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The revival of monasticism in the nineteenth century was reflected in the increasing ambition of the English Benedictine Congregation (EBC). In particular, Downside Abbey in Somerset saw increasing numbers in their community, the expansion of their authority and the creation of their neo-gothic abbey. The history of Downside has always showcased a sense of tradition, continuity and collective memory. However, during 1880-1900, the community was gripped by a constitutional crisis that transformed the governance of the EBC. It dealt with issues of authority within the monastic community, ideas of historical narrative and how the monks built their relationship with the past. This thesis will explore the issues that arose during this period, and how the constitutional crisis transformed the relationship between the mission, the monastery and the traditional framing of the monastic vocation. Significantly, nostalgia was used by the monastic community to justify their relationship with the past - and to provide context for the constitutional reforms they desired. This thesis will analyse how the monastic community used nostalgia to present the context for reform - not as only as a monolithic entity but as individual members who desired varying reform models to advance their own agendas.

This thesis examines the royal exchequer during the reign of King John (1199-1216) and the ways in which the institution's laws and routines shaped the exercise of power in the early thirteenth century. The exchequer, it shows, was a potent tool of political and financial discipline. Its laws and routines could be used by King John to coerce and intimidate his subjects into greater states of dependency or directed against those targeted for humiliation or destruction. Yet the exchequer also constrained the exercise of power in ways that carried profound consequences for royal government in England and Ireland during the thirteenth century. The exchequer, this thesis shows, had undergone a process of institutionalisation in the decades preceding John's coronation, developing a distinct identity and ideology which governed how its members should conceive of and conduct their duties. Institutionalisation and inertia, it will be argued, impacted upon King John's ability to reform and reorganise the exchequer and the financial system it oversaw. As his situation deteriorated, King John's behaviour was channelled into modes of behaviour which were both effective and in alignment with the exchequer's laws and routines; yet this same behaviour also contributed significantly towards uniting his subjects in common grievance, thus engendering social, political, and financial crises which ultimately dictated the tenor and development of royal government for the remainder of the thirteenth century. This thesis, therefore, raises fundamental questions over the nature of power and the contours of royal agency: it demands that we consider how rulers' behaviour was shaped by the institutions and officials which underpinned their rule.