The Regular Canons in the Medieval British Isles 9782503532486, 9782503539577

Table of contents :
Front Matter ("Title page", "Copyright page", "Contents", "Abbreviations", "List of Illustrations"), p. i

Free Access

Introduction, p. 1
Janet Burton, Karen Stöber
https://doi.org/10.1484/M.MCS-EB.5.100374


Anglo-Saxon Saints and a Norman Archbishop: 'Imaginitive Memory' and Institutional Identity at St Gregory's Priory, Canterbury, p. 19
Sheila Sweetinburgh
https://doi.org/10.1484/M.MCS-EB.5.100375


The Regular Canons and Diocesan Reform in Northern England, p. 41
Janet Burton
https://doi.org/10.1484/M.MCS-EB.5.100376


The Augustinians Canons in Northumbria: Region, Tradition, and Textuality in a Colonizing Order, p. 59
Anne Mathers-Lawrence
https://doi.org/10.1484/M.MCS-EB.5.100377


Augustinian Canons and the Survival of Cult Centres in Medieval England, p. 79
Andrew Abram
https://doi.org/10.1484/M.MCS-EB.5.100378


The Regular Canons in Wales, p. 97
Karen Stöber
https://doi.org/10.1484/M.MCS-EB.5.100379


A Survey of Relations between Scottish Augustinian Canons before 1215, p. 115
Andrew T. Smith, Garret B. Ratcliff
https://doi.org/10.1484/M.MCS-EB.5.100380


The Founders and Patrons of the Premonstratensian Houses in Ireland, p. 145
Miriam Clyne
https://doi.org/10.1484/M.MCS-EB.5.100381


The Chapter Office in the Gilbertine Order and the Rule of St Augustine, p. 173
Janet T. Sorrentino
https://doi.org/10.1484/M.MCS-EB.5.100382


Corrodies at Houses of Regular Canons in England c. 1485–1539, p. 193
Allison D. Fizzard
https://doi.org/10.1484/M.MCS-EB.5.100383


The Augustinian Canons and Education, p. 213
Nicolas Orme
https://doi.org/10.1484/M.MCS-EB.5.100384


The Regular Canons and the Use of Food, c. 1200–1350, p. 233
Dave Postles
https://doi.org/10.1484/M.MCS-EB.5.100385


Thornton Abbey: Canons and their Careers within the Cloister, p. 251
Judith A. Frost
https://doi.org/10.1484/M.MCS-EB.5.100386


Augustinian Life and Leadership in Late Medieval England: Abbot Henry Honor of Missenden (1462–c. 1506) and his Register, p. 267
Martin Heale
https://doi.org/10.1484/M.MCS-EB.5.100387


‘And then he added Canons’: Gilbert, the Order of Sempringham, and the Developing Framework of Gilbertine Life, p. 291
Glyn Coppack
https://doi.org/10.1484/M.MCS-EB.5.100388


The Augustinian Canons and their Parish Churches: A Key to their Identity, p. 313
Nick Nichols
https://doi.org/10.1484/M.MCS-EB.5.100389


The Significance of Devotion to the Augustinian Canons by Members of the Nobility and Gentry in the Fourteenth Century, p. 339
Graham St John
https://doi.org/10.1484/M.MCS-EB.5.100390


Kinship, Locality, and Benefaction: The Uppington Heiresses and the Priory of Wombridge in Thirteenth-Century Shropshire, p. 363
Emma Cavell
https://doi.org/10.1484/M.MCS-EB.5.100391


The Last Generation of Augustinian Canons in Sixteenth-Century Yorkshire, p. 387
Claire Cross
https://doi.org/10.1484/M.MCS-EB.5.100392


The Augustinians, History, and Literature in Late Medieval England, p. 403
James G. Clark
https://doi.org/10.1484/M.MCS-EB.5.100393


The Idol of Origins: Retrospection in Augustinian Art during the Later Middle Ages, p. 417
Julian M. Luxford
https://doi.org/10.1484/M.MCS-EB.5.100394


The Standing Fabric and the Rockeries: Reconstructing Thurgarton Priory Church, p. 443
Jennifer S. Alexander
https://doi.org/10.1484/M.MCS-EB.5.100395


Augustinian Regular Canons in Twelfth- and Thirteenth-Century Ireland: History, Architecture, and Identity, p. 469
Tadhg O'Keeffe
https://doi.org/10.1484/M.MCS-EB.5.100396


Back Matter ("Index of Houses of Regular Canons and Canonesses in the British Isles", "General Index", "Medieval Church Studies"), p. 485

Citation preview

T HE R EGULAR C ANONS IN THE M EDIEVAL B RITISH ISLES

MEDIEVAL CHURCH STUDIES

Volume 19

T HE R EGULAR C ANONS IN THE M EDIEVAL B RITISH ISLES

Edited by

Janet Burton and Karen Stöber

H

F

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data The regular canons in the medieval British Isles. -(Medieval church studies ; v. 19) 1. Monasticism and religious orders--Great Britain-History--Middle Ages, 600-1500. 2. Monastic and religious life--Great Britain--History--Middle Ages, 600-1500. 3. Augustinian Canons--Great Britain--History--To 1500. 4. Great Britain--Church history--1066-1485. 5. Church history--12th century. I. Series II. Burton, Janet E. III. Stöber, Karen. 271'.08'041-dc23 ISBN-13: 9782503532486

© 2011, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. D/2011/0095/158 ISBN: 978-2-503-53248-6 Printed on acid-free paper

C ONTENTS

Abbreviations List of Illustrations Introduction

ix xiii 1

JANET BURTON AND KAREN STÖBER

Part I: Origins, Organization, and Regional Developments Anglo-Saxon Saints and a Norman Archbishop: ‘Imaginative Memory’ and Institutional Identity at St Gregory’s Priory, Canterbury

19

SHEILA SWEETINBURGH

The Regular Canons and Diocesan Reform in Northern England

41

JANET BURTON

The Augustinians Canons in Northumbria: Region, Tradition, and Textuality in a Colonizing Order ANNE MATHERS -LAWRENCE

59

Augustinian Canons and the Survival of Cult Centres in Medieval England

79

ANDREW ABRAM

The Regular Canons in Wales

97

KAREN STÖBER

A Survey of Relations between Scottish Augustinian Canons before 1215 ANDREW T. SMITH AND GARRETT B. RATCLIFF

115

The Founders and Patrons of the Premonstratensian Houses in Ireland

145

MIRIAM CLYNE

The Chapter Office in the Gilbertine Order and the Rule of St Augustine JANET T. SORRENTINO

173

Part II: Community Life Corrodies at Houses of Regular Canons in England c. 1485–1539 ALLISON D. FIZZARD

193

The Augustinian Canons and Education

213

NICHOLAS ORME

The Regular Canons and the Use of Food, c. 1200–1350

233

DAVE POSTLES

Thornton Abbey: Canons and their Careers within the Cloister JUDITH A. FROST

251

Augustinian Life and Leadership in Late Medieval England: Abbot Henry Honor of Missenden (1462–c. 1506) and his Register

267

MARTIN HEALE

Part III: Social Contexts ‘And then he added Canons’: Gilbert, the Order of Sempringham, and the Developing Framework of Gilbertine Life GLYN COPPACK

291

The Augustinian Canons and their Parish Churches: A Key to their Identity

313

NICK NICHOLS

The Significance of Devotion to the Augustinian Canons by Members of the Nobility and Gentry in the Fourteenth Century

339

GRAHAM ST JOHN

Kinship, Locality, and Benefaction: The Uppington Heiresses and the Priory of Wombridge in Thirteenth-Century Shropshire

363

EMMA CAVELL

The Last Generation of Augustinian Canons in Sixteenth-Century Yorkshire

387

CLAIRE CROSS

Part IV: Cultural Contexts The Augustinians, History, and Literature in Late Medieval England JAMES G. CLARK

403

The Idol of Origins: Retrospection in Augustinian Art during the Later Middle Ages JULIAN M. LUXFORD

417

The Standing Fabric and the Rockeries: Reconstructing Thurgarton Priory Church JENNIFER S. ALEXANDER

443

Augustinian Regular Canons in Twelfth- and Thirteenth-Century Ireland: History, Architecture, and Identity TADHG O’KEEFFE

469

Index of Houses of Regular Canons and Canonesses in the British Isles

485

General Index

493

A BBREVIATIONS

£

pound (comprising twenty shillings, each of which in turn comprised twelve pence; one noble was worth eighty pence [6s. 8d.] and a mark double that amount [13s. 4d.])

Aug.

Augustinian

Ben.

Benedictine

BL

British Library (London)

CChR

Calendar of Charter Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office, 6 vols (London: HMSO, 1903–27)

CIPM

Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem and Other Analogous Documents Preserved in the Public Record Office (1236–1432), 23 vols (London: HMSO, 1904–2004); Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem and Other Analogous Documents Preserved in the Public Record Office [1485–1509], 3 vols (London: HMSO, 1898–1955)

Cist.

Cistercian

CP

The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, ed. by G. E. Cokayne and others (London: London: St Catherine, 1910–)

CPL

Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers Relating to Great Britain and Ireland, Papal Letters, ed. by W. H.

x

Abbreviations

Bliss and others, 20 vols to date (London: HMSO, 1893–1960; Dublin: Stationery Office, 1978–) CPP

Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers Relating to Great Britain and Ireland, Petitions to the Pope, AD 1342–1419, ed. by W. H. Bliss (London: HMSO, 1896)

CPR

Calendar of the Patent Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office (London: HMSO, 1891–)

d.

penny or pence

DB

Domesday Book

EEA

English Episcopal Acta, ed. by David Smith and others, 20 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988–)

Emden, BRUC

A. B. Emden, A Biographical Register of the University of Cambridge to 1500 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963)

Emden, BRUO, I–III

A. B. Emden, A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford to AD 1500, 3 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1957–59)

Emden, BRUO, IV

A.B. Emden, A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford AD 1501 to 1540 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974)

EYC

Early Yorkshire Charters, ed. by C. T. Clay (based on manuscripts from W. Farrer), Yorkshire Archaeological Society Records, e.s., 11 vols

Gilb.

Gilbertine

HRH

The Heads of Religious Houses: England and Wales, ed. by D. Knowles and others, 3 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972–2008)

L&P

Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, ed. by J. Gairdner and others, 21 vols plus addenda in 37 (London: HMSO, 1862–1932)

Abbreviations

xi

Monasticon

William Dugdale, Monasticon anglicanum, ed. by J. Caley, H. Ellis, and B. Bandinel, 6 vols in 8 (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, 1817–30)

MRH

Medieval Religious Houses, England and Wales, David Knowles and R. Neville Hadcock, 2nd edn (London: Longman, 1971)

ODNB

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004)

Prem.

Premonstratensian

PRO

Public Record Office, Kew (now The National Archives)

RRAN

Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, 1066–1154, ed. by C. Johnson and H. A. Cronne, 4 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1913–69)

s.

shilling

Taxatio

Taxatio ecclesiastica Angliae et Walliae auctoritate P. Nicholai IV, circa A.D. 1291, ed. by T. Astle, S. Ayscough, and J. Caley, Record Commission Publications (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1802)

Tiron

Order of Tiron

TNA

The National Archives (Kew, London)

VCH

Victoria History of the Counties of England, ed. by W. H. Page and others

VE

Valor ecclesiasticus, temp. Henrici VIII auctoritate regia institutus, ed. by J. Caley and J. Hunter, Record Commission Publications, 9, 6 vols (London: Record Commission, 1810–34)

Historic English county names are abbreviated as follows: Bedfordshire (Beds.) Berkshire (Berks.) Buckinghamshire (Bucks.)

xii

Abbreviations

Cambridgeshire (Cambs.) Cheshire (Ches.) Cornwall (Corn.) Cumberland (Cumb.) Derbyshire (Derbys.) Gloucestershire (Glos.) Hampshire (Hants.) Herefordshire (Here.) Hertfordshire (Herts.) Huntingdonshire (Hunts.) Lancashire (Lancs.) Leicestershire (Leics.) Lincolnshire (Lincs.) Middlesex (Middx) Norfolk (Norf.) Northamptonshire (Northants.) Northumberland (Northumb.) Nottinghamshire (Notts.) Oxfordshire (Oxon.) Shropshire (Shrops.) Somerset (Som.) Staffordshire (Staffs.) Suffolk (Suff.) Surrey (Surr.) Warwickshire (Warw.) Wiltshire (Wilts.) Worcestershire (Worcs.) Yorkshire (Yorks.), comprising East, North, and West ridings (ER, NR, WR)

Historic Welsh county names are abbreviated as follows: Caernarfonshire (Caernarf.) Carmarthenshire (Carms.) Denbighshire (Denb.) Monmouthshire (Monm.) Pembrokeshire (Pembs.)

ILLUSTRATIONS

Figures Figure 1, p. 31. St Gregory’s Priory seal. Figure 2, p. 135. Appearances of regulars in charters of Robert, Bishop of St Andrews (Aug.). Figure 3, p. 135. Appearances of regulars in charters of Jocelin, Bishop of Glasgow (Cist.). Figure 4, p. 150. Carrickfergus Castle. Figure 5, p. 160. Holy Trinity Abbey, Lough Key from the south-east. Figure 6, p. 164. Rindown: Castle and Premonstratensian church. Figure 7, p. 167. Annaghdown. Figure 8, p. 295. Plan of Watton Priory surveyed by Sir Harold Brakspear and interpreted by Sir William Hope. Figure 9, p. 297. The church of Old Malton, the nave of the canons’ church begun in Gilbert’s lifetime. Figure 10, p. 298. Hugh Braun’s excavation plan at the end of the 1938 season at Sempringham (compare with Figure 15). Figure 11, p. 300. Hugh Braun’s plan of the church at Sempringham, excavated in 1939, simplified to remove conjectural reconstruction. Figure 12, p. 301. J. K. St Joseph’s aerial photography of Sempringham Priory in 1950 from the south-west, the canons’ cloister above and to the left of the

xiv

Illustrations

outer court. Reproduced with permission of Cambridge University Committee on Aerial Photography. Figure 13, p. 303. The site of Sempringham and Sempringham Priory as defined by aerial photography. Map by Rog Palmer. Figure 14, p. 304. The buildings of Sempringham Priory (and Sempringham Hall that succeeded it) were accurately plotted by magnetometer and resistivity survey in 2004. Reproduced with permission of Engineering Archaeological Services Ltd. Figure 15, p. 306. A reconstructed plan of the central medieval buildings of Sempringham Priory based on the interpretation of aerial and geophysical survey around the church excavated by Braun in 1939. Plan reproduced courtesy of P. Cope-Faulkner and G. Coppack. Figure 16a, p. 310. The tap key from the nuns’ cloister at Sempringham and a comparable tap from Fountains Abbey. Photographs by David Hopkins (Sempringham) and Judith Dobie (Fountains). Figure 16b, p. 311. The tap key from the nuns’ cloister at Sempringham and a comparable tap from Fountains Abbey. Photographs by David Hopkins (Sempringham) and Judith Dobie (Fountains). Figure 17, p. 421. The north façade of the precinctual gate at St Augustine’s, Bristol. Photograph by Julian Luxford. Figure 18, p. 429. The hybrid furnishing on the north side of the choir at Hexham, including the seven panels of bishop-saints. Photograph by David Robinson. Reproduced with permission Figure 19, p. 435. Rahere’s monument at St Bartholomew the Great, Smithfield. Conway Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art. Reproduced with permission. Figure 20, p. 437. The book of the foundation of St Bartholomew’s at the point where the Latin text ends and its English translation begins. London, BL, MS Cotton Vespasian B xi, fols 40v –41r. Reproduced with permission of the British Library Board. Figure 21, p. 439. The northern, or ‘English’ side of the Brus cenotaph, now in the parish church of St Nicholas, Guisborough. Conway Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art. Reproduced with permission.

Illustrations

xv

Figure 22, p. 440. The eastern end of the Brus cenotaph, showing the foundational Augustinian community dominated by the first prior, William de Brus. Photograph by Julian Luxford. Figure 23, p. 444. General view of Thurgarton Priory church and the house on the site of the west cloister from the west. Figure 24, p. 445. Section of twelfth-century arch moulding. Figure 25, p. 446. Lincoln Cathedral north-west portal showing its outer arch moulding. Figure 26, p. 447. Detail of Buck’s 1726 engraving of the church and house then standing. Figure 27, p. 449. Interior of the church showing the nave’s north arcade from the west. Figure 28, p. 450. Bourne Abbey church, respond to north-east tower pier in the nave’s north aisle. Figure 29, p. 451. Reconstruction drawing of the tower bay of the nave. Figure 30, p. 452. Blocked nave triforium arch from tower upper floor. Figure 31, p. 452. Clerestory arcade from the west. Figure 32, p. 453. Southwell Minster south choir windows with whorl label-stop. Figure 33, p. 454. Jedburgh Abbey nave from the west. Figure 34, p. 454. East wall of triforium-level chamber showing large enclosing arch and window over left spandrel. Figure 35, p. 455. Wenlock Priory upper chapel at the west end of the nave, from the cloister. Figure 36, p. 456. Upper part of east wall niche. Figure 37, p. 457. Joint between the original lancet window of the centre of the west front and the nineteenth-century gable. Figure 38, p. 458. Schematized reconstruction drawing of the west front with four lancets. Figure 39, p. 459. Alternative version of the west front reconstruction with five lancets.

xvi

Illustrations

Figure 40, p. 460. Rear of the west front gable showing the shaft framing the north lancet, the end of the clerestory arcade and the blocked triforium openings below. Figure 41, p. 461. The west range undercroft from the north-east. The blocked east doorway is behind the timber stacked on the left. Figure 42, p. 463. Reconstruction plan of the medieval nave and west range. Figure 43, p. 464. Plan of the parish church with the house overlaid on the plan of the undercroft. Figure 44, p. 466. Two cloister bases reused at the base of a later wall in the undercroft. Figure 45, p. 472. Christ Church (formerly Holy Trinity) Cathedral, Dublin, and associated claustral ranges in the nineteenth century; only the foundations of the chapter houses survive above ground. Figure 46, p. 477. The west wall of the east range of Cong, Co. Mayo, showing the chapter house doorway and a fine processional doorway off the cloister to its right. Figure 47, p. 478. Top: Clare Abbey, Co. Clare, a late twelfth-century Gaelic-Irish foundation, with its fifteenth-century church tower; part of the claustral range can be seen on the left. Bottom: Cahir Priory, Co. Tipperary, an Anglo-Norman foundation of the late 1100s, with the cloister site in the foreground. Figure 48, p. 480. Ground plan of Athassal Priory, Co. Tipperary.

Graphs Graph 1, p. 365. Genealogy of the Musson family.

Maps Map 1a, p. 13. Map showing houses of regular canons and canonesses in Ireland.

Illustrations

xvii

Map 1b, p. 14. Map showing houses of regular canons and canonesses in Wales and the West of England. Map 1c, p. 15. Map showing houses of regular canons and canonesses in central and eastern England. Map 1d, p. 16. Map showing houses of regular canons and canonesses in northern England and Scotland. Map 2, p. 142. Personnel exchange between Augustinian houses before 1215. Map 3, p. 148. Premonstratensian conventual houses and hospitals in Ireland. Map 4, p. 159. The temporal estate of Holy Trinity Abbey, Lough Key. Map 5, p. 475. Newly founded Augustinian (mainly Arrouaisian) houses in Ireland after 1169; houses of the Victorine congregation are numbered.

Tables Table 1, p. 186. The Rule of St Augustine in the Gilbertine Institutes. Table 2, p. 314. Spiritualities as a percentage of total income for monasteries in the diocese of Worcester. Table 3, p. 318. Augustinian monasteries and their spiritualities as a percentage of their total income according to the Valor ecclesiasticus.

INTRODUCTION Janet Burton and Karen Stöber

O

f all the religious groups that populated the medieval British Isles, the regular canons are perhaps the hardest to define with precision. Described by C. H. Lawrence over two decades ago as ‘really a hybrid order of clerical monks’, the different groups of regular canons have never, to this day, achieved the status of other religious orders in the writing of monastic history and consequently have remained, historiographically speaking, in the shadow of their considerably better-researched Benedictine or Cistercian colleagues.1 When we decided therefore, in 2007, to organize a conference dedicated to the regular canons in the medieval British Isles, we did so in part with the aim of providing a platform for recent research on what appeared to be, judging by the state of published scholarship, a somewhat under-represented religious group in this part of Europe. That this under-representation in no way reflects the attention and interest the canons are currently receiving from scholars, however, became immediately clear when we were inundated with proposals for contributions to this project, and not only from historians, but also from archaeologists, architectural historians, and art historians, from England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. The great resourcefulness of the canons in particular has recently attracted the attention of scholars across academic disciplines, a development which has given a considerable boost to the subject, making the present volume a particularly timely contribution. The recent interest in the

1

C. H. Lawrence, Medieval Monasticism: Forms of Religious Life in Western Europe in the Middle Ages (London: Longman, 1984), p. 163. But note Janet Burton’s recent work, ‘Les Chanoines Réguliers en Grande-Bretagne’, in Les Chanoines Réguliers: Émergence et expansion (XIe– XIIIe siècles), ed. by M. Parisse (Le Puy: Publications de l’Université de Saint-Étienne, 2009), pp. 477–98.

2

Janet Burton and Karen Stöber

regular canons within the geographical context of the British Isles echoes developments on the continent, where the importance of the regular canons in medieval society has been appreciated for some time.2 Although neglected in British historiography, the regular canons can with some justification be described as a religious phenomenon which ought to

2

Over thirty years ago, in 1977, Stefan Weinfurter commented on the neglect of the continental regular canons in past historiography, noting how the situation had improved by the time he was writing, ‘Jahrzehntelang blieb die Reformbewegung der Kanoniker des 11. und 12. Jh.s weitgehend unbeachtet’: S. Weinfurter, ‘Neuere Forschung zu den Regularkanonikern im Deutschen Reich des 11. und 12. Jahrhunderts’, Historische Zeitschrift, 224 (1977), 379–97 (p. 379). Among the numerous publications on the continental canons note, for instance, N. Jaspert, ‘La Reforma Agustiniana: Un movimiento Europeo entre “piedad popular” y “política eclesiástica”’, in La Reforma Gregoriana y su proyección en la Cristiandad occidental: Siglos XI– XIII, ed. by J.-I.Saranyana (Pamplona: Gobierno de Navarra, 2006), pp. 375–420; and by the same author, Stift und Stadt: Das Heiliggrabpriorat von Santa Anna und das Regularkanonikerstift Santa Eulàlia del Camp im mittelalterlichen Barcelona (1145–1423) (Berlin: Duncker und Humblot, 1997); C. Andenna, ‘Studi recenti sui Canonici Regolari’, in Dove va la storiografia monastica in Europa? Temi e metodi de ricerca per lo studio della vita monastica e regolare in età medievale alle soglie del terzo millennio, ed. by G. Andenna (Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 2001), pp. 101–29. C. Andenna, Mortariensis ecclesia: Una congregazione di canonici regolari in Italia settentrionale tra XI e XII secolo, Vita regularis — Ordnungen und Deutungen religiosen Lebens im Mittelalter, Abhandlungen, 32 (Münster: LIT, 2007). Also Ch. Giroud, L’Ordre des chanoines réguliers de Saint-Augustin et ses diverses formes de régime interne (Martigny: Grand-Saint-Bernard, 1961) and U. Vones-Liebenstein, Saint-Ruf und Spanien: Studien zur Verbreitung und zum Wirken der Regularkanoniker von Saint-Ruf in Avignon auf der iberischen Halbinsel (11. und 12. Jahrhundert), Bibliotheca Victorina, 6, 2 vols (Turnhout: Brepols, 1996). J. Semmler, ‘Die Kanoniker und ihre Regel im 9. Jahrhundert’, in Studien zum weltlichen Kollegiatstift in Deutschland, ed. by I. Crusius (Göttingen:Max-Planck-Institut für Geschichte, 1995), pp. 62–109; O. Engels, Episkopat und Kanonie im mittelalterlichen Katalonien (Münster: Aschendorff, 1963); J. J. Bauer, ‘Die Vita Canonica der katalanischen Kathedralkapitel vom 9.–11. Jahrhundert’, in Homenaje a Johannes Vincke para el 11 de mayo de 1962 (Madrid: CSIC, 1963), pp. 81–112. Note also C. Dereine’s article ‘Chanoines’ in Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie ecclésiastique, 29 vols (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1912–2008), XII (1953), 353–404, and by the same author, ‘La Réforme canoniale en Rhénanie (1075–1150)’, in Mémorial d’un voyage d’études de la Société Nationale des Antiquaires de France en Rhénanie, ed. by R . Louis (Paris: Klincksieck, 1953), pp. 235–40; J. Siegwart, Die Chorherren- und Chorfrauengemeinschaften in der deutschsprachigen Schweiz vom 6. Jh. bis 1160, Studia Freiburgensia, Neue Folge, 30 (Freiburg im Ü: Universitätsverlag, 1962); M. Claussen, The Reform of the Frankish Church: Chrodegang of Metz and the ‘Regula Canonicorum’ in the Eighth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004); J. Mois, Das Stift Rottenbuch in der Kirchenreform des XI.–XII. Jahrhunderts: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Augustinerchorherren, Beiträge zur altbayerischen Kirchengeschichte, 19 (Munich: Erzbischöfliches Ordinariats, 1953).

INTRODUCTION

3

generate scholarly interest on many levels. While living an essentially monastic lifestyle, the active part of their mission, reflected especially in their duties of pastoral care, which saw them officiating in parish churches and looking after charitable institutions such as hospitals and pilgrims’ hostels, brought the regular canons into direct contact with the world outside their cloister walls, thereby bridging the gap between religious and secular spheres. In their day, and particularly during the height of their success in the British Isles, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the different orders of regular canons, among them most prominently Augustinians, Premonstratensians, and Gilbertines, attracted the patronage of lay folk from kings all the way down to the humble country gentry, on a scale unprecedented in the monastic history of the Isles. The history of the regular canons in Britain is a rich and varied one. Their houses were diverse in their geographical settings, in the political and social status of their founders and benefactors, and in their own wealth and standing. Many of them owed their origins and their resources to members of the royal family or to those connected with royal circles through patronage and service. Others were founded and endowed by members of the knightly class, who sought to emulate those above them in the social and political hierarchy by making their own foundations, and who found in the canons an appropriate target for their charitable donations. The conversion of houses of secular canons or priests to communities of regular canons, and the endowment of abbeys and priories of canons with parish churches suggests that some founders at least perceived that they would have a parochial or pastoral function. Others saw in the adaptability of the Rule of Saint Augustine a suitable basis for the life of communities devoted to the care of the sick. With other houses, given their remote location and eremitical origins, it is difficult to see the difference between the regular canons and other more austere orders such as the Cistercians. As this volume will demonstrate there was scarcely an area of England that was untouched by the spread of the canons, and they were also a significant presence in Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. Their dispersal, however, was not equally balanced. The majority of houses lay in the central and eastern parts of the country, with fewer houses in the West Country (Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall) and fewer still in the north west and north of the River Tees. There was a greater concentration of houses in East Anglia, that is, in Suffolk and Norfolk, and in Essex, and indeed nearly a quarter of houses lay in that region. However, this density may be misleading, since many of the houses there appear to have been smaller and less well endowed than the large houses of the West Country. In Scotland the concentration is quite clearly in the south east; this is

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paralleled in other religious orders and can be explained by the density of population in that part of the country. In Wales the lack of houses in the central areas reflects both the nature of the terrain — the Cambrian mountains — and the dominance of the Cistercians. In terms of chronology the main period of expansion was, as we shall see, the first three-quarters — particularly the first half — of the twelfth century, but Augustinian foundations continued to be made into the thirteenth century — the first record of Longleat Priory in Wiltshire, for instance, comes in 1235. Indeed, as late as 1336 Sir William de Clinton abandoned his plans for a chantry college for a warden and five secular priests at Maxstoke and instead endowed an Augustinian priory for a prior and twelve canons there. A decline in the number of new monastic foundations from the thirteenth century onwards is a general phenomenon, but in the case of the Augustinian canons the rate of decrease was not as rapid or dramatic as with the other monastic orders. The main period of growth for the houses of Augustinian canons, however, came in the reign of King Henry I of England (1100–35), who, with his first wife, Queen Matilda, was an enthusiastic supporter of their houses. Forty-three Augustinian foundations in England can be dated to Henry’s reign and of these all but ten yield evidence of some royal involvement. Henry I made five foundations — Carlisle, Cirencester, Dunstable, Saint Denys by Southampton, and Wellow — and charter evidence bears witness of his close connection with seven others, founded by his curiales, those members of his court on whom he relied in government. The documentary evidence, particularly that furnished by foundation charters, indicates that senior churchmen, too, played a not inconsiderable role in promoting the cause of the canons. This can be seen in two ways. The first is the conversion of secular colleges and minsters (that is mother churches staffed by priests who served a wide parish through outlying churches and chapels)3 into Augustinian houses. The second is the way in which archbishops and bishops persuaded members of the laity to invest, financially and spiritually, in the canons. In England and Wales Augustinian canons frequently supplanted or replaced earlier communities, rather than being founded do novo. It can be

3

On minster churches, see J. Blair, ‘Secular Minster Churches in Domesday Book’, in Domesday Book: A Reassessment, ed. by P. Sawyer (London: Arnold, 1985), pp. 104–42, and by the same author, Minsters and Parish Churches: The Local Church in Transition, 950–1200 (Oxford: Oxford University Committee for Archaeology, 1988), and Saint Frideswide’s Monastery at Oxford: Archaeological and Architectural Studies (Gloucester: Sutton, 1990).

INTRODUCTION

5

argued — although firm evidence is lacking — that those bishops who converted secular minsters or colleges of canons into houses of regular canons sought to perpetuate their parochial functions while eliminating some of their less acceptable features. The intended pastoral function of the canons is also suggested by their heavy endowment with parish churches. The canons were not the only religious order to benefit from the desire of a growing number of laymen to divest themselves of the possession of parish churches. Nor were they the only monasteries to aim to provide parishioners with the cure of souls. However the number of Augustinian houses that were beneficiaries of grants of parish churches is striking. The evidence suggests that in part the dynamic behind the foundation of British houses of Augustinian canons lay in the reforming impulses of higher churchmen and their perception of the canons as agents in that reform. However, the scarcity of firm evidence for the canons appropriating or serving their parish churches in greater numbers than the Benedictine monks, for instance, means that this is a stilldebated question. The standard monograph on the Augustinians, J. C. Dickinson’s The Origins of the Austin Canons and their Introduction into England, is now over fifty years old,4 and H. M. Colvin’s book, The White Canons in England, is only one year its junior.5 David Robinson’s The Geography of Augustinian Settlement in Medieval England and Wales concentrates, as its name suggests, on aspects of the historical geography of the houses of canons.6 In recent years the work of David Postles, in particular on patrons and benefactors of houses such as Oseney in Oxford, has made a valuable contribution to Augustinian studies,7 while David Walker has produced 4 J. C. Dickinson, The Origins of the Austin Canons and their Introduction into England (London: SPCK, 1950). See also J. C. Dickinson, ‘English Regular Canons and the Continent in the Twelfth Century’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser., 1 (1951), 71–89. 5

H. M. Colvin, The White Canons in England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1951).

6

D. Robinson, The Geography of Augustinian Settlement in Medieval England and Wales, BAR, British Series, 80, 2 vols (Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, British Series, 1980). See also, by the same author, ‘The Site Changes of Augustinian Communities in Medieval England and Wales’, Mediaeval Studies, 43 (1981), 425–44. 7

D. Postles, ‘The Foundation of Oseney Abbey’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 53 (1980), 242–44; Postles, ‘The Learning of the Austin Canons: the Case of Oseney Abbey’, Nottingham Medieval Studies, 29 (1985), 32–43; Postles, ‘Patronatus et Advocatus Noster: Oseney Abbey and the Oilly Family’, Historical Research, 60 (1987), 100–02. On other aspects of the history of the canons see A. Lawrence, ‘A Northern English School? Patterns of Production and Collection of Manuscripts in the Augustinian Houses of Yorkshire in the

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a useful edition of the cartulary of St Augustine’s Abbey, Bristol (1988).8 Joseph Gribbin’s The Premonstratensian Order in Late Medieval England (2001) is limited in its chronological focus to the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.9 The history of the regular canons has therefore remained somewhat of a lacuna in historical scholarship on the religious orders in Britain. However, while full-length studies on the regular canons as a group, or on their individual orders, are still thin on the ground, recent years have seen a gradual increase in publications on individual houses of regular canons and on issues related to their different orders.10

Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries’, in Yorkshire Archaeology, Art, and Architecture, from the Seventh to the Sixteenth Centuries, ed. by L. R . Hoey, British Archaeological Association, Conference Transactions, 16 (Leeds: British Archaeological Association, 1995), pp. 145–53, and The Libraries of the Augustinian Canons, ed. by T. Webber and A. G. Watson, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues, 6 (London: British Library and British Academy, 1998). 8

The Cartulary of St Augustine’s Abbey, Bristol, ed. by D. Walker, Gloucestershire Record Series, 10 (Bristol: Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, 1998). 9

J. A. Gribbin, The Premonstratensian Order in Late Medieval England (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2001). For a very recent edition of a Premonstratensian cartulary see The Durford Cartulary, ed. by J. H. Stevenson, Sussex Record Society, 90 (Lewes: Sussex Record Society, 2006). 10

Note, for example, A. Abram, Norton Priory: An Augustinian Community and its Benefactors, Trivium, Occasional Papers, 2 (Lampeter: University of Wales, 2007); Abram, ‘The Augustinian Priory of Wombridge and its Benefactors in the Later Middle Ages’, in Monasteries and Society in the British Isles in the Later Middle Ages, ed. by J. Burton and K . Stöber (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2008), pp. 83–94. T. Colk, ‘Twelfth-Century East Anglian Canons: A Monastic Life?’, in Medieval East Anglia, ed. by C. Harper-Bill (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2005), pp. 209–24. A. Duncan, ‘The Foundation of St Andrews Cathedral Priory, 1140’, The Scottish Historical Review, 84 (2005), 1–37. R . Dunning, ‘William Gilbert, First Abbot of Bruton’, Notes and Queries for Somerset and Dorset, 35 (2003), 316–18. A. Fizzard, ‘Shoes, Boots, Leggings and Cloaks: The Augustinian Canons and Dress in Later Medieval England’, Journal of British Studies, 46 (2007), 245–62; Fizzard, ‘The Incumbents of Benefices in the Gift of Plympton Priory, 1257–1369’, Medieval Prosopography, 25 (2008), 75–100; and Fizzard, Plympton Priory: A House of Augustinian Canons in South-Western England in the Later Middle Ages (Leiden: Brill, 2008). J. Franklin, ‘The Eastern Arm of Norwich Cathedral and the Augustinian Priory of St Bartholomew’s, Smithfield, in London’, The Antiquaries Journal, 86 (2006), 110–30. J. Frost, The Foundation of Nostell Priory, 1109–1153, Borthwick Papers, 111 (York: Borthwick Institute, 2007). L. Green, A Priory Revealed: Using Materials Relating to Merton Priory (Morden: Merton Historical Society, 2005). J. Gribbin, ‘La Vie de Richard Redman, abbé de Shap, vicaire général de l’Abbé de Prémontré et Évêque (env. 1458–1505)’, in Abbatiat et abbés dans l’Ordre de Prémontré, ed. by D.-M. Dauzet and M. Plouvier, Bibliotheca Victorina, 17 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), pp. 295–310. A. Hogan, The Priory of Llanthony Prima and Secunda in Ireland, 1172–1541: Lands, Patronage and Politics (Dublin: Four Courts, 2007). B. Lowe, S. Harrison,

INTRODUCTION

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The great classic of monastic history, The Monastic Order in England by Dom David Knowles, first published in 1940 and reprinted in 1963, which sits alongside his three-volume work, The Religious Orders in England, had much to say in praise of the regular canons.11 Yet one cannot escape the feeling that for Knowles the success of a medieval religious house lay with those communities that sustained a convent of sufficient size and resources that would enable it to ensure the full performance of divine service throughout the generations. This was one reason, one senses, that he gave scant attention to nunneries, since so many were small and poor, and may have found the maintenance of the monastic routine a burden. Knowles was also dismissive of smaller monastic cells and dependencies. Following his lead, historians have been perhaps too quick to assume that small houses — which they thought by definition must be poorly resourced — were of questionable significance in medieval society.12 It is here that recent regional studies have been, and are continuing to be, of such significance. Several of the case studies included in the present volume seek to demonstrate that even modest houses — in terms of their size and resources — might have rich documentary evidence, such as, for instance, in their

and M. Thurlby, ‘Keynsham Abbey Excavations 1961–1985: Final Report. Part I: The Architecture’, Somerset Archaeology and Natural History, 148 (2005), 53–102, and B. Lowe, ‘Keynsham Abbey Excavations 1961–91, Final Report. Part II: Summary and Review’, Proceedings of the Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society, 149 (2005), 123–38. J. Luxford, ‘A Leiston Document from Glastonbury’, in Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History, 40 (2003), 278–88. L. Rasmussen, ‘Why Small Monastic Houses Should Have a History’, Midland History, 28 (2003), 1–27, and ‘Luxury in Poverty: Expressions of Status at Langley Priory’, American Benedictine Review, 55 (2004), 194–228. J. Rhodes, ‘The Pleas of St Kyneburgh: Gloucester v. Llanthony Priory, 1390–92’, in Archives and Local History in Bristol and Gloucestershire: Essays in Honour of David Smith, ed. by J. Bettey (Bristol: Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, 2007), pp. 27–41. N. Riall, ‘All’Antica Ornament during the First Renaissance in England: The Case of the Draper Chapel at Christchurch Priory’, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 129 (2008), 25–37. P. Miller and D. Saxby, The Augustinian Priory of St Mary Merton, Surrey: Excavations 1976–90, MoLAS Monographs, 34 (London: Museum of London Archaeology Service, 2007). K. Stöber, ‘The Role of Late Medieval English Monasteries as Expressions of Patronal Authority: Some Case Studies’, in The Use and Abuse of Sacred Places in Late Medieval Towns, ed. by P. Trio and M. De Smet (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2006), pp. 189–207. 11

D. Knowles, The Monastic Order in England, 2nd edn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963); The Religious Orders in England, 3 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1948–59). 12

A corrective to this view is Rasmusson, ‘Why Small Monastic Houses Should Have a History’.

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often lengthy and well-produced cartularies. Moreover, these cartularies indicate that the canons continued to attract benefactions from their patrons and their descendants, and from those who were tied to these patrons by kinship and association, from the time of their foundation throughout the generations. The benefactors of these smaller houses came largely from the knightly class and the upper peasantry, and it was their continued support, in return for which they received corrodies, burial rights, and commemoration, as much as any lavish foundation endowment, that sustained the convent from foundation to dissolution. For such founders, patrons and benefactors, a house of regular canons of five, six, or seven canons was evidently as important, and successful, in religious terms, as any large Benedictine community. This brought the foundation of a house of canons well within the reach of modest founders and benefactors, and perhaps provided them with a religious house that served the local community of which it was an integral part. The twenty-two chapters which comprise this volume address themes of particular relevance for our understanding not only of the regular canons and their theological, cultural, and artistic achievements, but also to enhance our appreciation of the wider significance of these groups within their own times and society. Between them the chapters emphasize the versatility and resourcefulness of the different groups and houses of regular canons, who were adapting to different conditions as they settled in the British Isles, where they sometimes replaced existing religious communities or revived abandoned houses and at other times established entirely new abbeys or priories, thereby enhancing the religious profile of a region. The papers offer a range of different perspectives on these orders, considering the canons from the point of view, and based on the sources of, historians, archaeologists, art historians, and architectural historians, underlining the diversity that characterizes this religious group. The first section of the volume considers the origins of the different groups of canons in England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, exploring, through a number of case studies, the ways in which the canons stood for religious renewal and reform on the one hand, while on the other hand representing continuity by settling existing, often abandoned sites of previous religious significance in the locality. Sheila Sweetinburgh and Andrew Abram examine the role and continuity of saints’ cults associated with some Augustinian sites, using the examples of St Gregory’s Priory in Canterbury and several houses of regular canons in the diocese of Coventry and Lichfield to explain the ways in which sites of existing religious significance were utilized by the regular canons for the creation of an institutional identity of individual houses. Janet Burton takes the case of the diocese of York to

INTRODUCTION

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demonstrate how the fusion of archiepiscopal guidance, baronial aspiration, and royal ambition brought the regular canons to the forefront as agents of reform in the north of England, while Janet Sorretino focuses on the order of Sempringham in her discussion of the chapter office in houses of regular canons. The remaining four chapters in this section are dedicated to regional studies and investigate the history and the role of different groups of regular canons in Northumbria (Anne Mathers-Lawrence), Wales (Karen Stöber), Scotland (Andrew Smith and Garrett Ratcliff), and Ireland (Miriam Clyne). The focus of the chapters in the second section is on the regular life of the canons, their daily activities and their eating habits (Dave Postles), the place of corrodians in their houses (Allison Fizzard), their role in education (Nicholas Orme), their careers within their communities ( Judith Frost), and the achievements of some remarkable heads of their abbeys and priories (Martin Heale). The following five chapters are dedicated to the social contexts of the regular canons, focusing on the range of contacts they maintained with the outside world through issues such as patronage, pastoral care, and burials, but also through their involvement in the politics of their time. The ways in which the parish churches of the Augustinians represent a key factor of the identity and self-image of the canons is the focus of the chapter by Nick Nichols, while Glyn Coppack offers an archaeologist’s view of the Gilbertine Order and its development in England. That regular canons in the medieval British Isles were actively involved with the world outside their abbeys and priories also through less obviously ‘spiritual’ activities is demonstrated in two chapters, where Graham St John and Emma Cavell consider the regular canons and their contacts with society, specifically their relations with lay patrons and benefactors. What became of the regular canons at the Dissolution of the Monasteries is the issue addressed through the example of Yorkshire by Claire Cross. The final section considers the role the regular canons played in the cultural life of the medieval British Isles, particularly through literature ( James Clark), art ( Julian Luxford), and architecture ( Jennifer Alexander and Tadhg O’Keeffe). Taken together, the chapters in this volume give the reader a sense of the importance of the religious phenomenon that were the regular canons in the medieval British Isles, while at the same time demonstrating the wide and varied interest which the different groups of canons continue to generate among scholars. The editors would like to thank all those who have been concerned with the preparation and production of this book: the contributors to the volume for their patience and willingness to answer our editorial queries quickly and efficiently; our

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colleagues at University of Wales Trinity Saint David (Lampeter), Aberystwyth University, and the University of Lleida, for their help and encouragement; and the staff of the University of Wales Conference Centre at Gregynog Hall, Powys, which hosted the colloquium out of which this volume grew. Above all we would like to thank the staff of Brepols for their unremitting hard work in seeing this volume through the processes of publication: Simon Forde, for his generous encouragement as well as his perceptive comments and close attention to detail, and Ruth Kennedy and Juleen Eichinger, who have remained cheerful in the face of the constant e-mails which flew around the globe. To them we owe much gratitude.

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INTRODUCTION

Houses of Regular Canons and Canonesses in the British Isles Only houses mentioned in the text are included England 1 Arbury (Warw.), Aug. priory 2 Bamburgh (Northumb.), Aug. cell 3 Barlinch (Som.), Aug. priory 4 Barnwell (Cambs.), Aug. priory 5 Bentley (Middlx), Aug. priory 6 Bicester (Oxon.), Aug. priory 7 Bisham (Berks.), Aug. priory 8 Blythburgh (Suff.), Aug. priory 9 Bodmin (Corn.), Aug. priory 10 Bolton (Yorks. WR), Aug. priory 11 Bourne (Lincs.), Aug. abbey 12 Bridgwater (Som.), Aug. hospital 13 Bridlington (Yorks. ER), Aug. priory 14 Brinkburn (Northumb.), Aug. priory 15 Bristol (Glos.), St Augustine, Aug. abbey 16 Brooke (Rutland), Aug. priory 17 Bruton (Som.), Aug. priory later abbey 18 Buckland (Som.), Aug priory (canonesses) 19 Bullington (Lincs.), Gilb. priory 20 Bushmead (Beds.), Aug. priory 21 Butley (Suff.) Aug. priory 22 Caldwell (Beds.), Aug. priory 23 Calwich (Staffs.), Aug. priory 24 Canons Ashby (Northants.), Aug. priory 25 Canonsleigh (Devon), Aug. priory 26 Canterbury (Kent), St Gregory’s, Aug. priory 27 Carlisle (Cumb.), Aug. priory / cathedral priory 28 Cartmel (Lancs.), Aug. priory 29 Chetwode (Bucks.), Aug. priory 30 Christchurch (Hants.), Aug. priory 31 Cirencester (Gloucs.), Aug. abbey 32 Cockersand (Lancs.), Prem. abbey 33 Cold Norton (Oxon.), Aug. priory 34 Coverham (Yorks. NR), Prem. abbey 35 Coxford (Norf.), Aug. priory 36 Croxton (Leics.), Prem. abbey 37 Darley (Derbys.), Aug. abbey 38 Dodford (Worcs.), Aug. priory

39 Dodnash (Suff.), Aug. priory 40 Dorchester (Oxon.), Aug. abbey 41 Dover (Kent), Aug. abbey 42 Drax (Yorks. WR), Aug. priory 43 Dunstable (Beds.), Aug. priory 44 Durford (Sussex), Prem. abbey 45 Easby (Yorks. NR), Prem. abbey 46 Exeter (Devon), Aug. hospital 47 Felley (Notts.), Aug. priory 48 Flanesford (Here.), Aug. priory 49 Gloucester (Glos.), St Oswald’s, Aug. priory 50 Grace Dieu (Leics.), Aug. priory (canonesses) 51 Great Massingham (Norfolk), Aug. priory 52 Guisborough (Yorks, NR), Aug. priory 53 Halesowen (Worcs.), Prem. abbey 54 Haltemprice (Yorks. ER), Aug. priory 55 Hartland (Devon), Aug. abbey 56 Haughmond (Shrops.), Aug. abbey 57 Haverholme (Lincs.), Gilb., priory 58 Healaugh Park (Yorks. WR), Aug. priory 59 Hexham (Northumb.), Aug. priory 60 Huntingdon (Hunts.), Aug. priory 61 Ivychurch (Wilts.), Aug. priory 62 Kenilworth (Warw.), Aug. priory later abbey 63 Keynsham (Som.), Aug. abbey 64 Kirby Bellars (Leics.), Aug. priory 65 Kirkham (Yorks. ER), Aug. priory 66 Kyme (Lincs.), Aug. priory 67 Lacock (Wilts.). Aug. priory / abbey (canonesses) 68 Lanercost (Cumb.), Aug. priory 69 Lanthony Secunda, or Lanthony by Gloucester (Glos.), Aug. priory 70 Launceston (Corn.) Aug. priory 71 Launde (Leics), Aug. priory 72 Lavendon (Bucks.), Prem. abbey 73 Leeds (Kent), Aug. priory 74 Leicester (Leics.) Aug. abbey 75 Leonard Stanley (Glos.), Aug. priory

76 Lesnes (Kent), Aug. abbey 77 Lilleshall (Shrops.), Aug. abbey 78 Lincoln (Lincs.), St Katherine’s, Gilb. priory 79 Little Dunmow (Essex), Aug. priory 80 London, Holy Trinity, Aldgate, Aug. priory 81 London, St Bartholomew, Aug. priory 82 London, St Helen without Bishopsgate, Aug. hospital 83 Maiden Bradley (Wilts.), Aug. priory 84 Malton (Yorks. NR), Gilb. priory 85 Markby (Lincs.), Aug. priory 86 Marton (Yorks. NR), Aug. priory 87 Mattersey (Notts.), Gilb. priory 88 Maxstoke (Warw.), Aug. priory 89 Merton (Surrey), Aug. priory 90 Missenden (Bucks.) Aug. abbey 91 Mobberley (Ches.), Aug. priory 92 Moxby (Yorks. NR), Aug. priory (canonesses) 93 Newburgh (Yorks. NR), Aug. priory 94 Newnham (Beds.), Aug. priory 95 Newstead (Lincs.), Aug. priory 96 Newstead on Ancholme (Lincs.), Gilb. priory 97 Nocton Park (Lincs.), Aug. priory 98 North Ferriby (Yorks. ER), Aug. priory 99 North Ormsby (Lincs.) Gilb. priory 100 Norton (Ches.), Aug. priory later abbey 101 Nostell (Yorks. WR), Aug. priory 102 Notley (Bucks.), Aug. abbey 103 Oseney (Oxon.), Aug. priory later abbey 104 O vingham (Northumb.), Aug. cell 105 Owston (Leics.), Aug. abbey 106 Oxford (Oxon.), St Frideswide’s, Aug. priory 107 Oxford (Oxon.), St Mary’s, Aug. college 108 Pentney (Norf.), Aug. priory 109 Plympton (Devon), Aug. priory 110 Ranton (Staffs.), Aug. priory

12 111 Repton (Derbys.), Aug. priory 112 Rocester (Staffs.), Aug. abbey 113 Runcorn (Ches.), Aug. priory 114 St Anthony in Roseland (Corn.), Aug. priory 115 St Germans (Corn.), Aug. priory 116 St Mary O very, Southwark (Surrey), Aug. priory 117 St Osyth (Essex), Aug. priory later abbey 118 St Radegund (Kent), Prem. abbey 119 Sempringham (Lincs.), Gilb. priory 120 Southwick (Hants.), Aug. priory 121 Stavordale (Som.), Aug. priory 122 Stone (Staffs.), Aug. priory

Janet Burton and Karen Stöber 123 Stonely (Hunts.), Aug. priory 124 Studley (Warw.), Aug. priory 125 Taunton (Som.), Aug. priory 126 Thornton (Lincs.), Aug. priory later abbey 127 Thurgarton (Notts.), Aug. priory 128 Titchfield (Hants.), Prem. abbey 129 Torksey (Lincs.), Aug. priory 130 Trentham (Staffs.), Aug. priory 131 Ulverscroft (Leics.), Aug. priory 132 Walsingham (Norf.), Aug. priory 133 Waltham (Essex), Aug. priory later abbey 134 Warburton (Ches.), Prem. priory 135 Warter (Yorks. ER), Aug. priory /

Arrouaisian abbey 136 Warwick (Warw.), St Sepulchre, Aug. priory 137 Watton (Yorks. ER), Gilb. priory 138 Wellow (Lincs.), Aug. abbey 139 West Acre (Norf.), Aug. priory 140 Weybourne (Norf.), Aug. priory 141 Wigmore (Here.), Aug. abbey 142 Wombridge (Shrops.), Aug. priory 143 Worksop (Notts.), Aug. priory 144 Wormsley (Here.), Aug. priory 145 Wroxton (Oxon.), Aug. priory

Wales 152 Puffin Island / Ynys Seiriol, or Priestholm / Yns Lannog (Anglesey), Aug. priory 153 St Kynemark (Monmouthshire), Aug. priory 154 St Tudwal’s Island (Caernarfonshire), Aug. priory 155 Talley (Carmarthenshire), Prem. abbey

146 Bardsey (Caernarfonshire), Aug. abbey 147 Beddgelert (Caernarfonshire), Aug. priory 148 Carmarthen (Carmarthenshire), Aug. priory 149 Haverfordwest (Pembrokeshire), Aug. priory 150 Llanthony Prima (Monmouthshire), Aug. priory 151 Penmon (Anglesey), Aug. priory

Ireland 156 Annaghdown (Co. Galway), Aug nunnery 157 Annaghdown, Aug. abbey 158 Annaghdown, Prem. abbey 159 Armagh (Co. Armagh), St Peter and St Paul, Aug. abbey 160 Ballymore (West Meath), Aug. priory 161 Bridgetown (Co. Cork), Aug. priory 162 Carrickfergus (Co. Antrim), Prem. priory later abbey 163 Colp (Co. Meath), Aug. cell 164 Cong (Co. Mayo), Aug. abbey 165 Dieux la Croisse, or White Abbey (Co. Antrim) Prem. abbey 166 Dublin, Christ Church, Aug. cath. priory 167 Dublin, St Thomas, Aug. priory later abbey 168 Gill (Co. Cork), Aug. abbey 169 Glendalough (Co. Wicklow), St Saviour’s, Aug. priory

170 Grace Dieu, de Gratia Dei (Co. Dublin) Aug. priory (canonesses) 171 Inishmaine (Co. Mayo), Aug. priory (canonesses) 172 Kells (Co. Kilkenny), Aug. priory 173 Kilcreevanty (Co. Galway), Aug. abbey (canonesses) 174 Killamanagh (Co. Galway), Prem. priory 175 Kilmacduagh (Co. Galway), St Mary de Petra, Aug. abbey 176 Lough Key (Co. Roscom.), Prem. abbey 177 Lough Oughter (Co. Cavan). Prem. priory 178 Muckamore (Co. Antrim), Aug. priory 179 Newtown Trim (Co. Meath), Aug. cath. priory 180 Toberglory, Downpatrick (Co. Down) Aug. priory 181 Tuam (Co. Galway), Prem. abbey

Scotland 182 Cambuskenneth (Stirlingshire), Aug. abbey 183 Dryburgh (Berwickshire), Prem. abbey 184 Holyrood (Midlothian), Aug. abbey 185 Inchaffray (Perthshire), Aug. priory later abbey 186 Inchcolm (Fife), Aug. priory later abbey

187 Jedburgh (Roxburghshire), Aug. priory later abbey 188 Loch Leven (Kinross-shire), Aug. priory 189 Restennet (Angus), Aug. priory 190 St Andrews (Fife), Aug. cath. priory 191 Scone (Perthshire) Aug. priory later abbey

INTRODUCTION

Map 1a. Map showing houses of regular canons and canonesses in Ireland.

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Map 1b. Map showing houses of regular canons and canonesses in Wales and the West of England.

INTRODUCTION

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Map 1c. Map showing houses of regular canons and canonesses in central and eastern England.

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Map 1d. Map showing houses of regular canons and canonesses in northern England and Scotland.

P ART I Origins, Organization, and Regional Developments

A NGLO -S AXON S AINTS AND A N ORMAN A RCHBISHOP: ‘IMAGINATIVE M EMORY’ AND INSTITUTIONAL IDENTITY AT S T G REGORY ’S P RIORY , C ANTERBURY Sheila Sweetinburgh

T

he inclusion of Amy Remensnyder’s term ‘imaginative memory’ in the title is a reflection of the importance of her ideas on this assessment of the creative actions of the Augustinian canons in the century after their arrival in Canterbury.1 The canons of St Gregory’s Priory entered an already fairly congested spiritual landscape when they arrived in 1133, and this space would become even more crowded over the next one hundred and fifty years. Notwithstanding their far smaller number and resources, the canons were still apparently fully prepared to engage robustly in the spiritual economy of east Kent, their actions bringing them into conflict with St Augustine’s Abbey, one of the premier English Benedictine houses. At the heart of this conflict was the resting place of St Mildred’s relics, both houses claiming that they had the body of this Anglo-Saxon saint, and it is the canons’ creative use of their claim through the production of a foundation charter, its inclusion in their cartulary, and the making of a seal that is the focus of this article.2 However, before examining the house’s early history, the Anglo-Saxon saints, and the creation of the priory’s identity, it is 1

A. G. Remensnyder, Remembering Kings Past: Monastic Foundation Legends in Medieval Southern France (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995), p. 1. 2

The cartulary, though no longer complete, is in Cambridge University Library, MS Ll. ii. A transcribed and edited version of the cartulary was published in the mid-twentieth century: Cartulary of the Priory of St Gregory, Canterbury, ed. by A. M. Woodcock, Camden Society, 3rd ser., 88 (London: Royal Historical Society, 1956) (hereafter cited as Cartulary).

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worth considering briefly certain ideas about memory and the construction of foundation legends. For Remensnyder, the fashioning of foundation legends by European monasteries was a complex process that drew on the ‘social memory’ of the institution, yet also included what she called ‘creative flair’ and ‘often fantastic transformations of reality’.3 Nevertheless, as she points out, ‘the monastic communities constructing these images believed in them at some level’, and as a consequence of this belief in the past as described in the legends, they held considerable power in the present. Not only could the community look back to ‘a glorious past’ through the creation of a shared institutional identity, but the very antiquity of their foundation provided authority for those living in the present. For monastic communities, the production of ‘a common set of symbols that help[ed] create the boundaries delineating and containing the community’ may have been especially pertinent because they were followers of the apostolic way of life.4 By renouncing his secular life, the novice left behind his individual identity as well as his possessions, receiving in their place a common identity which he shared with those around him, but also with those who had gone before and would follow after. Such a shared identity brought responsibility for those living in the present because they needed to ensure the spiritual well-being of the entire community across time, requiring them to guard jealously their role as guardians of their particular monastic heritage.5 Though it is possible that the construction of the past might take place at any period, a time of crisis presumably acted as a catalyst when the need to define matters of difference was envisaged as especially valuable, perhaps to ensure institutional independence or even survival.6 Equally, times of discontinuity, often the product of rapid social change, might be seen as requiring constructive action,

3

Remensnyder, Remembering Kings Past, pp. 1–2. J. Fentress and C. Wickham, Social Memory (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992), esp. chaps 2 and 4. See also D. C. Harvey, ‘Constructed Landscapes and Social Memory: Tales of St Samson in Early Medieval Cornwall’, Environment and Planning D : Society and Space, 20 (2002), 231–48. 4

Remensnyder, Remembering Kings Past, pp. 2–3.

5

J. Coleman, Ancient and Medieval Memories: Studies in the Reconstruction of the Past (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 176–77. 6

Regarding the production of urban custumals, which might serve similar purposes in terms of urban identity, Justin Croft has persuasively argued that times of crisis were often significant: ‘An Assault on the Royal Justices at Ash and the Making of the Sandwich Custumal’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 117 (1997), 13–36.

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as might a desire to justify or enhance an institution’s existing rights or customs. As a result the present within this dialectic relationship occupies a specific time frame, but often so does the past, the particularity of a moment in the historicized time of legend. Such a moment would be the origin of a religious house, what Remensnyder calls ‘an interplay of being and nonbeing’, which she believes provided ‘imaginative memory free rein’.7 Moreover, in her study of the Benedictine houses of southern France, she also found that these origin legends might be produced in a variety of forms. Most employed textual components, whether they were vitae, chronicles, miracle narratives, or foundation charters, but material objects could also be used. At Conques, as well as the depictions of Charlemagne, the reliquaries themselves — shrine shaped and ‘A’ shaped — were integral parts of the process of remembering for the monks and for their supporters that Charlemagne was the monastery’s founder.8 Such a combination of material and textual elements seems to have been deployed by the canons at Canterbury.

The Early History of St Gregory’s, Canterbury The religious house sited just outside Canterbury’s Northgate was a small part of Archbishop Lanfranc’s grand plan to re-establish the prestige of his metropolitan city and cathedral.9 In addition to considerable construction work on the cathedral, he also had built an archiepiscopal palace and two hospitals, the latter possibly a new development in England; and across the road from the more prestigious of the two hospitals was the priory’s forerunner.10 Founded probably in 1084, it comprised a community of six priests and twelve clerks, who were

7

Remensynder, Remembering Kings Past, pp. 3–4.

8

A. G. Remensnyder, ‘Legendary Treasure at Conques: Reliquaries and Imaginative Memory’, Speculum, 71 (1996), 884–906. 9

Nicholas Brooks discusses the state of the church of Canterbury on the eve of the Conquest, The Early History of the Church of Canterbury (London: Leicester University Press, 1996), pp. 306–10. 10 St Gregory’s Priory has been the subject of a major archaeological excavation; T. TattonBrown, ‘The Beginnings of St Gregory’s Priory and St John’s Hospital in Canterbury’, in Canterbury and the Norman Conquest: Churches, Saints and Scholars, ed. by R. Eales and R . Sharpe (London: Hambledon, 1995), pp. 41–48. M. Sparks, ‘St Gregory’s Priory, Canterbury: A Reassessment’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 118 (1998), 77–90. St Gregory’s Priory, Northgate, Canterbury: Excavations 1988–1991, ed. by M. Hicks and A. Hicks, Archaeology of Canterbury, n.s., 2 vols (Canterbury: Canterbury Archaeological Trust, 2001), II.

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expected to provide spiritual benefits for the sixty poor and sick living at St John’s Hospital.11 The clergy at St Gregory’s were said to be regulars, and, as well as their work at St John’s, their extensive pastoral duties encompassed the poor of the city’s parishes, to whom they offered baptism, burial, and the hearing of confessions.12 Such charitable provisions may have gone some way to mitigate the difficulties experienced by those in Canterbury who had suffered as a result of the Archbishop’s destructive activities. Lanfranc made considerable provision for his new clerical community, and the ‘guild of clerks’ or ‘the clergy of St Gregory’s’, as it was known in Domesday Book and Domesday Monachorum respectively, may have flourished initially.13 They were certainly able to add two side chapels to Lanfranc’s first church, perhaps to house their precious relics.14 Nevertheless the house was far smaller than any of the other religious institutions in Canterbury, except for the small Benedictine nunnery of St Sepulchre on the other side of the city. Even though there is nothing in the surviving records to indicate any problems at the house during its early history, the clerks were replaced by Augustinian canons in 1133.15 Archbishop William of Corbeil, himself an Augustinian canon from Essex, was the initiator of the change, his patronage allowing him to achieve this transformation which he had not been able to achieve at Dover Priory, having been thwarted on that occasion by the monks of his cathedral priory.16 Meeting no such challenge at St Gregory’s, he was able to call on the recently successful foundation at Merton in Surrey to establish a house in Canterbury. The twelve canons and a prior arrived from there as part of a nationwide explosion in the

11

Eadmer’s History of Recent Events in England: Historia Novorum Anglia, trans. by G. Bosanquet (London: Cresset, 1964), p. 16. 12

J. Burton, Monastic and Religious Orders in Britain, 1000–1300 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 43–45; C. H. Lawrence, Medieval Monasticism: Forms of Religious Life in Western Europe in the Middle Ages, 2nd edn (London: Longman, 1989), pp. 163–64 (p. 167). 13

Domesday Book: 1, Kent, ed. by P. Morgan (Chichester: Phillimore, 1983), section 2, pt 1; The Domesday Monachorum of Christ Church, Canterbury, ed. by D. C. Douglas (London: Royal Historical Society, 1944), p. 82. 14

Hicks and Hicks, St Gregory’s Priory, pp. 9–10, 16.

15

London, British Library (hereafter BL), MS Cotton Galba E iii, fol. 37r.

16

S. Sweetinburgh, The Role of the Hospital in Medieval England: Gift-Giving and the Spiritual Economy (Dublin: Four Courts, 2004), p. 129.

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foundation of such religious communities, and at Canterbury they continued, at least to some degree, the pastoral duties of their predecessors.17 The newly established Augustinian priory received at least one grant from a local benefactor before the disastrous fire of 1145, which left the community with no choice but to almost completely rebuild their house.18 Initially, the canons had an energetic patron in Archbishop Theobald, who, as well as confirming certain grants to the house, seems to have had a special concern for the place, mentioning it by name in his will.19 After Theobald’s death this may have been especially advantageous, because Thomas Becket’s troubled archiepiscopacy and the four-year vacancy following his martyrdom would have given the canons little encouragement. Moreover, Becket’s successor, Richard of Dover, was far more interested in the much greater construction work at Canterbury Cathedral after the fire of 1174, yet this seemingly did not stop the canons. They had apparently managed to complete the church by 1181, and the chapter house and other buildings in the eastern range by 1200 at the latest.20 From St Gregory’s standpoint, the next archbishop of any consequence was Stephen Langton, but his actions in the 1220s may have been seen as a mixed blessing because the removal of the archdeacon’s residence from a position adjacent to the priory was, perhaps, a disadvantage, though the additional land was probably welcome, especially as it is said to have contained a chapel dedicated to St Thomas, traditionally said to have been instituted by Becket when he was archdeacon.21 In terms of charters, lay support for St Gregory’s was concentrated in the later twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, grantors providing land (between ½ and 50 acres), rents, and the patronage of several east Kent chapels. Such a pattern might be seen as typical of religious houses founded in the twelfth century; yet in this case may have been accentuated by Archbishop Theobald’s patronage and the grander design of the rebuilt priory compared to the earlier establishment. A few of the grants did not entail any financial obligations on the part of the canons, but others 17

Burton, Monastic Orders, p. 46; J. C. Dickinson, The Origins of the Austin Canons and their Introduction into England (London: SPCK, 1950), pp. 104–05. Lawrence, Medieval Monasticism, pp. 167–68. 18

Cartulary, ed. by Woodcock, p. 3.

19

Cartulary, ed. by Woodcock, p. xi, citing London, BL, MS Additional 6159, fol. 10r. Burton notes that bishops took particular interest in the regular canons because they often undertook pastoral roles within society, especially parishes in their care: Monastic Orders, pp. 46–48. 20

Cartulary, ed. by Woodcock, p. 11; Hicks and Hicks, St Gregory’s Priory, pp. 27–28, 75, 374.

21

Cartulary, ed. by Woodcock, pp. 15–17.

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were closer to transactions, the priory apparently especially keen to accumulate properties in and around Canterbury.22 In this it appears to have been aided by the indebtedness of several Canterbury citizens to members of the local Jewish population, who were thus able to extricate themselves and support the priory at the expense of the Jewish moneylenders.23 St Gregory’s did receive a few grants from members of the regional aristocracy, notably Hamo de Crevequer, who also aided other religious houses in east Kent, but it never became associated with a particular lay family, remaining under archiepiscopal patronage.24

Anglo-Saxon Saints The Kentish royal house produced a number of female saints, who were also linked through their association with certain royal monastic foundations in the county and beyond. The early history of these saints and their relics relies on tradition and later manuscript sources, some of which would have been known and available to the canons at St Gregory’s.25 Among these saintly women was Æthelburg, the daughter of King Æthelbert I, who in later life founded a monastery at Lyminge, to the south of Canterbury on land given to her by her brother King Eadbald.26 Among Eadbald’s grandchildren was Domne Eafe who, following her separation from her husband on religious grounds and the murder of her two brothers, founded a monastery at Minster-in-Thanet on the land given to her by King Egbert, her cousin and possible suspect in the murders. The area she received was, according to tradition, that part of the island of Thanet which her tame hind was

22

For example, Henry of Ospringe and his wife Margaret granted 4 acres of land at Nackington to the canons, receiving in exchange a payment of 20s.; Cartulary, ed. by Woodcock, pp. 106–07. 23

Such an individual was Augustine the son of Liefwin. In return for a messuage outside Westgate, the canons gave him a consideration of 31s., whereby this and his other lands were quit of the Canterbury Jews; Cartulary, ed. by Woodcock, pp. 44–45. 24

Cartulary, ed. by Woodcock, pp. 63, 66–69, 160–61. Robert, Hamo’s grandfather, had founded an Augustinian priory at Leeds near Maidstone, the family’s loyalty to the order continuing for several generations; L. Sherwood, ‘The Cartulary of Leeds Priory’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 64 (1951), 24–34 (p. 33). 25

D. W. Rollason, The Mildrith Legend: A Study in Early Medieval Hagiography in England (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1982), pp. 21–25. 26

VCH: Kent, ed. by W. Page, 3 vols (London: St Catherine, 1908–32), II (1926), 146.

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said to have run round in one circuit, thereby bisecting the island.27 Domne Eafe became its first abbess, taking her daughter Mildred to the monastery before sending her abroad to receive an education. Mildred’s saintly qualities became apparent during her time in France and, following her escape back to England (she was beaten by the French abbess who wanted Mildred to marry her kinsman) and later succession as abbess after her mother, she received divine and angelic visitations. Eadburg, the third abbess at Minster, translated her predecessor’s undecayed body to the new church she was building at the abbey no later than the year 748.28 According to David Rollason, who has made a detailed study of the Mildrith legend, all of these elements surrounding St Mildred appear to belong to the same literary tradition and it is what happened thereafter that brought St Gregory’s Priory into conflict with St Augustine’s Abbey. The royal monasteries of these female saints were generally on or close to the Kent coast, making them especially vulnerable during the various Viking raids beginning in the late eighth century.29 Consequently it is often difficult to produce a later history of these Anglo-Saxon institutions, though in some cases the communities seem to have returned, albeit sometimes briefly, to re-establish the ravaged house before having to flee again.30 Others may have established communities or joined monasteries already established in safer, slightly more inland locations, and as a result of such movements various saints’ relics may have been moved and certain abbesses may have had to govern more than one institution. An example of the latter would seem to be Abbess Selethryth, because a woman of that name was abbess at both Minsterin-Thanet and Lyminge about the year 800.31

27

A fifteenth-century map at Trinity Hall shows the course said to have been taken by the deer: Cambridge, Trinity Hall, M S 1, fol. 28 v , reproduced in Rollason, Mildrith Legend, p. 10. 28

Rollason, Mildrith Legend, pp. 9–14, 41–51.

29

Charter evidence suggests that the nuns from Lyminge, for example, took refuge in Canterbury close to the river, a scenario that appears to be confirmed by recent archaeological investigations on the site (Simon Pratt, personal communication). 30

By the eleventh century the monastic community at Minster-in-Thanet had disappeared but that at Lyminge had apparently managed to survive in some form: Brooks, Church of Canterbury, pp. 188–89, 201–02, 204. 31

Rollason, Mildrith Legend, pp. 24–25. Brooks, Church of Canterbury, pp. 184–85. And it was this same abbess who, according to the charter evidence, in 804 received 6 acres of land with the church of St Mary in Canterbury as a refuge for the Lyminge community: Brooks, Church of Canterbury, pp. 34–35; see n. 30 above.

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The next significant events took place in the eleventh century. In 1030 St Augustine’s Abbey claimed the relics of St Mildred as part of its annexing of the monastic estates which had belonged to the house at Minster-in-Thanet.32 The abbot at St Augustine’s met considerable opposition from the Thanet islanders who did not wish to lose ‘their’ saint, but having the king’s backing he was able to translate the relics to Canterbury, though not before, according to her hagiographer Goscelin, the abbot had promised to celebrate her feast at St Augustine’s on the same scale as that of the abbey’s most important saints and to ensure that a mass was celebrated daily over her relics.33 This promise was apparently kept, at least after 1091, because even though her relics spent some time in the north porticus, after the rebuilding at the abbey church her relics, along with those of several Anglo-Saxon archbishops, were translated to altars in the new three-apsed choir.34 According to later sources, the altar of St Mildred was the fourth on the north side from that of St Augustine, placing it in the chapel of the Holy Innocents.35 The late eleventh century had not been a good time for St Augustine’s and, following bitter in-fighting, in which Lanfranc became involved prior to his death, monks from elsewhere were brought in to reinvigorate the place.36 In addition, a new abbey church was nearing completion and Goscelin, a member of the new monastic community there, began writing, such factors marking a considerable improvement in the fortunes of St Augustine’s.37 Richard Sharpe sees Goscelin as a key figure in the bid to enhance the abbey’s status because of the monk’s reputation in terms of hagiography and music. Sharpe dates Goscelin’s hagiographical works, including those concerning St Mildred and her relics, to the 1090s.38 These

32

Though not unlikely, the claim rests on charter evidence produced in the post-Conquest period; Brooks, Church of Canterbury, p. 205. See Anglo-Saxon Writs, ed. by F. E. Harmer (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1952), pp. 190–97, 198, 454–57. 33

Rollason, Mildrith Legend, pp. 36, 66; Anglo-Saxon Writs, pp. 192–93.

34

R . Sharpe, ‘Goscelin’s St Augustine and St Mildrith: Hagiography and Liturgy in Context’, Journal of Theological Studies, 41 (1990), 502–16 (pp. 504, 507, 508–09). 35

A fifteenth-century plan of the east end of the abbey church shows the various shrines: Cambridge, Trinity Hall, MS 1, fol. 77. 36

Acta Lanfranci, ed. by C. Plummer and J. Earle, in Two Saxon Chronicles Parallel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1892), pp. 290–92. Sharpe, ‘Goscelin’s St Augustine’, pp. 503–04. 37

The building work at St Augustine’s had been in progress for decades; Sharpe, ‘Goscelin’s St Augustine’, p. 504. 38

Sharpe, ‘Goscelin’s St Augustine’, pp. 505–16.

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included the Life, Translation, and Libellus, the last written to counter the claims of the clerks of St Gregory to St Mildred’s relics.39 According to the Easter Table Chronicle, in 1085 ‘Archbishop Lanfranc had the body of St Eadburg at Lyminge translated to St Gregory’s’, but within four years the clerks were claiming that they had the relics of St Eadburg of Minster and her predecessor, St Mildred.40 In order to highlight their claim to St Mildred, the clerks kept her feast day (13 July) with great ceremony. In seeking to refute their claims, Goscelin, at St Augustine’s, attacked the clerks by referring to certain passages that were in texts they held about the lives of St Mildred and St Eadburg. Neither of these texts survives, but Rollason believes that accounts of her life contained within Gotha, Landesbibliothek, MS I. 81 used material from them, the Gotha manuscript probably having been produced in England in the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century.41 If he is right, then it is feasible that the manuscript was produced by the Augustinian canons at Canterbury, though this must remain pure speculation unless or until such a link can be demonstrated. Yet in terms of the earlier history of these saints’ lives, he believes that the source for these two eleventh-century texts, that is, those known to Goscelin, was the monastery at Lyminge because the community there would probably have had a version of the Mildred legend as part of the cult of St Eadburg, assuming this St Eadburg was indeed from Minster-in-Thanet. This is a feasible proposition, but it is also conceivable that the clerks had worked in conjunction with Christ Church Priory to produce certain hagiographical texts.42 For St Augustine’s and the clerks of St Gregory were not the only ones interested in Anglo-Saxon saints, and even though Lanfranc may initially have been fairly circumspect about his archiepiscopal predecessors, during his later years he showed considerable interest, an interest that was shared by Osbern, the

39

Libellus is exceedingly vitriolic and is printed in M. L. Colker, ‘A Hagiographic Polemic’, Mediaeval Studies, 37 (1977), 60–108 (pp. 69–96). 40

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, trans. by G. N. Garmonsway (London: Dent, 1953), p. 271. Sparks, ‘St Gregory’s Priory’, pp. 83–84; Rollason, Mildrith Legend, pp. 21–22; Colker, ‘Hagiographic Polemic’, pp. 73, 108. 41 42

For his discussion on the Gotha manuscript, see Rollason, Mildrith Legend, pp. 21–25.

Though later (the hand changes after 1274), a Canterbury chronicle relates that in 1086 the relics of St Eadburg, St Mildrithe, and Queen Eadburg (sic) were translated from Lyminge to St Gregory’s in Canterbury: BL, MS Cotton Galba E iii, fol. 35v .

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precentor at Christ Church Priory.43 Initially Osbern seems to have taken the initiative and about the year 1080 he produced a prose Vita of St Aelfheah, but after that at least some of his hagiographical work was at the instigation of the Archbishop, such works receiving even greater favour from Anselm, Lanfranc’s successor.44 Of particular significance here was Osbern’s concern to revitalize the cults of Anglo-Saxon saints which may have extended to St Mildred. According to Jay Rubenstein, Osbern was almost certainly the monk cited by Goscelin as having ‘defamed St Mildreth by arguing that St Gregory’s Priory in Canterbury, not St Augustine’s Abbey, possessed Mildreth’s genuine relics’.45 Consequently, Osbern may have played an active role in the clerks’ production of their lives of St Mildred and St Eadburg because in the 1080s he became an ‘aggressive’ hagiographer, as Rubenstein calls him, who was perfectly capable of weaving together disparate and very limited strands to form a holistic life that demonstrated what the saint ought to have said and done.46 Now this initial contest between St Augustine’s and St Gregory’s, conceivably in alliance with Christ Church, is interesting, though in no way should it be seen as a conflict among equals as far as the clerks were concerned; nevertheless once the canons had arrived they were quite prepared to take up the dispute over the whereabouts of St Mildred’s relics, presumably using materials provided by their predecessors, as well as introducing new ideas and devices when required.47

43

Even this apparent circumspection has been challenged by historians: S. J. Ridyard, ‘Condigna Veneratio: Post-Conquest Attitudes to the Saints of the Anglo-Saxons’, in AngloNorman Studies, IX: Proceedings of the Battle Conference 1986, ed. by R . A. Brown (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1987), pp. 200–04. 44

J. Rubenstein, ‘The Life and Writings of Osbern of Canterbury’, in Canterbury and the Norman Conquest: Churches, Saints and Scholars, 1066–1109, ed. by R . Eales and R . Sharpe (London: Hambledon, 1995), pp. 31, 35–40. 45

Rubenstein, ‘Osbern’, p. 34. Nor was he the only monk at Christ Church who believed St Mildred’s relics were at St Gregory’s, assuming Sharpe is correct: ‘Goscelin’s St Augustine’, pp. 512–13. 46 47

Rubenstein, ‘Osbern’, pp. 36, 39–40.

Although this eleventh-century dispute is not the focus of this article, it would seem to be far more interesting in terms of the continuing friction between the cathedral monks (with their titular head?) and those at St Augustine’s over rights, privileges, and landholding, and thus ecclesiastical politics in the post-Conquest period, than either Rollason or Sparks believe: Mildrith Legend, pp. 67–68; ‘St Gregory’s Priory’, p. 84. See Brooks, Church of Canterbury, pp. 204–06.

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Contested Relics and Institutional Identity The canons may have inherited the eleventh-century texts about St Mildred and St Eadburg from their clerical predecessors, but there is no substantive evidence to prove this proposition so these texts are not considered here with respect to the canons’ actions in the early thirteenth century.48 Seemingly St Gregory’s Priory did not produce a foundation legend as such, but what it did have was a ‘foundation charter’ for Lanfranc’s guild of clerks. Unfortunately this document does not survive, if it ever existed, the ‘copy’ in the priory’s cartulary being a forgery, perhaps composed in the early thirteenth century and seemingly no later than c. 1240 (dating of the cartulary), in which the canons stated the elements required within such a charter, and many of these would have formed part of a foundation legend.49 According to the ‘foundation charter’, Lanfranc had established St Gregory’s for his soul and that of King William, the house receiving the relics of the virgin saints St Eadburg and St Mildred, and the body of Æthelburg, queen of Northumbria, who was said to be St Eadburg’s sister, the relics having been in the church of Lyminge from ancient times. The ‘charter’ also mentions the relics of certain, unnamed Anglo-Saxon archbishops that came to St Gregory’s from Canterbury Cathedral to bring honour on the new foundation.50 Probably soon after the creation of this ‘charter’ and about the time it was copied up into the priory’s cartulary (if they were not done at the same time and on the assumption that the ‘charter’ was ever produced), the canons replaced their house’s seal. The new seal has a more complex design of a niche with a trefoiled arch topped with a small cross and supported on slender columns in which Lanfranc is seated on a throne with mitre and pall, his right hand lifted in benediction, his left holding a crosier. On either side of him are smaller niches in which saints sit on thrones, that on his right being St Eadburg, that on his left St Mildred. Each saint is shown holding a

48

Rollason believes that these texts survive in amalgamated form in the Vita sanctorum Aethelredi et Aethelberti martirum et sanctarum virginum Miltrudis et Edburgis, and the only unabridged form of this text is in a large collection of English saints’ lives, the ‘Gotha Text’. Rollason considers that this manuscript was probably produced in the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century in England: Mildrith Legend, pp. 22, 107. The Vita is printed in Colker, ‘Hagiographic Polemic’, pp. 97–108. 49

Cartulary, ed. by Woodcock, p. ix.

50

Cartulary, ed. by Woodcock, pp. 1–2.

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pastoral staff; St Eadburg also has a book in her right hand and St Mildred may have been depicted likewise (see Fig. 1).51 Like the clauses in the ‘foundation charter’, the visual juxtaposition of the various elements on the seal was presumably significant for the canons in their appropriation of a Norman archbishop and Anglo-Saxon saints for the benefit of their house. In this St Gregory’s was not unusual and there are a number of examples of refounded communities, including several Augustinian priories, which produced hagiographical texts to promote the saints they had inherited from their secular predecessors.52 This development is seen by some historians as part of a growing interest in these earlier saints, contemporaries viewing them as useful assets provided ‘their history was fully documented and their function effectively publicized’.53 Such initiatives appear to date primarily from the late eleventh and twelfth centuries, and if the canons at St Gregory’s had produced a foundation charter or legend soon after the fire of 1145, they would have fitted this pattern extremely well. Yet, interestingly, they were not involved in this impetus, but instead seem to have taken part in the next wave: the first half of the thirteenth century, which Matthew Paris called ‘the age of saints’.54 In terms of dating the canons’ actions, perhaps the single-most important event occurred in 1224. According to the Canterbury chronicle fragment, in that year the ‘elevation’ of certain relics took place at St Gregory’s Priory, and the relics involved were those of the abbesses St Eadburg and St Mildred, and Queen Aelburg (sic) of Northumbria, the daughter of King Æthelbert.55 As Patrick Geary notes, this public ritual, ‘in which the relics were formally offered to the public for veneration’, was the culmination of the process whereby the relics were positively recognized as authentic.56

51

W. de Grey Birch, Catalogue of Seals in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, 6 vols (London: British Museum, 1887–1900), I, no. 2855. 52

For a discussion on the way in which such texts were constructed, the reasoning behind their construction especially of long-dead saints, and how they compare to twelfth-century history writing, see Coleman, Medieval Memories, pp. 302–04. Note also Andrew Abram’s chapter in this volume. 53

Ridyard, ‘Condigna Veneratio’, pp. 205–06; see also Rollason, Mildrith Legend, pp. 59–60.

54

D. Webb, Pilgrimage in Medieval England (London: Hambledon, 2000), p. 67.

55

BL, MS Cotton Galba E iii, fol. 40r.

56

P. Geary, ‘Sacred Commodities: The Circulation of Medieval Relics’, in The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, ed. by A. Appadurai (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), p. 177.

ANGLO-SAXON SAINTS AND A NORMAN ARCHBISHOP

Figure 1. St Gregory’s Priory seal. © British Library Board: Seal LXV, 14.

31

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This formal process might take various forms: among these were ‘an examination of the tomb or reliquary, an examination of documents called authenticate found either in the tomb or reliquary itself’, a consideration of hagiographical texts where the burial and/or translation of the saint’s relics were described, or submitting the relics to an ordeal by fire, and they ‘were usually carried out by the local bishop in public, solemn sessions attended by lay and clerical magnates’.57 Of the textual and material elements deployed by the canons, it seems feasible that the ‘foundation charter’ was part of this authentication process, possibly in conjunction with now lost manuscript sources such as the vita (noted above), and may also have involved the positioning of the relics in the priory’s recently rebuilt church (see below). Presumably the ‘elevation’ revived the saints’ cults at the priory, especially St Mildred’s, and it may have been instrumental (or at least contributory) in the canons’ decision to change their seal and compile their cartulary. Even though the convent was still using the house’s first seal in 1227, the new seal depicting Lanfranc, St Mildred, and St Eadburg may have been introduced soon after.58 Similarly, the dates of the charters copied into the cartulary and the hand appear to point to the manuscript (or at least most of it) having been written before 1240.59 Notwithstanding the somewhat speculative nature of this dating, it would appear that the period c. 1220 to c. 1240 was especially critical in the development of St Gregory’s Priory. Assuming this is the case and bearing in mind Remensnyder’s ideas about ‘imaginative memory’, it seems fruitful to examine four topics: finance, protection, status, and identity, which may shed light on the history of this Augustinian house.

