In two texts written between 1185 and 1205, Gervase of Canterbury proposed a vision of the role of the Benedictine community of Christ Church in relation to the archbishop, their nominal abbot. In the Tractatus de combustione and the Actus pontificum, Gervase repeatedly presented the monks as the guardians of the archbishops' relics and memory. This in turn allowed him to establish close links between the prelates and a precise locus, the cathedral, in an attempt to reassert the traditional role of Christ Church as the archiepiscopal church at a time when this role was under threat. B etween 1170 and 1220 the monastic community of Christ Church, Canterbury, lived through one of the most troubled, and yet at the same time most creative, periods of its history. In those few decades, the monastery went through a series of major upheavals, and saw great change, not least in the way in which the archbishops related to Christ Church, both as a church and as an institution. The murder and canonisation of Archbishop Thomas Becket (1162-70), the destruction by fire of the eastern end of the cathedral, followed by a delayed and protracted reconstruction, as well as a costly quarrel with Archbishop Baldwin (1184-90), all affected in various ways the relationship of the monks with their nominal abbot. Accounts of these crises were written by a monk of the community, Gervase, between the years 1185 and 1205, for, he says, the benefit of his brethren. 1 In these texts, Gervase focused almost exclusively on Christ Church, concentrating at all times on the particular history of his house.
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