticketed, like prize sheep! Depend upon this fact, the charity and policy badge of national schools, is the remnant of the ancient Saxon serf’s collar. Why should our feelings be wounded by seeing the finger of scorn pointed at our children, and the sad appellation of ‘charity brat’ applied to them? A well-regulated mind disdains servility and cringing. Let us reject their Church and State offers of education for our children, which is only calculated to debase the mind, and render it subservient to class interest; let us teach our offspring to do unto others as they would others should do unto them.

4th. We can abstain from all intoxicating drinks with safety and benefit, even at those critical times when they have hitherto been considered most needful and indispensably necessary. Some of us have proved it by practical experience, therefore you may safely rely upon our testimony.

Sisters, we have hitherto been considered inferior to men in powers of intellect, and truly the want of proper education has made us appear so; but we much doubt whether this would have been the case had we possessed the same opportunities of acquiring a proper education which the other sex has enjoyed. Let us endeavour to remove this reproach, by embracing every opportunity of cultivating and improving our minds. We earnestly entreat you to this, that you might be able to impart a sound education to your offspring, and train their tender minds in the way of truth and virtue.

Be not discouraged at your want of ability and knowledge; close application and perseverance will achieve wonders. The one half of mankind acquires their knowledge under difficulties. Perhaps at a former period of time has the female character exhibited so much zeal, or displayed so much brilliancy of talent, as in the present day. The press teems with valuable writings the production of women. Remember, if we bestir ourselves in these matters, our husbands cannot keep behind for very shame; pride will stimulate them to excel us. Then how delightful will it be to see a generous strife between husband and wife, trying to excel each other in knowledge and morality.

Come then, sisters and countrywomen, unite with us in making a grand effort to ameliorate our condition and remove the plague spots - partial legislation and intemperance - from society. Unite with us to obtain the People’s Charter; let us form Total Abstinence Chartist Associations, without delay, in every town and village throughout the United Kingdom; nor cease agitating until our exertions are crowned with success. Let us never forget, that more than four hundred brave and honest men have been imprisoned by those very men who live on our hard earnings; and shall we still kiss the hand that is raised to destroy us? Never let it be said that we, who are the advocates of equal laws, are so dead to our own interest as to lead us to partake of those things that debase the mind and give strength to the enemy.

In conclusion, we implore you to remember the concluding words of the noble-minded Vincent’s Address on Total Abstinence, namely – ‘that no Government can long withstand the just claims of a people who have had the courage to conquer their own vices.’

We remain,

Sisters and Countrywomen,

Yours in the Cause of Universal Redemption,

THE MEMBERS OF THE EAST LONDON FEMALE TOTAL ABSTINENCE CHARTIST ASSOCIATION
Association Rooms, 166, Brick Lane

Spitalfields, London, January 25^th 1841.

Sources for Chartism: Women Chartists 2

Women and the family

Many of women’s activities within Chartism reflected their family roles. When they raised money for the cause, it was often for the families of imprisoned men. Many Chartist children were named for Chartist leaders: for lists see Chartist Ancestors. A tactic in which it was assumed that women had a special advantage was that of exclusive dealing. Some Female Chartist Associations pledged themselves to purchase only from shopkeepers with sympathy for their cause. Women also participated in the Chartist Land Plan, which aimed to ensure a plot of land for as many of its members as possible, appealing to the rural population as well as those in industrial areas. Over 1,800 women were listed as subscribers in their own right, though this was only around 4% of the whole. Many of these may have been acting on behalf of their families, hoping for a small plot of land to help the family economy, and many more would have participated through their husbands. 

Source 4: The Northern Star, 13^th March, 1841

Mr Webb: What is the child to be called?

Mrs King: James Feargus O’Connor King.

Mr Webb: Is your husband a Chartist?

Mrs King: I don’t know, but his wife is.

Mr Webb: Are you the child’s mother?

Mrs King: Yes.

Mr Webb: You had better go home and consider it again; for if the person that you are naming your child after and was to commit high treason and get hanged, what a thing it would be.

Mrs King: If that should be the case, I should then consider it an honour to have my child called after him, so that I shall never have him out of my memory so long as the child lives; for I think Feargus O’Connor a great deal honester man than those who are punishing him.

Mr Webb: Well, if you are determined to have it named after him, I must name it; but I never met such an obstinate lady as you before.

Mr Webb then registered the child by the above name.

Women and education

Chartist leaders saw women as above all the educators of their children. The commitment of mothers to the cause was essential for the creation of a changed world. It was their task to shape the character of the next generation. It could also mean of course a greater awareness of the importance of women’s own education, given their part as both mothers and as teachers in the upbringing of the young. Some Chartist men, like William Lovett, might believe that they themselves should act as the instructors of their wives, partly because of a sense that their wives were not their equals either in education or political commitment. Many leading women Chartists took up and developed this stress on education and were especially active in the organisation of Chartist cultural and social life. They founded and taught in Sunday Schools, actively backed Chartist Churches, and helped to develop temperance and teetotal Chartism. Some, like the woman who wrote in Chartist periodicals as Sophia, pointed out the conflict of interests which could arise if women pursued their own educational interests.

Source 5: W. E. Adams, Memoirs of a Social Atom, London: Hutchinson and Co., 1903, pages 163-164

Few men now living, I fancy, had an earlier introduction to Chartism than I had. My people, though there wasn't a man among them, were all Chartists, or at least all interested in the Chartist movement. If they did not keep the ‘sacred month’, it was because they thought the suspension of labour on the part of a few poor washerwomen would have no effect on the policy of the country. But they did for a time abstain from the use of excisable commodities. There were other indications of their tendencies. We had a dog called Rodney. My grandmother disliked that name because she had a curious sort of notion that Admiral Rodney, having been elevated to the peerage, had been hostile to the people. The old lady, too, was careful to explain to me that Cobbet and Cobden were two different persons - that Cobbet was the hero, and that Cobden was just a middle-class advocate. One of the pictures that I longest remember - it stood alongside samplers and stencilled drawings, and not far from a china statuette of George Washington - was a portrait of John Frost. A line at the top of the picture indicated that it belonged to a series called the Portrait Gallery of People’s Friends. Above the head was a laurel wreath, while below was a representation of Mr. Frost appealing to Justice on behalf of a group of ragged and wretched outcasts. I have been familiar with the picture since childhood, and cherish it as a memento of stirring times.