57

Geary, ‘Sacred Commodities’, pp. 177–78. Interestingly, the clerks had earlier attempted something similar, according to Goscelin. He said that they had falsely claimed Miltrudis’s name was on a stone associated with one of the bodies at Lyminge, and had unsuccessfully used the water ordeal to prove that they held her relics: Colker, ‘Hagiographic Polemic’, pp. 66–67, 84–85, 87–89. 58

The first seal survives on a grant made by St Gregory’s Priory to Christ Church Priory, dated 1227, and on an undated but almost contemporaneous charter to the same institution: Canterbury, Canterbury Cathedral Archives and Library, DCc/Chart. Ant.W 225; C 805. 59

Cartulary, ed. by Woodcock, pp. viii–ix. Whether in response to the canons’ actions or not (in the 1260s a new refectory was being built at St Augustine’s), the abbey’s chronicler reported that at about the same time as the rebuilding at the abbey, the abbot again translated the relics of St Mildred, the saint’s altar dedicated by the Bishop of Bath: William Thorne’s Chronicle of St Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury, trans. by A. H. Davis (Oxford: Blackwell, 1934), pp. 233, 243–34, 254.

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Like any monastic house St Gregory’s needed an income and even though the priory was a relative latecomer into Canterbury’s spiritual economy, it was apparently successful in acquiring real estate during its first century without recourse to actively promoting its foundation. It is conceivable that the fire of 1145 was even advantageous, galvanizing local and regional support under the auspices of Archbishop Theobald. However, by the early thirteenth century such support might have been beginning to dry up, probably at a time when the canons were coming to terms with a second fire that seems, from the archaeological evidence, to have severely damaged the new chapter house and possibly parts of the new enlarged church.60 Significantly, this damage occurred at the eastern end of the church, including an area outside the excavation site, and the likely location of the canons’ most precious shrines. So although the new, much larger church had been in use by 1181, the canons then had to make good this new damage as well as continue the rebuilding of the rest of the priory, a process that went on for several decades after St Thomas’s body had been translated to its magnificent new shrine in neighbouring Canterbury Cathedral.61 This stunning event in 1220 was witnessed by the king, members of the aristocracy, prelates, monks, and probably the prior and canons of St Gregory’s, who over the next couple of years must have been aware of the growth in the number of pilgrims and the financial implications for the Christ Church monks.62 Furthermore, they were presumably aware of the decrees of the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, which included the prohibition of venerating relics not authenticated by the Roman church.63 Taking these points together, for the canons the evidence of the financial advantages of reviving their saints’ cults might have been overwhelming but it had to be done in accordance with the papal directive to be successful. This was especially true because the abbot at St Augustine’s, their rival in terms of St Mildred, was intending to embark on an ambitious rebuilding scheme, which was likely to draw potential funds away

60

Hicks and Hicks, St Gregory’s Priory, pp. 65, 76.

61

Sparks, ‘St Gregory’s Priory’, p. 85.

62

B. Dobson, ‘The Monks of Canterbury in the Later Middle Ages, 1220–1540’, in A History of Canterbury Cathedral, ed. by P. Collinson, N. Ramsay, and M. Sparks (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 69–70. C. Woodruff, ‘Financial Aspects of the Cult of St Thomas of Canterbury’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 44 (1932), 13–32 (pp. 17–18, 19). 63

Webb, Pilgrimage, p. 66. ‘Canon 62 of the Fouth Lateran Council, 1215’, Medieval Sourcebook: Twelfth Ecumenical Council: Lateran IV 1215; [accessed 4 May 2010].

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from St Gregory’s, not least because the abbey was a far more prestigious institution. Additionally, even though in 1221 a small group of Dominican friars had not settled in Canterbury, three years later, about the time of the ‘elevation’ at St Gregory’s, another band of friars, on this occasion Franciscans, left five of their number in Canterbury. The Franciscans did not have their own place in Canterbury until 1226 and the Dominicans several years later, but both were well supported by the see, the canons’ patron.64 Moreover, because St Gregory’s had in some senses inherited the pastoral responsibilities of their clerical predecessors, the arrival and establishment of the two friaries in Canterbury introduced further competitors into the spiritual economy, perhaps increasing the urgency felt by the canons to revive their saints. Even if only some of these factors were significant, they may help to explain the canons’ actions. In terms of the relics themselves those of St Mildred were presumably the most valuable because, even though it is difficult to gauge how important she was locally and regionally, there were three parish churches dedicated to her in the Canterbury diocese (six in the county) and among the pool of female names used in Kent, Mildred remained relatively popular.65 Although it is impossible to ascertain where her altar (and chapel) would have been sited in the priory’s church, it seems highly likely it would have been at/near the east end; that is, the area reconstructed again in the early thirteenth century after the second fire.66 Consequently, the ‘elevation’ of 1224, the (re)telling of the house’s foundation, and probably the celebration of her feast day re-established St Gregory’s as a place of veneration for St Mildred, a position that was enhanced by the coupling of her with St Eadburg, and also with Queen Æthelburg, because it drew attention to the links between the two ancient royal monasteries of Minster-in-Thanet and Lyminge, and the archiepiscopal foundation of St Gregory’s, the latter two houses in turn becoming suitable repositories, the second act of translation the work of the

64

VCH: Kent, II, 177, 190. Knowles and Hadcock, MRH, pp. 215, 224.

65

Canterbury diocese: St Mildred’s churches in Canterbury, Tenterden, and Preston-nextWingham held by St Augustine’s Abbey; Rollason, Mildrith Legend, p. 36; DB: 1, Kent, 7.23. The nuns of Lyminge seemingly had a refuge near the Canterbury church, and perhaps the nuns from Minster similarly, apparently under the same abbess: Brooks, Church of Canterbury, pp. 34–35, 201–02. 66

Even though it was presumably moved during the twelfth-century rebuilding at St Gregory’s, Goscelin, in the Libellus, mentions what he calls the well-adorned false tomb of St Mildred; cf. Colker, ‘Hagiographic Polemic’, pp. 65, 70–71.

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priory’s ‘founder’, Archbishop Lanfranc.67 Nonetheless, such translations might be considered to have cast doubts on the efficacy of the saint, and therefore may partly explain why the canons (and their secular predecessors) needed to promote their saintly relics by periodically employing public rituals to revitalize the cult, which had apparently slipped down the saintly hierarchy.68 This would have been particularly valuable during periods of especially fierce competition, but also when the anticipated hordes of Canterbury pilgrims might be enticed to visit St Gregory’s Priory church and local benefactors to aid the priory through the donation of further gifts.69 Some donors may have made grants during the second quarter of the thirteenth century as a consequence of the canons’ endeavours; though regarding pilgrimage, events outside their control in the 1230s may have significantly limited the canons’ success in the short term, and the long term is impossible to ascertain.70 As noted above, protection was an issue, the retelling of the foundation offering a reminder to Lanfranc’s successors that they should emulate their venerable predecessor, preferably actively aiding their priory, but at the very least not hampering the efforts of the canons. This was important because these centuries witnessed a series of serious quarrels among certain archbishops, Christ Church, and St Augustine’s.71 As a consequence, assaults on members of religious houses in

67

For a discussion on the value placed on ‘royal ladies’, see S. J. Ridyard, The Royal Saints of Anglo-Saxon England: A Study of West Saxon and East Anglian Cults (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 82–92, 240–43. On the Kentish ‘ladies’, see Rollason, Mildrith Legend, pp. 41–50, 58–59, 62–65. 68

Geary, ‘Sacred Commodities’, pp. 177–81.

69

It is conceivable that any hagiographical and chronicle texts belonging to the canons included miracles; certainly miracles, particularly involving the resting place of the saint’s relics, were an important and continuing part of St Augustine’s case for its proprietorial right to St Mildred. See Sharpe, ‘Goscelin’s St Augustine’, pp. 512–14; William Thorne’s Chronicle, trans. by Davis, pp. 239–44. 70

I refer to the reported vast drop in the number of pilgrims visiting Canterbury during the quarrel between Archbishop Edmund of Abingdon and the cathedral monks. See Dobson, ‘Monks of Canterbury’, pp. 73–74. 71 Rights over appointments, jurisdiction, and exemption were contested vigorously up to the beginning of the fourteenth century among the various parties, and at times the archdeacon and the papal curia were also drawn into these disputes; cf. P. McDonald, ‘St Augustine’s Abbey and the See of Canterbury: The Struggle with Archbishop Mepham’, Southern History, 15 (1993), 1–17; R . Graham, ‘The Conflict between Robert Winchelsey, Archbishop of Canterbury and the Abbot and Monks of St Augustine’s, Canterbury’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 1 (1950), 37–50. R. W. Southern, ‘The Canterbury Forgeries’, The English Historical Review, 73 (1958),

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Canterbury took place numerous times between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries.72 One contentious issue that may be especially pertinent here was territorial dominance of an area to the south-west of Canterbury because all three major religious institutions had interests there.73 So too did St Gregory’s and this, as well as the matter over St Mildred, meant that the canons found themselves or actively sought an alliance with particular archbishops and/or Christ Church. For the canons, Archbishop Langton in the 1220s appears to have been a valued patron, he may even have attended the ‘elevation’ in 1224, but his successor was probably not envisaged in the same way.74 Edmund Rich’s archiepiscopacy seemingly coincided with the writing of St Gregory’s cartulary, and the canons may have watched with considerable interest the episode concerning the charter created at Christ Church which the monks claimed had been given to them by Archbishop Becket. Even though the monks were seeking a different outcome and thus the Christ Church charter’s content was dissimilar to the canons’ own earlier charter, the exposure of the monks’ charter as a forgery and the immediate unpleasant repercussions for the cathedral community may have been instrumental in the canons’ desire to strengthen their claims through the production of their cartulary.75 Furthermore, the elements within their charter — ideas about sanctuary, guardianship, reciprocity, sanctity, and possibly royalty and ethnicity — were instrumental in the process of protecting their priory. At least two of the women whose bodies were said to have been brought from Lyminge had been members of the Kentish royal family, whose legendary protection of the kingdom had been both political and spiritual,

193–226. M. Gibson, ‘Normans and Angevins, 1070–1220’, in A History of Canterbury Cathedral, ed. by P. Collinson, N. Ramsay, and M. Sparks (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 66–67; Dobson, ‘Monks of Canterbury’, pp. 71, 72–77. 72

In the most violent episode at St Gregory’s (in 1241), the priory was attacked by members of the archdeacon’s party; see M. Sparks, ‘The Documentary Evidence’, in St Gregory’s Priory, Northgate, Canterbury: Excavations 1988–1991, ed. by Hicks and Hicks, pp. 374, 377. 73

Of the other suburbs, in general terms the archbishop held the west and north-west, Christ Church the north-east, St Augustine’s the south-east, and the Crown the south. St James’s Hospital, close to some of St Gregory’s holdings in the south-western suburb of Wincheap, was drawn into the quarrel between Becket’s successors and Christ Church, and was subsequently attacked. 74 75

Cartulary, ed. by Woodcock, pp. 7–8, 9, 15–17.

Dobson, ‘Monks of Canterbury’, pp. 76–77; N. Ramsay, ‘The Cathedral Archives and Library’, in A History of Canterbury Cathedral, ed. by Collinson, Ramsay, and Sparks, pp. 352–53.

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something that the canons could partly mirror, even if only locally in Canterbury.76 Also, from the canons’ standpoint, the earlier arrival at Lyminge of the community from Minster with its saints may have been considered important because it suggested that there had been some sort of breakdown in the reciprocal relationship between religious house and saintly protector. However, once this relationship had been re-established, the relics ‘proving’ themselves and the Lyminge religious community correctly accommodating and revering them, these saintly women and royal founders once again became powerful protectors. Similarly, after their translation from Lyminge to St Gregory’s this process was again necessary, the canons, like their clerical predecessors, apparently believing that both parties had and were continuing to fulfil their obligations in the reciprocal relationship.77 Consequently Lanfranc and his saintly, possibly royal, companions stared out from the priory’s seal at the prior, who may have taken comfort from such protectors, and at those who were engaged in business with St Gregory’s, having the potential to provide encouragement to those aiding the priory and to act as a warning to others not to harm this spiritually protected house. Questions of status might also be contested, the canons in the 1220s and 1230s seeking to establish their position vis-à-vis the other religious houses, as well as in terms of their archiepiscopal patron, and the civic governors of Canterbury.78 Moreover, many of the assets recorded in the Lanfranc charter had been part of the archiepiscopal estates, further demonstrating the relationship between primate and St Gregory’s, the house’s status shown by the witness list, which included the abbot of St Augustine’s, who had seemingly endorsed the clerks’ hold on St Mildred’s relics.79 Although chronologically it made sense to place the foundation charter, followed by Anselm’s (Lanfranc’s friend and successor) shorter confirmation charter, at the beginning of the cartulary, it also expressed visually the relationship St Gregory’s enjoyed with its patron(s), even if only ideally.80 In the thirteenth century the copying of charters, and also other documents, at religious houses was 76

Ridyard, Royal Saints, pp. 240–42, 252.

77

Geary, ‘Sacred Commodities’, pp. 186–87.

78

Of special importance in this respect were the clauses in the foundation charter that listed the house’s possessions, particularly the Canterbury parish churches, including Thanington (southwest of the city — see above), thereby placing St Gregory’s within the parochial structure and emphasizing its pastoral and proprietorial role, a role highlighted by the seal: Lanfranc and his saintly companions each holding a pastoral staff. 79

Cartulary, ed. by Woodcock, p. 2.

80

Cartulary, ed. by Woodcock, p. 3.

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on the increase, providing an archive that could be searched but also a tangible reminder of the institution’s longevity, authenticity, authority, and responsibility.81 Such considerations may have become even more apparent in later decades, the arrival of the archiepiscopal archive in c. 1260 highlighting the pragmatic advantages of establishing and maintaining such records, but also the prestige that might be gained by writing up the house’s history that included a list of its holdings and a statement concerning the relationships it had forged through its spiritual and charitable activities.82 Presumably many of these ideas would have had a bearing on how the canons in the mid-thirteenth century saw themselves and wished to be seen by others, and this looking to the past was a vital part of their present identity. Fundamentally the house had to be seen as a sacred space, a repository of authentic relics, so making it a heavenly gateway. Yet in a world where this was in a sense commonplace, the canons needed to highlight its longevity, its prestige, its wealth, and its authenticity: it had to be what it claimed to be. Regarding its legendary history, the canons placed particular stress on the agency of Lanfranc, and especially on his bridging of the divide between Norman archbishop and Anglo-Saxon saint, which took St Gregory’s into the seventh century through Lyminge and the daughter of the first Kentish Christian king.83 This pre-dated the foundation of Minster-inThanet, and the canons also had the edge over St Augustine’s Abbey in terms of associated longevity through Lanfranc’s dedication of their house to St Gregory. Furthermore, by constructing St Augustine’s as the ‘other’, even though two centuries earlier the clerks had ‘lost’ out to the abbey, the canons may have viewed this contest over the authenticity of St Mildred’s relics as a means of establishing their identity and their role within the spiritual economy, their position bolstered by the support they seem to have received from the cathedral monks.84 Consequently, the canons believed that ‘their’ saints and archbishop would protect them and those who patronized the house. Such a proposition was borne out by the successful rebuilding that had coped with two damaging fires, had also seen the arrival of the archiepiscopal archive for safekeeping and the use of St Gregory’s as

81

M. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record: England, 1066–1307, 2nd edn (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993), pp. 101–02. 82

Sparks, ‘St Gregory’s Priory’, pp. 86–87.

83

Ridyard, Royal Saints, pp. 250–52.

84

Though much later, there is evidence of what Sparks calls the ‘friendly relations [between the monks and] the canons who lived over the wall’: ‘St Gregory’s Priory’, p. 88.

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a place of arbitration on several occasions in the thirteenth century between the see and St Augustine’s.85 Nonetheless, this is not a story of complete success for the Augustinian canons at St Gregory’s, and in conclusion it is worth noting that the archaeological excavation seems to show that only sporadically were the canons successful in the aggrandizement of their house. Yet one of these periods was indeed the second quarter of the thirteenth century, the ‘elevation’ in 1224 and associated activities apparently part of the initiative to provide their saints with suitable resting places in the twice-rebuilt priory church.86 Moreover, the canons continued to maintain that they held St Mildred’s relics into the fifteenth century, though whether such claims furthered their building plans in this later period is far from clear. According to the testamentary records the house was not a major beneficiary locally, and none of the donors mentioned St Mildred at all; rather the priory’s primary value for those outside its walls was its lay cemetery, the canons effectively continuing the pastoral work of their clerical predecessors.87 However, in broader terms, as a small religious house in a congested spiritual environment, the canons’ actions placed them within the wider developments of the high Middle Ages, what Remensnyder sees as the enhanced social significance of relics, frequently stimulated by the use of foundation legends involving royal personages.88 As well as the enhancement of these foundation legends, often linked to the construction of charters and associated cartularies which were concerned to ‘delineate the physical boundaries of the [house’s] patrimony and jurisdiction’, the writing of history also changed during this period, according to Coleman: the Augustinians, especially, developing what she calls their ‘understanding of history, not only concerning how one writes it, but also how one knows the past and its meaning, mixed with an assertion of why and how one records the present for posterity’.89 Such ideas seem pertinent here, and though there is no extant Historia, the elements and composition of the priory’s second seal provided a tangible reminder: ‘the world outside [as inside] the

85

Sparks, ‘St Gregory’s Priory’, p. 86.

86

That is from the time the canons first arrived; Hicks and Hicks, St Gregory’s Priory, p. 76.

87

For example in 1467, Isabel Smythest of St Mary Northgate parish wished to be buried before the processional door in St Gregory’s churchyard: Maidstone, Centre for Kentish Studies, PRC, 17/1, fol. 77r. 88 89

Remensnyder, Remembering Kings Past, pp. 290–91.

Remensnyder, Remembering Kings Past, p. 292. Coleman, Medieval Memories, pp. 320–21. See above regarding ecclesiastical landholdings to the south-west of Canterbury.

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cloister made aware of the [priory’s] identity created through imaginatively remembered origins.’90 Yet whether the history of St Mildred’s relics is relevant concerning issues raised by Caroline Bynum regarding matters of difference and identity is less clear-cut, but it would seem to add to the debate about what the regular canons thought of themselves, and perhaps even how they may have been perceived by others, even if not their spirituality per se.91

90 91

Remensnyder, Remembering Kings Past, p. 300.

C. W. Bynum, Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), pp. 56–58, 102–09. Burton, Monastic Orders, p. 61.

T HE R EGULAR C ANONS AND D IOCESAN R EFORM IN N ORTHERN E NGLAND Janet Burton

T

hat churchmen were significant in the spread of the regular canons is well known. Sheila Sweetingburgh’s paper in this collection has drawn attention to the role of the archbishop of Canterbury in the early dispersal of the order, and the activities of reforming bishops at Coventry and Lichfield and at Exeter, to give but two examples, are well documented. Nor, too, will it come as a surprise to those familiar with the ecclesiastical history of the northern province to learn that archbishops there were also apparently great supporters of the monkpriests. Historical literature has concentrated on Thurstan of York (1119–40) as the great ‘promoter of holy vocations’1 in the north. As this paper will demonstrate, however, a somewhat neglected figure, Archbishop Thomas II, was important in introducing the regular canons into the northern province. Accordingly we need to see episcopal support for the canons as coming somewhat earlier than has been thought, and the decade from around 1113 to 1123 was a critical period in the north for establishing the canons both as a spearhead for reform and as a force in ecclesiastical politics. Thomas II was appointed by King Henry I, whose chaplain he was, to the see of York on 24 May 1108, six days after the death of Archbishop Gerard (1100–08).2 His consecration did not take place until 27 June 1109. Thomas’s

1

A phrase used by D. Nicholl, Thurstan, Archbishop of York, 1114–1140 (York: Stonegate, 1964), passim. 2 EEA, V : York 1070–1154, ed. by J. Burton (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 1988), pp. xxv–xxvi.

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elevation delighted the chapter of York, who knew him of old as nephew of his namesake, Archbishop Thomas I, and as Provost of Beverley.3 They undoubtedly saw in Thomas a likely champion of the rights of York against Canterbury.4 Thomas’s tenure of the see of York was a short one, which ended with his death in February 1114.5 At first sight it is not one marked by innovation. Thomas followed in the footsteps of his uncle in resisting making a profession of obedience to Canterbury — he delayed until the death of Anselm allowed him to make a general profession to an unnamed archbishop — and he did not journey to Rome to collect his pallium, instead receiving it at York. But Thomas’s time ruling over the northern province was not without importance in the development of the see, and it was Thomas II who began the trend towards the introduction of the regular canons as a first step towards introducing order into his diocese. A candidate for the earliest Augustinian foundation in the diocese of York — one of three such candidates — is Bridlington Priory. The main players in its foundation were the baron Walter de Gant, King Henry I, and Archbishop Thomas II. Walter de Gant was of Flemish extraction and a tenant in chief of the king. He was one of the earliest of the new nobility created in the years following the Norman Conquest and settlement to establish a house of regular canons, and it is possible that de Gant was aware of the foundation some years earlier by his fellow Yorkshire tenant, Geoffrey Bainard, of the Augustinian priory of Little Dunmow in Essex (1104).6 Moreover at a time when King Henry I and his wife were discovering the virtues of the Augustinians — founding the London house of Holy Trinity, Aldgate, Cirencester, and Dunstable, for example — the royal court was clearly a place to become aware of the latest fashions in religious patronage. Evidence for Walter’s endowment of his Augustinian priory comes from a late charter of confirmation — dated to between 1125 and 1130 — and the grants that are recorded may therefore have been cumulative rather than

3

Hugh the Chanter, The History of the Church of York, 1066–1127, ed. by C. Johnstone, rev. by M. Brett, C. N. L. Brooke, and M. Winterbottom, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), p. 15. 4 Hugh the Chanter, The History of the Church of York, p. 16. 5 19 February according to Hugh the Chanter (History of the Church of York, p. 33); 24 February according to other authorities: see Roger of Howden, Chronica, ed. by W. Stubbs, Rolls Series, 4 vols (London: Longman, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1868–71), I, 168; Florence of Worcester, Chronicon ex chronicis, ed. by B. Thorpe, English Historical Society, 2 vols (London: n. pub., 1848–49), II, 67; Symeon of Durham, Opera omnia, ed. by T. Arnold, Rolls Series, 2 vols (London: Longman, 1882–85), II, 248. 6 Knowles and Hadcock, MRH, p. 164.

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representing Gant’s ‘foundation grant’. They were, however, extensive, comprising 13 carucates of land in Bridlington, with the mills of the vill, and five churches, with a mediety of a sixth. Walter’s charter mentions the advice and consent of King Henry I, that noted patron of the Augustinians: ‘in ecclesia Sancte Marie de Bredlingtona canonicos regulares stabilivi ex precepto et concensu regis Henrici, pro anima ejus et pro animabus patris et matris mee et anima mea et amicorum meorum’ (I have established regular canons in the church of St Mary of Bridlington on the order and with the consent of King Henry, for his soul and for the souls of my father and mother, and for my own soul, and for the souls of my friends).7 There are, however, two pieces of evidence indicating not only that Bridlington was founded over a decade before the earliest possible date of de Gant’s surviving charter, but that Archbishop Thomas II may have been an influence in the foundation of the house of regular canons. The first is an act which cannot be dated any more precisely than Thomas’s pontificate, that is, between 1109 and 1114. This is preserved in a copy in the fourteenth-century cartulary of Bridlington. In it Thomas stated that: ‘Ecclesia beate Marie de Brid’ solita erat reddere archiepiscopo unoquoque anno vi denarios ad crisma et duos solidos ad sinodalia sicut cetere parochiales ecclesie’ (The church of St Mary of Bridlington was accustomed to render to the archbishop each year 6d. for chrism and 2s. for synodals, as other parish churches).8 Thomas continued: ‘Sed quia crescente in ea religione dignum quoque est ut ei libertas et honor crescat. Preterea ego Thomas archiepiscopus prefatam ecclesiam a predicto redditu volo et concedo in perpetuum solutam esse et quietam’ (But because religion is flourishing there it is worthy that freedom and honour should flourish there too. Therefore I, Archbishop Thomas, wish and grant that the aforesaid church shall be free from the said payment in perpetuity). This he granted ‘consilio et assensu capituli sancti Petri pro amore et honore sancte sanctarum domine nostre et fratrum qui in eius ecclesia deo serviunt’ (with the advice and assent of the chapter of St Peter, for the 7

EYC, I– III: Being a Collection of Documents Anterior to the Thirteenth Century Made from the Public Records, Monastic Chartularies, Roger Dodsworth’s Manuscripts and Other Available Sources, ed. by W. Farrer, 3 vols (Edinburgh: Ballantyne Hanson, 1914–16), II (1915), no. 1135, from the cartulary of Bridlington, London, British Library (BL), MS Additional 40008. A calendar of the cartulary is available as Abstracts of the Charters and Other Documents Contained in the Chartulary of Bridlington, ed. by W. T. Lancaster (Leeds: privately printed, 1912). 8 MS Add. 40008 (Bridlington cartulary), fol. 325v (321v ), printed in EEA, V : York, 1070–1154, no. 13; calendar in Chartulary of Bridlington, ed. by Lancaster, p. 431 and EYC, II, no. 445. A church was recorded at Bridlington in the Domesday Book.

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love and honour of the holiest of saints, our lady, and of the brethren who serve God in her church). This document, then, marks the remission to a community of ‘brethren’ (fratres) of customary payments due from a parish church to a bishop, and it raises a question about the nature of that church. There is no evidence in the act to suggest that this was a community of regular canons, only of ‘brethren’. However, evidence for a connection between Thomas II and the introduction of regular canons at Bridlington comes from two entries in an early sixteenth-century commonplace book of devotions compiled by Thomas Ashby, canon of Bridlington, which is now Durham University Library, MS Cosin U. v. 19. The first entry (fol. 53v ) reads: Anno domini xiiij regni Regis Henrici primi qui [pontificatus Thome secundi Ebor’ archiepiscopi] anno 9 vite vero penultimo ex assensu et precepto ejusdem Henrici Regis Anglie fundata est domus de Brydlyngton per Walterum de Gant filium Gisbricti qui venit in Angliam cum Conquestore. Ipse Walterus favente Thoma Ebor’ Archiepiscopo canonicos regulares in ecclesia de Brydlynton fecit institui et ipsam terris et possessionibus et ecclesiis dotavit. Gilbertus filius ejus Comes Lincolnie datas confirmavit et ulteriori munificentia ampliavit. (In the year of the Lord the fourteenth year of the reign of King Henry I, and in the ninth year [of the pontificate of Archbishop Thomas II of York], which was the next to the last year of his life, the house of Bridlington was founded by Walter de Gant, son of Gisbricht, who came to England with the Conqueror, with the assent and on the order of the same Henry, king of England. Walter himself, with the support of Thomas, archbishop of York, caused regular canons to be placed in the church of Bridlington, and endowed the same with lands, possessions and churches. His son Gilbert, earl of Lincoln, confirmed his grants and extended them through further generosity.)9

A curious feature of the memorandum is the attempt to erase the words that are here given in brackets — something Purvis attributed to a desire to expunge a (mistaken) reference to Archbishop Thomas Becket of Canterbury. Leaving this problem aside, a further issue emerges. There are three dates given here: the fourteenth year of Henry I, the ninth year of the pontificate of Archbishop Thomas II, and penultimate year of Thomas’s life. The first and third dates locate the foundation of Bridlington in 1113 though the reference to the ninth year of Thomas’s period of office is clearly an error, seemingly for the fifth year of his tenure of the see of York. The clear date given in the second memorandum is 1113 (fol. 68v ):

9

J. S. Purvis, ‘The Foundation of Bridlington Priory’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, 29 (1929), 241–42.

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Anno incarnationis dominice C o xiiio regni Regis Henrici primi xiiij [pontificatus Thome secundi Ebor’ archiepiscopi] anno ix ex assensu et precepto regis et archiepiscopi predictorum fundatum est monasterium beate Marie de Brydlyngton per Walterum de Gawnt filium Gisbricti qui venit in Angliam cum Conquestore, qui eciam canonicos regulares in ecclesia de Brydlyngton fecit institui … (In the year of the Incarnation of the Lord 1113, the thirteenth year of the reign of King Henry I and the ninth (of the pontificate of Archbishop Thomas II of York), with the assent and on the order of the said king and archbishop, the monastery of St Mary of Bridlington was founded by Walter de Gant, son of Gisbricht, who came to England with the Conqueror. He also caused regular canons to be instituted in the church of Bridlington.)10

Leaving aside the problem with one of the dates, these two memoranda clearly preserved a tradition, current at the monastery in the later Middle Ages, that Archbishop Thomas II was instrumental, along with King Henry I and Walter de Gant, in placing the Augustinians in an existing parish church, and that he did so in 1113. The interests of all three men would have coincided. Walter de Gant’s instinct would have been to place a new regular community at the heart of his Yorkshire estates, just as the family’s Benedictine house lay at the centre of the Lincolnshire estates at Bardney.11 Henry I was already a noted patron of the Augustinians, and did not hesitate to confirm the latest foundation by a tenant in chief.12 The Archbishop’s influence may well have been to try to transfer the parochial rights and responsibilities to the relatively new phenomenon (in English terms) of the regular canons. Indeed the freeing of the church from episcopal dues may well have been part of the incentive for the community to transform itself into a regular establishment. Quite how influential Thomas was in promoting the endowment of Bridlington with an — albeit modest — string of parish churches we cannot tell.13 However, the evidence for the involvement of Thomas, indeed 10

The memorandum continues from here as the first one. Knowles and Hadcock, MRH, pp. 52, 59. Bardney was originally founded as a dependency of Charroux in 1087, and became independent in 1115–16. 12 For Henry’s confirmation to Bridlington, addressed to Thomas and witnessed by him (and therefore dating to before February 1114), of all the grants made by Walter de Gant and his men, see Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum 1066–1154, ed. by C. Johnson and H. A. Cronne, 4 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1913–69) (hereafter RRAN), II (1956), no. 1031. 13 By the time of the confirmation by Pope Eugenius III the number of churches controlled in some way by the canons of Bridlington had grown to over twenty. See EYC, II, no. 1154; Bridlington Chartulary, ed. by Lancaster, p. 436; Papsturkunden in England, ed. by W. Holtzmann, Abhandlungen der Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, Phil.-Hist. Klasse, neue Folge, 25, pts I–II, Dritte Folge, 24–25, 33, 3 vols in 5 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1930–52), III, no. 87. 11

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perhaps even his role as an instigator of very possibly the earliest Augustinian house in the north, should not be overlooked. The date of 1113 is — as is well known to medieval historians of northern England — significant for the conversion, to the Augustinian way of life, of the ancient minster and hereditary church of Hexham, a church whose history stretched back to the seventh century and the days of Bishop Wilfrid. Bishop Edmund of Durham (c. 1020 to c. 1040) had granted the church and hereditary priesthood of Hexham to Alfred, sacrist of Durham and a custodian of the shrine of St Cuthbert.14 When in 1083 Bishop William of St Calais ousted the Community of St Cuthbert and their families to make way for a Benedictine monastic cathedral, Alfred’s son, Eilaf, prevailed on Archbishop Thomas I to grant him the church of Hexham, to which he returned.15 The revenues of the church were then diminished, however, as a result of the Archbishop’s grant of the church of Hexham in prebendam to Richard de Maton, canon of Beverley, for the creation of a prebend in York Minster,16 but despite the alienation of its revenues the church passed from Eilaf to his son and namesake. In northern England as elsewhere in Europe successive papal rulings about clerical marriage and more specifically the ban on hereditary benefices put paid to the prospects for the next generation. The threat to the future of the next generation at Hexham intensified when in 1113 Archbishop Thomas II determined to kick start reform at Hexham by introducing Augustinian canons. Accounts survive in the history of the church of Hexham by Prior Richard (1142–67), and in the account, by Eilaf’s son, Aelred, of the saints of Hexham. In a chapter which portrays Thomas II in a favourable light, Prior Richard records how the Archbishop frequently visited the monasteria of his diocese, and how coming to Hexham he was dismayed by its wretched state.17 Richard recounts how Thomas freed (liberavit) the church from the hands of Richard de Maton and handed it over (tradidit) to regular canons. This was in November 1113, just two or three months before Thomas’s death. Aelred’s account gives a different perspective, in that it ascribes the initiative for the creation of an Augustinian priory to his father, Eilaf. ‘Burning with zeal for the house of God, he went to that venerable man, the younger Thomas, archbishop of

14

The Priory of Hexham, ed. by J. Raine, Surtees Society, 44, 46, 2 vols (1864–65), I, p. xlvii–lii. Aelred of Rievaulx, De sanctis ecclesie Hagulstadensis, in The Lives of the Northern Saints, trans. by Jane Patricia Freeland, ed., with Introduction and notes, by M. L. Dutton, Cistercian Fathers Series, 71 (Kalamazoo: Cistercian, 2006), pp. 88–89. 16 EEA, V : York, 1070–1154, no. 3. 17 Lives of the Northern Saints, ed. and trans. by Freeland and Dutton, p. 50. 15

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York, and humbly asked him to commit the church to the canons regular and that he hand over to them himself and his property.’ According to Aelred it was also his father who, with Archbishop Thomas’s approval, ‘first brought into the church at Hexham two brothers of virtuous life, one of whom had passed his life laudably in the church of York, the other at Beverley’.18 Elsewhere in his tract Aelred names one of two canons brought to Hexham by Thomas as Edric, ‘who in this church first established the life and practices of the Regular Canons according to the apostolic tradition’.19 Thomas II granted the new priory a substantial endowment of four vills, a mill on the River Tyne, and a pension of 100s. yearly for the canons’ clothing. Richard de Maton was compensated for the loss of the church from the common fund of York Minster, and Eilaf, too, was compensated, although his son, Aelred, future abbot of Rievaulx, had to look elsewhere for patronage.20 A prior, Ansketil (Aschatil), was brought by Thomas’s successor, Thurstan, from the priory of Huntingdon to head up the new community, Thurstan ‘decreeing that the regular life should be observed there forever’.21 The only two accounts we have of the conversion of the ancient minster of Hexham to an Augustinian house — which is parallelled elsewhere, not least at Plympton about which Allison Fizzard has written22 — are Hexham sources, one from the pen of a later prior, Richard (1142–67), and the other from one intimately affected by the process, even though he was only three years old at the time of the foundation, Aelred. Despite Aelred’s desire to stress the importance of his father in the conversion of Hexham to the regular life — and his suggested compliance, indeed initiative, are somewhat undermined by the reaction shown by Eilaf and his friends to the death of Thomas II23 — what emerges is a picture of a

18

Lives of the Northern Saints, ed. and trans. by Freeland and Dutton, p. 91. Lives of the Northern Saints, ed. and trans. by Freeland and Dutton, p. 83. 20 Priory of Hexham, ed. by Raine, I, 108–09, 133; EEA, V : York, 1070–1154, nos 15, 16. The main source for Aelred’s life and career is Walter Daniel’s The Life of Ailred of Rievaulx, ed. and trans. by F. M. Powicke (London: Nelson, 1950); for a recent commentary on Aelred, see M. L. Dutton, ‘The Conversion and Vocation of Aelred of Rievaulx: A Historical Hypothesis’, in England in the Twelfth Century: Proceedings of the 1988 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. by D. Williams (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1990), pp. 31–49. 21 Lives of the Northern Saints, ed. and trans. by Freeland and Dutton, pp. 91–92. 22 A. D. Fizzard, Plympton Priory: A House of Augustinian Canons in South-Western England in the Late Middle Ages (Leiden: Brill, 2008), pp. 15–55. 23 In his ‘Letter to Maurice’, his apologia for the Life, Walter Daniel recounts how Aelred at the age of three foresaw the death of Thomas II, to which his father replied, ‘True, my son, he is dead who lives an evil life’: Walter Daniel, Life of Ailred, p. 72. 19

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careful strategy on the part of the Archbishop, which involved the plantation of an Augustinian community with what must have been the express purpose of bringing papal reform to a church in the heartland of Northumbrian identity, which seems to have remained deeply suspicious of the ecclesiastical centre of York which lay further to the south. It was part of a transition from the old to the new in more ways than one. Thomas’s invigoration of the church of Hexham, which may well have been cut short by his death, was completed by Thurstan when, as we have seen, he brought in a prior from that powerhouse of expansion of the regular canons, Huntingdon. It can be suggested that Thomas’s agenda was a double one — to bring ecclesiastical reform, indeed, but also to push York’s power further beyond the northern reaches of the diocese, to a church under the jurisdiction of the Archbishop but geographically within another diocese, that of Durham. The process was about more than one church: it was about territorial power and spiritual power, and about identity. Tantalizingly little is known of Thomas II, save from the details of his opposition to the demands of Canterbury for a profession of obedience and his chastity, commented on by William of Newburgh.24 However, although neither William nor Hugh the Chanter gives the impression that Thomas was a candidate for the title of reformist archbishop, nevertheless his actions at Bridlington and Hexham suggest that he was indeed in the forefront of ecclesiastical reform, and his attempts to employ the Augustinians in a parochial context at Bridlington and as reformers at Hexham argue for a clear vision of the possibilities of using the canons within a diocesan context. For my third and final example of Thomas’s activities I turn to the most problematic case of all, that of Nostell. Many attempts have been made to unravel the complex origins of this house, for instance by W. E. Wightman in his work on the Lacy family, by Donald Nicholl in his study of Archbishop Thurstan, by myself,25 and most recently by Dr Judith Frost, who, having edited the several thousand charters in the Nostell cartulary, knows the material better than 24

William of Newburgh, Historia Rerum Anglicarum, in vols I– II of Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II, and Richard I, ed. by R. Howlett, Rolls Series, 4 vols (London: Longman, 1884–89), I, 27–29. 25 W. E. Wightman, ‘Henry I and the Foundation of Nostell Priory’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, 41 (1963–66), 57–60; Nicholl, Thurstan, pp. 127–37; J. Burton, The Monastic Order in Yorkshire 1069–1215, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, 4th ser., 40 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 71–77. See also J. Herbert, ‘The Transformation of Hermitages into Augustinian Priories’, in Monks, Hermits and the Ascetic Tradition, ed. by W. J. Sheils, Studies in Church History, 22 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1985), pp. 131–45 (p. 132), and T. Burrows, ‘The Foundation of Nostell Priory’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, 53 (1981), 31–35.

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anyone.26 The story is a tortuous one, and if there is one thing that is certain it is that there are no certainties in it. Nor was there one founder responsible for the establishment of what became one of the richest and probably the most powerful of the Augustinian houses in the diocese of York. Many people played a part: a group of hermits, from which the Augustinian community was to grow; a king, Henry I; and the powerful family, the Lacys, whom his predecessors had installed in the south of Yorkshire as lords of Pontefract. Certainly the number included that promoter of holy vocations, the long-lived Archbishop Thurstan. But that illustrious group should also include Archbishop Thomas II. The crucial document is a notification, by the Archbishop of York, of an agreement between the church of Featherstone and the church of St Oswald, Nostell.27 The monks of La Charité sur Loire and the priest of Featherstone quitclaimed to the canons (canonici) of St Oswald, Nostell, the canons’ church, which the monks and the priest claimed had belonged to the parish church of Featherstone. Moreover they granted a cemetery for the canons’ own use and that of their servants. In return the clerks (clerici) of Nostell quitclaimed to the church of Featherstone the ecclesiastical customs they enjoyed in the parish of West Hardwick. The Archbishop ends by stating that the agreement was reached on the Sunday of the dedication of the church of St Oswald. In my edition of the York episcopal acta I cast some doubt on the authenticity of the document in the copy in which it survives, since the name of the Archbishop was given at the beginning of the text as Thurstan, though as Thomas in the body of the confirmation. I was, however, prepared to interpret the reference to Thurstan as a copyist’s error and to accept the act as one of Thomas II, a view that has been confirmed more recently by Dr Frost.28 The appearance of the monks of La Charité as partners in this agreement can be

26 J. A. Frost, ‘An Edition of the Nostell Priory Cartulary, London, BL, Cotton Vespasian E XIX’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of York, 2006), and The Foundation of Nostell Priory, 1109–1153, Borthwick Papers, 111 (York: University of York, 2007). Dr Frost is preparing an edition of the Nostell cartulary for the Yorkshire Archaeological Society Record Series. 27 EEA, V : York, 1070–1154, nos 18–19 (no. 17), where I question the authenticity of the document, which is a late thirteenth-century cartulary copy from Nostell Priory (MS Cotton Vespasian E XIX, fol. 101v ); also printed in EYC, I– III: Being a Collection of Documents Anterior to the Thirteenth Century Made from the Public Records, Monastic Chartularies, Roger Dodsworth’s Manuscripts and Other Available Sources, ed. by W. Farrer, 3 vols (Edinburgh: Ballantyne Hanson, 1914–16), III (1916), no. 1465. 28 Frost, Foundation of Nostell Priory, p. 9. Moreover, in 1121 Henry I issued a notification to Archbishop Thurstan to the effect that he confirmed the agreement between the canons of St Oswald and the monks of La Charité: Davies and others, RRAN, II, no. 1272.

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explained by the fact that the church of Featherstone was in the possession of the Cluniac priory of Pontefract, a near neighbour of Nostell and a daughter house of La Charité. The monks of the French abbey are seen here defending the rights of their daughter house. But what does the document tell us about the nature of the community at Nostell and the role Thomas II played in its formation? The use of two words to describe the residents of Nostell, canonici and clerici, may suggest a transition period, or a turning point, in the history of the community, from the informal hermitage or eremitical community in the wood of Nostell which is attested in the records, to a more settled house of Augustinian canons, although I appreciate that the agreement mentions only canons, and not regular canons. However, that this was a significant point in the history of Nostell is certainly suggested by the solemn occasion on which the agreement was ratified by the Archbishop, the day on which the church was dedicated, by Thomas II himself, in the presence of Robert de Lacy, lay patron of the earliest Nostell community. The Nostell evidence is not sufficient to make a case for a deep engagement of Thomas II in the development of this third Augustinian community. However, he was certainly a player, and it is more than plausible to suggest that archiepiscopal interest predated that of Thomas’s more famous successor, the energetic Thurstan, and that in many ways Thomas had prepared the ground for Thurstan’s patronage of Nostell to grow and flourish. The main source for Thomas’s pontificate at York is Hugh the Chanter’s History of the Church of York, and this account is dominated — understandably — by the issue that most interested Hugh, that is the primacy dispute with Canterbury. Hugh mentions in passing Thomas’s consecration of the bishops of St Andrews, Glasgow, and Orkney — suggesting his concern for the rights of the church of York over the Scottish episcopate. He mentions his acquisition of liberties for the church of Southwell, and creation of two (unnamed) prebends in the church of York. Nothing is said of his monastic patronage. Only in passing does Hugh state that Thomas ‘gave the church of Hexham to the regular canons he established there, and some small lands thereabouts’.29 In many ways Thomas was a local churchman, not one in the centre of new developments. Any contact with the reforming churchmen who emerged as powerful sponsors of the canons, notably William Warelwast of Exeter (1107–37), Maurice (1086–1107) and Richard de Belmeis (1108–27) of London, William Giffard, bishop of Winchester (1107–29), and, in the north, Robert de Limesey, bishop of Chester (1086–1117),

29

Hugh the Chanter, History of the Church of York, p. 53.

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is not documented. Yet this may be a case of the distortion of the surviving evidence, which leaves little trace of Thomas’s relationship with his fellow bishops, let alone his contact with the enthusiasm of Henry I and his queen for this new and fashionable religious group. His modest attestation of surviving royal charters does not suggest a churchman in the thick of the political and court life of England and Normandy.30 Nevertheless it can be argued that Thomas II, as archbishop of York, sowed the seeds of Augustinian growth that were so carefully nurtured by his longer lived and more famous successor. When Thurstan chose to establish two prebends in York Minster linked to monasteries, he created them for two of the Augustinian houses to predate his arrival in the diocese, those of Hexham and Nostell, in the foundation of which Thomas II appears to have played a part.31 Thomas was succeeded by another churchman who, at first sight, did not have the credentials of a reformer. Thurstan of Bayeux was, like Aelred of Hexham, the son of a married priest, and his family was dominant in the church in London. His elevation by Henry I to rule over the northern province may well have been — in the tradition of the Norman kings — a political as much as an ecclesiastical appointment. Critical was Thurstan’s decision to take the York line in refusing to make a profession of obedience to Canterbury, which led to his long exile: critical because it deprived the north of an effective archbishop for some seven years, but critical also because it brought Thurstan into the orbit of papal reform, first under Paschal II, the pontiff who negotiated the end of the Investiture Conflict in England and France, and then under Calixtus II, who broke the stalemate surrounding Thurstan’s anomalous position by consecrating him as archbishop in October 1119.32 Both during his exile and in the years immediately after his return to the north, Thurstan could be seen picking up the baton from Thomas II and actively promoting the regular canons. First, he consolidated Thomas’s achievements at Hexham and Bridlington. He brought Ansketil from Huntingdon to Hexham.33 He confirmed to Bridlington the quittance from episcopal custom granted by Thomas II (‘venerabilis antecessor noster’) and in the same act confirmed to the canons ‘in proprios usus’ the church of Bessingby ‘que sita est in parochia pretaxate ecclesie’ and dedicated the church. One of the witnesses was

30

For Thomas as witness to royal charters, see RRAN, II, nos 918, 919, 922 (all issued in concilio totius Anglie on 17 October 1109), and nos 978, 1079, 1083. 31 EEA, V : York, 1070–1154, nos 51A, 54. 32 Nicholl, Thurstan, p. 66. 33 See above, n. 21.

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Athelwold, prior of the Augustinian house at Nostell.34 Moreover it was Thurstan who was instrumental in gaining for Bridlington papal confirmation of their churches from Calixtus II.35 At the end of his exile on his return to the north in 1121 Thurstan acted decisively in persuading the northern barons to invest, materially and spiritually, in the regular canons. Clearly, however, his influence had been felt long before his formal return. In 1119 Robert de Brus founded Guisborough Priory, endowing it with churches and lands that ensured the economic dominance of the canons in the Tees valley for the remainder of their existence. His charter states that he made the foundation on the advice of the pope and the archbishop (‘consilio et ammonitione Calixti papae secundi et Turstini Ebor’ archiepiscopi’). Henry I also merited a mention: ‘quoddam monasterium canonicae religionis in Gyseburne, ad honorem Dei et sanctae Marie fundasse ibique canonicos regulares pro Regis Angliae et mei atque uxoris meae liberorumque salute animarum constituisse.’36 Two years later Walter Espec, one of those men whom Henry I had famously ‘raised from the dust’, a curialist who acted as one of the king’s justiciars in the north, established canons at Kirkham, very probably using an existing parish church as the priory and linking to it a string of local churches.37 Around the same time Cecily de Rumilly, lady of Skipton on the far western reaches of the diocese, along with her husband, William Meschin, lord of Copeland, brought regular canons to Embsay.38 The new house was staffed by canons from Huntingdon Priory, from where Thurstan had brought Anketil as prior of Hexham.

34

EYC, II, no. 1151; Bridlington Chartulary, ed. by Lancaster, p. 431. The attestation of Athelwold as prior dates this act to before 1133. 35 Papsturkunden in England, ed. by Holtzmann, III, no. 11: Bull of Calixtus II addressed to Guikeman, prior, and his brothers ‘in ecclesia sancte Marie que apud Bridelingt’ sita est regularem uitam professis’ confirming their way of life following the Rule of St Augustine. The Pope refers to the request made by Thurstan for the confirmation. 36 ‘[I have] founded a certain monastery of the observance of canons at Guisborough to the honour of God and St Mary and placed regular canons there for the salvation of the soul of the king of England and for the salvation of my own soul and those of my wife and children’: Cartularium Prioratus de Gyseburne, ed. by W. Brown, Surtees Society, 86, 89, 2 vols (Durham: Andrews, 1889–94), I, no. 1. 37 Cartularium Abbathiae de Rievalle, ed. by J. C. Atkinson, Surtees Society, 83 (Durham: Andrews, 1889), nos 216, 347. 38 EYC, VII: The Honour of Skipton (Wakefield: Yorkshire Archaeological Society, 1947), no. 2. Cecily’s and William’s charter was addressed to Thurstan. Some thirty years later the canons of Embsay were to move to their second and more famous site of Bolton.

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The charters of Robert de Brus for Guisborough and Walter Espec for Kirkham both bear witness to the influence of a powerful triumvirate: Archbishop Thurstan, King Henry I, and Pope Calixtus II.39 All of these — and indeed the founders — had their own agenda. Henry I was a noted founder of Augustinian houses, but his motives in supporting the spread of the canons in the context of northern England may also have been political. He could hope to strengthen his own authority by creating a network with the powerful lords of the north through an association with their religious foundations. For the founders their houses were a political statement of their power, their significance in the locality, and their participation, through collaboration with the archbishop, in the monastic reform of the north. Thurstan evidently used the bonds created with the papacy, specifically Calixtus II, during his exile to bring a new sense of authority to the post of northern archbishop, drawing on the power of the papacy and harnessing it to the economic resources as well as the spiritual aspiration and political ambitions of the northern barons. It was a heady mixture. One of the most striking of the new Augustinian houses to come into existence in the early 1120s — and it is worth stressing here the rapidity of the Augustinian expansion within just a few years of 1119, with the foundation of Guisborough, Kirkham, and Bolton, and the strengthening of Nostell as well as its colonization of the ancient Scottish site of Scone — is also one of the least well documented.40 This was Carlisle, an Augustinian priory which within a decade of its foundation was to enjoy the distinction of being the only medieval English cathedral to be staffed by Augustinian canons.41 The canons were therefore given a critical role in an area that had only been part of the Anglo-Norman realm for a generation. The region around Carlisle was disputed territory; throughout the eleventh century it appears to have been part of the Scottish kingdom until conquered by the Normans in 1092.42 In 1106 the lordship of Cumbria was granted by Henry I to Ranulf le Meschin, whose family was to dominate the area for another thirty years.

39

For confirmations by Pope Calixtus for Guisborough and Kirkham, see Papsturkunden in England, ed. by Holtzmann, I, no. 14, and III, no. 10. 40 Scone was founded by Alexander I of Scotland from Nostell c. 1120: see J. Wilson, ‘The Foundation of the Austin Priories of Nostell and Scone’, Scottish Historical Review, 7 (1910), 141–59. 41 Significantly, however, in 1124, King Alexander I of Scotland made Robert, prior of Scone, bishop of St Andrews and began the conversion of the Scottish cathedral into an Augustinian house. 42 See H. Summerson, Medieval Carlisle: The City and the Borders from the Late Eleventh to the Mid-Sixteenth Century, Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, e.s., 25, 2 vols (Kendal: Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, 1993).

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Within a short space of time Ranulf created a link with the diocese of York through the foundation at Wetheral of a daughter house of the Benedictine abbey of St Mary’s, just outside the city walls of York. A second daughter house of St Mary’s was created by Ranulf’s brother, William, at St Bees, though not until c. 1120. Clearly by that date the shape that the monastic settlement of the north- west was taking was Benedictine, with a bias towards York. However, in around 1122 — though the process is tantalizingly ill documented — the Augustinian canons arrived in the city of Carlisle. A late tradition attributes the foundation to Walter, a priest and former royal chaplain. However, the context for the foundation suggests that bigger players were involved, and that the dynamic was linked to the need to consolidate both political and ecclesiastical jurisdiction. The foundation was confirmed by Henry I on a royal visit to Carlisle in 1122. The King was anxious to bring peace and stability to the area and thus we can see the new Augustinian foundation as a border monastery, one intended to represent and even consolidate the transition from one political regime to another. The Archbishop of York was in need of support as well. It was a priority for Thurstan and for the King to stress Norman control of Cumbria by preventing the Bishop of Glasgow, whom Thomas II had allowed to act as a suffragan, from exercising episcopal jurisdiction outside Scotland, and to strengthen York’s control of the north-west. A new cathedral would serve the interests of both king and archbishop. It was a long time coming: the priory was founded in 1122 and the cathedral not until 1133. But the years between were not idle. In 1124 Athelwold, prior of Nostell, became prior of Carlisle as well, and was allowed by the pope — Calixtus II once more — to hold both posts. In 1125 Henry I issued a confirmation to the priory endowing the canons with churches in Northumbria. As soon as Thurstan received from Pope Innocent II the right to create new dioceses — in 1133 — that is precisely what he did,43 and the man who became the first bishop of Carlisle was Athelwold, prior of Nostell and prebendary of Bramham, who emerges as a key figure in Thurstan’s reorganization of the North. A perennial problem and one which other contributors to this collection, notably Dr Nicholls, address is the relationship between the endowment of the canons with parish churches and tithes and the perceived function of the regular canons as the hybrid ‘monk/priest’. Within the context of this paper the signifi43 M. Brett, The English Church under Henry I (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), pp. 23–26. However, see The Heads of Religious Houses: England and Wales, ed. by D. Knowles and others, 3 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972–2008) (hereafter HRH), I, 2nd edn (2001), p. 158, where it is noted that Athelwold likely held the office of prior of Carlisle, but that positive evidence is lacking.

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cance of the question is how far such a function may have lain behind the promotion of the regular canons by Thomas II and Thurstan. In one way one can see the endowment of the regular canons with churches and tithes as part of a more general desire of churchmen to wrest the patronage of parish churches from lay hands and place them under the stewardship of the monastic order — although some monastic groups, notably the Cistercians, were to question the wisdom of such a course of action. But it would be foolish to argue that the canons regular were the sole beneficiaries of such grants. The cartularies of a wide range of monastic houses bear witness to the wholesale transfer of parish churches to Benedictines and Cluniacs as well as the Augustinians. However, in the north the regular canons seem to have been the most attractive targets for such grants. As mentioned above, a papal confirmation by Eugenius III to Bridlington lists twentythree churches that had been acquired by 1153.44 The most systematic transfer of parish churches seems to have been to the regular canons. But what are we to make of this? Here we enter into a debate about the nature of regular canons, their distinctiveness, how they differed from monks, and whether — critically — their role as priests meant that they were expected to undertake pastoral work. This question has long occupied the historiography, and the evidence — or lack of it — surely means that the debate will rumble on. As a conclusion to this paper I return to where it started, Bridlington Priory, and to one of the few contemporary tracts on the canonical life to emerge from twelfth-century England. The ‘Bridlington Dialogue’, or to give it the name assigned by its modern editor and translator ‘An Exposition on the Rule of St Augustine for the Life of the Clergy’, survives in an English manuscript of late twelfth- or early thirteenth-century date.45 It is anonymous, but has been ascribed to Robert the Scribe, who became prior of Bridlington no later than 1150. The author states that he entered Bridlington in the time of Henry I and continues: ‘The great and mighty cedars in this earthly Lebanon then were King Henry, Gilbert de Gant, Walter his son and some others like them.’46 He also mentions the first prior, Wichman, and (as yet unidentified) William and Wulfstan. In one 44

See above, n. 13. An Exposition on the Rule of St Augustine for the Life of the Clergy, ed. and trans. by a religious of CSMV (the Community of St Mary the Virgin) (London: Mowbray, 1960). The manuscript is Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Lat. Th. d. 17. There is a later copy in Durham, Cathedral Library, MS B. III. 8. 46 An Exposition on the Rule of St Augustine, p. 4. It would make more sense for the text to read Walter de Gant and his son Gilbert, since Gislebert, Walter’s father, died in 1092 and could have played no part in the creation of the Augustinian priory. 45

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chapter which I see as relevant to the question of the canons and parochial responsibility the author discusses whether leaving the cloister even on the command of the prior is breaking the vow of stability. I for my part, I say, have vowed that I will serve God as long as my life lasts in the church that has been established and appointed at Bridlington for the divine offices.

So far so conventionally monastic … but whenever by the same arrangement or dispensation of my superior it is ordained for me to spend a long time or a short one in any of the places that are united to the aforesaid church as limbs subject to a head, and like handmaids supply the needs of her, their lady, I do for this reason and certainly believe and therefore state that I can submit obediently to the arrangement that my father has ordained without loss of my profession.47

What reasons might take a regular canon from his priory, and what was the nature of the places that were ‘united’ to the priory ‘as limbs […] to a head’ and ‘handmaids’ to ‘their lady’ we can only speculate, but that this refers to a parochial or pastoral function for the canons is not out of the question. This interpretation is reinforced by two other passages: ‘when, therefore, anyone promises to serve God in the church of some saint in obedience to his superior’ and ‘if a brother having been duly elected to the government of some church […]’.48 This at least hints at a priestly function beyond the cloister. Otherwise the picture painted of life at Bridlington is a monastic one at its most routine and mundane: the very many occupations which are needful for the monastic life and in which, outside the canonical hours and their private prayers, religious clerks both may and should engage, according to the place and time, their own ability, and the superior’s orders.

These included practising for divine worship by reading as well as singing, preparing parchment for scribes, writing, correcting, and binding books, sewing new clothes and mending old ones, making spoons and candlesticks, baskets and nets, and weaving mats, as well as the outdoor tasks in the garden, and for those ‘who have the requisite combination of skill and strength’ ploughing, sowing, and reaping. Robert the Scribe does not provide firm evidence for parochial activity by the canons of Bridlington, but he clearly anticipates that certain canons may be removed from the priory temporarily, and pastoral duties would account for such an absence. If so, the choice of the Augustinian canons for episcopal patronage

47 48

An Exposition on the Rule of St Augustine, p. 32. An Exposition on the Rule of St Augustine, pp. 32–33.

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suggests that both Thomas II and Thurstan saw the potential for their involvement at grass roots level. Was Thurstan anticipating such when he appropriated Bessingby Church to the canons of Bridlington, and presided over the accumulation of parish churches? Such a proposition is, in a sense, unanswerable because of the nature of the rather sparse documentary evidence. The records surviving from later centuries do not suggest that the canons served parish churches in great numbers, but this does not mean that such a function was not envisaged at the time of their settlement.49 What is clear is that in the vital mix of factors that produced a scattering of houses of regular canons in the north within a very few years two archbishops, Thomas II and Thurstan, were vital players.

49

See, for instance, the evidence marshalled by A. Hamilton Thompson, History and Architectural Description of the Priory of St Mary, Bolton-in-Wharfedale: With Some Account of the Canons Regular of the Order of St Augustine and their Houses in Yorkshire, Thoresby Society Publications, 30 (Leeds: Thorseby Society, 1928), pp. 27–36.

T HE A UGUSTINIAN C ANONS IN N ORTHUMBRIA : R EGION , T RADITION , AND T EXTUALITY IN A C OLONIZING O RDER Anne Mathers-Lawrence

T

his paper is an attempt to assess perceptions of Augustinian identity and role, amongst both patrons and recruits, in the early stages of the order’s introduction to England. In some ways, the enthusiasm for houses of regular canons, living like monks, seems surprising. Historians of the Augustinians in England have focused on two broad areas of explanation. The first is that Augustinians could be expected to provide more services for secular society than Benedictines; and the second is that support from Henry I and his first queen, Edith-Matilda, made the Augustinians fashionable — at least until they were overtaken by the Cistercians.1 This paper will revisit these issues, whilst also attempting an analysis of the Augustinians’ intellectual and spiritual role, through a case study of northern England. At the time of the Conquest, the large region which it is convenient to call Northumbria (here taken to comprise the old kingdoms of Deira and Bernicia as well as debatable territories in Cumberland and the Scottish borders) had only a

1 See J. C. Dickinson, The Origins of the Austin Canons and their Introduction into England (London: SPCK, 1950) for the classic account. R . W. Southern’s suggestion that the Augustinians were popular with patrons of modest means because their houses were relatively cheap to found is no longer universally accepted. For this, see Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970), pp. 245–50. Janet Burton raises a number of more nuanced possibilities in her discussion of the canons in The Monastic Order in Yorkshire, 1069–1215 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), chap. 3, pp. 69–97.

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very small monastic presence. However, the century from 1066 to c. 1153 saw the establishment of a new elite in this region, with new patterns of patronage, despite considerable political and military upheaval. The creation of stable administrations was challenged by both the low population density of most of Northumbria and the difficult terrain across which it was scattered.2 For these reasons, recruit to the new Augustinian houses in this region had to make decisions not only about their own religious vocation but also about how to negotiate considerable practical difficulties. In addition, they had to deal with formidably powerful existing cathedral communities as well as wealthy, post-Conquest Benedictine foundations (such as those at York, Selby, and Whitby). Nevertheless, patrons and recruits managed to establish no fewer than ten Augustinian houses in the region between 1112 and c. 1166, with a heavy concentration of these being in Yorkshire. The central question is: what was most significant in the Augustinians’ communal identity? Was it their rule, their relationships with their patrons, or their contribution to movements for reform? The first step is to look for evidence relating to patrons, and it certainly appears that the early Augustinian foundations in northern England were characterized by the high status of their patrons. The most significant was Henry I himself, who in the early part of the twelfth century was governing Northumbria directly.3 The region had recently suffered the rebellion of 1106, in which Robert, Count of Mortain and Earl of Cornwall, a nephew of William the Conqueror, was involved. Henry I had then taken Robert’s vast Yorkshire honour into his own hands and given portions of it to loyal followers who then made Augustinian foundations. These were Walter Espec, Walter de Gant, and Robert de Brus.4 De Gant founded Bridlington Priory in 1113.5 De Brus founded Guisborough c. 1119 on one of the most important of his new manors. Espec founded Kirkham, with another generous endowment, c. 1122. Meanwhile, Robert de Lacy seems to have founded Nostell c. 1113 near his castle at Pontefract; and the King became a powerful

2

For a discussion of the problems of population and settlement see W. Kapelle, The Norman Conquest of the North (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979), pp. 158–90. 3

See the Historia regum attributed to Symeon of Durham, in Symeonis Monachi opera omnia, ed. by T. Arnold, Rolls Series, 75, 2 vols (London: Longman, 1882–85), II, 199. 4

For the redistribution see Kapelle, Norman Conquest, pp. 195–99. Further information is given by D. M. Robinson, The Geography of Augustinian Settlement in Medieval England and Wales, British Archaeological Reports, British Series, 80, 2 vols (Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 1980); and Burton, Monastic Order, pp. 71–80. 5

Note also Janet Burton’s paper in this volume.

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patron of this priory after banishing Robert from his Yorkshire lands.6 Support for the Augustinians in Yorkshire is therefore apparently associated with the policies of Henry I. Even Bolton (originally Embsay), which had a difficult history after its first foundation c. 1120 by Cecily de Rumilly and her husband, William Meschin, shows a similar pattern.7 Cecily held the important castle of Skipton, and her husband, who was Lord of Copeland in Cumbria, held lands in the Scottish border zone, making them also significant for royal policy in the region. The king’s direct patronage is striking. One of his earliest gifts to the Augustinians in the north was at Hexham, where he supported Archbishop Thomas II of York in challenging the claims of both Durham and its priest, Eilaf, for rights in the ancient church and surrounding estate. The new regime was cemented by the foundation of an Augustinian priory based at the church of Hexham, recently refurbished by Eilaf and his family.8 This new priory was in place before 1114, when Thomas died, and was to receive further patronage from Archbishop Thurstan of York.9 The Augustinians again appear as the means for effecting a major break from the traditions of the past in the case of Bamburgh. This had been the stronghold of a powerful and particularly troublesome dynasty with a long history in the region.10 The church at Bamburgh was dedicated to a powerful saint from the Anglo-Saxon past, St Oswald, the saint to whom Nostell itself was dedicated. Significantly, Henry I granted the church at Bamburgh to Nostell, and was presumably influential in the grant to Nostell of another church dedicated to St Oswald, this one at Winwick in Lancashire, which was given by none other than Henry I’s nephew and successor, Stephen.11 In addition, Henry’s chaplain and agent, Athelwold, later became prior of Nostell. It was from

6

W. E. Wightman, ‘Henry I and the Foundation of Nostell Priory’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, 41 (1963–66), 57–60, and for a more up-to-date discussion, Burton, Monastic Order, pp. 71–77. 7

Burton, Monastic Order, pp. 80–83.

8

For Alfred ‘larwa’, great-grandfather of Aelred of Rievaulx, and his possession of the church and its lands, as well as the activities of Aelred’s father and uncle, see Aelred, On the Saints of the Church of Hexham, in The Priory of Hexham, ed. by J. Raine, Surtees Society, 44, 46, 2 vols (1864–65), I, 173–206. See also Janet Burton’s chapter in this volume. 9

See Prior Richard’s History of the Church of Hexham, cap. xi, in Priory of Hexham, ed. by Raine, pp. 57–58. 10

For a summary account of this dynasty, see A. Lawrence-Mathers, Manuscripts in Northumbria in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Woodbridge: Brewer, 2003), pp. 4–5. 11

Burton, Monastic Order, p. 77.

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Athelwold’s Nostell that Augustinians were sent into Scotland, where they played a similar role at Scone and St Andrews. The first patron here was the Scottish king, Alexander I, in c. 1122.12 Two successive priors of Scone were drawn from Nostell, and the first went on to become bishop of St Andrews in 1127. Alexander’s successor, David, completed the conversion of St Andrews into an Augustinian cathedral. Meanwhile, Athelwold and the Augustinians also played a crucial part in the detachment of Carlisle from the claims of both Durham and the Scots. Carlisle itself had only been retaken by William Rufus in 1092 and, whilst Archbishop Thomas I of York seems to have intended Carlisle to have its own archdeacon, William of St Calais, bishop of Durham, claimed Carlisle for St Cuthbert. Archbishop Thurstan of York and Henry I seem to have worked together to found an Augustinian priory at Carlisle, in 1122, despite Durham opposition. Following this they collaborated to create a diocese of Carlisle (in 1133), with the priory church as its cathedral and with Athelwold as both bishop and prior.13 The final evidence of the significance of the Augustinians for Northumbria is that Waldef, stepson of David, King of Scots, and grandson of Earl Waltheof of Northumbria, entered Nostell when he left the court of King David. He rapidly achieved minor office there, before becoming prior of Espec’s foundation of Kirkham.14 This effectively removed him from dynastic politics. This outline strongly suggests that, during the reign of Henry I, Augustinian foundations in Northumbria were closely associated with royal policy. It is also clear that decisions were influenced by consideration of the past history of the sites involved, which was often both highly symbolic and politically sensitive. The foundation of prestigious houses of a new order, without strong affiliations to past dynasties, would admirably serve the functions of preserving the high status of the sites and giving them communities well suited to record their history, whilst removing them from the direct possession of any one royal house. It is even possible that this policy was copied by the Scottish kings at Scone and St Andrews. The question arising is whether this direct royal support and control continued into the period of civil war between Stephen and Matilda. The evidence shows that 12

See H. Summerson, ‘Old and New Bishoprics: Durham and Carlisle’, in Anglo-Norman Durham, 1093–1193, ed. by D. Rollason and others (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1994), pp. 369–80 (pp. 373–75). See also the chapter by Andrew Smith and Garrett Ratcliff in this volume. 13 14

For discussion of all this, see Summerson, ‘Carlisle’, and Janet Burton in the present collection.

See D. Baker, ‘Legend and Reality: The Case of Waldef of Melrose’, Studies in Church History, 12 (1975), 59–82.

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Thornton, Drax, Warter, and Newburgh were all probably founded after the death of Henry I, thus demonstrating that the popularity of the Augustinians continued.15 However, the circumstances of these foundations do appear to follow a new pattern, as the border became increasingly contested after 1135. David took Carlisle in 1135 and, though there was no attempt to remove the Augustinians, Athelwold (who supported Stephen) had to leave his see until 1138.16 Even Yorkshire found itself under threat of a Scottish invasion, although the Battle of the Standard, also in 1138, saw the Scottish army defeated and forced to retreat. A key figure in Yorkshire during this period was William of Aumale, Waldef’s kinsman.17 He founded Thornton (in Humberside) as a daughter of Kirkham, shortly before becoming Earl of York in 1140.18 By the time of this foundation Waldef himself had risen to be prior of Kirkham. Thornton prospered, becoming recognized as an abbey in 1148, and was the house where its founder chose to be buried (in 1180). This suggests a possible association between an individual’s rise to status and power in the north and the making of an Augustinian foundation; and if Warter, Drax, and Newburgh are considered, then a pattern emerges. Warter appears likely to have been founded before 1139 by William de Roumare, earl of Lincoln.19 Thus Warter also appears to be associated with the rise of an earl. In the case of Drax, the foundation can be dated no more certainly than c. 1130–39. Here the rise of power in question was that brought about by the marriage of Avice de Rumilly, daughter of Cecily de Rumilly, to William Paynel of Drax.20 Both families had previous links with the Augustinians and with Archbishop Thurstan; the endowments of Drax seem to have drawn upon the resources of both dynasties and thus perhaps to have celebrated their alliance. Comparably, Roger de Mowbray was Lord of Kendal and Thirsk, and he was another who celebrated a dynastic marriage by making a joint Augustinian foundation. This was Newburgh, founded in 1145, on his manor of

15

For discussion of these foundations, see Burton, Monastic Order, pp. 83–88.

16

Summerson, ‘Durham and Carlisle,’ p. 375.

17

The Augustinian historian, William of Newburgh, called him the effective king of the region. See Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II and Richard I, ed. by R. Howlett, Rolls Series, 82, 4 vols (London: Longman, 1884–90), I, 103. 18

Note Judith Frost’s chapter in this volume.

19

For the competing claims to be founder of Warter, see Burton, Monastic Order, pp. 84–86.

20

See EYC, VII: The Honour of Skipton (Wakefield: Yorkshire Archaeological Society, 1947),

no. 8.

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Coxwold.21 De Mowbray’s wife was the sister of Gilbert de Gant, patron of Bridlington Priory, and the canons were drawn from Bridlington. Does the shift from instrument of royal and archiepiscopal policy to demonstration of baronial power indicate a change in status for the Augustinians in Northumbria? And what, if anything, does the arrival of the Cistercians in the 1130s have to do with this? The basic answer seems to be that these questions are too simple. For what is perhaps most striking is the closeness between the Augustinians and their patrons — and this continues from the earlier period to the later. Janet Burton pointed out that all of the Augustinian houses in Yorkshire received substantial numbers of parish churches as key parts of their endowments. Indeed, she argued that the Augustinians took over the ‘parochial function of the ancient minster churches’, and that they thus made a major contribution to the movement for Church reform, through the transfer of advowsons out of secular hands.22 However, it is also interesting that the lay founders seem to have intended to maintain a close relationship with the canons who had taken over ‘their’ churches. These patrons were no novices in their dealings with monastic groups, since almost all of them were involved in other foundations. Some analysis of how they treated their differing foundations is thus helpful. Archbishop Thurstan helped to found several Augustinian foundations; he also gave support to Wearmouth, Jarrow, Whitby, and York, the key products of the great, post-Conquest movement for Benedictine revival in Northumbria. He also became a patron of the Cistercians, when he found himself giving protection to the break-away group from St Mary’s, York, and establishing them at what became Fountains.23 Both de Lacy and his successors will have dealt with Cluniacs at Pontefract as well as Augustinians at Nostell.24 Walter Espec was founder of the pioneering Cistercian house of Rievaulx as well as of Kirkham. The de Mowbrays, founders of Newburgh, also founded Cistercian Byland on the same honour. But what is interesting is the nature of the endowments given to the different types of foundation. There is no room to discuss all the evidence; but some examples will make the point.

21

EYC, IX : The Stuteville Fee (Wakefield: Yorkshire Archaeological Society, 1965), no. 120.

22

Burton, Monastic Order, pp. 92–94.

23

See Memorials of the Abbey of St Mary of Fountains, ed. by J. R. Walbran, Surtees Society, 42 (Durham: Andrews, 1863), p. xxx. For discussion, see Burton, Monastic Order, pp. 103–07. 24

See Domesday Book: 30, Yorkshire, ed. by M. Faull and M. Stinson (Chichester: Phillimore, 1986), II, 299c and Appendix 3, 9W1.

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At Bridlington, Walter de Gant gave not only the church but also 13 carucates, with his mills, thus giving the canons a major interest in the prosperous town.25 In Guisborough, Robert de Brus gave a substantial part of his new estates, including the whole vill of Guisborough itself, and also made his brother, William, prior.26 The case of Kirkham is a little different, since it is some distance from Walter Espec’s castle at Helmsley. Nevertheless, the evidence of the surviving ‘foundation charters’, retrospective as they are, is interesting.27 The texts show that Espec gave the priory not only the church at Kirkham but also its land, the priest’s house, and everything else pertaining to it. In addition they were to have the land between the wood and the Derwent, together with the founder’s own new garden, and use of the wood itself. Elsewhere, they were granted the church of Helmsley amongst others, as well as tithes, fisheries, and houses in York. At Helmsley itself, both pasture and woodland were to be shared by founder and canons, while the canons were to have a tenth of all the stags, boars, goats, game, and waterfowl caught by Espec and his successors. All this is in strong contrast to the terms of Espec’s grant to Rievaulx. It is likely that Espec had clear briefing, and he appears to have followed it. The Cistercian monks were given simply nine carucates of land, with woods, pasture, fields, meadows, waters, and wood for their own use, and were to be free of any other calls upon them. Their contact with the outside world, and with their founder, thus appears as limited as they could have wished. It seems then that northern patrons of the Augustinians not only saw their foundations as providing very real services and status, but also perceived them as having a distinctive identity. This impression is reinforced by the evidence of Domesday Book, disputed though this is. As is well known, the Domesday entries for Yorkshire show a severe, though uneven, decline in the value of many estates since the time of King Edward; and this has been convincingly linked to the impact

25

See T. Burrows, ‘The Geography of Monastic Property in Medieval England: A Case Study of Nostell and Bridlington Priories (Yorkshire)’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, 57 (1985), 79–86 (p. 80). 26

For the foundation charters, see Cartularium Prioratus de Gyseburne, ed. by W. Brown, Surtees Society, 86, 2 vols (Durham: Andrews, 1889–91), I, nos 1–2. 27

Cartularium Abbathiae de Rievalle, ed. by J. C. Atkinson, Surtees Society, 83 (Durham: Andrews, 1889), no. 216 (Kirkham); and no. 42 (Rievaulx). See J. Burton, Kirkham Priory from Foundation to Dissolution, Borthwick Papers, 86 (York: Borthwick Institute, 1995).

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of William the Conqueror’s ‘Harrying of the North’ in 1069–70.28 Of nearly 1900 villages, some 1500 were recorded as at least partly waste or as underpopulated. The recorded population density is also very low, even in fertile zones such as the Vale of York. However, it has also been observed that certain manors seem to show deliberate resettlement and redevelopment, often by new lords; while about fifty appear to be ‘overstocked’ in relation to their previous valuation.29 T. A. M. Bishop was the first to argue that these overstocked manors, many of which are in areas of military and strategic significance, demonstrate the existence of a clear policy; what is more, it appears to have been implemented by several lords simultaneously. What makes this relevant is that the areas in which these ‘over-stocked manors’ appear are also those in which the early Augustinian foundations were made. This strongly supports the argument made above, that patrons expected quite concrete results from investment in their foundations. However, it also raises another question. Were the Cistercians the spiritual wing of the new monasticism, while the Augustinians provided parochial and secretarial services? The strong suggestion that Augustinian foundations were related to major investment by patrons is certainly in tension with R. W. Southern’s suggestion that Augustinian houses were popular with families of ‘modest means’ because they needed relatively few resources.30 A further question would be: even if patrons wished for such services, is this how the Augustinians perceived themselves? The first stage in answering these questions is the observation that there appears to have been no hostility, or even serious rivalry, between members of the differing orders. Indeed, the Cistercians in the north gained prominent recruits not only from the Augustinians but also from the prebendaries of York Minster and even Maurice, the subprior of Durham Cathedral Priory.31 The suggestion is thus that the Augustinians had an attraction which went well beyond simply being a new, reforming order which offered a clean break with the disputed past. For further evidence, an analysis of their spiritual life, using surviving books and texts, becomes important.

28

T. A. M. Bishop, ‘The Norman Settlement of Yorkshire’, in Studies in Medieval History Presented to F.M. Powicke (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1948), pp. 1–14. See also J. Le Patourel, ‘The Norman Conquest of Yorkshire’, Northern History, 6 (1971), 1–21. 29

For further discussion, see Kapelle, Norman Conquest, pp. 158–90.

30

On this, see n. 1 above.

31

On Maurice, see F. M. Powicke, ‘Maurice of Rievaulx’, English Historical Review, 36 (1921), 17–25.

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There are several indications that the Augustinians provided the academic wing of the ‘new monasticism’ in Northumbria, and that they put real effort into building up their libraries. Firstly, it is clear that they established good contacts with Durham, which was the region’s main source of books and texts after the disasters which befell the library of York Minster. Both texts and illuminations in surviving manuscripts from the Northumbrian Augustinian houses show dependence upon Durham exemplars, as will be discussed below. Secondly, some Augustinian scholars seem to have been prompted to undertake particular theological and historical studies by requests from neighbouring Cistercian houses. The first case is that of Prior Robert of Bridlington, known as ‘the Scribe’, who was the compiler of well-regarded glosses on books of both the Old and New Testaments. The most popular appears to have been that on St Paul; but he records that his gloss on the Minor Prophets was compiled at the request of Gervase, abbot of the Cistercian house of Louth Park.32 Gervase himself was originally a Benedictine, having achieved the rank of subprior at St Mary’s, York, before leaving as part of the group that founded Fountains Abbey.33 That he should turn to an Augustinian is thus interesting. Were the Augustinians better equipped than the Cistercians in terms of scholarly resources? The surviving works of Robert ‘the Scribe’ show that, by the middle of the twelfth century, a canon who had probably spent his whole career at Bridlington could have access to the relatively rare glosses of Lambert of Utrecht, as well as to the better-known work of Anselm of Laon. He also makes wideranging reference to the works of St Augustine, as well as showing knowledge of other patristic works. If the text known as The Bridlington Dialogue is indeed the work of Robert, then it confirms that ‘reading, expounding […] preparing parchments, writing, illuminating, correcting and book-binding’ were all highly ranked by him as work for the canons.34 It also contrasts with the restrictions placed upon Cistercians when it came to engaging in these activities, since Cistercians were limited in their capacity to undertake the composition of new texts, and were expected to give rather more time to manual work than were the

32

See B. Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Blackwell, 1952), pp. 51 and 60–61. For Robert’s career, see D. Postles, ‘Bridlington, Robert of [Robert the Scribe]’, ODNB: [accessed 12 November 2010]. 33 34

For Gervase, see Memorials of Fountains, ed. by Walbran, I, 31–34.

See The Bridlington Dialogue, ed. and trans. by a religious of CSMV (London: SPCK, 1960), esp. chaps 4, 14, and 15.

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Augustinians.35 Indeed, William of Newburgh wrote that he was asked to write his Commentary on the Song of Songs by Abbot Roger of Byland before being commissioned to write his History of English Affairs by Abbot Ernald of Rievaulx for this very reason. Only six twelfth-century books survive from Bridlington, but all of them have shelf marks suggesting a good, well-organized collection.36 Glossed copies of biblical texts have the shelf mark D, suggesting that they were preceded (as was established practice) by the collections of patristic works. There is also evidence of a good historical collection, with the shelf mark J. Presumably the historical works, as secular texts, came towards the end of the collection, since this also was standard (although school textbooks would come later still). The shelf marks thus demonstrate the presence of at least ten organized categories of book in the library of Bridlington by the end of the twelfth century. Moreover, there is a late twelfthcentury booklist, which is probably that of Bridlington, on folio 48v of the glossed copy of Mark’s Gospel, which is now London, British Library (BL), MS Harley 50.37 This list again demonstrates the care given to the collection, since it is set out in book hand, with red headings, under the description ‘libri magni armarii’. It contains some seventy-seven titles of major works as well as perhaps forty works listed as ‘parvi libelli’. The works listed are organized into subgroups, with the first being apparently, just as the shelf marks suggested, major patristic works. Interestingly, there is something of a local focus, since the list begins with Gregory

35

See G. Walsh and M. J. Kennedy, William of Newburgh, the ‘History of English Affairs’, 2 vols (Warminster: Aris, 1988–2007), I, 2, for William’s statement. For Cistercian regulations on books and their composition, see C. Norton, ‘Table of Cistercian Legislation on Art and Architecture’, in Cistercian Art and Architecture in the British Isles, ed. by C. Norton and D. Park (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 315–93 (pp. 325 and 329). For wider discussion, see C. Waddell, ‘The Exordium Cistercii and Summa Cartae Caritatis: A Discussion Continued’, in Cistercian Ideals and Reality, ed. by J. R. Sommerfeldt, Cistercian Studies Series, 60 (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1978), pp. 30–61. 36

For lists of surviving books (if any) from all the houses discussed here, see N. R. Ker, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books, Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks, 3, 2nd edn (London: Royal Historical Society, 1964). For more detailed descriptions of the manuscripts, see A. Lawrence-Mathers, Manuscripts in Northumbria in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Woodbridge: Brewer, 2003), chap. 8, ‘The Augustinians and their Libraries’, pp. 177–94. 37

See the image from the British Library Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts at under MS Harley 50 [accessed 5 November 2009].

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the Great, and also includes the Commentaries of Robert, presumably Robert the Scribe. The absence of unglossed copies of biblical books from the list suggests that these were classified as other than library books. Ambrose and Isidore are relegated to the next group, whilst there is a separate heading for libri glosali, which include what are probably the surviving Mark and Luke. There is also evidence that Bridlington may have housed another scholar besides Robert. The longest section of the list in MS Harley 50, the third out of the six, is headed ‘libri Hugonis’. This opens with the relatively up-to-date works of Hugh of St Victor, giving the impression that the whole section is devoted to his works. However, besides these, there are traditional works on the monastic life, including texts by Rabanus, Smaragdus, and Cassian, amongst others. More surprisingly, there is a work by the less widely known patristic writer, Gregory Nazianzen, as well as other, more obscure, works. Finally, there is a Priscian, a Bestiary, and a set of saints’ vitae. Such a collection suggests the presence of a scholar running a monastic school and equipped to offer more advanced teaching also. For Kirkham, there is evidence that it was also a centre of scholarship, under the leadership of another well-educated prior, Maurice, at least from c. 1170. Perhaps Maurice’s best-known work is his attack on the Salomites, which was discussed by M. R. James.38 This learned demolition of the supposed existence of a Mary Salome appears to have been written late in his career. It is addressed to Gilbert of Sempringham, founder of the Gilbertine order, who died in 1189. The Kirkham copy is found in a volume which also contains Aelred of Rievaulx’s Life of Edward the Confessor, which was composed for Westminster in 1162–63.39 Thus the volume is important both for dating Maurice’s career and for demonstrating the range of Kirkham’s contacts. Unusually, Maurice also refers to having studied Hebrew, apparently in York, and to having used transcriptions of psalms in that language prepared by Archbishop Gerard.40 Still further evidence of Maurice’s

38 For a full discussion of Maurice of Kirkham and his Contra Salomitas, see M. NaydenovaSlade and D. Park, ‘The Earliest Holy Kinship Image, the Salomite Controversy and a LittleKnown Centre of Learning in Northern England in the Twelfth Century’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 71 (2008), 95–119. See also M. R. James, ‘The Salomites’, Journal of Theological Studies, 35 (1934), 287–97. That the author of this treatise was also the prior of Kirkham has been confirmed by C. N. L. Brooke in the second edition of The Heads of Religious Houses in England and Wales, 940–1216 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 281. 39 40

See Vita Aedwardi Regi, ed. and trans. by F. Barlow (London: Nelson, 1962), p. xxxv.

