The Norman Anonymous is the name given to the author of a collection of treatises, the Tractatus Eboracenses, dealing with the relationship between kings and the Catholic Church, written c. 1100. The author, whose identity remains a mystery, offered some of the most strongly worded defences of royal authority and even superiority to the Catholic Church ever uttered in the medieval West. Surviving in just a single manuscript, the text is the only contribution made by the Anglo-Norman

Anglo-Norman

The Anglo-Normans were mainly the descendants of the Normans who ruled England following the Norman conquest by William the Conqueror in 1066. A small number of Normans were already settled in England prior to the conquest...

 realm to the Investiture Controversy

Investiture Controversy

The Investiture Controversy or Investiture Contest was the most significant conflict between Church and state in medieval Europe. In the 11th and 12th centuries, a series of Popes challenged the authority of European monarchies over control of appointments, or investitures, of church officials such...

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Further reading

• The Norman Anonymous is available in a facsimile edition, Der Codex 415 des Corpus Christi College Cambridge : Facs.-Ausg. d. Textüberlieferung d. Normannischen Anonymus ed. Karl Pellens (1977)

• Sections are available in English translation in English Historical Documents II, ed. Douglas, pp. 725-8.

• G.Williams, The Norman Anonymous of 1100 AD: Towards the Identification and Evaluation of the socalled Anonymous of York, Harvard Theological Studies, xvii (1951)

• K.Pellens, 'The tracts of the Norman Anonymous: Corpus Christi College Cambridge Ms. 415',. Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society (1965)