Source 6: Letter from ‘M’, English Chartist Circular, 1, number 25, 1841, page 102

It is a great truth that women hold in their hands the character, and consequently, the destiny of a nation. What they are themselves, such are their children. The influences which surround the first six years of the child determine its character for life. Interest or habit may afterwards induce an individual to act differently, but such actions will not be natural: the first six years has given the bias, and be it for good or evil, it is never eradicated. How culpable then are those who neglect the education of our first teachers. No nation ever appreciated the influence of the mother so much as did the Romans in the days of their greatness. We are told by Quintillian that as “soon as the child was born, he was not given in charge to an hired nurse, to live with her in some pitiful hole, that served her for lodgings, but was brought up in the lap and bosom of the mother who reckoned it among her chief commendations to keep the house, and attend on the children. Some ancient matron was pitched on out of the neighbours whose life and manners rendered her worthy of that office to whose care the children of every family were committed; before whom it was reckoned the most heinous thing in the world to speak an ill word, or do an ill action. Nor had she an eye only to their instruction and the business that they were to follow, but with an equal modesty and gravity, she regulated their divertissements and recreations. Thus Cornelia, Aurelia, and Attica, mothers to the Gracchi, Julius Caesar, and Augustus, are represented to have undertaken the offices of governess, and to have employed themselves in the education of noblemen’s children. The strictness and severity of such an institution had this very good design - that the mind, by being thus preserved in its premature innocence and integrity, and not debauched by ill custom, or ill example, might apply itself with the greatest willingness to liberal arts, and embrace them with all its powers and faculties” that, whether it was particularly inclined either to the profession of arms, or to the understanding of the law, or to the practice of eloquence, it might make that its only business, and greedily drink in the whole knowledge of the favourite study. “Now if the women of England had the knowledge the Roman matrons possessed, they might, if they came forward, win the charter sooner than the men” but have they? Is it not notorious that the wives of the working classes, take them as a body, are with the finest capacities, lost in ignorance. If the great body of the men are not much better in this particular, what is to be expected of the women who have fewer opportunities of improving themselves? What follows from this? Why that before they can come forward to aid us in a great political struggle, they must first be taught what they are to struggle for, and what kind of assistance is expected from them. This brings me to the plan I wish to propose: The wives and daughters of the Chartists must be made to understand their political and social rights; they must be made chartists of if we would have those over whom they have had an influence true and strong in the cause they have adopted. Now what method would be best of imparting to them the requisite instruction? Few, very few, venture to our rooms to hear us lecture, and unless; we have opportunities of instructing them they can never become intelligent converts to our cause. What then is to be done? I propose that the leader, the lecturer, or the council of every town in which there is a chartist branch, to select from the ladies who take an interest in the cause, a certain number who they may deem the most capable of imparting instruction, and after examining these ladies as to their capacity to teach, and knowledge of the principles they solicit them to go in their name to the wives, sisters and daughters, of chartists in given districts, with political pamphlets, chartist tracts and ENGLISH CHARTIST CIRCULARS; these publications to be lent to those who can read, and read and explained to those who cannot read. Their first object must be to gain their affections; next, to rouse their self esteem or sense of moral dignity; and lastly, by arguments, illustrations and catechisms, familiarly to inculcate the principles. I have always observed that women make the best preparatory teachers. This may be one reason why the Methodists and other religious bodies, sanction their enthusiastic female members in visiting the houses of their poorer brethren for the purpose of giving religious instruction. Be this as it may, the idea is excellent, and the practice is crowned with success. What has been turned to so good an account in the religious world may be equally capable in the political, if judiciously managed. I therefore throw the suggestion out to those who have it in their power to test its utility.

Bath, June 23, 1841. M. M - n.

Sources for Chartism: Women Chartists 1

Political action

In the first phase of Chartism, women were especially active in mass demonstrations and street activity. The cohesion built up in women’s campaigns against the New Poor Law and for the limitation of factory hours carried through into Chartism. In Bradford, for instance, women had agitated against the New Poor Law, and in August 1839 women radicals marched in procession through the streets, with banners at their head. Their membership included women working in the worsted mills, as well as the wives and daughters of male Chartists in other trades, and there was some overlap between their commitment to industrial action and to Chartism. Thousands of women attended mass meetings, Chartist processions. Women signed petitions and helped to gather names. In 1842, nearly 11,000 women in Merthyr Tydfil signed a petition for the reprieve of those who had been the leaders of the rising in Newport. And though women's participation is often thought to have died away after 1842, there was clearly still much continuing activity and a revival of female associations in the years 1847-50.

Source 1: ‘The Address of the Female Political Association of Nottingham to the Patriotic Women of England’, Northern Star, 8^th December 1838, page 6