For Maurice’s studies in York, see R. B. Dobson, The Jews of Medieval York and the Massacre of 1190, Borthwick Papers, 45 (York: Borthwick Institute, 1974).

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contacts and up-to-date scholarship is given by the reference in his Contra Salomitas to Peter Comestor’s Historia scholastica. The latter only appeared c. 1170, and Maurice is one of the first scholars in England to show knowledge of it, together perhaps with Bishop Hugh of Durham (who left a copy to his cathedral priory).41 It is clear then that Maurice of Kirkham was widely read and maintained scholarly contacts with an extensive range of individuals. However, further exchanges between Kirkham and the Yorkshire Cistercians can also be traced, besides the early copy of Aelred’s Life of Edward the Confessor already mentioned. Perhaps most surprising is the evidence for the circulation of an Expositio mappe mundi, which may also have been composed in late twelfth-century Yorkshire.42 The work was known at Rievaulx, and a copy was originally part of the Rievaulx volume which is now York, Minster Library, MS XVI I 8. Hugh du Puiset, bishop of Durham, had an interest in such works and owned a mappa mundi (now lost). However, this text appears to be the reason for the appearance of Kirkham itself in English mappae mundi, including the surviving Lincoln/Hereford example, and is thus linked also to Kirkham. I have argued elsewhere that knowledge of the peoples and kingdoms of the world was closely associated in twelfth-century scholarship with knowledge of history, and that the Augustinians of Yorkshire showed expertise in both.43 Kirkham played its part in historical study, as might be expected. London, BL, MS Additional 38817 contains the Kirkham copy of Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica and this is taken from the same exemplar (possibly derived from York) as the Jervaulx and Selby copies.44 However, additional research at Kirkham is suggested by the inclusion of accounts of the discovery of the relics of St Ragner of Northampton, and three visions of the afterlife, one of them being by a local boy, Orm, who had died in 1126. This material is in sympathy with the sources woven by Bede into his original history, as well as showing the range of Kirkham’s regional contacts. Another Kirkham manuscript, identified by Webber and Watson, is now BL, MS

41

Catalogi veteres librorum ecclesie cathedralis Dunelm, ed. by B. Botfield, Surtees Society, 7 (Durham: Nichols, 1838), pp. 118–19. 42

See Naydenova-Slade and Park, ‘Earliest Holy Kinship Image’, pp. 116–18.

43

See A. Lawrence-Mathers, ‘William of Newburgh and the Northumbrian Construction of English History’, Journal of Medieval History, 33 (2007), 339–57. 44

Lawrence-Mathers, Manuscripts in Northumbria, p. 228.

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Burney 216,45 and contains Orosius’s Historia adversus paganos together with Dares Phygius’s De excidio Troiae historia. Interestingly, this is a combination found also in a Rievaulx manuscript, and it is not as common as might be thought, since Dares’s story of the fall of Troy, whilst extremely popular in the twelfth century, was associated with the study of secular, classical writings and history rather than Christian history such as the work of Orosius.46 A final observation is that, although the surviving Kirkham books do not have original shelf marks, they do have large and impressive ex libris inscriptions, testifying to the presence of an official concerned with their care. Mention of historical study leads on to a discussion of Newburgh, and of William, scholar of that house. William of Newburgh is now mostly known for his history of post-Conquest England, and his career provides much of the evidence for scholarly activity at Newburgh. Only three twelfth-century books survive, but one of them (now London, BL, MS Stowe 62) is a copy of William’s Historia rerum Anglicarum, datable to c. 1198 and with a Newburgh ex libris. William’s dedicatory letter to Abbot Ernald of Rievaulx, which opens the volume, suggests friendly discussions between the two, apparently on a range of subjects, as well as stating that it was Ernald who asked William to compose his historical work. Since this letter is immediately followed by a prologue which launches an all-out attack on the ‘lies’ of Geoffrey of Monmouth and his supposed translation of a ‘British’ history (the Historia regum Britanniae), it seems likely that Geoffrey’s work was known and deplored at both Newburgh and Rievaulx.47 Immediately before undertaking this historical work, William had also written an Explanatio sacri epithalamii in matrem sponsi, this time at the request of Abbot Roger of Byland, who resigned in 1196.48 Sadly, no library list remains for Newburgh; but the range of works referred to by William in his theological and historical writings is impressive (if slightly old-fashioned), and is especially strong on major patristic writers. If the works of the latter were not available at Newburgh itself, then the surviving library catalogue of Rievaulx shows that William’s friends there could

45

The Libraries of the Augustinian Canons, ed. by T. Webber and A. Watson, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues, 6 (London: British Library, 1997), p. 32. 46

In several cases, as at Durham, Dares’s work tends to be listed with schoolbooks.

47

For discussion, see Lawrence-Mathers, ‘William of Newburgh’.

48

William of Newburgh’s ‘Explanatio sacri epithalamii in matrem sponsi’, ed. by J. C. Gorman, Spicilegium Friburgense, 6 (Fribourg: University Press, 1960).

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have supplied what he needed, especially in the cases of Augustine and Isidore of Seville.49 The full range of knowledge which William demonstrates is worthy of further attention here as showing the extent both of Augustinian scholarship and of friendly exchanges with black monks and Cistercians. Firstly, the confidence with which William cites Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica makes it likely that Newburgh had a copy of that work. What is rather more surprising is William’s knowledge of at least part of the genuine work of Gildas, as well as that now mostly known under the name of Nennius, with which Gildas’s actual work was confused in the twelfth century. Access to this seems likely to have come via the Cistercians or Durham, amongst whose houses varying versions of a complex historical compilation was circulating in the second half of the twelfth century.50 William’s confident knowledge of the kingdoms of the ancient world, as well as of Roman history and the works of classical historians, seems likely to have come from the same sources. Interestingly, even William’s knowledge of the history of the Church in northern Europe, and of which kingdoms had bishops at an early date, also seems likely to derive from these compilations. No fewer than five versions of this complex historical compilation survive, each containing a slightly different edition and selection of texts, but all Northumbrian in origin. Their production seems to start in the first half of the twelfth century, with the volume which is now Université de Liège, Bibliothèque générale de philosophie et lettres, MS 369C. The original provenance of this manuscript is unknown, although it later belonged to the Cistercian house of Kirkstall. Its contents are typical of these volumes and include material from Roman history; Nennius; the prophecies of Merlin; a selection of early twelfth-century Durham chronicle material; William of Jumièges’s Gesta Normannorum ducum; a genealogy of King Alfred; lists of Roman emperors and of popes; and the work known as De primo adventu Saxonum. It is closely related to research taking place at Durham, where additions were made in 1166 to the copy of Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica left to the community by Bishop William of St Calais, which bring it broadly into line with this ‘new history’. The materials entered into St Calais’s impressive volume, which is now 49

The Libraries of the Cistercians, Gilbertines and Premonstratensians, ed. by D. Bell, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues, 3 (London: British Library, 1992), pp. 87–140. 50

For discussion, see C. Norton, ‘History, Wisdom and Illumination’, in Symeon of Durham, Historian of Durham and the North, ed. by D. Rollason (Stamford: Watkins, 1998), pp. 61–105; and Lawrence-Mathers, ‘William of Newburgh’.

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Durham, Dean and Chapter Library, MS B II 35, are also found, in a more preliminary version, in BL, MS Cotton Caligula A viii, which seems to have been compiled during the episcopate of Bishop Hugh du Puiset of Durham (1153–95), whose interest in history has already been remarked. Other versions of the compilation are linked to Cistercian houses, specifically to Sawley. One, from the later twelfth century, is now Cambridge, Corpus Christi College (CCCC), MS 139. Its contents show strong connections to historical work at Augustinian Hexham as well as to Durham; but an erased ex libris shows that it came into the possession of Sawley (Sallay), whose patrons were the Percy family. It also uses Aelred of Rievaulx’s accounts of the Battle of the Standard and of his investigation into a scandal at Gilbertine Watton; materials from St Mary’s York; foundation texts from Fountains; Nennius (in a version closely related to the Liège copy); and a Life of Gildas. It is thus more extensive than the collection in Caligula A viii, but it appears to have been used alongside that volume in editing the materials added into Durham B II 35. However, closest of all to the historical, geographical, and biblical expertise deployed by William of Newburgh in his attack on the Historia regum Britanniae is the last in the series, now divided between CCCC MS 66 and Cambridge, University Library, MS Ff. 1. 27, but again associated with Sawley and again of late twelfth-century date. This brought together not only even more texts but also new editions and revisions of those found in the other volumes. It is this final version of this complex work of historical scholarship which contains Book I of Gildas’s De excidio Britanniae, as well as the Historia Brittonum of ‘Nennius’ (usually believed in the twelfth century to be the work of Gildas).51 Historical work from Hexham is again included, as well as that of Symeon of Durham, and another version of the De primo adventu Saxonum. The aim for historical and geographical completeness is demonstrated by the inclusion of a Mappa mundi illumination; the Imago mundi of Honorius Augustodunensis; further geographical texts and extracts; and a compilation of extracts from Bede’s De temporum ratione and of texts on kings, bishops, and visions. This manuscript also came into the possession of Sawley; but it is extremely unlikely to have been produced at Sawley itself. Stylistic analysis of its illuminations and decorated initials strongly suggests that it is a product of the Durham scriptorium. Wherever it originated, either this or something very close to it seems to have been known both to William of Newburgh and presumably to 51

For the confusion of Gildas with ‘Nennius’, see D. Dumville, ‘The Historical Value of the Historia Brittonum’, Arthurian Literature, 6 (1986), 1–26; and ‘Nennius and the Historia Brittonum’, Studia Celtica, 10 and 11 (1975–76), 78–95.

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the Cistercians of Rievaulx with whom he discussed the truth about English history. Moreover, this project goes further than simple borrowing and copying of exemplars. What appears to have happened is the shared reading, compilation, and discussion of a wide range of historical works, involving Benedictine, Augustinian, and Cistercian houses across the whole region. Moreover, whilst it appears to have been at Durham that most of the complex revisions of the ‘historical compendium’ were created, historians at the Augustinian house of Hexham contributed new historical works, as did William himself, in association with the Cistercians of Rievaulx. Where does this leave the enquiry into the place of Augustinian scholarship in twelfth-century Northumbria? Perhaps the testimony of William of Newburgh himself should be considered at this point. William’s letter to Abbot Ernald, copied into the opening folios of his History under the simple heading of ‘Prefatory Epistle’, says that Ernald has asked, in writing, that William should undertake the ‘care and labour’ of writing a history of recent times. It seems that the ‘holy brotherhood’ of the Cistercians, or at least those of Rievaulx, have added their ‘entreaties’ to Ernald’s, and have offered their prayers in exchange for William’s work. As noted above, William had only recently completed his treatise on the Song of Songs, and seems to have been both old and ill. However, the letter suggests that Ernald and the community of Rievaulx had not accepted William’s protestations that he was too ill and that they were better qualified to write ‘elegantly’ than he was. Instead, Ernald appears to have pleaded that Cistercians were heavily occupied by the duties imposed by their monastic rule, making the work of composition even harder for them. Moreover, William was granted ‘leisure hours’ precisely because he was ill; and it appears that ‘historic narrative’ was argued to be less laborious than the writing of spiritual works. William therefore undertakes the task, prefacing his history of recent times with the onslaught on Geoffrey of Monmouth which draws upon the Durham and Cistercian compilations discussed above. A final point is that, whilst William writes to Ernald as a respectful friend, a more formal contact between their two houses is implied. The request seems to have come from the whole community of Rievaulx; and William would presumably have needed the permission of the prior of Newburgh before committing himself, and some of the resources of Newburgh, to this task. William had complained elsewhere that he did not have the services of a secretary, but rather had to make his own notes and drafts on wax tablets and compile his

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finished work from them.52 Nevertheless, the services of a scribe appear to be demonstrated by the copy of William’s historical work in BL, MS Stowe 62. This has good quality vellum and script, as well as a large opening initial, giving it the appearance of a fair copy of the work. However, it is possible that we have evidence of William’s corrections, in the form of bold red marks, making this, oddly, work in progress as well as a fair copy. That its author was engaged in a race against illness is suggested by signs of haste in the writing of the last chapters, as well as the very abrupt ending, without any real conclusion. Both the style of illumination and the overall presentation of the text in MS Stowe 62 raise further questions about Augustinian book culture in this period. Neither the overall Augustinian rule nor the Bridlington dialogue suggest that the appearance and decoration of manuscripts were of concern to the Augustinians; something which is in strong contrast to the detailed restrictions placed by the Cistercians on books made within their houses.53 And yet MS Stowe 62 conforms very closely to the norms found in the surviving twelfth-century manuscripts of the Yorkshire Cistercians. It has neither a title page nor a title at the head of the opening folio, something characteristic of Cistercian manuscripts in Northumbria in the late twelfth century but very unusual elsewhere.54 It is linked to Cistercian manuscript production also by its initials, which use many of the same distinctive motifs as those in manuscripts from Rievaulx, Fountains, and Byland. Does this simply mean that it was produced by Rievaulx scribes or as a presentation copy for Abbot Ernald? These are tempting hypotheses; but the evidence of other surviving Augustinian manuscripts shows that the similarities are by no means restricted to MS Stowe 62 alone. From Bridlington six manuscripts survive from the second half of the twelfth century, three of them being the glossed texts mentioned in the discussion of Robert the Scribe. These are in clear, skilled bookhands on good quality vellum and show no signs of any attempt to impose a house style of script or layout. However, they are surprising in their lack of display script and rubrication at the openings of texts, and in the minimalism of their decorated initials. Moreover one probable Bridlington book, a copy of William of Malmesbury (now London, BL, MS Cotton Claudius A v, fols 46–135), has an initial C on fol. 84v , which shows the distinctive

52

See William of Newburgh’s ‘Explanatio’, ed. by Gorman, p. 21.

53

For these, see Norton, ‘Table of Cistercian Legislation’.

54

For descriptions of the Cistercian manuscripts, see Lawrence-Mathers, Manuscripts in Northumbria, chap. 9, pp. 194–216.

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motif called a ‘split-petal’ by Mynors found in manuscripts from almost all the Northumbrian houses in the twelfth century.55 The Bridlington books then seem to conform to the same overall norms as MS Stowe 62, without appearing specifically Cistercian in style. Drax, Thornton, and Nostell have no surviving books from this period and thus contribute nothing to the present discussion. But the other surviving manuscripts from Newburgh show evidence which parallels that from Bridlington. In particular, the Newburgh copy of the work of Ivo of Chartres, now London, BL, MS Arundel 252, whilst sharing the minimalism of Cistercian books in its mise-enpage and colour palette, has an initial C on fol. 6v, which uses similar stylized foliage motifs to those found in the (few) surviving twelfth-century manuscripts from St Mary’s York. The Kirkham books, however, point in a slightly different direction. The most impressive of these originally combined the copy of Bede now in MS Add. 38817 with the Life of St Augustine, and the treatise by Maurice of Kirkham himself, which are now in BL, MS Arundel 36. It therefore seems likely to have been produced in the 1170s, and is very old-fashioned in its style of illumination for a volume of that date. Its main initials are fully painted, and are very similar to initials found in Durham manuscripts from the first half of the twelfth century. The formation of the letters from the bodies of dragons, the insertion into the letter-forms of roundels containing heads, and the style of the faces themselves are all very old-fashioned for the 1170s. The minor initials use the split-petal motif, but in complex patterns more similar to those found in Durham books than in Cistercian ones. Even more unusually, fol. 13r of MS Arundel 36 has a series of outline drawings of heads in its margins, illustrating Maurice’s discussion of members of the ‘holy kindred’.56 Their style also shows similarities to figurative illumination in Durham manuscripts. London, BL, MS Burney 216 has work by the same scribe as this impressive volume, as well as (almost certainly) by the same illuminator. It has more complex historiated initials for both its historical works, as well as a marginal illumination on fol. 33r, all in a closely related style. The Kirkham books thus show that the Augustinians of Northumbria were not simply following Cistercian norms in their books. Links to Durham seem possible also in the case of Guisborough, since London, BL, MS Arundel 218, a late twelfth-

55

For this categorization, see R. A. B. Mynors, Durham Cathedral Manuscripts to the End of the Twelfth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1939), pp. 32–45. 56

These are discussed by Naydenova-Slade and Park, ‘Earliest Holy Kinship Image’, pp. 99–109.

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century collection of flores, has initials which use another Durham motif. This one is known as the ‘clove curl’ and is less widely distributed than the split petal.57 However, both script and initials in MS Arundel 218 are more irregular than those in Durham products. Thus, whilst Arundel 218 must be connected to Durham it seems unlikely to be the work of the Durham scriptorium. From Hexham five twelfth-century manuscripts survive, including three volumes of the works of St Augustine and another copy of the sermons of Gregory Nazianzen (available also at Bridlington, as has been seen, as well as Durham and Whitby). These manuscripts show the standard motifs described above, which were linked to both Durham and the Cistercian houses. The unusual colour palette found in at least one of them (now Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 236) once again suggests both participation in the shared book culture of twelfthcentury Northumbria and the absence of any imposition of a set of uniform rules. That the Augustinians were not merely imitators of the Cistercians is again suggested by the vellum of their manuscripts, which is considerably smoother, whiter, and more regular than the rather homemade vellum used by the Cistercian scribes. Nevertheless, the evidence summarized here suggests that, by the middle of the twelfth century, what might be called a regional style of book production had emerged, and that the Augustinian houses participated in its development.

Conclusion It now remains to attempt a summary of the evidence presented here. This is not altogether straightforward since, during the reign of Henry I and also during the civil war which followed it, we see the Augustinians of Northumbria primarily from the outside. The sources illustrate the actions and points of view of the founders and patrons, rather than of the canons themselves. In this light the Augustinians appear as a powerful force for breaking Northumbria from its past, for introducing genuine ecclesiastical reform, and for consolidating the hold of a new baronial and spiritual elite in the region. But from the middle of the twelfth century onwards we have evidence from inside the Augustinian communities, in the form of their books. These survive both as the texts they composed and the manuscripts they created; and these present a picture of genuine commitment to the spiritual life and of complex cooperation with the other regular orders in the region. While Maurice of Kirkham’s 57

See Mynors, Durham Cathedral Manuscripts, pp. 32–45.

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correspondence could reach not only to Sempringham and Lanthony Secunda but also to Rome, the manuscripts of his priory reflect the book production of Yorkshire and of Durham. Similarly, Robert of Bridlington’s scholarship was linked to that of Laon and of Paris, whilst the manuscripts of Bridlington combine elements held in common with Durham and the Cistercians. At both Hexham and Newburgh, commentators and historians worked in close contact with their peers at Durham and Rievaulx. William of Newburgh’s own Historia rerum Anglicarum, surviving in what may be the copy which he himself oversaw during his final illness, embodies the close collaboration which linked regular canons and reforming monks across the region. They cared about truth and the accuracy of their written texts; and they created a distinctive format for the presentation of those texts. Within this, the particular contribution of the Augustinians remains distinctive. Whilst the scholarly and spiritual work of the canons was more modest than the large-scale projects of Durham, their products were less restricted than were those of the Cistercians. Thus the canons appear to have maintained their sense of sharing a distinctive vocation, underpinned by their order, whilst genuinely responding to the concrete historical circumstances of twelfth-century Northumbria.

A UGUSTINIAN C ANONS AND THE S URVIVAL OF C ULT C ENTRES IN M EDIEVAL E NGLAND Andrew Abram

C

onstructed in the first half of the eighth century, the crypt of the Benedictine abbey of Repton served as the traditional burial place of the royal house of Mercia. Kings interred there included Æthelbald (d. 757) and Wiglaf (d. 839), yet the site became particularly associated with Wystan, a royal prince who was murdered in 849. His body was buried at Repton, miracles were ascribed to it, and although his relics were translated to Evesham during the early eleventh century, a minster associated with the saint was later established at the former monastic site.1Another important Mercian royal saint associated with Repton was Guthlac, who entered the double monastery there around 696, before transferring to Crowland, where he died in 714. The establishment of the Augustinian priory of Repton, dedicated to the Holy Trinity, is dated by Knowles and Hadcock as c. 1153–59, with 1172 as the date that the buildings were ready. It was associated with the foundation of the nearby community of Calke, founded by 1120, perhaps by Earl Richard of Chester or Robert of Ferrers. A particularly significant grant to Calke was the parish church or minster of St Wystan at Repton about 1153 by Countess Matilda, widow of Ranulf II of Chester.2 Although more

1

D. W. Rollason, ‘The Cults of Murdered Royal Saints in Anglo-Saxon England’, Anglo-Saxon England, 11 (1985), 1–22 (p. 7); H. M. Taylor, ‘St Wystan’s Church, Repton, Derbyshire: A Reconstruction Essay’, Archaeological Journal, 144 (1987), 205–45. 2 Charters of the Anglo-Norman Earls of Chester, c. 1071–1237, ed. by Geoffrey Barraclough, Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 126 (Manchester: Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 1988), nos 45, 104. As Barraclough points out, Repton church was given originally to

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donations followed, within twenty years most of the Augustinian brothers were transferred to a new site at Repton. Thus, the Augustinian foundation reemphasized the devotional and political significance of the former mausoleum and cult centre, its associated monastery, and the later minster of St Wystan. Significantly, at the closure of the Augustinian priory in 1536 it was reported that pilgrims were still visiting the shrine of St Guthlac in the hope that his powers would cure them of, among other things, headaches.3 The following paper explores the development of pre-existing religious sites, cult centres and their related saints by Augustinian communities in the diocese of Coventry and Lichfield. The researches of John Blair, Susan Ridyard, and David Rollason in particular, have illustrated the importance of pre-Conquest churches in England.4 However, the transformation of these sites by Augustinian communities has only been examined within a more general monastic context. That one-third of the Augustinian houses in the see of Coventry and Lichfield were established at pre-existing churches and cult centres indicates that the practice was far from unusual in the region, and suggests that a royal and episcopal dynamic was responsible for it. The Augustinians were introduced to Coventry and Lichfield diocese at an early stage of their development in England. In 1115 a community of regular canons venerating saints Mary and Bertelin was founded at Runcorn by Constable William of Chester.5 The establishment of Runcorn is notable in that it was among the pioneering group of Augustinian foundations in England and Wales. It was only the third in the north of England and the first to be established in the diocese. The donations by William the constable were substantial, and included the Lincoln Cathedral, but it is unlikely that the donation ever took effect. Countess Matilda’s grant to the canons of Calke was made with the consent of her son, Earl Hugh II. 3 ‘Houses of Austin Canons: The Priory of Repton, with the Cell of Calke’, A History of the County of Derby, ed. by W. Page, 2 vols (London: Constable, 1907), II, 58–63 (p. 62). For an early eighth-century Latin prose Vita of St Guthlac, see Felix’s Life of Saint Guthlac, ed. by B. Colgrave (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956). 4 Minsters and Parish Churches: The Local Church in Transition, 950–1200, ed. by J. Blair (Oxford: Oxford University School of Archaeology, 1988); J. Blair, ‘Ecclesiastical Organization and Pastoral Care in Anglo-Saxon England’, Early Medieval Europe, 4 (1995), 193–212; S. J. Ridyard, ‘Condigna Veneratio: Post-Conquest Attitudes to the Saints of the Anglo-Saxons’, Anglo-Norman Studies, 9 (1986), 179–206; D. W. Rollason, ‘Cults of Murdered Royal Saints’; Rollason, ‘RelicCults as an Instrument of Royal Policy ca 900–ca 1050’, Anglo-Saxon England, 15 (1986), 91–103. 5 J. Tait, ‘The Foundation Charter of Runcorn (Later Norton) Priory’, Chetham Society Miscellany, n.s., 100 (1939), 1–26; A. Abram, Norton Priory: An Augustinian Community and its Benefactors, Occasional Papers, 2 (Lampeter: Trivium, 2007), pp. 5–6.

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extensive parish of Runcorn, eight churches, two mills, and the tithes of a further two and a half.6 This rivalled some major baronial ones in northern England. At least four houses of canons were established in Yorkshire and Cleveland during the reign of Henry I on baronial initiative. The correlation between Runcorn and these foundations warrants little surprise. Firstly, Bishop Limesey of Coventry and Lichfield, and archbishops Thomas II and Thurstan of York regarded the canons as agents of reform and acted closely with lay founders in the establishment of such Augustinian communities. These lay men and women, including Walter de Gant (Bridlington), Walter and Adela Espec (Kirkham), William Paynel (Drax), and Robert I de Brus (Guisborough) held comparable rank and royal connections, and possessed common tenurial and social interests. Equally, they were attracted by the ethos and fashion of the black canons, shared a requirement to ‘mark their territory’ with the foundation of an Augustinian community at the centre of their fee, and possessed substantial estates enough to endow their foundations lavishly.7 From the reign of Henry I in particular, founders and benefactors were attracted to the Augustinian canons. Following the lead of the royal family these supporters included reform-minded bishops, such as Richard de Belmeis and Robert de Limesey, as well as royal servants, members of the nobility, and men and women from the knightly class. As noted, the foundation endowment of Runcorn was impressive, yet this was by no means typical of Augustinian houses in the see of Coventry and Lichfield. Monasteries, such as Stone, Mobberley, and Burscough were established on a more modest scale by members of the local knightly class.8 This is somewhat characteristic of communities of black canons in other parts of England and Wales. Located adjacent to the site of an Anglo-Saxon burh, the regular community at Runcorn superseded an associated minster. Elsewhere in the diocese of Coventry

6 Manchester, Chetham Library, MS Towneley C8. 8, fols 65r–66v ; Chester, Cheshire Record Office (hereafter CRO), DLT/B2, fol. 199r. 7 J. Burton, The Monastic Order in Yorkshire, 1069–1215 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 76–80. At Bridlington, for instance, by 1114 Walter de Gant (brother-in-law to Constable William of Chester) lavishly endowed his new foundation with all of Bridlington, five churches, and a moiety of another, five mills, and substantial properties elsewhere, while his vassals added a further two churches and lands in six other manors. 8 A. Abram, ‘Knightly Society and the Augustinian Canons in the Northwest of England’, Thirteenth Century England, XII, ed. by J. Burton, P. Schofield, and B. Weiler (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2009), pp. 141–53; Abram, ‘Identity and Remembrance: Interaction between Augustinian Houses and their Benefactors in an English Context’, in Self-Representation of Medieval Religious Communities: The British Isles in Context, ed. by A. Müller and K. Stöber, Vita Regularis, Abhandlungen, 40 (Berlin: LIT, 2009), pp. 233–44.

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and Lichfield the transformation of religious communities and sites became a feature of the region. Cult centres were utilized at the Augustinian houses of Stone (dedicated to St Wulfad), Repton (St Wystan), Trentham (saints Werburgh and Wulfere), and Mobberley (saints Mary and Wilfrid), while at Rocester the regular canons absorbed an earlier minster church. Moreover, Premonstratensian canons occupied the site of an Anglo-Saxon church at Warburton, while communities of Augustinian canons at Calwich and Haughmond were established at the site of a former hermitage and a religious community respectively. This pattern is equally identifiable in areas such as Cornwall (Bodmin, Launceston, and St Germans) and Oxfordshire (Bicester and Dorchester). Shrines dedicated to saints’ cults and relics were widespread in post-Conquest England. In numerous cases, such as Chester and Much Wenlock, the AngloNorman monarchy, bishops, founders and benefactors recognized, adapted, and venerated them, and regarded them as the focus of devotion, continuity, and reform. Furthermore, the promotion of shrines by Augustinian communities conforms to a more general pattern and can be identified at sites such as St Osyth’s, Bicester, and Bodmin. As noted, from the beginning of Henry I’s reign, royal minsters became prime targets for re-foundation or conversion as Augustinian houses. This, in part, was made possible by the nature of the Augustinian rule, which was both vague and adaptable, and could provide the basis of religious life for an assortment of establishments. Alan Thacker has suggested that the term monasterium was given by the Anglo-Saxons to all religious communities, ‘whether of monks proper or of secular clergy, a usage which reflects the fact that many early Anglo-Saxon monasteries had assumed the pastoral role which was ultimately the principal distinction of the secular college’.9 Recent historical studies have emphasized that minsters were usually superior churches that provided pastoral care and administration to wide parochia from the tenth to the early twelfth centuries.10Additionally, they were associated with areas focussed on the royal tun, and therefore connected with Anglo-Saxon royal administration.

9

A. T. Thacker, ‘Kings, Saints and Monasteries in Pre-Viking Mercia’, Midland History, 10 (1985), 1–25 (pp. 1–2). However, John Blair points out that the word minster can be used to recognize a wide variety of religious communities of diverse size and character (Blair, ‘Ecclesiastical Organization’, pp. 195–96). 10 J. Blair, ‘A Saint for Every Minster? Local Cults in Anglo-Saxon England’, Local Saints and Local Churches in the Early Medieval West, ed. by A. Thacker and R . Sharpe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 455–94; S. Foot, Monastic Life in Anglo-Saxon England, c. 600–900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 5–7.

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In addition to Repton, the kingdom of Mercia contained several minsters where the ruling dynasties promoted cult centres of various royal saints. Also, its heartlands of Cheshire, Staffordshire, Shropshire, and Derbyshire contained a group of royal free chapels that long preserved their substantial ancient parishes. Many of these chapels were later converted to Benedictine and Augustinian communities. The tenth-century queen, Æthelflæd, promoted cult centres and minsters at her various burhs, such as Chester, Stafford, and Runcorn, probably to make West Saxon authority and reorganization more politically acceptable.11 Hence, when she constructed fortifications at Tamworth and Stafford in 913, she encouraged the cult of Bertelin, a local saint, who was enshrined in the ancient royal minster at Stafford. Æthelflaed also established a number of burhs along the Mercian frontier of the River Mersey at Runcorn, and probably Warburton in 915, and another at Thelwall in 919.12 The fortification at Runcorn controlled the strategically important Runcorn Gap, a narrowing of the Mersey estuary, and was probably sited on the small promontory on the south bank of the river, later known as Castle Rock. Since the early tenth century Halton, in north-west Cheshire (encompassing the parish of Runcorn) had been a manor of some importance. The strategic value of the site was thus appreciated by the first AngloNorman constables of Chester, who located their caput at Halton.13 The pre-existence of a monasterium at Runcorn is related to the early history of the site. Domesday Book lists two priests under the manor of Halton, at least one of which belonged to Runcorn and its extensive parish. In 1115 an Augustinian community dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary and St Bertelin replaced the former church. When the community transferred to Norton in 1134 the codedication to the Mercian saint was abandoned. This seems not to have been unusual. By 1200 the ancient royal minster and later royal free chapel at Stafford, dedicated to St Bertelin, was re-dedicated to St Mary in the same way.14 At Stafford the remains of the Mercian saint had been enshrined in an ancient royal minster 11

Thacker, ‘Kings, Saints and Monasteries’, p. 19. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, ed. and trans. by M. Swanton (London: Phoenix, 2000), pp. 97, 99; N. J. Higham, ‘The Cheshire Burhs and the Mercian Frontier to 924’, Transactions of the Antiquarian Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 85 (1988), 193–221; N. J. Higham, The Origins of Cheshire (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993), pp. 155, 158–59. 13 DB: Cheshire, p. 727. 14 A. Oswald, The Church of St Bertelin at Stafford Excavation Report, Old Stafford Society Transactions (Birmingham: Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, 1953–54), pp. 9–10; J. H. Denton, English Royal Free Chapels (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1970), pp. 93–95, 97–102, 162–70. 12

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and his cult encouraged. This is indicative of the Anglo-Saxon religious and political dynamic evident in the north-west and north midlands of England during the early tenth century. In 901 at Much Wenlock, in the heartlands of Shropshire, King Æthelred and Queen Æthelflæd donated a gold chalice in honour of St Milburga, whose cult had survived Danish incursions. Similarly, about 907 Æthelflaed probably re-founded a minster at Chester, incorporating the existing relics of St Werburgh, whose cult was associated with King Oswald, another saint promoted by the queen.15 At Runcorn, the actual site of William the Constable’s new priory church cannot be located precisely, but it was probably constructed near to an existing minster, rather than remodelling the structure, in a similar fashion to Rocester and Easby. This view is strengthened by the terms of an agreement by the patron of Norton, Eustace Fitz John (constable of Chester from 1139 to 1157) and its master mason to complete the structure according to that previously built at Runcorn.16 We cannot be certain if this might have been an earlier building that was reconstructed, but it is possible that a building was designed and built for the Augustinian community at Runcorn de novo between its foundation and the transfer of its canons to Norton in 1134. Though Constable William’s foundation document does not mention the gift of the parish church of Runcorn to his new community, a later charter indicates that the canons had taken possession of it by 1115.17 In the absence of surviving bishops’ acta for Runcorn and subsequently Norton, the process of the appropriation of the former minster church is unclear. However, a fourteenth-century history of the founders and patrons, the constables of Chester, describes the grant of Runcorn Church to the canons in proprios usus by William son of Nigel.18 The procedure may have corresponded with the betterdocumented example of Rocester, an Augustinian house established adjacent to a minster dedicated to St Michael by the knight Richard Bacon between 1141 and

15

A. J. M. Edwards, ‘An Early Twelfth-Century Account of St Milburga of Much Wenlock’, Transactions of the Shropshire Archaeological and Historical Society, 4th ser., 57 (1980), 134–42; A. T. Thacker, ‘Chester and Gloucester: Early Ecclesiastical Organisation in Two Mercian Burhs’, Northern History, 18 (1982), 199–211 (p. 201). 16 William Dugdale, Monasticon anglicanum, ed. by J. Caley, H. Ellis, and B. Bandinel (hereafter Monasticon), 6 vols (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, 1817–30), VI, pt I (1830), p. 313, n. d. 17 MS Towneley C 8. 8, fols 65r–66v; CRO, DLT/B2, fol. 199 r . William’s endowment was made to ‘the church of St Mary and St Bertelin of Runcorn and the canons serving God there according to their rule’. 18 Monasticon, VI, pt I, p. 315, no. iii.

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1143. Between 1121 and 1126 Bishop Peche of Coventry and Lichfield confirmed to the secular canons of St Michael all episcopal dues concerning the parochia of Rocester.19 Probably in 1143 the new Augustinian community set about appropriating the rights and endowments of the former minster, which seems to have retained some parochial function. According to the foundation charter of the abbey, the abbot and canons obtained from Bishop Clinton permission for the parish of Rocester to be free and quit of all episcopal customs.20 In 1229 Bishop Stavensby completed the process by granting the right to appropriate the parish church of St Michael, with its chapels and appurtenances. He also granted the canons the right to serve the parish church of Rocester with one of their own brethren, provided that he was first presented to him and his successors.21 It was accordingly a combination of baronial and ecclesiastical support that allowed Runcorn, and later Norton, to flourish. In his foundation charter to Runcorn, William the Constable acknowledged that the initial suggestion for his foundation came from Bishop Robert de Limesey (1086–1117). That Robert saw the canons as agents of reform within his see, with the expectation that they would be responsible for pastoral service in the churches of which they held the advowson, is likely. This seems especially so in Runcorn’s case, with the appropriation of a minster and large rural parish, while the foundation grant to the Augustinian priory included eight churches. In the archdiocese of York, Archbishop Thomas II introduced Augustinian canons to Hexham and Bridlington, whilst Thurstan, sometimes with the close co-operation of Pope Calixtus II, encouraged the foundations of Nostell and Guisborough.22Similarly, in Cornwall the minsters of Bodmin, Plympton, and Launceston were converted to Augustinian communities as the result of royal and episcopal initiatives, and Bishop Warelwast obtained brethren from houses connected to Queen Matilda, a leading proponent of the movement in England.23 Unlike other vassals and officials of Earl Hugh I of Chester, Constable William seems not to have made any gifts to Chester Abbey as part of its re-foundation as

19

Mentioned in an original charter of Bishop Walter Durdent in favour of Trentham Priory (Stafford, Staffordshire Record Office (hereafter SRO), D593/B/1/23/2/4); repeated in an inspeximus issued by Bishop Richard (EEA, XIV : Coventry and Lichfield, 1072–1159, ed. by M. J. Franklin (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 1997), no. 7). 20 CRO, DLT/3, fol. 11; EEA, XIV : Coventry and Lichfield, 1072–1159, nos 7, 33. 21 London, British Library (BL), MS Harleian 3868, fol. 26v . 22 Burton, Monastic Order in Yorkshire, pp. 76, 79, 92. On these, see also above, pp. 36–47. 23 Knowles and Hadcock, MRH, pp. 145–71.

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a Benedictine community in 1093. Previous donations to the canons of Chester came from two estates in his Wirral fee, rather than the lordship of Halton, and it is likely that he was planning to establish his own religious house nearer to the centre of his estates.24 A much later and perhaps unreliable tradition existed at Chester Abbey that William the Constable was closely associated with St Werburgh. According to a Life of the saint by the sixteenth-century monk Henry Bradshaw,25 William’s devotion to her was the result of a vow made probably in 1117 during an arduous crossing of the River Dee to assist Earl Richard, who during a pilgrimage to Holywell was attacked by Welshmen and besieged at Basingwerk. Upon the intervention of St Werburgh, we are told, William returned to Chester and made an offering at her shrine. How accurate the story is, we cannot know, but before his death in about 1130 Constable William granted his body for burial with the monks of the abbey. The twelfth-century constables of Chester were directly responsible for the foundation of three religious communities within their lordship of Halton, and encouraged their supporters not only to contribute to them, but to establish houses of their own. The religious benefactions of one particularly important group of vassals, the Dutton family, were considerable, and reflect the devotional and social aspirations of an ambitious knightly family during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In 1190 the constable’s steward, Adam of Dutton, established a Premonstratensian priory at Warburton on the banks of the River Mersey, as a daughter house of Cockersand. As Adam’s foundation charter relates, with the consent of his wife Agnes, he founded a community venerating God, St Mary, and St Werburgh for the salvation of the souls of his overlords, Constables John and Roger, his parents, and kin (including his son John, who had been buried at the new house).26 Evidently, Adam was

24 Cartulary or Register of the Abbey of St Werburgh, Chester, ed. by J. Tait, Chetham Society, n.s., 79, 82, 2 vols (1920, 1923), II, no. 3; Charters of the Anglo-Norman Earls of Chester, no. 3. 25 H. Bradshaw, The Life of St Werburge of Chester, ed. by C. Horstmann, Early English Text Society, o.s., 88 (London: Trübner for the Early English Text Society, 1887), pp. 179–81. Basingwerk had been established as an Anglo-Saxon frontier stronghold at the northern end of Watts Dyke, while a later fortification was destroyed during King Stephen’s reign. In 1131 Earl Ranulf II of Chester founded a Savignac abbey nearby. The significance of the entry in the sixteenth-century vita of St Werburgh in this context is that in some fashion it preserves the memory of the importance of William’s association with the saint. His promotion of Anglo-Saxon cult-centres is shown also by his foundation of Runcorn Priory in 1115 at the site of a minster associated with St Bertelin. 26 Cartulary of Cockersand Abbey, ed. by W. Farrer, Chetham Society, 3rd ser., 3 vols (Manchester: Simms, 1898–1909), II, 735–36.

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anxious not only to establish canons at the location of a pre-existing religious site at Warburton, but to connect his political and familial associates with his devotional act in perpetuum. As mentioned already, Warburton was the site of an Anglo-Saxon burh and church, within an extensive parish. It is significant that the community and its benefactors (who were drawn largely from the associates of the Dutton family and other vassals of the constables of Chester from their lordships of Halton and Widnes) continued to venerate St Werburgh until the closure of the house in 1271, although the priory continued to exist as a parish church, dedicated to the Mercian princess. Another site invigorated by the Augustinians was Stone in Staffordshire. The priory was founded between 1125 and 1130 in an existing church dedicated to St Wulfad by the knight Enisan of Walton.27 Since the late seventh century Stone had been the focus of an extensive ancient parish and was possibly the site of an early minster.28 Subjects of a lesser-known Mercian royal cult, Wulfad and Rufinus, supposed sons of King Wulfere, were murdered at Stone by their father and subsequently venerated there. According to a fourteenth-century legend of St Wulfad, compiled by the canons of Stone, he was converted to Christianity by St Chad and martyred by his father.29 Remorse for the act led to King Wulfere’s own conversion by St Chad and to his foundation of a monastery at Stone.30 Located in an apsidal east end of the priory church, the shrines of Wulfad and Rufinus, at least going by the number and quality of references to them in later written sources, elicited an extraordinary local reputation. The historia relates that the ‘holy martyrs’ were buried there and later venerated by regular canons.31 The text continues to relate that Robert de Stafford sent a canon to Rome to seek the canonization of Wulfad, and Robert himself undertook a pilgrimage ‘in great devotion’ from Stafford to Stone to revere the saint’s shrine. Again, the story is dubious, as the Augustinians did not come to Stone until the 1120s, over forty years after Robert’s death. However, the significance of the relationship between

27 28

London, BL, MS Cotton Vespasian E. xxiv (Stone cartulary), fol. 18v. Thacker, ‘Kings, Saints and Monasteries’, p. 6; Rollason, ‘List of Saints’ Resting-Places’,

p. 72. 29

London, BL, MS Cotton Nero C. xii, fol. 1r ; G. H. Gerould, ‘The Legend of St Wulfhad and St Ruffin at Stone Priory’, Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, 32 (1917), 323–37. 30 Such a legend is unsound, however, as Wulfere was already a Christian before his coronation. 31 MS Cotton Nero C. xii, fol. 1r.

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St Wulfad, his cult site, a large ancient parish and minster, and the patrons of the associated Augustinian community is undeniable. There is slight evidence of a small community of nuns, perhaps a hermitage, at Stone before the arrival of Augustinian canons in the early twelfth century. The dynamics of this are ambiguous, yet Domesday Book records the presence of a priest at Walton (in Stone) and refers to a grant made by the Anglo-Saxon holder of the manor, Aki, to his sister of a carucate of land there.32 Perhaps the latter represented a gift to a female religious community. Whatever the case, a fifteenthcentury memorial table from Stone Priory, supporting this notion, related that two nunns and one preest lived in this place The which were slayne by one Enysan … This Enysan slue the nuns and priest alsoe, Because his sister should have this church thoe.33

Enysan was Enisan of Walton, whose father Ernald held the manor from Robert de Stafford in 1086, yet it is Enisan’s son Ernald II who was amerced for 10 silver marks for ‘the men whom he killed’.34 Conceivably it was the requirement to raise this sum that occasioned the sale to Geoffrey de Clinton, the royal chamberlain and lord of Kenilworth, of the property on which the Augustinian priory at Stone was eventually established.35 Shortly after his foundation of Kenilworth Priory in 1124–25, Geoffrey acquired the church of Stone from Enisan of Walton, and with the assent of Enisan’s lord, Nicholas de Stafford, granted it to the canons. In a charter of 1129–30 Enisan and his son Ernald approved the gift, and added lands in Stone and Walton. Moreover, on 18 October 1130 Nicholas de Stafford and his son Robert II confirmed to the canons of the Warwickshire house ‘for King Henry and the safety of the realm’ all the grants from their fee.36 Their charter records that the document was produced at Stone Church and placed upon the high altar. Significantly, the fifteenth-century memorial at Stone Priory noted that Nicholas

32

DB: Staffordshire, p. 680. ‘A copye of the table that was hanging in the priorye of Stone in the countye of Stafford, at the tyme of the suppression of the same’ (Oxford, Bodleian Library, M S Dugdale 20, fol. 144v); printed in Monasticon, VI, pt I, pp. 230–31. 34 DB: Staffordshire, p. 680; The Pipe Roll of 31 Henry 1, Michaelmas 1130, ed. by Joseph Hunter (London: HMSO, 1929), pp. 3, 10, 178. 35 Staffordshire Cartulary 1072–c. 1237, Collections for a History of Staffordshire, 2 (Stafford: Staffordshire Record Society, 1881), pp. 199–200. 36 MS Cotton Vespasian E. xxiv, fols 18v –19r. 33

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Which to this place had greate devotion; And to this place did many benefits sekerlie, And by his charters appeareth apertlie.37

The precise circumstances of the establishment of Stone as an Augustinian foundation are not entirely clear, although the nature of the Walton family gifts of Stone Church and property in the locality to Kenilworth suggests that Enisan introduced regular canons at Stone between 1125 and 1130. The charter of Enisan and Ernald of c. 1126 mentions the ‘canons of the aforesaid church’, the church being that of St Wulfad at Stone. The legend of St Wulfad relates that Enisan, when he had repented his crime, went to Geoffrey de Clinton for guidance.38 Geoffrey, described as ‘cousin’ to Enisan, advised him to restore Stone Church and establish there ‘a house of canons in worship of St Wulfad’. Yet the decisive factor in the growth of the priory was its adoption by the Stafford family as its family monastery and mausoleum. The Staffords also claimed the patronage of the house. The memorial at Stone told that it was Enisan’s lord, ‘baron Robert’, who approached Clinton about an Augustinian foundation.39 Geoffrey accordingly … counseled this blessed baron Robert tho, To restore and helpe Saint Wolfad’s house again, And make canons there in steed of the nuns that Enysan had slayne. So through baron Robert, and councel of Geffry yn fere, Canons were first thus founded here. And for love and devotion that baron Robert had, He sate here cannons to serve in worship of Saint Wolfad.

Robert, who had nothing to do with the Augustinian foundation at Stone, enjoyed a particularly close connection with the Benedictine abbey of Evesham. Before dying at the house in 1088, Robert took the habit and requested burial there.40 Even so, the devotional importance of the shrine of St Wulfad continued at Stone until the Dissolution, and a number of gifts were made by benefactors specifically to invoke the intervention of the saint. About 1200, for instance, Adelicia Malbanc

37

Monasticon, VI, pt I, pp. 230–31. MS Cotton Nero C. xii, fol. 1r. 39 MS Dugdale 20, fols 144v–146v. 40 Chronicon Abbatiae de Evesham ad annum 1418, ed. by W. D. Macray, Rolls Series (London: HMSO, 1863), no. 75. 38

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gave property ‘for the blessing of God and St Wulfad the martyr’, whilst another donor paid for a lamp to burn at his altar and shrine.41 Domesday Book refers to priests in relation to churches and extensive AngloSaxon parishes, such as Stone, Runcorn, Trentham, and Repton.42 None are listed for Rocester, but the minster there might not have been established by 1086, although a monasterium dedicated to St Michael existed by the time of the arrival of the regular canons in the early 1140s, for the foundation of the abbey was witnessed by the priests Simon and Wulfric. The founder of Rocester was a kinsman of Earl Ranulf II of Chester, and possessed a number of manors in Staffordshire, including Rocester, one of a chain linking Chester with the Earl’s properties in the midlands.43 The subsequent Augustinian abbey was at the centre of a large manor and parish, with appendages in Derbyshire. The reason why Rocester, a modest Staffordshire house, was designated abbey status at its foundation is probably linked to the rank and ambitions of its founders and patrons, as well as the expectations of the community itself. As Rocester was established by a relative of the Earl of Chester, it may originally have been anticipated by both Richard Bacon and the canons that Earl Ranulf II and his successors would later increase the endowments of the house, thus allowing it to be expanded. Confidence in this scenario may have been bolstered by the scale of both the original foundation endowment and later gifts, which were relatively generous. But although the patronage of Rocester was kept by the earls of Chester and eventually the Crown from 1246, any expansion did not materialize.44 Upon its foundation, the new regular community set about the process of appropriating the rights and endowments of the minster, which seems to have retained some parochial function. Abbot Thurstan and his canons acquired from Bishop Roger, himself an active reformist and supporter of both the Augustinians and Savignacs within his diocese, permission for the parish of Rocester to be free and quit of all episcopal customs.45 However, unlike other sites, such as Bicester and St Osyth, rather than simply occupying the parish church itself, Rocester was established de novo nearby, in its

41

MS Cotton Vespasian E. xxiv, fol. 13v . DB: Staffordshire, pp. 673, 680, 727, 742. 43 Charters of the Earls of Chester, pp. 4, 7–10; Nigel J. Tringham, ‘An Early ThirteenthCentury Survey of the Earl of Chester’s Fee of Leek’, Staffordshire Studies, 5 (1993), 1–12 (p. 3). 44 In 1399 Rocester was described as ‘of royal foundation and patronage as of the principality of Chester’ (CPR: Richard II, VI: 1396–99 (1909), 508). 45 EEA, XIV : Coventry and Lichfield, 1072–1159, no. 33. 42

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own purpose-built conventual building.46 Clearly, both secular priests and canons regular were present at Rocester around 1143. A similar case involves Easby, North Yorkshire, where about 1151 Roald, constable of Richmond, granted ‘to God, St Mary, St Agatha, and a community of Premonstratensian canons, the minster of St Agatha with all things thereto for the construction of an abbey’.47 Like Rocester, Easby is not mentioned in Domesday, but fragments of a Northumbrian cross of c. 800 suggest that the minster of St Agatha was active during the AngloSaxon period. Like the church of St Michael at Rocester, it continued throughout the medieval period to fulfil its parochial function, whilst its current existence shows that it was situated in its own churchyard, barely a few yards south-west of the gatehouse and kitchen of the later abbey. One reason for this probably lies with the reluctance on the part of the white canons to allow parishioners into their abbey church.48 As noted already, an Augustinian community venerating God, St Mary, and All Saints was located at Trentham. It was in 1153, towards the end of his life, that Earl Ranulf II of Chester established a priory of regular canons at the site of a late Anglo-Saxon minster. According to the foundation charter, he acted in his illness to safeguard his own soul and those of his ancestors, whilst a contemporary document suggests that the Earl wished to make amends for injuries he had inflicted on the Church in a wider sense.49 Evidence for the existence of a parish church at Trentham before the foundation of an Augustinian house hinges firstly on Domesday Book, which records the presence of a priest there. An episcopal confirmation dated 1121 x 1126 refers to the parochia of Trentham, while in 1139 Empress Matilda presented John, Chaplain to Earl Ranulf, to its church.50 The suggestion that an earlier nunnery or religious house associated with the Mercian saints Werburgh and Wulfad existed at Trentham, perhaps before the minster, stems solely from Ranulf’s charter to his Augustinian foundation, made in December 1153, which mentions ‘the restoration of an abbey of canons in the 46

CRO, DLT/B3, fol. 11r; G. Barraclough, ‘Some Charters of the Earls of Chester’, in A Medieval Miscellany for Doris Mary Stenton, ed. by P. M. Barnes and C. F. Slade, Publications of the Pipe Roll Society, n.s., 36 (London: Pipe Roll Society, 1962), pp. 25–27 (p. 26, n. 1). 47 EYC, V : The Honour of Richmond (Leeds: Yorkshire Archaeological Society, 1936), no. 231; H. M. Colvin, The White Canons in England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1951), pp. 56–57. 48 L. Butler and C. Given-Wilson, Medieval Monasteries of Great Britain (London: Joseph, 1979), pp. 218–22; J. A. Gribbin, The Premonstratensian Order in Late Medieval England (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2001), p. 102. 49 SRO, D593/B/1/23/2/2; Charters of the Earls of Chester, nos 117–18. 50 SRO, D593/B/1/23/2/4; EEA, XIV : Coventry and Lichfield, 1072–1159, nos 8, 42, 74.

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church of Trentham’. Seemingly, it was upon this tradition that the sixteenthcentury monk of Chester, Bradshaw, alleged that St Werburgh was foundress and abbess of a nunnery at Trentham. The convent of ‘Tricengeham’, once believed to have been Trentham, is now regarded as being Threckingham in Lincolnshire.51 Furthermore, in 1251–52 it was believed that the Augustinian community had originated ‘in the time of William Rufus, through Hugh, earl of Chester’.52 Such an assumption probably stemmed from knowledge of the grant of the royal manor of Trentham by William to the Earl before August 1100, as no documentation of the house supports this.53 Even though by Hugh’s death in 1101 it would have been too early for an Augustinian foundation in England, the Earl may have vowed to establish an off-shoot of his Benedictine abbey of Chester at Trentham, but his decease prevented it from being enacted. Moreover, according to Bradshaw, Hugh’s son Richard intended to alter St Werburgh’s to another religious order before he died in 1120.54 Perhaps the grant of Trentham Church to Richard the butler by Henry I was linked to a former wish of Earl Hugh I, which culminated in the establishment of Augustinian canons there by Ranulf II in 1153. It could also account for the thirteenth-century belief that the Augustinian community originated in the time of Earl Hugh. Thus, Earl Ranulf’s reference to the restoration of an abbatia of canons is likely to have meant the transformation of an existing minster into an Augustinian community. The promotion of Trentham Priory is devotionally and politically significant in the wider context of the transformation of minsters and cult centres by the Augustinians. This was a feature characteristic of Coventry and Lichfield diocese, and is particularly evident at Runcorn, Rocester, and Trentham. The importance of the role of the earls of Chester in aiding the establishment of the first two by their vassals, William the Constable and Richard Bacon, is emphasized by Ranulf II’s own foundation of Trentham at the site of a royal manor and church. Both financially and politically Trentham was a valuable manor, and by the end of King Stephen’s reign it was located in a region of Angevin dominance. From Ranulf II’s death in December 1153 and the passing of the earldom of Chester to his six-yearold son, Hugh II, the growth of his new foundation was substantially assisted by

51

VCH: Staffordshire, 20 vols, some in prep. (London: Constable, 1908–), III, ed. by M. W. Greenslade (1970), p. 255, nn. 1–2. 52 Liber feodorum, I, 1285; CPR: Edward III, IV : 1338–40 (1898), 34 (inspeximus of Henry III). 53 Liber feodorum, II, 1261, n. 8; Staffordshire Cartulary, 1072–c.1237, Collections for a History of Staffordshire, 2 (Stafford: Staffordshire Record Society, 1881), p. 224. 54 Bradshaw, Life of St Werburge, pp. 182–83; Cartulary of Chester, I, pp. xxv–vi.

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Henry II. Following his succession in 1154 Henry resumed control of the royal demesnes, including the manor of Trentham. The King took the Augustinian brothers into his protection by confirming Earl Ranulf’s gift, adding his own donations, and assuming the patronage of the community.55 The last Augustinian foundation in Coventry and Lichfield diocese was that of Mobberley, established in the early thirteenth century. Located two miles northeast of Knutsford, the monastery was dedicated to St Mary and St Wilfrid (Bishop of York, 665–709). The founder of the community, established by 1204, was the knight Patrick of Mobberley. It is clear from the nature of the donations to the canons that the foundation process depended on the corporate activities of the founder and his kin, and especially the part played by female benefactors. It is likely that the decision to locate an Augustinian community at Mobberley was two-fold. The etymology of local features identify the manor as an ancient fortified settlement: thus the name Mobberley derives from the Old English möt burh lëah, meaning ‘clearing at the fortification’; Burleyhurst translates to ‘wooded hill belonging to the burh lëah’; whilst Grimsditch alludes to a lost ancient earthwork: ‘Woden’s ditch’.56 The subsequent Augustinian priory absorbed an existing church and parish dedicated in part to an Anglo-Saxon saint, which were granted to the canons in proprios usus by Bishop Muschamp at its foundation.57 Archaeological work has confirmed the existence of a pre-Conquest church at Mobberley.58 The establishment of the early thirteenth-century priory was confirmed by the founder’s lords, while Earl Ranulf took the canons, their men and possessions, into his protection and custody. To conclude, the retention of cults by the Augustinians was a significant feature of the devotional and political landscape of the diocese of Coventry and Lichfield from the early twelfth century onwards. Beginning with the foundation of

55

SRO, D593/B/1/23/2/3; William Farrer, Honors and Knights’ Fees, 3 vols (London: Spottiswoode, Ballantyne, 1923–25), II (1924), 7, 266. Despite a claim by the earls of Lancaster to the patronage of the community in the late thirteenth century, the Crown retained it until 1536. In 1251 Henry III granted the priory free warren in three local manors, and in 1293 the canons upheld their right to hold two courts a year at Trentham, and the rights of gallows there, as well as claiming a fair and market in the manor (CChR, 1226–57, p. 370; 1300–26, p. 217; Plea Rolls, 1272–94, Collections for a History of Staffordshire, 6 (Stafford: Staffordshire Record Society, 1885), pp. 241, 243, 247–49). 56 J. M. Dodgson, The Place Names of Cheshire (London: English Place Names Society, 1970), p. 66. 57 CRO, DDX 553/8; EEA, XVII: Coventry and Lichfield, 1183–1208, ed. by M. J. Franklin (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 1998), no. 116. 58 R . Richards, Old Cheshire Churches (London: Batsford, 1947), pp. 237–42.

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Runcorn Priory, a number of sites and their associated saints were developed and promoted as focal points for the religious, social, and cultural expectations of founders and benefactors. Yet the preservation of such sites was also linked to memory, corporate identity, and transition, from the earlier political regime of the Anglo-Saxon royal house to the new Anglo-Norman and later medieval structures of authority. Equally, the retention of cults in the region by Augustinian communities, guided by reformist bishops such as Robert de Limesey and Roger de Clinton, marked the transition from the ‘old’ church to the ‘reformed’ church. Such conclusions about the Augustinians have less validity for Benedictine foundations in the see of Coventry and Lichfield. In 1093 the minster dedicated to St Werburgh at Chester was transformed into a Benedictine house by Earl Hugh I. As suggested, in some fashion William the constable replicated this at Runcorn with his Augustinian foundation. Although in a general sense some communities of monks tended to adopt the cult of Anglo-Saxon saints, such as the pre-Conquest minster at Morville in Shropshire, which was converted around 1138, there is no discernable pattern in the diocese. Here, the more established communities such as Burton-upon-Trent and Coventry were founded de novo by Anglo-Saxons during the early eleventh century, while Shrewsbury, Tutbury, Blithbury, and Birkenhead were established at new sites by Anglo-Norman lords. The priory of Sandwell was preceded by a hermitage associated with a spring of the same name before 1190, while Upholland developed from a failing secular college during the early fourteenth century.59 The concept of memory in terms of the use and encouragement of cults by the black canons, with their continued significance to patrons and benefactors in a local context, is evidenced by dynastic and individual burials at houses such as Stone, Trentham, Repton, and perhaps during the early twelfth century at Runcorn. That a number of these can be located through documents and archaeology to specific parts of the monastic complex, including altars dedicated to particular saints, as well as in some cases, precise requests by benefactors, is highly significant. Perhaps the complex themes of devotion, memory, community, identity, and renewal in terms of the Augustinian retention of cults is illustrated best by the historia and other texts associated with Stone Priory.60 It was here that the patrons, the Stafford family, were mostly buried from the 1130s onwards. The history relates at length the importance of saints Wulfad and Rufinus to Stone, while a fifteenth-century table carefully describes the close relationship between 59 60

Knowles and Hadcock, MRH, pp. 60, 71, 75–76. Monasticon, VI, pt I, pp. 226–31.

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the Stafford dynasty and the canons. A number of family members, beginning with Nicholas (d. 1138) we are told, were laid to rest in important places within the priory, including before the high altar and chapterhouse doorway. The significance of the cult centre to the combined community of patrons and canons is explicit. Nicholas reportedly showed St Wulfad ‘great honour’, while his great grandson Hervey was buried in the chapterhouse and revered ‘for [the] great love he had to Saint Wolfade’. Thus, the example of Stone Priory illustrates the continuing promotion and utilization of earlier cult centres by Augustinian communities and their supporters in terms of political, cultural, and social identity, and as lasting centres of devotion. As has been shown, this was not an uncommon feature of the diocese of Coventry and Lichfield, and, most likely, a number of important Augustinian houses throughout medieval England.

T HE R EGULAR C ANONS IN W ALES Karen Stöber

T

owards the close of the twelfth century, in his Itinerarium Cambriae, Gerald of Wales directed at the regular canons some rare words of praise:

The Augustinian canons are more content than any of the others with a humble and modest mode of life. They may not be wholly successful in this, but as far as they can they hold in check the urges of ambition. They dwell among secular people, but they avoid as far as possible the temptations of this world. They are certainly in no way notorious for gluttony or drunkenness, and the possibility of incurring public criticism for lechery or evilliving fills them with dread and shame.1

In his day, Gerald pointed out, ‘the canonical rule instituted by St Augustine is still observed [at Llanthony Priory], for nowadays this order is preferred to all the others’.2 Gerald’s praise was directed in the first instance at the Monmouthshire priory of Llanthony Prima, a house of Augustinian canons with which Gerald clearly had some familiarity and is believed to have had some ties before he moved on to St Peter’s in Gloucester.

Origins, Foundation Histories, and Sources By the time Gerald was writing about the canons of Llanthony Priory, the Augustinians had been present in Wales for around eight decades and in England 1

Gerald of Wales: The Journey through Wales/The Description of Wales, ed. and trans. by L. Thorpe (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1987), p. 107. 2

Gerald of Wales, Journey, ed. and trans. by Thorpe, p. 101.

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for a little longer. In both countries they rapidly gained favour with a society which perhaps admired and embraced the ideals the new religious arrivals stood for, and to which the approachability of the canons must have had a particular appeal. But whereas in England the Augustinian canons soon came to emerge as the numerically strongest religious group, this was not the case in Wales. At their peak, in the thirteenth century, the number of houses of regular canons in England exceeded two hundred and fifty;3 in Wales, by comparison, there were no more than nine.4 Thus, unlike in England, in Wales the regular canons were not the largest religious group (that position was occupied by the Cistercians, who had some thirteen foundations in the Principality of Wales), though they came a close third (just behind the Benedictines). They were never wealthy, but they were never desperately impoverished either, unlike some of their Benedictine neighbours.5 In both countries the regular canons evidently enjoyed considerable popularity among the lay community. One could perhaps say that, in terms of their often uncertain origins and their varying ways of emerging and establishing themselves in Wales, and in terms of their different functions, the regular canons in the Principality exemplify well what R. W. Southern talked about when he described them as ‘giving a new turn to the tradition of organised religion’.6 In order to illustrate this point, and to fully understand their importance, it will be useful to take a closer look at the houses of regular canons in medieval Wales, at their origins, dispersal, their individual and common histories, and at the role they played in the region, and particularly also in their immediate localities. The nine houses of Augustinian canons (including the small community on Puffin Island (off Anglesey), which was part of the possessions of Penmon Priory, and the equally small communities on St Tudwal’s Island (Caernarfon) and St Kynemark near Chepstow),7 which can with some confidence be ascribed as

3

C. H. Lawrence, Medieval Monasticism: Forms of Religious Life in Western Europe in the Middle Ages (London: Longman, 1989), p. 167. Lawrence mentions 274 foundations of regular canons in England. 4

This figure includes the only abbey of Premonstratensian canons in Wales at Talley. Knowles and Hadcock, MRH, pp. 137–45. 5

See Knowles and Hadcock, MRH, pp. 58–95.

6

R . W. Southern, Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970), p. 244. 7

St Kynemark has not been included under Augustinian houses by Knowles and Hadcock in MRH.

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belonging, at some stage at least, to the order, were fairly evenly divided between the north and the south of Wales, and between them represent a whole range of different scenarios, foundation and patronage histories. Three of the four southern houses, Carmarthen, Haverfordwest, and Llanthony Prima, were associated with Anglo-Norman founders — Bernard, bishop of St David’s, Robert FitzRichard, and Hugh de Lacy respectively — and two of them, Haverfordwest and Carmarthen, were situated near important urban, Anglo-Norman settlements.8 Carmarthen Priory was founded around 1125, when Augustinian canons replaced the Benedictine community at the site, which had been a dependency of Battle Abbey.9 The origin of the site of Haverfordwest Priory dates back to an early Celtic foundation, the alleged location of a hermitage of St Caradog, on whose foundation the canons were settled some time in the early thirteenth century, probably by their Anglo-Norman founder Robert FitzRichard.10 The priory of Llanthony Prima, so praised by Gerald of Wales, a hermitage-cum-Augustinian priory in the Black Mountains of Monmouthshire, was consecrated as an Augustinian priory in 1108.11 Of the fourth southern priory, St Kynemark, too little is known at present to allow us to make any elaborate statements about its early history.12 The northern houses, Bardsey, Beddgelert, Penmon, St Tudwal’s Island, and Puffin Island, all have their origins in ancient religious establishments, mostly of the clas variety,13 all are associated with native Welsh founders and patrons,14 and nearly all of them became houses of Augustinian canons in the thirteenth century,

8

Knowles and Hadcock, MRH, pp. 152, 159, 164.

9

Knowles and Hadcock, MRH, p. 152.

10

J. Burton, Monastic and Religious Orders (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994),

p. 61. 11

Knowles and Hadcock, MRH, p. 164.

12

But note L. A. S. Butler, ‘St Kynemark Priory, Chepstow’, The Monmouthshire Antiquary (1965), 33–41. 13

Normally conveniently lumped together under the term Celtic, though we ought not to disregard their diverse origins and nature. 14

The founders of Bardsey Abbey and St Tudwal’s Island are unknown; Beddgelert Priory was possibly founded by Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, who certainly played a part as patron of the house; similarly the foundation of Penmon is attributed to Llywelyn ab Iorwerth, who was, in any case, a benefactor of the canons there; and the small community on Puffin Island is closely associated with the foundation of Penmon Priory.

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though the exact dates of their conversions from existing religious institutions into Augustinian priories are often unknown or unclear.15 The considerable element of uncertainty regarding both the early and later histories of several Welsh houses of regular canons is in no small part due to the very uneven nature of the evidence, a point regularly made in connection with small religious houses. In terms of their documented history, smaller religious houses like Penmon and Beddgelert, not to mention even smaller foundations such as Puffin Island, St Kynemark, or St Tudwal’s Island, face the danger of remaining largely obscure. Yet despite the often extremely limited surviving documentary evidence, it is nonetheless frequently possible to establish fairly elaborate histories of individual communities. By consolidating the evidence, we can gather a considerable amount of information even about smaller, less well-documented monasteries such as these.16 When referring to the regular canons in Wales, we tend to focus on the dominant group, the black canons, for only one Premonstratensian abbey was ever established in medieval Wales. Founded by the Lord Rhys as a daughter house of the abbey of St Jean in Amiens, Talley Abbey was established on the site of an earlier religious community around 1185.17 The abbey has sometimes been considered a particularly ‘Welsh’ house, certainly partly on account of its native pre-Premonstratensian origins, its illustrious founder, and its early recorded

15

The dates, vague though they are, currently accepted as marking the beginnings of the Augustinian communities on these existing, mostly sixth-century sites are as follows (according to MRH, except in the cases of Penmon and Puffin Island, both of which are dated later by Knowles and Hadcock): Bardsey became Augustinian some time before 1240; Beddgelert around 1200, but foundation documents no longer exist; Penmon Priory became Augustinian at some point in the early thirteenth century, when the secular clerks resident at the site were replaced by Augustinian canons. The small priory of Puffin Island probably became Augustinian around the same time. St Tudwal’s Island appears as a community of Augustinian canons from around 1417. 16 17

This might include information regarding their lands and possessions, their heads of houses, etc.

Knowles and Hadcock, MRH, p. 191. On Talley Abbey, note also J. B. Smith and B. H. St J. O’Neill, Talley Abbey (London: HMSO, 1967); B. H. St J. O’Neil, ‘Talley Abbey, Carmarthenshire’, Archaeologia Cambrensis, 96 (1941), 69–91; M. Richards, ‘The Carmarthenshire Possessions of Tallyllychau’, Carmarthenshire Studies: Essays Presented to Major Francis Jones, ed. by T. Barnes and N. Yates (Carmarthen: Carmarthenshire County Council, 1974), pp. 110–121; E. Owen, ‘A Contribution to the History of the Premonstratensian Abbey of Talley’, Archaeologia Cambrensis, 48–49 (1893), pt XLVIII, 29–47, 120–146, 226–237, 309–325; pt XLIX , 34–50, 92–107; D. L. Price, ‘Talley Abbey’, Archaeologia Cambrensis, 34 (1879), 161–87; F. S. Price, History of Talley and Talley Abbey (Swansea: Trerise, 1934).

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recruitment of Welshmen, as well as its connections with some Welsh bards, including the fifteenth-century poet Ieuan Deulwyn from Kidwelly, who composed some request poetry on behalf of Talley’s abbot.18 Certain disruptions of the monastic discipline were recorded at Talley during the second half of the thirteenth century, when repeated efforts were made by the Premonstratensian General Chapter to reform the house. And in the early fifteenth century the abbey was damaged during the Glyn Dër Revolt. Despite these lapses and occasional difficulties, the house survived to the Dissolution, when eight canons were still said to reside there and when its income was given as £136.19 Starting at the beginning, with the origins and foundations of the nine Augustinian and one Premonstratensian houses of Wales, does not always inspire confidence, for, as already mentioned, the early histories of these houses are often hazy. Perhaps the most important of the Welsh Augustinian communities was the abbey of Bardsey, an ancient pilgrimage site where 20,000 saints were said to lie buried (in the words of Gerald of Wales: ‘the bodies of a vast number of holy men are buried there, or so they say’),20 the only Welsh Augustinian house to have the status of abbey. Bardsey became a house of Augustinian canons in the thirteenth century, replacing an earlier community. Some decades prior to this, when Gerald of Wales had visited the place in the 1180s, he had described the island as being populated by ‘some very devout monks, called the Coelibes or Colidei’.21 The two other main northern Augustinian priories were Beddgelert and Penmon, both of which, as already mentioned, owed their foundations to the native princes of Gwynedd, who, as Janet Burton has pointed out, ‘saw the Augustinian canons as worthy successors to the Celtic traditions of the clas church’,22 and the small houses at Puffin Island and St Tudwal’s Island, about which considerably less is known. The popularity of the regular canons, generally speaking, is reflected not only in the steady expansion of the order, but especially also in the nature of their foundations. They rapidly gained favour among lay founders and benefactors, at least in part due to the comparatively low cost of establishing a house of the order,

18 Detholiad o Gywyddau Gofyn a Diolch, ed. by B. O. Huws (Caernarfon: Cyhoeddiadau Barddas, 1998), pp. 54–56. 19

Knowles and Hadcock, MRH, p. 191.

20

Gerald of Wales, Journey, ed. and trans. by Thorpe, p. 184.

21

That is, Culdee. Gerald of Wales, Journey, ed. and trans. by Thorpe, p. 183.

22

Burton, Monastic Orders, p. 61.

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as compared with, say, Benedictine or Cluniac monks.23 Often founded by lesser nobility, or in the case of north Wales by the native nobility, the houses of regular canons in Wales, as was frequently the case also in England, remained small; several of them were little more than tiny cells, and they often retained a very ‘personal’ flavour in the sense that they maintained often close and/or personal contacts with their founding families, their later patrons, and their benefactors, as well as with other members of their local lay community. These kinds of relationships and contacts are reflected, for example, in the amounts and nature of donations that flowed into the houses from lay patrons and benefactors, for which the evidence is abundant,24 as well as the high number of lay burials in houses of regular canons.25 Houses of regular canons founded during the wave of lay enthusiasm for the order in England and Wales, however, were not always destined to last or prosper. Though established with the aim of providing spiritual benefits for the founder in perpetuity, in reality many of these houses were and remained small — though by no means insignificant, as this chapter intends to emphasize — and many of these small communities indeed struggled throughout their history; several of them ultimately failed. By the end of the monastic period in England and Wales, the number of surviving houses of Augustinian canons had decreased quite notably.26 Nevertheless, the regular canons were and remained a significant presence until the Dissolution. To undervalue their importance, based on these premises, does great injustice to the regular canons in medieval Wales. This attitude is undoubtedly linked to the current state of research based on the surviving sources, both textual and nontextual, which tell us about their activities, spiritual and otherwise, and which pale somewhat in comparison with Wales’s better-documented religious group, the

23

Cf. Burton, Monastic Orders, p. 55; Lawrence, Medieval Monasticism, p. 168; Karen Stöber, Late Medieval Monasteries and their Patrons, England and Wales, c.1300–1540 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2007), p. 12. Note also Graham St John’s chapter in the present volume. 24

Bequests could range from property and lands to much smaller donations such as books or vestments, though our evidence for such types of bequest in Wales is very limited, unlike in England, where copious examples of this kind survive. Bequests to Welsh Augustinian houses were predominantly lands. 25

This is more evident in the case of England. We have considerably less evidence for lay burials in Augustinian houses in Wales. This is at least in part due to the current state of research, both historical and archaeological. Examples of lay burials in Welsh Augustinian priories include those at Llanthony Prima mentioned by Gerald of Wales (see below). 26

Cf. Stöber, Late Medieval Monasteries, Appendix, pp. 210–51.

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Cistercians, who have left such imposing reminders as the evocative ruins of Tintern or Valle Crucis. Yet there is a substantial, if somewhat dispersed, body of documentary evidence illustrating Augustinian and Premonstratensian history in medieval Wales, ranging from charters recording gifts, sales, and exchanges of land, to entries in government records detailing the often less than spiritual involvement of individuals or groups of canons in the social and political life of Wales.27 Then there are the physical remains, at least in some cases, notably those of Llanthony Prima, Penmon, and Haverfordwest, as well as artefacts associated with houses of regular canons.28 Considered together, these different kinds of testimony combine to present us with the picture of an active religious group, whose ties with the lay society around it, and with other houses of the order beyond Wales, made it a key element in the life of its region. The neglect of the regular canons in the historiography of monastic Wales — as elsewhere — is therefore entirely unjustified, for they were certainly of considerable importance in Wales,29 though they tend to be overshadowed in scholarship particularly by their white-habited neighbours (who have for a long time attracted the attention of historians, art historians, and archaeologists alike, all taking an acute interest in the Cistercians’ contribution to the religious, cultural, social, political, and economic life of Wales).30

27

Cf. The Acts of the Welsh Rulers, 1120–1283, ed. by H. Pryce (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2005); Ancient Petitions Relating to Wales, ed. by W. Rees (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1967); Calendar of Various Chancery Rolls, Supplementary Close Rolls, Welsh Rolls, Scutage Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office, AD 1277–1326, ed. by W. H. Stevenson (London: HMSO, 1912). 28

Unfortunately, a number of Welsh Augustinian priories have left little or no physical remains above ground: Carmarthen Priory, for instance, has all but disappeared. In fact, a Google search for Carmarthen Priory nowadays turns up a fish-and-chip shop rather than a house of regular canons. 29

But note Burton, Monastic Orders, chap. 3, esp. pp. 60–61, for a concise overview of the Welsh Augustinian houses in the thirteenth century. 30

Note especially the work of D. H. Williams, notably The Welsh Cistercians (Leominster: Gracewing, 2001); ‘Mapping Cistercian Lands, with Especial Reference to Wales’, in Monastic Studies: The Continuity of Tradition, ed. by J. Loades (Bangor: Headstart History, 1990), pp. 58–63; ‘Cistercian Nunneries in Medieval Wales’, in Cîteaux: Commentarii Cistercienses, 26 (1975), 155–74; ‘The Cistercians in Wales: Some Aspects of their Economy’, Archaeologia Cambrensis, 114 (1965), 2–47; ‘The Exploration and Excavation of Cistercian Sites in Wales’, Archaeologia Cambrensis, 144 (1997), 1–25; ‘The Welsh Cistercians and Ireland’, Cistercian Studies, 15 (1980), 17–23; Atlas of Cistercian Lands in Wales (Cardiff: University of Wales Press,

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More work clearly deserves to be done on the regular canons in Wales — but all I can reasonably do in this chapter is to give examples of some aspects of Augustinian life in medieval Wales.

Role in Religious, Political, Social, Cultural Life of Medieval Wales In Wales, as elsewhere in western Christendom, the regular canons played a significant part in the life of their communities, particularly, though not exclusively, on a local level. Owing to the nature of the Welsh establishments — their size, their recruitment, their often very close involvement with society, both locally and regionally — they represent particularly interesting examples of the kinds of activities in which regular canons might take part, both inside the cloister and beyond. As a religious group not associated with foreign conquest by the native population, as were for instance the Benedictine houses founded in Wales, the regular canons adapted well to the existing circumstances in medieval Wales, continuing the spiritual tradition in places of ancient — native — religious association, including that of the clas churches. Open to discussion is whether they were therefore perceived as particularly ‘native’, whether they were therefore received more favourably, and what the exact implications were for their own understanding of issues such as identity and political association. What does seem clear is that the contacts between the canons and the local lay community took place on many levels and that they were by no means always of a spiritual nature. It is the spiritual aspect, however, the ultimate raison d’être of these religious communities, to which we must first turn our attention. It was first and foremost 1990). Also, D. Robinson, The Cistercians in Wales: Architecture and Archaeology, 1130–1540 (London: Society of Antiquaries of London, Research Committee Report, 2006). The excellent work undertaken on aspects of Welsh Cistercian life goes from strength to strength, a development indicated by the current large-scale Strata Florida Project (for details, visit www.strataflorida.org), as well as by the amount of ongoing postgraduate research work on Cistercian topics. By contrast, there is no single study dedicated to the regular canons in Wales; where they have appeared has tended to be in works on medieval Wales, or on the Church in Wales; see Glanmor Williams, The Welsh Church from Conquest to Reformation (Cardiff: Wales University Press, 1962); Burton, Monastic Orders, chap. 3, pp. 43–62; Lawrence, Medieval Monasticism, chap. 8, pp. 146–71. But note F. G. Cowley, The Monastic Order in South Wales (Cardiff: Wales University Press, 1977), and D. M. Robinson, The Geography of Augustinian Settlement in Medieval England and Wales, British Archaeological Reports, British Series, 80, 2 vols (Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 1980).

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as religious communities providing spiritual services to the community that the regular canons made an impact. Considerable emphasis in the lives of the regular canons was on the active life and on pastoral care, and much of the focus of the Welsh regular canons was on the staffing of parish churches and on poor relief: there is some direct and indirect reference to the role of these priories in almsgiving.31 Charitable and spiritual activities aside, the regular canons of Wales were also involved with the secular community more widely (though the evidence is uneven and often anecdotal): thus they were occasionally called upon to act as mediators in cases of disputes between two parties, which might be lay or religious.32 Their political participation did not stop there either. In the historiography the issue of religious involvement in the politics of the time has mostly been reserved for the Welsh houses of Cistercian monks, but just as did Cistercian communities, houses of regular canons were likewise drawn into the political upheavals of their time, much in the same way that the white monks were.33 On account of their involvement with the world outside the cloister, the regular canons of medieval Wales continued to be an important element in their society, bridging the lay and religious spheres through their pastoral and diplomatic work. This saw them acting as priests and officiating in parish churches, as well as being more widely involved in certain aspects of lay society, where we find them acting as confessors, advisors, and politicians, and mediating in legal disputes. In order to illustrate these points, it will be useful to take a brief look at individual houses of the order — at their origins, their organization, and their development in the Principality. For this purpose this chapter will draw on evidence from several priories, both northern and southern, with special emphasis on two small, lesser-known Augustinian houses: the northern priories of Beddgelert and Penmon. Despite their diverse origins, the houses of Welsh regular canons shared certain characteristics, not least as a result of the fact that they were all connected in some ways to the society outside their cloister walls, be that in Pura Wallia or in Anglo-

31

Thus note, for example, the activities of Carmarthen Priory, at whose gate ‘80 poor persons were given relief, lodging was provided and hospitality was daily kept for the rich and the poor, to the great relief of the poor and the bare country’ (cf. Knowles and Hadcock, MRH, p. 152). 32

An example of their involvement in secular affairs is a charter, discussed further under Penmon and Beddgelert below, dated 26 April 1258, in which the heads of Bardsey Abbey, and Beddgelert and Penmon Priories acted as witnesses to negotiations between Llywelyn ap Gruffudd and Maredudd ap Rhys: Pryce, Acts of Welsh Rulers, p. 501. 33

See, for instance, under Penmon and Beddgelert below.

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Norman Wales. It is interesting to note that in Wales the most famous religious houses were not necessarily also the wealthiest or best documented, as the example of Bardsey Abbey shows. The only Augustinian abbey in Wales, Bardsey, a midthirteenth century foundation for regular canons on the site of an older religious settlement off the coast of the Llyn peninsula, was a well-known pilgrimage destination and the former burial place of St Dyfrig, along with the traditionally alleged 20,000 saints laid to rest on the island. Yet in terms of its documented post1240 history, information is conspicuously thin on the ground, to the point that scholars have not always agreed on who was responsible for the establishment of the Augustinian house on the ancient island site, or to which religious order it belonged.34 Neither was Bardsey outstanding in terms of size or wealth, and its income in 1535 was given as £46, ranking it in fact near the bottom of the sixteenth-century Welsh Augustinian income scale.35 If we consider the importance of a religious house to be reflected in its surviving documentation, then the house of Llanthony Prima, about which our knowledge is comparatively substantial, must rank at the top. Llanthony Prima was the only Welsh Augustinian priory to establish its own daughter houses: one, the priory of Colp, in Ireland, another at Weobley (Herefordshire, in England), and a third, the priory of Lanthony Secunda, near Gloucester, also in England.36 The last was founded in 1136 when its mother house experienced a period of considerable difficulty during the Welsh risings in the area, following Henry I’s death in December 1135. Canons from Llanthony Prima sought refuge across the Black Mountains and eventually, with the support of Bishop Robert of Hereford, settled on a site near Gloucester.37 Gerald of Wales was much dismayed by what he considered to be the greatly inferior moral quality of this foundation. In his Journey, he recounts the events which led to the establishment of Lanthony Secunda, and he offers his personal views: [after the initial success of Llanthony Prima] there followed a period of unrest and warfare, during which the daughter house, so soon to become the rival of the mother, came into being in Gloucester, under the patronage of Milo, earl of Hereford. By divine providence, and through the virtues and prayers of these holy men [Milo of Hereford and ‘a certain

34

The Monasticon lists it under Benedictines. Note Knowles and Hadcock, MRH, p. 147.

35

Only Penmon Priory, with £40, recorded a lower income, while those of the very small houses are unknown. Knowles and Hadcock, MRH, pp. 138–43. 36

That is, if we exclude Penmon Priory’s dependency, the small cell on Puffin Island, which was not strictly speaking a daughter house. 37

Knowles and Hadcock, MRH, p. 164.

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knight called William’, named by Gerald as responsible for the foundation of Llanthony Prima], both of whose bodies lie buried beside the high altar, the mother house continued in that laudable state of poverty which it had always affected, whereas the daughter rejoiced in a vast superfluity of wealth and possessions.38

And he makes some stark comparisons between the two houses, advising thus: Let the bustling and active take up their residence then in Gloucester, leaving this other foundation for men of contemplation. There in Gloucester men strive for earthly possessions, but here at Llanthony let them rather turn their minds towards the promise of eternal bliss. There let them enjoy the company of mortal men, but here let them prefer the concourse of angels. There let the great men of this world be entertained, but here let Christ’s poor and needy seek relief. There, I say, let them keep up their clamour about the affairs and the pretences of this world, while here the brothers continue to mutter over their books and whisper over their prayers. There let wealth grow ever greater, wealth the prime cause and creator of vice, and of all the cares which follow in its train; but here in Llanthony let the golden mean continue to flourish, and moderation, the mother of all virtues. 39

Ironically, as Gerald indicates, the daughter house ultimately was the more successful of the two and came to exceed its mother house, from which it became independent in 1205, in both size and wealth, to the point that in 1481 the original roles were reversed and Llanthony Prima ended its days as a dependency of its own daughter house. The two case studies which shall now be considered in some more detail are in many ways ideal representatives of the order in Wales. Relatively small in size and number of inmates, relatively impecunious, and on the greater scale of things relatively unremarkable, the priories of Beddgelert and Penmon are interesting examples of the cliché that size does not always matter. It could be argued that these two houses were not the most exciting communities of regular canons Wales had to offer: they had neither the status nor the attraction to pilgrims which Bardsey Abbey had, nor did they have the extensive documentation that survives from Llanthony Priory.40 It is perhaps for those very reasons that Beddgelert and Penmon have tended to be assigned back seats, if seats at all, in the writing of the religious history of Wales. Part of the aim is here to rescue these priories from the comparative obscurity which they have been assigned, and to emphasize the fact that lesser documented does not need to mean less important, a point which is true in the context of medieval religious houses more generally.

