Worship, Festivals and Pilgrimage under Norman Rule

During the eleventh and twelfth centuries, Norman rulers governed England, southern Italy and Sicily, where Latin Christians attended church services, observed feast days and visited saints’ shrines. In Sicily, the Greek Christian, Muslim and Jewish traditions had distinct institutions alongside Latin worship. Records from London, Durham, Cava near Salerno in southern Italy, and Norman Sicily show how worship shaped calendars, pilgrimages, gifts and local services.

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Mass and London’s church calendar

William FitzStephen, a London clerk writing in the 1170s, counted thirteen conventual churches, meaning churches attached to monastic communities, and 126 parish churches in London and its suburbs. At Mass, clergy led prayers and readings while the congregation gathered for the Eucharist, the central act of Christian worship. The priest consecrated bread and wine for this rite, which commemorated the Last Supper and Christ’s death. The church calendar tied worship to the year: Lent was a season of fasting, prayer and almsgiving in preparation for Easter, the feast celebrating Christ’s resurrection. FitzStephen praised church attendance and feast-day observance along with almsgiving, hospitality, marriage celebrations and funerals.

His description also connects seasonal customs with that calendar. At Shrovetide, the days before Lent, London schoolboys brought fighting cocks to their masters; after dinner, boys played ball while citizens watched on horseback. On Sundays in Lent, citizens’ sons practiced mounted contests with lances and shields, while younger boys used weapons without iron points. At Easter, a young man in an oared boat tried to strike a shield fixed to a pole in the Thames and break his spear without falling. Two waiting boats were ready to rescue him if he lost his footing. FitzStephen also describes plays about saints’ miracles and martyrs’ sufferings.

Shrines and pilgrimage

Durham, in northern England, built its cathedral from the late eleventh into the early twelfth century to house relics of St Cuthbert and Bede. Cuthbert, a seventh-century Northumbrian monk and bishop, and Bede, an eighth-century monk and historian, gave the church a focus for pilgrimage. A shrine held a saint’s relics and marked a place where visitors could pray and seek help.

Reginald, a monk and writer at Durham in the later twelfth century, recorded stories of visitors seeking Cuthbert’s aid. His Libellus describes people praying at the tomb, attending services in the saint’s honor and touching associated objects. One story says a man drank water used to wash Cuthbert’s relics and recovered from a spiritual affliction. Visitors credited with cures left tangible gifts: a man healed after a lance wound offered a wax model of the weapon, while men said to have been released from wrongful imprisonment left their chains. At a service marking the translation, or ceremonial movement, of Cuthbert’s relics, worshippers placed offerings in the bishop’s hands after the Gospel reading.

Prayer for families and the dead

At Cava Abbey near Salerno, gifts of church property could secure burial and prayers after death. In April 1097, a married couple gave the abbey the final one-eighth share of St John’s church at Tresino. The husband retained the right to become a monk later; his wife secured the right to burial in the monastery and liturgical commemoration, prayers for her included in its services after her death. In August 1098, Guaimar, one of three brothers who ruled Capaccio, gave Cava his one-sixth share of St Maria de Domno in Salerno. At his wife Sichelgaita’s request he confirmed the donation by charter, while she asked the abbot for commemoration after her death.

Battle Abbey in Sussex, southeastern England, gave commemoration a public setting after the Norman Conquest. William the Conqueror founded the Benedictine abbey around 1071 as a memorial to those killed at Hastings and as penance for the violence of conquest. Its monks prayed for William and for the dead of both armies.

Greek Christian and Muslim worship in Sicily

In Norman Sicily, Latin churches stood alongside Greek Christian communities and Muslim congregations. In Palermo, the church of Santa Maria dell’Ammiraglio was assigned to Greek clergy by a charter dated 1143. Written in Greek and Arabic, the charter also granted land and other property to support the church and its clergy.

Ibn Jubayr, an Andalusian pilgrim from al-Andalus in Iberia, visited Sicily on his return from Mecca in late 1184 and early 1185, when William II ruled the island. At Qasr Saʿd, on the road from Termini toward Palermo, he spent the night in a mosque. He heard the adhān, the call to prayer, and saw an imam, a prayer leader, lead the required prayers and additional night prayers during Ramadan, the Muslim fasting month. He also described a community celebrating a loud festival at Ramadan’s end.

In Palermo, Ibn Jubayr reported that muezzins, callers who voice the adhān, summoned Muslims to prayer and that the city had many mosques. He said Muslims did not gather for Friday worship because the khutbah, or Friday sermon, was forbidden. He also reported that some Muslim servants at William II’s court continued their faith discreetly.