Sisters and fellow countrywomen,

At a time like the present, when your important energies are required in aid of those measures in which our husbands, fathers, brothers, and children are now so actively and zealously engaged, headed by the first men and patriots of the day, using every exertion - every possible legal means in their power, towards the uprooting of that oppression and injustice which have so long characterised the legislative measures of this country, and laid its best interests prostrate at their feet, and sacrificed our industry, and that of our husbands, fathers and friends, at the shrine of misrule and extravagance , unprecedented in the annals of British legislation, and brought upon us those heart rending scenes of misery and woe, until the heart sickens in despair at the mere contemplation of such horrifying misery and uncalled for wretchedness of a people and nation proverbial for its industry and unceasing toil, the fruits and sweets of which are dashed from our lips by misrule and oppressive taxation, that others may revel in all the gaieties and luxuries of life; while, alas! millions upon millions of yourselves, husbands, children, are doomed from early life - from infancy to old age, scarcely to taste its common comforts, and to descend into the grave, sickened and wearied of an existence embittered to the last moment by cruelty, misrule and oppression, wickedly and basely called government; existing for no other purpose than the participating in the sweets derived from the long and arduous toil of the people. Yes, sisters, and fellow countrywomen, these are facts, or your situation would not have been what it is; you would not have beheld the tattered garments of your children, nor their poor pallid countenances, nor the care worn looks of your husbands, who, with their many hours of slavish toil, cannot provide food and raiment convenient for them to satisfy Nature’s cravings. Thus situated, what must be your feelings towards those who have had the base temerity, by the craftiness of their legislative measures, to bring you into this state of wretchedness, and your children to want. Sisters and women of England, much is yet in your power, to aid the great and holy cause now so gloriously spreading throughout the land. Aid your husbands, brothers, friends and children. Urge and demand, at their hands, the fulfillment of their duty in the great and holy cause of freedom and eternal justice. Let them know that the union of millions is strength and power, not to be resisted by tyrants. Urge upon them the necessity of throwing in their mite to the general and national fund, in order to give strength and power to those deputed by the people, to fight the great and glorious fight of freedom. Sisters and women of England, all this is in your power to perform, nay more; and we would feign draw your most serious attention to it, namely, from the immensity of public meetings and demonstrations taking place in every town, city and village throughout the kingdom, it cannot but be evident to you all, that a most important impression has been made upon the public mind, and of some of the middle classes too, that they are now beginning to manifest their doubts and fears; and yet, even with this before their eyes, they are fearful and cowardly enough still to keep aloof from the cause espoused by the people. In a short time they will be too late to be considered of the least importance; in fact, they must ever be considered in the light of false friends, and of no moment whatever to the people, only to be closely watched to prevent them doing mischief by their treachery to the common cause because they might be tempted to betray, for the sake of the shop - to gain the smiles of and custom of the Aristocracy, the great enemies of the liberties of the people. Much, sisters, is said of the important services of the middle class men who in the scale of number and intellect are very inferior indeed to the rough and hardy diamonds of the industrious classes, your husbands, sons &c , who if once called out to the field of honour and patriotism, as no doubt they very soon will be, the job - the affair will soon be terminated; we shall then see in whom and where the physical and intellectual powers are to be found, whether in the thousands or in the millions bent on justice &c, the former priding themselves on their importance behind their counters, with as little claim to your respect as possible, and who, if deserted by the working classes like yourselves, would very soon be under the necessity of changing their tones and closing their shops, in which so much miserable sycophancy is displayed, most contemptible in the eyes of the people. Under these considerations we respectfully suggest that the shopocracy be left to their fate, and that no persons are so well qualified to bring these very important personages to their senses as the women of England upon whose minds we would impress as a public duty the necessity of expending their money only with the people or shopkeepers friendly to the cause of freedom, justice, Universal Suffrage, &c. In a very few months the common enemy would be made to bite the dust of their empty shops and empty tills. You, sisters, the patriotic women of England, in these transactions are the most fit and proper persons to deal out the blow and most effectually too; the lead and completion of this, if properly conducted and with spirit would soon be productive of beneficial results. Let every shop and shopkeeper be noted in a book kept for the purpose, stating name, residence, trade, and whether Whig or Tory; also, another book containing the names of those friendly to the cause of the people and the great enterprise in which you and they are embarked as brothers and sisters in the sacred cause of liberty, humanity, and justice to encourage each other by mutual dealings in the way of trading, and not to spend your hard earnings with men opposed to the bettering of our common country. Sisters, oppressed countrywomen, we have too long witnessed exclusive dealing as the motto of our political opponents, necessity and self-defence compel us reluctantly to recommend its adoption. It is no sin to return the compliment, and we pray that it may be done effectually in order to convince our enemies of their weakness if not their wickedness in setting the example of exclusive dealing; an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth shall be our motto until the system undergoes a change and our self-willed opponents think proper to set an example worthy to be followed by us whom they so meanly treat with cruel contumely, without the shadow of a reason for so doing. But we pity their want of charity and reason in thus acting, and that from necessity we feel it a duty to fight them with their own weapons and on their own terms, and in thus doing we feel confident of the support of our husbands, friends and children, whose battle we do most solemnly pledge ourselves to fight until the glorious shout of victory and liberty shall echo through the vast canopy of heaven, and be sanctified by that God who had promised to protect the poor and needy from the hands of their oppressors. Therefore, sisters and countrywomen, we say to you be of good cheer; the time must and will arrive when your aid and sympathies may be required in the field to fight, for be assured a great and deadly struggle must take place ere our tyrant oppressors yield to reason and justice. They mean to fight and to slay the people; while our and yours will be the solemn duty to aid the wounded to dress their wounds, and perhaps to afford the last sad solace of our affections in the hour of death. 'Tis better to die by the sword than by famine, and we shall glory in seeing every working man of England selling his coat to buy a sword or a rifle to be prepared for the event. Under these circumstances, we again repeat, urge on your husbands, fathers, brothers, friends, and neighbours to be prepared and ready for the conflict. Urge upon them the necessity of calm reflection and duty to be sober, frugal, patriotic and to consider themselves bound by the sacred ties of nature to protect and shield their wives and children, now stalking through the land, alike degrading to the legislature and the religion of the country. Trusting, sisters, and countrywomen that you will respond to us in your kindest and most patriotic sympathies and services in the cause of our common country in every legal manner possible.

We remain, your devoted friends and sisters,

The Members of

THE NOTTINGHAM FEMALE POLITICAL UNION

Nottingham, Nov. 26, 1828

Mary Savage

Secretary.

Source 2: ‘The Females of Holbrooke to the Chartists of Great Britain and Ireland, in Behalf of Mrs. Frost, Mrs Williams, and Mrs. Jones’, The Northern Star, 5^th February 1842, page 7

Brethren and Sisters in the cause of liberty, permit us to call your attention to an appeal in the Star of the 15 January, in the behalf of the Whig made widows of the Welsh patriots who it appears are in a very distressed state, and having nothing to depend on for their support, but what little they can obtain by their own limited exertions. Mrs Jones considers herself neglected by her husband's pretended friends. Have you responded to this call? If not, hasten to do so; for remember, their husbands were banished for their devotion to that good cause for which so many have been made martyrs. Their only crime consisted in their hatred of tyranny, oppression, and injustice; with a determination to have to comforts of the poor restored, and their rights and liberties protected. Has the call from Mr. Wilkison aroused you to a sense of your duty? The claims of the destitute and disconsolate widows, at this time are imperative. We are aware that unsolicited gratitude is the most valuable, but consider it better late than never. Come then to work in good earnest, and make amends for the past by working double tides for the future. One million of pence amounts to the considerable sum of £4166 13s 4d to raise this sum would only require one penny from every six families in the United Queendom. Surely, if every exertion was made, this sum might be raised, which would not only place them beyond want for ever, but we are inclined to think, would restore the patriots back to their country and friends. Recollect what a few pounds the last convention cost the country, who by their ale exertions obtained a level vote in the house of commons, and had it not been for the casting vote of that marble-hearted wretch, the speaker, in all probability ere this, they would have been restored to their destitute and disconsolate wives and families. Come, then, ye good and true, stain not the Chartist banner with ingratitude, but show your hatred to tyranny, injustice, and cold blooded despotism by doing all that lies in your power for its victims. We particularly request that the females of every place where Chartism has taken root, will appoint individuals to wait on all whom they conceive might be prevailed upon to give something towards relieving these much injured and heartbroken individuals. We think if this plan was carried out effectually, it would be attended with good effects. Though living in a remote village on one of the frigid mountains in Derbyshire, we pledge ourselves to do our duty and hope all good Chartists will do theirs.

Source 3: Northern Star 30^th April 1842, page 4

Caroline Maria Williams writes us to complain that having recently opened a school for infants, at Bristol, with a fair prospect of success, the parish clergyman took the trouble to go round the neighbourhood and advise people not to send their children to her as she was a Chartist, by which her school has been very seriously injured. We can only say that if it be so, the parson is a busy, dirty, meddling fellow.

The Normans in Southern Italy: The Normans and the Church

In southern Italy, the Normans had to cope with a very varied ethno-cultural and religious situation due to the coexistence in the region of Latins, Lombards, Greeks, Arabs and Jews. In the first place (under Robert Guiscard and Roger I), the policy of the leading Norman lords with regard to the Church fell into line with the directives of the Gregorian reform, and they took an anti-imperial stance. Later on, with the institution of the monarchy, the kings tightened their grip on both the Greek and Latin churches, while their relationship with the pope was exclusively political[1].

As regards the organisation of the Church in southern Italy, during the Norman period the number of dioceses multiplied, so that the individual bishops had less political power. On the other hand, monasticism developed notably in the Norman period, when numerous Greek and Latin monasteries were founded in Sicily and new foundations were made by the Norman leaders on the mainland. However, none of the orders of French origin were present in this region. In the 12^th century small local orders were founded, but only in some of the most northerly areas of the kingdom (Irpinia, Sannio and Capitanata).

