Frank Barlow (historian)

Frank Barlow Frank Barlow Order of the British Empire CBE (19 April 1911 – 27 June 2009) was one of the world's leading medieval historians, a prolific author, and a British Army major. He is known for his biographies of medieval kings and saints. Appointed in 1989 Order of the British Empire Commander of the British Empire, he was elected in 1970 a Fellow of the British Academy and in 1971 a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Quotes The lantern which William of Malmesbury used to guide his steps when he was writing his Gesta Regum Anglorum History of the English Kings ... was the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, annals written in Old English Old-English; and it remains the surest guide. It is particularly valuable, because the first draft, at least, of that part of the Chronicle which covers most of Edward the Confessor Edward's reign was put together before the king's death, ... a circumstance which ensured that the events recorded were not chosen so as to explain either the Norman Conquest or Edward the Confessor#Veneration Edward's reputation for sanctity. Edward the Confessor Volume 3 of English monarchs illustrated University of California Press 1970 9780520016712 Introduction https://books.google.com/books?id=6yN5HR4Njc8C&pg=PR20 xix–xxviii (375 pages; quote from pp. xx–xxi) William Rufus had a remarkable career, even for the late eleventh century, when opportunities for the adventurous and talented were plentiful. Born into the middle ranks of the French aristocracy, and only a younger son, he rose first through the achievements of his father, William 'the Conqueror', duke of Normandy, and then through the misfortunes of his elder brothers. Still a landless Knight Bachelor knight-bachelor when his father died in 1087, he took whatever chances came his way, and by the time of his own premature death thirteen years later had become a king of great renown. He was acclaimed by soldiers for his chivalry and magnanimity; and the flaws of his character proved to be no hindrance to success. William Rufus Volume 8 of English monarchs illustrated University of California Press 1983 9780520049369 https://books.google.com/books?id=2ulxJ9Dfd9MC&pg=PA3 3 (484 pages) On the Twelve Days of Christmas fifth day of Christmas 1170, the morrow of the Massacre of the Holy Innocents festival of the Holy Innocents, that is to say, Tuesday, 29 December, Thomas, archbishop of Canterbury, Primate (bishop) primate of the whole of England and Papal legate legate of the Holy See, was murdered in his cathedral church by four noble knights from the household of his lord and former patron and friend, King Henry II. He had just celebrated what was thought to be his fiftieth birthday. The horror which the killing inspired and the miraculous cures performed at his tomb transfigured the victim into one of the most popular saints in the late-medieval calendar and made Canterbury Cathedral#Trinity Chapel and Shrine of Thomas Becket Canterbury one of the greatest pilgrim shrines in the West. The modern Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes Lourdes, although doubtless better organized, gives some idea of medieval Canterbury with its phials of water tinctured, if faintly, with the blood of the martyr, and its highly charged atmosphere, a combination of the pathetic hopes of the sick and the jollity of the holiday-makers.Chaucer's Canterbury Tales kept the saint's memory green after the Reformation, and the drama has attracted distinguished modern playwrights. Thomas Becket Weidenfeld paperbacks University of California Press 1986 9780520071759 https://books.google.com/books?id=ka0wDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA1 1 (334 pages) Quotes about Frank Barlow Barlow's intellectual and scholarly qualities are arguably most evident in his editions of complex and technically difficult Latin texts, whose meaning he would elucidate with an almost unrivalled brilliance, and in the writing of biography, a genre about which he thought very deeply, as befitted someone who had contemplated a career as a novelist in his youth. Edward the Confessor (1970), William Rufus (1983) and Thomas Becket (1986) are all very important, and demonstrate a profoundly insightful and carefully reasoned determination to penetrate the religious attitudes of the historians of the 11th and 12th centuries in order to reveal the secular world beneath. David Bates, Obituary. Frank Barlow, Medieval historian and a masterly biographer of saints and kings 23 July 2009 The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jul/23/frank-barlow-obituary External links Category:1911 births Category:2009 deaths Category:Academics from England Category:Biographers from England Category:Historians from England Category:University College London faculty Category:University of Exeter faculty Category:University of Oxford alumni Category:Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature Category:Fellows of the British Academy