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Photograph of Tracey-Anne Cooper

Tracey-Anne Cooper

B.A.Hons., M.A.

After achieving a first-class degree in Medieval Studies at Lancaster University in 1997, I entered into the Ph.D. History programme at Boston College, Massachusetts. There my interest in the interplay of magic, religion and science led me to an enigmatic eleventh-century compilation manuscript from Christ Church, Canterbury and to my dissertation topic, which reconstructs the intellectual milieu of the period and explores the interconnections between the various communities-ecclesiastical and lay-of Canterbury and its hinterland.

Title: Basan and Bata: The Occupational Surnames of Two Pre-Conquest Monks of Canterbury
Abstract: As hereditary surnames were not common in Anglo-Saxon England, men of the same name were differentiated by sobriquets based on their place of origin, a physical characteristic or occupation. This article argues that Eadui Basan and Aelfric Bata, two eleventh-century monks of Christ Church, had sobriquets, in Latin of fashionable obscurity, that reflected their occupations within the monastic community.
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Title TWO PREVIOUSLY UNRECORDED MARGINAL ILLUSTRATIONS IN A CHRIST CHURCH, CANTERBURY MANUSCRIPT: COTTON TIBERIUS A. III.
Abstract Both of the marginal illustrations discussed in this article literally interpret the texts to which they are adjacent. The first decorates a mistaken tear in the manuscript as a wound and is opposite a text discussing bloodletting. The second is a very faint drawing a praying man opposite a text providing details to the confessor about the commutation of penance. This kind of illustrative literalism, which has been noted before in the more extensive and elaborate programmes of manuscript illustration most often associated with the Canterbury school, was obviously de rigueur for all illustration of this period, even the relatively humble marginal drawings discussed here.
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