The organisation of the Church in Southern Italy before the Normans

Generally speaking, during the early Middle Ages - after the war between the Greeks and the Goths, and the Lombard invasion - the Church ceased to function as an organized body. The few surviving bishops were often responsible for vast dioceses (as was that of Benevento for a long period). Furthermore, in the area under Byzantine domination, the eastern emperors had created a series of metropolises adhering to the Greek rite. However, during the 11^th century, other bishops took over the pastoral charge of the Greek minorities in the Latin areas, both in Taranto and in the principality of Salerno. The response of the papacy was, from the late 10^th century onwards, the creation of a series of metropolitan archbishoprics: Capua, Benevento, Naples, Amalfi and Salerno.

The situation in Sicily was much more radical. The island had experienced neither the Lombard invasion nor the collapse of the towns, but the Arab invasion had swept away the ecclesiastical institutions and, when the Normans arrived they found only two bishops on the island. In fact, they - especially Roger I - were responsible for reconstructing the Church in Sicily

The secular Church under the Normans

Bishops and archbishops

The Normans had to contend with a situation that was very complex and problematic[2]. In the early stages of the conquest the number of cities seeking to acquire bishoprics increased rapidly (they even included small towns such as Mottola, Castellaneta, Bitonto and Bitetto). Moreover, some sees, such as Aversa and Melfi, did not form part of the metropolitan network and were directly under Rome. In the 12^th century the Norman kingdom possessed no less than 150 dioceses, some of them extremely small indeed. This meant that, generally speaking, bishops in southern Italy carried little weight and had very limited resources.

The appointments depended on three factors: the local forces, political power and the papacy. The reformist popes of the 11^th century came to an agreement with the Norman lords (council of Melfi, 1059); later on, the conferral by Urban II in 1098 of the so-called legantine commission over Calabria and Sicily on Roger I was of decisive importance. The pope’s relations with the monarchy were not so good: besides Anacletus II’s schism (1130-38), supported by Roger II, in 1156 William I imposed the treaty of Benevento on Pope Adrian IV. This strictly regulated the intervention of the pope in the kingdom and gave the king the right of veto on the appointment of bishops.

Clergy and parish churches

The lack of a normal network of bishoprics left considerable room for the private church, which for a long period had a virtual monopoly of the pastoral organisation. The transition from the private church to the parish church as the basic structure of the pastoral organisation appears to have taken place as a result of the Norman unification in the 12^th century.

The private church was an early medieval institution; founded by private individuals, its churches reserved the right to appoint the officiants. Thus the bishops were accustomed to underwriting release documents, in which they waived any material rights over the private churches and their clergy. The situation began to change in the 11^th century to meet the new requirements of the Church of Rome and also as a result of the Norman Conquest. At the end of the following century, the very principle of the private church was called into question. Hence the parish church began to perform a wide range of pastoral functions: baptisms, funerals, benedictions - although some monastic churches also obtained these rights.

The problem of the celibacy of priests existed in southern Italy, as it did elsewhere. The sources mentioned numerous priests, married or otherwise, with offspring. It appears that the region was tardy in its evolution towards celibacy: one of the fundamental institutions of the period of the reform that of the canons regular, which exalted celibacy and the communal life of the clergy, was poorly represented. There were also few secular canons before the multiplication of the cathedrals (they existed at Santa Maria di Bagnara, in Calabria, and at the collegiate church of San Pietro ad Aram, in Naples). Often, in addition to the religious life, priests engaged in the professions - for instance, that of notary. The lower orders of the priesthood were recruited from all social strata, while the important offices were held by members of the aristocracy.

Monasticism under the Normans

The Greek orders

Numerous Greek monastic communities were founded in Norman southern Italy, while the great currents of renewal in Western monasticism in the 10^th and 11^th centuries only reached the region indirectly and were limited to certain parts of it.

Monasticism following the Greek rite mainly regarded Sicily, Calabria and southern Lucania (Melicuccà, founded by St Elias the Speleote; San Peter Imperialis in Taranto, etc.). The most famous of the hermit founders of monasteries, St Nilus the Younger, settled in Campania and then near Rome. From the 11^th century onwards, the Greek monastic foundations observed the rules of St Basil the Great and St Theodore Studites (eastern monasticism did not have a single rule, such as the Benedictine one in the West).

The attitude of the Normans towards the Greek monasteries was far from being hostile. Some Greek monasteries were placed under the control of Latin abbeys - for instance, St Peter Imperialis in Taranto, which came under Montecassino. However, in the Greek-speaking area new monasteries were founded, especially in Calabria and Sicily during Roger I’s reign, and in the Salento peninsula under Bohemond of Antioch. Thus Greek monasticism did not lose its vitality in the Norman period, but the civil authorities confined it to specific areas and helped to give it a structure similar to that of Benedictine monasticism.

Traditional Benedictine monasticism

The leading Benedictine monastery in early medieval southern Italy was Montecassino; other important ones were St Sophia in Benevento, St Vincent on Volturno, St Clement of Casauria (in the Abruzzi) and Holy Trinity of Cava. These large monasteries had dependencies and held land in other areas of southern Italy.

The Norman era brought innovations for which the conquerors were not responsible. However, they did favour the immigration, from Normandy, of monks, whom they appointed as abbots of monasteries. St Lawrence in Aversa was entrusted to Robert of La Croix-Saint-Leufroy in Normandy; Robert Guiscard revived many houses, transferring monks from Saint-Évroult-sur-Ouche to them, especially the famous Robert of Grandmesnil (they included Holy Trinity of Venosa, St Mary of Sant’Eufemia, Holy Trinity of Mileto, etc.).

In the Norman period, moreover, the pre-existing monastic foundations also developed. Montecassino enjoyed its period of greatest splendour in the late 11^th and early 12^th centuries with the abbots Desiderius and Oderisius, while the expansion of Cava continued during the 12^th century. The latter abbey received donations from all over mainland southern Italy and was given the task of sending monks to the royal foundation at Monreale.

Reformed Latin monasticism

Numerous forms of monastic spirituality flourished from the 10^th to the 12^th centuries; these were mainly associated with the French abbeys of Cluny (Cluniac monasticism) and Cîteaux (Cistercian monasticism). In addition, there was a rebirth of hermitism: the Camaldolese founded by St Romuald and the Carthusians founded by St Bruno. These developments did not have a strong impact on Norman southern Italy. This applied especially to the Carthusians, although St Bruno died in Calabria in 1101. The influence of the Cistercians was a little greater (Santa Maria del Saggitario, in Lucania, Santa Maria de Ferraria, near Teano). The two main promoters of the new monasticism were St John of Matera (d. 1139), founder of the monastery of Pulsano, on the Gargano and St William of Vercelli (d. 1142) founder of Santa Maria di Montevergine (near Avellino).

The Salernitan Alferius, who, while on a mission to France, had encountered the abbot of Cluny, Odilo, founded the abbey of the Holy Trinity of Cava in Campania in 1025. The Joachimite movement is another story: it was founded by the Calabrian Cistercian monk Joachim of Fiore about 1190 at San Giovanni da Fiore, in the Sila Mountains.