38

Gerald of Wales, Journey, ed. and trans. by Thorpe, p. 100.

39

Gerald of Wales, Journey, ed. and trans. by Thorpe, pp. 100–01.

40

On some of this documentation, see A. Hogan, The Priory of Llanthony Prima and Secunda in Ireland, 1172–1541: Land, Patronage and Politics (Dublin: Four Courts, 2008).

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Beddgelert In the two particular cases of Penmon and Beddgelert, we do know something about their original founders, and later benefactors crop up occasionally in later documents, as do occasions of involvement of the priors and convents with the outside world; but beyond this, information is at first glance somewhat scanty. Knowles and Hadcock in their survey summarize what limited knowledge they could gather on Beddgelert Priory, lamenting the destruction of relevant documentation in a fire of 1283, despite which they offer a fair range of information, from the pre-Augustinian history of the site to the number of religious at the Dissolution.41 There was an early, possibly sixth-century, monastery on the site, but the evidence is scanty due to loss of documentation in the fire of 1283 just mentioned.42 An Augustinian priory was founded on the site of the earlier clas church — it was perhaps not Augustinian from the outset, indeed, there is some indication that it belonged to no fixed order and falls into what Janet Burton refers to as the ‘pre-Augustinian’ period — but Beddgelert became Augustinian at some point before 1240, by which time it had received the patronage of Llywelyn ab Iorwerth (the Great), prince of Gwynedd (who died in 1240).43 Despite the general decline in interest in Augustinian foundations from around the mid-thirteenth century, as Glanmor Williams has pointed out, in north Wales we can recognize renewed interest in the order from some of the native Welsh princes, who at this time emerge as founders and patrons of Augustinian (and of course Cistercian) communities in the north, notably Beddgelert and Penmon. Llywelyn ab Iorwerth appears in the charters as benefactor of Beddgelert, though the documents themselves have mostly been destroyed and our evidence is now mainly secondary — deriving from mentions in letters patent etc. The other famous benefactor of Beddgelert was the grandson of the former, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, who, on 11 March 1269, in Caernarfon, having recently been recognized by the English Crown as Prince of Wales, made an exchange of lands with the prior and convent of Beddgelert.44 In this document, which survives in the National Archives, with the consent of Anian, bishop of Bangor, ‘the prior and convent [of Beddgelert] quitclaimed to the prince and his heirs all the land of the church of Dolwyddelan beyond the ditch of the meadow adjacent to the said township’ and further lands in the area in return for ‘all the land, cultivated and

41

Knowles and Hadcock, MRH, p. 147.

42

Knowles and Hadcock, MRH describes it as a clas church: p. 147.

43

Cf. Pryce, Acts of Welsh Rulers, e.g. pp. 347, 442.

44

Pryce, Acts of Welsh Rulers, p. 545.

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uncultivated, with meadows, woods and pastures [within the bounds of] the old bridge over the Ferlas to the hill called Yr Wylfa, and thence to the summit of the mountain Moel Ehedog …’ (here follows a lengthy definition of the boundaries of Llywelyn’s land). Another charter, which appeared in 1348, purporting to be a grant, dated 1271, of various rights and liberties, turned out to be a forgery, wherefore the then prior was duly imprisoned (though he succeeded in negotiating his release and ‘the restoration of the priory’s temporalities by paying a fine of 100s.’).45 The contact between the prince and the canons of Beddgelert, however, continued. In December 1281 a covenant was made at the priory on behalf of Llywelyn, of the sum of £100 owed to the prince by Gruffudd ab Ednyfed.46 Some years previously (in 1258), the then prior of Beddgelert, together with that of Penmon and the abbots of Bardsey and Aberconway had acted as witness to Llywelyn’s charter by which he pledged his protection to Maredudd ap Rhys, in return for the latter’s homage.47 Two further, undated documents are referred to in episcopal confirmations, which granted more lands to the priory under the authority of Llywelyn and Dafydd ap Gruffudd.48 In November 1284 Beddgelert Priory was among the numerous Welsh monasteries which received royal compensation for damages done to their houses during Edward I’s Welsh war of 1282–83.49 The picture which emerges is an intriguing one. This small house of regular canons in the distant north of Wales was apparently quite actively involved in Welsh politics. The associations of the prior and canons with the native princes are clearly evident from the documents dated at Beddgelert on behalf of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, from the direct dealings of the priory with the prince, and from the damages incurred by royal troops during the war against Llywelyn, and they express clear political loyalties, for which they ultimately paid a price, much like their Cistercian compatriots. We have less information about the activities of the canons of Beddgelert Priory during the years between the Edwardian conquest of Wales at the end of the thirteenth century and the beginnings of Dissolution negotiations in the sixteenth. We do know that the priory did suffer some hardship in the later Middle Ages, for it was among those Welsh monasteries which, at the turn of the fourteenth century, sought a papal indulgence to help with its financial constraints. The priory of Beddgelert was also

45

Pryce, Acts of Welsh Rulers, p. 550.

46

Williams, The Welsh Church, p. 249.

47

Mentioned above. Pryce, Acts of Welsh Rulers, p. 501.

48

Mentioned above. Pryce, Acts of Welsh Rulers, p. 633.

49

£50 in the case of Beddgelert Priory.

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among those which received a visit by the bishop of St David’s in the early fifteenth century, and which was then described as ‘impoverished and inefficiently managed’.50 Around the same time, the prior of Beddgelert appears among those who supported the cause of Owain Glyn Dër. Very possibly on account of this support ‘of the king’s enemies’, the financial situation of the priory deteriorated during the following decades. In 1432 the prior of Beddgelert appealed once again for papal help, to assist with the repair of the fabric of their church.51 Towards the end of the monastic period in Wales, the reports we get from Beddgelert were somewhat less than favourable. During the headship of one of Beddgelert’s last priors, Dafydd Conway, the community was involved in a financial scandal relating to his predecessor’s pension, which landed him in the Court of Chancery, where he is said to have provided a rather improbable defence of his case.52 Moreover, hostile tongues alleged that by the early sixteenth century, there were no resident canons left in the priory, and it was claimed that by that date the canons only showed up in the priory in order to sign leases.53 By November 1535, Beddgelert Priory was already referred to as ‘lately suppressed’,54 and in a letter from the same year there is reference to ‘the late priories of Bethekellerd and Caldwich, in the lordship of Wales’.55 At the time of Beddgelert’s final suppression in 1536, nine canons were allegedly resident in the priory, which was then granted to the Benedictine abbey of Bisham (Berkshire).56 The origins of this priory did, it appears, have an impact on its later history. It was founded by, or in association with, the princes of Gwynedd on an early Celtic religious site and thereby represented in some ways the continuation of the native clas tradition. Recruitment appears to have been predominantly local, as were the priory’s main sources of support and patronage. All of these factors must have contributed to the shaping of a local identity of this community, as it did, indeed, in the case of the priory of Penmon.

50

Williams, The Welsh Church, p. 155.

51

Williams, The Welsh Church.

52

Williams, The Welsh Church, p. 402.

53

Williams, The Welsh Church, p. 389.

54

Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, ed. by J. Gairdner and others (hereafter L&P), 21 vols plus addenda in 37 (London: HMSO, 1862–1932), IX : 1535 (1886), no. 900. 55

L&P, IX , no. 802 (p. 20).

56

L&P, X : 1536 (1887), no. 1238 (p. 516): ‘Bishopric of Bangor: […] Bethkylhert.’

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Penmon Summarizing the available information on Penmon Priory, Knowles and Hadcock emphasize the general confusion surrounding the house, and in particular the confusion regarding the date at which the priory became Augustinian.57 As at Beddgelert, there was an ancient religious site at Penmon, apparently founded in the sixth century and from that time associated with Cynlas and his brother Seiriol, who was allegedly put in charge of the foundation, and to whom the Augustinian priory was later dedicated.58 The Augustinian foundation is associated with Llywelyn ab Iorwerth (like that of Beddgelert Priory) who, some time before 1237 (probably around 1221), made certain endowments to the community at Penmon, who were, by this time, identified as Augustinian canons. The priory was erroneously ascribed by Dugdale to the Benedictine Order, possibly confusing black monks with black canons, and by Gervase of Canterbury to the Cistercian Order.59 In a grant of 1221, Llywelyn ab Iorwerth gave to ‘dilectis fratribus nostris canonicis de Insula Glannauch’, i.e. the priory of Ynys Lannog, or Puffin Island, ‘all the abadaeth of Penmon, with all its appurtenances as far as the township of Trecastell, free for ever from all secular service to Llywelyn and his heirs’.60 This grant was confirmed in February 1229 by Llywelyn’s son Dafydd in a charter of confirmation ‘inspired by piety’, and again in a further charter dated 21 February 1238.61 Llywelyn ap Gruffudd (the latter’s nephew) also issued a further confirmation charter of similar content in January 1247.62 In September of that year, his brother Owain ap Gruffudd in turn confirmed the grants made to the prior and convent of Penmon by Llywelyn ab Iorwerth, his grandfather, Dafydd ap Llywelyn, his uncle, and his brother Llywelyn, thereby reconfirming the existing ties between the family and the canons.63 Contact between the two parties continued. Together with the prior of Beddgelert, Penmon’s prior acted as witness to the letter patent (mentioned above) of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd regarding the money owed to him by Maredudd ap Rhys in April 1258.64

57

Knowles and Hadcock, MRH, p. 170.

58

Knowles and Hadcock, MRH, p. 170.

59

Knowles and Hadcock, MRH, p. 170.

60

Pryce, Acts of Welsh Rulers, no. 250.

61

Pryce, Acts of Welsh Rulers, p. 456.

62

Pryce, Acts of Welsh Rulers, p. 492.

63

Pryce, Acts of Welsh Rulers, pp. 485–86.

64

Pryce, Acts of Welsh Rulers, p. 501.

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The later Middle Ages saw tougher times for the canons of Penmon Priory, although — despite its complaints of poverty during the later Middle Ages — we know from the post-Dissolution ministers’ accounts that Penmon Priory had managed, unusually, to hold on to four out of its six appropriated churches to the end of its days.65 The financial hardship referred to in the documents may be part of the reason why the canons of Penmon Priory were involved in a quarrel about building stone with officers of the Crown, a quarrel they fought determinedly in court.66 Activity did not stop there. From the 1504 visitation records of William Warham, archbishop of Canterbury, we have some sketchy information about the state of discipline in some Welsh Benedictine and Augustinian monasteries. That of Penmon was said to be tainted on account of the incontinence of the prior, John Ingram, and two of the canons.67 Although somewhat less is known about the activity of Penmon’s canons in the years leading up to the Dissolution, and though the evidence we have from that period tends to emphasize the shortcomings of the house, other information exists regarding the priory, which gives us a number of clues as to other activities of the community, including its distribution of charity and its involvement in transactions of land and properties.68 That the small community was not without its defenders at the very end of the monastic period in Wales is clear from a letter preserved at the National Archives in Kew (London). In this letter, dated 21 November 1536, to none other than Thomas Cromwell, Sir Richard Bulkeley made a plea on behalf of the canons of Penmon. In this document, Bulkeley begged Cromwell’s favour: to a poor religious man, John Godfrey, prior of Penmon, in the diocese of Bangor, shut up in his house by Dr Elys Price and William Glyn, the king’s commissioners and yours. He was enjoined to show the foundation of his house to you or the said commissioners by Christmas next, with all the writings, which were in my possession, which I now send.

For his ‘goodness to the said prior’, Cromwell was to receive ‘20 nobles, and at the feast of St Peter and St Paul 20 marks more’. Bulkeley offered himself as surety for this money, granted that the Prior of Penmon ‘may have his liberty, and not be troubled by the commissioners’.69 Despite these efforts, Penmon Priory was dissolved in 1536, along with the other lesser monasteries of England and Wales.

65

Williams, The Welsh Church, p. 352.

66

Williams, The Welsh Church, p. 352.

67

Williams, The Welsh Church, p. 306.

68

Williams, The Welsh Church, p. 306.

69

L&P, IX , no. 866.

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Some Conclusions All the Welsh Augustinian houses, despite being mostly small, somewhat remote and comparatively poorly documented, tell their own stories, and at a closer look, they tell them well. Their importance was predominantly local, as was their involvement with society at large, and this observation raises questions regarding the identity, perception, and association of the Welsh regular canons. From the sources we get a sense of these very issues from the way in which associations were forged through patrons and benefactors as well as recruits, with the local community. This was reflected in particular during times of Anglo-Welsh tension. Compared with some other houses of regular canons in the British Isles, or even elsewhere in western Christendom, the Welsh Augustinian (and Premonstratensian) houses seem hardly remarkable. But do they have to be remarkable? And what, in their context, is ‘remarkable’? They may appear less prominently in the records than grander communities such as, for instance, St Augustine’s at Bristol or Waltham Abbey in Essex, but to their own localities, they can hardly have been any less important in their provision of spiritual services and of poor relief than that house was for its own wider community, or the more urban houses at Carmarthen and Haverfordwest were for theirs. The evidence, patchy though it is, testifies to the vibrancy of these small communities, to their importance for the religious, cultural, social, political, and economic life of the region. Recognizing their importance on this level, as predominantly regional rather than national, will take us a long way towards understanding the bigger picture.70 The kinds of activities which lay at the heart of the regular canons’ spirituality do not tend to stand out for being sensational (the occasional outstanding canon aside), but rather for their involvement with the lay community, for their pastoral care, and, as Gerald of Wales so impressedly put it, for their humility and their humble ways of life, which, in his eyes, marked them out among the religious orders of his day.

70

Note especially the work of L. Rasmussen, ‘Why Small Monastic Houses Should Have a History’, Midland History, 28 (2003), 1–27, on the importance of small religious houses, a particularly relevant point in the context of regions such as Wales.

A S URVEY OF R ELATIONS BETWEEN S COTTISH A UGUSTINIAN C ANONS BEFORE 1215 Andrew T. Smith and Garrett B. Ratcliff

[I]n the early years we look in vain for any signs of a distinct regular canonical organization.1

T

he above statement, which was written by the father of English Augustinian history, J. C. Dickinson, has been embraced in one form or another by historians of the black canons in the British Isles to this very day. Several factors account for the widespread adoption of this view, the most common of which appears to be the tendency of monastic historians in England, Scotland, and elsewhere to use ‘centralized’ orders, like the Cistercians, as points of innate comparison for all other religious movements. Unlike the Cistercians, early houses of regular canons lacked a universal customal, a filiation-based government, centralized leadership, a complex bureaucracy, and official general chapter meetings. As a result, they have been regarded as being disunified and lacking ‘order-like’ characteristics. However, though houses of Austin canons in Scotland lacked the structural eloquence of the order of Cîteaux, it would be unfair to characterize them as ‘even less linked together than the black monks’.2 Moreover, we do not ‘look in vain for any signs’ of an early Augustinian organization in the twelfth-century kingdom of the Scots. Rather, there is a substantial amount of charter and chronicle material which suggests that a well1

J. C. Dickinson, The Origins of the Austin Canons and their Introduction into England (London: SPCK, 1950), p. 79. 2

D. Knowles, The Religious Orders in England, 3 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1948–59), I, 28.

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defined order of St Augustine did exist in Scotland before the reforms of the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. The following will survey the relationships which Augustinian houses in Scotland shared, the ways in which these houses exhibited uniform characteristics, and the catalysts which promoted their homogeny in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. The one dimension which separated them was their consuetudines. Therefore, the paper will begin with a brief assessment of their early history. Before commencing, a preliminary point must be made about terminology. Here, an ‘Augustinian house’ will be defined as any house of regular canons which was not part of a ‘stable’ independent order. Thus, Arrouaisian houses have been included in the discussion but not Premonstratensian houses.3 Moreover, houses of regular canons which may not have initially adopted the rule of St Augustine have also been included, in spite of the fact that they were not ‘Augustinian’ at their foundation. Based on these criteria, a total of seven independent Augustinian houses were established in Scotland before the Fourth Lateran Council. However, this paper focuses on the first six of these foundations, namely Scone, Holyrood, Jedburgh, St Andrews, Stirling (later Cambuskenneth), and Inchcolm. The seventh, Inchaffray, will not be evaluated, since it was founded very close to 1215. Moreover, priories such as Restenneth and Loch Leven will also not be discussed because they were dependencies.

Diverse Origins The first house of regular canons established in Scotland, Scone Priory, was founded by King Alexander I (1107–24) using a colony of canons sent from Nostell Priory in Yorkshire. It is likely that they brought with them a set of customs derived from their mother house in the north of England.4 Evidence suggests that the first two houses founded by Alexander’s successor, David I (1124–53), were founded in a similar manner. Holyrood Abbey, David’s first foundation, which was colonized using canons procured from the priory of Merton

3

Though Arrouaise was officially a ‘centralized’ order, most of the houses in Scotland and England appear to have been only loosely affiliated with the order. Furthermore, most of the institutions appear to have officially seceded from the order by the end of the twelfth century and become ‘Augustinian’ houses. 4

I. B. Cowan and D. E. Easson, Medieval Religious Houses Scotland: With an Appendix on the Houses in the Isle of Man (London: Longman, 1976), pp. 97–98.

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in Surrey, imported a set of liturgical practices from the south of England.5 King David’s second Augustinian enterprise, Jedburgh Priory, which was founded around 1138 with the support of John, bishop of Glasgow (c. 1118–47), appears to have been colonized using canons from the French priory of Beauvais, an institution which was renowned for having a moderate custumal.6 Unfortunately, the precise origins of the canons of Inchcolm Priory are unknown,7 and the origins of the final two houses of Austin canons, St Andrews Cathedral Priory and Stirling Abbey, which were founded around 1140, cannot be clearly linked to any colonial institution. However, there is evidence to suggest that St Andrews and Stirling adopted more austere customs than their counterparts, particularly Jedburgh. Before 30 August 1147, Stirling was clearly affiliated with the order of Arrouaise, and there is evidence that St Andrews followed a similar path.8 Based on the Augustinian’s Account in version B of the St Andrews foundation legend, St Andrews

5 L. Green, Daughter Houses of Merton Priory (Morden: Merton Historical Society, 2002), pp. 5, 16–19; Cowan and Easson, Religious Houses, p. 90. Based on a comparative analysis, Francis Eeles argued that the fifteenth-century Holyrood Ordinale, which is the only Augustinian liturgical book surviving from medieval Scotland, was distinctly southern English in origin. However, he does not connect the manuscript with Merton, and this is probably based on the fact that he thought that Holyrood’s mother house was Nostell (The Holyrood Ordinale: A Scottish Version of a Directory of English Augustinian Canons, with Manual and other Liturgical Forms, ed. by F. Eeles (Edinburgh: Constable, 1916), pp. xxii–xl). 6

G. W. S. Barrow, The Kingdom of the Scots: Government, Church and Society from the Eleventh to the Fourteenth Century (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2003), p. 162; Dickinson, Origins of the Austin Canons, pp. 175–76; L. K. Barker, ‘History, Reform, and Law in the Work of Ivo of Chartres’ (unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1988), p. 209. Barker states that Beauvais’s customs embodied ‘the moderate approach to regular life known as the ordo antiquus’. 7 8

Cowan and Easson, Religious Houses, p. 91.

Cowan and Easson, Religious Houses, p. 89. It is not clear how integrated Stirling was into the Arrouaisian order or how long such a connection was maintained. If they were ever fully integrated into the order, it seems likely that they no longer had connections with the continent in 1207 when William, a canon of Holyrood, was appointed abbot of the house (Scotichronicon by Walter Bower, ed. by D. E. R. Watt, 9 vols (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1987–98), IV (1994), 439). A papal bull dated in 1186 explicitly prohibited Arrouaisian houses making non-Arrouaisians the heads of their houses (Ludo Milis, L’Ordre des chanoines reguliers d’Arrouaise, 2 vols (Brugge: De Tempel, 1969), I, 421). Their secession during this period would coincide with the secession of Harrold and Warter in England after a crisis within the Arrouaisian order (Milis, Chanonies reguliers, I, 290); Dickinson, Origins of the Austin Canons, pp. 80–81, 86–87; J. Burton, The Monastic Order in Yorkshire, 1069–1215 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 95–97).

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Priory, like Scone, obtained its first prior, Robert (c. 1140–60), from Nostell at the request of Bishop Robert of St Andrews (1127–59).9 However, unlike Scone, its first canons do not appear to have come from northern England. Rather, a majority of its initial inhabitants appear to have been derived from the indigenous monastery of Scone, and perhaps Holyrood, as well as from native secular clergy.10 Ludo Milis has suggested that the canons brought together at St Andrews, like those at Stirling, adopted Arrouaisian customs. If correct, this suggestion casts fresh light on Augustinian historiography.11 Therefore, considering the importance of his hypothesis for this study, it is worth exploring it in more detail. Milis based his belief in the St Andrews/Arrouaise affiliation on two entries in the obituary of the Arrouaisian abbey of Eeckhout that appear to link the cathedral priory with the continental order.12 In the manuscript, two members of St Andrews Cathedral are mentioned. The first is Bishop James Ben (1328–32), who fled to the continent during the Anglo-Scottish wars and died at Eeckhout in 1332. The other denizen of St Andrews was William Bonar, who was prior from 1443 to 1462, over a hundred years later.13 In the Arrouaisian obituary, Bishop James is referred to as being ‘of our religion’ (nostre religionis) and Prior William is referred to as being ‘of our order’ (nostri ordinis). Milis acknowledges the potential ambiguity of this evidence in light of the fact that no evidence survives in the St Andrews muniments hinting at an Arrouaisian affiliation. He also yields to the possibility that both phrases could refer more broadly to the fact that both individuals originated from a cathedral whose priory followed the Augustinian rule

9

S. Taylor and G. Márkus, Place-Names of Fife: St Andrews and the East Neuk, 4 vols (Donington: Tyas, 2006–10), III (2009), app. 1 (p. 612). 10

The chronicle of Andrew Wyntoun states the canons were derived from Scone (The Original Chronicle of Andrew of Wyntoun, ed. by F. J. Amours, 6 vols (Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1903–14), IV (1906), 390–91). More recently, A. A. M. Duncan has argued based on charter evidence that canons may have been derived from Holyrood as well (Duncan, ‘The Foundation of St Andrews’, pp. 12–13, 22). Canons were also recruited from the secular clergy (Taylor and Márkus, Place-Names, III, app. 1 (p. 615)). 11

Milis, Chanoines reguliers, I, 327–30.

12

Eeckhout was an Arrouaisian monastery in Brugge which Milis argues remained a staunch member of the congregation well into the late Middle Ages (Milis, Chanoines reguliers, I, 564). 13

Milis, Chanoines reguliers, I, 327–28. Bower affirms that Bishop James died and was buried in Eeckhout (Scotichronicon, III (1995), 403). This statement is corroborated by Andrew Wyntoun (The Original Chronicle, V (1907), 423).

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rather than the customs of Arrouaise.14 However, he argues that this interpretation would contradict other extant evidence in the obituary, since nowhere else are such phraseologies used in relation to Augustinians not affiliated with the order.15 Moreover, he rightly points out that were it not for a few individual charters which definitively link Carlisle and Stirling with Arrouaise, they too would be forever lost to the confines of general Augustinianism. Ultimately, he uses these examples to assert that St Andrews, like these two monasteries, was affiliated with Arrouaise.16 He also suggests that the individual responsible for the introduction of Arrouaisian customs at Carlisle and Stirling was the same individual who inspired the adoption of Arrouaisian customs at St Andrews, namely Bishop Athelwold, who, as prior of Nostell, helped Robert, bishop of St Andrews, obtain Robert, a canon of Nostell, as St Andrews’s first prior.17 Only Geoffrey Barrow has discussed this intricate hypothesis, but dismissed it based on a lack of contemporary evidence in the St Andrews charters (the same lack of evidence which Milis regarded as inconclusive).18 However, based on version B of the St Andrews foundation legend and other contemporary evidence, Milis’s hypothesis may deserve a second look. In the foundation legend — apparently unknown to Milis — we are given invaluable insights into the events leading up to the foundation of the priory in 1140.19 The text states that Robert, its first prior, who was probably author of the legend, became disillusioned with the process of recruitment for the new priory: He did not want in any way to enter into the work of outsiders (which might perhaps have been easy for him), to gather to himself brothers from other and diverse churches, lest different brothers, taking different views, wishing to appear to be a somebody, should not

14

Milis, Chanoines reguliers, I, 328–29.

15

‘Les members de l’ordre canonical augustinien mais non-arrouaisien, n’apparaissent pas avec l’indication nostri ordinis dans le nécrologe brugeois!’ (Milis, Chanoines reguliers, I, 330). 16

Milis, Chanoines reguliers, I, 330.

17

Athelwold held both the episcopacy and the priorship at this point in history (Milis, Chanoines reguliers, I, 327). Other potential candidates for the link between Scotland/Cumbria and Arrouaise are St Malachy and Alexander, bishop of Lincoln (1123–48) (Burton, Monastic Order, pp. 95–96). 18 19

Barrow, Kingdom of the Scots, p. 165, n. 93.

S. Taylor, ‘The Coming of the Augustinians to St Andrews and Version B of the St Andrews Foundation Legend’, in Kings, Clerics, and Chronicles in Scotland, 500–1297: Essays in Honour of Marjorie Ogilvie Anderson on the Occasion of her Ninetieth Birthday, ed. by S. Taylor (Dublin: Four Courts, 2000), pp. 115–23 (pp. 119–20).

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Andrew T. Smith and Garrett B. Ratcliff coalesce into unity and thus the fabric of the building should suffer harm before the foundation was laid. If, however, God should send him men who were prepared to live in the way which he himself was minded to live, he would receive them warmly.20

As noted above, canons appear to have been recruited from a variety of indigenous institutions to found the priory, and A. A. M. Duncan has reasonably shown that this was probably decided far in advance of the foundation, thus inspiring Robert’s hesitation to recruit from ‘diverse churches’.21 In response to this fact, Duncan justifiably asked: ‘if canons were offered from Scone, how did their life differ from that which he lived to justify their rejection?’22 He suggested that Robert’s hesitation may have been derived from a desire to create a convent with the personnel already at St Andrews, namely the Céli Dé (Culdees) who resided at the cathedral.23 Recent editors of the foundation legend have admitted scepticism about this point, and the evidence is inconclusive.24 Therefore, the question is again raised about why indigenous regular canons might not be prepared to live like Robert ‘himself was minded’. One dimension which scholars have potentially overlooked when analysing this section of the foundation legend is the context of Robert’s appointment as the first prior of St Andrews around 1140 and his actions thereafter. As mentioned, Robert was sent from Nostell to St Andrews by his prior, Athelwold, who was also Bishop of Carlisle. By 1138, Athelwold had begun to institute Arrouaisian customs at his cathedral priory.25 Prior Robert was undoubtedly aware of this, as was the Bishop of St Andrews whom we are told in the foundation legend wanted canons ‘who might not ask too much’. The above extract states that Prior Robert waited ‘for some considerable time’ without canons in the hope that his requisites for a community of individuals who would live like ‘he himself was minded to’ might

20

Taylor and Márkus, Place-Names, III, app. 1 (pp. 612–13).

21

A. A. M. Duncan, ‘The Foundation of St Andrews Cathedral Priory, 1140’, Scottish Historical Review, 84 (2005), 1–37 (pp. 12–22). 22

Duncan, ‘Foundation’, p. 24.

23

Duncan, ‘Foundation’, p. 24.

24

Taylor and Márkus, Place-Names, III, app. 1 (p. 613, n. 382). Duncan asserts that there were implicit ‘insiders’, namely the Céli Dé, whom Prior Robert wanted to recruit in opposition to the ‘outsiders’ mentioned in the above extract (Duncan, ‘Foundation’, pp. 10, 24). However, Robert does not necessarily refer to ‘insiders’ but to individuals who were ‘prepared to live in the way in which he was minded to live’, and this could be anyone. 25

For the only charter recording this action, see Milis, Chanoines reguliers, I, 600.

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come to fruition.26 However, it appears that King David came to St Andrews and expedited the process of foundation, and there is no hint in the text that Prior Robert’s hopes came true. Interestingly, running concurrent to the foundation of St Andrews Priory appears to have been the foundation of Stirling Abbey, which, as mentioned, adopted Arrouaisian customs. Prior Robert appears to have had an unusually close relationship with Stirling. For one, he appears in the foundation charter.27 Thereafter, he calls on Pope Eugenius III (1145–53) at Auxerre, asking him to confirm Stirling’s rights and its affiliation with the Arrouaisian order. This is a highly unorthodox move for a prior, and it produced the only act of its kind.28 Robert also personally issued a charter to Stirling confirming one of its churches, an unusual move at this date, and this is the only charter which survives in his name.29 The evidence of Robert’s close relationship with Stirling, the evidence in the foundation legend of Robert’s desires, and the timing of Robert’s migration to St Andrews, which coincided with the establishment of Arrouaisian customs at Carlisle, suggests that a relationship between St Andrews Priory and Arrouaise did exist. Perhaps Arrouaisian customs were adopted at St Andrews, at least for a time. Conversely, Robert may have been unsuccessful at fully instituting Arrouaisian customs at St Andrews due to outside pressure, and, instead, worked to help found an Arrouaisian house at Stirling. In either case, these early efforts, whether successful or not, may have inspired a tradition which resulted in the Eeckhout obituary entries and provided fodder for the Milis hypothesis. Additionally, it is noteworthy that the diversity of the canons assembled at St Andrews may be connected to a desire by certain individuals from the communities of Scone and Holyrood, as well as secular clergy, to live a more austere life, and the customs of Arrouaise offered this possibility.

26

Taylor and Márkus, Place-Names, III, app. 1 (pp. 612–13).

27

The Charters of King David I: The Written Acts of David I King of Scots, 1124–53 and of his Son Henry Earl of Northumberland, 1139–52, ed. by G. W. S. Barrow (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1999), no. 159. 28

Registrum monasterii S. Marie de Cambuskenneth (Edinburgh: Grampian Club, 1872), no. 23. Other papal confirmations from the same period only mention the bishop of St Andrews as an advisor (Liber cartarum prioratus S. Andree in Scotia (Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club, 1841) (hereafter St Andrews Liber), pp. 48–53; Liber cartarum Sancte Crucis (Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club, 1840), pp. 167–68). 29

Registrum Cambuskenneth, no. 109.

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Economic Orientation and Re-Orientation: Scone, Holyrood, and Jedburgh As demonstrated above, though all of the houses were united under one basic philosophy, the way in which this manifested itself was quite fluid and likely varied based on numerous factors, particularly the origins of the initial inhabitants. However, despite these differences, they did have one thing in common: the patronage of King David I (1124–53). During his reign, King David sought to develop independent Augustinian houses using a single economic strategy, and in doing so created a set of institutions which became functionally uniform. This philosophy is particularly evident if one looks at the foundation process of the first three Augustinian houses in Scotland, namely Scone, Holyrood, and Jedburgh. The first house of regular canons to be established in Scotland was located at Scone, and as discussed above, King Alexander I (1109–24), not King David, was responsible for its foundation. For his efforts, Alexander has been considered by some to be a reformer.30 In his groundbreaking work on the monastic orders in Scotland, G. W. S. Barrow remarked that ‘[w]e can hardly over-emphasize the significance of King Alexander’s action in bringing to serve its [i.e. Scone’s] church members of an order of priests who represented the very vanguard of the Gregorian reform and of the new ideas at work in the western church’.31 However, though Alexander’s role is undeniable, the settlement and endowment of Scone suggests that he had a different understanding of the value of regular canons when compared to his brother and heir, David. Scone’s regular canons, which were drawn from Nostell Priory in Yorkshire, were settled at a site which had for generations become synonymous with Scottish kingship.32 These canons were installed in a pre-existing church dedicated to the Holy Trinity, and the limited evidence for the pre-Augustinian church of Scone

30

K. Veitch, ‘“Replanting Paradise”: Alexander I and the Reform of Religious Life in Scotland’, The Innes Review, 52 (2001), 136–66; Barrow, Kingdom of the Scots, pp. 155–56; A. A. M. Duncan, Scotland: The Making of the Kingdom (Edinburgh: Mercat, 1992), pp. 131–32. 31 32

Barrow, Kingdom of the Scots, p. 155.

Regesta regum Scottorum, I: The Acts of Malcolm IV, King of Scots 1153–1165, ed. by G. W. S. Barrow (hereafter RRS, I) (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1960), no. 243; see also G. W. S. Barrow, Kingship and Unity: Scotland 1000–1306 (London: Arnold, 1981), p. 24; A. A. M. Duncan, The Kingship of the Scots, 842–1292: Succession and Independence (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2002), p. 83.

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suggests that it was likely a matrix ecclesia (mother church).33 This matrix ecclesia would probably have been served by secular clergy and perhaps resembled an AngloSaxon minster in its organization and function.34 In fact, place-name evidence in the area recommends that the church of Scone had the status of an andóit: ‘a church in a superior relationship to others, preserving the relics of the patron saint, entitled to a share of the pastoral dues, and having a responsibility for the maintenance of subordinate churches and for the provision of pastoral care.’35 While the priory of Scone was established using the church of the Holy Trinity, it appears that the ecclesiastical dimension of the site was left undeveloped. Alexander did not confirm to the priory any form of ecclesiastical income related to the pre-existing religious site, nor did he make any new donations of that type. Instead, it was provided with a generous, if antiquated, temporal endowment. One of the most illuminating sources concerning the foundation of Scotland’s Augustinian houses is the fifteenth-century chronicle known as the Scotichronicon, which was written by the Augustinian abbot of Inchcolm, Walter Bower. It includes a foundation narrative for the priory of Scone. Regardless of the overall veracity of the story, it explains the foundation endowment provided by King Alexander in terms consistent with the charter evidence.36 According to the narrative, Alexander founded the priory of Scone in thanksgiving for escaping capture. When ‘ruffians’ sought to seize the king at his royal manor at Liff, he made a daring escape ‘through a latrine’, and so to thank God, he provisioned the priory of Scone with the royal estates of ‘Liff and Invergowrie as endowment and glebe’.37 Yet, what is conspicuously absent from Walter Bower’s narrative, as well as Alexander’s charters to the priory, is any mention of the ecclesiastical revenues associated with the pre-existing church or any indication of the superior status of a matrix ecclesia.38 There is no mention of dependent chapels or churches, or of revenues such as oblations, customary revenues (for example, burial dues), or 33

Liber Ecclesie de Scon, ed. by C. Innes (Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club, 1843) (hereafter Scone Liber), no. 1; The Chronicle of Melrose from the Cottonian Manuscript Faustina B. IX in the British Museum: Facsimile Edition, ed. by A. O. Anderson and Marjorie O. Anderson (London: Lund Humphries, 1936), p. 31. 34

Veitch, ‘Replanting Paradise’, pp. 136–66 (pp. 138–40).

35

T. O. Clancy, ‘Annat in Scotland and the Origins of the Parish’, Innes Review, 46 (1995), 91–115 (pp. 101 and 106–07). 36

RRS, I, nos 36–37.

37

Scotichronicon, III (1995), 105.

38

Scone Liber, nos 1–4.

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spiritualia in any form. Nor does anything intimate that a pre-existing parochial centre was being placed under new management.39 Instead, the foundation endowment consisted of scattered settlements in Angus and Gowrie, including those royal manors mentioned in the Scotichronicon at Liff and Invergowrie, with substantial arable land to the tune of 36 ploughgates (carucates) in total (or roughly 3744 Scots acres40 ) which also generated conveth (i.e. waiting).41 Therefore, the endowment provided by Alexander, despite the takeover of a former matrix ecclesia, was exclusively made up of revenues and lands diverted for the support of the priory from royal coffers. If one compares the evidence for the foundation of the priory of Scone with those of Holyrood and Jedburgh, the first two houses of Augustinian canons established by David I, one can identify a vastly different conception regarding the value of pre-existing religious structures for Augustinian settlement. The foundation documents which record the establishment of those houses are both composite charters. These documents record the foundation of each house over an extended period of time, and as such, reveal the process by which religious life was made financially tenable.42 Holyrood’s and Jedburgh’s charters date from 1141–47 and 1147–51 respectively, and, contrary to the evidence for Scone, record the deliberate harnessing of ecclesiastical authority and resources around pre-existing churches. The foundation charter for Holyrood shows that the abbey annexed the church of St Cuthbert in Edinburgh at its foundation. Like the church of Scone, this was a pre-existing matrix ecclesia of uncertain antiquity.43 However, unlike Scone, in the years directly preceding its absorption, St Cuthbert’s underwent a rapid build-

39

For instance, at its foundation the abbey of Stirling (Cambuskenneth) was given the right to the oblations of the church of St Mary of Stirling, whch had been converted into the abbey church (Registrum Cambuskenneth, no. 51). 40

This calculation of acreage is based on the estimate of 104 Scots acres per ploughgate. The endowment of the priory of Coldingham by King Edgar (1097–1107), Alexander’s brother and predecessor, parallels in a number of ways the foundation endowment of Scone. Alexander’s monastic patronage appears to have had more in common with Edgar’s than David’s (Archibald C. Lawrie, Early Scottish Charters Prior to AD 1153: Collected with Notes and an Index (Glasgow: MacLehose, 1905), nos 19–20, p. 257.) 41

Scone Liber, no. 1; Lawrie, Early Scottish Charters, pp. 286–88.

42

For a discussion of these particular charters, see Charters of David I, pp. 4–5.

43

I. B. Cowan, ‘The Early Ecclesiastical History of Edinburgh’, Innes Review, 23 (1972), 16–21 (pp. 16–17).

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up of its administrative authority and revenue base. This growth can be traced in two ways: through the composition of the foundation document itself and through the survival of individual charters which clarify the process. Together these documents bring to light the actors involved in augmenting the resources of the church. Moreover, they highlight the fact that the build-up of the church predates the formal foundation of the house. The foundation charter states that the church of St Cuthbert acquired the chapel of Liberton from Mael-beatha, the Lord of Liberton, with two oxgangs (bovates) of land, and the teinds (tithes), and customary rights (for example burial dues) of the toun (vill) of nearby Leadburn. Mael-beatha’s patronage to the church of St Cuthbert is confirmed within the text of the foundation charter.44 The chapel of Corstorphine was granted with two oxgangs and six acres by Norman, the sheriff of Berwick, whose involvement can be discerned from a surviving brieve.45 King David himself also contributed to the flurry of patronage to the church by expanding its holdings to include land at the base of Edinburgh castle (land adjacent to the church). The King’s grant is preserved in an individual charter directed to the church of St Cuthbert which dates from between 1124 and 1139.46 The expansion of the revenue base of the church of St Cuthbert during this short period is striking and completely dissimilar to the situation recorded for Scone. Unlike the church of Scone, which was endowed with purely secular revenue, the church of St Cuthbert was exclusively provided with revenues relating to its status as a matrix ecclesia. The timing of the build-up hints at a calculated effort to expand the position of the church in anticipation of its take-over by Holyrood. Additionally, the growth of the church can with some certainty be dated following the arrival of the regular canons in Edinburgh in 1128. It is a distinct possibility that the build-up of this church’s resources was orchestrated for the sustenance of the newly arrived regular canons. As a result, the church and its dependents would provide the fledgling house with a nucleus of parochial authority and a valuable revenue base, complete with the modern ecclesiastical machinery of the teind rendering parish.47

44

Cowan, ‘Ecclesiastical History of Edinburgh’, no. 147.

45

Cowan, ‘Ecclesiastical History of Edinburgh’, pp. 16–21.

46

Charters of David I, nos 71, 147.

47

The chapel of Edinburgh castle, along with its lands, was also granted to the abbey. By the time of its formal foundation, the abbey had complete control over lesser churches and chapels in the area (Charters of David I, no. 147).

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The precise meaning of parochia in the twelfth century is not always clear.48 Prior to the twelfth century, the pre-Davidian parochia in Scotland consisted of a mother church with a group of dependent churches, chapels, and settlements for which it had the responsibility of pastoral care and from which it might obtain customary revenues such as oblations.49 With the institution of the payment of teinds by David I,50 the definition of parochia gradually came to convey the status of a baptismal church with a defined territory within which the right to teinds was held.51 The manner by which the territory of the twelfth-century parish often came to be delineated was through the same churches, chapels, and settlements of the pre-Davidian parochia.52 The parochia of St Cuthbert provides a good illustration of the continuity between parochial systems because the chapels of Liberton and Corstorphine (along with the church itself) formed the territorial bounds of the parish.53 While the abbey of Holyrood annexed a pre-existing church, the priory of Jedburgh reconstituted one. A church had been established in the toun of Jedburgh (Gedwearde) by Ecgred, bishop of Lindisfarne, in the ninth century.54 At the time of the settlement of regular canons at Jedburgh, the circumstances of that ancient church are unclear. What is apparent, however, is that the foundation of the priory took full advantage of the pre-existing church. Archaeological evidence indicates that the priory was erected on the site of the earlier church.55 When Jedburgh Priory was founded in c. 1138 by David I, under the auspices of John, bishop of

48

Ian B. Cowan, ‘The Development of the Parochial System in Medieval Scotland’, Scottish Historical Review, 40 (1961), 43–55 (pp. 43–44). 49

A. Macquarrie, ‘Early Christian Religious Houses in Scotland: Foundation and Function’, in Pastoral Care before the Parish, ed. by J. Blair and R . Sharpe (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1992), pp. 110–33 (p. 118). 50

Barrow, Kingship and Unity, p. 73.

51

Cowan, ‘The Development of the Parochial System’, p. 44.

52

J. M. Rogers, ‘The Formation of the Parish Unit and Community in Perthshire’, (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Edinburgh. 1992), p. 128. 53

Cowan, ‘Ecclesiastical History of Edinburgh’, pp. 16–17.

54

‘Annales Lindisfarnenses et Dunelmenses’, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores, ed. by H. Hoffman, 34 vols (Hannover: Hahn, 1826–), XIX , ed. by G. H. Pertz (1866), pp. 502–08 (p. 506); Historia de Sancto Cuthberto, ed. by T. Johnson South (Cambridge: Brewer, 2002), pp. 48–49. 55

G. Ewart and J. Lewis, Jedburgh Abbey: The Archaeology and Architecture of a Border Abbey (Edinburgh: Society of the Antiquaries of Scotland, 1995), p. 131.

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Glasgow (c. 1114 × 1147), the focal point of the endowment was the monasterium de Jedword cum omnibus ad illud pertinentibus.56 From the use of the term monasterium, it can be inferred that the religious site at Jedburgh was probably a minster, a status perhaps going back to the foundation by Bishop Ecgred.57 This monasterium was reconstituted as a house of regular canons. Jedburgh assumed not only the site of the ancient church, but also its parochial structure and revenue base. Reminiscent of the spate of patronage to the church of St Cuthbert preceding its absorption by Holyrood, the composite foundation charter for the priory of Jedburgh depicts a similar build-up of resources and reaffirmation of rights to the minster prior to its reconstitution. Cospatric, the sheriff of Roxburgh, according to the composite foundation charter, granted the chapel of Crailing directly to the monasterium.58 The language of the composite charter confirms that this grant by Sheriff Cospatric originated in a separate charter or verbal contract, for it had its own testibus legitimis.59 The patronage directed to the minster was likely planned with an eye towards providing sustenance for the regular canons settled there, a scenario redolent of the build-up of the church of St Cuthbert. The chapel of Crailing, mentioned above, and the chapel of Scraesburgh (in Huntill) were both included in the foundation endowment to the priory, and, at a later date, the nearby chapel of Nisbet also became a dependent.60 Just as the church of St Cuthbert was integral to the establishment of Holyrood Abbey, the minster and its dependents formed the nucleus of the endowment for Jedburgh Priory. It provided the priory with prêt-à-porter ecclesiastical authority over the locale and the financial resources that carried with it. With the minster also came the possession of the teinds of the whole parish, but unlike the parish of St Cuthbert, its territorial extent was clearly enumerated, and its association with the payment of teinds is made clear. The minster possessed ‘the teinds of the touns of the whole parish’ which included Jedburgh, the other Jedburgh, Lanton, Nisbet (in Crailing), and Crailing. It appears that the parish was so well-defined because the priory was simply reaffirming the former minster’s 56

Charters of David I, no. 174.

57

Charters of David I, pp. 140.

58

The grant by Sheriff Cospatric included 1½ ploughgates, 3 acres, and 2 tofts (Charters of David I, nos 174–75). 59 60

Charters of David I, nos 174–75.

The Books of the Assumption of the Thirds of Benefices, ed. by J. Kirk (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 219; R . C. Reid, ‘Some Early De Soulis Charters’, Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society Transactions, 26 (1947–48), 153–54 (no. 1).

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authority over those settlements. The teinds of the toun of Crailinghall (the other Crailing), outside the parish of Jedburgh, were also granted to the priory, which served to further expand its ecclesiastical authority over the area. The grant was made by Orm, son of Eilaf, a local lord who was named as the benefactor in the foundation document. The economic position of the minster was therefore strengthened, its authority over dependents reasserted, and its parish defined before the formal reconstitution of the minster as a house of regular canons ever took place. Hence, with some variation, the endowment model used at Holyrood, which centred on reorganizing and financially strengthening a pre-existing matrix ecclesia, was replicated at Jedburgh. As discussed above, the initial phase of endowment at Holyrood and Jedburgh culminated in composite foundation charters, documents which created a strong economic base built around a pre-existing church with its dependents and parishes. These houses of regular canons employed the strategy used at their settlement of creating economic security through parochial authority and extended this practice to the appropriation of lesser churches.61 The process which is evident at the foundation on the micro-level was replicated on the macro-level. In fact, the administrative authority over lesser churches would become the economic lifeblood of Holyrood and Jedburgh.62 At Holyrood, this began when David granted the church of Airth to the abbey at its foundation — the first of many churches the abbey came to control over the next century.63 Along the same line, Jedburgh began its progression towards a stratified network of lesser churches with a grant not by King David, but by the King’s butler (pincerna), Ranulf de Sules. He gave two churches to Jedburgh between 1147 and 1151 pro anima regis David: the church of St Martin of Liddesdale, near his caput, at modern-day Castleton (in Scotland), and the church of Doddington (in England).64 These too would be the first of many for Jedburgh. Having examined the process of foundation at Holyrood and Jedburgh and noted their similarity, it is now time to reconsider the priory of Scone. As 61 In Scotland, the appropriation of churches was not a clear-cut phenomenon until the adoption of the diplomatic formula in proprios usus in the late twelfth century, and, even then, ambiguity persisted. See I. B. Cowan, The Medieval Church in Scotland (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1995), p. 16. 62 By the turn of the thirteenth century, Holyrood held thirty churches and seven chapels and Jedburgh with its dependent priories held twenty-two churches and five chapels. 63

Charters of David I, no. 147.

64

Reid, ‘Some Early De Soulis Charters’, pp. 153–54 (no. 1); Charters of David I, no. 167.

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discussed, Alexander provided a generous endowment for the priory, consisting of a considerable outlay of royal lands and revenues. However, Alexander’s endowment to Scone made no use of the pre-existing church of Scone beyond a place of residence. This contrasts with King David’s first two houses of Augustinian canons at Holyrood and Jedburgh, which deliberately developed and built upon the resources and ecclesiastical structures of pre-existing churches. With King David as its patron, the priory of Scone underwent a shift in its economic practices during which the status of the church of Scone as a matrix ecclesia was asserted and parochial administration made a viable economic option for the priory. Unfortunately, the surviving evidence provides an incomplete picture of the economic development of the priory of Scone during this period. The priory suffered a fire in around 1163 which appears to have destroyed most, if not all, of the house’s early records.65 Because of this loss, a gap in the charter evidence exists between 1124 to c. 1163, including all of King David’s charters to the priory. Hence, the priory’s development during this transformation must be reconstructed from later evidence. Two charters in particular shed light on this important period, a charter by King Mael Coluim IV (1153–65) detailing the patronage of his predecessors to Scone, and a bull by Pope Alexander III (1159–81) detailing royal patronage to the house.66 This evidence elucidates a change in royal policy towards the priory during the reign of King David. Through the King’s patronage, the economy of the house was diversified to include various forms of spiritualia, thus bringing the economic practices of Scone into line with those of Holyrood and Jedburgh. Precisely dating the progress of these innovations at Scone is obviously impossible. At some point between 1124 and 1153, however, the parochial status of the church of Scone was reinvigorated and modernized by King David. The King granted the church of Scone the teinds of the whole parish of Scone in grain, cheeses, catches of fish, and all else tithable.67 Despite problems with interpreting the term parochia, ‘it is clear that at Scone the term was used by David I in the specific sense of an area which rendered teind to a local baptismal church’.68 The establishment of the teind-rendering parish at Scone by King David provided the priory of Scone with a valuable source of income accomplished by harnessing the

65

RRS, I, no. 243.

66

RRS, I, no. 243; Scone Liber, no. 18.

67

RRS, I, no. 243; Scone Liber, no. 18.

68

Rogers, ‘The Formation of the Parish Unit’, p. 28.

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latent ecclesiastical authority of the pre-existing church. The creation of the parish of Scone resembles the development of the parishes of St Cuthbert and Jedburgh. As discussed, the evidence is relatively clear for St Cuthbert and Jedburgh: the territorial bounds of the teind-rendering parish were constructed using pre-existing parochial relationships, i.e. the subordinate chapels and touns of a pre-existing matrix ecclesia were used to territorially define the new parish. Due to this structure, a key element in the creation of the teind-rendering parish was to obtain clear definition and formal recognition of the authority of the church over local chapels. This was accomplished by securing those rights from the proprietary lord. In the case of both Holyrood and Jedburgh, charter evidence shows that the process of contractually asserting (or reasserting) the authority of the matrix ecclesia over its subordinate chapels began prior to the foundation of the religious house. The process at Scone is obscured by the gap in the historical record; yet the evidence suggests that the formation of the teind-rendering parish at Scone followed a similar pattern. Subordinate chapels were a central feature in the formation of the parish of Scone. In a charter by William I (1165–1214), the territorial limits of the parish of Scone were delineated using two of the subordinate chapels of the church of Scone.69 The pre-Augustinian church of Scone appears to have possessed a trio of subordinate chapels: the chapels of Kinfauns, Rait, and ‘Crag’.70 The first surviving charter to confirm these chapels to the priory was made by Richard, bishop of St Andrews (1163–78).71 It confirmed the ecclesiastical possessions of the priory and included a special exemption from episcopal dues for the church of Scone and its dependent chapels.72 These chapels came to define the coterminous territory of the parish just as in the case of the parish of St Cuthbert.73 If the process of parish creation at St Cuthbert can be taken as an example, authority over these chapels would have been affirmed to the church of Scone by either the king or the secular

69

RRS, II, no. 165.

70

‘Crag’ has been positively identified as situated on the River Tay at the modern-day town of Walnut Grove (Rogers, ‘The Formation of the Parish Unit’, pp. 127–28, n. 30). 71

Scone Liber, no. 48.

72

Richard’s charter mentions only Kings Alexander I, Mael Coluim IV, and William I. However, this appears to be a copyist’s error because the charter goes on to confirm two churches undoubtedly granted by David, namely Borthwick and Carrington (Scone Liber, no. 48). Moreover, an episcopal confirmation issued by Bishop Richard’s successor Hugh (1178–88) returns David to the list of patrons to the house (Scone Liber, no. 50). 73

Rogers, ‘The Formation of the Parish Unit’, pp. 128–29.

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lords who held proprietary right to them. This event would have taken place before the creation of a parish which used the chapels as its boundary. Though this cannot be confirmed, it would be consistent with the policies of Scone’s new patron and benefactor towards his own Augustinian foundations. Another aspect of the economic reorientation of Scone under David was its acquisition of lesser churches. David granted two churches to the priory, namely the churches of Borthwick and Carrington in Midlothian.74 However, although the economy of Scone was diversified and came to resemble David’s own Augustinian foundations through his initiatives, the possession of lesser churches was never prolific, nor did it become the house’s financial lifeblood.75 The extent of the initial grant made to Scone by Alexander at its foundation may be the reason for this difference, as Scone was a house wealthy in royal land and revenue from the start. Moreover, because Scone was the site of royal inaugurations, it maintained a unique connection to the monarchy, but that unique relationship had a powerful economic component.76 This component surfaces in the first recorded aid to the Crown in Scotland likely raised for the dowry of Ada of Scotland in her marriage to the Count of Holland in 1162. It was provided by Scone to be paid in kind (likely in the form of cattle or hides).77 Later in the 1190s, an aid was again assessed to support the Crown, likely to raise the 10,000 marks needed for the cancellation of the Treaty of Falaise, and again Scone was called to support the Crown.78 Due to its substantial foundation endowment, Scone displays more of the characteristics of a royal eigenklöster than the other houses of regular canons in Scotland, and its location at a site associated so strongly with Scottish kingship is likely responsible for this anomaly. However, while the heritage of Alexander’s endowment and choice of the site of Scone weighs heavily on the subsequent history of the house, David’s efforts aligned its economy, at least superficially, with his own Augustinian foundations.

74

RRS, I, no. 243.

75

Scone had a total of seven churches and seven chapels before 1215. These figures include the two churches granted by David and the three pendicle chapels of the church of Scone (RRS, I, nos 243, 251; RRS, II, no. 276; Scone Liber, nos 27, 48). 76

A. A. M. Duncan, ‘Before Coronation: Making a King at Scone in the 13th Century’, in The Stone of Destiny: Artefact and Icon, ed. by D. J. Breeze, Thomas Owen Clancy, and Richard Welander (Edinburgh: Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 2003), pp. 139–68. 77

RRS, I, 54, no. 252.

78

RRS, I, 54, n. 6; Scone Liber, no. 35.

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This said, the establishment of regular canons at Scone by Alexander I remains undoubtedly a key moment in the history of the Scottish Augustinians. He founded the first house in Scotland and set aside resources for the founding of others in the future. Furthermore, were it not for his death, he may have continued his generous patronage of the clerical orders. However, the form that patronage took indicates where his conception of the Augustinian movement parted ways with David. Whereas Alexander’s foundation regularized a ‘church’, the policies of David, evident in his patronage, prepared Scottish Augustinian houses to become a catalyst for a grass-roots reform of the ‘Church’. David’s model made Holyrood, Jedburgh, and, to some extent, Scone, significant institutions within the hierarchy of ecclesiastical administration, and thus provided a vehicle for selfsufficiency by changing the types of patronage and revenues available to them. David also established St Andrews and Stirling with a similar economic base, and once Inchcolm was firmly established in the 1160s, it also appears to have been reliant on the same sources of income as its predecessors. Thus, the initial efforts of David imposed a level of economic uniformity among these houses.

The Leadership of Bishop Robert As discussed, one of the greatest criticisms of Augustinian houses in the twelfth century is that they lacked regional, national, or international leadership. This has led historians to question how unified these houses could have been during this crucial period of formation.79 As has just been discussed, King David I and his most influential bishops founded several houses under a common economic philosophy and reorganized Alexander’s foundation at Scone, thus providing examples which could be followed by houses founded after his death. The end result thus appears to be a set of monasteries which functioned under a unified set of economic principles, despite the lack of a common milieu of religious practice, and this was intrinsically different from the situation in England.80 However, the relationships shared between these individuals and the monasteries which they founded did not end there. King David and the bishops remained patrons of all of these institutions, thus providing common leadership. Moreover, Robert, bishop of St Andrews (1127–59), who was formerly a canon of Nostell (Augustinian), a prior of Scone (Augustinian), and an instrumental figure in the creation of St Andrews Cathedral 79

For example, Dickinson, Origins of the Austin Canons, pp. 79, 81, 90.

80

Dickinson, Origins of the Austin Canons, p. 230.

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Priory (Augustinian), reinforced the economic policies of David I and appears to have shared his vision. He is the only twelfth-century Scottish bishop from the St Andrews or Glasgow dioceses who made unfettered gifts of churches to a religious house apart from St Andrews Cathedral Priory, and his gifts were conspicuously directed towards an Augustinian house.81 This suggests that he too had a concept of proper Augustinian patronage. However, even more importantly, he also appears to have provided a strong rallying point behind which Augustinian houses in Scotland, at times, united. Unfortunately, apart from charters recording his benefactions and confirmations, almost all of our insight into interaction between the Augustinian houses and Bishop Robert is derived from the witness lists of his charters. However, these sources are by no means negligible in terms of attempting to reconstruct the relationships that the bishop shared with these institutions. This said, witness lists of episcopal charters are unique features within the scope of charter diplomatic and for that reason a brief introduction into their form and function is necessary before proceeding. The witness lists of private charters generally had a utilitarian function, that is, they were lists of individuals who would, if necessary, help secure the interests of parties involved in a particular transaction.82 Though at times witnesses to episcopal charters were chosen for similar reasons, these lists were typically far more representative of the individuals who were in attendance at the episcopal court when a transaction was authorized or a charter was issued. Moreover, the lists also reflected the bishops’ entourage, familia, and advisers.83 Significantly, over three-quarters of the monastic witnesses of Robert’s charters are Augustinian

81

Liber Cartarum Sancte Crucis: Munimenta Ecclesie Sancte Crucis de Edwinesburg, ed. by C. Innes (Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club, 1840) (hereafter Holyrood Liber), no. 9, app. II, no. 1. Other original donations of churches by the bishops of St Andrews and Glasgow were related to the fact that these institutions held pre-existing parochial rights, thus suggesting that these gifts were part of a series of negotiations between the bishops and the monasteries, not fresh benefactions (e.g. Registrum de Dunfermelyn, ed. by C. Innes (Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club, 1853), no. 91; Liber S. Marie de Calchou: Registrum cartarum Abbacie Tironensis de Kelso, 1113–1567, ed. by C. Innes, 2 vols (Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club, 1846) (hereafter Kelso Liber), II, no. 423; Scone Liber, nos 40–41). 82

D. Postles, ‘Choosing Witnesses in Twelfth-Century England’, The Irish Jurist, 23 (1988), 330–46 (pp. 335–42); S. Bond, ‘The Attestation of Medieval Private Charters Relating to New Windsor’, Journal of the Society of Archivists, 4 (1971), 276–84. 83

N. F. Shead, ‘Compassed about with so Great a Cloud: The Witnesses of Scottish Episcopal Acta before ca 1250’, Scottish Historical Review, 86 (2007), 159–75; EEA, especially sections relating to the archiepiscopal or episcopal households.

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canons (27 out of 35), thus suggesting that Augustinians were the most frequent class of regulars who attended the episcopal court.84 Naturally, these statistics must be tempered by considerations of charter survival, witness-list abbreviation or omission, charter production, and the simple fact that Augustinian institutions outnumbered institutions of other orders. However, several factors suggest that what we see here is by no means unrepresentative, and that Robert did in fact surround himself with Augustinians far more frequently than regulars of other persuasions. For one, the twelve charters from which these statistics are derived were issued to six religious houses of various orders; thus, there does not appear to be an inherent bias in the nature of the sources. Moreover, it was quite common in twelfth-century Scotland for bishops, such as Robert, who were formerly members of religious houses, to surround themselves with members of their former order. For instance, the most common monastics to appear in the charters of Robert’s successor at St Andrews, namely Arnold (1160–62), who was formerly abbot of Kelso Abbey (Tiron), are monks from Kelso.85 Furthermore, the most prominent monastic attendees of the court of Jocelin, bishop of Glasgow (1175–99), who was formerly abbot of Melrose (Cist.), are Cistercians.86 However, these statistics tell us nothing apart from the fact that Robert, as a former regular canon, had an affinity for Augustinians. What is far more important is the context in which these individuals appeared, who appeared, and what this can tell us about Robert’s relationship to the Augustinian community and his role within it. Over half of Robert’s charters that list regulars as witnesses include solely Augustinian canons.87 This is a significant point as it demonstrates that the large number of Augustinian canons present within Robert’s charters is not simply attributable to the fact that more houses of regular canons existed in mid-twelfth-century Scotland. Moreover, this statistic also exemplifies the fact that the presence of these individuals was deliberate and that Robert was holding meetings which were

84

These statistics are drawn from twelve charters of the twenty-four dispositive charters that survive for Bishop Robert. 85

Individuals from Kelso appear in five of Arnold’s charters, St Andrews Liber, pp. 127–32; The History and Antiquities of North Durham, ed. by J. Raine (London: Nichols, 1852), no. CCCCLI. 86

These statistics are drawn from eight of the twenty-three dispositive charters that survive for Bishop Jocelin. It must be noted that in every charter of Bishop Jocelin which lists a regular as a witness, a Cistercian is present. Conversely, no Cistercians appear in the charters of Bishop Robert. 87

Kelso Liber, II, nos 443, 445; Registrum de Dunfermelyn, no. 92; North Durham, app. CCCCIL, St Andrews Liber, pp. 43, 125–26.

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Figure 2. Appearances of regulars in charters Figure 3. Appearances of regulars in charters of Robert, bishop of St Andrews (Aug.). of Jocelin, bishop of Glasgow (Cist.).

exclusively Augustinian, just as Bishop Jocelin was holding events which were exclusively Cistercian.88 What inspired these meetings? Unfortunately, the formulaic nature of charter diplomatic is not typically very informative about the reasons that particular individuals appeared at particular places at particular times, and the majority of these charters are no exception. However, one of Bishop Robert’s charters is unusually revealing about the circumstances surrounding a particular meeting in which several Augustinian leaders appeared side by side in the bishop’s court, and this may provide insight into the circumstances of other similar occurrences. The document in question is a charter that recorded Bishop Robert’s confirmation of the church of Edrom and adjacent properties to Coldingham Priory (Ben.). The charter states that at a synod at Berwick which took place in the year 1150, Robert issued the charter by the ‘request and advice’ of the priors of Holyrood, Jedburgh, Scone, St Andrews, the royal chaplain, and many others.89 This reference indicates

88

For example North Durham, app. DVII.

89

North Durham, app. no. 449.

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that Robert called a synod (or provincial council) at Berwick and the only monastics that were invited appear to have been Augustinians.90 It also suggests that the synod was a carefully orchestrated, invitation-only event, and that there was a conscious effort to bring together representatives from a majority of the leading Augustinian foundations. This is reinforced by the fact that the prior of Holyrood attended the synod, not the abbot. Apart from Stirling, Holyrood was the only Augustinian foundation which had the status of abbey from its foundation. Hence, the attendance of the prior of Holyrood at this event suggests that he was either a stand-in for an absentee prelate or the representative of the house during a vacancy.91 Whatever the case, a representative of the abbey of Holyrood appears to have been specifically requested at this event. Interestingly, Osbert, prior of Jedburgh (1147–74), was also invited. One of the foremost criticisms of the Augustinians in the twelfth century is that their houses were nothing more than a part of the normal diocesan machinery.92 However, even though Jedburgh was situated in the diocese of Glasgow, a prior from this institution took part in what appears to be, for all practical purposes, a midtwelfth-century general chapter meeting hosted by the leader of the neighbouring diocese. Moreover, this is not the only time that Osbert is found in Bishop Robert’s charters. He appears to have frequented Robert’s court, and at times he was the only regular present.93 This said, perhaps the most important insight provided by the charter concerns Bishop Robert’s relationship with the Scottish Augustinian community. At least in this instance, he relied on the canons to advise him on how to administer his diocese. These men appear to have been his confidants, and reason would suggest

90

To our knowledge, this type of diocesan synod before the Fourth Lateran Council has not been discussed in Scottish historiography. For discussions of post-Fourth Lateran diocesan synods or provincial councils, see D. E. R. Watt, Medieval Church Councils in Scotland (Edinburgh: Clark, 2000), pp. 43–55. 91

A possible explanation for the prior’s attendance was that the Abbot of Holyrood (Alwin), stepped down at some point in 1150, perhaps before the synod which occurred in that year (A Scottish Chronicle Known as the Chronicle of Holyrood, ed. by M. O. Anderson (Edinburgh: Scottish History Society, 1938), p. 121). 92 93

Dickinson, Origins of the Austin Canons, p. 81.

Kelso Liber, II, no. 445; Registrum episcopatus Glasguensis, ed. by C. Innes, 2 vols (Edinburgh: Bannatyne and Maitland Clubs, 1843), I, no. 11; North Durham, no. CCCCIL; Registrum de Dunfermelyn, no. 4; St Andrews Liber, pp. 125–26.

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that this probably accounts for the rest of the appearances as well.94 Therefore, it seems that Bishop Robert and his policies worked to unite Scotland’s Augustinian foundations.

An ‘Order’ Emerges in Scotland? After the death of Bishop Robert in 1160, no one took up his mantle. Successive bishops in the dioceses of St Andrews or Glasgow were either of different orders, as discussed above, or of secular origin and had different policies in relation to regulars. Moreover, by 1153, King David and John, bishop of Glasgow, the great founders and reformers of these institutions, who helped shape their economic philosophy, were also deceased. David’s successors, King Mael Coluim IV (1153–65) and King William I (1165–1214), would not found any further houses of Augustinian canons, nor would they treat these institutions with the same concern as their ancestors. However, it does not appear that they had to. By the mid-twelfth century, the seeds of unity appear to have been sown, and we see a set of independent Augustinian houses that behaved, at least externally, no different from Scottish religious houses that belonged to the Cistercian order. Although a lack of evidence precludes a discussion about many aspects of the relationships between these houses, charter witness lists, evidence about the management of resources, and data relating to the leaders of these houses suggests that an Augustinian ‘order’ had emerged in Scotland before the Fourth Lateran Council.

Witnesses of Private Charters As mentioned above, there is an inherent difference between the witness lists of episcopal charters and the witness lists of private charters. Unlike the former, which may have reflected court attendance, the witness lists of private charters were well-designed defence mechanisms, and the individuals listed within them were carefully chosen by the parties involved to provide optimal security. This phenomenon is nowhere better exemplified than when monks and regular canons appear in the witness lists of private charters of donation or confirmation which

94

For a discussion of the monastics who frequently appeared in the episcopal charters of the archbishops of York and who acted for and advised those prelates, see EEA, V: York, 1070–1154, ed. by J. Burton (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 1988), pp. xxxvi–xxxvii.

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were issued to monastic beneficiaries. Regardless of the order of a particular beneficiary, if a regular appears in one of the private charters it received, then he was commonly an individual who came from a monastery which held property that was located in close proximity to the property being donated or confirmed. For example, in the third quarter of the twelfth century, Holyrood Abbey (Aug. canons) received the church of Livingston near Linlithgow by the gift of Thurstan son of Leving. In the charter which records the donation, the abbot of Dunfermline Abbey (Ben.) and both the abbot and a monk from Newbattle Abbey (Cist.) were listed as witnesses.95 At this point in their histories, Dunfermline held property at Kirknewton which lay less than three miles (5 km) from Livingston and Newbattle held property in Binny, which was located less than four miles (6.5 km) from the benefice, thus making them perfect attestors.96 There are generally very few exceptions to this attestation phenomenon, which suggests that there was a very careful witness selection process for private transactions.97 However, those exceptions which do exist similarly do not appear to be random, and it is these anomalies which are important for the study at hand. A majority of ‘exceptional’ witnesses are individuals who belonged to the same order as the beneficiaries. Thus, if a regular appears in the private charter of a Cistercian house, and he did not originate from a monastery which held property in close proximity to the recorded benefaction, then he was likely a Cistercian.98 The same is true in private charters issued to Augustinians. For instance, in the mid-1150s or early 1160s, Thor son of Swain issued a charter to Holyrood which recorded his gift to the abbey of the possessions belonging to him in the church of Tranent near Haddington. The only regular to appear in this charter is the Abbot

95

Holyrood Liber, no. 17.

96

Registrum de Dunfermelyn, no. 44; Registrum S. Marie de Neubotle, ed. by C. Innes (Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club, 1849), no. 223. 97

It is impossible to enumerate the many examples of this phenomenon in this paper; however, it is noteworthy that this witnessing trend does not just apply to private charters issued to male monasteries. For example, in the charter of Amabile, wife of Norman of Lennel, which recorded her gift of the land of Skaithmuir to the Cistercian nunnery at Coldstream, the abbot, prior, and two monks from Kelso appear, and Kelso held property less than 1 mile from Skaithmuir in Simprim (Chartulary of the Cistercian Priory of Coldstream: With Relative Documents, ed. by Charles Rogers (London: Grampian Club, 1879), no. 6; Kelso Liber, I, no. 273). 98

For example Liber Sancte Marie de Melros, ed. by C. Innes, 2 vols (Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club, 1837), I, no. 12. In this charter, the Abbot of Newbattle appears despite the fact that Newbattle did not hold property in relative proximity to the recorded benefaction.

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of the Augustinian house at Jedburgh, and Jedburgh did not hold property rights anywhere in the vicinity of Tranent.99 Therefore, it appears that the Abbot was not there out of some legal obligation. This is an important fact, as it demonstrates that Augustinian houses, like the Cistercians, were maintaining relationships with one another, at least on some level. Moreover, with respect to this instance in particular, once again we have an example of such relationships transcending diocesan boundaries, since Jedburgh lay within the diocese of Glasgow, and Holyrood lay within the diocese of St Andrews.

Economic Relations Close relations are also suggested by what is known, or rather what is not known, about the way that Augustinian houses interacted with one another in the medieval Scottish economy. During the high Middle Ages, Scotland was plagued by property disputes which involved two or more religious houses.100 However, there is no evidence that Augustinian institutions ever fought or quarreled with one another over temporal or spiritual rights. This may suggest that these institutions either did not come into conflict or were able to work out their problems amicably without resorting to legal remedies such as papal litigation. Moreover, it may indicate a level of intimacy among these institutions. This said, making suppositions based on a lack of medieval evidence is not conclusive, so it is necessary to first qualify these assumptions. Relevant material survives for most of the major Augustinian foundations, and it appears that all of these institutions were keen to hold on to records of property disputes, especially if they were the victors or if a conventio was reached. Even if one Augustinian institution discarded a charter or did not copy it into a cartulary due to the fact that it lost a particular dispute with another Augustinian institution, the charter would survive in the victor’s archive. The only house for which a substantial amount of material does not survive is Jedburgh. Thus, if Jedburgh was the victor in a standoff with one of its Augustinian brethren, then a charter dedicated to that dispute would have been lost. However, what does survive for Jedburgh is

99

Holyrood Liber, no. 11. For other appearances by Augustinians in private charters issued to Augustinian houses, see St Andrews Liber, pp. 333–34, pp. 251–54; Charters of the Abbey of Inchcolm, ed. by D. E. Easson and A. Macdonald (Edinburgh: Scottish Historical Society, 1938), no. VII. 100

P. Ferguson, Medieval Papal Representatives in Scotland: Legates, Nuncios, and JudgeDelegate, 1125–1286 (Edinburgh: Stair Society, 1997), app. 1.

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a collection of royal general confirmation charters, including one charter issued by King William I between 1165 and 1170.101 Royal general confirmation charters are often informative sources about inter-monastic disputes, even if subject-specific dispute resolution charters do not survive, and there is no evidence in King William’s general confirmation charter that Jedburgh ever had a proprietary dispute with one of its Augustinian counterparts.102 Therefore, the surviving material for Jedburgh, though limited, provides no evidence to suggest that an inter-Augustinian dispute occurred. Having established that there is a lack of evidence that disputes occurred between these institutions, it must be noted that they were by no means rare among Augustinian houses in other contexts. Jane E. Sayers stated that ‘religious houses, especially the Benedictines and Augustinians, were probably the most frequent litigants before papal tribunals’ in the province of Canterbury.103 There is certainly no practical reason that the same disputes which plagued Augustinian institutions in Canterbury should not have plagued Scottish houses. For instance, St Andrews and Scone were given rather ambiguous rights to a set of teinds in Longforgan during the mid-twelfth century.104 In Scottish papal judges delegate cases, Paul Ferguson found that teinds were the subject of litigation in a ‘considerable number of cases’ (as did Sayers in Canterbury), but there is no evidence that a controversy arose between these institutions over these rights.105 Another prime catalyst for disputes was Church lands.106 After Holyrood Abbey was granted the church of Carriden with its land, Jedburgh Abbey obtained a parcel of land adjacent to the same church.107 Throughout the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Holyrood was typically highly territorial with regard to its ecclesiastical possessions, but there is no evidence that Holyrood and Jedburgh ever came into

101

Regesta regum Scottorum, II: The Acts of William I, King of Scots 1165–1214, ed. by G. W. S. Barrow and others (hereafter RRS, II) (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1971), no. 62. 102

For example, King William’s first general confirmation charter to Kelso records a dispute which occurred between Kelso Abbey and Holyrood Abbey over Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh (RRS, II, no. 63). 103 J. Sayers, Papal Judges Delegate in the Province of Canterbury, 1198–1254 (London: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 212. For cases involving two Augustinian houses, see ibid., pp. 280–356. 104

Charters of David I, no. 173; RRS, I, no. 248.

105

Ferguson, Medieval Papal Representatives, p. 145; Sayers, Papal Judges Delegate, p. 188.

106

Ferguson, Medieval Papal Representatives, p. 137.

107

Holyrood Liber, no. 9; RRS, II, nos 5, 62.

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conflict over Carriden.108 However, perhaps the most impressive instance in which two Augustinian institutions were able to remain free from conflict pertained to the teinds of Ogilface. Both St Andrews Priory and Holyrood Abbey entered into disputes with the Knights Hospitallers of Torphichen over teinds in this region but did not come into conflict with each other.109

Appointments of Heads of Augustinian Houses Apart from evidence of peaceful, perhaps even fraternal, relationships between these institutions, a final piece of evidence which suggests that it is justifiable to assert that relationships were close between these houses is the following: at least five Augustinians were transferred from their original residences to other houses and appointed as the heads of these institutions. Moreover, these five personnel exchanges involved five of the six extant houses (see Figure 3). A similar phenomenon has been acknowledged to be common in the centralized orders in both Scotland and elsewhere, but not in the decentralized orders before the Fourth Lateran Council’s reforms. Once again, there is a stark contrast here in comparison to England. Before 1215, there were at least one hundred and seventy independent Augustinian houses founded in England.110 However, between 1107 and 1215, scholars have only been able to identify fourteen Augustinians who were taken from particular Augustinian establishments and appointed as the heads of other independent institutions.111 Exactly why Scotland has such a comparatively large number of these types of appointments in relation to England is unclear; however, it is likely due to many of the factors already discussed. In England, though Henry I founded a number of Augustinian houses, most independent institutions did not benefit from the king’s patronage, and many were founded by provincial lords.112 As discussed, in Scotland

108

For disputes involving Holyrood and other monasteries, see Holyrood Liber, nos 60–61; Registrum de Neubotle, no. 127. 109 Holyrood Liber, no. 46; St Andrews Liber, p. 320. Holyrood’s rights are actually mentioned in the St Andrews charter. 110

Dickinson, Origins of the Austin Canons, p. 153.

111

Data gathered from HRH, ed. by Knowles and others, I, 157–60, 163, 167–68, 174, 180, 184, 188. This data does not included individuals who were sent from a mother house to head a daughter house. 112

Dickinson, Origins of the Austin Canons, pp. 119, 161.

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Map 2. Personnel exchange between Augustinian houses before 1215.

the complete opposite was true. All of these institutions were national institutions, and their patron was the king. The king, as patron and leader of these monasteries, could influence appointments, especially in times of a vacancy. We are told by Walter Bower that in 1198, Robert, abbot of Scone, being incapable of managing his own affairs or those of his canons, resigned his charge. In accord with the wishes of the king’s courtiers (i.e. William I’s) he was succeeded by Reimbald, cellarer of Holyrood, who was elected at Forfar on the same day.113 A similar form of royal interference may also account for the appointment of Robert, a canon of Jedburgh, as the Abbot of Scone over thirty-five years earlier.114 However, it must be noted

113

Scotichronicon, III, 421.

114

Scotichronicon, IV , 175.

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that it is unlikely that such royal manoeuvres accounted for the other three interinstitutional appointments at Stirling (by then Cambuskenneth), Holyrood, and Inchcolm.115 By the time that these appointments had occurred, all three institutions had received a papal guarantee of free elections, thus making vacancy a likely catalyst.116 This said, the possibility must also be posited that these appointments were the result of free elections based on what has been demonstrated concerning the relationships which these houses shared. However, even if they were not, it by no means diminishes the importance of this data in terms of evaluating Augustinian relations in the pre-Fourth Lateran era. Once again there is evidence that diocesan oversight of Augustinian institutions was not the be all and end all in Scotland, since regulars were appointed from their home dioceses to head religious houses in other dioceses.117 Moreover, this appointment data once again supports the notion that Augustinian houses were far better networked in Scotland than they appear to have been elsewhere because of the king, their common patron.

Concluding Remarks Only a survey of the relationships which Scottish Augustinians shared in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries has been possible here. Nevertheless, it has been suggested that there is value in studying ‘Augustinian’ houses in Britain not simply as independent institutions, but as members of an order. In Scotland it appears that Augustinian houses shared very close relationships and had uniform characteristics without Cistercian-style machinery. This appears to be related in large part to the efforts of King David I and Robert, bishop of St Andrews, as well as John, bishop of Glasgow, a figure who, while not discussed in detail above, was instrumental in the Scottish Augustinian movement. However, the legacies of these individuals in relation to the Augustinian community were by no means limited to what was discussed above. For one, their decision to make the premier cathedral chapter in Scotland an Augustinian priory gave the Augustinians a

115

Scotichronicon, IV , 439, 465.

116

Registrum Cambuskenneth, no. 25, Holyrood Liber, app. I, no. 1, Inchcolm Charters, no. II

117

Holyrood in the diocese of St Andrews received an individual from Inchcolm in the diocese of Dunkeld (Scotichronicon, IV , 465). Scone in the diocese of St Andrews received an individual from Jedburgh in the diocese of Glasgow (ibid., IV , 175). Inchcolm in the diocese of Dunkeld received an individual from Scone in the diocese of St Andrews (ibid., IV , 465).

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rallying point. By the late Middle Ages, the prior of St Andrews was given precedence over all other heads of religious houses in Scotland, and, earlier on, he likely helped to unite Augustinian houses through his special status.118 Furthermore, their resolution to give Holyrood Abbey abbatial status was also an important legacy, as it freed Holyrood from any possible subjection to Merton Priory, its mother house. Later on, it certainly inspired other Augustinian houses in Scotland to seek the same status.119 However, perhaps the most lasting legacy of King David and his bishops is the fact that they ensured that Augustinian houses would survive after their passing through the same kinds of benefactions which they themselves had given. As discussed, lay benefactors were recognized by name within the text of the foundation charters for both Holyrood and Jedburgh. Such an explicit recognition of the role of the lay benefactor in providing patronage for a royal foundation was something never before witnessed in Scotland, and it points to a changing conception of monastic benefactions in general. The initiatives of David I and his bishops to reform the Scottish Church impacted lay access to patronage through the development of the teind and the parish system, both of which created unprecedented opportunities for lay participation. The Augustinian canons were a group particularly adept at using these modern sources of income, and this was owed in part to their clerical origins. These innovations went pari passu with lay participation in monastic patronage, a development which changed the monastic landscape in Scotland forever and ensured the survival of an ‘order’.120

118 M. Ash, ‘The Administration of the Diocese of St Andrews, 1202–1328’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1972), p. 232. 119

Very few Augustinian houses in England were abbeys (Dickinson, Origins of the Austin Canons, pp. 80–81). 120

The extent to which Scottish monasteries were involved in local ecclesiastical administration is replicated nowhere else in Europe, save perhaps Switzerland. Of the total churches in Scotland, by the time of the Scottish reformation 86 per cent had had their revenues diverted (Cowan, Medieval Church, pp. 13–14). We are deeply grateful to Prof. Dauvit Broun and Prof. Judith A. Green for reading drafts of this article and making invaluable comments and suggestions. Any remaining errors are our own.

