Downloadable Articles by K.S.B Keats-Rohan
Biography, Identity and Names: Understanding the Pursuit of the Individual in Prosopography
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Three-part essay which first looks in depth at the relationship between prosopography and biography, showing that the use of the term ‘collective biography’ is misconceived. As part of its investigation into a group whose members share one or more attribute, prosopography concerns itself with the individuals making up the group. The associated questions of identification and identity are discussed, linked to an examination of issues of names and naming and the importance of context. The essay concludes with worked examples based upon an online tutorial http://prosopography.modhist.ox.ac.uk
The Bretons and Normans of England 1066-1154: the family, the fief and the feudal monarchy
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Published in Nottingham Mediaeval Studies 36 (1992), 42-78. Analyses the settlement of England from 1066 to 1166 and outlines the existence of factions among the Breton and Norman settlers as these manifested themselves most notably in the civil wars of Stephen’s reign, showing that the accommodations required at that time eventually healed many of the divisions.
Domesday Book and the Malets: patrimony and the private histories of public lives
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Published in Nottingham Medieval Studies xli (1997) 13-56. Extensive investigation of the honour held by Robert Malet in 1086, together with those of related persons, providing much new material of a family of special interest because of the known association of Robert’s father William with pre-Conquest England.
Le rôle des Bretons dans la politique de la colonisation normande d'Angleterre (c.1042-1135)
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Published in Mémoires de la Société d'Histoire et d'Archéologie de Bretagne, 73 (1996) 181-215. Examination of the role played at the time of the conquest and afterwards by Breton landholders. An appendix catalogues the Bretons identified in the sources of the period.
Bibliothèque municipale d'Avranches, 210: Cartulary of Mont Saint Michel
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Published in Anglo-Norman Studies xxi (1999), 95-112. Examination of the Cartulary of Mont-Saint-Michel, leading to a re-dating of the Cartulary and account of how it came to be written.
Testimonies of the Living Dead: The Martyrology-Necrology and the Necrology in the Chapter-Book of Mont-Saint-Michel (Avranches, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 214)
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Published in The Durham Liber Vitae and its Context, ed. D. Rollason, A. J. Pipe, Margaret Harvey, Lynda Rollason (Woodbridge, 2004), pp.165-90
Detailed presentation of the principal and secondary necrological material surviving from the abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel, discussing the use of such material in the office of Prime in general terms. Avrances BM 214, now a composite manuscript, is revealed as a Chapter Book from the abbey; material relating to its use, inter alia, is edited in an Appendix.
Francs, scandinaves or normands? Aperçus sur les premiers moines des monastères normands
Francs-scandinaves-or-normands.pdf
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Published in Les Fondations scandinaves et les débuts du duché de Normandie: Colloque de Cerisy-la-Salle (septembre 2002), ed. Pierre Bauduin (Caen, 2005), 195-208. Uses name evidence from the earliest Mont-St-Michel necrologies, together with datable extracts form other extant necrologies, to trace the ethnicity of the monks of the restored abbeys of Normandy in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries.
Progress of Perversion?
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Short paper originally published online decrying the continued misuse of the term prosopography by persons who do not understand it.
The Genesis of the Honour of Wallingford
The Genesis of the Honour of Wallingford
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From a twelfth-century perspective, the honour of Wallingford appears to be a typical Norman institution.
However, a re-examination of its constituent parts indicates that through marriage it was largely derived from the lands of Wigod of Wallingford and his family. Wigod appears to
have been one of Edward the Confessor’s stallers and the estates that he held were what was effectively a pre-conquest ‘castlery’ with distant origins in a period before the formation
of the county of Berkshire. Throughout its history the honour was to remain under the tight control of the crown, reflecting its strategic role in the defence of the middle Thames valley.
