ABSTRACT
In 1195, Lucian, a monk of the Benedictine house of St Werburgh in Chester, completed a treatise in praise of his city. In this substantial manuscript of 396 pages, Lucian devoted 22 pages to a comparison of Chester with Rome, the most illustrious city in the West. This unique text is full of surprises, using a range of ideas about the city of Rome in order to enhance Chester. Lucian did not rely merely on a crude juxtaposition of good and bad features, as might have been expected from a conservative Benedictine monk writing at a time of unparalleled English hostility to the Roman curia. Lucian instead presented an entirely unexpected view of the city of Rome, seen through the experiences of St Peter and his vicar, the pope. He intertwined this with the experiences of St Peter in Chester in order to present an enhanced view of the English city. Far from being denigrated, the city of Rome was given an overwhelmingly positive gloss by Lucian. This remarkable text has been all but ignored by historians, but it gives us a real insight into the image of Rome among the English in the twelfth century, and is a useful corrective to the better-known satirical tradition which had developed in response to the growth of papal government.1 Indeed, Lucian’s text shows that the prestige of Rome remained an important factor in twelfth-century England. Moreover, an examination of the reasons for its composition gives a valuable insight into the relationship between an ‘old’ Benedictine house, feeling the pressure of a changed world, and the papacy, perceived not as the grasping and corrupting devourer of English resources, but as a protector and guardian of ecclesiastical liberty.