T HE F OUNDERS AND P ATRONS OF P REMONSTRATENSIAN H OUSES IN IRELAND Miriam Clyne

F

rom its foundation in 1121 by Norbert of Xanten,1 the order of Prémontré developed into the second-most prolific reformed religious order in the medieval Latin Church. White canons were exceeded in number and in the rapidity of their growth in the twelfth century only by the Cistercians.2 1 Two twelfth-century manuscripts recording Norbert’s life were translated into English in the fifteenth century by John Capgrave: C. L. Smetana, The Life of St Norbert by John Capgrave OESA (1393–1464) (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1977). On the order more generally, note Norbert von Xanten: Adliger, Ordensstifter, Kirchenfürst, ed. by E. Elm (Cologne: Wienand, 1984); P.-A. Lerchenmüller, ‘Allen bin ich alles geworden, um auf jeden Fall einige zu retten’ (1 Kor 9,22): Norbert von Xanten und die Geschichte des Prämonstratenserordens (Windberg: Poppe, 2009); W. M. Grauwen, Norbert, Erzbischof von Magdeburg (1126–1134) (Duisburg: Prämonstratenser-Abtei St Johann, 1986). S. Weinfurter, ‘Norbert von Xanten und die Entstehung des Prämonstratenserordens’, in Barbarossa und die Prämonstratenser, Schriften für staufische Geschichte und Kunst, 10 (Göppingen: Jungmann, 1989), pp. 67–100; F. J. Felten, ‘Norbert von Xanten: Vom Wanderprediger zum Kirchenfürsten’, in Norbert von Xanten, ed. by Elm, pp. 69–157; Studien zum Prämonstratenserorden, ed. by I. Crusius and H. Flachenecker (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 2003). For more recent accounts of St Norbert and the foundation of the order in English, see, for example, B. Ardura, The Order of Prémontré: History and Spirituality (De Pere, WI: Paisa, 1995), pp. 5–22; Norbert and Early Norbertine Spirituality, selected and introduced by T. J. Antry and C. Neel (Mahwah: Paulist, 2007), pp. 7–12. On the Arrouaisians in Ireland, see P. J. Dunning, ‘The Arroasian Order in Medieval Ireland’, Irish Historical Studies, 4 (1945), 297–315, or M. T. Flanagan, ‘St Mary’s Abbey, Louth, and the Introduction of the Arrouaisian Observance into Ireland’, Clogher Record, 10 (1980), 223–34. 2

J. Bond, ‘The Premonstratensian Order: A Preliminary Survey of its Growth and Distribution in Medieval Europe’, in In Search of Cult: Archaeological Investigations in Honour of

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Premonstratensian ideals and spirituality became influential throughout Western Christendom emanating in two separate waves from France and Germany to reach the frontiers of the Muslim, Orthodox, and pagan religions in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries.3 The order was frequently introduced into societies to sort out problems as they were undergoing change brought about by conquest, reform, or conversion to Christianity. Irish houses were founded at a time when colonization in peripheral areas was taking place, and thus in a period of change and intense turmoil on the island. A crucial element that facilitated the introduction of white canons was that the Church in Ireland was still in the process of reorganization and although most of the major changes had already been enacted in the twelfth century, many had not been fully implemented. A succession of reforming synods was held during the twelfth and into the thirteenth century, the principal aim of which was to overhaul the structure of the existing church and also to eradicate hereditary succession of clerical appointments. Ecclesiastical reform in Ireland cannot be viewed in isolation, as it followed on from and was essentially part of the general reform that had been taking place in the Latin Church from the mideleventh century. Throughout Western Christendom religion and politics were closely linked, and Ireland, where the synods were convened by the Gaelic kings, was no different to other places. Another wave of reform, which saw the introduction and growth of reformed monastic orders in Ireland, was taking place concurrently with the fundamental changes to secular church structure and pastoral care brought about by the synods. The main figure behind the establishment of monasteries approved by the Latin Church was St Malachy (Máel Máedóc Ó Morgair), primate of Ireland, who is credited with founding fifty-four houses for monks, canons, and nuns.4 This development facilitated the demise of the existing early medieval ecclesiastical structure.5 French influence

Philip Rahtz, ed. by Martin Carver (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1993), pp. 153–85 (p. 153). 3

For the west and east divide in the order, see Antry and Neel, Norbert and Early Norbertine Spirituality, pp. 17–18. 4

D. Hall, Women and the Church in Medieval Ireland, c.1140–1540 (Dublin: Four Courts, 2003), p. 67, n. 21. See also J. Leclercq, ‘Documents of the Cult of St Malachy’, Seanchas Ardmhacha, 3 (1959), 318–32; or E. Vacandard, ‘St-Malachie’, Revue des questions historiques, 52 (1892), 5–57. 5

For a discussion of early medieval ecclesiastical foundations, see, for example, C. Etchingham, Church Organisation in Ireland, AD 650 to 1000 (Maynooth: Laigin, 1999); T. Charles-Edwards, Early Christian Ireland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

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on the Irish Church essentially began with Malachy when he set off on the first of two visits to Rome in 1139 seeking papal approval for diocesan changes enacted through the synods. His journey, however, was to have far-reaching consequences for monasticism in Ireland. Malachy visited Clairvaux in 1140 and there he met St Bernard, who afterwards wrote a biography of the Irishman, Vita S Malachiae, in which there are tantalizing insights into how Ireland and the Irish were viewed from continental Europe, and it also shows the contact that the Irish reform movement had with the world beyond.6 The first Irish Cistercian house was founded at Mellifont just two years after Malachy’s visit to Clairvaux, and by 1170 there were eleven filiations.7 While reform of the Irish Church was ongoing, the Anglo-Norman conquest of Ireland was taking place and it became no longer an entirely Gaelic reform but also one in which the Anglo-Norman lords played a significant role. Growth in the number of reformed monasteries continued after the invasion with a second wave of foundations in the latter part of the twelfth and into the thirteenth centuries. The Anglo-Normans were generous patrons and many of their houses received large endowments, in contrast to monasteries in Gaelic territories. Twenty-six houses for Augustinian canons were established during this period by Anglo-Norman lords, whereas approximately ten foundations can be attributed to the Gaelic-Irish.8 The main religious orders to colonize were Benedictines, Cistercians, and Augustinians, with a lesser number of Fratres Cruciferi (Crutched Friars), Knights Hospitallers, Knights Templars, and Premonstratensians.9 In 1224, the mendicants first set foot in Ireland when a house for Dominicans was founded in Dublin.10

6 D. Scully, ‘The Portrayal of Ireland and the Irish in Bernard’s Life of Malachy: Representation and Context’, in Ireland and Europe in the Twelfth Century: Reform and Renewal, ed. by D. Bracken and D. Ó Riain-Raedel (Dublin: Four Courts, 2006), pp. 239–56. 7

A. Gwynn and R . N. Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses: Ireland (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1970), pp. 116–17; R . Stalley, The Cistercian Monasteries of Ireland: An Account of the History, Art and Architecture of the White Monks in Ireland from 1142 to 1540 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987), pp. 13–14. 8

J. Watt, The Church in Medieval Ireland, Gill History of Ireland, 5 (Dublin: Macmillan, 1972), pp. 47–48. 9

Gwynn and Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses: Ireland, pp. 102–216, 327–42.

10

C. N. Ó Clabaigh, The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400–1534: From Reform to Reformation (Dublin: Four Courts, 2002), p. 34.

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Arrival of the White Canons in Ulster and Connacht Ulster Two Premonstratensian monasteries were founded in Ulster, at Carrickfergus and Dieux la Croisse (Map 3), in a newly established Anglo-Norman lordship. The conquest of Ulster, which commenced in 1177, was rapid, taking only five years to secure this frontier region, and it was achieved through the enterprise of one individual.11 John de Courcy was a headstrong adventurer and the exploits of this

Map 3. Premonstratensian conventual houses and hospitals in Ireland.

charismatic young knight by independent and unorthodox methods were recounted by his contemporary, Giraldus Cambrensis, in his panegyric, in

11

Accounts of the conquest can be found, for example, in Expugnatio hibernica: The Conquest of Ireland by Giraldus Cambrensis, ed. by A. B. Scott and F. X. Martin (Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 1978), pp. 174–81; T. E. McNeill, Anglo-Norman Ulster: The History and Archaeology of an Irish Barony, 1177–1400 (Edinburgh: Donald, 1980), pp. 1–14.

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Expugnatio hibernica.12 Shortly after his arrival in Ulster, de Courcy began the task of providing himself with a stronghold at Carrickfergus (Fig. 4), where work commenced in 1177 or 1178.13 This was the manorial caput, his administrative centre, where he built a stone keep and set up a permanent garrison. An urban settlement was established beside the castle at Carrickfergus. For political motives John de Courcy advanced the cause of the reform movement in the Irish Church by becoming a major patron, thereby winning favour and support from influential churchmen. He founded monasteries at sites already of ecclesiastical importance and also at new locations. The Premonstratensian houses were colonized from Dryburgh in the Tweed valley, founded in 1150 by the feudal baron, Hugh de Morville, lord of Lauderdale and constable of Scotland, who was supported in this venture by David I.14 Seven Benedictine, Cistercian, or Augustinian monasteries — orders already well established on Irish soil by the late twelfth century — were founded by de Courcy or by his wife, and were colonized from England.15 Apart from the Premonstratensians, the other new order introduced to the lordship of Ulster were the Fratres Cruciferi, when de Courcy founded the hospital of St John the Baptist, known as the ‘priory of the English’, at Downpatrick.16 John de Courcy came into conflict with the English king, and, following battles with Hugh de Lacy (the second son of the lord of Meath) along with failed negotiations in the early years of the thirteenth century, de Courcy was expelled from Ulster in 1205 and his lands were granted to de Lacy.17

12

Scott and Martin, Expugnatio hibernica, pp. 174–81.

13

T. E. McNeill, Carrickfergus Castle, County Antrim, Northern Ireland Archaeological Monographs, 1 (Belfast: HMSO, 1981), p. 42. 14

R . Fawcett and R. Oram, Dryburgh Abbey (Stroud: Tempus, 2005), pp. 12–14.

15

Benedictine houses were founded at Nendrum, Downpatrick, and St Andrew in Ards, Cistercian at Inch, and Grey and Augustinian at Toberglory and Muckamore. W. Reeves, Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Down, Connor, and Dromore, Consisting of a Taxation of those Dioceses, Compiled in the Year MCCCVI (Dublin: Hodges and Smith, 1847), pp. 92–93, 97–98,174–75; Gwynn and Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses: Ireland, pp. 105–08, 134, 170, 189. 16

Reeves, Ecclesiastical Antiquities, p. 229; Gwynn and Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses: Ireland, pp. 211–12. 17

For an account of these years, see, F. X. Martin, ‘John, Lord of Ireland, 1185–1216’, in A New History of Ireland, ed. by F. X. Martin and others, 9 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press/Oxford University Press, 1976–2011), II: Medieval Ireland 1169–1534, ed. by A. Cosgrove (1987), pp. 127–55 (pp. 135–36).

150

Insert Figure 4 (end of this file) broadside on this page

Figure 4. Carrickfergus Castle.

Miriam Clyne

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St Mary’s Abbey, Carrickfergus (Woodburn): A letter written by Reginald, bishop of Connor, to King Henry I provides evidence of the founder of Carrickfergus, the order to which it belonged, and its dedication.18 In the letter it is stated that the house of St Mary at Carrickfergus was endowed by John de Courcy for use by canons of the Premonstratensian Order. The letter does not provide evidence for the foundation date as it was not written until c. 1224, by which time the monastery was well established. White canons were evidently already in Carrickfergus by 1183, when William, prior of Carrickfergus (Cragfergus) was one of the witnesses to John de Courcy’s two additional charters to the Benedictines of Downpatrick.19 There are other arguments in favour of the early 1180s as the most likely period for the foundation. Where the dates can be established for John de Courcy’s other religious houses, they fall between 1179 for Nendrum and c. 1183 for St Andrew in Ards, and the only exception was Grey Abbey, founded in 1193 by his wife, Affreca.20 This was the period, in the years following the invasion of Ulster, when de Courcy was in the process of securing his lordship by gaining support from the Church and changing the clerical allegiance in order to stabilize his lordship. As patronage of new religious houses was an important feature of de Courcy’s colonizing policy, this would have been the most likely time to introduce the Premonstratensian Order to the caput of his lordship at Carrickfergus. The construction of the castle was the first task undertaken in 1177–78 (Fig. 4). It seems reasonable to assume that there may have been some time lapse after 1178 to allow for recruiting canons from Scotland to colonize the new foundation, and this would favour a date for their arrival in Ulster of c. 1180, although a date in the 1190s has also been suggested.21 The final quarter of the twelfth century was a period of prosperity for Dryburgh, when its popularity resulted in such a large number of novices joining the monastery that the existing buildings were no longer sufficient and the abbey was in a position to establish colonies. The Ulster houses were to be the Scottish abbey’s only filiations. The Premonstratensian monastery

18 The letter is published in full by Reeves, Ecclesiastical Antiquities, pp. 274–75. An edited summary in English appears in Calendar of Documents Relating to Ireland, Preserved in Her Majesty’s Public Record Office, London, 1171–1251, ed. by H. S. Sweetman (London: Longman, 1875), pp. 186–87, no. 1225. 19

Gwynn and Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses: Ireland, p. 204.

20

Reeves, Ecclesiastical Antiquities, p. 92; Gwynn and Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses: Ireland, pp. 107–08. 21

Fawcett and Oram, Dryburgh Abbey, p. 15.

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was the sole religious house founded by John de Courcy at Carrickfergus and the canons were an integral part of the town as they served the parish church of St Nicholas, the construction of which was also patronized by the Lord of Ulster.22 St Mary’s Abbey was situated on the coast, at the mouth of the Woodburn river, one kilometre west of Carrickfergus (Map 3).23 The monastery is referred to as Carrickfergus in documents prior to 1326, and in most cases thereafter as Woodburn.24 Use of different place names has led to confusion, with Carrickfergus and Woodburn being identified as two separate monasteries.25 In the late sixteenth-century rental for the Premonstratensian house on Lough Key, there is a reference to Carrickfergus, in which it is noted that this is the same place as Woodburn.26 This entry confirms that there was only one house for white canons and it was known as either Carrickfergus or Woodburn. John de Courcy allocated a site for the monastery on his demesne manor that was not within the medieval town of Carrickfergus, but was situated outside it. In the context of the order, the choice of a rural setting was determined by the ideals of Norbert of Xanten as recorded by his medieval hagiographers. It was Norbert’s wish not to ‘live in towns but rather in desolate, wild and lonely places’.27 The location of Woodburn was of sufficient distance from the town to allow it to be a haven of seclusion for conventual life, and yet it was convenient enough for the canons to serve the spiritual needs of the population in Carrickfergus. No evidence for a previous ecclesiastical association can be found for the site of the Premonstratensian abbey, unlike de Courcy’s other foundations at Downpatrick, Nendrum, and Inch.28

22

Reeves, Ecclesiastical Antiquities, pp. 274–75.

23

Architectural stone with keeled rolls, hollow and chamfer mouldings of late twelfth- or early thirteenth-century date recovered at Woodburn in the early twentieth century was brought to St Nicholas’s church in Carrickfergus: F. J. Bigger, ‘The Abbey of Holy Cross at Woodburn, near Carrig-Fergus’, Ulster Journal of Archaeology, 13 (1907), 174–81. 24

Reeves, Ecclesiastical Antiquities, p. 275; T. E. McNeill, ‘The Premonstratensian Houses of Carrickfergus, White Abbey and Woodburn’, Peritia, 2 (1983), 265–66. 25 P. Norberto Backmund, Monasticon Praemonstratense, id est historia circariarum atque canoniarum candidi at canonici ordinis praemonstratensis, 3 vols (Straubing: Attenkofer, 1949–56), II (1952), 147; Gwynn and Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses: Ireland, pp. 203–04, 207. 26

M. Clyne, ‘The Rental of Holy Trinity Abbey, Lough Cé’, in Medieval Lough Cé: History, Archaeology, and Landscape, ed. by T. Finan (Dublin: Four Courts, 2010), pp. 67–96 (pp. 86, 95, 96). 27 28

Antry and Neel, Norbert and Early Norbertine Spirituality, pp. 11, 138.

Reeves, Ecclesiastical Antiquities, pp. 92–93; Gwynn and Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses: Ireland, pp. 105–07, 134.

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It is clear from Bishop Reginald’s letter that John de Courcy donated land on his demesne manor to the canons.29 The extent and exact location of de Courcy’s endowment is not specified, but it refers to the home farm at the monastery. Besides this reference, no further indication of the Premonstratensian landholding is recorded in documentary sources dating to the monastic occupation, and valuation of the abbey’s temporalities was not included with other monasteries in Connor diocese in the papal taxations undertaken between 1302 and 1306.30 The main sources of information regarding the lands owned by Carrickfergus/Woodburn Abbey can be found in the inquisitions taken following the suppression of the house in 1540 or 1542. The abbot, Gillerath McCowragh, was seized of the monastery and a cartron 31 of land situated around it, and also other property (not specified).32 Dieux la Croisse (White Abbey): The second monastery for Premonstratensian canons founded in the lordship of Ulster is known as Dieux la Croisse, also situated in the diocese of Connor, according to a thirteenth-century catalogue preserved at the abbey of Ninove in Brabant.33 Dieux la Croisse can be equated with White Abbey, the name applied from the early seventeenth century.34 The dedication to the Holy Cross implies that it possessed a relic of the True Cross and if so the monastery would have been a pilgrimage centre. The Liber Sancte Marie de Dryburgh states that two daughter houses were founded not far from one another at Carrickfergus and Drum la Croisse.35 Dieux la Croisse was located one kilometre in from the coast and seven kilometres (4½ miles) south-west of the house at Carrickfergus (Map 3). The situation of Dieux la Croisse is comparable to its sister abbey in that it too was built close to, yet not within, an urban

29

Reeves, Ecclesiastical Antiquities, p. 274.

30

Reeves, Ecclesiastical Antiquities, p. 90.

31

A cartron was a division of land derived from Norman-French quarteron (quarter); cf. P. MacCotter, Medieval Ireland: Territorial, Political and Economic Divisions (Dublin: Four Courts, 2008), p. 54. 32

M. Archdall, Monasticon Hibernicum: or, An History of the Abbies, Priories, and Other Religious Houses in Ireland (Dublin: White, 1786), pp. 7, 781; Irish Patent Rolls of James I: Facsimile of the Irish Record Commission’s Calendar Prepared Prior to 1830 (Dublin: Stationery Office for the Irish Manuscripts, 1966), p. 121, no. XI.-25. 33

Niniventis II, in Backmund, Monasticon Praemonstratense, III, 392.

34

Irish Patent Rolls of James I, pp. 48–49, no. LXXXIX .-33.

35

Liber Sancte Marie de Dryburgh (Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club, 1847), p. lxxxvii.

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settlement, namely that of Coole, one kilometre to the south-west. Little is known of this rural borough other than that it was burned in the fourteenth century.36 The manor of Coole was in the possession of the lord of Ulster when it was not otherwise held by the Crown. Documentary sources recording the name of the founder and the foundation date for Dieux la Croisse are not preserved. A late twelfth-century date is indicated from the conditions in the mother house at Dryburgh, where there was a surplus of canons and financial conditions were conducive to establishing new colonies at this time.37 If the date is correct, it is likely that John de Courcy was the founder and patron of Dieux la Croisse as well as Carrickfergus. Irish documents relating to Dieux la Croisse are scarce. It is recorded in the registry of Muckamore Priory that ‘Johannes abbas de Deulacres’ was a witness to a grant made by Isaac, bishop of Connor, around 1257.38 In the ecclesiastical taxation of 1302–06, there is an error in that the superior is referred to as abbess instead of abbot.39 Catalogues of the order compiled in the thirteenth and first quarter of the fourteenth century list this abbey,40 while the latest reference to Dieux la Croisse can be found in the official catalogue compiled for the general chapter of 1320.41 After this period the abbey disappears from Irish sources. The religious community may have abandoned their monastery during the Bruce campaign in 1315–16, or this event possibly took place around the time when the conflagration destroyed the neighbouring borough of Coole. Following the Dissolution of the Monasteries, mention of the buildings occurs in the 1605–06 inquisition, which refers to ‘a ruinous house called White Abbey and a townland adjoining’.42 The home farm 36

G. H. Orpen, ‘The Earldom of Ulster’, Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 43 (1913), 30–46, 133–43 (p. 140). 37

Fawcett and Oram, Dryburgh Abbey, p. 15.

38

Backmund, Monasticon Praemonstratense, II, 135–36

39

Reeves, Ecclesiastical Antiquities, p. 90.

40

The manuscripts are preserved at the abbeys of Ninove, Tongerlo, Windberg, and Heiligenthal, and the lists of Irish houses are published in Backmund, Monasticon Praemonstratense, I, 17–18; III, 392, 433. 41

J. Le Paige, Bibliotheca Praemonstratensis ordinis, Instrumenta praemonstratensia, 3 (Averbode: Praemonstratensia, 1998; facsimile repr. of original publ., Paris, 1633), p. 334; Backmund, Monasticon Praemonstratense, III, 433. 42

Irish Patent Rolls of James I, pp. 48–49, no. LXXXIX .-33. Substantial remains of the church were upstanding until the nineteenth century and some vestiges were still in existence in the early twentieth century, Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland, ed. by A. Day and P. McWilliams, 39 vols

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of Dieux la Croisse probably equated to the modern townland of White Abbey. Evidence that the temporal estate included other landholdings has not survived. Connacht The Premonstratensian Order was introduced into the western province of Connacht around the beginning of the thirteenth century and the houses were founded independently from those in Ulster. White canons arrived during a particularly turbulent period in Connacht when the Gaelic-Irish king and lords battled amongst themselves for supremacy, internecine wars were being fought, and the constant threat of an Anglo-Norman invasion was looming. Moreover, the Church had not yet stabilized from the innovative changes of the twelfth century and reform was continuing. It was into this backdrop that colonies of canons were sent from Prémontré. The catalogue for the general chapter of 1320 lists two daughter houses — at Tuam and Lough Key.43 Holy Trinity Abbey, Tuam: Holy Trinity Abbey at Tuam (Map 3) was the first house founded in Connacht and the details of its beginnings are ambiguous in the published literature. A letter, concerning Isaac, a canon from Holy Trinity, written by Gervase, the abbot-general, is extremely important as it can be dated to the second decade of the thirteenth century when the house at Tuam was already established.44 It is addressed to W., whom Carolus Ludovicus Hugo identified as Walter who was Abbot of Vicoigne in Flanders from 1211. Abbot Gervase went on to become Bishop of Séez (in Normandy) in 1220, having been Abbot of Prémontré from 1209. The letter, therefore, provides a terminus ante quem of 1211–20, but it is not possible to determine from this the exact foundation date for Holy Trinity, Tuam. A broad date range from the end of the twelfth century or the first two decades of the thirteenth century would be feasible.

(Dublin: Institute of Irish Studies in association with the Royal Irish Academy, 1990–97), II (1990), 65–66. An eighteenth-century drawing of the ruined church has been published in G. Benn, The History of the Town of Belfast (Belfast: Mackay Junior, 1823), p. 264. 43 44

Le Paige, Bibliotheca, p. 334; Backmund, Monasticon Praemonstratense, III, 433.

‘Epistola LXIII de Gervase’ was first published in C. L. Hugo, Sacrae antiquitatis monumenta historica, dogmatica, diplomatica, 2 vols (Stivagii (Étival): Heller, 1725–31), I, 67–68. A translation is provided in Gwynn and Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses: Ireland, p. 206.

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Tuam had become the most important ecclesiastical centre in Connacht after 1152, when it was elevated to metropolitan status at the synod of Kells-Mellifont.45 The twelfth century saw the undisputed supremacy of the Ó Conchobair (O’Conor) dynasty of Síl Muiredaig in Connacht.46 During the reign of Ruaidhrí (1156–98), Tuam became the political as well as the ecclesiastical centre for the kingship when he built a stronghold there in 1164, described in the Annals of Tigernach as a ‘wonderful castle’.47 According to the obit books of Prémontré and Floreffe Abbey, the founder of Holy Trinity in Tuam was King Domnall, though it would appear that this name was recorded in error, as there was no Domnall Ó Conchobair who was king.48 Nevertheless, the obit books are likely to be correct in identifying the foundation of Holy Trinity with an Ó Conchobair king, the most appropriate contender being Cathal Crobderg who ruled from 1198 until 1224. Tuam would have continued as the Ó Conchobair political base for the southern part of the territory during Cathal’s kingship, although the Gaelic annals do not state this. The King was heavily involved in the ongoing Church reform in Connacht at both diocesan and parish levels. In 1201 Pope Innocent III granted Cathal Crobderg the right to reject bishops elected in Connacht, and the following year the King’s brother-in-law, Felix Ó Ruadáin (O’Ruane), became archbishop of Tuam, thereby breaking the hereditary succession of the Ó Dubhaig (O’Duffy) family.49 It can be suggested that Premonstratensian canons were introduced to Connacht under the auspices of the combined reforming measures of the king and the archbishop. Felix Ó Ruadáin as archbishop was in regular communication with Rome.50 On his journey to and from Rome, he would have travelled overland 45

The synod, and its significance, is discussed in A. Gwynn, ‘The Centenary of the Synod of Kells’, Irish Ecclesiastical Record, 77 (1952), 161–76, 250–64. 46

For a detailed account of the Ó Conchobair dynasty, see C. O. O’Conor Don, The O’Conors of Connaught: An Historical Memoir (Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, 1891). 47

The Annals of Tigernach (hereafter ATig), 2 vols (Felinfach: Llanerch, 1993), II, 195.

48

Ed. by J. Evers, ‘L’Obituaire de l’Abbaye de Prémontré (XIIe s. — MS 9 de Soissons) — 2m e partie’, Analecta Praemonstratensia, 1 (1925), viii–156 (p. 84). R. Van Waefelghem, Répertoire des sources imprimées et manuscrites relatives à l’histoire et à la liturgie des monastères de l’Ordre de Prémontré (Brussels: Dewit, 1930), p. 265. 49 K. Simms, ‘Frontiers in the Irish Church — Regional and Cultural’, in Colony and Frontier in Medieval Ireland, ed. by T. B. Barry, R. Frame, and K. Simms (London: Hambledon, 1995), pp. 177–200 (pp. 194–95). 50

B. W. O’Dwyer, ‘The Annals of Connacht and Loch Cé and the Monasteries of Boyle and Holy Trinity’, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 72c (1972), 83–101 (p. 98).

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through France, probably taking the same route as earlier prelates, such as Malachy, who stayed at Clairvaux and Arrouaise.51 Situated between these monasteries were Prémontré and the town of Laon with the important abbey of St Martin; they were probably on the itinerary of Gaelic churchmen. King Cathal Crobderg appears to have been in tune with the current trends in European ecclesiastical and political matters,52 which indicates that he would have been sympathetic to the introduction of a new French religious order into Connacht. There is good reason to believe that the archbishop donated the site to the Premonstratensians, as the abbey was located only one hundred metres from the cathedral.53 This area of Tuam had become diocesan property following the synod of Kells-Mellifont in 1152, when the site for the cathedral was acquired. According to inquisitions of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the abbey buildings were sited on a small parcel of land (½ acre was considered profitable) and the remainder of the temporal estate amounted to two quarters.54 The white canons did not own a farm of land adjacent to the abbey and the two quarters, although the precise location cannot be identified, were not too far distant from Tuam and were within Ó Conchobair territory.55 Holy Trinity Abbey, Lough Key: Holy Trinity Abbey on an island in Lough Key is the best preserved monastery of the order in Ireland where the thirteenth-century 51

Gwynn and Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses: Ireland, pp. 148–49. On his stay in Arrouaise see vol. I of L. Milis, L’Ordre des chanoines réguliers d’Arrouaise: Son histoire et son organisation, de la fondation de l’abbaye-mère (vers 1090) à la fin des chapitres annuels (1471), 2 vols (Brugge: De Tempel, 1969). 52

See H. Perros, ‘Crossing the Shannon Frontier: Connacht and the Anglo-Normans 1170–1224’, in Colony and Frontier in Medieval Ireland, ed. by T. B. Barry, R. Frame, and K. Simms (London: Hambledon, 1995), pp. 117–38 (pp. 133, 136–38); M. Ní Mhaonaigh, ‘Pagans and Holy Men: Literary Manifestations of Twelfth-Century Reform’, in Ireland and Europe in the Twelfth Century, ed. by Bracken and Ó Riain-Raedel, pp. 143–61 (pp. 151–55). 53 The ruins of Holy Trinity Abbey were in existence until the end of the eighteenth century and an engraving of the abbey is published in F. Grose, The Antiquities of Ireland, 2 vols (London: Hooper, 1791–97), I, pl. 37. 54 The Irish Fiants of the Tudor Sovereigns: During the Reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Philip and Mary, and Elizabeth I, 4 vols (Dublin: Burke, 1994), II, 470, no. 3419; Irish Patent Rolls of James I, p. 184, no. LX .-33; Archdall, Monasticon Hibernicum, p. 298. 55

The lands were in the modern barony of Dunmore in which Tuam is situated, The Compossicion Booke of Conought, transcribed by A. M. Freemen (Dublin: Irish Manuscripts Commission, 1936), p. 65.

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structures comprise the church and east range and in the fifteenth century, the structure to the north of the church was rebuilt (Maps 3 and 4; Fig. 5).56 The house for canons was in Moylurg, which throughout the monastic occupation was ruled by Mac Diarmada (Mac Dermot), whose fortress Carraic Loch Cé, or the Rock of Lough Key, was also located on the lake. The founder of Lough Key, known from the Irish annals, was Clarus Mac Mailin, a local man from the area of Lough Key, who was archdeacon of Elphin, the diocese in which the monastery was situated.57 The foundation date of Holy Trinity Lough Key is not recorded, but c. 1220 would seem to be a reasonable assumption, as the monastery must have been built, or at least the main buildings must have been habitable, by 1229. Events that had an effect on Holy Trinity in this year were associated with the ‘conspiracy of Mellifont’ regarding the Cistercian Order and its dissident Gaelic houses, including the monastery at Boyle, which is approximately three kilometres from Lough Key.58 Considerable evidence can be gleaned to indicate that monks from Boyle left the Cistercian Order and converted to Premonstratensian canons on joining the community at Holy Trinity.59 The fragmentary annals in London, British Library (BL), MS Cotton Titus A. xxv (formerly known as the ‘Annals of Boyle’) were written at the Cistercian abbey until 1228 and the manuscript was compiled thereafter on Lough Key, with references to Holy Trinity written from the viewpoint of the canons occurring most years.60 The bishop of Elphin, Dionysius Ó Mórda (O’Moore), attended the Lateran in 1229 as part of the delegation to

56

M. Clyne, ‘Archaeological Excavations at Holy Trinity Abbey, Lough Key, Co. Roscommon’, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 105c (2005), 23–98. 57

Annála Connacht: The Annals of Connacht (AD 1224–1544), ed. by A. Martin Freeman (hereafter AConn) (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1944; repr. 1996), pp. 104–05 (2); The Annals of Loch Cé: A Chronicle of Irish Affairs from AD 1014– AD 1590, ed. by William. M. Hennessy (hereafter ALC), 2 vols (London: Longman, 1871), I, 395–97; A. Martin Freeman (ed. and trans.), ‘The Annals in Cotton M S Titus A. XXV’ (hereafter CottA), Revue Celtique, 41 (1924), 301–30; 42 (1925), 283–305; 43 (1926), 358–84; 44 (1927), 336–61 (42, p. 304 (401)). O’Dwyer, ‘The Annals of Loch Cé’, p. 98. 58

For the background to the ‘conspiracy of Mellifont’, see, for example, J. Watt, The Church in Medieval Ireland, pp. 53–59; Stalley, The Cistercian Monasteries, pp. 17–20. 59

Backmund, Monasticon Praemonstratense, II, 129; O’Dwyer, ‘The Annals of Connacht and Loch Cé’, pp. 87–89. 60

CottA, 44, pp. 339–44.

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Map 4. The temporal estate of Holy Trinity Abbey, Lough Key.

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160

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Figure 5. Holy Trinity Abbey, Lough Key from the south-east.

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protest about the decisions made by Stephen of Lexington, who was sent to Ireland as arbitrator.61 On his return, Ó Mórda resigned his office and retired to Holy Trinity where he spent the final two years of his life ‘in devotion to God and to Clarus Mac Mailin, archdeacon of Elphin, and the order of canons in that place’.62 Lough Key was the most important and the wealthiest house for white canons in Ireland. An abstract from the rental of the abbey, which includes a list of the temporalities, has survived.63 The original rental was written by Abbot Cornelius McGyllochcran whose tenure appears to have been within the final forty years of occupation before the monastery was abandoned in 1606–07. Crown surveys of the possessions of Holy Trinity undertaken in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries by and large concur with the list of properties recorded in the rental. Thirteen inherited landholdings belonged to the abbey, twelve of which were within the diocese of Elphin (Map 4). The endowment of the home farm at Kilbryan on the southern shore of Lough Key is chronicled in the annals, and the benefactor was Donnchad Mac Diarmada, who was lord of Moylurg in 1237.64 Two other properties in Moylurg, at Aghnasurn and Clerragh, were also donated by the Mac Diarmada dynasty (Map 4). The canons owned five properties in the lordship of Tirerrill (Map 4). It is not clear who held the territory in the thirteenth century, although the evidence contained in the annals indicates that it was in Mac Diarmada control.65 Clarus Mac Mailin intended to establish a monastery dependent on Lough Key at Athmoy in 1232, but the formation of a conventual house here was not

61

For the letters written by Abbot Stephen, see Stephen of Lexington: Letters from Ireland 1228–1229, trans. by B. W. O’Dwyer (Kalamazoo: Cistercian, 1982). 62

AConn, pp. 40–41 (9); ALC, I, 296–97, 308–09; CottA, 42, p. 297 (390), p. 298 (392); 43, p. 378 (392). 63 The rental abstract, Coolavin MS 142, is preserved at Coolavin House, Co. Sligo. It is published in Clyne, ‘The Rental of Holy Trinity Abbey’. 64

‘Drumann-iarthar, and from Lathach-Cille-Braein to the lake, both wood and bog, and plain, was given by Donnchadh, son of Muirchertach, to the community of the Trinity on LochCé, and to Clarus Mac Mailin, in the time of his reign and sovereignty; but nevertheless, the duration of his reign was not long, for he was only a month in the lordship, and Conchobhar himself assumed the sovereignty again’: ALC, I, 346–47. AConn, pp. 68–69 (15). 65

AConn, pp. 66–67 (2); Annála Ríoghachta Eireann: Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland by the Four Masters from the Earliest Period to the Year 1616, ed. by John O’Donovan (hereafter AFM), 7 vols (Dublin: Hodges and Smith, 1848–51; repr. Blackrock: Burke, 1990), III, 292–93.

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successful.66 Instead, it would appear that Athmoy was reduced to the status of a rural cell with a chapel and accommodation for a small number of canons who managed the surrounding land. By the end of the thirteenth century Tirerrill had become part of the lordship of Mac Donnchaidh (Mac Donagh) formed by a branch of the Mac Diarmada.67 Ummeryroe was granted by Hugh Mac Donnchaidh with a pro anima request.68 In 1233 Clarus Mac Mailin built another church at Kilross in north Tirerrill, which was firstly the focus for a rural cell and afterwards a parish church (Map 4).69 Lands administered from the cell included a separate property centred on an island, Innisheskillegan, in Lough Gill in Carbury (Map 4), and was probably an endowment from Ó Conchobair, as in the first half of the thirteenth century the territory was held by a branch of the dynasty descended from Briain Luigneach, brother of Ruaidhrí and Cathal Crobderg, kings of Connacht.70 According to the annals, Lassairfhina, daughter of Cathal Crobderg, granted part of her dowry at Rosbyrne in Carbury to Clarus Mac Mailin and the community of canons on Trinity Island in 1239.71 However, the rental of Holy Trinity Abbey states that this is not the case and instead alleges that the patron was the son of Domnall Ó Conchobair.72 This Domnall was most likely the Lord of Carbury who died in 1307 and was ancestor of the Ó Conchobair Shligigh (O’Conor Sligo) dynasty. Rosbyrne, its location identified from the midseventeenth-century Down survey map,73 adjoined another of the abbey’s properties at Kilmacowen (Map 4). Holy Trinity Abbey had a grange in Ó Birn (O’Beirne/O’Byrne) territory of Tireowne, situated to the south-east of Lough Key. A third rural cell, at Killeentrynode (Map 4), the property most distant from the monastery in Killala

66

CottA, 42, p. 298 (393), p. 304 (401); ALC, I, 396–97; Backmund, Monasticon Praemonstratense, II, 599. 67

AConn, pp. 66–67 (2); AFM, III, 292–93; M. O’Dowd, Power, Politics and Land: Early Modern Sligo 1568–1688 (Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, 1991), pp. 15–16. 68

Clyne, ‘The Rental of Holy Trinity Abbey’, pp. 72–72, 94–95.

69

ALC, I, 396–97.

70

O’Conor, The O’Conors, p. 137; D. Mac Dermot, Mac Dermot of Moylurg: The Story of a Connacht Family (Manorhamilton: Drumlin, 1996), pp. 44, 387. 71

AConn, pp. 70–71 (7); ALC, I, 350–51.

72

Clyne, ‘The Rental of Holy Trinity Abbey’, pp. 73, 75, 94–95.

73

W. Petty, Hiberniae delineato: Atlas of Ireland 1685 (Newcastle upon Tyne: Graham, 1968; facsimile repr. of original publ., London, 1685).

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diocese (Map 4), was in Tirawley, which was in the lordship of Ó Dubhda (O’Dowd) until the territory was controlled by either the Barretts or the Burkes in the late fourteenth century.74 Killeentrynode is not listed as one of Clarus Mac Mailin’s foundations in his death eulogy, although the dedication to the Holy Trinity and the fact that no new cells were established after he died in 1251 would suggest that it was built by the archdeacon. Regarding political matters, Clarus Mac Mailin was adroit in playing a diplomatic role and he endeavoured to promote the co-existence of the two cultures. He managed to gain the respect and support of the Anglo-Normans while at the same time maintaining good relations with the important Gaelic-Irish families of Connacht. The archdeacon founded an establishment at the AngloNorman town and royal stronghold at Rindown situated on a strategic peninsula in Lough Ree on the River Shannon (Fig. 6). Clarus Mac Mailin’s foundation, dedicated to the Holy Trinity, is described as a church in his obituary.75 The site was located within the town and would seem to have been erected to serve the Anglo-Norman settlers and the military garrison stationed at the castle. It is not known how long canons from Lough Key continued to serve in the church at Rindown, but its fortunes, or misfortunes, would have been bound up with those of the castle and settlement which were abandoned by the mid-fourteenth century.76 Ballineual: Catalogues of the Premonstratensian Order list a house in Ireland named Ballineual, in the archdiocese of Armagh, as a daughter of Prémontré.77 74

J. O’Donovan, The Genealogies, Tribes, and Customs of Hy-Fiachrach, Commonly Called O’Dowda’s Country (Dublin: Archaeological Society, 1844; repr. Kansas City: Irish Genealogical Foundation, 1993), pp. 325–39, 351–61; N. Ó Muraíle, ‘Dubhaltach Mac Fhirbhisigh and County Mayo’, Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society, 58 (2006), 1–21 (pp, 13–16). 75

ALC, I, 396–97; AConn, pp. 104–05 (2); CottA, 42, p. 304 (401). Archdall, Monasticon Hibernicum, p. 614, notes that Clarus Mac Mailin founded the church at Deryndoyne ‘in honour of the Trinity’ and this form of the place name is also given in The Annals of Clonmacnoise, Being Annals of Ireland from the Earliest Period to AD 1408, Translated into English, AD 1627, by Conell Mageoghagan, ed. by D. Murphy (hereafter AClon) (Dublin: Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 1896; repr. Felinfach: Llanerch, 1993), p. 241. 76

The final documentary record is for 1342–43 when the castle was captured by the GaelicIrish, see Statutes and Ordinances and Acts of Parliament of Ireland, King John to Henry V, ed. by H. F. Berry (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1907), p. 335. 77

The manuscripts are preserved in various abbeys on the continent, at Tongerloo, Ninove, Schäftlarn, Windberg, and Heiligenthal: Backmund, Monasticon Praemonstratense, I, 16–18, 23; III, 373, 415, and 433.

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Figure 6. Rindown: Castle and Premonstratensian church.

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Ballineual was already founded before the earliest manuscripts were compiled, which are those preserved at the abbey of Ninove in Brabant and at Schäftlarn in Bavaria, where the entries were listed between 1210 and 1280.78 The latest original catalogue is that compiled for the general chapter of 1320.79 Significantly, Irish documentary evidence for a Premonstratensian monastery named Ballineual is not available. Sir James Ware, writing in the mid-seventeenth century, confused the foundation with the priory of Ballymore, also known as Loughsewdy or Plary, which was in fact a house for Augustinian canons, and there was also a Cistercian nunnery approximately one kilometre away.80 The place name, derived from Baile na bhFál (town of the fence/enclosure), can be found in two modern townland names in the archdiocese of Armagh: Ballynawall in Raphoe diocese and Ballynavally in Down diocese.81 Archaeological evidence for ecclesiastical remains is not recorded for either townland.

Expansion of the Order Conventual Houses The Premonstratensian Order expanded in Ireland with the foundation of three new conventual houses, which were dependent on Gaelic-Irish monasteries in Connacht. The Anglo-Norman abbeys at Carrickfergus and Dieux la Croisse in Ulster were not motivated, or more likely did not have sufficient resources, to send out canons to establish filiations. After John de Courcy was expelled in 1205, his patronage and support were no longer available and the canons were cast adrift. St Mary’s at Carrickfergus did not prosper, and Bishop Reginald’s letter states that the abbey was so impoverished in 1224 that it could barely support three canons.82

78

Backmund, Monasticon Praemonstratense, I, 16–17.

79

Le Paige, Bibliotheca, p. 334; Backmund, Monasticon Praemonstratense, III, 433.

80

J. Ware, De Hibernia, et antiquitatibus ejus, disquisitiones (London: Crook and Heath, 1654), p. 169; Gwynn and Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses: Ireland, pp. 160, 313; Hall, Women and the Church, p. 84. 81

Ballynawall and Drum, Co. Donegal and Ballynavally, Co. Down, General Alphabetical Index of the Townlands and Towns, Parishes, and Baronies of Ireland (Dublin: HMSO, 1861), p. 116. Advice on place-name identification from Nollaig Ó Muraíle, Árus na Gaeilge, National University of Ireland, Galway, is gratefully acknowledged. 82

Reeves, Ecclesiastical Antiquities, pp. 274–75.

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St John’s Abbey, Annaghdown: Annaghdown, situated on the eastern shore of Lough Corrib (Fig. 7), was in the lordship of Ó Flaithbheartaig (O’Flaherty) of Iarchonnacht, which extended from the Atlantic seaboard eastwards to adjoin the territory of Ó Conchobair. Annaghdown, a suffragan see of Tuam, was contiguous with Ó Flaithbheartaig territory and its allegiance was to this lordship. The cathedral was within the ecclesiastical settlement at Annaghdown, where the monastery of St Mary for Augustinian canons had been built c. 1140 (Fig. 7), and there was also a house for Arrouaisian canonesses, confirmed by the pope in 1195.83 Annaghdown was similar to the larger and historically more important Tuam, which the Ó Conchobair kings made their ecclesiastical centre; it became the metropolitan seat. The Ó Flaithbheartaig lords, on the other hand, made Annaghdown the ecclesiastical focus and episcopal seat of Iarchonnacht. The house for white canons dedicated to St John the Baptist and referred to in papal mandates as Cella Parva84 was 21 kilometres (13 miles) from the mother house at Tuam (Map 3; Fig. 7). It was already in existence before 1226, when it was mentioned in a papal document, and confirmation of the existence of the monastery around this time is provided by papal commissions from 1227–38 addressed to the Abbot Tomás Ó Meallaig.85 The name of the founder of St John’s is not recorded, but a date between 1216 and 1224, whilst Muirchertach Ó Flaithbheartaig was bishop of Annaghdown, is likely. It can be suggested that this prelate was the founder of the house, and a date during his tenure would be in accordance with the document of 1226, referred to above, when the monastery was already operating. The location of the Premonstratensian house at an episcopal seat on diocesan property indicates that the Bishop must have had a hand in granting the site. In 1223, the house for canonesses became a dependency of Kilcreevanty and the nuns appear to have been transferred to a new convent at Inishmaine shortly afterwards.86 This move would have provided a vacant monastery for the Premonstratensians with a foundation date of around 1223,

83

Ware, De Hibernia, pp. 216–17.

84

Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers Relating to Great Britain and Ireland: Papal Letters, ed. by W. H. Bliss and others (hereafter CPL), 20 vols to date (London: HMSO, 1893–1960; Dublin: Stationery Office, 1978–), VII (1906), 285; VIII (1909), 620; IX (1912), 28, 513. 85

Pontificia hibernica: Medieval Papal Chancery Documents Concerning Ireland, 640–1261, ed. by M. P. Sheehy, 2 vols (Dublin: Gill, 1962–65), II, 15–16, no. 182, pp. 76–77, no. 237. 86

Hall, Women and the Church, pp. 77, 78.

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Figure 7. Annaghdown.

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which would fit with the documentary evidence that it was operating in 1226, as there would have been no delay whilst new buildings had to be constructed.87 St John’s owned a small parcel of land at Annaghdown, of which three acres were considered profitable.88 The possessions are not mentioned as those of St John’s in the late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century surveys following its suppression. Rather, the lands belonging to the two monasteries at Annaghdown, the Augustinian and the Premonstratensian, were merged together in landholding records as the ‘abbey of Annaghdown’ from 1570 onwards.89 There is an earlier inquisition, however, where the site and the lands belonging to ‘S. Augustine of Anaghdwyn’ are listed.90 Additional properties recorded in later surveys indicate that the white canons’ temporal estate included half of Spiddle on the northern shore of Galway Bay and ‘seven quarters of stony and infertile land’ in Connemara, all of which were in Ó Flaithbheartaig territory of Iarchonnacht.91 St Mary’s Priory, Killamanagh: Thirteenth-century documents are not available for the Premonstratensian priory at Killamanagh and a papal letter of 1399 is the earliest record, where it is stated that St Mary’s was a dependency of St John the Baptist de Cella Parva in Annaghdown.92 Killamanagh Priory was in the diocese of Annaghdown and it was only 14 kilometres (9 miles) to the north-east of the mother house (Map 3).93 The priory was constructed at a former early medieval ecclesiastical site and the Premonstratensian house was founded on land that was annexed to the diocese in 1210.94 The name of the founder and the date of establishment of St Mary’s Priory are not recorded. This was most likely Abbot

87

St John’s Abbey has an upstanding fifteenth-century nave and chancel church, and the outline of the cloister can be traced on the ground (Fig. 7). 88

Books of Survey and Distribution, being Abstracts of Various Surveys and Instruments of Title, 1636–1703, ed. by R . C. Simington, 4 vols (Dublin: Stationery Office for the Irish Manuscripts Commission, 1949–67), III (1962), 108. 89

K. Nicholls, ‘A List of the Monasteries in Connacht 1577’, Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society, 33 (1972–73), 28–43 (p. 33, n. 45). 90

Irish Fiants, II, 130, no. 1061.

91

Irish Fiants, II, 207–08, no. 1581, 477, no. 3466; Patent Rolls of James I, p. 179, no. II.-3. 92

III,

236, no. 5865, 272, no. 6016; Irish

CPL, V (1904), 268.

93

The existing church was rebuilt in the fifteenth century incorporating the fabric of the thirteenth-century structure. 94

AClon, p. 224.

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Tomás Ó Meallaig, who was the superior of the mother house at Annaghdown from c. 1227 (see above) as his family, the Ó Meallaig’s, vassels of Ó Flaithbheartaig, were from Killamanagh.95 Surveys of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are in agreement that the land belonging to St Mary’s consisted of the home farm where the priory is situated and lands nearby as well as rights to commonage with pasture.96 Holy Trinity Priory, Lough Oughter: The priory at Lough Oughter (Map 3), dedicated to the Holy Trinity, was situated on a lake island in the diocese of Bréifne (Kilmore), under the archiepiscopal jurisdiction of Armagh. Lough Oughter was in the Gaelic territory of Uí Briúin Bréifne, within the lordship of Ó Raghallaig (O’Reilly). Although it was located east of the River Shannon, in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries this territory was still regarded as within the province of Connacht.97 The founder, the patron, and the date of Lough Oughter, a daughter house of Lough Key, are chronicled in the Irish annals. In 1237 the construction of the monastery for canons was begun by Clarus Mac Mailin with the consent of Cathal Ó Raghallaig, lord of eastern Bréifne.98 It appears that there was a time span of thirteen years from the commencement to completion of habitable buildings, because the next entry in the annals referring to Lough Oughter was in 1250, when, shortly before Christmas, white canons were transferred there from Lough Key.99 The site for the priory had been ecclesiastical before the Premonstratensians took it over, probably by grant from the diocese of Bréifne. Lough Oughter was similar to Lough Key in that it too was the focus of settlement for the lordship: Cathal Ó Raghallaig had his residential stronghold on the island of Eo-Inis on

95 See R. O’Flaherty, A Chronological Description of West or h-Iar Connaught, Written AD 1684, ed. by James Hardiman (Dublin: Irish Archaeological Society, 1846), pp. 368, 370, for a transcription of the manuscripts Dublin, Trinity College Library, MS H. 2. 17, dated 1098, containing a description of Uí Briúin Seóla with an account of the vassals of Ó Flaithbheartaig and their lands. 96

Irish Patent Rolls of James I, p. 180, no. II.-3; The Compossicion Booke, pp. 34, 48; Simington, Books of Survey, II, 101–02. 97

ALC, I, 233–35; Sweetman, Calendar 1171–1251, pp. 180, no. 1184, 181, no. 1195.

98

AConn, pp. 66–67 (9); AFM, III, 292–93; CottA, 42, p. 303 (399); 43, p. 383 (399).

99

AConn, pp. 102–03 (11); ALC, I, 394–95. Upstanding masonry in Holy Trinity Church is largely fifteenth and sixteenth century, and domestic buildings, dating to the monastic occupation, are not preserved above ground.

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Lough Oughter in 1231 and later at Clough Oughter Castle.100 The Annals of Loch Cé note that Cathal Ó Raghallaig granted Trinity Island in puram et perpetuam elemosinam in honour of the Holy Trinity.101 In addition, the priory owned a substantial landholding on the mainland adjacent to the island.102 Hospitals The Premonstratensian Order was noted for its hospitals or hospices, where the poor, sick, and elderly were provided for and travellers were given accommodation and food. For white canons, divestiture was more than renouncing all worldly possessions: it was a willingness to share with those in need, and it was a work of charity and mercy.103 Besides providing hospitality in a guesthouse and tending to the sick in an infirmary at the monastery, there were also hospitals that were separate institutions, which were mainly founded in urban locations. Some of the more famous examples included Kaiserslautern in Franconia, Hagenau in Alsace, hôpital de la Trinité in Paris, and the Heilige Geesthuis hospital in Delft.104 St Mary’s on the coast at Galway (Map 3), a dependent hospice of Holy Trinity Abbey, Tuam, was established in 1235 at a chapel founded by the Gaelic sept, Ó hAllmhuráin (O’Halloran), who controlled the territory.105 The site was at a strategic ford on the western bank at the mouth of the River Corrib, and it was not until after the hospice was established that the Anglo-Norman town of Galway developed on the opposite bank of the river.106 Following a charter in 1270, the town was walled and St Mary’s was henceforth in a suburb, where a small unenclosed settlement grew up around it. It is likely that St Mary’s was firstly a hospice where canons from Tuam stayed when they came to the town of

100

ALC, I, 306–07; C. Manning, ‘Clough Oughter Castle, Cavan’, Breifne, 8 (1989–90), 20–61.

101

AConn, pp. 102–03 (11); ALC, I, 394–95.

102

Irish Fiants, II, 224, no. 1681; Irish Patent Rolls of James I, p. 385, no. XXXII.-25.

103

Ardura, The Order of Prémontré, p. 31.

104

C. L. Hugo, Sacri et canonici ordinis Praemonstratensis annales, Instrumenta praemonstratensia, 4, 2 vols (Averbode: Praemonstratensia, 1999; facsimile repr. of original publ., Nancy, 1734–36), II, 983–96; Backmund, Monasticon Praemonstratense, I, 99, 103, 520–21. 105

O’Flaherty, West or h-Iar Connaught, pp. 253–61; Backmund, Monasticon Praemonstratense, 64.

II, 150, note 106

P. Walsh, Discover Galway (Dublin: O’Brien, 2001), pp. 11–12.

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Galway,107 and that later on it became a guesthouse for travellers on the boats docking at the port. The chapel may also have served the community in the suburb, which was largely, if not entirely, Gaelic and whose economy was based on the sea.108 It would seem that the hospice had been reduced to the status of a chapel when it was handed over to the Dominicans in 1488 and a new friary was constructed.109 Following the de Burgh conquest of Connacht in 1235, Maurice fitzGerald was granted the manor of Sligo, where he built one of his strongholds and commenced the development of the town (Map 3).110 Around the same time, Clarus Mac Mailin intended to build another Premonstratensian foundation at Sligo, dependent on Lough Key. In 1242, he received the site for the ‘spital house of the Trinity’ from Maurice fitzGerald, and by 1245 construction work was underway.111 At this time Sligo Castle was being built by fitzGerald, and Feilimid Ó Conchobair, king of Connacht, who had to bear the cost of this project, was instructed to take the stones and lime from the hospital. 112 The archdeacon envisaged a Premonstratensian hospital, but his efforts were thwarted in this endeavour and the plan abandoned.

Conclusion It can be established that the Premonstratensian Order founded a maximum of eight conventual houses and two hospitals in Ireland between c. 1180 and 1242 (Map 3). All the monasteries were for communities of canons and there were no convents for canonesses, although nunneries were an important feature of the order in continental Europe.113 The dates of Irish foundations could explain why 107

Backmund, Monasticon Praemonstratense, II, 150.

108

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it is known that boatbuilders and fishermen lived in the suburb, and this tradition continued into the nineteenth century, when it became the distinct village of the Claddagh, Walsh, Discover Galway, pp. 96–99. 109

CPL, XII, 93–94.

110

J. Lydon, ‘The Expansion and Consolidation of the Colony, 1215–54’, in A New History of Ireland, II: Medieval Ireland 1169–1534, ed. by Cosgrove, pp. 156–78 (p. 165). 111

AConn, pp. 76–77 (9), 84–85 (3).

112

AConn, pp. 84–85 (3).

113

A. Erens, ‘Les Soeurs dans l’Ordre de Prémontré’, Analecta Praemonstratensia, 5 (1929), 5–26. B. Krings, ‘Les Relations de l’abbé avec ses couvents de femmes’, in Abbatiat et abbés dans

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there are no women’s houses as they are later than the resolution of c. 1174 which specifies that nuns would no longer be accepted into the order.114 In Ireland white canons were introduced into two regions independently of one another. There were two monasteries in Anglo-Norman Ulster, at Carrickfergus/Woodburn and at Dieux la Croisse/White Abbey (Map 3), which were affiliated to the Scottish abbey of Dryburgh. Five houses, all of which were Gaelic-Irish, were founded in Connacht, where the order was initiated by colonization with French canons from Prémontré to Tuam and Lough Key (Map 3; Fig. 5). From these abbeys, three other monasteries were founded — at Annaghdown (Fig. 7), Killamanagh, and Lough Oughter. Another monastery, known in Premonstratensian documents as Ballineual, a daughter of Prémontré, is also recorded, though its location is no longer identifiable, other than that it was in the ecclesiastical province of Armagh. The order was introduced into Ulster and Connacht, where cultures, secular politics, and ecclesiastical loyalties were distinct. There were also different reasons for foundations and patronage. Political motives were responsible in Ulster where the white canons were part of Anglo-Norman conquest and settlement, and John de Courcy was in effect taking control of the Church as well as the territory of Ulster. It is probably of significance that the Premonstratensian Order had no previous association with the Irish Church and this may have been the reason why de Courcy settled them on his demesne manor, where he granted the site and home farm for the first abbey close to his caput at Carrickfergus. In Connacht, the order settled and expanded as part of the continuing process of Church reform. Success was achieved through the efforts of ecclesiastical founders, with the support and patronage especially of the Ó Conchobair king and the Mac Diarmada, Ó Flaithbheartaig, and Ó Raghallaig lords. Monasteries were sited close to secular strongholds, the centres of Gaelic settlement. The white canons were closely linked to the metropolitan see at Tuam and to the dioceses of Elphin and Annaghdown. There is one figure that looms larger than any other in promoting the order, and that is Clarus Mac Mailin, the archdeacon of Elphin diocese. In fact, expansion in north Connacht was due mainly to the dedication of this senior churchman, and after his death in 1251 there were no more new foundations.

l’ordre de Prémontré, ed. by D.-M. Dauzet and M. Plouvier, Bibliotheca Victorina, 17 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), pp. 129–44. 114

P. F. Lefèvre, Les Statuts de Prémontré: Réformés sur les ordres de Grégoire IX et d’Innocent IV au XIIIe siècle (Leuven: Bureaux de la Revue Bibliothèque de l’Université, 1946), pp. 114–15.

T HE C HAPTER O FFICE IN THE G ILBERTINE O RDER AND THE R ULE OF S T A UGUSTINE Janet T. Sorrentino

T

he purpose of this chapter is to examine the presence of the Rule of St Augustine in the chapter office of the order of Sempringham (Gilbertine Order) and thereby refine our understanding of the canonical identity within the Gilbertine Order and within the larger monastic revival of the twelfth century. The chapter office within a religious order played a special role in solidifying the community’s sense of identity, and an important part of the process included the reading of an order’s rule. The incipits of the Rule of St Augustine appearing in the Gilbertine customary as part of the order’s chapter office indicate a self-conscious canonical identity in the Gilbertine male priories, and more broadly raises the question whether two rules in a double order — the one monastic and the other canonical — might be considered a revival of the mixed rule. Scholars of English monastic history know that the order of Sempringham included regular canons among its professed religious members. Although initially St Gilbert of Sempringham donated his family lands in 1131 to provide for the strict religious life of seven women in his parish, by the middle of the twelfth century several Gilbertine priories comprised four populations: nuns, lay sisters, lay brothers, and regular canons. The order grew to be the only exclusively English monastic order, with twenty-four houses at its peak of expansion; some of the priories included both nuns and regular canons, but increasingly the order supported the regular canons, so that a number of priories were founded for canons

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only. By 1200 ten houses had been founded for nuns and canons; by 1400 fourteen houses for canons alone existed in addition to the ten double foundations.1 The Institutes, which contain the Gilbertine rule, customs, and some statutes, and the Book of St Gilbert, a canonization dossier with St Gilbert’s Vita and other documents supporting his canonization process, were both crucial sources for the order’s history.2 These indicate that St Gilbert required the nuns to follow the Rule of St Benedict and the regular canons to follow the Rule of St Augustine, stipulating the canons would follow the Rule of St Augustine in ‘vigils and fasts’; St Gilbert’s Vita recorded the same decision.3 The reference to ‘vigils and fasts’ denotes liturgical matters in particular, since the divine office in houses of regular canons differed from the divine office in monastic communities.4 Similarly, sections of both the Institutes and the Vita declared the nuns followed the Rule of St Benedict. This combination of rules received a tribute in the Vita by comparing it to the biblical chariot of Aminadab: This is the chariot of Aminadab, in other words, of a willing people who of their own accord have become poor for Christ. It has two sides, one of men, the other of women; and four wheels, two of men, clerks and laymen, and two of women educated and unlettered; the two beasts drawing the chariot are the clerical and monastic disciplines. St Augustine directs the clerks and St Benedict guides the monks [sic] while Father Gilbert drives the chariot high and low over places rough and smooth.5

1

B. Golding, Gilbert of Sempringham and the Gilbertine Order, c. 1130–1300 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 48–49. 2 The Institutes survive in a single manuscript of the early thirteenth century, Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce 136. There is one edition in William Dugdale, Monasticon anglicanum, ed. by J. Caley, H. Ellis, and B. Bandinel (hereafter Monasticon), 6 vols (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, 1817–30). The manuscripts of the canonization dossier were edited with a study of the process in The Book of St Gilbert, ed. and trans. by R. Foreville and G. Keir (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987). 3 Monasticon, VI, pt II, p. xix, ‘qua necessitate cogente associavi mihi clericos ad custodiam earum et eorum, […]ut in vigiliis et ieiuniis vitam secundum sancti Augustini tenerent’. Cf. The Book of St Gilbert, ed. by Foreville, pp. 48–49. 4 For the importance of the two different liturgical cursus in the Gilbertine order, see J. Sorrentino, ‘In Houses of Nuns, in Houses of Canons: A Liturgical Dimension to Double Monasteries’, The Journal of Medieval History, 28 (2002), 361–72. 5 Book of St Gilbert, ed. by Foreville, pp. 50–53: ‘Hec est quadriga Aminadab, id est spontanei populi, uoluntariorum scilicet pauperum Christi, que duo habet latera, unum uidelicet uirorum alterum mulierum; rotas iiii, duas masculorum, clericorum et laicorum, et duas feminarum, letteratarum et litteras nescientium; iumenta duo quadrigam trahentia, clericalem et monachicam disciplinam. Clericatui beatus presidet Augustinus, monachatum precurrit sanctus Benedictus. Quadrigam ducit per aspera et plana, alta et profunda, pater Gilebertus.’ (The edition of the Book

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The passage above lauded the ultimate choice of these two rules in the Gilbertine Order. In fact, the development of the order’s institutional form occurred in stages over several decades, although within St Gilbert’s lifetime.6 The Vita recollected the sifting process, recording that St Gilbert examined multiple rules and customs from which he constructed his institution: The regulations that govern institutions differ and need changing as reasons arise, in accordance with place, time and persons. Therefore, when he did not find enough in those rules for the monastic life he had established in this way, he picked what he needed like so many beautiful flowers from the statutes and customs of many churches and monasteries, collecting and choosing those which he considered more vital and more relevant to human beings in all their weakness. He took such care in searching them out and in clarifying them that he included not only the great and most important regulations, but also some small and trivial ones […].7

The mixed nature of the order’s constitution as well as its formal adoption of two rules owes much to the founder’s early relationships within the English religious landscape. After returning from his studies in France, St Gilbert became a canon in Lincoln Cathedral during the episcopate first of Robert Bloet and then of Alexander the Magnificent.8 There in the great secular cathedral, his liturgical and canonical experience fitted him for his pastoral role in Sempringham. Later, when he had begun to oversee the religious vocations of his charges, St Gilbert obtained advice from the Cistercians, whose reputation for strict religious reform was already well established. In particular, he sought out William, abbot of Rievaulx, who gave him practical suggestions about incorporating lay sisters in his houses, whose domestic assistance would allow the choir nuns to dedicate themselves fully

of St Gilbert contains an English translation on facing pages. Unless otherwise indicated, citations from it will include the pages for both the Latin and English.) 6 Dr Katherine Sykes has successfully argued that, while the extant version of the Institutes received its formulation through the efforts of the fourth head of the order, Gilbert II, the essential characteristics of the Sempringham Order existed before the death of St Gilbert. See K. Sykes, ‘The Origins of the Role of Master of the Order of Sempringham, c. 1130–c. 1230’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Oxford, 2007), pp. 199–201. 7 ‘Et quia pro locis et temporibus personisque ex causis incidentibus uariantur et mutari oportet iura constitutionum, ea que minus in illis regulis inuenit ad sic datam normam sufficientia a multarum ecclesiarum et monasteriorum statutes et consuetudinibus, quasi flores quosdam pulcherrimos, excerpsit, collegit et preeligit que magis necessaria et competentiora sic infirmatis hominibus iudicauit. In quibus eruendis et explanandis tanta in eo uiguit sollicitudo ut non solum magna et maxime necessaria, uerum etiam minima quedam et abiecta […]’, Book of St Gilbert, ed. by Foreville, pp. 48–49. 8 Golding, Gilbert of Sempringham, pp.14–16.

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to their devotions without worldly distractions. In fact, by the time the order of Sempringham began attracting attention, including endowments and members, St Gilbert believed he should give over entirely the administration of his growing religious communities to more experienced hands. Apparently for this reason, he travelled to France in 1147 to meet with the Cistercians and ask them to take charge of his new order. After they denied the request, he received further advice from leading members of the Cistercians, among them St Bernard of Clairvaux and Pope Eugenius III. When he returned to England, then, he incorporated regular canons to handle the pastoral care for the communities under his care.9 Brian Golding, whose excellent history of the Gilbertine Order focused primarily on its institutional and economic foundations, had this to say in an earlier article: The Gilbertine Rule was such an amalgam of other rules that it is difficult to separate out the direct Cistercian influence. It is perhaps futile to categorize the different strands that went to makeup the Gilbertine Constitutions; they derive from the Benedictine Rule, Premonstratensian, Grandmontine, Augustine and the order of Fontevrault’s practices as well as from the Cistercian. All are adapted to fit the peculiar condition of communities that are essentially of strictly enclosed nuns served by chaplains and lay brothers. A similar pattern is apparent from the use of the order that again shows considerable Cistercian influence but also important borrowings from the uses of other orders.10

This eclecticism was in and of itself the definitive aesthetic of St Gilbert’s liturgy as well as its constitution. The Gilbertine eclecticism perhaps is understood more clearly in contrast to the Cistercian experience. For, whenever the Cistercians clarified their unifying principle, once articulated, that principle was to follow the pure and authentic Benedictine Rule. In their communal life, that unified purpose meant increased participation in manual labour, as well as less ornamentation in

9

Book of St Gilbert, ed. by Foreville, pp. 40–45. The nature of the meeting has been disputed. The traditional narrative, both among the Gilbertine and Cistercian writers, assumes this 1147 meeting was an annual general chapter. Constance Berman’s history of the early Cisterican Order has challenged the early chronology, and her challenge would alter the character of the 1147 meeting from the institutional formality of a general chapter meeting. See C. Berman, The Cistercian Evolution: The Invention of a Religious Order in Twelfth-Century Europe (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000). Moreover, how much actual contact St Gilbert had with St Bernard of Clairvaux, and to what extent the latter directly influenced the nascent Gilbertine Order has also been a matter of dispute. See Golding, Gilbert of Sempringham, pp. 28–31. 10 B. Golding, ‘St Bernard and St Gilbert’, in The Influence of Saint Bernard, ed. by B. Ward (Oxford: SLG, 1976), p. 50.

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visual arts.11 In liturgy, that unified purpose meant also a decreased elaboration in the divine office, eliminating many of the accretions to the services, for example, additional psalms, preces, and visits to the altars. Furthermore, it meant a thoroughgoing revision of the hymnal, intended to bring it in line with the one supposedly used by the original Benedictines, that is, the Ambrosian hymnal.12 Although the Cistercian liturgy underwent a series of changes throughout the twelfth century, the Cistercians adhered to their mandate to follow the pure observance of the Benedictine Rule as a guiding principle in their reforms. Admixture was not acceptable among the Cistercians of the twelfth century. For practical reasons, such singular observance of one form of religious life could not suffice for a double monastery like the order of Sempringham. When St Gilbert added regular canons to handle the pastoral care in his order, he was participating in a movement in medieval religious history that was gaining both force and definition.13 The eleventh century was a watershed in their development. C. H. Lawrence called the canons regular ‘a hybrid order of clerical monks’;14 his observation was apt on two counts. The monastic ranks were increasingly filled 11

With regard to the chronology of the Cistercian beginnings, Berman argues for the establishment of the Cistercian Order in its fully articulated form (not its individual houses) in the 1160s. Her thesis sparked a flurry of responses. See especially the reviews given by Brian Patrick McGuire, ‘Charity and Unanimity: The Invention of the Cistercian Order: A Review Article’, Cîteaux, 51 (2000), 285–97; Bruce Venarde, H-France Review, 2 (2002), no. 121 [accessed 20 June 2008]; and C. Waddell, ‘The Myth of Cistercian Origins: C. H. Berman and the Manuscript Sources’, Cîteaux: commentarii cistercienses, 51 (2000), 299–360. 12 See C. Waddell, ‘The Early Cistercian Experience of Liturgy’, in Rule and Life: An Interdisciplinary Symposium, ed. by M. Basil Pennington, Cistercian Studies Series, 12 (Spencer, MA: Cistercian, 1971), pp. 77–116. 13 Foundational studies on the Augustinian canons include H. M. Colvin, The White Canons in England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1951); C. Dereine, ‘Vie commune, règle de Saint Augustin et Chanoines Reguliers au XIe siècle’, Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, 41 (1946), 365–406; J. C. Dickinson, The Origins of the Austin Canons and their Introduction into England (London: SPCK, 1952). For histories of religious in England, see J. Burton, Monastic and Religious Orders in Britain, 1000–1300 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), and Burton, The Monastic Order in Yorkshire: 1069–1215 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); D. Knowles, The Monastic Order in England: A History of its Development from the Times of St Dunstan to the Fourth Lateran Council, 943–1216, 2nd edn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963). For female religious, including Augustinian nuns, see S. Thompson, Women Religious: The Founding of English Nunneries after the Norman Conquest (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991). 14 C. H. Lawrence, Medieval Monasticism: Forms of Religious Life in Western Europe in the Middle Ages (London: Longman, 1984), p. 163.

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with priests, who, although they did not exercise cura animarum as their primary vocation, nevertheless had the right and obligation to oversee the pastoral needs of those who dwelled upon property owned in common by their communities. Traditional clergy, on the other hand, began to form communities following monastic ideals. Increasingly, these communities adopted the Rule of St Augustine as the basis of their corporate lives. The Gregorian reforms and the eleventhcentury eremitical foundations, with their emphasis on apostolic life and its call to poverty, created an atmosphere that demanded from the secular clergy lives and communities modelled after those in reformed monasteries. Religious authors in the twelfth century recognized the ambiguities, as shown by several treatises in which educated religious explored the differences and similarities between the monastic and regular canonical life.15 By the twelfth century there were papal attempts to organize houses of regular canons into orders. For example, c. 1145 Eugenius III tried to get the heads of German Augustinian houses to meet in a general chapter on each 14 September.16 In 1207 Innocent III made the same demand on the priories in the diocese of York in England.17 The Fourth Lateran Council settled on a solution. Superiors from individual houses of a kingdom or provinces should meet in an annual chapter every three years.18 It has been difficult, therefore, for modern historians to isolate reliable and concrete differences between monks and regular canons.19 By the time St Gilbert needed to find priests and pastors for his religious women who could exercise cura animarum as well as live exemplary religious lives 15

See G. Constable, ‘The Diversity of Religious Life and Acceptance of Social Pluralism in the Twelfth Century’, in History, Society and the Churches: Essays in Honour of Owen Chadwick, ed. by D. Beales and G. Best (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 29–47; and G. Constable and B. Smith, Libellus de diversis ordinibus et professionibus qui sunt in aecclesia (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972). 16 F. Cygler, Das Generalkapitel im hohen Mittelalter: Cisterzienser, Prämonstratenser, Kartäuser und Cluniazenser, Vita Regularis: Ordnungen und Deutungen religiösen Lebens im Mittelalter, 12 (Münster: LIT, 2002). 17 Dickinson, The Origins of the Austin Canons, pp. 81–82. 18 C. Giroud, L’Ordre des chanoines reguliers de Saint Augustin et ses diverses formes de régimes interne (Martigny: Grand Saint Bernard, 1961), pp. 148–49; ‘The Canons of the Fourth Lateran Council, 1215’, in Medieval Sourcebook, ed. by P. Halsall, Fordham University [accessed 24 June 2008], originally published as H. J. Schroeder, Disciplinary Decrees of the General Councils: Text, Translation and Commentary (St Louis: Herder, 1927), pp. 236–96. 19 Among many other works, see C. Walker Bynum, Docere verbo et exemplo: An Example of Twelfth-Century Spirituality, Harvard Theological Studies, 31 (Missoula: Scolar, 1979).

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in their own right, regular canons would have seemed a logical choice. Still, an inherent ambiguity persisted in the matter of rules in the Gilbertine Order. On the one hand the founder acknowledged the order’s eclectic character and on the other hand he emphasized the explicit adherence to two approved patristic rules, one for the women and one for the men. Moreover, even for the male canons of the order, the idea of a rule was perceived as two things — that of St Augustine and that of the Gilbertines. That duality also appears in the Institutes in the section dealing with the training of novices: Let the Rule of Blessed Augustine and the institutes of our order be read through and studied by the novices two or three times or even more often before their profession.20

It is especially significant that two forms of religious life — the Rule of St Augustine and the Institutes of the Gilbertine Order — were part of the formation of novices, because in the education of future members, one finds ideals and identity articulated for a community. Such ideals and prescriptions found their expression not only the in the training of novices, however, but also in the daily chapter office.

The Rule of St Augustine The Augustinian Rule itself has a complicated textual history and the modern editions, each of which applies different names to the constituent parts, are equally complicated. A portfolio of documents, combined and modified over several centuries, became identified as the Rule of St Augustine. The rule takes its name from Augustine, bishop of Hippo and doctor of the church. First as a priest, then as a bishop, he lived as a monk with the other clergy. By the sixth century, such a rule was already attributed to Augustine by Eugippius, and it was included among other monastic rules in a compilation that derived from a late sixth- or early seventh-century text. Both feminine and masculine versions circulated, as well as shorter and longer ones.21 By the middle of the twelfth century, however, not all medieval religious were aware that there was an Augustinian rule for women.22

20

Monasticon, VI, pt II, p. xxvii: ‘Regula beati Augustini et institutiones ordinis, nouiciis ante professionionem inspiciendae et bis uel ter, uel saepius perlegendae.’ 21 G. Lawless, Augustine of Hippo and his Monastic Rule (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. 124–25. 22 Abelard, for example, seems not to know about it. Lawless, Augustine of Hippo, p. 142.

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Luc Verheijen edited the definitive manuscript study of the Rule of St Augustine, or, more properly, Rules of St Augustine, for the Études Augustiniennes series.23 In the course of his critical analysis, he dispensed with the early terminology — Regula secunda and Regula tertia (and, by implication, Regula prima) — traditional designations for different versions of the rule, because they implied a chronology that no longer attached to their manuscript history. He renamed them as follows:24 1. Praeceptum: rule beginning with the sentence ‘Haec sunt quae ut observetis praecipimus’ and ending with ‘in temptationem non inducatur’. 2. Ordo monasterii: a short rule beginning with ‘Ante omnia, fratres carissimi’ and ending with ‘de vestra salute. Amen.’ 3. Praeceptum longius: the combination of Ordo monasterii with Praeceptum. 4. Regula recepta: the Praeceptum preceded by the first sentence of Ordo monasterii. The beginning of the Regula recepta begins thus: ‘Ante omnia, fratres carissimi, diligatur deus, deinde proximus, quia ista praecepta sunt principaliter nobis data. Haec igitur sunt quae ut observatis praecipimus’ (Before all, beloved brethren, let God be loved, then our neighbour, for these are the chief commandments given to us. Therefore, we decree that you heed them). The remainder of the Ordo monasterii, that is sections 2–11, is omitted in the Regula recepta. Much complex discourse also surrounds certain disputed questions regarding the Rule of St Augustine, especially the authenticity of his authorship of all the various parts that have circulated under his name, and the chronological priority of either the male or female versions. George Lawless gives compelling arguments for both the authenticity of the principal parts of the rule and for the priority of the masculine version.25 Lawless’s analysis of the relevant documents consolidates the surviving nine versions into three fundamental texts that form the basis of all nine. These he names Regulations for a Monastery, Rule, and Longer Rule, and

23

La Règle de St Augustin, ed. by L. Verheijen, 2 vols (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1967). Cf. Dickinson, The Origin of the Austin Canons, pp. 7–25. 24 Verheijen, La Règle de Saint Augustin, I, 11–12, 439. These versions apply only to the masculine form of the Rule of St Augustine; the feminine versions do not correspond to the Gilbertine text. 25 Lawless, Augustine of Hippo, pp. 127–47.

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shows how the various versions result from combination and/or changes in the gender of the intended audience.26 Verheijen argued that the Regula recepta did not first come to light in Springiersbach c. 1118, or anywhere else in Germany, as some historians have asserted. Instead, he argues, the earliest manuscripts that contain this combination of texts occurred in the twelfth century in northern France and in England, precisely the setting relevant to the order of Sempringham.27 The twelfth-century version, moderate and flexible as it was, eventually became the basis for the rules in the new orders of Prémontré, Arrouaise, and for the canons of the Gilbertine Order.

The Chapter as Office The Gilbertine canons, like other religious, convened daily in a community meeting called the chapter. Chapter meetings in a religious community followed a ritual order (ordo). The capitular ordo was not part of the liturgy of the hours in a strict sense; nevertheless, it constituted a devotional service, containing elements that resembled the Divine Office. Such ordines directed posture (when, and in what direction, to bow, kneel, or sit), seasonal matters (winter or summer differences, or changes dictated by festal observance), activity of personnel (what actions should be taken by the prior or his designee, the lector, sacrist, choir director, or the community at large), recorded the incipits of prayers and readings in the order they should be chanted, and prescribed any other features of a particular ritual event. The office developed its unique character over several centuries. The earliest records of western monasticism do not mention a chapter meeting. The Rule of St Benedict only hints at it by its instruction to hand out the daily work assignments after Prime.28 By the late eighth century, an early outline of the capitular ordo had taken shape.29 In this early version, after the community processed into the chapter

26

Lawless, Augustine of Hippo, pp. 68–69. Verheijen, La Règle de Saint Augustin, II, 117–20. 28 J.-L. Lemaître, ‘Liber capituli: Le Livre du chapitre, des origines au XVIe siècle: l’exemple français’, in Memoria: der geschichtliche Zeugniswert des liturgischen Gedenkens im Mittelalter, ed. by K. Schmid and J. Wollasch, Münstersche Mittelalter-Schriften, 48 (München: Fink, 1984), p. 625; Tolhurst, English Monastic Breviaries, p. 50. 29 Lemaître, ‘Liber capituli’, p. 628. See Ordo XVIII in M. Andrieu, Les Ordines Romani du haut moyen âge, Spicilegium sacrum Lovaniense, Études et Documents, 11, 23, 24, 28, 29, 5 vols (Leuven: Spicilegium sacrum Lovaniense bureaux, 1931–61; repr. 1960–65), III (1951), 195–208. 27

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house, a lesson was read, and then the martyrology. The monks recited versicles, collects, Gloria patri. Pater noster, and other prayers, followed by the confession of faults and a blessing on the day’s work.30 Eventually, in addition to the devotions, monks and nuns conducted conventual business, memorials, offered confessions, and received correction.31 As for the reading of a rule during chapter, by the Council of Aachen in the early ninth century, the ordo of chapter meetings included a daily reading from the rule.32 Such reading of a rule, followed by other readings, usually from the Gospels, is attested also by the Regularis concordia and the Constitutiones S. Lanfranci in the tenth and eleventh centuries, respectively.33 Customaries from the English monastic cathedrals and major Benedictine houses show that, while the chapter meeting ordo underwent further elaboration, the basic elements remained constant, including the reading of a rule or rules.34 From the Carolingian era the daily chapter office included, among other elements, the commemoration of the dead.35 The chapter office generally exhibited a three-part structure: office of readings, office of confession, and conventual business, including reception of new members, confession of faults, and the division of labour. The first part, the office of readings, most concerns me here as it included nearly universally the following elements: (1) reading from the martyrology, (2) recitation of verses and prayers beginning with Pretiosa in conspectu domini, (3) reading of the rule except on Sundays and feast days when it

30

Tolhurst, English Monastic Breviaries, p. 51. J. B. L. Tolhurst, Introduction to the English Monastic Breviaries, Henry Bradshaw Society, 80 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1993), pp. 50–56. 32 Canon 69 stipulates: ‘Ut ad capitulum primitus martyrologium legatur, et dicatur versus, quo silentium solvatur, deinde regula aut homelia quaelibet legatur’ (First the martyrology should be read at chapter, then the versus said, which may be done in silence, then either the rule or homily should be read). Lemaître, ‘Liber capituli’, p. 630. Cf. Capitularia regum Francorum, ed. by A. Boretius, Monumenta Germaniae Historica (hereafter MGH), Leges: sectio II, 2 vols (Hannover: Hahn, 1893–97), I, 347; and Institutio canonicorum Aquisgranensis, ed. by A. Werminghoff, MGH, Concilia, 2 vols (Hannover: Hahn, 1906–08), II, pt I, 307–421. 33 Tolhurst, English Monastic Breviaries, p. 53. 34 Tolhurst, English Monastic Breviaries, pp. 51–53. 35 Lemaître, ‘Liber capituli’, p. 625. Important studies on the Latin rites for the dead include F. Paxton, Christianizing Death: The Creation of a Ritual Process in Early Medieval Europe (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990); D. Sicard, La Liturgie de la mort dans l’église latine des origins à la réforme carolingienne, Liturgiewissenschaftliche Quellen und Forschungen, 63 (Münster: Aschendorff, 1978). 31

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was replaced by the reading of gospels or homilies, (4) reading of the necrology, and (5) commemoration of living benefactors.36 A book specific to the chapter office developed eventually, receiving a definitive form with the general chapter of the friars minor in 1266 and thereafter in the Roman office.37 Prior to that point, a book for the chapter office combined relevant local texts. In early religious communities, such manuscripts supported the celebration of a chapter office through a compilation of diverse texts, whether found in a customary or ordinal: martyrologies, lectionaries, necrologies, obituaries, and rules, such as Rule of St Benedict, the Rule of St Chrodegang, or the Rule of St Columban. Moreover, in the era of so-called ‘mixed rules’ from the early Middle Ages, it was not unusual for the textual compilations for use in the chapter office to contain more than one rule.38 Such a set of texts could be found whether the religious house was monastic or canonical.39 The chapter office, then, gathered together a set of opportunities when the community might remember itself. In reading the monastic rules, it reiterated its defining constitution. When it received new members, their vows restated the commitments of the whole group. When members confessed and were corrected, they reaffirmed their values and expectations. Moreover, the commemoration of the dead as well as the commemoration of living benefactors resembled a microcosm of the communion of saints in a conventual setting. One may think of the chapter office, therefore, as a centre for a community’s identity across multiple generations. Indeed, the derivation of the term itself connects importantly to the reading of the rule during the morning gathering. In other words, monks or canons would go to chapter (ad capitulum) as the place where they would hear an excerpt of their rule (capitulum) and thus as a group constituted a chapter (capitulum) that is, a community.40

36

Lemaître, ‘Liber capituli’, p. 634. Lemaître, ‘Liber capituli’, p. 626. 38 Lemaître found a corroborating witness to such a mixed rule in a book for chapter office in the Gesta des Abbés Fontenelle. In the case, a reference was made to a single book that included the Rule of St Benedict and the Rule of St Columban and martyrology. J.-L. Lemaître, ‘Aux Origines de l’office du chapitre et de la salle capitulaire: L’exemple de Fontenelle’, in La Neustrie: Les pays au nord de la Loire de 650 à 850. Colloque historique internationale, ed. by H. Atsma, 2 vols (Sigmarigen: Thorbecke, 1989), II, 365. 39 Lemaître, ‘Liber capituli’, p. 626. 40 Lemaître, ‘Liber capituli’, p. 633. 37

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Consequently, the reading of the rule played an essential part in defining the identity of the community.

The Chapter Office in the Order of Sempringham The description of the Gilbertine chapter office appears in the Institutes under the heading De Officio Ecclesiastico canonicorum, et eorum Capitulo, et Regula legenda, et Expositione eiusdem. Et de revelantibus Secreta Capituli, et de confessione private.41 The time of day varied. In the winter season, the chapter meeting took place after Terce, even on lesser feast days in which the community members worked, which allowed time for the priests to recite private Masses before Terce. During the summer, chapter would be held after Prime on non-feast days, in which case the convent would labour between Prime and Terce, and the morning conventual mass would be chanted after Terce. On the major feast days, however, in any season, the conventual chapter would occur after the morning mass. Everyone processed into chapter, bowing before they sat down. All would stand again when the prior or his designated substitute entered. When all were seated again, the prior would give a benediction over the lector who stood before the podium, and all would chant the collect in commemoration of the dead, Preciosa in conspectus Domini. The congregation chanted the Gloria Patri and Kyrielison led by the assigned priest. When the presiding priest had completed the Pater noster, the lector read the daily selection from the rule, here designated by the incipit. The lector then read the roster of service assignments for the week. Those announcements were then followed by a commemoration of the dead of the order, after which the president of the assembly would lead the Requiescant in pace. The lector handed over the book of the rule to the prior, who recited the Benedicite followed by a sermon on the portion of the rule read that day. The Institutes added a comment here: ‘for some part of the rule may be expounded daily’.42 The Gilbertine capitular office exhibits two important phenomena. Firstly, remarkable similarity is apparent between the Gilbertine text and the parallel texts in the customs of the Cistercians and the regular canons of Arrouaise.43 Secondly,

41

Monasticon, VI, pt II, pp. xxix–xxx. Monasticon, VI, pt II, p. xxix: ‘Et dicto Benedicite ab illo qui capitulum tenet, exponatur sententia. Cotidie enim potest exponi aliqua pars regulae.’ 43 A great deal of scholarship over the last century has explored the relationships between the new orders of the twelfth century, and again between them and the Benedictine houses. A list of 42

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the Gilbertine office is unusual in that it presents the daily reading schedule, showing how the sections of the Rule of St Augustine were divided through the week and thereby afforded an opportunity to see the Rule in practical use. With regard to the first point, the similarity between the Cistercian, Arrouaisian, and Gilbertine chapter offices, only approximately 15 per cent of the text in the Gilbertine manuscript version differs from the Cistercian and Arrouaisian. Moreover, that 15 per cent consists of the incipits of the Rule of St Augustine divided across the week for the lector.44 The Gilbertine passage is nearly an exact copy of the Cistercian, and all three share remarkable textual similarity, with the exception of certain words exclusive to monastic use, such as abbot rather than prior. The Arrouaisian customs also included some small phrases that did not occur in the Gilbertine passage.45 On the second point, despite the great similarities in the structure and words of the chapter office otherwise, the customs do not normally designate by incipit the text of the rule to be read. For example, neither the Cistercian nor Arrouaisian customs include the incipits for their respective rules. In the constitutions for the congregation of Arrouaise, the instruction states: ‘After everyone has been reseated, the lector should begin the reading appropriate for the time, whether from the rule or the gospel.’46 They do not occur either in the twelfth-century Premonstratensian customs, where the relevant passage states: ‘Once the brothers are seated again, the lector began the reading from the rule. After this, he should announce from the roster the brothers who are appointed for some reading or chanting […].’47 The

references for that literature is beyond the scope of this paper, for such comparisons have researched a considerable range of topics: constitutions, economic foundations, liturgy, literacy, gender relations, to name only a few. This paper takes as nearly a commonplace the striking influence exerted by the Cistercians over the other new orders. 44 See the text in the appendix below. 45 Monasticon, VI, pt II, p. xxix. D. Choisselet and P. Vernet, Les ‘Ecclesiastica Officia’: Cisterciens (Reiningue: La Documentation cistercienne, 1989), pp. 202–05; P. Guignard, Les Monuments primitifs (Dijon: Darantière, 1878), pp. 167–68; Constitutiones canonicorum regularium ordinis Arroasiensis, ed. by L. Milis, Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis, 20 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1970), pp. 37–39. 46 Constitutiones, ed. by Milis, p. 38: ‘Postquam omnes resederint, incipiat lector lectionem pro tempore legendam, sive de regula sive de evangelio.’ 47 Les Status de Prémontré au milieu du XIIe siècle, ed. by Pl. F. Lefèvre and W. M. Grauwen (Averbode: Praemonstratensia, 1978), p. 7. Although the features of the chapter office, including the prayers and order, are essentially the same as those in the Gilbertine, Cistercian, and Arrouaisian orders, the wording of the passage is sufficiently different that including it in the appendix would not be useful.