---

[1] Salvatore Fodale ‘L’Église et les Normands en Italie du Sud et en Sicile’, Les Normands en Méditerraneé, University of Caen, 1994, pages 171-178.

[2] Errico Cuozzo ‘Les évêques d’origine normande en Italie et en Sicile’, Les évêques normands du XI^e siècle, University of Caen, 1995, pages 67-78 has some useful things to say.

Aspects of Chartism: Who were the Chartists --some local examples

It is perfectly possible to make valid general statements about the social composition of Chartism in the 1830s and 1840s. However, what stands out is the diversity, richness and contradictory nature of support for the movement and this only becomes fully apparent in local examples. Three localities or regions will be used to illustrate this: the rural Chartism of Essex and Suffolk; the metropolitan radicalism of London; and, the provincial radicalism of Lancashire.

Essex and Suffolk

Local studies have focused on Chartism in the industrial and urban environment. Little has been written about its rural variant[1]. Rural Britain retained its affection for older forms of popular and social protest. The 1840s, for example, saw an increase in incidents of incendiarism and poaching across large parts of East Anglia[2]. There were also logistical problems. Mass movements tend to be most effective where population is concentrated. This was not the case in rural Britain. The strength of the crowd lies, in part, in its anonymity. In face-to-face rural society this did not exist. Pressure and intimidation from farmers and landlords also acted as an important restraint on radical activity. Chartism, with the possible exception of the Land Plan, simply did not appeal to many in rural Britain.

Essex and Suffolk were minor centres of Chartism between 1838 and 1848[3]. No local Chartist played any part in the movement’s national leadership. On only one occasion did a local Chartist go as a delegate to a Convention: S.G. Francies, a hat-maker, represented Ipswich in 1848. The Chartists were aware of their insignificance. One Ipswich member said, “Suffolk is but a speck. The hardy sons of the North and Scotland are our hope.” There was no large mass of industrial workers to provide the rank-and-file support. Agricultural labourers were the dominant group among the working class and they faced a hostile agricultural establishment influential in market towns as well as in the villages. Yet Chartism activity was reported in nearly fifty towns and villages. Large numbers of men and women attended Chartist meetings and hundreds acted as officials, committee members or speakers. Chartism in Suffolk and Essex may not have registered in the national Chartist movement but within its own localities it could not be ignored.

Chartism never became a mass movement because it never received widespread or sustained support from agricultural labourers. In 1838-40 it gained a presence in several villages where less than 10,000 of the region’s 80,000 farm labourers lived but it retained this for at most a year and a half. After 1840, though it could count individual farm workers among its supporters, they did not maintain branches in their own villages. No farm worker was ever recorded as a speaker or official. In rural Suffolk, the known leaders were essentially artisans: two tailors, a saddler, a shoemaker, a glover, a blacksmith, a weaver, a shopkeeper and a country gentleman. Chartism was also unable to claim much industrial support. No workers, for example, took part in the General Strike of August 1842. In fact industrial workers were few in Suffolk and Essex. There was support from the silk industry. Chartism was an important force for ten years at Braintree, Halstead, Coggeshall and Sudbury where silk workers provided some of its leaders and most of the rank-and-file. This applied particularly in Braintree where, of the twenty-six local leaders known by occupation, fourteen worked in the industry, twelve as handloom weavers and two elsewhere. Factory women, often the wives or daughters of weavers, played a limited role in organisational work but in 1838-9 and 1847-8 they were well represented at public meetings. The Essex Standard recognised a situation similar to that in the militant Chartist regions in 1847-8 when Braintree’s silk industry was affected by depression. Silk workers, however, were unable to take collective action in support of the Charter for any lengthy period. They were almost as poorly paid as agricultural labourers and were at the mercy of their employers. Outside the silk industry, the largest factory was Ransomes at Ipswich and, until the mid-1840s this employed no more than two hundred people. Neither this nor the other foundries at Leiston or Peasenhall proved to have been the workplace of any local Chartist leader. Some Ransomes’ workers did sign the petition for the release of the leaders pf the Newport Rising in 1840 and in 1847. Some individuals took out shares in the Land Company but there was no comparable upsurge of support like that given at certain times by industrial workers in South Wales and the North. As for the ports, seaman and fishermen had never played a significant or regular role in public life except for the few Brightlingsea fishermen who joined the Land Company in 1847.

There was no significant support for Chartism among the middle classes, except in 1838 when some Liberals saw it as a stimulus for further reforms promised in 1832 but never delivered. Certainly some sixty £10 householders belonged to the Ipswich Working Men’s Association in early 1838 and there was similar support in Braintree and Halstead. Middle class support evaporated after 1839 leaving only those individuals who were local leaders, men like Flood, a Romford newsagent, Benjamin Parker a Colchester fruiterer, Donald M’Pherson, an itinerant tea merchant and George Bearman who kept a beerhouse at Bocking. There is little evidence to suggest that such individuals were representative of their class or that they were supported by more than a handful of their fellow-tradesmen. The absence of middle class support for Chartism in Suffolk and Essex contrasts with the situation in other regions: where, for example, Chartist success in municipal elections was partly due to votes from middle class ratepayers. The main reason for this lay in the dominance of the powerful agricultural establishment over the Essex and Suffolk market towns and over their businesses, an influence that also weakened Liberalism after 1832. Only four farmers are known to have been Chartist supporters. The majority of the region’s middle classes supported landowners and farmers in stern opposition to Chartism. Lack of middle class support weakened Chartism in two respects. First, the Chartists were severely restricted as regards the circles in which they could hope to extend their support resulting in it being a minority movement even in the towns. It is, however, worth noting that Chartist strength in urban areas was stronger in east Suffolk and east Essex than in the western parts of those counties where towns were fewer and smaller. Secondly, those individual middle class people who were prepared to support the movement were significantly reduced. No middle class regional leaders emerged who might have provided unity for the separate branches so creating an influential regional force.

London Chartism

The metropolitan origins of Chartism and the events in the capital during 1838-9 received considerable attention from the early historians of the movement. Yet, in 1960, Asa Briggs[4] argued that London Chartism was one of the “open questions of labour history” and that there was still “no account of Chartist activities in London”. Later historians have begun to fill in the gaps. D.J. Rowe examined radicalism in London 1829-1841 in his MA thesis in 1965 and in subsequent articles[5]. He focused on the initial phase of Chartism in the capital arguing correctly that the Spitalfield weavers and much of London’s working class were apathetic and assumed, wrongly, that this continued into the 1840s. Iorwerth Prothero provided a useful corrective to Rowe’s conclusions in his 1967 doctoral thesis on London’s working class movements 1825-1848 and two important articles[6]. He pointed to the diversity and continuity of London working class radicalism but by explicitly excluding ‘mob activity and crowd psychology’ almost totally neglected London in 1848. David Large remedied this deficiency in an essay published in 1977[7]. It was, however, not until the publication of David Goodway London Chartism 1838-1848 in 1982 and John Saville 1848. The British state and the Chartist movement five years later that full length studies devoted wholly or partly to Chartism in London appeared.

