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Paper short abstract:

This paper will reveal correlations between land reclamation in England's Fens and the success of St Guthlac’s cult. Using Esri's ArcGIS StoryMap technologies, it will plot changes to boundaries, estate ownership, and church construction between the 8th-16th centuries.

Paper long abstract:

The Anglo-Latin Vita Sancti Guthlaci by Felix explains that St Guthlac (ca.656-714) chose to seclude himself at Crowland for two reasons: he had been influenced by hearing tales of the Desert Fathers and Crowland was part of illius vastissimi heremi inculta loca called the Fens, uninhabitable because of demons and known to very few. Reconsideration of Crowland’s historical topography will illuminate how this site was chosen for its border location, as a site for ascetic living, healing, and prophesy, encouraged by royal patrons and popular with the laity.

Felix was clearly interested in imitating contemporary hagiographical exemplars circulating in Anglo-Saxon England in the seventh and eighth centuries. However, he was also interested in defining a local, Christianized landscape whose transformation mirrored that of his subject. Indeed, Benedictine monks transformed the isolated hermitage into a cult centre managed by a large monastic estate after the mid-tenth century, utilizing Felix’s narrative to endorse their ancient claims to a sanctified topography.

This presentation aims to explore, using Esri’s ArcGIS StoryMap technologies, the correlations between land reclamation in the Fens and the success of St Guthlac’s cult. It will demonstrate how changes to boundaries, estate ownership, and church construction may be plotted in StoryMaps to highlight the extent to which this Benedictine community at Crowland and its landscape remained intertwined from the eighth century through to its dissolution in the sixteenth century.