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customs of the abbey of Oigny do not mention the reading of a rule per se, but only the sermon.48 In the much longer section on the chapter office found in the Liber ordinis for the community of St Victor in Paris, the relevant passage reads as follows: After the Iube Domne has been said, and the abbot has given the benediction, a lection is read from the rule. If it is a feast of nine lections, the gospel for the day’s mass should be said. Let it be so also during Easter or Pentecost week. Once the reading is finished, anniversaries and notices of the dead should be recited, if there are any. 49

The presence of incipits in the Gilbertine manuscript makes its witness to the precise version of the Rule of St Augustine used for the daily chapter reading a precious one. The incipits that are given in the Gilbertine Institutes for the daily reading in chapter are here charted with the corresponding citation in the Rule of St Augustine. Table 1. The Rule of St Augustine in the Gilbertine Institutes Day

Incipit

Document (page in Verheijen)

Feria ii

Ante omnia Ordo monasterii

Feria iii

Qui aliud Praeceptum

I, 4 (p. 418)

Feria iv

Rursus Praeceptum

I, 7 (p. 419)

Feria v

In oratorio Praeceptum

II ,

Feria vi

Qui infirmi sunt Praeceptum

III ,

3 (p. 421)

Sabbato

Sabbato usque Praeceptum

III ,

3 (p. 422)

Non sit notabilis Praeceptum

IV ,

1 (p. 423)

2 (p. 420)

As the chart above shows, the incipits allow us to believe that the version of the Rule of St Augustine read by the Gilbertines in their daily chapter was the Regula recepta. Of all the incipits given, only the first agrees with the Ordo monasterii; the remainder can be found only in the Praeceptum.

48 Le Coutumier de l’Abbaye d’Oigny en Bourgogne au XIIe siècle, ed. by Pl. F. Lefèvre and A. H. Thomas (Leuven: Spicilegium Sacrum Lovaniense, 1976), p. 92. 49 Liber Ordinis Sancti Victoris Parisiensis, ed. by L. Jocqué and L. Milis (Turnhout: Brepols, 1984), p. 155: ‘Postea dicto Iube Domine et data ab abbate benedictione, lectio legetur de regula. Si festum novem lectionum fuerit, pronunciabitur evangelium quod ad missam legendum est. Similiter fiat in septimana Paschae et Pentecostem. Finita lectione, recitabuntur anniversaria et brevia defunctorum si qua affuerint.’

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Conclusion In addition to leaving a witness to the version of the Augustinian Rule used in the Gilbertine Order, the presence of the incipits tells us more, for an ordo, in prescribing ritual actions and words, gave textual insight into the community life. We have already noted above that the customary, the Institutes, required both the Rule of St Augustine and the Rule of ‘our order’ to be read during the chapter meeting. Nevertheless, only the incipits for the Rule of St Augustine appear in the ordo itself. One cannot say definitively what the inclusion of the one and the neglect of the other meant at the time, but it does suggest that the chapter office reinforced the Augustinian identity of the male houses within the Gilbertine Order perhaps more than has been previously recognized. St Gilbert chose to combine the two rules most commonly associated with religious life in the west — the Rule of St Benedict and the Rule of St Augustine. The need to do so most likely derived from the unsettling proliferation of religious life in the twelfth century.50 In the context of the varieties of religious life, there was pressure for the new orders to attach themselves to a rule that already possessed universal approval and authority in order to avoid the stigma associated with communities on the fringes of heresy. To address that very point, the Vita of St Gilbert commented: In order, however, to rely upon a higher authority, so that he might not be judged arrogant or presumptuous […] he imposed upon his followers a double discipline of religious life. Before the nuns he set for observation the Rule of St Benedict, before the clerks the Rule of St Augustine, and to all he preached the examples of Christ and his saints and the teaching of the gospels and the apostles.51

It is odd, in fact, that St Gilbert designated the Rule of St Benedict for the nuns in his order when many already knew that it was not entirely suited for female communities (as Héloise makes clear in her writings). The Rule of St Augustine in its female version might have worked very well, but as George Lawless has pointed

50

See Constable, ‘Diversity of Religious Life’, pp. 29–47; and Constable and Smith, Libellus de diversis ordinibus. 51 Book of St Gilbert, ed. by Foreville, pp. 48–49: ‘Ut autem superiori niteretur auctoritate, ne arrogans aut presumptuosus iudicaretur, si abiectis alienis sua impudenter ingereret, cum tamen magisterium haberet Spiritus Sancti, ceterum ut subditi preostensam sibi uiam sollicicius servarent, duplicem monastice uite imposuit suis disciplinam, monialibus regulam beati Benedicti, clericis vero regulam sancti Augustini tenendam proponens, omnibus autem Christi et sanctorum exempla et evangelicam apostolicamque doctrinam annuntians […]’.

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out, many highly educated religious men and women seemed unaware of the female version in the early part of the twelfth century.52 Yet, with the order of Sempringham, and other regular orders of canons who both followed the Rule of St Augustine and their own rules, which borrowed heavily from the Cistercians, that identity is ‘mixed’. The salient issues are the following: Canonical orders of the post-Gregorian reform era accepted the rule as coming from the African bishop. They adopted the Augustinian Rule as the most suitable discipline for their communities. While they adopted the Augustinian Rule as their defining profession, they each had customs that modified, explained, and added to its provisions. Those modifications and additions, especially in the cases of the ascetic orders of canons such as Prémontré, Arrouaise, and Sempringham, derived from the Cistercian documents to a remarkable degree, which in turn was a reform and revival of the Benedictine. In consideration of these factors, should we not be speaking, then, of a revival of the mixed rule?

52

Lawless, Augustine of Hippo, pp. 139–41.

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Appendix 1 The excerpt inscribed below contains the Gilbertine capitular office from their Institutes. The words in italics appear in the Cistercian and Arrouaisian customs as well as in the Gilbertine; those underlined appear in both the Gilbertine and the Cistercian. Those in bold text are in the Gilbertine alone.53 I have adopted this method for the purpose of numerical comparison only. It does not reflect the variants present in the multiple manuscripts of the Arrouaisian or Cistercian editions, although in general, even these do not change the numbers of parallel passage. Veniente autem priore vel quolibet alio, qui capitulum tenere debet, assurgant ei omnes inclinantes tantum priori transeunti; eodem residente resideant. Set ille, qui juxta priorem sessurus est, humiliet se profundo de loco suo versus illum, nec tamen super genua vel articulos, et sic resideat; et ita faciat in omnibus locis qui juxta eum sedere voluerit, excepto in ecclesia; non enim ibi sibi supplicant, neque ad mensas, set nec nocturno tempore. Lector vero veniens ante analogium, aperiat librum et inclinet se ad benedictionem. Post primam lectionem non dicat, Tu autem Domine. Set postquam perdixerit, et aliorum plurimorum surgant, et vertant se ad orientem dicentes versum, qui in collectaneo habetur, id est, Praeciosa in conspectu Domini, sacerdote ebdomadario incipiente. Qui cum dixerint Gloria Patri, prosternantur super sedes superiores; aut incurventur super genua secundum tempus, dicentes Kyrielison. Illi autem qui sedent juxta ingressum hinc et inde prosternant se versus orientem ad terram Incurvi vero sint, sicut illi qui in sede sunt. Caeteri autem incurventur ex adverso. Et quando sacerdos dixerit, Et ne nos inducas, erigantur donec sacerdos dicat Dirigere et santificare, tunc incurventur. quae incurvatio aequaliter fiat omni tempore. Lector quoque ita se incurvet, vel prosternat ante analogium, sicut illi qui sunt juxta ingressum capituli. dicto autem, Qui fecit coelum, etc., resedeant ita tamen ut prius assideat, qui tenet capitulum; qui cum resederint, non humilient se ad invicem, sicut prius. Postquam autem omnes resederint, incipiat lector lectionem de regula. Feria secunda legatur in capitulo, Ante omnia, feria tercia, Qui aliud; feria quarta, rursus; etiam feria quinta, in oratorio; feria sexta, Qui infirmi sunt. Sabbato Sane, usque non sit notabilis. Quod restat legatur Sabbato ad prandium Qua finita dicat, Tu autem Domine, accipiens tabulam legat breve, si ipso die legendum fuerit

53

Monasticon, VI, II, p. xxix; Choisselet and Vernet, Les ‘Ecclesiastica Officia’: Cisterciens, pp. 202–05; Guignard, Les Monuments primitifs, pp.167–68; Constitutiones, ed. by Milis, pp. 37–39.

P ART II Community Life

C ORRODIES AT H OUSES OF R EGULAR C ANONS IN E NGLAND , C . 1485–1539 Allison D. Fizzard

O

n 20 December 1523 Nicholas Bucklar and his wife Agnes made an agreement with the Abbot of St Radegund’s Abbey, a house of Premonstratensian canons near Dover. Both Nicholas and Agnes worked as servants at the abbey, Nicholas being described as a husbandman. The text of the indenture stated that the couple would be entitled, for life, to have a corrody at the abbey; this entitled the couple to a chamber with a chimney, three loads of firewood a year, allotments of meat or fish dishes, eight lots of bread and six gallons of best-quality ale a week, and the right to keep a variety of animals such as sheep, cattle, a mare, and poultry. Additionally, they would both receive livery gowns worth 6s. 8d. and wages (26s. 8d. yearly for Nicholas, and 20s. for Agnes), although the latter would be reduced if either or both of them became ill and were unable to work. In return, Nicholas bound himself to work the fields as long as he was able, and Agnes promised that she would ‘do all manner of labour within the said place as is convenient for a woman to do’.1 Corrodies were essentially retirement arrangements made by individuals and married couples with religious houses which entitled the person who held the corrody

1

The online editions of the Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, and of the Victoria County Histories, available at [accessed 10 July 2009] were consulted. Unless otherwise stated, the source of the assessed values from the Valor ecclesiasticus (hereafter VE) is the English Monastic Archives database at [accessed 10 July 2009]. See Kew (London), The National Archives (hereafter TNA), E 315/104, fol. 129r–v.

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to claim specified amounts of certain goods — such as food, ale, fuel, and cloth — and often certain rights, such as the right to reside in a house on the monastic grounds and the right to graze animals in monastic pastures. A corrody, then, represented what Barbara Harvey has called ‘a bundle of privileges’ or a ‘bundle of consumables’,2 which an individual or married couple could purchase from a monastery for cash or in exchange for property; these people might also receive corrodies freely from the monastery as rewards for past service or as a means of ensuring service in the future. Furthermore, a religious house might grant corrodies to secular priests who had been of use to the community, or to a former superior or fellow religious who was reaching retirement age. In addition, the king had the right to claim corrodies for his servants at religious houses of which he was patron. Besides corrodies, an institution might provide liveries or minor corrodies, that is, more limited bundles of goods and privileges which were cheaper than the major corrodies.3 Most analyses of corrodies at religious houses in later medieval England and Wales focus on those which were purchased or granted between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries.4 There has been little in-depth study of those granted or sold in the early sixteenth century.5 The findings presented in this chapter form part of

2

B. Harvey, Living and Dying in England, 1100–1540: The Monastic Experience (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), pp. 179–81. 3

P. H. Cullum, Cremetts and Corrodies: Care of the Poor and the Sick at St Leonard’s Hospital, York, in the Middle Ages, Borthwick Papers, 79 (York: Borthwick Institute for Historical Research, 1991), pp. 8–9. The line between a corrody and the type of livery which involved the grant of an allowance of provisions or clothing to a monastic servant can also sometimes be unclear in these sorts of arrangements: see D. H. Williams, ‘Tudor Cistercian Life: Corrodians and Residential Servants’, Cîteaux: Commentarii Cistercienses, 34 (1983), 77–78, for a discussion of the definitions of ‘corrody’ and ‘livery’. 4

See, for example, R . I. Harper, ‘A Note on Corrodies in the Fourteenth Century’, Albion, 15 (1983), 95–101; L. Usilton, ‘Edward I’s Exploitation of the Corrody System’, American Benedictine Review, 31 (1980), 222–36; A. G. Little and E. Stone, ‘Corrodies at the Carmelite Friary of Lynn’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 9 (1958), 8–29; J. H. Tillotson, ‘Pensions, Corrodies, and Religious Houses: An Aspect of the Relations of Crown and Church in Early Fourteenth Century England’, Journal of Religious History, 8 (1974), 127–43; A. Hamilton Thompson, ‘A Corrody from Leicester Abbey AD 1393–94 with some Notes on Corrodies’, Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological Society, 14 (1928), 113–34. 5

The only substantial analysis of the corrodies and liveries at religious houses throughout England and Wales in the early Tudor period is the examination of those held at male Cistercian houses by Williams, ‘Tudor Cistercian Life’, pp. 77–91, 284–310. See also A. Fizzard, ‘Retirement Arrangements and the Laity at Religious Houses in Pre-Reformation Devon’, Florilegium, 22 (2005), 59–79.

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a larger research project involving corrodies at religious houses in England and Wales in the reigns of Kings Henry VII and Henry VIII; the documents which form the basis of this study are the records of the Court of Augmentations, in particular the Miscellaneous Books held at the National Archives in Kew, near London.6 The Miscellaneous Books consist of the decrees and orders of this court, which was set up in 1536 to deal with business arising from the Dissolution of the Monasteries. An important part of this business was hearing the petitions of those who had held leases, offices, annuities, or corrodies at the religious houses before they were suppressed, and who were seeking compensation from the court for their losses. The attitude of the officers of the court was that the Crown was required to fulfil the obligations of the dissolved monasteries,7 and so petitioners who provided documentation which established their claims inevitably received cash payments in lieu of their lost income; the texts of the original arrangements were also copied into the Miscellaneous Books. These books do not contain records of all the corrodies held at English and Welsh religious houses in the reigns of Henry VII and VIII — accounts of corrodies can be found here and there in various other sources.8 However, they do represent a good starting place for an analysis of the

6 TNA, E 315/91–105. Corrody texts were identified through consultation of the manuscript index available in the reference section of the Map and Large Document Reading Room of the National Archives. Also consulted for this study were the Rev. George Oliver’s ‘Abstracts’ of Devon-related dissolution documents (Exeter, Devon Record Office, DD 22477–994 within Devon Record Office, Z 19/8/3). 7

See W. C. Richardson, A History of the Court of Augmentations, 1536–1554 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1961), pp. 73, 75. 8

For example, TNA, LR 1/173. References to the presence of corrodians at religious houses in England and Wales in the 1530s can also be found in the VE, and the Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII (ed. by J. Gairdner and others, 21 vols plus addenda in 37 (London: HMSO, 1862–1932) (hereafter L&P)), and reports of those responsible for obtaining the surrenders of religious houses between 1536 and 1540. For example, Dr William Cleybroke had purchased a corrody at Grace Dieu Priory, a house of Augustinian canonesses, before his death in 1534 (L&P, VII: 1534 (1883), no. 582); these canonesses were also providing corrodies to ‘sundry poor folk’ in 1538 (L&P, XIII, pt II: August–December 1538 (1893), no. 839.ii.9). Furthermore, reports of the commissioners of 1536 mention the presence of corrodians at houses of regular canons such as Arbury Priory and Kirby Bellars Priory, where two resided at each house (L&P, X : January–June 1536 (1887), no. 1191). There were also cases of elderly canons and canonesses holding corrodies at the time of the dissolution of their houses, examples being Thomas Rawlyns, a canon at Bodmin Priory, and Elizabeth Warde, a canoness at Moxby Priory (L&P, XIV , pt I: January–July 1539 (1894), no. 384; VCH: County of York, ed. by W. Page, 4 vols (London: Constable, 1907–25), III (1913), 239–40).

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sorts of connections which existed between religious houses and a range of individuals — married couples, secular priests, monastic workers — in the late medieval period.9 Other major sources for this research are the royal grants of corrodies that appear in the Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic for the Reign of Henry VIII, as well as the editions of the Patent Rolls and Close Rolls from the reign of Henry VII. The Court of Augmentations records of royal grants which pertain to corrodies and liveries held at houses of regular canons — that is, the Augustinian, Premonstratensian, and Gilbertine canons — in England in the decades leading up to the dissolution of the larger monasteries in 1539–40 form the basis of the current study.10 When analysing the records of grants of corrodies and liveries by superiors of houses of regular canons in this period, it is important to make a distinction between those corrodians who were royal nominees and those who obtained their corrodies or liveries through arrangements that represented the free choice of the religious houses (the latter here termed ‘non-royal corrodians’). Thirty-five cases of grants of non-royal corrodies or liveries held at twenty-four English houses of regular canons involving forty-nine corrodians appear amongst the Court of Augmentations and Crown documents; in addition, five cases of corrodies involving seven corrodians at hospitals that followed the Rule of St Augustine can be found in these same records.11 While these corrody cases clearly do not represent what must have been the actual number of corrodies held at houses of regular canons in the reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII, these records

9 It must be kept in mind that the texts of corrody grants that appear in the Miscellaneous Books represent only those corrodies given or sold to individuals who lived until the dissolution of the relevant houses and were able to make appearances before the Court of Augmentations to seek compensation. 10

The Miscellaneous Books and the Crown records of royal grants do not contain any records of corrodies granted by superiors of houses of regular canons or canonesses in Wales. 11

Twenty-eight of the cases of corrodies or liveries were granted or sold by nineteen houses of Augustinian canons; five of the cases involved four houses of Premonstratensian canons; one corrody was sold by a Gilbertine house, and one former head of a Gilbertine house was granted a corrody by the superiors of the order. The five cases of corrodies at hospitals occurred at three institutions: St Mary without Bishopsgate (London), St John’s Hospital in Exeter, and Bridgwater Priory, Somerset. For the categorization of the first two hospitals as institutions following the Rule of St Augustine, see Knowles and Hadcock, MRH, pp. 358 and 372. Knowles and Hadcock expressed doubt as to whether Bridgwater Priory was an Augustinian house (Knowles and Hadcock, MRH, p. 346), but in the text of a corrody grant made by the superior of that institution, the term ‘ordinis sancti augustini’ is used after the name of the house (TNA, E 315/98, fols 82v –83r).

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do provide a useful sample of the types of relationships that existed between corrodians and religious houses. As well, keeping in mind the reputation of corrodies — sometimes justified — for leading religious houses into financial difficulties,12 it appears that communities of regular canons do not seem to have been selling corrodies in the first decades of the sixteenth century to an extent that endangered the financial health of their houses. While a significant number of houses of regular canons continued to engage in the granting or selling of corrodies in the early sixteenth century, the scale was somewhat limited. Only a few houses of canons show up in these texts as having granted or sold non-royal corrodies more than once or twice in the period 1485–1540.13 In the Miscellaneous Books and the printed sources for Crown grants, there are twenty-seven extant records of royal corrodies at houses of regular canons in the period 1485 to 1547. However, since the texts of the Crown grants frequently mention the names of the previous holders of the royal corrodies at the specified houses, it is possible to identify the names of forty-four men as having held this type of corrody at houses of regular canons between 1485 and 1540.14 The houses

12

For an overview of medieval episcopal and scholarly thought which has emphasized the negative, see A. Bell and C. Sutcliffe, ‘Valuing Medieval Annuities: Were Corrodies Underpriced?’, Explorations in Economic History, 47 (2010), 144–45. For a particularly critical assessment, see H. M. Stuckert, Corrodies in the English Monasteries: A Study in English Social History of the Middle Ages (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1923), who concluded that ‘[s]imony, unscrupulous extortion, favouritism, illegal and high-handed action, all followed in the wake of the corrody system’ and that the study of corrodies ‘opens up a questionable side in the moral life, public and private, secular and religious, of the Middle Ages’ (p. 39). 13

There are three documents of corrody sales or grants at Caldwell Priory (TNA, E 315/91, fols 38v –39v and E 315/92, fols 26v –27r and fol. 94r), Thornton Abbey (TNA, E 315/93, fol. 39r–v, 39v –40r, and 109r–v), and Haughmond Abbey (TNA, E 315/94, fol. 186r–v, E 315/96, fol. 211r, and E 315/101, fol. 141r–v), as well as three from the hospital at Bridgwater (TNA, E 315/96, fol. 19r–v, E 315/98, fols 82v –83r, and E 315/103, fol. 52r–v); these are the highest numbers coming from specific houses. There are no cases such as the extraordinary one of Brooke Priory — a cell of Kenilworth Abbey — where the royal commissioners of 1535 found only one canon (the prior) and eight corrodians (VCH: Rutland, ed. by W. Page, 3 vols (London: Constable, 1908–36), I, 159–61). 14

No houses of canonesses appear to have been subject to royal corrodies in this period, nor are there any records of lay women receiving royal grants of houses of regular canons. For examples of lay women holding corrodies at religious houses through royal appointment in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, see L. W. Usilton, ‘The King’s Women and their Corrodies’, in The Worlds of Medieval Women: Creativity, Influence, Imagination, ed. by C. Berman, C. Connell, and J. Rice Rothschild (Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, 1985), pp. 69–85.

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of regular canons which appear in the Crown grants and the Miscellaneous Books as having been required to provide corrodies to royal nominees were the Augustinian houses of Barnwell Priory, Cirencester Abbey, Kenilworth Abbey, Lilleshall Abbey, Merton Priory, Oseney Abbey, St Augustine’s Abbey (Bristol), St Frideswide’s Priory (Oxford), Southwick Priory, Trentham Priory, and the Premonstratensian house of Halesowen Abbey.15 The Augustinian house of Thornton Abbey in Lincolnshire had accepted the obligation of providing a corrody worth 40s. to one John Goyne at the request of Edward IV, but it seems that when Henry VII attempted to impose a certain Henry Wilkyns on the house, the Abbot of Thornton resisted.16 In 1494 this dispute was seemingly resolved when Henry VII declared that the abbey would forever be quit of the obligation of providing a royal corrody in exchange for prayers for himself, his wife, and his mother, as well as for 100s.17 Despite this agreement, Henry VIII granted James Ascue, yeoman for the King’s Mouth, a corrody at Thornton in November 1526.18 The texts of royal grants of corrodies tend to be quite brief and sometimes specify the monetary value of the corrody, which suggests that in many of these

15

The patronage of Barnwell Priory was in royal hands by 1278. Cirencester Abbey was a royal foundation, as were Lilleshall Abbey, St Frideswide’s Priory (Oxford), and Southwick Priory. The patron of Oseney Abbey seems to have been the king in the sixteenth century; this was definitely the case with Trentham Priory. See K. Stöber, Late Medieval Monasteries and their Patrons: England and Wales, c. 1300–1540 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2007), Appendix A (p. 236). The patronage of Merton Priory had passed from lay hands to the Crown by 1300 (ibid., p. 44, n. 179). The patronage of St Augustine’s Abbey, Bristol, had been transferred from the Berkeley family to the Crown in 1487 (ibid., p. 161). The Crown was exercising rights of patronage at Kenilworth Abbey in the fourteenth century (VCH: Warwickshire, ed. by H. A. Doubleday and others, 9 vols (London: Constable, 1904–69), II, ed. by W. Page (1908), 86–89). Halesowen Abbey is the oddity here. There is only one record of a royal grant of a corrody at this house, which was an episcopal foundation; however, the fact that King John had been involved in its foundation, or its having been incorporated with Dodford Priory, a house of royal foundation, in 1322 may have provided the excuse — if an excuse was indeed made — for King Henry VIII’s decision to impose a royal corrodian on the house in April 1511 (VCH: Worcestershire, ed. by J. W. Willis-Bund and others, 5 vols (London: Constable, 1901–26), II, ed. by J. W. Willis-Bund and W. Page (1906), pp. 162–66; L&P, I: Addenda (1929–32), no. 749.40). 16

Calendar of Close Rolls, Henry VII, 2 vols (London: HMSO, 1914–16), I: 1485–1500, no. 658, p. 193. The patronage of Thornton Abbey had passed to the Crown by 1284: see Stöber, Late Medieval Monasteries and their Patrons, Appendix A (p. 236). 17

Calendar of Patent Rolls, Henry VII (1485–94), I, 469–70. This grant also mentions that the corrody of John Goyne at Thornton Abbey had previously been held by a man named John Lambe. 18

L&P, IV : 1524–30 (1872–76), no. 2673.12[a].

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cases there was no expectation that the corrodian would actually reside at the house but would instead collect the cash amount in lieu of the corrody.19 For example, when the Abbot of St Augustine’s Abbey, Bristol, acknowledged the royal grant to Henry Tappe of the reversion of a corrody, then held by one William ap Howell, he said nothing about entitlements to specific amounts of food or drink or to lodging, merely stating the value of the corrody as being £4 20s. per year.20 Being the recipient of a royal grant of a reversion of a corrody was no barrier to compensation from the Court of Augmentations for lost income: like Henry Tappe, John Throwgood, who was granted the reversion of the corrody held by Lancelot Lysle at Merton Priory, was allowed compensation by the court when he appeared on 3 June 1538, while Lancelot Lysle and John Pate found their claim similarly allowed when they appeared on 5 July 1538.21 The essentially monetary character of many of the royal grants of corrodies at houses of regular canons is suggested by the fact that recipients of these grants might obtain corrodies at more than one religious house. One example is John Segiswicke, a page of the King’s bedchamber, who was granted a corrody worth 5 marks at Kenilworth Abbey in 1513,22 as well as one worth £3 6s. 8d. at the Benedictine abbey of Burton-upon-Trent.23 Another is Edward Johns, gentleman of the Chapel Royal, who held a royal corrody at St Augustine’s Abbey, Bristol, and one at Southwick Priory.24 Also, it was not uncommon for recipients of royal grants 19

For the prevalence of commutation of corrodies held by royal servants at Cistercian houses to cash annuities, see Williams, ‘Tudor Cistercian Life’, pp. 86–87. 20

TNA, E 315/102, fols 23v –24r; L&P, XIII, pt I: 1538 (1892), no. 888.7.

21

TNA, E 315/92, fol. 58v and 105v–106r. Henry VIII made the grant to Throwgood on 16 March 1538. Merton Priory was dissolved on 13 April 1538. Lysle had originally received the grant of the corrody at Merton Priory in 1516, but in 1521, the terms were changed to that of a grant of a corrody in survivorship to Lysle and John Pate (TNA, E 315/92, fols 105v–106r; L&P, II: 1515–18 (1864), no. 1809; L&P, III: 1519–23 (1867), no. 1262.25). There are a number of other royal grants of corrodies in survivorship at houses of regular canons in these records. These grants were made to two individuals and the one who outlived the other was to have the right to enjoy the whole corrody. Other examples amongst the Crown documents are the cases of a grant to Mores ap Denevet and John Glyn of a corrody at Oseney Abbey (L&P, XIII, pt I, no. 887.14) and a grant to John Staunton and Robert Lytull of a corrody at Halesowen Abbey (L&P, I, no. 749.40). 22

TNA, E 315/92, fol. 122v; L&P, I, no. 2055.56.

23

TNA, E 315/102, fol. 175r.

24

L&P, I, no. 1123.52; L&P, II, no. 334. Johns had also had a royal corrody at the Benedictine abbey at Ramsey (L&P, I, no. 1948.66) and the Cistercian houses of Beaulieu and Coggeshall (L&P, I, nos 804.1 and 1170.13).

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of corrodies to surrender the right to a corrody at one house because they were obtaining either a corrody at another house or some other benefit from the Crown. William Lyngen, sewer of the chamber, who obtained a grant of a corrody at Oseney Abbey in 1510, surrendered the corrody in May 1511 to George Roper; the same month Lyngen was appointed surveyor of Crown lands in the counties of Merioneth, Anglesey, and Caernarvon.25 Simon Burton, another royal servant, was granted a corrody at the Benedictine house at Tywardreath in Cornwall in 1525. Burton resigned that by 1528 and subsequently was given the right to a corrody at St Augustine’s Abbey in Bristol, which he also surrendered by 1533.26 The frequent turnover of corrody-holders at houses of regular canons under royal patronage stands in contrast to the stability seen in the arrangements made between the houses and non-royal corrodians, who might retain their corrodies for many years. Regarding the sorts of people who became non-royal corrodians at houses of regular canons, these records indicate that a range of individuals made use of corrodies. Widows appear as corrodians, as do lay men who, if married, did not have their wives included in the terms of their corrodies. Sixteen of the forty cases of non-royal corrodies at houses of regular canons were held by married couples, representing 40 per cent of the total. By comparison, Patricia Cullum found that at St Leonard’s Hospital in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, over half the corrodies, and possibly even two-thirds of them, were purchased by married couples.27 However, it is to be kept in mind that the extant records likely do not represent all the corrodies held at houses of regular canons and canonesses in this period, so the proportion of married couples may actually have been higher. Another significant subset of corrodians consists of those who received corrodies to compensate them, at least in part, for their labour at the houses in question. Of the forty cases of non-royal corrodies examined in this study, fifteen — six for married couples and nine for men — were definitely connected to the labour or service these people performed at the religious houses at which they would be retiring; this constitutes more than one-third of the non-royal corrodies.28 The 25

L&P, I, no. 518.11; L&P, I, nos 784.45 and 49.

26

L&P, IV , no. 1736.23; L&P, IV , no. 4445.17; L&P, VI: 1533 (1882), no. 196.18.

27

Cullum, Cremetts and Corrodies, p. 21.

28

The prior of Bridgwater hospital also granted a corrody or livery (corrodium sive liberacionem) to a married couple, William Bulpane and his wife Alice, who may have been servants (TNA, E 315/98, fols 82v –83r ). As well, the prior of Plympton granted two liveries to wellconnected local men, Richard Fortescue and Nicholas Slannynge, when appointing them to offices (Exeter, Devon Record Office, DD 22881 and 22900).

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types of workers and servants encountered in these records run the gamut of those one would expect to see at late medieval religious houses, ranging from general labourers to skilled crafts workers to an organist.29 Some superiors of religious houses sold or granted corrodies to individuals or married couples who worked for them, without going into great detail about the work provided or expected. For example, Prior John Biggleswade of Caldwell Priory sold a corrody to John Smyth alias Pyper and his wife Maude for £20 in 1527; one of the conditions of the sale was that in exchange for allotments of bread, ale, cooked food, firewood, a house, and an annuity of 13s. 4d., John bound himself to work around the priory for as long as he could.30 Two years later, the same prior granted a corrody to Nicholas Jee, servant and cook, for his ‘diligent, true, and faithful service’ to the canons of Caldwell; the text merely states that Jee was to receive an annuity of 24s., meat and drink as any yeoman of the house should have, ‘sufficient fire’, and the chamber in which he was then living.31 Other corrody texts functioned as more formal indentures which secured the labour of the worker in language which specified the duties, compensation, and sometimes special conditions of service. For example, William Rainolde of Blankney, Lincolnshire, and Prior John Aunger of Thurgarton Priory reached an agreement on 18 February 1519 that secured William’s labour as a stonemason for the community.32 William was to receive an annual salary of £3,33 as long as he was able to work for the canons, as well as standard entitlements to meat and drink, housing (specifically, a house in the town of Thurgarton), pasturage, and fuel (both firewood and coal). In exchange, his job was to perform ‘all manner of work’ pertaining to his trade for the canons, including making repairs and maintaining the tiles, lead, and plasterwork of the

29 The organist, John Patensoune, was secured by indenture to work at Thurgarton Priory in 1522 (TNA, E 315/100, fol. 74r–v). For details on the types of residential servants holding corrodies at male Cistercian houses in England and Wales in the same period, see Williams, ‘Tudor Cistercian Life’, pp. 284–87 and 304–06. 30

TNA, E 315/91, fols 38v –39v

31

TNA, E 315/92, fols 26v –27r. A similarly brief grant was made on 20 May 1538, by the prior of the hospital of St Mary without Bishopsgate in London to Robert Brocas, barber, of an annuity of 26s. 8d. and allowances of food and a robe (TNA, E 315/93, fol. 129v ). 32 33

TNA, E 315/100, fols 83v –84r.

By comparison, a ‘leading mason’ at the construction site of Kirby Muxloe Castle who worked 290 days in the year 1481–82 earned £7 2s. 0d. (C. Dyer, Standards of Living in the Later Middle Ages: Social Change in England, c. 1200–1520 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 227).

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canons’ churches and of the houses in and outside the priory’s precincts; he also had to teach his occupation to one person designated by the prior.34 Several corrodies held by higher-ranking monastic servants appear in these records. In January 1535, John Whyte and his wife Alice became keepers of the Abbot’s Park at the Augustinian abbey of St Mary de Pratis at Leicester.35 They paid 20 marks for their corrody, which contained allotments of different grades of bread and ale as well as entitlements to amounts of salt fish, beef, and other meats, and an annuity of 40s.; John and Alice shared the right to the position of parkkeeper — whoever outlived the other was entitled to retain the position — but John was also expected to be ready with his horse to do service for the abbot and take meat and drink with the abbot’s gentlemen.36 In some other cases, the duties to be performed were not specified: for example, when Abbot William Wall of Kenilworth Abbey granted a corrody to William Brasbrydge, gentleman, in 1534, the abbot merely stated in the text of the grant that William was to continue to serve the abbot and convent to the best of his abilities as he had in the past.37As well, when Thomas Norton purchased a livery for £10 from Leeds Priory in 1532, he undertook to ‘work and labour as well as he can to his power during his life at his own discretion and conscience’, but what the work entailed was not specified;

34

A similarly detailed indenture text involved a promise of service on the part of a carpenter, Richard Greyhorse, to Haughmond Abbey in exchange for a corrody (TNA, E 315/101, fol. 141r–v). Examples of married couples who received labour-based corrodies are: Henry Skytter and his wife Agnes (Henry was a blacksmith for Thornton Abbey); Robert Ryvelay and his wife Katherine (Robert worked in the yeomen’s office in the hostelry of Thornton Abbey); Roger Lankaschyre and his wife Alice (Roger worked as a doorkeeper at Haughmond Abbey) (TNA, E 315/93, fol. 39r–v , E 315/93, fol. 109r–v , E 315/96, fol. 211r). 35

TNA, E 315/102, fols 26v–27 v.

36

John was also to receive three yards of cloth ‘of honest colour’ annually for a livery or 15s. in lieu. John and Alice also had the right to reside in a house called The Lodge and to employ an underkeeper, whose salary of 20s. a year was paid by the abbey. As well, John and Alice obtained the right to lease two mills at Stoughton. 37

TNA, E 315/100, fol. 251r–v . Included in the list of entitlements was the right for Brasbrydge to have a robe as one of the abbey’s servant-esquires would wear. Similarly, one John Thomys obtained as part of his corrody from Dorchester Abbey a coat of cloth such as the abbot’s servants received (TNA, E 315/92, fols 14v –15r). Another corrodian who may have been a higher-status servant was Anthony Lambert, who was rewarded with a corrody at Bridgwater Priory hospital on the basis of past fidelity in service, which was unspecified (TNA, E 315/103, fol. 52r–v ).

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the text merely states that he was to have the portion of a ‘bayllye’ (bailiff) at the table of the bailiffs and the right of free entry into and exit from their hall.38 The final category of those who held corrodies at houses of regular canons in England in this period is that of members of the clergy and/or of religious orders. In three cases in these records, the corrody recipients were former superiors of religious houses;39 there are also occasional references in other documents to the presence of elderly members of the communities holding corrodies at the time their houses were dissolved.40 Several of the secular priests who received grants of corrodies seem to have been involved in providing the cure of souls at churches over which the houses of canons had rights. One of these men, Thomas Rygmayden, held a corrody and an annuity of £4 at Ulverscroft Priory while he was waiting for the prior and canons to present him to one of their benefices. Unusually, the document specifies that should a contagious disease break out at the priory, he would be allowed to depart until the pestilence was over.41Another, the chaplain Thomas Moreman, received the right to a corrody from the Augustinian canons at Hartland Abbey, which seems to have been reserved for members of the secular clergy. The text of the corrody grant does not provide a detailed list of entitlements but rather states that Moreman would have the right to live at the abbey, eat and drink just as the canons did, and occupy a chamber in the north part of the abbey buildings which had been previously occupied by one John Husband,

38

TNA, E 315/95, fols 177v–178v.

39

These were Sir William Buklar, former abbot of the Premonstratensian house of St Radegund (TNA, E 315/91, fol. 89r–v ); William Robinson, former prior of the Gilbertine priory of North Ormsby (TNA, E 315/94, fol. 126r–v); and Sir William Grendon, who obtained a corrody at Taunton Priory. He had been a canon there, then had become prior of Stavordale, which he had merged with Taunton Priory (VCH: Somerset, ed. by W. Page and others, 10 vols to date (London: Constable, 1906–), II, ed by W. Page (1911), pp. 139–41); he subsequently became a vicar of the church at Nynehead in Somerset (TNA, E 315/97, fol. 28r). 40

For example, the ‘blind and aged’ Thomas Rawlyns, a canon at Augustinian priory of Bodmin in Cornwall, appears in a pension list for the members of the dissolved house as receiving 40s. in compensation for his lost corrody (L&P, XIV , pt I, no. 384). There is also the case of Elizabeth Warde, an elderly canoness at Moxby Priory, who had been granted a corrody by the prioress and sisters of her house. The commissioners assigned her 66s. 8d. for relinquishing her claim to the corrody ‘and in consideration of her poverty and feebleness the money was paid over to a certain honest man, who then and there pledged to take care of Elizabeth Warde for life’ (VCH: County of York, III (1913), 239–40). 41

TNA, E 315/101, fols 128v–129v. He was also allowed to collect trental Mass payments over and above his annuity.

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curate of the parish church of St Nectan in Hartland.42 Sometimes a well-educated member of the clergy might be rewarded with a corrody for the advice they had given a house of canons, a good example being Master Hugh ap Rice, who was given a corrody in 1524 by the Abbot of Oseney ‘for his diligent service’ and ‘good and fruitful counsel’ to the canons over a long period of time.43 A priest with a similar profile, Master Richard Stok, received a grant from the Crown of a corrody worth 50s. a year at St Frideswide’s Priory, Oxford, in 1510; he was to go on to become a fellow of Magdalen College and vicar of Cuddesdon in Oxfordshire.44 It is also worthwhile examining what these documents can suggest to us about life expectancies of corrodians in the first few decades of the sixteenth century. In her analysis of corrodies held at St Leonard’s Hospital in York, Patricia Cullum tracked individuals over a seventeen-year period to get a sense of the average minimum life expectancy of the corrodians (only the minimum could be calculated, since obviously some individuals lived after the end of the period for which documents existed).45 A similar analysis can be performed on the corrody texts from the Court of Augmentations records. It should be noted, of course, that as these cases only involved individuals who lived long enough to appear before the court, the estimates of life expectancy pertain only to this group of surviving corrodians and excludes corrodians who passed away before being able to go to court and those individuals whose date of appearance before the court is not known. These estimates also exclude most royal corrodians, since the majority of records of these men come from the Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic rather than from the Court of Augmentations records and consequently information is lacking as to when those who lived until the Dissolution made their court appearances, if indeed they all did so.

42

TNA, E 315/96, fols 37r–38r. Another example of a chaplain receiving a right to a corrody at a house of regular canons was John Beche, described as ‘our chaplain’ in the text of the grant made by the prior and canons of Ranton Priory (TNA, E 315/105, fols 182v–183r). 43

TNA, E 315/104 (2nd ser.), fol. 143r–v. Ap Rice, the recipient of degrees in both canon and civil law from Oxford, went on to a distinguished career in the Church, becoming a prebendary of Rochester Cathedral and treasurer of St Davids Cathedral. He was also involved in the foundation of Jesus College, Oxford (Emden, BRUO, IV , 462). 44

L&P, I, no. 587.14; VCH: Oxfordshire, ed. by L. F. Salzman and others, 15 vols to date (London: Oxford University Press for the University of London, 1939–), V , ed. by Mary D. Lobel (1957), pp. 96–116. 45

Cullum, Cremetts and Corrodies, pp. 26–27.

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Calculating the average amount of time between the original date of the corrody sale or grant and the date on which the corrodian appeared at the Court of Augmentations yields a minimum life expectancy of 11.05 years for all surviving corrodians. This is somewhat higher than the minimum life expectancy of 8.7 years amongst corrodians at St Leonard’s Hospital, but this can be explained by the fact that some of the corrodians at the houses of regular canons had held their corrodies for lengths of time which substantially exceeded the seventeen-year period covered in Cullum’s study. The breakdown by gender indicates a minimum life expectancy of 10.56 years for men and 12.24 for women.46 Interestingly, partners of the married couples either experienced particularly good health or good fortune or had planned ahead in making their retirement arrangements, as in twelve of the sixteen cases (that is, 75 per cent) involving corrodies granted or sold to married couples, both wife and husband lived until they made their claim for compensation before the Court of Augmentations. In one case, a widow showed up at the Court of Augmentations 33 years after she and her husband had bought a corrody at Newstead Priory in Nottinghamshire.47 Barbara Harvey has noted, however, that we ought not to be too quick to assume that people were always elderly in the medieval sense of nearing the end of their working lives when they decided to obtain corrodies.48 In her study of corrodies at Westminster Abbey, she found a number of cases in which individuals lived for very long periods after purchasing their corrodies. She concluded that medieval people could be quite forwardthinking when making their plans for care in the latter stages of their lives and that this is particularly noticeable with married couples, who seem to have used corrodies to have provided for the wives if they were to become widowed. In the records from the Court of Augmentations, most of the documents recording non-royal corrody sales do not specify the amount an individual or couple paid for their corrody or indeed whether anything was paid at all. Six texts of corrodies for married couples contain information as to what these people paid for their retirement arrangements: the sums range from £20 for a corrody for two

46

It should be noted that there were forty men in these records who were alive at the time of the application to the Court of Augmentations for compensation, but only sixteen women. Fourteen of the women had obtained their corrodies as married women. 47

TNA, E 315/96, fol. 5r–v. This was Grace, wife of John Elton. She and her husband had purchased their corrody in 1506. 48

Harvey, Living and Dying in England, pp. 207–08.

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at Caldwell Priory to £40 for the same at Croxton Abbey.49 There are two cases in these records of single women, both widows, paying for corrodies at houses of regular canons: one paid £15 and 1 mark for a corrody at Repton Priory, while the other paid £21 for a corrody at St Agatha’s Abbey at Easby.50 There is only one record which includes the sum paid by a man on his own, which was £10 paid by one Thomas Norton for a livery at Leeds Priory, where he worked performing unspecified labour.51 In comparison, Patricia Cullum found that at St Leonard’s Hospital in York in the period 1392–1409, the cost of corrodies ranged from £20 to over £40.52 Furthermore, Barbara Harvey’s study of Westminster Abbey in the period 1411–61 revealed that corrodies for married couples there displayed great variety in terms of cost, the range being from £10 to £150.53 David H. Williams’s analysis of eighteen corrodies at Cistercian houses in the Tudor period yielded the amount of £24 as the average cost.54 The prices of corrodies purchased at houses of regular canons in the same period, then, are consistent with those charged at houses of other orders. Houses of regular canons of a variety of income levels were involved in the granting and selling of corrodies and liveries. There were nine cases of non-royal corrodies and liveries at six houses and one hospital whose income, according to the VE of 1535, exceeded £500 in the case of the Augustinian canons and £300 in the case of the Premonstratensian canons.55 At the other end of the spectrum, the

49

For the corrodies at Caldwell Priory and Croxton Abbey, see TNA, E 315/91, fols 38v –39v and E 315/100, fols 302r–303r. The other amounts for married couples can be found in the texts of corrody sales by the following houses of regular canons: Bicester Priory (40 marks (£26 13s. 4d.)); Newstead Priory (40 marks); Wigmore Abbey (£34; a daughter was included in the corrody in this case) and Weybourne Priory (where the fee was £30 6s. 8d. plus 100 sheep). See TNA, E 315/91, fols 19v –20r; E 315/96, fol. 5r–v ; E315/98, fols 97v –98r; E 315/103, fols 68v –69v . 50

TNA, E 315/100, fol. 103v; E 315/104, fol. 36r–v.

51

TNA, E 315/95, fols 177v–178v.

52

Cullum, Cremetts and Corrodies, p. 20.

53

Harvey, Living and Dying in England, pp. 247–51.

54

Williams, ‘Tudor Cistercian Life’, p. 90.

55

The names of the houses, including the assessed net value of their income according to the VE of 1535 were: Kenilworth Abbey (£538 19s. 4d.), Oseney Abbey (£654 10s. 2¼d.), Plympton Priory (£898 0s. 8 cd.), Leicester Abbey (£953 14s. 5¾d.), and Thornton Abbey (£591 17s. 10½d.). There were two grants of liveries at Plympton Priory, and two grants of corrodies at Thornton Abbey. The only Premonstratensian house with a value exceeding £300 in 1535 which appears in these records — once — is Croxton Abbey (£385 0s. 10¾d.). The only hospital with a Valor value exceeding £500 in 1535 to appear in these records is St Mary

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records of non-royal corrody grants contain sixteen cases of corrodies at twelve houses and two hospitals which had incomes of less than £200 in 1535.56 Additional cases of corrodians residing at houses of Augustinian canons and canonesses whose income in 1535 was reckoned below the £200 mark appear in other sources;57 of these, the houses of Brooke Priory and St Sepulchre Priory (Warwick) stand out because of the number of corrodies — eight and three, respectively — in relation to the houses’ assessed incomes in 1535, which were £40 and £41 10s. 2d. This suggests that there was some tendency in the 1530s for superiors of the poorer houses to try to improve their communities’ fortunes through the sale of corrodies, an approach not unknown at other religious houses in earlier periods.58 As for the houses of regular canons subject to accept royallynominated corrodians, most of these had, not surprisingly, reasonably high to quite high incomes in 1535. Six had incomes in excess in excess of £500, and two of these houses, Merton Priory and Cirencester Abbey, were amongst the wealthiest houses of regular canons in England and Wales.59 The remaining

without Bishopsgate in London with a single case of a corrody (£504 12s. 11½d.; for Valor value, see VCH: London, ed. by W. Page, 1 vol. to date (London: Constable, 1909–), I , 530–35). In addition, there is also evidence that there were two corrodians, one male and one female, at Bridlington Priory in 1539 (L&P, X IV , pt II: August–December 1539 (1895), no. 239; according to the VE, its income in 1535 was £547 13s. 7½d.). 56

The houses of Augustinian canons were: Bicester Priory (£147); Caldwell Priory (£109); Dorchester Abbey (£190); Newstead Priory (£167); Ranton Priory (£90); Repton Priory (£118); Ulverscroft Priory (£83); Weybourne Priory (£28). All of these houses granted one corrody each except for Caldwell, which granted three, two of them labour-related. The Premonstratensian houses were: St Agatha’s Abbey, Easby (£111) and Lavendon Abbey, £79 (one corrody each). The Gilbertine house was Malton Priory (£197) — interestingly, even though this counted as one of the smaller houses according to the Act of 1536 in that it had an income of less than £200, it had one of the highest incomes in the Gilbertine order (Knowles and Hadcock, MRH, pp. 194–99). 57

There were two corrodians at Arbury Priory in 1536, two at Kirby Bellars Priory, three at St Sepulchre Priory (Warwick), and two at Maiden Bradley Priory at the time of its dissolution, and, as was mentioned above, eight at Brooke Priory (L&P, X , no. 1191; VCH: Warwickshire, II (1908), 97–99; VCH: Rutland, I (1908), 159–61). The canonesses at Grace Dieu Priory also sold or granted corrodies in the 1530s (see above, n. 8), and the canonesses at Moxby had granted a corrody to one of the sisters of the house before the house’s dissolution (VCH: Yorkshire, III (1913), 239–40). 58

See the examples of sales of corrodies which must have been unprofitable for the houses in question provided in Thompson, ‘A Corrody at Leicester Abbey’, p. 119, n. 10. 59

According to the VE, the incomes of Merton Priory and Cirencester Abbey in 1535 were £960 16s. 6d. and £1,051 7s. 1¼d. respectively; the incomes of Kenilworth Abbey, Oseney Abbey,

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houses of regular canons which accepted royal corrodians all had incomes between £200 and £500, except for one, Trentham Priory, which had a gross income of £122 3s. 2d. in 1535.60 The corrody records do not suggest widespread, serious financial mismanagement on the part of the monastery officials, an accusation commonly made by bishops of religious houses at the time and scholars since;61such mismanagement did exist at some houses of regular canons in the late Middle Ages,62 but the presence of corrodians at a house does not establish incontrovertibly that a community was living beyond its means. Given the fact that the records examined for this study indicate that it was uncommon for more than one or two corrody cases to be associated with any one house of canons, it is unlikely that corrodies on their own undermined the financial stability of many of the communities at which they were held.63 The most questionable case in these records is the granting of a corrody in 1532 by Thomas Bulman, superior of the tiny and impoverished Weybourne Priory in Norfolk. Bulman, who occupied the priory with only one other canon, arranged for a relative, one Geoffrey Bulman, and Geoffrey’s wife Isabel, to live in a house on the priory grounds and receive entitlements of bread, ale, meat, and fuel, as well as the right to graze a cow on priory land.64 The granting of any corrody by the Prior of Weybourne would have been a risky move in this

St Augustine’s (Bristol), and Thornton Abbey were £538 19s. 4d., £654 10s. 2¼d., £692 2s. 7d., and £594 17s. 10½d. 60

These were Barnwell Priory (£256 11s. 10¼d.), Lilleshall Abbey (£232 16s. 6d.), St Frideswide’s Priory, Oxford (£222 5s. 9d.), and the Premonstratensian abbey of Halesowen (£294 10s. 2½d.). 61

See, for example, Bell and Sutcliffe, ‘Valuing Medieval Annuities’, pp. 144–45.

62

Some houses of regular canons did indeed have histories of financial difficulties which involved the granting or selling of corrodies beyond what the income of the houses could support, the priory of Holy Trinity Aldgate, the abbey of Lesnes, and the priory of Bridlington being three examples (VCH: London, I, 465–75; VCH: Kent, II (London: St Catherine, 1926), pp. 165–167; VCH: Yorkshire, III, 199–205). A particularly extreme case in the early fourteenth century was Kirkham Priory, where a series of priors had saddled the house with twenty-two corrodies which cost the canons £73 6s. 8d. per year (VCH: Yorkshire, III, 219–22). 63

G. W. O. Woodward, in a review of the findings of the royal commissioners of 1536, similarly concluded that ‘[t]aking the country as a whole, corrodies were probably not sufficiently numerous to be more than occasionally an embarrassment to some small priory which had unwisely granted too many’ (The Dissolution of the Monasteries (New York: Walker, 1966), p. 26). 64

TNA, E 315/103, fols 68v–69 v.

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period, given that the income of the house according to the VE was £28 in 1535.65 Prior Bulman may have thought that the amount paid by his relative and the man’s wife — a sum of just over £30 — would have helped put the priory on a sounder economic footing. This measure was not enough, however, and the house ended up being dissolved with the other small houses in 1536.66 The only other case in these records in which a superior of a house was clearly granting a corrody to relatives is the one involving the Bucklars at St Radegund’s Abbey near Dover. This married couple, Nicholas and Agnes, whose corrody was discussed at the beginning of this chapter, obtained their entitlements in 1523 in exchange for the labour both individuals would perform around the abbey. The fact that the abbot who was making them this grant was Sir William Buklar suggests strongly that considerations of family ties came into play either in their original employment at the abbey or in the granting of a corrody to the couple.67 One might consider the grant of the corrody to the Bucklars to have been a bad decision, given that according to the VE, the annual income of the abbey of St Radegund in 1535 was £98. However, religious houses did need lay servants, and, leaving aside the issue of likely favouritism in the employment of these individuals, the granting of a corrody as a means of securing the labour of this couple was not necessarily a financially unwise decision on the part of the Abbot. The majority of the non-royal corrodies in these records were granted or sold by houses of regular canons well before dissolution was imminent. While the accusation was made in the act for the suppression of the smaller monasteries in 1536 that heads of religious houses had been encumbering their communities with grants of annuities and corrodies to friends and relatives in anticipation of the suppression of their houses,68 that claim is not supported in regard to the regular canons and corrodies, at least in so far as the records examined for this study attest. The original dates of the sales or grants of these non-royal corrody cases fall mostly before 1535: twenty-one date to before 1532, and twelve between 1532 and 1535,

65

II

VCH: Norfolk, ed. by A. Doubleday and W. Page, 2 vols (London: Constable, 1901–06), ed. by W. Page, pp. 404–06. 66

Knowles and Hadcock, MRH, pp. 144, 179.

67

Sir William Buklar himself received a corrody at the abbey upon retirement; see above, n. 39.

68

See section IV of the text of the act of 1536 in Joyce Youings, The Dissolution of the Monasteries (London: Allen and Unwin, 1971), p. 157.

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with only four between 1535 and 1537.69 There are only a few cases of very late grants of corrodies and liveries at houses of regular canons before the dissolution of the greater monasteries: the prior of Plympton made a grant of a livery in association with an appointment to an honorary office to a local man six months before the priory was suppressed,70 and the prior of the hospital of St Mary without Bishopsgate granted a livery to the hospital barber shortly before the institution’s dissolution,71 but the only other cases of late grants in these records are several made by the Crown. John Throwgood, gentleman and servant of the king, received the reversion of the royal corrody at Merton Priory on 16 March 1538; the house was dissolved on 13 April 1538.72 Henry Tappe, servant to the lord chancellor, similarly obtained the reversion of the royal corrody at St Augustine’s Abbey, Bristol, on 18 January 1538, but in this case the house survived until December 1539.73 Two other royal servants, Mores ap Denevet, yeoman of the guard, and John Glyn, yeoman of the Crown, obtained a grant in survivorship of the royal corrody at Oseney Abbey on 3 April 1538; the abbey was dissolved in November of the following year.74 Overall, then, the corrodies in these cases were more likely to represent long-standing arrangements between individuals or couples and the houses of regular canons than hastily made sales whose aim was to enrich the houses’ superiors when dissolution was imminent. In conclusion, despite the fact that these records do not represent all the corrodies that must have been held at houses of regular canons and canonesses in England in the years leading up to the Dissolution, this evidence does provide a useful insight into the range of corrodians at houses of these orders in this period. These documents suggest that while small numbers of corrodians were commonly encountered at houses of regular canons in England in the reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII, the selling and granting of corrodies was unlikely to have been a

69

In Williams’s study of corrodies at Cistercian houses in the Tudor period, he found that the rate of corrody-selling increased in the uncertain years of 1532 to 1535 (Williams, ‘Tudor Cistercian Life’, p. 90). 70

Exeter, Devon Record Office, DD 22900. The recipient of this grant was Nicholas Slannynge.

71

TNA, E 315/93, fol. 129v .

72

TNA, E 315/92, fol. 58v .

73

TNA, E 315/102, fols 23v –24r; L&P, I, no. 888.7. William ap Howell, the holder of the royal corrody at this house at the time of the grant of the reversion to Henry Tappe, was still alive in 1540 (L&P, XVI: 1540–41 (1898), no. 91). 74

L&P, XIII, pt I, no. 887.14.

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substantial drain on the finances of more than a few houses. In general, many of the non-royal corrody cases in these records echo Barbara Harvey’s assertion that at Westminster Abbey, corrodies tended to be granted or sold to people already known to the religious house.75 The number of corrody grants or sales involving those who worked for the religious houses re-affirms the importance of corrodies as a means of compensating monastic servants and retaining their labour. Members of the secular clergy who had served the churches of the regular canons and were rewarded with corrodies for their retirement years can also be seen as forming a group related to those who held labour-based corrodies. The picture was quite different for those houses of regular canons subject to the provision of corrodies for royal servants, however. These grants likely had no personal element, and represented merely an added expenditure to the religious houses which were required either to house the servants or commute their corrodies into cash annuities. While some canons may have resented the long lifespan of a widow whose original payment for a corrody had long been swallowed up by the costs of providing her with her entitled amounts of food and ale, it seems probable that feelings of annoyance would have been experienced most commonly in those communities which were obligated to provide corrodies to a never-ending round of Crown servants.

75

Harvey, Living and Dying in England, pp. 200–01.

T HE A UGUSTINIAN C ANONS AND E DUCATION Nicholas Orme

Monasteries and Education

T

he reputation of medieval monasteries as centres of education has risen, fallen, and risen again. Thomas Fuller’s influential Church History of Britain (1655) helped to establish two enduring beliefs: that monasteries played an important part in the schooling of young people and that this reflected a shortage of public grammar schools before the Reformation.1 Both beliefs were commonly held until the late nineteenth century, when they encountered challenges by A. F. Leach and G. G. Coulton, especially Leach. He was the first historian to draw attention to the large number of free-standing schools in medieval towns and villages, and to disprove the idea that the monasteries were the only places of teaching. He went further, conceding that they provided some education for their inmates and for some almonry boys, but criticizing its quality and effectiveness. Leach and Coulton, another anti-monachist, may have been influenced by the earliest editions of bishops’ registers which contained many references to monastic failings, but they were both natural controversialists and both enjoyed knocking monks off pedestals. If they did not quite establish a new

1

On what follows, see R . Bowers, ‘The Almonry Schools of the English Monasteries, c. 1265–1540’, in Monasteries and Society in Medieval Britain, ed. by B. Thompson (Stamford: Watkins, 1999), pp. 177–222 (pp. 177–78), and N. Orme, Medieval Schools (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), pp. 3–9. See also S. Forde, ‘The Educational Organization of the Augustinian Canons in England and Wales, and their University Life at Oxford, 1325–1448’, History of the Universities, 13 (1994), 21–60.

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orthodoxy (because general knowledge is slow to change), they made a powerful case against taking monastic education seriously. The tide began to turn again soon after Leach’s death in 1915. Seven years later, Eileen Power produced her detailed and scholarly survey of Medieval English Nunneries, showing how much they did to bring up girls and smaller boys. A further seven years on, in 1929, W. A. Pantin demonstrated the academic merit of Winchcombe Abbey under Abbot Richard Kidderminster from 1488 to 1525,2 and soon afterwards began to publish the acts of the Benedictine general chapters which showed a genuine concern to improve education. Other scholars — David Knowles, Richard Hunt, and A. B. Emden — elevated the understanding of monastic training and learning in as far as it concerned the religious themselves, and my own work, from the 1970s, aimed to extend this understanding to the involvement of monasteries in teaching other people: boys in their houses and pupils from outside.3 In 1999 Dr Roger Bowers published a definitive article on ‘The Almonry Schools of the English Monasteries’, showing how common such schools were and what high standards some of them achieved in teaching grammar and music.4 A point has now been reached, therefore, when we can agree that although medieval monasteries did not provide all the education of their day, they made a substantial contribution towards it, in and outside their houses. This paper will address the role of the Augustinians in England in this respect. Their role has attracted less attention than that of the Benedictines and the Cistercians, and the level and extent of their achievement has not yet been fully shown either in itself or in comparison with the other large monastic orders.

Augustinians and Public Schools in the Twelfth Century The earliest references to the Augustinians and education are not so much to their own internal arrangements as to their links with public grammar schools. The oldest relevant documents relate to the churches of St Gregory (Canterbury) and

2 W. A. Pantin, ‘Abbot Kidderminster and Monastic Studies’, Downside Review, 47 (1929), 199–211; Pantin, Documents Illustrating the Activities of the General and Provincial Chapters of the English Black Monks, 1215–1540, Camden Series, 3rd ser., 45, 47, 54, 3 vols (London: Royal Historical Society, 1931–37), pp. 45, 47, 54. 3 For the works of Knowles, Hunt, Emden, and Orme, see Orme, Medieval Schools, pp. 401, 403–04, 406–07. 4 Bowers, ‘The Almonry Schools’, passim.

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St Oswald (Gloucester). Lanfranc’s charter establishing St Gregory’s, allegedly granted in 1085–87, gave it control of the schools of Canterbury, but the charter is extant only in a version that seems to have been rewritten soon after 1200.5 St Oswald’s came to argue that a charter allegedly granted by Samson, bishop of Worcester, between 1096 and 1112 gave it to the schools ‘of all Gloucester’, but this survives only in a confirmation of 1388, at a time of dispute over the control of schooling in Gloucester. The phrase about the schools may not be authentic, since the claim to possess the schools ‘of all’ a town is without parallel and looks highly suspicious.6 Of course neither St Gregory’s nor St Oswald’s was an Augustinian house at the time that these grants were said to have been made. But the two cases must be reported, because they may have set up links with local schools that were inherited by the Augustinians when they took over both churches during the early twelfth century. Other instances exist of charters granting or confirming the patronage of local schools (meaning their supervision and control) in favour of Augustinian houses during that century. It is usually impossible to ascertain whether the charters conferred such patronage or recognized that it already existed. The grants include ones made to Huntingdon (Huntingdonshire, 1094×1123);7 Dunstable (Bedfordshire, 1131×1133);8 Darley (Derbyshire, 1154×1159), relating to Derby school;9 Lanthony-by-Gloucester (hereafter Lanthony Secunda) (1154×1179), a grant of ‘one school’ in Gloucester;10 and Newnham (Bedfordshire, 1170× 1178), relating to Bedford school.11 In addition, Christchurch (Hampshire), which became Augustinian in about 1150, had previously received a grant or confirmation of its

5

EEA, XXVII: Canterbury, 1070–1136, ed. by M. Brett and J. A. Gribbin (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 2004), pp. 1–3, discussed by Orme, Medieval Schools, pp. 47–48. 6 Calendar of Patent Rolls, Richard II, 6 vols (London: HMSO, 1895–1909), III: 1385–89 (1900), 525, discussed by Orme, Medieval Schools, p. 48. 7 See Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum 1066–1154, ed. by C. Johnson and H. A. Cronne, 4 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1913–69) (hereafter RRAN), II (1956), no. 241. 8 RRAN, II, no. 275. 9 The Cartulary of Darley Abbey, ed. by R . R . Darlington, Derbyshire Archaeology and Natural History Society, 2 vols (Derby: Derbyshire Archaeology and Natural History Society, 1945), II, 596, 599. 10 N. Orme, Education in the West of England, 1066–1548 (Exeter: Exeter University Press, 1976), p. 58. 11 VCH: Bedfordshire, ed. by H. A. Doubleday and W. Page, 3 vols (London: Constable, 1904–12), II (1908), 152.

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local school in 1139×1141 when it was a minster.12 There is a further late piece of evidence, recorded by John Leland in about 1542, that the patronage of Bristol school was given to Keynsham Abbey (Somerset) by the founder of that abbey, William, earl of Gloucester, between 1166 and 1183.13 No subsequent trace of such patronage has been found, and if it was ever conferred, it may have been impossible to enforce. Keynsham is several miles away from Bristol and the latter was unusually large as a town; by the end of the fourteenth century it is known to have had more than one school.14 I am not aware of other such grants, but some may exist or may have once existed.15 Certain Augustinian houses may have claimed rights over schools without leaving traces in charters. Let us take the example of Cirencester (Gloucestershire), where there was an important local abbey and also a school for the public, probably of grammar, which is first recorded in 1242.16 The abbey’s cartulary survives and no document therein refers to its rights in relation to schools, but it is very likely that such an abbey, holding lordship over the neighbourhood, expected to have a voice in who taught locally, or would have been approached for endorsement by any schoolmaster wishing to teach in the town. Formal or informal powers of patronage, therefore, may have existed in many other places. One attested case concerns Coxford Priory (Norfolk) in 1240, relating to its property at nearby Rudham. The priory had either appointed a schoolmaster of Rudham or allowed someone to teach there, arousing the ire of the schoolmaster of Norwich who tried to claim the right of control instead.17 The case was contested at law and the Norwich master lost, but without such a lawsuit we would not know of the existence of Rudham school or Coxford’s claims over it. Is there any significance in the grants of educational patronage to Augustinian canons in the twelfth century? Were they seen as suitable clergy to control schools 12 The Christchurch Priory Cartulary, ed. by K. A. Hanna, Hampshire Record Series, 18 (Winchester: Hampshire Record Series, 2007), pp. xxxii–xxxiii, and pp. 4–5. 13 J. Leland, The Itinerary of John Leland, ed. by L. Toulmin Smith, 5 vols (London: Bell, 1907–10), V , 92. 14 Orme, Education in the West of England, p. 36. 15 There is an equivocal reference of 1440 to Leicester Abbey maintaining a school in the town (Visitations of Religious Houses in the Diocese of Lincoln […] 1420–49, ed. by A. Hamilton Thompson, Lincoln Record Society, 7, 14, 21, 3 vols (Lincoln: Lincoln Record Society, 1914–29), II (1918), 208. 16 Orme, Education in the West of England, pp. 96–97. 17 EEA, XXI: Norwich, 1215–1243, ed. by C. Harper-Bill (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 2000), pp. 169–70.

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for the public, having more of a foot in the world than Benedictines or Cistercians? That is one possibility, but another explanation might be that the Augustinians succeeded to older minster links with public education. This can be best shown at Bedford, where Newnham Priory acquired the patronage of Bedford school in 1170×1178 from Nicholas, archdeacon of Bedford, one of the canons of the former minster there, which Newnham replaced. St Gregory’s and St Oswald’s may be similar cases, although St Gregory’s did not play a role in public education after about 1200.18 The school of Christchurch certainly preceded that church’s becoming Augustinian, while Huntingdon, which was not Augustinian or had only recently become so when its school is first mentioned, may provide a further example. In short, the charter evidence appears to relate to ancient minster rights as much as to new ones given to the regular canons. Moreover the Augustinians were not unique among the religious orders in claiming to control schools. Some Benedictine houses did so, such as Bury St Edmunds, Coventry, Durham, Reading, and St Albans.19 Nor is there any sign, where the canons held such control, that they had much to do with the schools. They may have built a schoolhouse (the priory of Lanthony Secunda came to own that building in Gloucester)20 and they probably appointed the schoolmaster (as Lanthony Secunda did). They would have resisted the attempts of other masters to compete with him, thereby defending his fees and livelihood, a resistance particularly well documented in Gloucester.21 But it would not yet be safe to argue that Augustinians had stronger links with public education than cathedrals, minsters, or Benedictine houses. Although patronage was a significant issue during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, it seems to have been harder to enforce as time went on. Between 1396 and 1410 Lanthony Secunda Priory strove strenuously to prevent a schoolmaster named Thomas More from practising in Gloucester. They even sued him in the court of common pleas at London, but in the end the case was thrown out.22 By the fifteenth century the demand for public education was frustrating tight control over schooling, and although Lanthony Secunda was defending its rights as late as 1513, it may have been unusual in this respect.23

18

Orme, English Schools, pp. 191–92. Orme, English Schools, p. 199. 20 Orme, Education in the West of England, pp. 61, 65. 21 Orme, Education in the West of England, pp. 59–64. 22 Orme, Education in the West of England, p. 63. 23 Orme, Education in the West of England, p. 64. 19

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Study within the Order How the order educated its canons is obscure in the first two centuries of its history. The Rule of St Augustine lacks the scope and detail of the Rule of St Benedict, which devotes two chapters to recruits and their training. Yet the Augustinians can hardly have done much that was different. After the mid-twelfth century when child oblation fell into disuse, young canons, who were probably in their mid- or late teens, would have needed the supervision of a senior canon and regular sessions in which to learn the daily liturgy, the customs of their house, and perhaps its history.24 The Augustinian Rule emphasized reading along with prayer and work, and laid down that time should be assigned for those purposes.25 Reading would have required a reasonable knowledge of Latin, either gained in a public school before entering a monastery or provided within the monastery. Two leading Augustinians of the twelfth century were former schoolmasters: Guy of Merton (Surrey), first prior of Bodmin (Cornwall), and Alexander Nequam, abbot of Cirencester. Other scholarly men belonged to the order at this time, including Peter of Cornwall, Robert of Béthune, Robert of Cricklade, Robert the Scribe, and William of Newburgh. But all this tells us about learning, rather than the process of education. More evidence survives from the fourteenth century. The context of it was the rise of the universities, and the realization by Church and monastic leaders that monasteries needed to keep abreast of higher education, just as the friars and the more learned of the secular clergy were doing. Sending a monk or a canon to university, however, required appropriate training beforehand and this in turn required more careful attention to schooling in each religious house. The Cistercians, a highly centralized order, gave thought to both local and higher education as early as 1245, and established Rewley Abbey (Oxford) as a study centre for their monks in 1282. The Benedictines and Augustinians, being congregations of independent houses, found it more difficult to agree on common policies, but the Benedictines were sending monks to Oxford by 1291 and founded two study centres there in the 1290s: Durham College and Gloucester College. In

24

A document of 1528 mentions learning divine service, good behaviour, and the observances of the monastery (Visitations in the Diocese of Lincoln, 1517–1531, ed. by A. Hamilton Thompson, Lincoln Record Society, 33, 35, 37, 3 vols (Lincoln: Lincoln Record Series, 1940–47), II (1944), 188). 25 On what follows, see J. C. Dickinson, The Origins of the Austin Canons and their Introduction into England (London: SPCK, 1950), pp. 186–89.

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the case of the Augustinians, earliest existing statute dates from 1325, issued by the provincial chapter of their order at Northampton, requiring canons to be sent to ‘the schools’, a word that evidently meant universities.26 If this was the first such statute, it was tardy by the standards of other religious orders: even the small order of Gilbertine canons opened a study centre at Cambridge in 1291. However, earlier legislation may have been lost or the delay may have reflected the fact that, alone among the major orders, the Augustinians already had houses in or near the university towns. It is not impossible that these houses — St Frideswide’s in Oxford itself, Oseney just outside it, and Barnwell close to Cambridge — accommodated or supervised scholars from elsewhere before 1325. Education remained a concern of the order’s leaders throughout the 1330s. In 1334 the provincial chapter repeated the statute of 1325, adding that heads of houses should provide lecturers (lectores) in their houses to teach the canons, and assign a place and a time for such teaching.27 A similar instruction came from the chapter of 1337.28 Meanwhile, in the 1330s, Pope Benedict XII issued legislation for all three of the largest monastic orders, including directions about their education, that for the Augustinians being the last, in the constitution Ad decorem ecclesie of 1339.29 This document, similar to an earlier one for the Benedictines, required each monastery to maintain a schoolmaster to instruct the canons in the ‘primitive sciences’, that is to say grammar, logic, and philosophy. The master could be an Augustinian, a member of another religious order, a secular priest, or a layman. If he were an Augustinian, he was to receive a salary of ten livres tournois (about £1 13s. 4d. in the English money of the day), and if an outsider, double that amount (£3 6s. 8d.), with food and clothing in all cases. The master’s classes were to be restricted to members of the order, and secular students were not to be admitted.30 A further chapter of the papal constitution laid down that canons who had passed through the elementary branches of learning should proceed to the study of theology or canon law. Every Augustinian house with more than twenty students was to send one of them to a studium generale, meaning a university; more than one could go if that was the local custom. In the case of a house with between

26

Chapters of the Augustinian Canons, ed. by H. E. Salter, Canterbury and York Society, 29 (Lincoln: Canterbury and York Society, 1922), p. 13. 27 Chapters, ed. by Salter, p. 17. 28 Chapters, ed. by Salter, p. 18. 29 Printed in Chapters, ed. by Salter, pp. 214–67. 30 Chapters, ed. by Salter, pp. 229–30.

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six and twenty canons, visitors appointed by the provincial chapter of the order were to assess its resources and, if they found them sufficient, arrange for one or more canons to be sent in a similar manner. Canons were to be chosen to go to university by a committee of senior members of their house, numbering five in communities of more than twenty and three in smaller ones, in consultation with the teacher of the ‘primitive sciences’. The choice was to be made each year within five days of the feast of St Mary Magdalene (22 July), and the students were to arrive at Paris on 14 September and at other universities on or around St Luke’s Day (18 October).31 From this time onwards it is possible, at least partially and intermittently, to trace the provision of education within individual monasteries and at the two English universities. A few houses have left us internal records which show the system in being. The library catalogues of two, Lanthony Secunda (c. 1355) and Leicester (late fifteenth century), include substantial holdings of grammars and literary texts of the kinds read in school, pointing to such education within those houses.32 At St Augustine’s in Bristol, account rolls from 1491 to 1512 mention an annual payment of £1 6s. 8d. to a grammar master ‘for teaching the young canons and other boys in the grammar school within the abbey’.33 This was well below the amount set by Benedict XII and was less than the amount the house spent on a group of singing boys and a master to teach them music, but it may have been augmented by food, clothes, and school fees paid by the canons individually. We hear of canons paying school fees from their personal allowances (peculia) at Kyme (Lincolnshire) and Newnham in the 1440s.34 On the other hand, episcopal visitations of Augustinian houses often revealed shortcomings in the arrangements. During the 1430s and 1440s the bishops of Lincoln discovered an absence of schoolmasters at Canons Ashby (Northamptonshire), Dunstable, Kyme, Leicester, Newnham, Notley (Buckinghamshire), and Thornton (Lincolnshire).35 The same was true in the 1510s and 1520s at Canons Ashby, Keynsham, Missenden

31

Chapters, ed. by Salter, pp. 230–32. The Libraries of the Augustinian Canons, ed. by T. Webber and A. G. Watson, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues, 6 (London: British Library in association with the British Academy, 1998), pp. 83–86, 290–300. 33 A. Sabin, ‘Compotus Rolls of St Augustine’s Abbey, Bristol’, Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, 73 (1954), 192–207 (pp. 195–96). 34 Lincoln Visitations 1420–49, ed. by Thompson, II, 171–72; III, 237–38. 35 Lincoln Visitations 1420–49, ed. by Thompson, I, 32, 47, 89; II, 172, 208–09, 214; III, 260, 371–77, 379–80. 32

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(Buckinghamshire), Oseney, and St Frideswide’s.36 Where bishops’ injunctions survive after visitations, they usually ordered this absence to be remedied. Such failings may have reflected penny-pinching or laziness, but they may also have arisen from the irregularity with which young canons were recruited. Most houses were likely to have a group of novices only every few years, with a long interval before another group made its appearance. It would have been easy for teaching arrangements to lapse.

University Study In the years immediately after the papal constitution Ad decorem ecclesie the English Augustinian chapters continued to enjoin the sending of students to universities. The constitution was endorsed at the chapters of 1343, 1346, and 1359, and the last of these threatened a fine of £10 per annum on any house of twenty canons that refused to comply. It also told the order’s own visitors, who regularly inspected the houses, to enquire into houses that had formerly had twenty or more members but no longer did so, presumably in case they shirked their duty.37 Following the Black Death, which fell a decade after 1339, there were just over twenty houses in England with that many students or more.38 The chapters also gave some attention to the life of students while at university. This was not a straightforward matter because (as we shall see) canons tended to rent accommodation individually rather than living in a common place. Nevertheless the chapter of 1356 required them to cohabit if possible and to wear a uniform exterior habit in so far as this was feasible. Those refusing to keep to such rules were to be compelled to do so by the ‘prior of students’, the earliest reference to a person (presumably one at each of Cambridge and Oxford) with responsibility for their oversight and discipline.39 In 1362 houses sending students were reminded to

36

Lincoln Visitations 1517–31, ed. by Thompson, II, 99; III, 26, 39, 47; Collectanea I, ed. by T. F. Palmer, Somerset Record Society, 39 (Taunton: Somerset Record Society, 1924), pp. 216–17. 37 Chapters, ed. by Salter, pp. 54, 56, 63. 38 Houses likely to have had twenty canons or more after the Black Death include Bridlington, Bristol, Butley, Christchurch, Cirencester, Guisborough, Hexham, Kenilworth, Keynsham, Lanthony Secunda, Leicester, London Holy Trinity Aldgate, London St Bartholomew’s, Merton, Oseney, Plympton, St Mary Overy (Southwark), Thornton, Thurgarton, Walsingham, Waltham, West Acre (Knowles and Hadcock, MRH, pp. 145–80). 39 Chapters, ed. by Salter, p. 62.

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choose them by 20 July,40 and in 1365 arrangements were made about students’ graduations. It was customary for graduates to give feasts, and the order believed that it had been shamed because its students could not afford to do so. Sums of £5 were therefore to be allocated for the graduations of bachelors and £20 for those of doctors.41 In 1371 the priors of students are mentioned holding their own chapters. These would have been meetings of the students for the purposes of discussion or discipline, and they were ordered to take place at St Frideswide’s or at Barnwell, not in private chambers.42 As with the keeping of a schoolmaster, houses were often found deficient in choosing university students. In 1380–81 the prior of St Mary Overy (Surrey) appealed against a ruling by the order’s visitors, the abbots of Oseney and Leicester, that he should send a canon to university,43 and in 1434 the chapter felt it necessary to remind houses of Benedict’s legislation and to impose penalties of 40s. on houses not keeping a schoolmaster, and £10 on those without a university scholar.44 There was no student from Thornton in 1440, St Frideswide’s in 1445, Oseney in 1517, and Keynsham in 1526, despite the location of two of these houses near Oxford.45 Sometimes the culture of a community may not have been ambitious enough to produce a student, but this was not always a reason: when the bishop of Lincoln visited Canons Ashby in about 1432, the prior asked him to ‘curb the impetuous demand of the young canons to study at Oxford’.46 There may have been an attraction in leaving the cloister for a bustling town. Most likely the expense of study was unpopular with heads of houses attempting to live within their means or to prioritize their spending in other ways. St Augustine’s, Bristol, paid £6 13s. 4d. per scholar per annum between 1491 and 1512, and this was the equivalent of a couple of servants’ wages.47 More substance can be given to the history of the Augustinians at the universities by analysing the names of canons known to have studied there. A great deal was done to collect these names by the late A. B. Emden from the 1950s to the 40

Chapters, ed. by Salter, p. 66. Chapters, ed. by Salter, pp. 67, 82. 42 Chapters, ed. by Salter, p. 69. 43 Chapters, ed. by Salter, p. 167. 44 Chapters, ed. by Salter, p. 83. 45 Lincoln Visitations 1420–49, ed. by Thompson, III, 267, 302; Lincoln Visitations 1517–31, ed. by Thompson, III, 39; Collectanea I, ed. by Palmer, p. 216. 46 Lincoln Visitations 1420–49, ed. by Thompson, II, 44. 47 Two Compotus Rolls of Saint Augustine’s Abbey, Bristol, ed. by G. Beachcroft and A. Sabin, Bristol Record Society, 9 (Bristol: Bristol Record Society, 1938), pp. 260–61. 41

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1970s, resulting in substantial lists of students at Cambridge up to 1500 and at Oxford up to 1540.48 Cambridge students of the early sixteenth century have yet to be identified, but about fifteen names of canons survive in the university’s ‘grace book’ of that period, relating to the process of taking degrees.49 Inevitably, however, Emden’s research could not be complete. Records are too fragmentary, both at the level of individual houses and the universities themselves. Many names of canons must be lost, and a few cannot be linked with either Oxford or Cambridge, even though they are known to have taken degrees and probably attended one or the other. Emden included some of these in his registers with the comment ‘probably from’ the university concerned. There is also scope for adding to his lists.50 At present therefore we can gain only an incomplete view of the involvement of the canons with higher education, and even further research is unlikely ever to provide a definitive view of the subject. At least sixty-eight Augustinian students may be traced at Oxford between 1300 and 1500, and a further twenty-six from Cambridge; of these ninety-four about four attended both universities.51 About twenty-six houses are mentioned sending students to Oxford and fourteen to Cambridge. Cambridge was most popular with houses in East Anglia, Essex, and Bedfordshire, although it received at least one student from Merton and possibly another from Leicester. Oxford recruited more widely, including the north and west of England, with at least one canon from St Osyth’s (Essex), which also sent students to Cambridge. Predictably, the largest recorded numbers come from the bigger and wealthier houses: six each from Leicester and Oseney; five from Walsingham (Norfolk); four each from Cirencester, Merton, and St Osyth’s; and three each from Guisborough (Yorks.), Lanthony Secunda, and Taunton (Somerset). A few small houses managed to produce at least one student, but these tended to be places closer to universities, such as Cold Norton and Wroxton (Oxon.), Great Massingham and Pentney (Norfolk), and Stonely (Hunts.). Students should not always be visualized as young; some were abbots and priors of their houses, whose status would have allowed them to go away to study more easily than if they were juniors. Nor may

48 BRUO, I–III; BRUC; and BRUO, IV. Printouts of Augustinian entries from the Oxford volumes are held by Oxford University Archives and may be consulted in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. 49 Grace Book I, Containing the Records of the University of Cambridge for the Years 1501–1542, ed. by W. G. Searle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1908). 50 For example, John Litlyngdon from Newnham, at Cambridge or Oxford, 1431×1436 (Lincoln Visitations 1420–49, ed. by Thompson, I, 91). 51 These figures are conservative ones, omitting uncertain cases.

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such study have been all that it seems: the Prior of Bodmin was sent to Cambridge in 1447 and the Prior of Taunton to Oxford four years later, as economy measures. Removing them from their priories was meant to reduce the debts they had incurred as well as helping to improve their minds!52 The Augustinians had no house of study at Cambridge for the whole of the later Middle Ages, and none at Oxford until the 1430s. Student canons therefore had to find lodgings in private houses, academic halls and hostels, colleges of other kinds of clergy, and possibly the order’s local houses. Unfortunately these arrangements have rarely left traces. At Oxford, Philip Repingdon, the outstanding Augustinian scholar of the late fourteenth century, may have rented a room at Queen’s, and six other members of the order did so later on at University College. At Cambridge two are known to have lived at Corpus Christi, two at Queen’s, and four at Gonville. Supervision and discipline were exercised over the scattered canons by the priors of students already mentioned.53 The order’s eventual study centre at Oxford was known as St Mary’s College and sited at Frewin Hall in New Inn Hall Street. This college was being planned in 1419, but it was not until 1435 that land was acquired or 1443 that the first known building is mentioned: the chapel.54 St Mary’s probably housed some students by the mid-fifteenth century and, later in that century, at least eight are designated in university records as belonging to the college. The college buildings were still incomplete in 1518, however, and they appear to have been finished only in the last two decades before the Reformation. The principal recorded subject of study at Oxford by Augustinians was canon law with fourteen scholars, against theology with eleven, arts with three, and civil law with two. The smaller sample from Cambridge includes twelve theologians compared with five for canon law and one for arts. Not all students would have aimed at taking a university degree, and the surviving records are probably biased

52

The Register of Edmund Lacy, Bishop of Exeter: Registrum Commune, ed. by G. R . Dunstan, Devon and Cornwall Record Society, n.s., 13 (Exeter: Devon and Cornwall Record Society, 1968), III, 324; The Register of Thomas Bekynton, Bishop of Bath and Wells, ed. by H. C. Maxwell-Lyte and M. C. B. Dawes, Somerset Record Society, 49 (Taunton: Somerset Record Society, 1934), I, 164–65. 53 R . B. Dobson, ‘The Religious Orders 1370 to 1540’, in The History of the University of Oxford, II: Late Medieval Oxford, ed. by J. I. Catto and R . Evans (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 539–79 (p. 554); Emden, BRUC, p. 333. 54 On St Mary’s College, see E. Evans, ‘St Mary’s College in Oxford for Austin Canons’, Oxfordshire Archaeological Society Reports, 76 (1931), 367–91; and Dobson, ‘The Religious Orders’, pp. 554–55.