The People’s Charter was published by the LWMA on 8^th May 1838 and during the late summer and early autumn ‘monster’ meetings were held throughout the country to adopt it and elect delegates for the planned Convention. The peak of London Chartism in 1838-40 came at a meeting on 17^th September that an estimated 15,000 attended. This compared unfavourably with the 200,000 Gammage recorded at Holloway Head and 300,000 at Kersal Moor near Manchester and shows the relative unimportance of the agitation in London during the first phase. London Chartism moved away from the moderate LWMA towards the more radical London Democratic Association[8] between September 1838 and the meeting of the Convention the following February. In general, however, the experience of London in this period can only be called apathetic[9]. Goodway identifies three main reasons for this. First, he suggests that there was a failure of leadership especially among the leaders of the LWMA who did little to create rank-and-file support for the Charter. Secondly, London workers received higher wages than elsewhere and did not suffer from wage reductions or widespread unemployment between 1837 and 1839. Thirdly, unlike northern England where the anti-poor law movement had maintained radical activity and there was acute ‘distress’, mass radicalism had been dormant since the ‘war of the unstamped’ in 1836. Chartism “had to begin entirely from cold”.

Chartism began to take effective root in London in late 1840 and early 1841 and it remained a major stronghold throughout the 1840s[10]. The nature of Chartist leadership changed. Initially the LWMA and also the LDA provided leadership but this fell away with the emergence of a new group of militant activists, O’Connorite in approach, whose first commitment was to Chartism rather than any other cause. The number of Chartist localities in London rose from fifteen in April 1841; double that by the end of the year and forty-three by the time the Convention met in London in April 1842. The metropolitan economy was hit by the depression of 1841-2 and this roused mass support for Chartism. In the Spitalfield district, distress was widespread and tailors, printers and shoemakers had never experienced such poor economic conditions. The Northern Star reported in July 1842 that thousands were starving in Bermondsey and half the shops were to let or entirely closed. James Epstein estimates that 8,000 membership cards were taken out in London in the two years up to the autumn of 1842 out of a national figure of some 70,000. London was no longer apathetic. After 1842, Chartism in London, as in the rest of the country, retreated. The economy revived. Despite this London remained a major Chartist centre and in 1843-4 became the headquarters for the Northern Star. Londoners formed a significant part of the national leadership. Metropolitan Chartism was most dangerous in 1848 and between March and June posed a serious challenge to the state. The familiar account of 1848 as a year of ‘fiasco’ is no longer acceptable or accurate[11].

The course of the Chartist movement in London was the reverse of the experience of the rest of the country. Goodway argues that “It was not in 1848, nor 1842, that the capital failed Chartism but probably fatally, in 1838-9.” The provinces ultimately looked to London and its apathy in the early stages of the movement, when Chartism had a spontaneity and strength that was never repeated, proved decisive. Forging mass Chartist support in London proved difficult. London’s size, its burgeoning population – some two million by 1850, its diversity and fragmentation and the effectiveness of the Metropolitan Police all militated against effective radical action.

If London’s size was an important factor in Chartism so were the stresses caused by its changing economy. Goodway argues that in terms of absolute numbers metropolitan Chartism was, when compared to other less populous strongholds, “a failure” but that in terms of Chartist unity it was a “remarkable success”. The contemporary journalist Henry Mayhew drew a useful distinction between London’s labourers and street-folk with their often ill-informed ‘inclination’ to Chartism and artisans who were “almost to a man, red-hot politicians”. There were some 50,000 labourers in London in the 1840s excluding ‘specialist’ unskilled workers like coal-whippers, porters etc.[12]. Their average weekly pay was between 10s and 20s. They formed part of the Chartist crowd but little more. Like ‘white-collar workers’, clerks for example, they generally accepted their economic circumstances passively. The exception was the coal-whippers. They unloaded coal ships by jerking or ‘whipping’ baskets of coal out of their holds and emptying them into barges alongside. What economic protection they had – an act in 1807 fixed wages at 3s per man for twenty chaldrons – was repealed in 1831 and their wages fell dramatically. In 1834, they rioted and formed a lodge of the GNCTU. By the summer of 1842, there were some 2,000 whippers in considerable distress. On 24^th August, a general strike began and by the end of October the men were still out. The following year legislation was passed which regulated conditions. No standard rate of pay was conceded but by 1851 average earnings at 16s per week had regained their 1830 level. This reduced their grievances significantly and in 1848 the whippers volunteered to act as special constables.

While Mayhew’s understanding of the attitudes of London labourers is remarkably perceptive, subsequent historians have substantially modified his view of London artisans. There was a clear and divisive boundary between the ‘honourable’ or skilled and the ‘dishonourable’ or semi-skilled workers in the same trades. Skilled artisans sought to maintain their status and restrictive practices in the face of the increasing use by employers of workers who had not been through the process of apprenticeship. This ‘dilution’ reflected the need of employers to expand production and cut costs. They achieved this in a variety of ways. Some introduced machinery though in general most industries remained largely unmechanised, a particular characteristic of London’s industrialisation. Others employed cheaper ‘illegal’ men. Work in the shop was replaced by low skill and low pay home working promoting the ‘sweated trades’. This marginalised the economic role of many women. There were also some trades that were doing well while others were in decline. Iorwerth Prothero made a distinction between ‘lower’ Chartist trades and ‘upper’ or ‘aristocratic’ non-Chartist trades that Goodway argues “does not give a true reflection of the facts”.

Shoemakers, carpenters, silk-weavers and tailors, who were most threatened by economic change, played a prominent part among Chartist militants[13]. By the late 1830s manufacture in these industries took place almost entirely in the workers’ homes. Shoemaking in London, for example, was largely unmechanised and found itself under increasing pressure from provincial producers in Northamptonshire and Staffordshire. Costs needed to be pushed down. Outworking and sub-contracting became the norm and the employment of female and unapprenticed labour led to the development of a vast sweated trade based on East London. There were 20,500 tailors in London in the 1841 Census concentrated in the area between Marylebone and Westminster and through to Bethnal Green and Stepney. There was an increasing division of labour but the growing demand for cheaper clothes led to the growth of sweating especially in dressmaking, millinery and shirt-making. The cheap and abundant supply of female labour led to a rapid decline in the status and wages of the tailors. A strike in 1834 proved disastrous and the number of ‘honourable’ tailors fell from around 5,500 in the early 1820s to 3,000 by 1850.

Crafts that were ‘aristocratic’ and Chartist included hatters, leather finishers, stonemasons, carvers and gilders. The 3,500 hatters[14] formed one of the most localised of metropolitan trades concentrated within the area between Borough High Street and Blackfriars Road though some factories remained in Bermondsey. By the 1820s the trade had already been weakened by its division into the ‘fair’ [honourable] and ‘foul’ [slop or sweated working]. By the 1840s this division was reflected in growing differentials in wages: 10s to 12s per week in the ‘foul’ shops while earnings in the ‘fair’ trade ranged from 30s to 40s per week. Bookbinders cannot be seen as ‘aloof’ from Chartism and engineers were not unaware of the need for radical political and industrial action and were markedly Chartist[15]. The coopers were scarcely aristocratic but were not Chartists and some trades consigned to the ranks of the ‘lower’ like painters and sawyers showed little interest in the movement[16] .

