The Norman Anonymous

The Norman Anonymous (sometimes Anonymous of Rouen or Anonymous of York) is the name given to the author of a collection of treatises, the Tractatus Eboracenses, dealing with the relationship between kings and the Catholic Church, written c. 1100. The author, whose identity remains a mystery, offered some of the most strongly worded defences of royal authority and even superiority to the Catholic Church ever uttered in the medieval West. Surviving in just a single manuscript, the text is the only contribution made by the Anglo-Norman realm to the Investiture Controversy.