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towards those who did so and who therefore stayed for longer, thereby leaving more traces in records. Understandably most who graduated took bachelors’ degrees in canon law or theology, but a few underwent the longer and more arduous journey to that of doctor. The records collected by Emden for Oxford include one doctor of canon law and between nine and eleven of theology,55 while those for Cambridge encompass two doctors of canon law and between four and seven of theology.56 The benefits of university study for the houses who paid for it are difficult to trace, but returning students would have been able to help teach their brethren, and perhaps to build up and use book collections. More certainly, university study helped the careers of those who undertook it. Many graduates rose to be abbots or priors of their houses, and occasionally of other houses of the order. It may be that university study raised their status against that of other internal candidates, or that those who were sent to university were already marked out by their seniors as promising leaders for the future. Emden’s researches on Oxford students from 1501 to 1540 enable the Augustinian presence there to be traced until the Dissolution. During this period records are fuller, especially of men taking degrees, and statistics have more weight. At least sixty-five members of the order are known to have studied at Oxford during this period,57 but the sources are not consistent from house to house. An abbey or priory with internal records of those it sent to university produces more evidence than one without such records. The figures that survive therefore give credit where it is due, but it would be unwise to apportion blame because we have no known canons from Cirencester or Leicester. Oxford continued to attract canons from all over the country, even from Walsingham and West Acre (Norfolk), no doubt in part because of St Mary’s College. Bristol and Bruton (Somerset) provide the largest number of recorded students with five each, Bristol because of better internal records but Bruton, almost certainly, because of efforts by the abbot, William Gilbert, who studied at Oxford himself and probably ensured that others were sent from his house. Kenilworth (Warwicks.), Taunton, and Walsingham each yield two known students, but no other house more than

55 The canon lawyer was Balscote, and the theologians Eyton, Forest, George, Kingscote, Ludlow, Repingdon, Salyng, Thweng, Westcarr, and possibly Okeburn and Peper. 56 The canon lawyers were Legger and Newton, and the theologians Asshefeld, Burton, Lowth, Vowell, and possibly Barton, Shotover, and Wellys. 57 In addition to those listed in Emden, BRUO, IV , Belle, Gilbert, Halam, Newland, Vowell, and Walsh should be added, although listed in Emden, BRUO, I–III. Furthermore, Cokerell and Hardynge may have studied at Oxford or elsewhere (Emden, BRUO, IV , 669, 682).

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one. Most of those whose residence is known belonged to St Mary’s, but a few students still lived elsewhere, perhaps because of lack of space in the college. One is recorded at a university hall (St Edward) and another at Canterbury College (a house of Benedictines).58 Of the fifty whose studies are known, twenty-nine followed theology, thirteen canon law, six arts, and two civil law. Most of the recorded degrees were at bachelor level, and doctorates were few: one or two in theology and two in canon law.59 Even here the records may sometimes relate to men undertaking the doctorate rather than completing it. As before, the possession of a degree helped one’s promotion, and at least thirteen of the recorded students subsequently rose to be heads of houses.

Almonry Boys It is well understood nowadays that many monastic houses came to provide maintenance and education for boys or youths who were not novices of their orders.60 This practice can be traced in records back to the early thirteenth century. Almonries were buildings established by monasteries on the edge of their premises with access to the outside world. Here the poor were given food left over from the meals of the brethren and their servants, and a group of boys or youths might also be fed and lodged, hence the name of ‘almonry boys’ by which historians call them. Education was usually provided, either in a private school within the monastery taught by a priest or layman (not a monk or canon) or in a nearby school for the public. Roger Bowers has argued that the maintenance of such boys was originally charitable in motive. At Norwich Cathedral Priory in 1288–89, one of the best recorded early examples, the boys received meals, accommodation, and education without any requirement of duties in return. After 1300, he observes, the practice evolved in two respects. First, the admission of boys tended to reflect their links with the monastery, such as a relationship to a canon or to some important outside friend of the house. Secondly, boys came to undertake tasks in return for their board and lodging, especially by acting as assistants in church to those canons who

58

In addition, Byland may be the man of that name mentioned at St Bernard’s College in about the 1520s (Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, ed. by J. Gairdner and others, 21 vols plus addenda in 37 (London: HMSO, 1862–1932), XIII, pt II: August–December 1538 (1893), no. 403.) 59 Massey and Tomleyn (DCanL); Walle and possibly Cokerell (DD). 60 Bowers, ‘The Almonry Schools’, pp. 177–222.

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said daily private masses.61 In fact it is possible that charity was always intertwined with personal favours. One suspects that boys at all times gravitated to monasteries, as they did to lay households, so that any relatives or patrons whom they had there could help to get them free meals or an opening to become a servant or a cleric. Early examples of monasteries boarding almonry boys include Bury St Edmunds and Durham Cathedral, both Benedictine houses, at the beginning of the thirteenth century. The first Augustinian houses where such arrangements can be traced are Guisborough in the period 1266–80 and Barnwell in 1296.62 The monastic evidence is so exiguous in this period, however, that it is not possible to say whether almonry boys originated among the Benedictines and spread to the Augustinians or vice versa. Very likely there was a general movement to do the same thing across both orders or, to repeat the last statement of the previous paragraph, a common long-standing tradition. During the middle of the fifteenth century, as Dr Bowers has also demonstrated, a further development in the history of almonry boys took place: a musical one.63 Polyphony became increasingly popular in churches for masses and antiphons distinct from the plainsong of the choir, especially in honour of the Virgin Mary. Its performance evolved from a small group of adults to a larger chorus of adults and boys singing in several parts, the boys contributing sound that could not be supplied by adults and thereby becoming choristers as we now understand them. Monasteries began to use some of their almonry boys for this purpose, which meant that they had to choose such boys for the quality of their voices and provide them with a specialized musical teacher, someone other than a canon. The boys were not usually known as ‘choristers’, however, but as ‘boys’, and their teacher as ‘the master of the boys’. Their duties were less burdensome than those of cathedral choristers, because they sang only two or three times a day and were not required (as in the cathedrals) to do duties in the monastic choirs. Dr Bowers has compiled a provisional list of medieval monasteries maintaining almonry boys and singing boys. It includes twenty-six Augustinian houses, of which eight are recorded as having almonry boys, four as having almonry boys and singing

61

Lincoln Visitations 1420–49, ed. by Thompson, I, 89, 121; II, 214. C. R. Cheney, ‘Letters of William Wickwane, Chancellor of York’, English Historical Review, 47 (1932), 626–42 (pp. 629, 633); Liber memorandorum ecclesie de Bernewelle, ed. by J. W. Clark (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1907), pp. 174–75. 63 R . Bowers, ‘To Chorus from Quartet: The Performing Resource for English Church Polyphony c. 1390–1559’, in English Choral Practice, 1400–1650, ed. by J. Morehen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 20–31; Bowers, ‘The Almonry Schools’, esp. p. 211. 62

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boys, and four as having singing boys. Since one can probably posit almonry boys where there were singing boys, it is probable that all these houses had the first category and about eighteen had both categories. The houses with almonry and singing boys included most of the wealthiest: Bristol, Cirencester, Guisborough, Lanthony Secunda, Leicester, Oseney, and Waltham (Essex). They also went down the scale of wealth as far as Ulverscroft (Leicestershire), whose income in 1535 was only £83, while among houses where almonry boys alone are recorded, Barlinch (Somerset) was worth £98, and Ivychurch (Wiltshire) £122 per annum. The maintenance of such boys seems never to have been statutory but it was so frequent by the fifteenth century that some bishops at their visitations ordered it to be done where it was lacking or insufficient.64 Altogether the evidence suggests that almonry boys were common, although not ever universal, and that the singing boys were to be found in the larger houses. How many boys there were varied from house to house and from time to time. Leicester, as we shall see, was required to have sixteen almonry boys, and Thornton fourteen or sixteen. Twelve was probably more usual in large institutions, falling to six, four, or even fewer in smaller ones. Where singing boys existed they formed part of the group, four or six being likely numbers. As usual in monasteries, there were fluctuations in the care that houses (and particularly their abbots and priors) gave to maintaining these boys. In 1440 a visitation of Leicester Abbey by William Alnwick, bishop of Lincoln, found matters in a sorry state. Individual canons alleged that the number of boys had fallen to six from an earlier total variously estimated at between fourteen and twenty-six. The abbot had taken money to admit boys — 20s. for one and 6s. 8d. for another — with the result that some were unfit for service. No teaching in grammar was provided and the boys were used to carry out tasks for the canons as if they were servants. Alnwick heard much the same at Thornton in the same year. An original complement of boys reckoned at between eight and fourteen had been reduced to two, and no teacher had been employed. The bishop duly issued injunctions for both houses, which show that he acknowledged the allegations. The abbot of Leicester was ordered to increase the boys to sixteen, and the abbot of Thornton to fourteen or sixteen. Both were told to appoint a grammar master to teach them, and an order was made that the Leicester boys should spend their time only at their studies or at serving in the church.65

64 65

Lincoln Visitations 1420–49, ed. by Thompson, I, 89; II, 214; III, 379–80. Lincoln Visitations 1420–49, ed. by Thompson, II, 208–09, 214; III, 371–77, 379–80.

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It is possible that the larger houses took their almonry boys more seriously when a proportion of them were needed as singers. It was a point of prestige to provide polyphonic music and Bristol, as we have seen, spent more money on that than on teaching grammar. Some of the letters in which houses appointed masters of the boys in charge of their singing survive from just before the Reformation. In 1533 Lanthony Secunda chose John Hogges to teach song and organ playing to four children for a package of rewards totalling about £9.66 In 1538 Cirencester contracted with Henry Edmunds to teach polyphony and Latin to the boys of its Lady chapel for a similar level of payment, while Taunton, in the same year, appointed Thomas Foxe to teach song for £5, a house, fuel, and a gown, which amounts to about the same sum.67 Nine pounds or thereabouts seems to have been the going rate and approximated to a schoolmaster’s salary in an endowed public school. On these occasions, the quality of the music and the level of education of the boys were evidently taken seriously.

Public Education in the Later Middle Ages The involvement of the Augustinians with public education was not limited to the patronage of schools in the twelfth century. It is also found during the later Middle Ages, as it is among the Benedictines and eventually in some of the Cistercian houses, and therefore represents an outreach that was common to the religious orders rather than unique to any of them. One kind of support was an offer of meals or lodgings to external scholars. At Bridgwater (Somerset) in 1298, the bishop of Bath and Wells arranged for the local hospital, an Augustinian house, to feed seven of them daily from its kitchen and to lodge thirteen within its buildings.68 At Launceston Priory (Cornwall) in 1342, another bishop, John Grandisson of Exeter, told the canons to extend their practice of offering food to the poor in their hall to ‘some poor boys suitable and apt to learn grammar’.69 The directive was obeyed, because an inscription was later displayed in the hall,

66

Orme, Education in the West of England, p. 210. Orme, Education in the West of England, pp. 203–04, 212. 68 Calendar of the Register of John de Drokensford, Bishop of Bath and Wells, ed. by E. Hobhouse, Somerset Record Society, 1 (Taunton: Somerset Record Society, 1887), p. 268. 69 The Register of John de Grandisson, Bishop of Exeter, ed. by F. C. Hingeston-Randolph, 3 vols (London: Bell, 1894–99), II: 1331–60 (1897), p. 955. 67

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addressed to poor scholars and warning them to frequent the house of learning while they were young.70 Another practice was to allow boys from outside the monastery to share in the education provided for those inside it. An early example of this comes from 1266–68, when John Blaby, a landowner in the North Riding of Yorkshire, asked William Wickwane, the chancellor of York Minster, for leave to send his two sons to study at Guisborough Priory under the master who taught the poor boys of the house.71 This request was necessary and gained record because the chancellors of York claimed jurisdiction over schools and scholars in large parts of Yorkshire,72 but similar arrangements were probably fairly common in later medieval England since we know that some Benedictine almonry schools (such as St Augustine’s Canterbury and Norwich) admitted outsiders. Schoolmasters recorded as teaching in Bicester Priory (Oxfordshire) in 1445 and in Barlinch round about 1500 may have taken in boys from the district as well as the priory,73 and this was certainly true at one large Augustinian house, Lanthony Secunda. Here the priory not only maintained a claim to patronage over the school of the town but, on appointing a grammar schoolmaster in 1502 to teach its canons and almonry boys, permitted him to receive other scholars and to charge them fees, effectively creating or continuing a second, more private school to which outsiders could come.74 Most such teaching of the public inside houses was probably provided by clergy or laity who were not Augustinians, but there is one known case of a member of the order doing so: in 1332 the bishop of Lincoln licensed Richard of Stokton, canon of Bushmead Priory (Bedfordshire), to teach grammar to sixty boys for two years.75 Whether this was to be done in the priory or elsewhere is not stated.

70 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 315, fol. 268r, printed by R . H. Robbins, ‘Wall Verses at Launceston Priory’, Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen, 200 (1964), 338–43. 71 Cheney, ‘Letters of William Wickwane’, p. 633. 72 Cheney, ‘Letters of William Wickwane’, p. 629. 73 Lincoln Visitations 1420–49, ed. by Thompson, II, 35; N. Orme, ‘A School Note-Book from Barlinch Priory’, Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society, 128 (1984), 55–63, repr. in N. Orme, Education and Society in Medieval and Renaissance England (London: Hambledon, 1989), pp. 113–21. 74 A Calendar of the Registers of the Priory of Llanthony by Gloucester, 1457–1466, 1501–1525, ed. by J. Rhodes, Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, Gloucestershire Record Series, 15 (Gloucester: Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, 2002), pp. 59–61. 75 Lincolnshire Record Office, Episcopal Registers, V , fol. 246v.

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I am not aware of an Augustinian priory providing a school that was wholly free of fees and mainly meant for the public, as a few large Benedictine monasteries did in the early sixteenth century, such as Burton-upon-Trent, Evesham, Reading, and Winchcombe.76 Nevertheless a handful of houses came to be involved with the running of some of the many free schools endowed by private benefactors after the end of the fourteenth century. They included Bristol, made patron of Wottonunder-Edge grammar school (Gloucestershire) in 1384, on occasions when the usual patron should be a minor in wardship;77 Hartland (Devon), which accepted duties of oversight at Week St Mary grammar school (Cornwall) in 1506;78 Launde (Leicestershire), entrusted with investing the capital and paying the income of Farnworth grammar school (Lancashire) in 1507;79 Cirencester, asked to advise on the selection of singing children in the nearby parish church in 1518;80 and Bruton, granted the endowment and charged with appointing the masters of Bruton grammar school in 1520.81 The endowed school movement therefore touched some of the Augustinian houses, but with the possible exception of Bruton, whose notable abbot, William Gilbert, may have been closely in touch with the local founders, they figure as guardians and trustees rather than vital forces in the creation of such schools.

Reflections Education was undoubtedly an important activity of the Augustinian order, especially from 1300 until the Dissolution. Canons were trained in their houses, students dispatched to university, a university college created, almonry boys maintained and taught, and public education supported through the patronage of schools and the admission of secular boys to almonry schools. That the order’s educational activities lack a consistent pattern is not unexpected, given that its houses were largely autonomous bodies. Much the same could be said of the Benedictines. Like them the Augustinians encountered difficulties in co-ordinating what they did, especially in terms of sending scholars to university and providing 76

Orme, Medieval Schools, pp. 286–87. Orme, Education in the West of England, pp. 194, 202; the right was exercised in 1511. 78 Orme, Education in the West of England, p. 176. 79 W. K. Jordan, The Social Institutions of Lancashire, 1480–1660, Chetham Society, 3rd ser., 11 (Manchester: Chetham Society, 1962), p. 33. 80 Orme, Education in the West of England, p. 130. 81 Orme, Education in the West of England, pp. 120–21. 77

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resources for them there. It is difficult to discern anything distinctive about Augustinian education. Their teaching of their younger members, their book collections and university studies, paralleled those of the other major religious orders. Their maintenance and teaching of almonry boys probably developed alongside that of the Benedictines. It is a moot point whether most Augustinian houses were more involved with the outside world than the Benedictines or Cistercians; if they were, their involvement does not seem to have led to an unduly large role in schoolteaching. The exception here might be the patronage of some town schools in the twelfth century, but even this was probably matched by the Benedictines, and it was not significantly replicated in the era of endowed schools after the 1380s. In the end it is hard to qualify Augustinian education in terms of praise or blame, but in terms of quantity there can be no doubt that it reached thousands of canons, almonry boys, and members of the general public, and that England would have been the poorer without it.

T HE R EGULAR C ANONS AND THE U SE OF F OOD , C . 1200–1350 Dave Postles

The Augustinian canons were openly much more carnivorous than the Cistercians and much more akin in their diet to the upper levels of secular society.1

T

he black canons are regularly assumed to share the attributes of the worldly. The argument seems to follow that because they lived in the world as well as being enclosed, they easily assimilated the customs and practices of the secular society which they theoretically served. It is perhaps not surprising then that some of the definitions at the earliest chapters of the black canons, in 1223, 1237, and 1241, reiterated the rule not to consume meat during Advent.2 Yet such reiteration does not necessarily condemn the monks for worldliness. It is possible that the earliest chapters in the 1220s were informed by the general aim of enforcing canonical reform.3 Reiteration, moreover, does not necessarily imply persistent neglect; medieval documents customarily practised repetition as a method of confirmation to prevent backsliding. However, the canons are, nonetheless, incriminated and the present article examines the extent to which the charge can be maintained.

1

C. M. Woolgar, ‘Group Diets in Late Medieval England’, in Food in Medieval England: Diet and Nutrition, ed. by C. M. Woolgar, D. Serjeantson, and T. Waldron (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 191–200 (p. 195). 2

Chapters of the Augustinian Canons, ed. by H. E. Salter, Oxford Historical Society, 74 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1922), pp. 7, 24, 29. 3

M. Gibbs and J. Lang, Bishops and Reform, 1215–1272, with Special Reference to the Lateran Council of 1215 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1934).

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Little substantiated research exists about the ‘foodways’ (the cultural, social, and economic practices relating to the production and consumption of food) of the canons before c. 1350.4 Perhaps we can make an initial foray here by considering two interrelated aspects of the use of food by the canons: how gifts of food between the canons and secular society assisted in the negotiation of social and spiritual relationships, and concomitantly what can be inferred from those exchanges about the consumption of the canons. The chronology is confined to this period of one hundred and fifty years from 1200 to 1350 for two reasons: firstly, insufficient evidence is available before c. 1200, so we have an imposed terminus a quo; secondly, the impact of the canons after 1350 was far less than that of the mendicants and others. Both assumptions are intentionally broad but serve to focus our present analysis. We are greatly handicapped by the lack of material available to us for this period. By and large, household accounts which provide gross details of quotidian diet elude us. However, to recover the everyday diet of the canons, one useful approach is to examine corrodies and study the assumptions there, by way of analogy, with what can be inferred as normal consumption by canons. A corrody was typically a maintenance allowance (in terms of provisions, particularly food) granted, here, by a canonry to an individual or family, in return for acquiring land from the individual. They also allow us to focus on little things which might mean a lot: the significance of fragments of food, liveries, and gifts, small quantities but high in social and symbolic value — high-status foodstuffs. Corrodies furnish some notion of the expected and perceived diet of the canons in the thirteenth and early fourteenth century. Grants of corrodies only provide cursory detail. For example, in 1234–66, Hamund of Northampton and Isabel de Bluntesmere quitclaimed their land to Southwick Priory in return for two corrodies for canons for their joint lives in the

4

Our understanding of monastic diet was placed on a new footing, at least for a great black monk house, by B. F. Harvey, Living and Dying in England, 1100–1540: The Monastic Experience (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993). For intimations of the diet of the black canons including the meat content, we have the expense coquine of Bolton Priory after 1291–92. The difficulty here is uncertainty about supplementary liveries from the house’s manors. The fluctuations in the expenditure from year to year compound the problem, ranging between just over £11 and over £60 (in 1302–03). The purchase of meat usually accounted for about £6, but exceeded £15 in 1298–99. Meat, of course, was a more expensive commodity than other foodstuffs, so expenditure is not an altogether accurate guide. The Bolton Priory Compotus, 1286–1325, ed. by I. Kershaw and D. M. Smith, Yorkshire Archaeological Society Record Series, 154 (Woodbridge: published for the Society by Boydell, 2000), pp. 44, 49, 54, 59, 68, 79, 91, 104, 117, 128, 146–47.

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form of bread, cider, and cooked food.5 The value of such examples from corrodies is that they intimate what was assumed to be the normal diet of a canon (without, of course, any accessories and delicacies such as pittances, to which we shall return).6 Standard fare for a canon is adumbrated in the corrody allowed to a certain Mabel by Stone Priory, an allocation quale habet unus canonicus: in bread with relish (companagium) except pittances; one and a quarter gallons of ale (a gallon being approximately 4.5 litres); and a bushel of rye every month (a quantity roughly equivalent to 25 kilograms today).7 In the mid- to late thirteenth century, the daily allowance for a nun, by implication, comprised in part two white loaves, two gallons of ale, a dish of food, and a supper.8 Occasionally, the regular fare of a canon can be glimpsed in other contexts. When one of the canons of Merton Priory stayed with his two grooms at Stubbington, a manor of Southwick Priory, for four days in 1267–68, he was allowed 5 pence (d.) in bread, 4d. in ale, and 6d. in relish.9 Two additional points can be made about these corrodies. Firstly, they were granted by the canons at this time in an irregular, unsystematic way. They were not a first recourse, rather a final resort; they redeemed substantial acquisitions of land. The beneficiaries of the corrodies clearly must also have preferred a maintenance arrangement of this kind in preference to a cash payment or consideration. Inflation might have made such a maintenance arrangement — if it covered the major requirements of livelihood — a considerable attraction to the receiver of the allowance.10 The receipt of sustenance in kind obviated the effects of inflation in

5

The Cartularies of Southwick Priory, ed. by K. A. Hanna, Hampshire Record Series, 9–10, 2 vols (Winchester: Hampshire Record Office, 1988), II, 347; III, 853. 6

The best discussion of pittances is B. F. Harvey, ‘Monastic Pittances in the Middle Ages’, in Food in Medieval England, ed. by Woolgar, Serjeantson, and Waldron, pp. 215–27. 7

G. Wrottesley, ‘The Stone Chartulary’, Collections for a History of Staffordshire, 6 (1885), 16. A corrody from Blythburgh Priory in the late twelfth century was defined as prebenda unius canonici: Cartulary of Blythburgh Priory, ed. by C. Harper-Bill, Suffolk Charters, 2–3, 2 vols (Woodbridge: Suffolk Record Society and Boydell, 1980–81), II, 143 (251). 8

Lacock Abbey Charters, ed. by K. Roger, Wiltshire Record Society, 24 (Devizes: Wiltshire Record Society, 1979), p. 98 (400). 9 10

Winchester, Winchester College Muniments (hereafter WCM), 15377d.

P. D. A. Harvey, ‘The English Inflation of 1180–1220’, Past and Present, 61 (1973), 3–30; P. Latimer, ‘The English Inflation of 1180–1220 Reconsidered’, Past and Present, 171 (2001), 3–29; Latimer, ‘Early Thirteenth-Century Prices’, in King John: New Interpretations, ed. by S. D. Church (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1999), pp. 41–73.

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a way that a discrete, once-for-all consideration in money would not; however it was employed, the value of the money would be eroded quickly at this time. It is equally possible, nonetheless, that the arrangement suited the canons, for cash reserves in their houses were not always strong and many houses around this period suffered some form of financial difficulty.11 In this regard, a corrody was simply a hidden cost, diverting some of the produce from the canons’ estate. An exception to this irregular granting of corrodies seems to be the case of Dunstable Priory which had a seeming alacrity to dispense corrodies in the early thirteenth century. For instance, Ralph de Chaure received a canon’s corrody (unum conredium canonicum [sic]) for his life. Consequently, his weekly allowance consisted of seven loaves and seven gallons of ale, 2d. worth of relish, and thick soup — all from the same food as the canons.12 Exactly the same content made up the corrody granted to W. de Hetun’ for his life (which he had effectively bought for 20 marks and in return for the reversion of half his movable property). Here again, these foodstuffs, and in these quantities, were specified as a canon’s corrody (conredium unius canonici).13 Canons’ corrodies of the same composition were allowed to Emma de Kyrkeby in 1234, Hugh de Wadel’ in 1236, and Nicholas and Isabel de Tyngrith in 1248×1250.14 Corrodies dispensed to two women, however, reveal that a canon would additionally receive a daily dish of meat or fish.15 Another corrody of 1250 included one shilling (s.) per week for meat for a married couple.16 What is fascinating perhaps is that it was precisely about this time that the first disputes between the priory and burgesses arose, no doubt stimulated by 11

Cirencester in particular about this time required the intervention of the Metropolitan and the Ordinary to rearrange its financial organization: The Cartulary of Cirencester Abbey, ed. by C. D. Ross, 2 vols (London: Athlone, 1964), I, 295–97 (327/186, 328) (1200–05, 1222–36); II, 365 (405); it had entered exorbitantly into the land market, being rather profligate in its purchases. 12 A Digest of the Charters Preserved in the Cartulary of the Priory of Dunstable, ed. by G. H. Fowler, Bedfordshire Historical Record Society, 10 (n.p.: Bedfordshire Record Society, 1926), p. 92 (275) (1202–27). 13

Digest of Charters of Dunstable, p. 114 (331–32). The canon’s corrody at Selborne Priory also consisted of a white (wheaten) loaf and a gallon of ale or cider each day: Calendar of the Charters and Documents Relating to Selborne and its Priory, Preserved in the Muniment Rooms of Magdalen College, ed. by W. D. Macray, 2 vols (London: Hampshire Record Society, 1891–94), I, 82 (1307). 14

Digest of Charters of Dunstable, pp. 148–49 (467, 469).

15

Digest of Charters of Dunstable, pp. 114 (333), 189 (693). The granting of corrodies in exchange for land was not without risk: Annales monastici, ed. by H. R . Luard, Rolls Series, 36, 4 vols (London: Longman, 1864–69), III (1866), 63. 16

Calendar of the Charters and Documents Relating to Selborne and its Priory, I, 34–35.

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both the general political discord of recent times and the nascent civic ambition of the burgesses.17 It is easy to deduce that Dunstable was not alone in being liberal with corrodies, since the Council of Oxford in 1222 had been particularly concerned to restrict the granting of corrodies, insisting that any new corrodies should have the formal consent of the bishop.18 The consequences of financial misjudgements could be severe, for in May 1250 Dodnash Priory expended £19 6s. 8d. to buy back a corrody.19 Canons naturally preferred to avoid such financially demanding arrangements if possible. Social relationships could be cemented at lower cost, either by one-off, final lifetime grants or by liveries in kind (that is, gifts of food in return for the transfer of land or property). In these cases, the quantities granted by the canons were smaller, but the quantity was compensated by higher value produce. One of the methods by which Southwick Priory cemented social relationships with some of the burgesses of Portsmouth was through gifts of food. Some of these associations originated in commercial transactions or through the transfer, that is alienation, of land. One such connection was established between the priory and Hugh Raggy and it became extended to Hugh’s family as the priory developed this particular social and kinship network. In c. 1240, Hugh Raggy disposed of a croft in Kingston to the priory for 30 marks. Some seven years later, 5 quarters of barley were delivered to him in liquidation of an old debt owed to him by the priory. In 1249–50, Hugh purchased 30 quarters of beans (1 quarter constituted a dry measure of about 291 litres) and 31 quarters of peas from the priory. The prior ordered gifts of 1 quarter of wheat to Hugh and ½ a quarter of the same grain to each of Nicholas Raggy and Thomas Raggy. This agreement is notable in two respects. Firstly, these liveries were not the advantagium accorded to merchants: they were not based on a proportion of the sale nor were they of the same grain. Secondly, the liveries consisted of a much higher value grain, wheat, the white grain, reserved for consumption by the elite.20 To have a livery of this high-quality grain from this source had the implication that 17

Annales monastici, III, 105–06, 110–11, 118–24.

18

R . H. Snape, English Monastic Finances in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1926), p. 145. 19

Dodnash Priory Charters, ed. by C. Harper-Bill, Suffolk Charters, 16 (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 1998), p. 56 (25). 20

M. Montanari, The Culture of Food, trans. by C. Ipsen (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994), pp. 50–51. See, however, the provision by Stephen de Harenhull’ that both wheat and barley for bread be distributed to the poor on his anniversary: Cartulary of Cirencester, I, 252 (269/126).

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one was eating the same type of food as the regular canons and, not only that, but food which had the same origin as that which the canons were consuming. Wheat, moreover, was not only the bread grain of the elite and of the regular canons but also the pure grain converted into the host and then transmuted into the body of Christ. Bestowing wheat on a livery-holder was far from an automatic part of the transaction of the sale, but was made at the express command of the prior. At the nub of the bestowal, then, was the intention of the prior to cement a social as well as commercial relationship with an important local family, to maintain the commercial relationship, but also to expand it. In the following year the same amounts of wheat were conferred on Hugh, Nicholas, and Thomas. A further window is opened on the relationship in a subsequent year, when the same allocations were made by the prior’s gift to Hugh, Nicholas, and Thomas, for we also discover that the priory had debts to Hugh of 16s. 6d. and also 15s. for wine which he had supplied. Then again in the next year, Hugh, Nicholas, and Thomas received the same allowances of wheat by the prior’s gift, but the old debt of 15s. to Hugh was outstanding, that is, not acquitted. In this year too, 1252–53, we glean more about the relationship, for the prior had received Hugh on a visit around the time of the feast of St James for which the prior had commandeered 10d. for wine for entertainment. (We shall return to the significance of wine below.) The fact that the livery grants were special can be seen when we realise that also in 1252–53, the priory was obliged under an old debt to Denis de Hampton’ for 3s. for wine. Yet Denis received no special presents from the prior. Who then was Hugh Raggy besides a general merchant involved in the purchase of grain and the sale of wine and a landholder? A burgess of Portsmouth, the borough adjacent to the property at Stubbington, Hugh ascended to be bailiff and reeve of the borough, the two principal offices. His brother, Thomas, also obtained the freedom of the borough and conferred a benefaction on the house in c. 1270, sustaining the relationship between burgess family and priory.21 Finally, almost thirty years after these deliberations, in 1280–81, a quarter of barley was delivered to the widow of Hugh Raggy as part of her dower, the recognition of a long-standing relationship as well as a formal obligation which had no doubt been negotiated between Hugh and the prior.22

21

For all the above, see WCM 15376a, c–f; Cartularies of Southwick Priory, II, 236, 268–69, 296; III, 625, 696, 751. 22

WCM 15376a.

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We can infer that there was more than a formal obligation here, for the priory perpetuated relationships with other widows, probably as a consequence of an association with their late husbands. The widow of Richard Eylof received barley and wheat in 1269–70.23 In 1268–69 the allocation to her had consisted of fourteen and a half quarters of wheat.24 At that time, she had only recently been bereaved, for Richard had himself received half a quarter of wheat as a special gift from the prior in the previous year, as had Stephen Justise, William Bidandehors, and the Vicar of Warblington.25 Sometime around 1265–68, Ralph I de Lighe alienated land to the priory; his son was accorded a quarter of wheat, perhaps as a counter-gift and for surety. Another quarter of wheat was then allocated to Ralph himself by the prior’s gift through the manorial account for Stubbington. Finally, the prior afforded a gift of two bushels of wheat to Ralph’s widow in 1269–70. We can surmise from this that Ralph’s transaction was near the end of his life, that assurance of the transaction was obtained from his son by a livery of the high quality grain (wheat), and that Ralph’s widow was remembered with a reduced amount, but still of best-quality grain.26 All these people were of some social consequence to the prior and received the best-quality grain (wheat), whereas the widow of Nicholas pistor was merely granted half of a quarter of the poorer grain, oats, by the prior.27 Likewise, liveries by regular canons to their famuli rarely contained wheat, merely the lesser grains of barley, maslin, and mixed other grains.28 Commercial relationships such as that with Hugh Raggy were not then simply economic transactions. As befitted the status of the merchant, they involved social proprieties.29 Something of that etiquette can be recovered from the priory’s

23

WCM 15377a.

24

WCM 15377b–c.

25

WCM 15377d.

26

WCM 15377a, c, d; Cartularies of Southwick Priory, II, 235–36; III, 624–27.

27

WCM 15376e. For wheat bread baked for the visits of the archbishop on some manors and the Lord Percy and J. de Moubray, see the Bolton Priory Compotus, p. 222 (1306–07). 28

For small amounts of wheat in the livery to the famuli, note the Bolton Priory Compotus, e.g. p. 205. 29

For the economy ‘embedded’ in social relationships, see K. Polanyi, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (New York: Rinehart, 1944); for a recent critique, note C. Muldrew, The Economy of Obligation: The Culture of Credit and Social Relations in Early Modern England (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 1998).

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association with Henry Longus, a merchant of Southampton. In a sense, Henry may have indeed succeeded Hugh. In 1267–68, Henry arranged to take 50 quarters of beans and 40 quarters of peas from the priory’s manor of Stubbington.30 In 1268–69, Henry purchased 46 quarters of beans and 16 quarters of peas.31 In the following year, he contracted for 27 quarters of beans and 30 quarters of peas.32 In 1269–70, the prior ordered a special gift to him of a quarter of wheat, on the same basis as Hugh Raggy’s present. As importantly, however, it was imperative to afford Henry the proper comestibles during his regular visits, with his entourage, to the property at Stubbington, allowing not only bread and ale, but also wine and meat.33 Although the visits undoubtedly involved the negotiation for the crop and its collection, the tariff for entertaining Henry included the higher quality foodstuffs: wine and meat-wine just as the prior had expected when he commandeered white wine when the justices itinerant arrived in Southwick.34 On another occasion, in 1267–68, the prior acquired half a sester of wine (a sester being 15 pints or about 8 litres) for 8d. for Luke de Tauntone on the day when Luke made his feast. About this time, Luke had assigned to the priory some small rents, so it is possible that the benefaction was celebrated through dining together (that is, ‘commensality’).35 Wine constituted the drink for special purposes and the gift for valued people. Likewise, fish was accepted as the appropriate delicacy.36 Herring was excluded because it was considered staple food.37 Not only was it common in the diet of all people, it was preserved, not fresh. Fresh fish was the preserve of the elite, because it was difficult to obtain and because it was perishable. Its consumption denoted rank. Perhaps the possibility of its perishing (and thus being wasted) added to its

30

WCM 15377d.

31

WCM 15377b.

32

WCM 15377a.

33

WCM 15377b, 15378.

34

WCM 15376f (1249–50).

35

WCM 15377d; Cartularies of Southwick Priory, II, 329 (III, 812). For wine bought (6s. 8d.) for the visit of the Archbishop’s official, see the Bolton Priory Compotus, p. 54 (1294–95). 36

For the significance of fish in monastic diet and the varieties, note Harvey, Living and Dying in England, pp. 46–51, 57. 37

See, in general, Serjeantson and Woolgar, ‘Fish Consumption in Medieval England’, in Food in Medieval England, ed. by Woolgar, Serjeantson, and Waldron, pp. 102–30.

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symbolic value: it represented the food of those who could afford waste.38 The prior constantly received consignments of fresh fish of a diverse variety, both from the sea and fresh from fishponds. The priory’s manor of Stubbington, near Portsmouth, acted as a stocking point near to the sea. Its accounts itemize the large quantities of fish dispatched to the priory at Southwick in 1249–51, including goat-fish, salmon, plaice, porpoise, bass, and significant numbers of conger, mackerel, and hake.39 The prior — and this sort of benefaction was in the gift only of the prior — distributed high-value fish with discrimination to people of status. When Magister Richard perambulated the royal forest, he received from the prior 2s. 6d. worth of fish, but with an additional consignment of the coveted conger to the value of 3s.40 Conger and fresh fish, valued at 2s., were diverted by the prior to the abbot of Titchfield.41 Sir G. de Basevile was privileged with 1s. worth of mackerel.42 In c. 1247, fish assessed to the value of 4s. 4d. was furnished at the burial of Sir Geoffrey de Roches, whose widow subsequently alienated an acre of land to the priory.43 Two years later two conger were consigned to William Tregot, a burgess of Portsmouth, another benefactor of the house.44

38 ‘Not having staples because one cannot afford them means being deprived of something which is almost a right. Having them because one can afford them means living an appropriate, although basic and unembellished, life. Yet, taking them or readily leaving them for something better (or not even considering them as proper food) is exempting oneself from the constraints and standards by which others live.’ D. Gewertz and F. Errington, ‘The Alimentary Forms of the Global Life: The Pacific Island Trade in Lamb and Mutton Flaps’, American Anthropologist, 109 (2007), 496–508 (p. 504). P. Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, trans. by R . Nice (London: Routledge, 1984), has the felicitous phrase ‘distance from necessity’ (p. 177). 39

WCM 15376e, f. For salmon, lamprey, and a barrel of sturgeon at Bolton Priory, see the Bolton Priory Compotus, p. 196 (1305–06). 40

WCM 15376e (1250–51).

41

WCM 15376e (1250–51).

42

WCM 15376e (1250–51).

43

WCM 15376d; Cartularies of Southwick Priory, II, 169; III, 465.

44

WCM 15376f; Cartularies of Southwick Priory, II, 272, 307, 326–27; III, 704, 768, 808.

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Such fish had an exoticism which signified difference, Bourdieu’s ‘distinction’.45 Other fish had no such cachet, for they represented mere common fare. Even with those fish, however, the significance might reside in the grantor rather than the food. We might imagine the impact of the grant in 1141×1153 by Ranulf II, earl of Chester, to the canons of Haughmond Abbey of a boat on the River Dee and the right to acquire six thousand herring free of toll at Chester.46 Mundane food in huge quantities it undoubtedly was, but this fish might have been memorialized through the significance of the donor. In this case, the value attached to the donor rather than being inherent in the commodity. Fish other than herring could hold further significance. Regular canons received ‘pittances’ but these might be bolstered on special occasions (feasts allowing conspicuous consumption) by fish as a delicacy associated with the elite. The canons of Brinkburn were particularly favoured with fish, for the supposed refoundation charter of William Bertram appended after the recitation: ‘Preterea omni anno eisdem Canonicis viginti pisces de mea piscaria de Coket’ (every year to those canons, moreover, twenty fish from my Coket fishery).47 Equally beneficent was William de Tamerton who delivered to Guisborough Priory a fishery in Stainsby in Cleveland so that the canons might have thirteen pittances (a significant number, of course) of salmon, seafish, and fresh (not salted) herring on specified feast days.48 Four fisheries in the Derwent accrued to Warter Priory

45

Bourdieu, Distinction, pp. 177–200 (for food culture): the distinction extends not only to the food eaten but how it is prepared and consumed. For eating daintily and dainty dishes, note J. Goody, Cooking, Cuisine and Class: A Study in Comparative Sociology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), p. 115. The ambiguities and contradictions are exposed in J. Storey, Cultural Consumption and Everyday Life (London: Arnold, 1999): alternative discourses of emulation, conflation, appropriation, resistance, interpellation, and so on. For a very interesting analysis of the difference in food consumption in medieval London, see M. Carlin, ‘Fast Food and Urban Living Standards in Medieval England’, in Food and Eating in Medieval Europe, ed. by M. Carlin and J. T. Rosenthal (London: Hambledon, 1998), pp. 27–51. 46

The Cartulary of Haughmond Abbey, ed. by U. Rees (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1985), p. 60 (215). 47

The Chartulary of Brinkburn Priory, ed. by W. Page, Surtees Society, 90 (Durham: Andrews, 1893), pp. 1–2 (1). 48

Cartularium Prioratus de Gyseburne, ed. by W. Brown, Surtees Society, 86, 89, 2 vols (Durham: Andrews, 1889–94), II, 34 (dclxviia). Salmon for a pittance in 1197×1221 was valued at 2s. The Cartulary of Holy Trinity, Aldgate, ed. by G. A. J. Hodgett, London Record Society, 7 (London: Record Society, 1971), p. 186 (950).

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through the benefaction of Beatrice Darel who elected to be buried in the priory.49 Fresh fish was specifically to be provided for the canons of Haughmond through the very substantial endowment of land and mills made by Walter de Clifford II in 1200×1204.50 Sea-fish were made liberally available to Blythburgh Priory by the transfer to it of the tithes of fish of Walberswick in 1157×1174.51 Fish was also associated with liturgically prescribed abstinence at other special times. Harking back then to the chapters’ strictures in the 1230s to observe abstention from meat in Advent, fish was allowed. So Hugh de Lelay granted an annual rent of 6s. to Healaugh Priory to substitute fish during Advent.52 Fish and meat constituted the foodstuffs in the ‘battle’ between ‘carnival’ and ‘Lent’, between festive commensality and renunciation, in both of which the canons participated. Gifts of fish by the laity to the canons were inherently ambiguous: a desire to provide delicacy and exoticism in their diet and yet to signify a special kind of appropriate, abstemious diet.53 The inverse obtained also. Any gift of food by the canons assumed a high symbolic value.54 The food usually already had an inherently high value because of its economic cost and its scarcity, as we have seen above. Additional symbolic value was invested in it because it derived from the canons. In other words, the provenance of the food also instated its value. Wine, in contrast to common ale, had specific value.55 Whilst the normal, daily allowance of the canons consisted of ale, wine was consumed on special occasions.56 The arrangements for the obit of John Goudlyne at Lacock Abbey included an

49

Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Fairfax 9, fol. 11r (cum corpore meo).

50

Cartulary of Haughmond Abbey, p. 62 (232).

51

Cartulary of Blythburgh Priory, I, 46 (42).

52

The Chartulary of the Augustinian Priory of St John the Evangelist of the Park of Healaugh, ed. by J. S. Purvis, Yorkshire Archaeological Society Record Series, 92 (Wakefield: Yorkshire Archaeological Society, 1935), p. 21. 53

Montanari, Culture of Food, pp. 78–82; Goody, Cooking, Cuisine and Class, pp. 79–80, 108,

117. 54

The idea of ‘unblemished’ food is an interesting one: note Goody, Cooking, Cuisine and Class, p. 110. 55 56

Montanari, Culture of Food, pp. 17–21.

Some idea of the purchase of wine can be elicited from the Bolton Priory account book, although the buying was intermittent, so that wine bought in one year might have been consumed in later years: Bolton Priory Compotus, pp. 165 (more than five doles bought in 1300–01 for £16 13s. 4d.), 213 (at least the same amount for just over £12); two doles were bought in both 1292–93 and 1293–94 (p. 49).

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allocation of a gallon of wine or 6d. to the six nuns attending the obsequy.57 Distraint for a sester of wine or 8d. was authorized on failure to deliver the 2s. rent for the pittance on the anniversary of the lady Clarice de Hidune at Canonsleigh Abbey.58 Provision of wine featured constantly in the agreements between Prior Stephen (1170–97) of Holy Trinity, Aldgate, and the grantees and lessees of the London property of the prior and convent. Both priors Ralph (1147–67) and Peter (1197–1221), predecessor and successor of Stephen, generally accepted cash payments for the entry fine (gersuma). Stephen, however, had a different preference. Fourteen entry fines consisted either of wine or a small cash sum and wine. In thirteen instances, a full sester of wine was demanded; in the other case, half a sester.59 What stimulated this consistent request for wine? The wine was not elicited for the prior himself: the small cash sums were directed to the prior, but all the wine to the convent. The canons of Aldgate were the beneficiary of their prior’s largesse. Perhaps Stephen was influenced by the dramatic inflation during his prelacy, but the quantity which accrued in this manner would not have appreciably assisted convent finances. Perhaps his generosity permitted the canons extra for special occasions, perhaps some was destined for the celebration of masses.60 The principal deficiency of all these notions is that the quality of the wine was not stipulated. A sester deriving from an entry fine might have consisted of the vilest wine. We cannot judge from this distance. A different perspective is offered if we consider the external relationship between Stephen and the citizens. The idea that the wine would be consumed by the canons or deployed at masses would have been an attractive one to the citizen

57

Lacock Abbey Charters, p. 48 (174).

58

The Cartulary of Canonsleigh Abbey, ed. by V. C. M. London, Devon and Cornwall Record Society, n.s., 8 (London: Devonshire Press, 1965), p. 64 (178). 59

Cartulary of Holy Trinity, pp. 43 (226), 46 (241), 52 (271), 91 (456), 100 (497), 121 (614), 133 (680), 147 (750), 154 (790), 158 (814), 171 (887), 175 (902), 182 (931), 218 (1054). In ten cases, the fine did not involve wine. 60

London, British Library, MS Additional 40008, fol. 30v: Henry Silver of Bridlington transferred two bovates in Sywardby to Bridlington Priory ad uinum emendum ad missas. The Silver family was closely associated with the priory, witnessing innumerable charters for the priory, not merely for property in Bridlington, but in several villages in the hinterland: fols 22v–23 r, 25v –30r, 32v –37r, 39r, 43v–46r, 58r, 61r, 62r, 66r, 69r, 70v , 76v –81v , 84v , 86r–88r, 92v–93v , 95r , 98r–v , 103r –105r , 111r , 113v , 116v , 120r , 123r , 124r , 127r , 137r, 138r, 140r–143v , 146r –149r, 151r–154v .

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grantees and lessees. As well as a general joyous sentiment of contributing one of the elements of the mass, the citizens might have expected some sort of spiritual benefit from this special relationship with the canons and the blood of Christ.61 Stephen might also have been perceptive in anticipating that the delivery of wine appealed to the citizens’ nascent sense of dignity. The wine, a high-value commodity, but one associated with the City of London and its citizen-merchants, reflected their self-perception of their civic status and urban civility. The arrangement may thus have induced a closer association between convent and citizenry at a critically difficult time, a period of intense inflation of prices. We should not be inclined to dismiss the prior’s preference simply and purely as an economic strategy. The association was as important. We can perhaps illustrate the significance of the personal relationship through a few other events and circumstances involving Holy Trinity. One, perhaps rhetorically composed as a brief chronicle, recounts the difficulties confronting the priory in its earliest years, after its foundation by Syred and before the intervention of Queen Matilda to sustain it.62 The initial convent was so poorly endowed that its permanence was at risk. Its continuation was secured by some pious women who delivered loaves on Sundays. Food was delivered to the religious representatives of God on earth. The narrative resonates with symbolism. The canons were the poor brethren of God; their poverty was emphatic. The convent struggled against the vicissitudes of an earthly existence. The laity delivered food to the holy. The food was meagre and staple, bread, the staff of life, the staff of Christ, the material foodstuff multiplied by Christ to feed the crowd, the bread broken by Christ at the Last Supper, the very body of Christ. The sustenance was proffered on Sundays, the sabbath and holiest of days — not just any day of the week — thus associating the bread firmly with God’s day. The house was rescued by a fond association between it and the citizenry of London. Finally, it was the women, that is, the pious women, of the City who took this initiative, preparing the way for the final salvation of the house by the most exalted of secular women, Queen Matilda, her benevolence forever associated with the priory. The relationships through the food are a complicated amalgam of the spiritual and the personal. We perhaps observe the same sort of process and attitudes in the foundation of Durford Abbey at the end of the twelfth century. The endowment by the founder,

61

For giving food as an act of grace in universal, written religions, see Goody, Cooking, Cuisine and Class, p. 65. Brahmins, of course, benefit explicitly in this way. 62

Cartulary of Holy Trinity, p. 2 (10).

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Henry Hose (Hosatus), was slender. Characteristic of the paucity of the first resources was the livery of the tithe of his household whenever he was resident at Durford: a tenth of every quarter for making bread and a tenth of meat from his larder, his confirmation charter including, however, a tithe of fish also.63 The inclusion of food from his household resources is typical of those of knightly status, with insubstantial resources, who attempted to found and endow houses of Austin canons. Indeed, Henry’s endowment included the typical return of rights in chapel and parish church into the control of the regular canons, observed as one of those minimal outlays for establishing houses of regular canons. In conferring the advowson (the right to nominate the parish priest or chaplain), nonetheless, he specified fairly elaborate services to be performed there for his soul. We can then consider his proffer of food from his household as establishing a personal association, an intimate relationship, through the gift of food, reinforced by the conferral of the food specifically on those occasions when he was in attendance. The intimacy did not extend much beyond Henry’s lifetime, for in 1244 Matthew Hose obtained a quitclaim from the abbot of the tithes of bread, meat, fish, wine, ale, and cider (sic) which could be claimed from his household.64 Perhaps that episode in itself illustrates the personal nature of the gift of food by his predecessor, Henry. The personal element in such relationships was important, too, in the negotiations between Ralph May and Aldgate in 1252×1260.65 Ralph’s benefaction to the priory was, in truth, rather meagre: a quitrent of half a pound of pepper or 4d. The prior and convent conferred a consideration or purchase price of 3s. in return. The negotiation did not finish there. At Christmas, the prior and convent would be obliged to give the grantor and his heirs at the door of their cellar a canon’s loaf if it was requested. For his very modest grant, Ralph had assured a perpetual association with the priory through the medium of food. Again, the loaf was not to be collected at any time of the year, no common quarter day such as Michaelmas, but on the day of Christ’s birth. The loaf was specifically not any common loaf, not even a servant’s or lay brother’s loaf, but one of the loaves consumed by the canons. The loaf should not be delivered to Ralph and his heirs

63 The Durford Cartulary, ed. by J. H. Stevenson, Sussex Record Society, 90 (Lewes: Sussex Record Society, 2006), pp. 4, 6 (9, 12). 64 65

Durford Cartulary, p. 61 (226). Cartulary of Holy Trinity, p. 17 (90).

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at some secular locus, but at the door of the cellar, like importuning alms.66 The mere phrasing in the charter does not adequately reflect the heightened sense of the occasion that would have applied for Ralph and his heirs. One suspects that the prior and convent were concerned to signify through this one simple act their attachment to the citizenry. The final episode involving Holy Trinity has perhaps a little more ambivalence, because of the status of the grantor, Magister Gregory medicus.67 In return for the grant to him by Prior Stephen and the convent, Gregory’s entry fine (gersuma) consisted of providing a meal (refeccio) for the brethren. Here again we must assume that the desire on both sides was to build a personal relationship, consummated through the medium of food. Perhaps this desire to eat with the canons was not confined to those with a particular occupational status. In the late twelfth century, Godfrey son of Henry de Wisete transferred (‘attorned’) the service of a tenant of his to Blythburgh Priory and also an acre of land, in consideration of which the canons returned a mark but also a meal with them on the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.68 Before moving to a conclusion, I wish to underline the urban character of what we have been examining. By and large, the material collected here pertains to the black canons. The events and occasions were located almost entirely in urban centres. This emphasizes the connection between the Austin canons and the towns. What we have observed implies a desire for association between some townsfolk and the religious house at least in the initial stages of their mutual development. Exchanges of food played an important role in the interrelationship partly because townsfolk often only possessed personal estate. In conferring food on the religious (the canons), they not only deprived themselves in an abstemious way, but the food, through its destination, attained a heightened significance — the food was transformed, not materially, but in the perception of the grantors, symbolically. In giving the food, they not only sustained the religious, but they also partook of the same food. We have a nexus comprising an urban location, Austin canons, food, and citizens — at least in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. In the towns at that date we encounter, therefore, not only a commercial economy but also a symbolic economy, albeit one that did not endure with the black canons. 66

For monastic almsgiving, the most satisfactory discussion is Harvey, Living and Dying in England, pp. 7–33; for leftovers, see Goody, Cooking, Cuisine and Class, p. 126. 67 68

Cartulary of Holy Trinity, p. 151 (776).

Cartulary of Blythburgh Priory, II, 191 (366) (‘et refectionem cum eis in die nativitatis sancte Marie’).

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If we concede then that the social world and sociality can be reconstructed through foodways, we might conceive that people partly construct their identities through what and how they consume foodstuffs.69 Social roles and positions are defined by what is eaten and how. Food is employed to promote sociality and sociability through commensality and gifts of food.70 This consumption is important, but so is the provenance of the food: how it came to people. Abstention has a proportionate symbolism: the refusal to eat some foods or to consume at all because of abstemiousness or belief defines some part of this fragmented identity.71 That allowed, we can recapitulate how the regular canons positioned themselves and were placed in this social world of food.72 Much of the recent examination of medieval food and its consumption, both by the religious and the laity, has concentrated on diet, the dietary aspects of consumption, morbidity, and mortality, and only tangentially or by implication with the semiotic value of food. Relationships between the regular canons and the laity were partly embedded in and sustained by foodways. The later institutionalization of corrodies gives the (perhaps mistaken) impression of direct and purposive reciprocal exchange of a transactional kind: a form of maintenance agreement in return for the land.73 69

For ‘calculated exchange’ and ‘semiotic value’, see A. Appadurai, ‘Introduction: Commodities and the Politics of Value’, in The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, ed. by A. Appadurai (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 19, 38. For how, The Observances in the Use of the Augustinian Priory of S. Giles and S. Andrew at Barnwell, Cambridge, ed. by J. W. Clark (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1897), p. 158: ‘Temperate, munde, et facete, de hiis que sibi apponuntur debent comedere, et modum in edendo non excedere’ (They should eat modestly, delicately, and nicely, and should not be gluttonous). I well remember being somewhat surprised by a member eating a banana with a knife and fork at St John’s, Oxford, high table, which probably reflects both on my background and his. We with origins in the working class (used to) refer to the midday meal as dinner not lunch. Breakfast was not one of our meals. 70

For the forms and purpose of commensality, note C. Grignon, ‘Commensality and Social Morphology: An Essay on Typology’, in Food, Drink and Identity: Cooking, Eating and Drinking in Europe Since the Middle Ages, ed. by P. Scholliers (Oxford: Berg, 2001), pp. 23–33. 71

Scholliers, Food, Drink and Identity, passim.

72

The Ordinary was concerned as much with drink: ‘Nullus bibat inordinate set horis statutis et locis regulariter et post completorium diutinam moram nullus faciat inpotacione’ (No one may drink irregularly, but only at the prescribed times and places, and, after the usual end, no one may take any drink): Cartulary of Cirencester Abbey, II, 366 (405). 73

For corrodies and corrodians, note H. M. Stuckert, Corrodies in English Monasteries: A Study in English Social History of the Middle Ages (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1923); Harvey, Living and Dying in England, pp. 179–209.

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Earlier and less formalized gifts of food reveal wider meanings. From one perspective the conferment of pittances on religious houses permitted the laity to participate in the patronage of the regular canons in particular and in the spiritual benefits which were anticipated, an association with the regular canons otherwise beyond their resources. The laity thus valued small gifts of food in establishing a relationship with the regular canons. The food had a special nature: high-status types of food, if not high in economic value or in terms of the quantities transferred. Its distinctive status was paramount, either as a food reserved to the elite or as a material which had a liturgical significance, imbibed or consumed in tiny quantities for special purposes and with special meaning. Gifts from the religious to the laity — particularly to officialdom — have sometimes been interpreted as douceurs. Even so, in many cases, the endeavour of the religious was to generate and maintain relationships — an associational intention. This desire for association through food operated in both directions. Food intrinsically had cultural value and conformed to a cultural etiquette of giving where money would have seemed crass. In material terms, the gift in kind also satisfied at times some of the needs of houses of regular canons, many of which existed, especially in their earlier incarnation, on slender resources and poor cash flows. For the laity, whilst the later institutionalized corrodies allowed another means of maintenance allowance, the corrody also had a sentimental and spiritual attachment because of its provenance. If one could not become a regular canon, one might eat like one and consume food from the same source.

T HORNTON A BBEY: C ANONS AND THEIR C AREERS WITHIN THE C LOISTER Judith A. Frost

I

n 1410 Pope Alexander V accused the abbot and convent of Thornton Abbey, Lincolnshire, of encouraging a popular cult around their former abbot, Thomas Greetham (d. 1393); the convent had reportedly proclaimed miracles associated with the abbot and were collecting alms and oblations from the public. The house was threatened with ecclesiastical censure, as the Pope had neither canonized nor confirmed Thomas Greetham as a holy man.1 Questions thus arise: was the saintly Abbot Thomas Greetham the ideal man to lead an Augustinian house? Or, more generally, what was the typical cloistered career of a prelate or any regular canon of an Augustinian house? Study of the monastic career of Abbot Thomas, whose life, despite this startling claim to fame, appears to follow that of a number of Augustinian prelates, allows us to discern patterns of monastic advancement in Augustinian houses in the mid-fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries.

Subjective Characteristics of the Prelate In simplest terms the prelate, be he prior or abbot, was the father or abbas of the monastery.2 The Rule of St Augustine states that the prelate is to be ‘the example

1

L. E. Boyle, A Survey of the Vatican Archives and of its Medieval Holdings (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1972), pp. 143–44. 2

The Customary of Barnwell Priory described the prelate as ‘[he] who in spiritual and temporal things has full authority’; see The Observances in Use at the Augustinian Priory of S. Giles and

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of good works’.3 In the absence of a customary for Thornton Abbey other English sources must guide this study. The mid-twelfth century Bridlington Dialogue, an exposition on the Rule, emphasizes that the prelate should be ‘the one whose life and wisdom and behaviour mark him out as the one who ought to be chosen according to the will of God’.4 The late thirteenth century Customary of Barnwell Priory elaborates by cautioning that the prelate must be capable of managing both the temporal and the spiritual affairs of the house, without detriment to either.5 A practical example of these criteria for a prelate survives in the registers of Bishop Oliver Sutton of Lincoln and his choice in 1291 of Arnold the cellarer of Thornton Abbey as the new prior of Kyme Priory — Arnold was fit because he was moral, pious, circumspect, virtuous, and an expert in spiritual and temporal matters.6 Whilst it is difficult to gauge the spiritual nature of the men who were elected prelate, experience in temporal matters is more accessible. The nature of a monastic career that would ‘mark him out as the one to be chosen’ can be understood to have included certain criteria recognizable to those voting at the election. It is the exploration of factors such as age and experience in temporal affairs that forms the focus of this study. Three factors will be explored. Firstly, how important at election was the length or span of monastic life of a canon and his age; that is to say, were prelates selected from the eldest canons, middle-aged canons, or from younger men, or was age a factor at all? Secondly, how important was experience? Were men elected because of their previous experience and potentially proven success in roles of

S. Andrew at Barnwell, Cambridgeshire, ed. by J. Willis Clark (Cambridge: MacMillan and Bowes, 1897) (hereafter the Customary of Barnwell Priory), pp. 37, 43. 3 Customary of Barnwell Priory, pp. 18–19. Describing the requirement of obedience to the prelate includes the charge that the prelate ‘Circa omnes se ipsum bonorum operum prebeat exemplum’ (let him show himself to all as a pattern of good works). 4

Thus in describing the election of a prelate the Master of the Bridlington Dialogue states those that elect a prelate should vote to secure the election of the man ‘quem vita pariter et scientia moresque commendant, ut secundum Deum eligi debeat’; The Bridlington Dialogue: An Exposition of the Rule of St Augustine for the Life of the Clergy, ed. and trans. by Sr Penelope Lawson (London: Mowbray, 1960), pp. 191–91a. 5

The behaviour of the prelate should be such that ‘Magnam quidem sollicitudinem habere debet prelatus ut sic spiritualibus intendat quod in temporalibus non torpescat; et sic esse sollicitus in temporalibus ut spiritualia non derelinquat’, Customary of Barnwell Priory, p. 43. 6

The Rolls and Register of Bishop Oliver Sutton, 1280–1299, ed. by R. M. T. Hill, Lincoln Record Society, 39, 43, 48, 52, 60, 64, 69, 76, 8 vols (Hereford: published for the Society by the Hereford Times, 1948–86), I, 151–52.

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management as the office holders of the abbey? Thirdly, did a hierarchy of offices exist? Were certain offices considered crucial prerequisites to election as prelate and other offices perceived as less important, or was the quantity of offices held a factor?

Sources and Methods In order to address these questions both specifically in terms of Thomas Greetham and more generally in relation to other Augustinian prelates of the period, certain sources need to be addressed. Thornton Abbey, Thomas Greetham’s home, was described in a sixteenth-century chronicle. The monastery was established in January 1140 and colonized by a prior and twelve canons from Kirkham Priory, Yorkshire, in 1141; the monastery was elevated to abbey status seven years later in 1148.7 Little is known of the extent of the monastic population in the first two centuries, but by 1377 there was an abbot and twenty-six canons and for the remaining centuries the community seems to have fluctuated between twenty-six and thirty canons: the abbot and twenty-five canons signed the Act of Supremacy in 1534; at the surrender of the house in December 1539 the prior and twentyseven canons were pensioned.8 In addition, the Taxatio ecclesiastica of c. 1291 indicates that the temporal estate of the house was valued at £347, and in the Valor ecclesiasticus (hereafter VE)in 1535 the total spiritual and temporal possessions were assessed at a value of £591, making Thornton Abbey the thirteenth-wealthiest Augustinian house in all of England and Wales.9 Other Augustinian houses in the north of England of comparable economic wealth (net income in 1535 VE) were all in Yorkshire: Guisborough (£628), Bridlington (£547), Nostell (£492), and Kirkham (£419).10 Thornton Abbey was the wealthiest and largest Augustinian

7

Oxford, Bodleian Library (Bodl.), MS Tanner 166, fol. 4r.

8

Kew (London), The National Archives, E25/110/1; Clerical Poll Taxes of the Diocese of Lincoln 1377–1381, ed. by A. K. McHardy, Lincoln Record Society, 81 (Woodbridge: published for the Society by Boydell, 1992), pp. 45, 135; E. H. Minnis, ‘Documents Relating to the Dissolution of the Monastery of Thornton Curtis in the County of Lincoln Left by the Rev. Charles Parkyn to the Pembroke College, Cambridge, and Written out and Abstracted by Ellis H. Minnis’, Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, 10 (1898), 482–95 (pp. 492–93). 9

David M. Robinson, The Geography of Augustinian Settlement, British Archaeological Reports, British Series, 80, 2 vols (Oxford: Archaeopress, 1980), II, 379, 387. 10

Knowles and Hadcock, MRH, pp. 137–81.

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house in the north Lincolnshire area; the neighbouring house at Thornholme was valued at only £105.11 Closer in size and wealth but located ninety-five kilometres to the south was Thurgarton Priory (Nottinghamshire), valued at £259.12 Most of the Augustinian houses in Lincolnshire were, by comparison, of meagre endowment and small communities: Wellow Abbey (£95), and the priories of Nocton Park (£43), Kyme (£101), Markby (£130), and Torksey (£13).13 The work of a sixteenth-century canon of Thornton Abbey provides further information about the monastic office holders.14 His manuscript brings together a variety of information including a complete list and history of abbots in the form of a local chronicle, a compilation of extracts from various account rolls, and twelve lists of office holders recording at least their first year in office.15 The chronicler’s sources were abbey account rolls as well as the abbey book of obits, tombs, and funerary monuments. Taken as a whole this manuscript provides the names of and offices held by over two hundred and sixty canons of that house during the four hundred years of the monastery’s existence and allows the construction of short biographical data on these canons and their career progress through some of the offices of the abbey.16 This biographical information on the Thornton Abbey canons, and indeed the identification of additional names, can be extended through study of the ordination records of the dioceses of Lincoln and York, episcopal visitation records, and clerical tax reports. Together, these sources yield the names of three hundred and seventy-eight regular canons that lived at Thornton Abbey between 1141 and the surrender of the abbey to Henry VIII’s commissioners in December 1539. To compare the Thornton canons in a broader context, the dates collected of the ordination of regular canons of twenty other Augustinian houses in the north of England yield an additional list of over thirteen hundred regular canons. 11

Knowles and Hadcock, MRH, pp. 137–81.

12

Knowles and Hadcock, MRH, pp. 137–81.

13

Robinson, The Geography of Augustinian Settlement, II, 382–88.

14

Bodl. MS Tanner 166.

15

Kathleen Major edited and published extracts of these account rolls. See K. Major, ‘The Thornton Abbey Chronicle (MS Tanner 166) with Extracts Relating to the Fabric of the Abbey’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, 103 (1946), 174–78. The local chronicle was edited, see J. Frost, ‘Thornton Abbey: The Chronicle and History of the Augustinian Canons at Thornton Curtis, Lincolnshire’ (unpublished master’s dissertation, University of York, 2001). 16

For a similar approach, see J. Greatrex, ‘Prosopography of English Benedictine Cathedral Chapters: Some Monastic Curricula Vitae’, Medieval Prosopography, 16 (1995), 1–26.

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The resultant list includes a total of eighty-eight Augustinian prelates of the twenty houses.17

Monastic Career Span at Election The first potential factor to be considered is the typical monastic career span at election.18 The date upon which a canon began his monastic life can be calculated from a variety of dates. The ‘rite of clothing’ or taking up the habit, suscepere habitum, indicates the commencement of the novitiate; the subsequent ‘rite of profession’ was to occur no earlier than at twenty years of age, according to the Constitutions of Pope Benedict XII (15 May 1339).19 After profession, the canon would then be ordained as a priest.20 The dates associated with these milestones have been used in studies of Benedictine monks to calculate monastic career spans, mortality rates, and other aspects of monastic life.21 Neither the records of the rites

17

The Augustinian houses selected were both large, wealthy houses comparable to Thornton Abbey and smaller less-affluent houses in the vicinity of Thornton. The houses selected for study were in Huntingdonshire: Huntingdon Priory; in Lancashire: Cartmel Priory; in Lincolnshire: Kyme, Markby, Nocton Park, Torksey Priories, and Thornton and Wellow Abbeys; in Nottinghamshire: Thurgarton Priory; in Yorkshire: Bolton, Bridlington, Drax, Guisborough, Haltemprice, Healaugh Park, Kirkham, Newburgh, North Ferriby, Nostell, and Warter Priories. The difference between an abbot/abbey and prior/priory, for the sake of this work, is not relevant; the term prelate is used to generically describe both abbot and prior and to differentiate the head of house from a ‘prior’ who was subordinate to the prelate. The resultant list of named regular canons from all houses is approximately one thousand three hundred and eighty. Other sources include the last two volumes of The Heads of Religious Houses: England and Wales, ed. by D. Knowles and others (hereafter HRH), 3 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972–2008). 18

Monastic career span plotted through monastic records was central to the work of Joan Greatrex; see J. Greatrex, ‘Monastic Curricula Vitae’, and Biographical Register of the English Cathedral Priories of the Province of Canterbury, c.1066 to 1540 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997). 19

Chapters of the Augustinian Canons, ed. by H. E. Salter, Canterbury and York Society, 29 (London: 1922; reprint with permission of the Society by Dawson, 1969), pp. 216–17. 20

Only after a year’s probation and the act of profession was it considered ‘safe’ for the novice to be promoted to Holy Orders: Customary of Barnwell Priory, p. 137. 21

More extensive records for Benedictine professions exist at Durham and elsewhere. See A. J. Piper, ‘The Size and Shape of Durham’s Monastic Community, 1274–1539’, in North-East England in the Later Middle Ages, ed. by C. D. Liddy and R. H. Britnell (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2005), pp. 153–71, and The Durham Liber Vitae and its Context, ed. by D. Rollason and others (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2004).

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of clothing nor of profession survive for Thornton Abbey.22 What can be recovered, however, are the dates of ordination, and in particular ordination as priest, which followed the profession as a regular canon. The age criteria for ordination into the three major orders of subdeacon, deacon, and finally priest, by canonical law, were seventeen, nineteen, and twenty-four.23 Thus the date of ordination as a priest, which cannot occur before the age of twenty-four, can be used for any individual prelate to determine for his age at election, at death, and to calculate his monastic life span.24 It is possible that a man could have been ordained at an older age and this would subsequently affect all other calculations; and in the later centuries the ordination to priest at an earlier age was considered likely.25 However, Joan Greatrex found that the Benedictines at the cathedral priories generally adhered to this regulation concerning age except at times of great upheaval, such as the Black Death.26 For present purposes the monastic career span can be understood to represent the typical monastic progression with ordination as priest occurring when a canon was twenty-four years old. The dates of ordination are available for three abbots who were contemporaneous with Thomas Greetham at Thornton Abbey: Thomas Greetham himself (ordained 1345, elected 1364, d. by 1393);27 Geoffrey Burton (ordained 1399, elected 1418, d. before 1422);28 and John Hoton (ordained 1405, elected 1422, d. 1439).29 These men were between forty-one and forty-three years of age at election, and their monastic

22

The Thornton Abbey Chronicle lists the date of the rite of clothing for only eight canons who probably reflect the cohort of the sixteenth-century chronicler himself. See MS Tanner 166, fols 16v, 19 r. 23

The use of the date of ordination as priest as evidence of age was supported by the prosopographical research of Benedictine monks in the province of Canterbury. See J. Greatrex, ‘Prosopographical Perspectives, or What Can Be Done with Five Thousand Monastic Biographies?’, Medieval Prosopography, 20 (1999), 129–45 (p. 130). 24

Greatrex, ‘Prosopographical Perspectives’, p. 130.

25

This dilemma has been often debated; see B. Harvey, Living and Dying in England 1100–1540: The Monastic Experience (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993; repr. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 117–21. Lacking some of the sources of profession and obituary lists the assumption of ordination to priest at age twenty-four years is the most conservative approach. 26

Greatrex, ‘Prosopographical Perspectives’, p. 130.

27

Lincoln, Lincolnshire Archive Office (hereafter LAO), Episcopal Register VIIB, fol. 3v; HRH, II, 470. 28

LAO, Episcopal Register XIII, fol. 85v ; HRH, III, 535.

29

LAO, Episcopal Register XIII, fol. 118v ; HRH, III, 535.

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career span at election (calculated from ordination to election) was between seventeen and nineteen years. Moreover, their entire monastic career spans (ordination to death) cover the period from 1345 until 1439. This time frame can be used to compare the Thornton abbots with other Augustinian prelates in the region. The only prelate from the twenty houses under investigation elected near the time of Thomas Greetham was John of Utterby of Wellow Abbey, who was ordained in 1359/60 and elected in 1369.30 At thirty-three years of age and with a monastic career span at election of only nine years he is the youngest prelate in the study with the shortest monastic career span at election. Abbot John was not, however, a sterling example of youthful success; rather he was elected in a period of turmoil. He succeeded two priors who had been elected in rapid succession: the first deposed and the second’s election quashed by the bishop of Lincoln; John’s own election was first annulled and then reinstated by the king as patron. Ultimately his rule ended poorly for by 1372 he was deposed by the bishop of Lincoln for crimes and excesses.31 He was succeeded as abbot by a canon of St Mary Leicester, appointed per lapsum temporis by the bishop of Lincoln; undoubtedly it had been a long and arduous experience for the canons of the house who had demonstrably been unable to find a qualified brother from within their own community.32 Three other prelates in Yorkshire, contemporaries to the second Thornton abbot under study, John Hoton (elected 1422), were John Thweng of Guisborough Priory; Thomas York of Healaugh Park Priory; and Richard Ayreton of Healaugh Park and Guisborough Priories. John Thweng, prior of Guisborough Priory, was ordained as priest in 1404, elected prior in 1425 at the age of forty-five and had a twenty-one-year monastic career span at election. He ruled until his death c. 1436/37 at the age of fifty-seven.33 Secondly, Thomas York, prior of Healaugh Park, was also ordained in 1404 and elected prior in 1429 at the age of forty-nine, with a monastic career span at election of twenty-five years. He was deposed in 1436 at the age of fifty-six, for reasons unknown.34 Finally, Thomas of York’s successor was Richard Ayreton who was probably a canon of Guisborough Priory where he had been ordained in 1408; Richard was installed as prior at Healaugh Park in 1435 at the age of fifty-one, with a monastic career span at

30

LAO, Episcopal Register IXD, fol. 95 r; HRH, II, 482.

31

HRH, II, 483.

32

HRH, II, 482–83.

33

York, Borthwick Institute, Reg. 16, fol. 166r ; HRH, III, 433.

34

York, Borthwick Institute, Reg. 16, fol. 166r ; HRH, III, 440.

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election of twenty-seven years.35 In 1436–37 he was translated to Guisborough, where he ruled as prior until his death c. April 1455 at the age of seventy-one.36 A contemporary of the third Thornton abbot under consideration, Geoffrey Burton, was William de Wartre, prior of Warter (Yorkshire). Prior William was ordained priest in 1399 and elected prior in 1420 at the age of forty-five, and his monastic career span at election was twenty-one years; he died by 1445 at the age of seventy.37 Similarly John Hoton of the house of North Ferriby (Yorkshire) was ordained priest in 1398 and first occurs as prior in 1425 at the age of fifty-one, with a monastic career span at election of least twenty-seven years, he was probably near sixty at the end of his rule c. 1435.38 The six Yorkshire prelates described thus far had a monastic career span at election of between twenty-one and twenty-seven years, a longer duration than the three Thornton abbots whose monastic career spans at election were between seventeen and nineteen years. The men at their election for the other houses were also slightly older, their ages ranging from forty-five to fifty-one (discounting John of Utterby who was elected at age thirty-three). In comparison the three Thornton abbots were somewhat younger, as they were between forty-one and forty-three years of age at election. Further analysis of these prelates and others from twenty regional Augustinian houses, totalling twenty-seven elections in the period 1364 until 1434, indicates that the average and median monastic career span at election was twenty-one years; the average age at election was forty-four years, whilst the median was fortyfive years. Analysis of those prelates who ruled until death, and excluding those who resigned or were deposed, indicates the average rule, from election until death, was nineteen years. This suggests that in the mid-fourteenth through the early fifteenth centuries the prime candidates for election as abbot or prior were regular canons in their mid-forties who had a monastic career span at election of, on average, twenty-one years, and who could be expected to rule for at least nineteen years.

35

The Register of Thomas Langley, Bishop of Durham, 1406–1437, ed. by R . L. Storey, Surtees Society, 164 (Durham: published for the Society by Andrews and Quaritch, 1956), no. 82; HRH, III, 433. 36

HRH, III, 433, 440.

37

York, Borthwick Institute, Reg. 16, fol. 169r ; HRH, III, 547.

38

York, Borthwick Institute, Reg. 5A, fol. 256v ; HRH, III, 547.

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Managerial Experience The second factor to consider as a prerequisite for election to prelate was previous experience gained through holding managerial offices within the monastic community. Here it is necessary to consider the nature of these offices and how were they selected. The obedientiarii, officiales, or offices were the departments that worked together, under the leadership of the prelate, to provide all that was needed for the self-sufficient monastery. The Customary of Barnwell Priory describes the authority of prelate over the office holders: In the first chapter that [the prelate] shall hold after his installation, all the officers are to prostrate themselves before him, and lay their keys at his feet. He is to bid them resume them until he decide, on fuller investigation, whether any ought to be removed from their offices, or changed.39

Thus we know that office holders were not elected but appointed by the prelate. However, the appointment and removal of the subprior was, at Barnwell Priory at least, within the authority of the prelate but always in consultation with his senior brothers.40 The offices vary in nature: some were more closely involved in spiritual issues and some in temporal matters. The Thornton Chronicle lists thirteen offices at Thornton, including the abbot, but other offices appeared in various records.41 The most senior positions, the prelate or abbot, and the subprior were concerned with the general government and maintenance of the monastic rule. The precentor, succentor, and sacrist were concerned with the preparation and conduct of religious services and maintaining the abbey library and liturgical books. The cellarer and subcellarer organized the supply of foodstuffs and other general supplies just as the granger supervised distant granges and other agricultural centres. The refector was responsible for the running of the kitchen and provision of meals and he would have had a staff of secular cooks and workers. The chamberlain acquired and maintained the clothing for the abbey; 39

Customary of Barnwell Priory, p. 39.

40

Customary of Barnwell Priory, p. xxxiii.

41

MS Tanner 166, fols 22v –43v . All identification of offices held by a Thornton canon, unless otherwise noted, should be assumed from this source and within these folios and will not be further footnoted. On the structure of offices in Victorine communities of regular canons, note L. Jocqué, ‘Les Structures de la population claustrale dans l’ordre de Saint-Victor au XIIè siècle: Un essai d’analyse du liber ordinis’, in L’Abbaye parisienne de Saint-Victor au moyen âge: Communications présentées au XIIIe colloque d’humanisme médiéval de Paris (1986–1988), ed. by J. Longère, Bibliotheca Victorina, 1 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1991), pp. 53–95.

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the hospitaler supervised hospitality for visitors. The infirmarian cared for the aged and feeble canons too old to join their fellow canons, whilst the almoner was charged with provision of alms to the poor and often visited the sick in the neighbourhood. The master of the fabric was indeed charged with repair and upkeep of the fabric of the abbey, and at Thornton this office also managed any new construction. Some offices were unique to Thornton Abbey. The office of the ‘stockman of lindsey’ refers, according to the extract from the account rolls, to the management of their flocks throughout the Lincolnshire area. The office of north bayll was not explained but the office holder probably managed the grange adjacent to the abbey where a large barn was built in the mid-1400s.42 The Officium caseis or office of the cheese was indeed an office which received and marketed cheese from their own stock, as well as the gift of the founder, William of Aumale, who had granted the abbey the tithes of all of his cheese made anywhere in England.43 Each office holder was required by statute to keep his accounts and present them annually to his fellow canons gathered in chapter. The bursar accepted and kept the account rolls from all the other officers, kept track of the accounts for the abbot and convent, and may have redistributed funds to the office holders from a central fund.44 The twelve lists in the Thornton manuscript provide the names of incumbents of the monastic offices from 1239 until 1533.45 The lists vary as to the first and last dates and there is not a complete history of any offices for the entire life of the community, except for a complete list of the abbots. Because the lists of offices in the chronicle are not reflective of all the offices managing the abbey it is impossible to know the complete career of many canons. Thus a gap in the career of a canon may mean he indeed had a gap in office holding or that he held an office not in the chronicle lists such as prior, subprior, precentor, or bursar. Eighteen of the Thornton abbots occurred during the span covered by the chronicle lists. Of these all but two appear in the chronicle lists holding at least one

42

MS Tanner 166, fol. 17v .

43

EYC, I– III: Being a Collection of Documents Anterior to the Thirteenth Century Made from the Public Records, Monastic Chartularies, Roger Dodsworth’s Manuscripts and Other Available Sources, ed. by W. Farrer, 3 vols (Edinburgh: Ballantyne Hanson, 1914–16), III (1916), no. 1312. 44

In 1313 the cellarer’s rolls indicate he received money from the office of the bursar; MS Tanner 166, fol. 23r. 45

MS Tanner 166, fols 22r–43v .

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office. Only two abbots held as many as four offices prior to election. The saintly Thomas Greetham held at least the offices of refector, almoner, chamberlain, and sacrist. John More, the last abbot (ordained deacon 1501, elected 1526, d. probably 1536), also held at least four offices: infirmarian, sacrist, the grange of Northbayll, and prior.46 Walter Multon (ordination unknown, elected 1439, d. by 1443)47 held at least three offices: refector, chamberlain, and sacrist. The remaining fifteen held only one office or perhaps two. It would seem that the quantity of offices was not the key element in selection for abbot. Was the specific office held important, and was one office more significant than others? The most frequent office held by the eighteen Thornton abbots was that of sacrist, with six of the Thornton abbots holding that office before election. However, forty-seven canons out of three hundred and seventy also held the office of sacrist, suggesting it was not a significant office in terms of election to abbot. Nor is it safe to assume that the office of prior, only out-ranked by the prelate himself, assured a canon the promotion to abbot. Although the records are incomplete only two of the eighteen abbots were recorded as holding the office of prior at election: Thomas de Ponte (ordination unknown, elected 1290, d. 1323) and John More (elected in 1526).48 What of the two abbots who held no offices and yet were elected? They may of course have held offices not contained in the chronicle list and not discovered elsewhere, but one abbot with no offices to his credit may give insight to another factor under consideration — that of education: William Multon (ordination unknown, elected 1393) attended Oxford in 1385 and his education may have appeared to the electors as an advantage.49 Abbot William ruled the abbey from the death of saintly Abbot Thomas Greetham and during the development of his cult. He died in 1418 having, evidently, survived the papal directed investigation of the cult.

46

York Clergy Ordinations, 1500–1509, compiled by C. Cross, Borthwick List and Index, 30 (York: University of York, 2001), p. 171; HRH, III, 536. 47

HRH, III, 535.

48

Some episcopal and royal records associated with elections signify if the canon held an office at the time of election but most commonly the record will only signify ‘canon of the house’. Thomas de Ponte was signified as prior in his election documents: see Rolls and Register of Bishop Oliver Sutton, ed. by Hill, I, 141. John More was noted as prior in the episcopal visitation of Thornton Abbey in June 1525: see Visitations in the Diocese of Lincoln, 1517–1531, ed. by A. Hamilton Thompson, Lincoln Record Society, 37, 3 vols (Hereford: published for the Society by the Hereford Times, 1947), III, 114. 49

HRH, III, 535; Emden, BRUO, II (1958), 1328.

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Determining a potential hierarchy of significant offices requires a more complex analysis of all the Thornton canons and all the offices they held. Some results may have a bearing on this study of abbots’ monastic careers as office holders in the midfourteenth to late fifteenth centuries. It was not necessary that every canon hold an office, for thirty-eight of the one hundred and forty-three canons in the house during this period did not hold an office on the chronicle lists. Of the remaining one hundred and five canons who did hold offices, over half held only one office. Some offices, perhaps classed as junior offices, changed incumbents more frequently than others; often the canon held only one of these offices and usually early in his monastic career span. These junior offices in the period under consideration were the refector and the infirmarian. On the other hand, three senior offices can be identified: chamberlain, cellarer, and almoner. These office incumbents changed less frequently, these offices were never the initial office held, and often the canons held one or two other offices before assuming these senior offices. Another senior office for this period of time was the master of the fabric. Of the nine incumbents all but two held a previous office and in the remaining seven cases it was never the first office held. This assessment of office hierarchy cannot be completely safe, lacking as it does a list of all the offices, particularly the most authoritative office of the prior. The data is, however, sufficiently robust to suggest that there was a hierarchy of offices, and the senior offices may have given those voting at the election of a new prelate a sense of the managerial capability and proven leadership ability of the candidates.