The motivation for workers in London becoming involved in Chartism was overwhelmingly economic. Almost every trade found itself under serious pressure from falling wages, the introduction of labour-saving machines, and the emergence of sweating or declining status. What is clear is that there was considerable worker solidarity in the 1840s in their demands for political and social freedom. But there were limits. Co-operation was most powerful at the level of strikes and resistance to dilution. However, it proved difficult to weld metropolitan craft workers into unified trades council. This had to wait until 1860. The sectionalism of different trades and factionalism within trades proved too great. Chartism, like trade unionism, was simply one means of achieving workers’ aims and aspirations.

Provincial radicalism: Lancashire

Lancashire was at the heart of the ‘industrial revolution’[17]. Wage earners, especially in the textile industries, began to combine in defence of their living standards almost a century before Chartism began. As towns and industries expanded conflicts over wages or over demands for political reform intensified. In the early years of the nineteenth century trade union activity spread its organisation improved and the range of its activities expanded. Political reformers were also successful in the long term, though short-term setbacks occurred when the economy improved and prosperity drained their mass support. The challenge to the established order reached its climax in the decade after 1832 as parts of Lancashire, especially the cotton districts, achieved national importance as hotbeds of Chartism.

The Reform crisis permanently raised the level of local political activity. Lancashire was given twelve additional parliamentary seats, its total rising to 26. Lancaster, Preston, Liverpool, Wigan and Clitheroe (which lost one of its seats) were joined by two member constituencies for Blackburn, Bolton, Manchester and Oldham and one MP each for Ashton, Bury, Rochdale, Salford and Warrington. The working class formed only a small proportion of the urban electorate of £10 householders. However, house rents were lower in the north than the south and this led to an average of about one in sixth working class adult males having the vote in Lancashire. This contrasts with a much lower figure in the south where rents were higher. The Reform Act had raised the expectations of the organised working class in Lancashire. There were angry responses when the reformed parliament proved indifferent to petitions for further reform. Political activity remained intense in the years after 1832. Demands for factory reform, trade union protection, a minimum wage for handloom weavers and opposition to the New Poor Law and the Corn Laws fuelled the radical fire. It soon became clear that the reformed parliament had little to offer working class radicals.

Proposals for factory reform in Lancashire began in 1814 and, unlike Yorkshire where Tory paternalists and clergy dominated; it was the workers who formed a committee in 1828 to seek the proper enforcement of the 1825 Factory Act. The 1833 Factory Act fell far short of the aspirations of the Lancashire short-time committees and demonstrated, for the first time, the shortcomings of the reformed parliament. Factory reform dissolved, at least temporarily, into the background with the onset of industrial depression in 1837-8. The anti-poor law agitation took its place. There was widespread passive resistance to the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act from employers and property-owners as well as workers. There was substantial hostility to directions from central government. The existing system, it was argued throughout Lancashire, was cheap and well suited to the needs of the Lancashire economy. The cotton districts provided the focus for an angry and sometimes violent working class agitation against the new legislation. Riots, for example, took placed in Todmorden in 1838 against the new Poor Law guardians and middle class opinion in Oldham and Rochdale was hostile to the new arrangements. The handloom weavers’ campaign for a minimum wage, advocated vigorously by Oldham’s MP John Fielden, was effectively rejected though parliamentary enquiries dragged on from 1834 to 1841. In many trades the 1830s and 1840s saw falling living standards, growing use of labour-saving machinery and ineffective trade union action. Wage reductions were imposed on the spinners between 1837 and 1842. Hatters, tailors, fustian cutters and calico printers saw their unions broken in the 1830s. Power-loom weavers, builders, metalworkers and miners were more successful but only at a local level. Attempts to build wider federations and national unions proved ineffective.

This catalogue of associated economic and political grievances was linked with the development of the new police forces and stronger forms of local government. Employers made up a significant proportion of Lancashire’s MPs. By 1835 cotton employers were returned for seven of the eight cotton constituencies and they were beginning to control the local magistracy. To many in the working class this, combined with the indolence of the reformed parliament, increasingly looked like an establishment conspiracy against the non-voting working class or of capital against labour. A local spinners’ leader David M’ Williams made this clear in 1838[18] “His opinion was, that the government and the manufacturing and commercial interests were determined to bring the working man down to the continental level in their wages…The whigs intended to bring the working classes down to the level of the miserable pauper under the poor law amendment act.”  It was these conditions that created mass support for Chartism in Lancashire in 1838 and which sustained it into the 1840s and 1850s.

There were mass meetings at Kersal Moor and elsewhere in the later months of 1838 attracting thousands of supporters. However, the importance of Lancashire to the movement came in the second phase when Chartism regrouped after the setbacks of 1839 and 1840. By late 1841 one in six of the National Charter Association’s branches was in Lancashire putting it on a par with the West Riding. The national petition of 1842 was widely supported. Chartism reached its peak with the strikes of August 1842 after which its mass support quickly faded. There was a short-lived revival with the return of trade depression and national agitation in 1847-8. Chartism did not disappear overnight and local activists and groups existed into the 1850s and even the 1860s. In 1853, of the 58 provincial branches of the reconstructed National Charter Association ten were in the cotton districts of Lancashire and the adjacent areas of Cheshire and Derbyshire. In 1854, 2000 people attended a Chartist meeting on Blackstone Edge and in 1858. 800 people crowded into the Chartist Institute at Staleybridge to hear Ernest Jones. Yet the Lancashire working class as an organised political force was virtually extinguished after 1848.

Chartism was strongest in the cotton spinning factories around Manchester especially if they were small and used outworkers like handloom weavers. There was substantial support in the small weaving villages of north-east Lancashire. In Sabden, for example, there were 44 subscribers to the Northern Star out of a total population of some 1500. Manchester, as Asa Briggs has shown[19], was the ‘shock city’ of the industrial revolution. Yet its factory population was dispersed, handloom weavers did not make up a sizeable proportion of its working class and it was growing in importance as a commercial rather than manufacturing centre. This limited the impact of Chartism[20]. Preston and Wigan, at the western edge of the cotton districts, saw little sustained or large-scale Chartist activity. Outside the cotton districts Chartism made little headway. There is little evidence of support in Liverpool and in the mining and agricultural areas of south-west Lancashire. Support for Chartism attracted a broad cross-section of working class support. It is not surprising that in Lancashire there were strong links between Chartism and the vibrant local trade unions especially in 1838-9 and especially in 1842[21]. Factory workers were active, especially in the local leadership, supported by handloom weavers and artisans. Unlike London, Chartism was also able to appeal to shopkeepers, small tradesmen and even some textile employers. Chartism was strongest, as John Foster[22] has shown for Oldham, where there was a ‘union of the productive classes’ against the exploitation of large employers and the venality of central government. This was, however, a ‘union’ of convenience with inherent tensions. The working class and the ‘shopocracy’ were suspicious of each other’s motives. Issues such as whether to compromise on the Charter or whether to threaten physical force sharpened internal friction quickly wearing down the ‘respectable’ bases of Chartist support.

