The Peter Guilday Prize for 2016 is given to Dr. Christopher Riedel of Boston College for his article “Praising God Together: Monastic Reformers and Laypeople in Tenth-Century Winchester” which appeared in the Catholic Historical Review, (Volume 102, no. 2 [Spring 2016], 284-317). Using Lantfred’s Translation and Miracles of St. Swithun (c. 972), Dr. Riedel argued that the cloistered Benedictine monks who replaced the secular canons as the chapter of Winchester cathedral under St. Aethelwold interacted with the laity who came on pilgrimage to the tomb of St. Swithun to receive miraculous cures. When these occurred, the monks (no matter what the hour of day or night) would encourage the laity to join with them in public prayers of thanksgiving, thus modeling for them the proper response for such favors and providing for them one form of pastoral care. Dr. Riedel places Lantfred’s text in the historical context of contemporary hagiographical accounts of miracles, the cult of saints, monastic reform, the liturgical services at the three (Old, New, and Nunna) minsters of Winchester, and the pastoral care of laity. By demonstrating that the monks were not isolated from the laity, but provided a form of pastoral care, Dr. Riedel has made an original contribution to the historiography of monastic reform in Anglo-Saxon England and is thus awarded the Peter Guilday Prize for 2016.