In Lancashire, Chartism brought together overlapping and contradictory political ideologies. The traditional largely artisanal attacked the ‘old corruption’ in Church and State. The broadly middle class analysis of political economy denounced protective policies especially the Corn Laws; and the working class attacked the exploitation and domination of employers and government especially over the Poor Law, the legal status of trade unions and the operation of the labour market. This split the radical constituency. Middle class reformers were disturbed by the extreme rhetoric and attempted rising of 1839. Those who believed in freeing trade were opposed to trade unions and saw repeal of the Corn Laws as a more achievable objective than the Charter. The Anti-Corn Law League was very successful in winning over moderate and middle class Chartists. Many radical Free-Traders were also Nonconformists. Their priorities were pointed more towards temperance, self-improvement and the battle against tithes and church rates than towards expressly working class problems. A committed core of working class Chartists remained but after 1842 they had lost most of their middle class support and most of their potential for mass mobilisation.

The revival of the economy after 1842 played a major role in reducing the political temperature in Lancashire. The repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 and the 1847 Factory Act showed that central government was now able to respond positively to pressure from the provinces. This directly challenged the Chartist ideology that the state was hopelessly corrupt and incapable of making concessions to the working class. Three other tentative reasons for the decline of Chartism in Lancashire can be advanced. First, at least in Oldham in 1847, the mainstream Whig and Tory parties were bidding for both middle and working class radical support by playing on religious and cultural divisions. Secondly, Foster argues that working class anger was diverted away from employers who created new aristocracies of labour. Irish immigrants, whose numbers ballooned during the 1840s, became the focus of working class antagonism on account of their Catholicism and because they were a pool of cheap labour. Finally, the 1840s saw a revival of employer paternalism that aimed to bridge the gap between labour and capital. There are, however, problems with each of these suggestions. The anti-Catholicism associated with Irish immigrants, for example, occurred in the 1850s and 1860s rather than the 1840s and it is difficult to assess the impact of employer paternalism on working class attitudes. Certainly class relations stabilised in the 1850s, there was a growing separation between the political action and industrial conflict which had, for example, characterised the strikes in 1842. There was also improved opportunity for upward social mobility within sections of the working class encouraged by institutions like Friendly Societies and the Co-operative movement and through the development of self-help as an alternative ideology.

Conclusion

Historians face considerable difficulty in analysing the social makeup of Chartism. The size of the movement, its longevity and the limited availability of evidence on rank-and-file members, supporters and sympathisers add to this problem. General statements about the movement as a whole must be tempered in the light of case studies of particular localities. Even then it is sometimes difficult to fathom why support for Chartism in one area was particularly strong while in others it was not. Local leadership, the attitude of local employers and the lower middle classes, local economic conditions, local sources of working class grievance, for example, all played an important part in determining and maintaining popular support for Chartism. The detailed local and regional studies make very clear that, while it may be valid to call Chartists collectively ‘the union of the productive classes’, it is essential to recognise the diversity of social response and motivation in the movement. The Chartist movement may have been based on a kernel of demands that were, by definition, national. This undoubtedly united Chartists in a national community of purpose but, at its heart, the Chartist experience was essentially a local and largely anonymous one.

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[1] Hugh Fearn and R.B. Pugh contributed essays on Chartism in Suffolk and in Somerset and Wiltshire to Asa Briggs (ed.) Chartist Studies, London, 1959 pages 147-173 and 174-219 respectively and Roger Wells ‘Southern Chartism’, Rural History (1991).

[2] On rural radicalism see A.J. Peacock ‘Village Radicalism in East Anglia 1800-50’ in J.P.D. Dunbabin Rural Discontent in Nineteenth-Century Britain, London, 1974, pages 27-61 and David Jones Crime, protest, community and police in nineteenth-century Britain, London, 1982, pages 33-61.

[3] A.E.J. Brown Chartism in Essex and Suffolk, Chelmsford, 1982.

[4] Asa Briggs ‘Open Questions of Labour History’, Bulletin of the Society for the Study of Labour History, number 1, (Autumn 1960), page 2, quoted in Goodway London Chartism, page xiii.

[5] D.J.Rowe Radicalism in London 1829-1841: With Special Reference to its Middle- and Working Class Components, unpublished MA thesis, University of Southampton, 1965, ‘The London Working Men’s Association  and the People’s   Charter’,   Past and Present,   volume 36 (1967)  and   ‘The London   Working  Men’s Association and the People’s Charter: a rejoinder’,  Past and Present, volume 38 (1967).

[6] I. Prothero London Working-Class Movements 1825-1848, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Cambridge, 1967, ‘The London Working Men’s Association and the “People’s Charter”‘, Past and Present, volume 38 (1967) and ‘Chartism in London’, Past and Present, volume 44 (1969).

[7] David Large ‘London in the Year of Revolution, 1848’ in John Stevenson (ed.) London in the Age of Reform, Oxford, 1977, pages 177-212.

[8] On this see Jennifer Bennett ‘The London Democratic Association 1837-41: a Study in London Radicalism’ in Epstein and Thompson (eds.) The Chartist Experience, pages 87-119.

[9] Goodway, London Chartism, pages 24-37.

[10] Goodway, London Chartism, pages 37-53.

[11] Goodway, London Chartism, pages 68-87, 111-123 and 129-141.

[12] Goodway, London Chartism, pages 217-220.

[13] Goodway, London Chartism, pages 153-170, 185-190.

[14] Goodway, London Chartism, pages 196-199.

[15] Goodway, London Chartism, pages 201-204.

[16] Goodway, London Chartism, pages 190-196.

[17] John K. Walton Lancashire: a social history 1558-1939, Manchester 1987 is a good starting-point.

[18] Quoted in Walton Lancashire page 161.

[19] In his Victorian Cities, London, 1963, page 56 Briggs wrote that “If Chicago was the ‘shock city’ of the 1890s, one of the British nineteenth-century cities – Manchester – was the shock city of the 1840s, attracting visitors from all countries, forcing to the surface what seemed to be intractable problems of society and government, and generating as great a variety of opinions as Chicago did later or Los Angeles did in the 1930s and 1940s. Every age has its shock city…”

[20] Paul A. Pickering Chartism and the Chartists in Manchester and Salford, London, 1995 is now the essential study.

[21] Robert Sykes ‘Early Chartism and Trade Unionism in South-East Lancashire’, in Epstein and Thompson (eds.) The Chartist Experience. Studies in Working-class Radicalism and Culture 1830-1860 is invaluable on this.

[22] John Foster Class Struggle and the Industrial Revolution: early industrial capitalism in three English towns, London, 1974, pages 107-118, 131-148.