Abbot Thomas Greetham As far as the monastic career span of Abbot Thomas Greetham is concerned, there are other circumstances that can be seen to have affected his advancement, and these may further explain his election by the Thornton Abbey chapter in 1364 at a younger age than his regional peers. He probably came from Greetham in Lincolnshire, as most religious men adopted the toponymic of their birthplace or their last secular home. Ordination records before 1345 are incomplete, but he was ordained a priest before December 1345, probably in September of that year, suggesting that he could have begun his noviciate at Thornton in the early 1340s. Thus his early monastic life incorporated the period when the Black Death ravaged the country. It struck in Lincolnshire in the autumn of 1348, probably through the nearby port of Grimsby, and thus was sure to have affected the abbey, its occupants,

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and the local recruitment areas.50 The plague was reported in monastic chronicles arriving in York in Michaelmas 1348, followed by Louth Park in July 1349, and in Meaux in March 1349.51 Against this background, with a surge in recruitment of new men as novices to fill vacant stalls, it is possible that Thomas’s appointment to monastic offices may have been accelerated. As Joan Greatrex found in her study of Benedictine cathedral priories, the Black Death put the normal process of monastic administration through a great deal of stress.52 Estimates are that at least 40 per cent of the population of monastic houses died in the plague, and whilst new men could fill empty stalls, they did not mitigate the loss of older and more experienced men. In this situation Thomas Greetham would have quickly been translated from a junior canon to a senior canon in much less time than typical in other periods. In 1345 four other canons from Thornton Abbey were ordained priest at the same ceremony as Thomas Greetham: John Thornton, Hugh Botheby, Richard Thornton, and Henry Tynton.53 Thomas Greetham, John Thornton, and Hugh Botheby would all survive until at least the 1380s.54 Richard Thornton only occurred once as the infirmarian in 1348, and no record beyond ordination survives for Henry Tynton; both may well have succumbed to the plague.55 Four of the next generation, those who were ordained into orders during the plague or the plague cohort, do not occur in any records after ordination and may have perished: Robert Marras (ordained subdeacon 1350),56 William Hiloft (ordained priest 1351),57 John Kirkeby (ordained priest 1348),58 and William Stepping (ordained subdeacon 1347, priest 1348).59 Thomas Greetham and his pre-plague cohort were soon to become the senior canons in an increasingly youthful abbey. Between 1348 and 1350 there were at

50

O. J. Benedictow, The Black Death, 1346–1353: The Complete History (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2004), p. 139. 51

R . Horrox, The Black Death (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994), pp. 65–69.

52

Greatrex, ‘Prosopographical Perspectives’, p. 130.

53

LAO, Episcopal Register VIIB, fol. 3v .

54

Clerical Poll Taxes Lincoln, ed. by McHardy, pp. 45, 135.

55

MS Tanner 166, fol. 35v .

56

York, Borthwick Institute, Reg. 10A, fols 42v , 52r.

57

York, Borthwick Institute, Reg. 10A, fol. 52r.

58

York, Borthwick Institute, Reg. 10A, fol. 26r.

59

LAO, Episcopal Register VIIB, fol. 10v .

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least eleven new men moving through the ordination cycle from acolyte to priest at Thornton Abbey; six of this plague cohort survived until 1381: Simon Wandeford (ordained deacon 1349, priest 1350),60 John Browghton (ordained deacon 1349, priest 1350),61 Richard Dalby (ordained acolyte 1350, priest 1351),62 William Hull (ordained subdeacon 1350, priest 1352),63 Thomas Levington (ordained acolyte 1350, priest 1352),64 and John Edlington (ordained subdeacon and deacon 1352).65 William Mallet (ordained acolyte 1350, priest 1352) was the infirmarian in 1353 and died before 1377.66 John Shireburn (ordained acolyte 1347, priest 1348) last occurred in 1364 just as Thomas was elected.67 The two canons of Thomas Greetham’s pre-plague ordination cohort, John Thornton and Hugh Botheby, and these six men of the plague cohort, all survived the plague, would have sat in the chapter at Thornton in 1364, and would have been amongst the most senior canons voting at the election of Abbot Thomas Greetham. They were in effect other men who might have been elected rather than Thomas. Also present would have been Adam Wittleshey. Prior at the death of Abbot William Gryssby in 1364, Wittleshey first occurred as the refector in 1342, and he would have had a monastic career span in 1364 of at least twenty-two years. The surviving pre-plague cohort of John Thornton, Hugh Botheby, and Thomas Greetham had monastic career spans in 1364 of nineteen years. Their monastic offices were varied: John Thornton held the offices of refector (1351), almoner (1357), and chamberlain (1362). Hugh Botheby, another pre-plague cohort, held

60

LAO, Episcopal Register IXD, fol. 34v ; BI, Reg. 10A, fol. 44r; Clerical Poll Taxes Lincoln, ed. by McHardy, pp. 134, 154. 61

York, Borthwick Institute, Reg. 10A, folio 44v; LAO, Episcopal Register IXD, fol. 45v; Clerical Poll Taxes Lincoln, ed. by McHardy, p. 135. 62

York, Borthwick Institute, Reg. 10A, fols 41v, 52 r; Clerical Poll Taxes Lincoln, ed. by McHardy, p. 135. 63

LAO, Episcopal Register IXD, fols 44r , 59v ; Clerical Poll Taxes Lincoln, ed. by McHardy, p. 135. 64 LAO, Episcopal Register IXD, fols 44r, 65 r; Clerical Poll Taxes Lincoln, ed. by McHardy, p. 135. 65

LAO, Episcopal Register IXD, fols 59r, 62 v.

66

LAO, Episcopal Register IXD, fols 44r, 64 r; MS Tanner 166, fol. 36r; Clerical Poll Taxes Lincoln, ed. by McHardy, p. 45. 67

LAO, Episcopal Register VIIB, fols 10v, 13r; York, Borthwick Institute, Reg. 10A, fol. 26r; Calendar of Patent Rolls, Edward III, 16 vols (London: HMSO, 1891–1916), XIII: 1364–67 (1912), 37.

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the office of sacrist (1357). Thomas Wrangle (ordination unknown) was the next senior; he occurred first in 1349 and by 1364 would have had a monastic career span of at least fifteen years and perhaps more; he held the offices of infirmarian (1349), sacrist (1353), almoner (1356), and chamberlain (1357). Six further canons sat in the chapter house at Abbot Thomas’s election, who had monastic career spans of between twelve and fourteen years. John Browghton also had held four offices before the election: infirmarian (1352), cellarer (1360), refector (1361), and the grange of Northbayll (1362). The remaining six senior canons had each held at least three offices in their careers. But of course Thomas Greetham had held four offices at his election — refector (1349), almoner (1351), chamberlain (1354), and sacrist (1356) — and it is possible he held other offices in the years between 1356 and his election in 1364. How do the three factors posited as necessary for election as abbot play out in the chapter house in 1364? The cast of senior experienced men in their forties was faced with an important task of electing an abbot from amongst themselves. They chose a man who was amongst the oldest present, although he had at that point only a nineteen-year monastic career span. Analysis of the monastic career span of other Augustinians in this period had suggested that twenty-one years was the average, but in the Thornton Abbey chapter house, nineteen years was, in fact, very senior. There may have been older men present, those who did not hold offices on the chronicle list, so this conclusion must be somewhat speculative. Thomas had held important offices, and having held four was amongst the most experienced senior manager of the abbey, with at least two of the offices being the senior offices: chamberlain and almoner. Thomas had then perhaps all three factors: the typical monastic career span at election in his monastery, more managerial experience than his competitors, in offices which were the most senior and perhaps most difficult. The cult of Abbot Thomas Greetham, fostered in the years following his death and perhaps stilled in 1410, may have much more to do with his spiritual and temporal leadership during his long rule of twenty-nine years. I suggest his election as abbot was forged early in his monastic career span, as a leader in the era of the Black Death and in what must have been the struggle of Thornton Abbey and its inhabitants to survive. This past would have been well remembered by his peers, the senior canons in the chapter house in 1364. One of Thomas Greetham’s canons did not desire to follow in Thomas’s footsteps: consider William Louth, a canon who occurs as early as 1381 and held offices as the refector (1394) and infirmarian (1397). His monastic life span was at least twenty-one years in 1401, when William acquired a papal indult to abide for the

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remainder of his life within the cloister of Thornton Abbey and a guarantee that he was not to be appointed to the office of precentor or any other spiritual or temporal office, neither within nor without his own monastery.68 His determination reminds us that for many or perhaps even most who entered these religious houses, it was not about succeeding to the ‘top job’; it was about a spiritual life. William of Louth, who was clearly skilled enough to be selected for management offices, did not wish to be in charge of anything but his own soul.

68

Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers Relating to Great Britain and Ireland, Papal Letters, ed. by W. H. Bliss and others, 20 vols to date (London: HMSO, 1893–1966; Dublin: Stationery Office, 1978–), V : 1396–1404, ed. by W. H. Bliss and J. A. Twenlow (1904), pp. 493–94.

A UGUSTINIAN L IFE AND L EADERSHIP IN L ATE M EDIEVAL E NGLAND : A BBOT H ENRY H ONOR OF M ISSENDEN (1462– C . 1506) AND HIS R EGISTER Martin Heale

T

he Augustinian canons, although the largest and most varied religious order in medieval England, were not an order of great houses. Of the one hundred and fifty-four Augustinian monasteries whose revenue was assessed in the Valor ecclesiasticus (hereafter VE), only sixteen (or 10 per cent) were enjoying an annual income of more than £500 in the 1530s. Far more typical among the Austin canons were medium-sized monasteries, worth between £150 and £400 per year (forty-two houses), or small priories valued at less than £150 per annum (ninety-one houses).1 For this reason, it can be misleading to rely too heavily on the greatest houses of canons for our understanding of the order, even though much of the surviving evidence inevitably relates to these monasteries. The life and role of the head of a large house of canons, for example, can have had little in common with that of a prior in one of many small Augustinian monasteries of medieval England. But whereas considerable material survives about the superiors of late medieval Leicester Abbey or Lanthony Secunda Priory, almost the only known detail about the heads of tiny Bentley Priory in Middlesex is that one of its priors (typically anonymous) was suffocated to death under a stack of corn in 1248.2 1

Figures taken from Appendix 14 in D. Robinson, The Geography of Augustinian Settlement, British Archaeology Reports, British Series, 80, 2 vols (Oxford: Archaeopress, 1980), II, 382–88, which includes an estimated value for St Augustine’s Abbey, Bristol, a house omitted from the VE. 2 Works on the abbots of Leicester include: A. Hamilton Thompson, The Abbey of St Mary in the Meadows, Leicester (Leicester: Backus, 1949); D. Knowles, The Religious Orders in England,

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It is therefore of interest when relatively plentiful materials survive concerning the head of a lesser monastery of canons. The role and activities of the sixteenthcentury priors of Butley (a house with a net income of £318 in 1535) are illuminated by that abbey’s well-known register or chronicle, in particular their responsibilities as hosts and their prominent ritual role at important local events such as aristocratic funerals.3 A few sets of financial accounts survive from lesser houses of Augustinian canons, such as the weekly household accounts of Prior Geoffrey Shether of Little Dunmow (1518–36), a house with a net income of £150 in 1535.4 Prior Shether’s patterns of expenditure reveal much about the diet and activities of the head of a rural house of modest means, including the prior’s close attention to agriculture, his regular trips to London, his fondness for minstrels, and his occasional small treats, such as ‘suger candy I bowte’ and ‘Crem and strawberys’. But the most plentiful source of information about the life and experience of heads of lesser houses of regular canons are visitation records.5 This genre of evidence, however, tends to highlight wrongdoing rather than any positive achievement, and it is probably true to say that the Austin canons have suffered more than any other

3 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1948–59), II (1955), 185–89; and A. Roe, ‘Abbot Sadyngton of Leicester Abbey and Onychomancy: An Episode of Clerical Divination in the Fifteenth Century’, in Leicester Abbey: Medieval History, Archaeology and Manuscript Studies, ed. by J. Story, J. Bourne, and R. Buckley (Leicester: Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society, 2006), pp. 217–24. Several late medieval priors’ registers survive from Lanthony Secunda: Kew (London), The National Archives (hereafter TNA), C/115/76, 78, 79, 82, 85; A Calendar of the Registers of the Priory of Llanthony by Gloucester, 1457–1466, 1501–1525, ed. by J. Rhodes, Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, 15 (Bristol: Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, 2002). For the priors of Bentley, see Matthei Parisiensis Chronica Majora, ed. by H. Luard, Rolls Series, 7 vols (London: Longmans, 1872–84), V (1880), 33–34; and The Heads of Religious Houses: England and Wales, ed. by D. Knowles and others (hereafter HRH), 3 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972–2008), II (2006), 333. 3 See chap. 1, ‘The Register or Chronicle of Butley Priory, Suffolk, 1510–1535’, in A. G. Dickens, Late Monasticism and the Reformation (London: Hambledon, 1994), pp. 1–84 4 London, British Library (BL), MS Harley 662; TNA, SC6/HENVIII/937. 5 Augustinian monasteries feature very prominently in the Lincoln and Norwich visitations of the later Middle Ages: Visitations of Religious Houses in the Diocese of Lincoln, 1420–1449, ed. by A. Hamilton Thompson, Lincoln Record Society, 7, 14, 21, 3 vols (Lincoln: Lincoln Record Society, 1914–29); Visitations in the Diocese of Lincoln, 1517–1531, ed. by A. Hamilton Thompson, Lincoln Record Society, 33, 35, 37, 3 vols (Lincoln: Lincoln Record Society, 1940–47); Visitations in the Diocese of Norwich, AD 1492–1532, ed. by A. Jessopp, Camden Society, n.s., 43 (London: printed for the Camden Society, 1888). For a detailed discussion of the visitation reports of Richard Redman for the Premonstratensian canons, see J. Gribbin, The Premonstratensian Order in Late Medieval England (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2001), pp. 20–100.

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religious order from historians’ necessary reliance on such material. It was in the context of late medieval visitations that Dom David Knowles had most to say about the Augustinians — much of it critical — with all but the larger houses of the order depicted as spiritually ‘naïve’ and ultimately dispensable.6 There are also a small number of Augustinian abbots’ or priors’ registers extant, which can provide further insight into the order and its superiors. Such registers survive in good numbers for the great Benedictine monasteries, recording in some detail the regular business of the head of the house. Apart from the major series of abbots’ registers from Lanthony Secunda (see n. 2), there are also fifteenth-century registers from the medium-sized Augustinian houses of Launceston Priory and Missenden Abbey. The Launceston register devotes much of its space to a dispute over the headship of the house between William Sher and Richard Yerll in the early 1430s and to formulary entries, but also includes many documents relating to the everyday affairs of the priory.7 The Missenden volume (London, BL, MS Sloane 747), compiled during the abbacy of Henry Honor, is a more unusual and miscellaneous production. Considerably more informal and personal than most other abbots’ registers, Honor’s manuscript provides a relatively rare opportunity to study monastic life and leadership in a middle-of-the-road house of Austin canons. Missenden was founded in 1133 as an Arrouaisian abbey. Its net income was assessed in the 1535 VE at £261 per year, a little above the Augustinian average of £201.8 There were ten canons in the abbey (not including the head of the house)

6

For example, Knowles, Religious Orders, II, 211–12; III, 66–70, 75. See also Knowles’s summarizing remarks in each volume, where the canons are described as ‘the least fervent, the worst disciplined and the most decayed of all the religious houses,’ and the majority of Augustinian houses included among those monasteries ‘whose continued existence served no good purpose whatever’ by the sixteenth century: ibid., II, 361; III, 465. 7 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Tanner 196. For brief details about this dispute, see HRH, III, 457–58. A fuller account can be found in the entry on Launceston Priory in VCH: Cornwall, ed. by H. A. Doubleday and others, 4 pts in 2 vols to date (London: Constable, 1906–), II: Religious History to 1560, ed. by N. Orme (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2010), pp. 86–89. I am very grateful to Professor Orme for sharing his work with me prior to its publication. 8 Valor ecclesiasticus, temp. Henrici VIII auctoritate regia institutus, ed. by J. Caley and J. Hunter, Record Commission Publications, 9, 6 vols (London: Record Commission, 1810–34), IV (1821), 246–47; Robinson, Geography of Augustinian Settlement, II, 388. An account roll of 1528–30, covering eighteen months, shows receipts of £340 over this extended period: The Cartulary of Missenden Abbey, ed. by J. Jenkins, Buckinghamshire Record Society, 2, 10, 12, 3 vols (London: Buckinghamshire Record Society, 1938–62), III, pp. xxii–xxiii.

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in the early sixteenth century, and this number had risen to thirteen by the 1530s.9 The abbots of Missenden, unlike the priors of the wealthier Butley, never received the grant of the pontificalia, although Abbot John Fox (1528–38) did acquire another mark of status, his own personal coat of arms.10 Not only was Missenden an average Augustinian house in terms of its wealth and size, but it also seems to have been largely unremarkable in its observance. Modern accounts of late medieval Missenden, based largely on fifteenth- and sixteenth-century visitation records, generally speak of its decline and indiscipline in these years.11 However, it was only during the rule of Abbot Fox in the 1530s that serious shortcomings in the abbey’s observance are evident. The visitations of c. 1433 and 1505 highlighted only minor faults, and although Bishop Atwater of Lincoln found some signs of laxity in 1518 during the rule of Abbot William Smith (1506×1509–21), when the canons were frequenting the town of Great Missenden, nothing appears to have been seriously amiss.12 Indeed, the main problems identified in these visitations were standard faults for a monastery of Missenden’s size in the later Middle Ages: the need to increase the number of canons (c. 1433) and priests (1518) in the abbey; the failure of the abbot to render regular account of his administration to the convent (c. 1433, 1505, 1518); and the poor repair of the abbey’s buildings

9

MS Sloane 747, fols 68r, 82 v; Knowles and Hadcock, MRH, p.166. The assertion in VCH: Buckinghamshire, ed. by W. Page, 5 vols (London: Constable/St Catherine, 1905–28), I (1905), 370 (repeated by Knowles and Hadcock) that there were twenty inmates in the mid-fifteenth century stems from a misreading of royal letters patent of 9 June 1462: Calendar of Patent Rolls (hereafter CPR): Edward IV, 3 vols (London: HMSO, 1897–1901), I: 1461–67 (1897), p. 204. Of the twenty names here listed, only the first three were canons. 10 Fox’s arms were: ‘Argent chevron Sable between 3 cocks Gules on chief Azure fox courant Or’: Dictionary of British Arms. Medieval Ordinary, ed. by D. Chesshyre and others, 2 vols (London: Society of Antiquaries of London, 1992–96), II, 407; London, College of Arms, MS L10, fols 64r, 88 v. For abbatial coats of arms, see my ‘Mitres and Arms: Aspects of the SelfRepresentation of the Monastic Superior in Late Medieval England’, in Self-Representation of Medieval Religious Communities: The British Isles in Context, ed. by A. Müller and K. Stöber (Berlin: LIT, 2009), pp. 99–122. 11 See E. Elvey, ‘The Abbot of Missenden’s Estates in Chalfont St Peter’, Records of Buckinghamshire, 17 (1962), 20–40 (pp. 33–34), which refers to ‘the abbey’s corrupt state which became evident after the election of Robert Risborough as Abbot about 1450’; and E. Kaye, Missenden Abbey: A Short History, 2nd edn (Oxford: Buckinghamshire County Council, 1992), esp. pp. 21–28, entitled ‘Decline and Dissolution’. 12 Visitations of Religious Houses: Lincoln, 1420–1449, ed. by Hamilton Thompson, I, 86–7; MS Sloane 747, fol. 97 r; Visitations in the Diocese of Lincoln, 1517–1531 (hereafter VDL), ed. by Hamilton Thompson, III, 16–17.

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within the precinct and on its estates (c. 1433, 1505, 1518). Another common fault in lesser monasteries, the absence of a suitable grammar master for the education of the younger canons, was reported in 1505. Some of these recurring problems were still in evidence in 1530–31, when Bishop Longland and his commissary visited Missenden.13 The abbey’s buildings were still in disrepair, and the educational deficiencies of the community are indicated by the issuing of Longland’s injunctions in ‘our vulgar English tongue […] for that ye be ignorant and have small understanding of Latin’. However, standards of discipline had now plummeted under the lax leadership of Abbot Fox. The abbot and the refectorian were implicated with a married woman, and another canon was guilty of molesting one of the monastery’s singing boys. These visitations also uncovered serious maladministration, with the abbey’s bailiff given free rein to exploit the monastery’s estates for his own gain, and the community no longer aware of the full extent of their property. Access to the town of Missenden was readily available, and the pervasive secular atmosphere of the monastery is indicated by Longland’s complaints about the canons’ fashionable dress, ordering that the brethren should not wear ‘any garded or welted hose or stuffed codpese or jerkyn or any other shorte or courtely fashioned garment’.14 Nevertheless, the collapse of religious life at Missenden in the 1530s should not overshadow the entire late medieval history of the abbey. Although affected by the difficult demographic and economic conditions of the fifteenth century, Missenden Abbey was apparently functioning reasonably well in the later Middle Ages. It did, however, endure two phases of serious disruption relating to the house’s leadership in this period. The first occurred in the mid-fourteenth century when Abbot Ralf Marshall (1356–74) was sentenced to death for ‘having traitorously and feloniously falsified and clipped the king’s money, to wit, groats and sterlings’. Marshall’s sentence was commuted to imprisonment and he was later allowed to return to Missenden as abbot, but the intervening years must have been very unsettling for the community.15 Henry Honor’s register reveals another major challenge faced by the canons of late medieval Missenden: the acrimonious and long-running conflict between Honor and his predecessor as abbot, Robert

13

VDL, pp. 18–27; E. Peacock, ‘Injunctions of John Longland, Bishop of Lincoln, to Certain Monasteries in his Diocese’, Archaeologia, 47 (1882), 49–64 (pp. 60–64). 14 Peacock, ‘Injunctions of John Longland’, p. 63. It is not clear what need regular canons had of a stuffed codpiece. 15 CPR: Edward III, 16 vols (London: HMSO, 1891–1916), XII: 1361–64 (1912), p. 59; HRH, II, 425.

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Risborough.16 The complex chronology of this dispute can be reconstructed in outline from Honor’s register, into which were copied or pasted various official documents relating to the clash between the rival abbots, and which also contains a narrative of Honor’s restoration in 1471.17 The documents entered into abbot Honor’s register inevitably present the dispute from his own perspective, portraying him throughout as an innocent victim of Risborough’s intrigues and recklessness. But although neither party was guiltless, the incidental material in the Missenden register and other surviving evidence about the dispute does suggest that Risborough’s rule was far from satisfactory and that Honor was a much more effective abbot. Robert Risborough was elected Abbot of Missenden some time between 1449 and 1455, and little is known about the early years of his abbacy. By the early 1460s, however, he was facing some opposition from the abbey’s neighbours. According to a series of pleadings made by Risborough to George Neville, the Lord Chancellor, the abbey was attacked by gangs of more than sixty laymen on two separate occasions, leaving the abbot in fear for his life.18 The first attack is said to have taken place on 9 January in an unspecified year in the reign of the former King Henry VI (probably 1460 or 1461) and the second on 17 May 1462. It is unclear what provoked these violent assaults, but it is of some interest that one Nicholas Iwardby — presumably to be identified with the patron of the abbey of that name — was the first man listed in one version of Risborough’s first petition.19 In response to the abbot’s pleadings, the king issued a commission on 9 June 1462 for the arrest of seventeen laymen (several of whom were named in the May petitions), and three canons of Missenden, who were all to give security that they would not injure Abbot Risborough or harm his houses by fire.20 This commission, however, was too late to help the abbot. A note in the margin of Honor’s register records

16 The only extended account of this dispute, in VCH: Buckinghamshire, I, 369–76, by Sr Elspeth (closely followed in Kaye, Missenden Abbey, pp. 21–22) is not at all reliable. The chronology of events is considerably elucidated, although not fully resolved, in HRH, III, 482. 17 In particular, see MS Sloane 747, fols 49v, 51v, 55r–v, 57v, 58r, 59v, 64v, 65r, 83r–84r. The chronology of events is largely confirmed by dated leases in Honor’s register and other official documents. 18 TNA, C1/27/266–67, C128/474, C1/75/60. These pleadings were made to Neville while he was Bishop of Exeter and Lord Chancellor (1460–65) and during Risborough’s abbacy (1449×55–62), and so must date to 1460×1462. 19 TNA, C1/27/267. Intriguingly, the other version of this petition omits Nicholas Iwardby’s name: TNA, C1/128/474. There is little overlap between those named in this pleading and the men accused by Risborough of attacking the abbey on 17 May 1462. 20 CPR: Edward IV, I, 204.

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that Risborough had been deprived on 29 May; and licence to elect a new abbot was granted by the abbey’s new patron, John Iwardby, on 12 June.21 Henry Honor, alias Henry Missenden, was elected abbot of Missenden on 27 July 1462, with the official record of his election stating that his predecessor had been deposed and excommunicated, convicted of ‘the crime of simony and other crimes’.22 It would appear that the new abbot had taken a leading role in the opposition to Risborough. One account of the 9 January attack on the abbey records that the insurgents had taken two canons, Henry Honor and John Aylisbury, ‘and theym led awaye whider they wold’. More revealingly, ‘Henry Mussenden’ was one of the three canons cited for arrest in the royal commission of 9 June 1462, along with the house’s prior, William Tring. Honor’s rule, however, was to be short-lived: despite the opposition he faced from leading canons and lay neighbours, Robert Risborough succeeded in recovering the abbacy some time in 1464.23 How this came about is unclear, although a later letter of Edward IV, addressed to Risborough himself and datable to June 1482, attributes Honor’s removal to George Neville ‘then oure Chaunceller’. This letter states that Neville, ‘taking fully your parte entruded you in the said Abbacie again, and kept the said Sir Henry in oure prison of the Flete by the space of iij yere and more’.24 The narrative account of Honor’s restoration to the abbacy in 1471 also records that he ‘had ley in the Fleet prison as prisonere tofore that tyme iij yere & di’.25 This narrative further states that Honor spent another five and a half years in sanctuary at Westminster, although this does not tally with the seven-year duration of Risborough’s second abbacy, 1464–71. Whatever Honor’s whereabouts after

21

MS Sloane 747, fols 15r and 90v . This was not the end of Risborough’s travails. In a lawsuit brought before the Common Pleas in Michaelmas 1468, Risborough claimed to have been attacked and robbed of various items of plate by Edmund Grauely esquire, and four other men at Great Missenden on 13 December 1462: TNA, CP 40/829, rot. 317. I owe this reference to Maureen Jurkowski. 22 MS Sloane 747, fols 15r–18v . 23 Honor’s register includes two documents issued by abbots of Missenden in 1464: a letter of 8 January from Abbot Henry and the convent of Missenden granting a licence to William Mussenden, canon, to go to the Roman Curia (and which refers to violent ‘quarrels and dissensions’ in the abbey involving canons and laymen); and a pension granted by Abbot Robert and the convent on 7 September 1464: MS Sloane 747, fols 60v , 99r. Abbot Risborough was indicted before the justices of the peace of Buckinghamshire on 11 November 1464, although it is not clear whether this indictment was related to his supplanting of Honor: TNA, E179/39/703, m. 4. I am grateful to Maureen Jurkowski for alerting me to this reference. 24 MS Sloane 747, fol. 57v. 25 MS Sloane 747, fols 83r–84 r.

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leaving the Fleet, Risborough remained sufficiently concerned about his rival to petition the Crown to arrest him as an apostate in June 1468.26 These fears proved justified, because in late June 1471 Henry Honor again took possession of the abbey. The narrative account of Honor’s restoration in 1471 records the turbulent events of that summer in some detail: Honor’s initial restoration (after which commissions were issued by the king, on 23 July, and Richard, duke of Gloucester, on 25 July, for the arrest of Risborough, who was sheltering in London); Risborough’s forceful repossession of the abbey on Lammas day (1 August) while Honor was in London; Honor’s re-entry into the abbey twelve days later; and Risborough’s subsequent acquisition of royal letters in favour of his title.27 Honor then rode to Fotheringhay to present his case to Edward IV and his council, who ordered Bishop Chedworth of Lincoln to settle the dispute. Honor and Risborough were both summoned to the bishop’s presence where ‘the right and title of bothe partyes duely examyned with wytnesse of Bothe partyes, the sentence was gyven with the forseyde Sir Harry Myssenden’. Honor’s position was secure by 9 December 1471, when Edward IV issued a letter to the farmers and tenants of Missenden, ordering them to discharge all payments and services owed to the abbey to Abbot Honor and his servants and to none other.28 The remainder of the narrative account of Honor’s restoration describes how (in response to the pleading of his rival) the abbot magnanimously agreed to pay an annual pension of £20 to Risborough and to discharge all his debts, which amounted to more than £500.29 Other evidence, however, indicates that matters were not settled quite so amicably. In April 1472, Honor compounded his victory (and perhaps exacted some personal revenge) by requesting the assistance of the secular arm against ‘Robert Huberd alias Risborough’ and three other canons of Missenden who had left the abbey in apostasy; and according to a note in Honor’s register, Risborough was outlawed in 1475 for trespass and forcible entry.30 It may have been shortly afterwards that Risborough agreed to renounce his title to the 26

TNA, C81/1789/40; F. D. Logan, Runaway Religious in Medieval England, c.1240–1540 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 118. A later Chancery pleading records that Henry Honor borrowed sums of money amounting to £26 13s. from Henry Michgood, esquire, ‘abought the viijth yer of E. late kyng of Inglond the iiiith [when he] was in grete troble by Sir Robert Risburgh’: TNA C1/148/1. 27 MS Sloane 747, fols 83 r–84r; CPR: Edward IV, Henry VI, II: 1467–77 (1900), p. 288; MS Sloane 747, fol. 65r. 28 MS Sloane 747, fol. 49v. 29 MS Sloane 747, fols 83v –84r. 30 TNA, C81/1789/41; Logan, Runaway Religious, p. 118; MS Sloane 747, fol. 89r.

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abbacy before Thomas Rotherham, bishop of Lincoln (1472–80), and receive the valuable manor and parsonage of Great Kimble for life from Abbot Honor and the convent of Missenden.31 But even this was not the end of the dispute between the two rivals. Shortly before June 1482, Risborough successfully persuaded the King that the true reason for his deprivation in 1471 was ‘for that ye bare your favour against us to henry late in dede and not in right king of England’; and the King then wrote to the sheriff of Buckinghamshire to restore Risborough to the abbacy.32 These claims were quickly refuted by Honor, and a battery of royal letters was issued on 3 June 1482 (including a missive to Risborough himself) affirming Honor’s legitimacy as Abbot of Missenden and requiring that he enjoy possession of the abbacy undisturbed.33 This seems finally to have settled the dispute and Honor retained office, apparently without further challenge, for another twenty-five years or so: the last dated document for his abbacy in his register, or elsewhere, is from 1506. Lengthy and bitter disputes of this kind between rival monastic superiors were not, of course, unusual in medieval England. While the conflict between Honor and Risborough was raging, similar clashes over the office of abbot or prior were taking place at Abbey Dore, Basingwerk, Buckland, Folkestone, Lanthony Secunda, and St Andrew’s Northampton; and just a few years earlier, Abbot Walter Newbery of St Augustine’s Bristol had been temporarily deprived and imprisoned during his dispute with Thomas Sutton.34 The Missenden dispute is notable, however, for the detail with which it can be chronicled and for the combination of formal and informal materials relating to it. There are also hints that the conflict over the abbacy may have been linked to wider disturbances. The reference to Risborough’s alleged support for Henry VI in the letters of 1482, not to mention the timing of 31 This settlement is referred to in Edward IV’s letter to Risborough in June 1482, when it is said that the latter had enjoyed the manor and parsonage for five years: MS Sloane 747, fol. 57v . 32 MS Sloane 747, fols 57v and 64v . 33 MS Sloane 747, fols 56r–v, 57v, and 58r. The bishop of Lincoln wrote on the same date to John Whitton, the rector of Ashridge Priory, requiring him to ensure Honor’s title was upheld: MS Sloane 747, fols 51v and 59v . 34 HRH, III, 262, 264, 275–76, 176, 470, 250–51, 393. For other well-known disputes over the headship of a religious house in late medieval England, see I. Keil, ‘Profiles of Some Abbots of Glastonbury’, Downside Review, 81 (1963), 355–70; E. F. Jacob, ‘The Disputed Election at Fountains, 1410–16’, in Medieval Studies Presented to Rose Graham, ed. by V. Ruffer and A. Taylor (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1950), pp. 78–97; and R. Hoyle and H. Summerson, ‘The Earl of Derby and the Deposition of the Abbot of Furness in 1514’, Northern History, 30 (1994), 184–92.

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the flashpoints in the dispute — the years 1460–62, 1464, and 1471 raise the possibility that the Missenden dispute was somehow connected to the wider political upheaval of the period. This suspicion, however, cannot be substantiated and it may just be that the uncertainty of these years was exploited by both parties in their local dispute.35 It is clear that the abbey’s lay neighbours, perhaps led by the monastery’s patron, were involved in the removal of Risborough from the abbacy in 1462. The charge of simony made against Risborough at this time suggests that he too may have sought external assistance for his cause. The protracted and bitter conflict with Robert Risborough is also significant in that it may have been a stimulus for the production of Henry Honor’s register. As we have seen, numerous documents relating to the dispute and asserting Honor’s legitimacy as abbot were copied or pasted into the manuscript. The register also includes a curious (and seemingly autobiographical) document, entitled ‘In casu celebrande visitacionis ordinarii loci generalis vel specialis’, which describes how an abbot should respond to criticisms during a visitation, particularly if his title to the abbacy is impugned.36 Several entries in Honor’s register, moreover, testify to the great indebtedness of the house caused by Risborough, presumably in his attempts to win support for his abbacy. On 30 June 1462, during the interregnum between Risborough’s deposition and Honor’s election, the sheriff of Buckinghamshire was authorized to distrain half of the abbey’s property in the county in favour of a former sheriff, John Broughton, to whom Risborough owed unpaid debts of over £40.37 Honor faced similar problems at the outset of his second abbacy. The narrative of his restoration in 1471 concludes with an itemization of the debts he now inherited from Risborough, which amounted to over £500.38 It is likely, therefore, that Honor’s register was in part the product of the need for careful management of the monastery’s affairs following the financially damaging disputes over the abbacy.

35

It is also perhaps significant that the miscellaneous material in Honor’s register (for which, see below), in contrast to many comparable lay miscellanies, gives no indication that the Abbot took an interest in the politics of the period. 36 MS Sloane 747, fol. 49r. 37 MS Sloane 747, fol. 52r. 38 MS Sloane 747, fols 83v –84r. Several other documents in Honor’s register, including the very first entry (a lease of land in Missenden issued in June 1473 to William Gery, the son and executor of Henry Gery, a local butcher who had loaned money and extended credit to Abbot Risborough), testify to the financial dislocation of the abbey in these years: e.g. MS Sloane 747, fols 1r–v, 43r, and 55v.

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The Missenden register seems to have originated as a lease book. The first three quires of the manuscript, consisting of forty folios, are composed almost entirely of leases issued by Honor and his two predecessors as abbot of Missenden, Henry Antony and Robert Risborough. Precisely when the compilation of Henry Honor’s register was begun is not easy to judge. MS Sloane 747 is a paper book of one hundred folios, made up of ten gatherings, although the structure of the volume has been much altered by the insertion of several leaves and the removal of others.39 The majority of the entries are apparently in the same handwriting, an informal Anglicana hand, although some entries were written with considerably more care than others. The variation in the main hand, along with the addition of material squeezed into spaces at the bottom of some folios, indicates that the register was compiled over a period of time. It is possible that some of the quires previously existed as unbound gatherings, since the majority commence with a discrete entry. However, the significant number of individual folios pasted into the manuscript, and the fact that there is some chronological progression in the dated entries as the register proceeds, suggests that it may have existed as a single bound volume from an early stage. Judging from these dated documents, the Missenden register was compiled towards the end of Honor’s abbacy. The first main section of the manuscript, all written in the same hand and apparently at the same time, consists of leases and acquittances dating from between 1458 and 1492 (entered in no particular order).40 The second batch of leases, following the account of Honor’s election in 1462 in a different hand, begins with indentures of 1499 and 1500, but contains nothing dated later than 1501. A number of documents of 1501–02 were entered in the quire containing folios 51–59, and several entries dating to 1502 –03 in the following gathering, folios 60–65. It is also notable that documents dating to 1503–06 are found exclusively in the later gatherings of the manuscript, folios 60–100. It is a plausible surmise, therefore, that Honor’s register was begun some time in the 1490s, with regular additions made during the early years of the sixteenth century. Apparently originating as a collection of leases issued by Honor and his two predecessors, the register took on a more miscellaneous character as other materials considered important or interesting to its compiler were copied or pasted into it (see below). This practice was continued into the abbacies of Henry 39

The collation of the Missenden register is as follows: 12 , 222 , 316 , 47 , 512 , 613 , 76 , 84 , 98, 1010 . The folios which have been pasted in separately are: fols 1–2, 48–50, 56–59, 65, 67, 71, 76, 79–82, 90, 91–100. 40 MS Sloane 747, fols 3r–14r.

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Honor’s two successors, William Smith (1506×1509–21) and William Honor (1521–27), with a modest number of documents dating from their time in office copied onto blank pages of the register.41 The majority of entries in the Missenden register, however, relate to Henry Honor’s own abbacy, and they reveal much about his activities. Notwithstanding his tempestuous early career, Honor seems to have been an effective and successful abbot after his readeption in 1471. No serious problems were uncovered during the episcopal visitation of 1505, and Honor was apparently well regarded outside the cloister: he was employed with some regularity as a collector of clerical taxes, and (unusually for late medieval abbots of Missenden) was nominated on more than one occasion as a papal judge delegate.42 Honor also appears to have been an effective administrator of the abbey’s property. As we have seen, the monastery’s finances were in a bad state when he recovered the abbacy in 1471, with debts of over £500 to repay. The narrative account of Honor’s restoration records that in the ensuing period ‘the seyde Sir Harri abbot of M. lyved with grete poverte havynge nothynge wythynne hym to lyve with all but be the meane of husbandry’. However, over time Honor was able to restore the monastery to a sound financial footing, and his restoration narrative concludes triumphantly that ‘the seyde harri abbot hathe discharged and payde […] the moste part of alle the somms afore seyde [Risborough’s debts] so that the place at this day standith discharged of the sommes aboueseyde’.43 Although this is a partisan account, there is no evidence (in stark contrast to the 1460s) that Missenden was in any financial difficulty during Honor’s later years, and no such problems were reported in the 1505 visitation.44 The copying into his register of more than sixty leases, together with rentals and extracts from manor court rolls, also points to Honor’s careful stewardship of the abbey’s lands. According to the VE, most of the abbey’s property was farmed out

41

MS Sloane 747, fols 66v and 69r–71r. Folio 71, containing a copy of the patron, Elizabeth Pygot’s, licence for the canons to elect a new abbot of Missenden in 1528, was pasted into the register; but the other later entries were copied onto blank leaves of the volume. 42 MS Sloane 747, fols 23v, 43r, 47 r, 48 r, and 54 v; Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers Relating to Great Britain and Ireland, Papal Letters, ed. by W. H. Bliss and others, 20 vols to date (London: HMSO, 1893–1966; Dublin: Stationery Office, 1978–), XVI: 1492–98, Alexander VI (1492–1503), ed. by A. P. Fuller (1986), nos 157, 284; XVII, pt 1: Alexander VI (1492–1503), Lateran Registers, ed. by A. P. Fuller (1994), no. 8. 43 MS Sloane 747, fols 83r–84 r. 44 For circumstantial evidence concerning Risborough’s indebtedness, see also n. 38 above.

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in 1535, including several of its churches.45 Honor’s register records leases of manors, churches, mills, small parcels of land, and tenements belonging to the abbey, issued by the abbot and convent, and written in either Latin or English. The length of Honor’s leases varied greatly, with property farmed for terms of between ten and ninety-nine years. In general, the abbey’s more valuable properties were farmed out for shorter terms of twenty-one years or less, whereas lesser or more distant properties (including the abbey’s holdings in London) were leased for longer terms of fifty years or more. In line with other fifteenth-century monasteries, the abbey’s more substantial estates were leased to men of status, often for generously long terms.46 In the 1470s and 1480s, Abbot Honor and the Missenden convent granted lengthy leases to John Baker, ‘syngre with the kynge our soverygne lorde’; Ralph Cresshawe, esquire; Thomas Fayrewell, clerk of council of the duchy of Lancaster; and Thomas Fowler, esquire, ‘one of the gentylmen usshers of the kynges chambre’.47 Moreover, the valuable manor and rectory of Great Kimble — said to have traditionally been kept in hand by the abbey — was leased to Richard Empson, then attorney general of the duchy of Lancaster, for a term of eighty years in September 1491, at an annual rent of £15.48 The leases and the other business records entered into Honor’s register shed some light on his interaction with the monastery’s neighbours. A number of leases indicate close relations between abbey and recipients, including those who were rewarded with leaseholds in return for their service to the monastery. Richard More was granted the farm of the manor and garbal tithes of Lee in 1472 in return for his good service; and William Gery was leased lands in Missenden the following year by the abbot and convent in gratitude for the credit extended to the abbey by his father, Henry, during Risborough’s rule.49 Abbot Honor — who, judging from his alternative designation, Henry Missenden, was a local man — also made a number of leases on preferential terms to men who may well have been his relatives.

45

VE, IV , 246–47. There is insufficient space here to discuss the abbey’s late medieval estate management in detail. 46 See, for example, U. Rees, ‘The Leases of Haughmond Abbey, Shropshire’, Midland History, 8 (1983), 14–28. 47 MS Sloane 747, fols 3v –4 r, 4v –5 v , and 9r. 48 MS Sloane 747, fols 38r and 38v –39v . 49 MS Sloane 747, fols 1r–2r. Robert Risborough also rewarded his creditors, granting John Barton rent from the abbey’s manor of Broughton near Aylesbury in 1468 until the abbot’s debt of £67 6s. 8d. was repaid; and in 1465 granting Robert Bardesby a plot of land next to his tenement in Chipping Wycombe in perpetuity, in response to his great assistance in dealing with the debts of the abbey: MS Sloane 747, fols 4r–v and 29r–v.

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In 1486, one Harry Honour and his wife Isabel were granted a tenement in Potter Row in the parish of Great Missenden, previously held by other tenants in copyhold, for a term of ninety years. A further lease of more valuable land was made to Harry Honour of Potter Row in 1492, and long-term leases were also made to an Adrian Honour and a John Honour, both of Missenden.50 The Abbot also loaned money to Harry and to John Honour, and seems to have registered a small number of documents pertaining to the private affairs of his relations in his manuscript.51 The relationship between the abbey and its neighbours is further illuminated by grants of chantries and confraternity included in Honor’s register. Most notable was the perpetual chantry for Henry Bromflete, Lord Vescy (d. 1469) founded in 1471–72 at a cost of 200 marks, and to be served by the Missenden canons themselves. Thirty years earlier, during the rule of Abbot Antony, the abbey’s patron John Iwardby demised lands in the parish of Missenden to the monastery for ninety-nine years to finance the celebration of an obit each July for the soul of his deceased wife, Katherine, and for Iwardby himself after his death.52 There were also a number of eminent entrants to the abbey’s confraternity in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. In 1499 Abbot Honor made a grant of confraternity to Reynold Bray; and two years later Lady Margaret Beaufort, like Bray a major landholder in the region, was also received into the Missenden confraternity. Entrants of this elevated status were not exceptional at late medieval Missenden. Under Honor’s successor, William Smith, archbishop Warham of Canterbury, and Sir Robert Rede, chief justice of the Common Pleas, were both received into the abbey confraternity.53 Honor’s personal involvement in local affairs is also detailed in his register. In particular, the abbot served on more than one occasion as an arbitrator in local disputes.54 He was chosen as a mediator in an inheritance dispute between two

50

MS Sloane 747, fols 10r–11r, 12r–v, 25r–v, and 26v . MS Sloane 747, fols 37r, 43v , 48r, 61r, 63v . 52 MS Sloane 747, fols 39v –41r and 42r. Bromflete’s will, written in May 1466, set aside lands in Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire, and Buckinghamshire to be ‘disposed for the wele of my soule, as in chantres and other werkes of charitie’ as declared to his executors: North Country Wills, ed. by J. Clay, Surtees Society, 116, 121, 2 vols (Durham: Andrews, 1908–12), I, 53–54. 53 MS Sloane 747, fols 53v , 55r , 69r–70r. Lady Margaret entered into confraternity with several monasteries: see M. Jones and M. Underwood, The King’s Mother: Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 138, 147, 195, for details (although her membership of the Missenden confraternity is not cited here). 54 For a general introduction to arbitration in late medieval England, see, inter alia, E. Powell, ‘Arbitration and Law in England in the Late Middle Ages’, Transactions of the Royal Historical 51

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brothers, Richard and John Capon of Great Missenden, following the death of their father John; and a further dispute over John Capon’s will in December 1496, this time between John Capon junior and Alice Hope, was to be referred to the Abbot of Missenden as umpire if it could not be settled by three named arbitrators.55 On another occasion, Abbot Honor was appointed by the king, along with William Swan, to examine a dispute in Hughenden between John Collishull, husbandman, and John Wellisburne and his son, although in this instance their award seems to have been unsuccessful.56 A formulary-style entry in Honor’s register, concerning the settlement of a dispute between three parties at variance, also points to the abbot’s active involvement in local conflict settlement.57 Abbot Honor’s local standing is indicated in other sections of his register. In January 1491, he and several laymen issued a document certifying that Richard and Agnes Laurence were lawfully married.58 The Abbot also declared that he had heard the confession of one John W., ‘a true Christian, truly confessed and contrite for his sins’ on 10 March 1485; and a Latin form of absolution was entered into his manuscript.59 We hear, too, that the Abbot baptized Ellen, daughter of the monastery’s patron, Sir John Iwardby, in Great Missenden Church on 20 September 1479.60 All this suggests that Honor was a respected figure on the local scene, and was regularly involved in the affairs of Great Missenden and the surrounding area.

Society, 5th ser., 13 (1983), 49–67; E. Powell, ‘Settlement of Disputes by Arbitration in FifteenthCentury England’, Law and History Review, 2 (1984), 21–43; and J. Biancalana, ‘The Legal Framework of Arbitration in Fifteenth-Century England’, American Journal of Legal History, 47 (2005), 347–82. 55 MS Sloane 747, fol. 45v ; The Courts of the Archdeaconry of Buckingham, 1483–1523, ed. by E. Elvey, Buckinghamshire Record Society, 19 (Aylesbury: Buckinghamshire Record Society, 1975), no. 253. 56 MS Sloane 747, fol. 52v . Wellisburne refused to accept the judgment in favour of Collishull, saying that ‘his neighbours shulde not rule hym for he wolde have ryght gode Ientylmen to speke for hym in tyme of nede in his cause’. 57 MS Sloane 747, fol. 54v. 58 MS Sloane 747, fol. 77r–v, and see fol. 88r. 59 MS Sloane 747, fols 46v and 48v. The phrasing of the abbot’s declaration may indicate that John W. was suspected of Lollardy, which was relatively well entrenched in the Missenden area. The abbot was not the only Missenden canon to act as a personal confessor: Dom William Honor (subsequently abbot of the house, 1521–28) was described as William Gery’s confessor in the latter’s will of January 1506: MS Sloane 747, fol. 68v . 60 Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem and Other Analogous Documents Preserved in the Public Record Office [1485–1509] (hereafter CIPM), 3 vols (London: HMSO, 1898–1955), II, 208.

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Honor’s register is valuable not only for the insight it provides into the activities of the head of a medium-sized house of canons. Alongside and woven intriguingly amongst the business records of the abbey entered into the manuscript are found a wide variety of miscellaneous entries. These include, amongst other things: a series of medical recipes (including concoctions designed to assist with colic, kidney stones, and ‘to make a man to piss’); a charm against falling sickness (epilepsy) and fever; prognostications concerning the meteorological significance of thunder in different seasons, or the character of boys according to their star signs; an aid for calculating the date of Easter; various English and Latin proverbs; the Ten Commandments and other basic catechetical material in English; weights and measures; and assorted facts, such as the number of parish churches and towns in England, the kings of England since the Conquest, and a short list of significant dates in mid-fifteenth century England (including the accession year of Abbot Henry Antony and Honor himself, but pointedly not Robert Risborough).61 The manuscript also includes a number of popular religious verses: the short devotional poem, ‘Jhesu for thy holy name’, accompanied by an indulgence; versions of two common late medieval verses, the ‘precepts in -ly’ (‘Aryse erly’ …) and the ‘signs of death’; a longer verse about the seven deadly sins, beginning ‘As I walkyd vppon a day | To take the eyre of fylde & flowre’; and a moralistic verse attacking modern vanities, similar to the poem ‘The Manner of the World Nowadays’, sometimes attributed to John Skelton.62 The inclusion of this assorted material has sometimes led to the Missenden register being designated as a commonplace book, and in many ways this is an apt description.63 Commonplace books are generally defined by their miscellaneous nature, ‘practical, informal and piecemeal’ productions, made for the personal use

61

Medical receipts are entered at MS Sloane 747, fols 42r, 45 v, 47 r, 52v, 55r, and 89v. The other miscellaneous entries can be found on fols 46r–v, 48v, 49v, 51v, 54 r, 55 v, 57r, 58 v, 60 r–v, 62v–63 r, 65v –66r, 76v, 88v–89r, and 95r–v . 62 The Index of Middle English Verse, ed. by C. Brown and R. H. Robbins (New York: Columbia University Press, 1943) and Supplement to the Index of Middle English Verse, ed. by R. H. Robbins and J. Cutler (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1965), nos 324, 373, 1703, 4035; The Complete Poems of John Skelton, ed. by P. Henderson (London: Dent, 1931), pp. 144–50. 63 Secular Lyrics of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, ed. by R . H. Robbins (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952); D. Parker, The Commonplace Book in Tudor London: An Examination of BL MSS Egerton 1995, Harley 2252, Lansdowne 762, and Oxford Balliol College MS 354 (Lanham: University Press of America, 1998), pp. 11–12.

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of the compiler.64 Although Honor’s manuscript contains many entries relating to the affairs of the monastery as a whole, as we have seen it is in other ways a highly personal production. A number of late medieval monastic miscellanies survive which contain similar kinds of entries to Honor’s book. An early sixteenth-century register of Worcester Cathedral Priory includes medical receipts, prognostications, factual lists, and weights and measures alongside (amongst other business entries) accounts, receipts, charters, and rentals; and the commonplace book of John Gysburn, a fifteenth-century Premonstratensian canon of Coverham, contains similar material.65 Religious verses are also common in monastic collections of this kind, such as the fifteenth-century miscellany of an anonymous monk of Glastonbury, and the sixteenth-century collections of Thomas Ashby, an Augustinian canon of (the wealthy) Bridlington Priory and of Anne Bulkeley, who may have been a Birgittine nun.66 Nevertheless, the similarities between Henry Honor’s register and other late medieval monastic miscellanies can be overdrawn. John Gysburn’s commonplace book includes a few Latin religious poems, but consists mainly of confessional treatises and other official materials to assist him in his role as parish priest of Allington (Lincolnshire). The Glastonbury manuscript comprises mainly twelfthand thirteenth-century literary material in Latin; Thomas Ashby’s book is a collection of Latin meditations, miracles, and treatises; whereas the book of Anne Bulkeley is a devotional anthology containing meditative prayers in the Birgittine

64

D. Youngs, ‘The Medieval Commonplace Book: The Example of the Commonplace Book of Humphrey Newton of Newton and Pownall, Cheshire (1466–1536)’, Archives, 25 (2000), 58–73 (p. 62). 65 Worcester Cathedral Library, MS A.xii; London, BL, MS Sloane 1584. I am very grateful to Dr Julian Luxford for bringing the Worcester manuscript to my attention and to Dr David Morrison for providing a typescript of its contents. 66 A Glastonbury Miscellany of the Fifteenth Century, ed. by A. Rigg (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968); A. G. Dickens, ‘The Writers of Tudor Yorkshire’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser., 13 (1963), 49–76 (pp. 51–53); A. Barratt, ‘Anne Bulkeley and her Book in Early Tudor England’, Journal of the Early Book Society for the Study of Manuscripts and Printing History, 10 (2007), 1–29. For another fifteenth-century monastic miscellany, that of William Glastynbury, see J. Greatrex, ‘Culture at Canterbury in the Fifteenth Century: Some Indications of the Cultural Environment of a Monk of Christ Church’, in The Culture of Medieval English Monasticism, ed. by J. Clark (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2007), pp. 169–76. A. Barratt, Anne Bulkeley and her Book: Fashioning Female Piety in Early Tudor England (Turnhout: Brepols, 2009).

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tradition. In contrast, the vernacular religious verses in Honor’s manuscript are simple and practical, containing little devotional depth or sophistication.67 Most of the prayers and verses in Honor’s register were circulating widely in late medieval England in various forms.68 They occur regularly in sermon collections as preachers’ tags, and also in miscellanies apparently compiled by parish priests, such as London, BL, MS Lansdowne 762, Cambridge, Cambridge University Library, MS Ff. 5. 48, and Dublin, Trinity College, MS 516.69 However, they occur most frequently in the commonplace books of middle-ranking laymen. Versions of these prayers were copied into the well-known books of John Vale (‘Jhesu for thy holy name’), Robert Reynes of Acle and Richard Calle (‘the signs of death’), Richard Hill and John Colyn (‘Arise erly’), and the Findern manuscript (‘As I walkyd vppon a day’).70 The particular versions of these verses copied into Honor’s manuscript are also worth noting. The ‘signs of death’ verse in MS Sloane 747 differed from that found in the Fasciculus morum, adding a series of Latin responses (confessio, contritio, memento, etc.) associated with the sacrament of penance.71 The ‘Jhesu for thy holy name’ poem in Honor’s manuscript is the shorter four-line version, and carried with it an indulgence offering five thousand days of pardon when said with five ‘Pater nosters’, five ‘Ave Marias’, and a Creed.

67

Cf. R . Robbins, ‘Popular Prayers in Middle English Verse’, Modern Philology, 36 (1939), 337–50. 68 See the references in The Index of Middle English Verse and Supplement in n. 62. 69 For example, the ‘signs of death’ poem appears as a tag in the Fasciculus morum: S. Wenzel, Verses in Sermons: Fasciculus Morum and its Middle English Poems (Cambridge: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1978), pp. 197–99. For commonplace books associated with secular priests, see Parker, Commonplace Book, pp. 129–58; T. Ohlgren, ‘Robin Hood and the Monk and the Manuscript Context of Cambridge University Library MS Ff.5.48’, Nottingham Medieval Studies, 48 (2004), 80–108; M. Colker, Trinity College Library Dublin: Descriptive Catalogue of the Medieval and Renaissance Latin Manuscripts (Aldershot: Scolar, 1991), pp. 976–1002. 70 R . Thomson, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Medieval Manuscripts in Worcester Cathedral Library (Cambridge: Brewer, 2001), pp. 114–16; The Commonplace Book of Robert Reynes of Acle: An Edition of Tanner MS 407, ed. by C. Louis (New York: Garland, 1980), pp. 245–46; T. Ohlgren, ‘Richard Call, the Pastons, and the Manuscript Context of Robin Hood and the Potter (Cambridge, University Library Ee.4.35.1)’, Nottingham Medieval Studies, 45 (2001), 210–33; Parker, Commonplace Book, p. 140; C. Meale, ‘The Compiler at Work: John Colyns and BL, MS Harley 2252’, in Manuscripts and Readers in Fifteenth-Century England, ed. by D. Pearsall (Cambridge: Brewer, 1983), pp. 82–103; The Findern Manuscript (Cambridge University Library MS Ff.1.6), ed. by R. Beadle and A. Owen (London: Scolar, 1977), p. xxii. 71 For the different versions of this popular prayer, see R. H. Robbins, ‘Signs of Death in Middle English’, Mediaeval Studies, 32 (1970), 282–98.

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This, too, suggests a practical, penitential context.72 The longer verse, ‘As I walkyd vppon a day’ is of a similar vein, taking the form of a commentary on how to treat the seven deadly sins and ending in a call for penance and confession.73 What these verses, and the other miscellaneous entries in Henry Honor’s register, tell us about monastic life at Missenden Abbey is difficult to judge. It is often asserted that commonplace books provide an insight into the tastes, beliefs, and priorities of the compiler.74 But were these prayers copied for the personal use of Abbot Honor? We do not know who the main scribe of the Missenden register was. He was certainly not a professional scribe, and it is not inconceivable that the manuscript was largely copied by Henry Honor himself. At the foot of the entry recording the arbitration settlement for the Capon brothers was added ‘Per abbatem de Myssenden manu propria script’, and so Honor evidently wrote documents on occasion.75 But the manuscript may equally have been copied by a canon of the monastery, or even by a lay servant, on the abbot’s behalf. At the great Benedictine monasteries, the superior’s register was generally in the charge of an obedientiary (usually the abbot’s chaplain or the precentor), who often employed a professional scribe.76 But whoever was the main scribe for Honor’s register, there is no reason to doubt that the miscellaneous entries were written at the abbot’s behest. It is notable that they occur (with the exception of ‘As I walkyd vppon a day’ and the Skeltonian verse, which may both be in a later hand) in the very sections of the manuscript that deal with Honor’s personal fortunes as abbot. The ‘signs of death’ verse occurs on the same folio as the letter from Edward IV to the tenants of Missenden requiring them to support Abbot Honor after his restoration in 1471, and as the advice for responding to a hostile visitor; and ‘Aryse erly’ was

72 Cf. R . Swanson, Indulgences in Late Medieval England: Passports to Paradise? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), esp. pp. 224–77. This popular prayer was also in circulation embedded within a versified penance: V. O’Mara, ‘A Middle English Versified Penance Composed of Popular Prayer Tags’, Notes and Queries, 231 (1996), 449–50. I am very grateful to Dr O’Mara for sending a copy of this article to me. 73 C. Brown, Religious Lyrics of the Fifteenth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1939), no. 178. 74 For example, Commonplace Book of Robert Reynes, pp. 101–02; Parker, Commonplace Book, pp. 159–61. 75 MS Sloane 747, fol. 45v. The narrative of Honor’s restoration in 1471 is written in the third person, although this may be literary artifice. 76 W. A. Pantin, ‘English Monastic Letter-Books’, in Historical Essays in Honour of James Tait, ed. by J. Edwards, V. Galbraith, and E. F. Jacob (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1933), pp. 201–22 (pp. 207–09).

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copied shortly after two letters relating to Robert Risborough.77 Indeed, the majority of the entries in the Missenden register relate so clearly to the affairs of Henry Honor that it would be strange to single out these miscellaneous entries and attribute them to some other agency. If the religious verses in Honor’s register were copied by or at the behest of the abbot, can this tell us anything about the abbot’s devotional tastes? Material copied into a commonplace book was not necessarily for the personal consumption of the compiler, and it may be that some of Honor’s entries were intended for the edification of others. The basic catechetical material entered into his register, such as the Ten Commandments and the Seven Deadly Sins, may have been used by the Abbot in his role as confessor (see above), and the same may be true of some other entries. Nevertheless, the verses in Honor’s manuscript do seem to indicate an affinity with the simple, practical piety of that section of society — ‘a “middling” group of laity: small gentry landholders, merchants, and professionals’78 — who produced late medieval commonplace books. Indeed, Henry Honor, like many late medieval monastic superiors, probably came from a similar social background. It may be, therefore, that this material is a remnant of the lay religious culture Honor experienced before becoming a regular canon. As Miri Rubin writes, ‘identity was never a process of replacement, but of accumulation’.79 But even if Honor’s verses should be interpreted as ‘sediments from earlier experience’, it is interesting to see that this practical, moralizing brand of lay piety still exerted sufficient influence on the Abbot towards the end of his life for such entries to be copied into his register. Honor’s register leaves many questions unanswered. Is it of any significance that, in contrast to most other monastic miscellanies, there is no material of a devotional, introspective, or intellectual nature in his manuscript? Is his book — which is so different in character to the formal registers of the heads of the great Benedictine houses — in any way reflective of the culture found in lesser houses of regular canons? Here the evidence fails us. It seems fair to conclude that Henry Honor’s manuscript reflects, in a number of ways, the abbot’s close and sustained engagement with his locality. He was a Missenden man, whose path to the abbacy at a relatively young age was assisted by the monastery’s lay neighbours. He retained intimate links with that neighbourhood through his management of the abbey’s estates, rewarding his friends and relations with valuable grants. The abbot’s

77

MS Sloane 747, fols 49r–v, 64v –65v . Youngs, ‘Medieval Commonplace Book’, p. 63. 79 M. Rubin, ‘Identities’, in A Social History of England, 1200–1500, ed. by R. Horrox and W. M. Ormrod (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 383–412 (p. 391). 78

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prominence in local affairs also emerges clearly from Honor’s register, as he helped to resolve conflicts, heard confessions, and baptized infants. Probably not unconnected to the above, Henry Honor seems to have retained an interest in the religious culture of his lay neighbours. It has recently been argued that ‘the importance of small monastic houses is especially reflected in their services to and integration into their local communities’.80 The main significance of Henry Honor’s register is perhaps that it provides a more nuanced insight into how this local role might have played out in practice, and how it might have impacted on religious life in lesser monasteries, than we find in those formulaic and censorious late medieval visitation records.81

80

L. Rasmussen, ‘Why Small Monastic Houses Should Have a History’, Midland History, 28 (2003), 1–27 (p. 17). 81 I am very grateful to all those who responded to my paper at Gregynog, and in particular to James Clark, Julian Luxford, Veronica O’Mara, and Nicholas Orme for their very helpful comments and suggestions during and after the conference. Maureen Jurkowski has generously passed on references relating to Robert Risborough; and I would also like to thank the British Academy for financing the purchase of a number of microfilms of abbots’ registers, including the Missenden volume.

P ART III Social Contexts

‘A ND THEN HE ADDED C ANONS’: G ILBERT , THE O RDER OF S EMPRINGHAM , AND THE D EVELOPING F RAMEWORK OF G ILBERTINE L IFE Glyn Coppack

T

he Gilbertines are claimed to be the only English monastic order, though this is true only to the extent that the man who was their founder and inspiration was a member of the Anglo-Norman elite — Gilbert Fitz Jocelin of Sempringham.1 Unsuited to military life he was trained in the schools of Laon where he knew Maurice, who was to become the second prior of Kirkham Priory, an Augustinian house with close connections through its founder to Cistercian Rievaulx.2 Together it seems they had planned to follow the example of Bruno of Cologne and his companions, who were to establish the first community which in the early years of the twelfth century became the mother house of the Carthusian Order; but they went their separate ways, Gilbert returning to Sempringham where he established a school. In about 1120 he became a clerk in the household of Robert Bloet, second bishop of Lincoln, ‘living more like a regular canon than a secular clerk’, and after 1123 was ordained by his successor

1

For Gilbert of Sempringham, see The Book of St Gilbert, ed. and trans. by R. Foreville and G. Keir (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987); and B. Golding, Gilbert of Sempringham and the Gilbertine Order (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1995). 2 K . Sykes, Gilbert: From Laon to London via Lincoln and Sempringham (Billingborough: Spring Wells Heritage Group, 2009).

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Alexander.3 It was the reforming Bishop Alexander who encouraged Gilbert to experiment with monasticism.4 Gilbert of Sempringham began his experimentation with monasticism in 1131 when he constructed a ‘cloister’ for seven local women on the north side of his church at Sempringham in south Lincolnshire. At the time, this was not particularly unusual. A number of nunneries were in the process of foundation in the early twelfth century, though the mechanism is not yet fully understood. Gilbert went further than other founders, and advised by Abbot William of Rievaulx, who was to establish a daughter house at Revesby in Lincolnshire in 1142, he added first lay sisters and then brothers to support his foundation before Abbot William’s death in 1145, and established a rule which seems to have leaned heavily on the Cistercian reform of the Benedictine Order.5 When Bishop Alexander gave the failed Cistercian house of Haverholme to Gilbert in 1139, his foundation charter referred to the nuns as following the life of Cistercian monks ‘as far as the weakness of their sex allowed’, presumably the same life enjoyed by their sisters at Sempringham.6 The nunnery at Sempringham was rapidly outgrowing its restricted site in the parish cemetery, and in 1139, Gilbert II de Gant, Gilbert’s lord, provided three carucates of land (c. 360 acres or 145 hectares) for a new monastery on a site to the south of the village of Sempringham and extending into the parish of Aslackby. Gilbert II de Gant was thus held to be the founder of the priory, and its foundation date is generally held to be 1139.7 In 1147 Gilbert attended the annual general chapter of the Cistercians at Cîteaux and asked formally for admission of his community to the order. The Cistercians had no wish to admit women, particularly those with little endowment, though they were sympathetic. Pope Eugenius III, a Cistercian monk originally of Clairvaux, was present and he confirmed Gilbert as head of the order of Sempringham, and Bernard of Clairvaux, with Gilbert, wrote the Institutes which

3

J. Blakesley, ‘English Eclectics: The Gilbertines and their Liturgy’, In illo tempore: Ushaw Library Bulletin and Liturgical Review, 19 (2002), 15–16. 4 Sykes, Gilbert, p. 37. 5 See Janet Sorrentino’s chapter in this volume. 6 William Dugdale, Monasticon anglicanum, ed. by J. Caley, H. Ellis, and B. Bandinel (hereafter Monasticon), 6 vols (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, 1817–30), VI, pt II (1830), 948. See also R. Graham (and H. Braun), ‘Excavations on the Site of Sempringham Priory’, Journal of the British Archaeological Association, 3rd ser., 5 (1940), 75. 7 VCH: Lincolnshire, ed. by W. Page, 1 vol (no. 2) to date (London: Constable, 1906–), II (1906), 179, quoting Monasticon, VI, pt II, 948, no. 1. The entry on Sempringham was written by Dr Rose Graham and the emphasis is hers.

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were to become the formal rule of the new order.8 Based partly on the existing double order of Fontevrault, and partly on the Cistercian rule, the Institutes introduced canons to provide spiritual care for the nuns.9 Canons, following a modified Augustinian rule, first appear in 1148 at Sempringham and Haverholme, marking the completion of Gilbert’s great experiment.10 While the historical process is well documented and researched, the architectural framework within which this development took place, and the only English monastic order established, remains unclear. Our knowledge of the order and particularly its double monasteries is based almost entirely on the late nineteenth-century excavations of Sir William St John Hope and Sir Harold Brakspear at Watton Priory in East Yorkshire.11 This paper represents work in progress: the recovery and partial phasing of the ground plan of Sempringham Priory itself. What has been learned so far of Sempringham challenges what we have considered to be the model for Gilbertine monasteries.12 To understand the development of the community we need to understand the context in which it functioned, and here is the first problem. The church to which Gilbert attached his ‘cloister’ is not the standing twelfth-century church (the nave and north aisle of which are no earlier than 1150), but its predecessor. When its north wall was taken down and rebuilt in 1868–69, traces of Gilbert’s first monastery were allegedly found, but we have no details of these. It is not until the monastery moved to a new site in 1139 that we have any information at all about its structures, and even then the greater part of the buildings must post-date the introduction of canons in 1148. Thus, Sempringham in its post-1139 appearance was not at first a double monastery, but up to 1148 was simply a nunnery until canons were added in 1148. In 1247 it was to house no more than two hundred nuns and lay sisters, thirteen canons, and sixty lay brothers. At its suppression in 1538 it contained the master, prior, prioress, sixteen canons, and sixteen nuns.13 8

Monasticon, VI, pt II, 960. Graham (and Braun), ‘Excavations on the Site of Sempringham Priory’, pp. 75–76. 10 VCH: Lincolnshire, II, 179. 11 W. H. St J. Hope, ‘Watton Priory, Yorkshire’, East Riding Antiquarian Society, 8 (1900), 70–107. 12 G. Coppack and P. Cope-Faulkner, ‘Sempringham Priory: Survey and Assessment of the Mother House of the Gilbertine Order and the Tudor Mansion that Replaced It’, Medieval Archaeology (forthcoming); P. Cope-Faulkner, Assessment of the Fieldwalking and Geophysical Survey Undertaken at Sempringham Priory and Village, Pointon and Sempringham, Lincolnshire, APS Report No.113/08 (Heckington: Archaeological Project Services, 2008). 13 For 1247 numbers, see Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers Relating to Great Britain and Ireland, Papal Letters, ed. by W. H. Bliss and others (hereafter CPL), 20 vols to date (London: 9

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Remarkably for its size it was never a wealthy house, with a net income of £317 in 1535, which put it on a par with Cistercian Rievaulx. In 1535 the wealthiest house of the order was Watton in East Yorkshire. In 1247 Watton was to have no more than one hundred and forty nuns and lay sisters, thirteen canons, and seventy lay brothers.14 Watton, established about 1150 as the order was settling down in its final form, was the first Gilbertine house to be examined archaeologically by William St John Hope and Harold Brakspear in 1893–98. They produced a plan (Fig. 8) which has been used ever since as the type-plan for a Gilbertine double monastery. It is perhaps a pity our study starts with Watton Priory, for it appears to be atypical. Great caution is needed in using this plan. Only what is shown in solid black was actually excavated, walls in broken line are simply surmised, and a whole block of buildings on the west side of the canons’ cloister was not excavated but reconstructed from a 1538 survey that listed roof leads about the old hall which Hope assumed to be in the west cloister range. The plan shows a typical Gilbertine church divided by a wall, with the nuns to the north and the canons to the south. We know the smaller southern church was at some point the canons’ church, for in 1933 the grave marker of William of Malton, fourth prior, now in the parish church, was removed from the presbytery floor in an otherwise unrecorded excavation. This grave cannot have been seen by Hope, who specifically cleared the northern presbytery to floor level because it is not on his plan. Burials can of course be moved, but Hope appears to have been in no doubt about his interpretation of the site. The nuns’ cloister was identified to the north, but no buildings were identified to the south. The area is remarkably flat with no obvious traces of buildings and was probably made up of gardens in the later medieval or even postsuppression period. That does not mean that there were no buildings here, but Hope did not look for them. It was only in the final season that a second cloister was found to the east, associated with the surviving prior’s house. All of the buildings are fourteenth century or later, with no evidence for earlier buildings on this site, which would suggest that the earlier buildings were elsewhere. The area between the two cloisters was not excavated, but its earthworks survive well, showing that it comprised a series of closes and a roadway. Hope placed his window-house (the domus fenestralis of the Institutes), the point of communication for the two communities, here, but this owes more to Hope trying to fit the

HMSO, 1893–1966; Dublin: Stationery Office, 1978–), I: 1198–1304, ed. by W. H. Bliss (1893), p. 232; for numbers at the suppression, see Knowles and Hadcock, MRH, p. 172. 14 CPL, I, 232.

Insert Figure 8 (end of this file) broadside on this page

Figure 8. Plan of Watton Priory surveyed by Sir Harold Brakspear and interpreted by Sir William Hope, showing how little was excavated (black) and how much was surmised (broken line).

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plan to the Institutes than to reality. It was documents that led Hope to understand that the fourteenth-century eastern cloister was for the canons, and, on that basis, the twelfth- and thirteenth-century cloister on the north side of the church had to be the nuns’ cloister. Here, there is a problem. The northern church has a transept with two eastern chapels. What would nuns want with chapels in which they could not celebrate mass without a priest? Unfortunately, until 2004 the plan of Watton, for all its failings, was all we had on which to base the interpretation of the Institutes, though the plan itself owes much to an uncritical reading of the Institutes. Watton Priory was founded by Eustace Fitz John at the request of his second wife Agnes, whose dower provided the initial endowment.15 Eustace also established a house for Gilbertine canons alone at Old Malton (Fig. 9) at virtually the same time. The exact relationship between the two Yorkshire houses is unknown, but Old Malton was probably intended by Gilbert as a retreat house for his canons, one of only four canons’ houses established during his lifetime (the others being Mattersey in Nottinghamshire, Newstead on Ancholme in north Lincolnshire, and St Katherine’s at Lincoln). At Old Malton, parts of the church survive, showing that, architecturally at least, it was unexceptional. Its source, claimed in the past to be Cistercian Byland, was in fact, Archbishop Roger’s new choir arm at York Minster and his contemporary collegiate church at Ripon.16 Gilbertine canons, if left to their own devices, were following neither a straight Augustinian model nor a Cistercian one. Sempringham Priory was considered by Hope in the last decade of the nineteenth century, though he failed to find sponsorship for an excavation and it was not until 1938 that the Lincolnshire Architectural Society began research on the site under the direction of Hugh Braun. He began his excavation on the site of the Tudor mansion that was built on the site of the priory buildings, but had great difficulty in locating medieval structures.17 A plan (Fig. 10) was produced which identified medieval structures, structures which contained reused medieval material but which were probably monastic, and structures which were part of the sixteenth-century mansion. Within these buildings, however, there was no sign of a cloister. Towards the end of the 1938 season, some trial excavation was done

15

J. Burton, The Monastic Order in Yorkshire, 1069–1215 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 137–38. 16 I am indebted to Stuart Harrison for this confirmation in advance of the publication of the excavation and analysis of Archbishop Roger’s choir at York. 17 H. Braun, Sempringham Priory Excavations (Sleaford: Morton, 1938).

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Figure 9. The church of Old Malton, the nave of the canons’ church begun in Gilbert’s lifetime that takes its design not from the Cistercians but from Archbishop Roger of Pont-L’Evêque’s choir arm at York Minster.

Insert Figure 10 (end of this file) broadside on this page

Figure 10. Hugh Braun’s excavation plan at the end of the 1938 season at Sempringham made little sense of the buildings encountered and was far from accurate (compare with Fig. 15).

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in the outer court of the Tudor house which still stands as a substantial earthwork and substantial east–west walls were found on its north side which proved to be the north wall of a double church. The 1939 season was spent revealing the plan of the church (Fig. 11), which proved to be a mid-twelfth-century church, substantially rebuilt in the early fourteenth century.18 The plan was that of the church at Watton, and of the church of Bullington recorded from the air by Neville Hadcock.19 It would at least seem that we have a consistent plan for Gilbertine double churches. Braun, advised by Dr Rose Graham, interpreted the northern church with its north transept and aisle as the canons’ church, and noted that there appeared to be a cloister attached to its south side which was identified as the nuns’ cloister. The outbreak of war in September 1939 curtailed research at Sempringham, and it was not until the present decade that any further work was done on the site. The whole of the site, owned by King George VI, was put into cultivation to aid the war effort, its earthworks were substantially levelled, and the site remains in cultivation. While this is damaging to the buried remains it has the benefit of revealing buried structures as cropmarks visible on aerial photographs. At Sempringham, the results of the aerial photography are very clear (Fig. 12). Two cloisters are visible: one to the south of the church, and, attached to it as Braun believed, a second lying to the north-west and clearly detached. There are buildings to its west, and its east range is hidden below the west range of the Tudor house. The southern cloister is larger, with an immense chapter house in its east range, to the south of which is the infirmary cloister, and to the east of that the infirmary hall with an eastern aisle. Scale alone indicates that the northern cloister was the canons’ cloister, and the southern cloister was provided for the nuns and lay sisters. Only the eastern parts of the church are visible, its twin naves and crossings lying below the earthworks of the Tudor mansion’s outer court. There are a number of other buildings visible in the crop, but it was uncertain what date they were, or whether they were even monastic. In 2004–05, English Heritage funded three pieces of research that would enable the interpretation of the site: the plotting of all the available aerial photography; a geophysical survey; and field walking to recover dateable finds that could be related to the buried structures. The plotting of the aerial photography (Fig. 13) produced for the first time the outline plan of the whole site, the village of Sempringham and its successor structures around the surviving parish church,

18

Braun, Sempringham Priory, p. 3; Graham (and Braun), ‘Excavations on the Site of Sempringham Priory’, pp. 73–101. 19 For which see R. N. Hadcock, ‘Bullington Priory, Lincolnshire’, Antiquity, 11 (1937), 213–17.

Insert Figure 11 (end of this file) broadside on this page

Figure 11. Hugh Braun’s plan of the church at Sempringham, excavated in 1939, simplified to remove conjectural reconstruction.

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Figure 12. J. K. St Joseph’s aerial photography of Sempringham Priory in 1950 from the south-west showing the earthworks and crop marks of the Tudor house at the centre of the image, with the canons’ cloister to the left of the earthworks, the double presbytery and north transept of the church above the earthworks, and the nuns’ cloister partly obscured by the plane’s wing. Reproduced with permission of the Cambridge University Committee on Aerial Photography.

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and the priory and its successor mansion to the south in the shallow valley of the Marse Dyke. In all, the site covered about one hundred acres (24 hectares). While the aerial photography was able to recover the plan of medieval structures with remarkable accuracy, it was not revealing any detail of the post-medieval house that lay above the priory and which was obscuring most of the church and a substantial area to its north. This is because the Tudor house was built on a vast platform of sand half a metre deep, and its foundations are obscured by tons of rubble from its demolition. To the south, its garden terraces and enclosing walls partly obscure the southern cloister. On the northern side of the shallow valley, the site of the village of Sempringham is much more complicated, for field walking was to demonstrate settlement in this area from the second century AD to the early eighteenth century with no evidence of a break. None of the features recorded from the air can be dated, and there is a slight distortion in their planning because there were few fixed points to which the oblique air-photographs could be related. Geophysical survey20 of the priory site proved invaluable, for it located not only buried walls but water courses, roadways, and ditches, providing for the first time (Fig. 14) an accurate location for the great double church and both cloisters associated with it, and these can be related to the topography of the valley bottom. In particular, the medieval course of the Marse Dyke was recovered, running just to the north of the priory church and passing below its north transept in a tunnel. The northern canons’ cloister was actually physically separated from the church by the Marse Dyke, which was not diverted to its current course until the late sixteenth century, and access to the nuns’ enclosure was controlled by bridges. The canons’, and presumably lay people’s, access entrance to the church was by a porch at the north end of the west wall of the transept. Their oratory, used for most offices, must have been the mid-twelfth-century building that Braun had excavated to the west of the double church (see Fig. 11). Field walking, which recovered some 45,000 objects from the surface of the fields that could be related to individual five-metre squares, and thus to individual structures, was designed to recover evidence of date, or at least of the time spread of occupation of individual buildings. For present purposes, the most useful indicators were those that identified post-medieval occupation of the site and allowed for the removal of structures from the plan that related to the Tudor mansion, and those that identified pre-monastic settlement. Among the latter comes a possible explanation for Gilbert’s early monastic interests. 20

I. P. Brooks and K. Laws, Sempringham Priory Geophysical Survey, EAS Client Report 2005/04 (Blaenau Ffestiniog: Engineering Archaeological Services, 2005).

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Figure 13. The site of Sempringham and Sempringham Priory as defined by aerial photography. Map by Rog Palmer.

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Figure 14. The buildings of Sempringham Priory (and Sempringham Hall that succeeded it) were accurately plotted by magnetometer and resistivity survey in 2004. Reproduced with permission of Engineering Archaeological Services Ltd.

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Pottery from the mid-seventh to late ninth century was recovered from the area around the parish church in substantial quantities, and when it was plotted was found to lie almost exclusively inside a square ditched enclosure visible on the aerial photography. The same area produced quantities of Roman pottery of the second and third centuries AD.21 The parish church lies literally at the centre of the pottery distribution and it is fairly certain that this is not a standard Middle-Saxon settlement. Here documentary sources help out, for the Peterborough manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, recompiled after the destruction of the original by fire in 1116 with the inclusion of some spurious charter evidence, contains a reference sub anno 852 to Abbot Coelred of Peterborough leasing land at Sempringham to one Wulfred in exchange for a grant of land in Sleaford. Are we looking at the site of an Anglo-Saxon monastery?22 Taking the dating evidence of the field survey and adding it to the evidence of the geophysical survey and the airphotography plotting (and the apparently accurate plan of the church produced by Braun whose location was fixed by the geophysics), we can actually provide for the first time an accurate plan for the central buildings of Sempringham Priory (Fig. 15). Central to the planning of Sempringham Priory is the great double church (E and F) which lay on the south bank of the Marse Dyke (I), with the nuns’ cloister (G) attached to its south side and the canons’ cloister (C) placed on the north bank of the Marse Dyke to the north-west of the church. The outer court lies to the north and west of the canons’ enclosure and to the south of the Marse Dyke, where a water mill (H) and a pair of barn ( J) have been recorded. The use of water and walled courts to separate functions is very clear indeed, and can be compared with Cistercian examples at Fountains and Roche Abbeys, and more importantly with the Institutes. The plan is unphased, but we have some assistance from Braun about the church. He noted that the nuns’ church was, apart from its eastern bay, a twelfth-century building, and that it had only been updated when the canons’ church had been rebuilt and extended in the first half of the fourteenth century.

21

G. Coppack, ‘Prehistoric, Roman, Medieval and Post-Medieval Pottery’, in Cope-Faulkner, Assessment of the Fieldwalking and Geophysical Survey, pp. 8–9 and Fig. 11. 22 The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, trans. and ed. by M. J. Swanton (London: Dent, 1997), p. 65.

Insert Figure 15 (end of this file) broadside on this page

Figure 15. A reconstructed plan of the central medieval buildings of Sempringham Priory based on the interpretation of aerial and geophysical survey around the church excavated by Braun in 1939. Plan reproduced courtesy of P. Cope-Faulkner and G. Coppack.

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He also noted that the west wall of the church had a mid-twelfth-century plinth course that engaged with the building to the west. There were also structures underlying the twelfth-century church which remain unexplained.23 If the 1160s church of Watton is typical of the double churches of the order, John de Hamilton’s rebuilding of the canons’ church from 1301 is likely to have retained its original plan though the north transept was presumably lengthened to cross the Marse Dyke and provide the canons’ processional entrance to their church and the nave aisle provided for the laity who came to the canons’ church on Palm Sunday and for the adoration of the cross on Good Friday.24 The ‘curious building’ (the term is Braun’s) standing to the west of the canons’ church within its own ditched enclosure is almost certainly the canons’ oratory where they celebrated all offices apart from mass, and which appears to be contemporary with the first double church of the mid-twelfth century. It had on its north side a vaulted undercroft below a building of unknown use, and on its south side a vaulted passage, both part of the fourteenth-century rebuilding.25 The canons’ cloister, with its vaulted west range of nine bays and a vaulted outer parlour at its north end, and its first-floor refectory in its north range, was seen in an evaluation excavation carried out by English Heritage in 1987 to examine potential plough damage to the site, and can be identified as a fourteenth-century reconstruction, as appeared to be also the adjacent cloister alleys.26 No trace was seen of earlier buildings, but it is more than likely that what appears here is a remodelling rather than a rebuilding. Hope’s plan of the early fourteenth-century east range at Watton (Fig. 8) and the plan of the east range at Mattersey recovered by Sir Charles Peers27 provide likely models for the cloister ranges. The east range is largely concealed within or below the Tudor house, and no detail has been recovered. To the west was a pair of substantial guesthouses, each with a hall-range and chamber cross-wing, apparently linked by a corridor, and to the east a series of service buildings including an aisled structure (D) which was retained to serve the Tudor mansion as a kitchen.

23 Braun, Sempringham Priory, p. 2; Graham (and Braun), ‘Excavations on the Site of Sempringham Priory’, p. 82 and pl. 11. 24 Graham (and Braun), ‘Excavations on the Site of Sempringham Priory’, p. 80. 25 Graham (and Braun), ‘Excavations on the Site of Sempringham Priory’, p. 81. 26 For which see English Heritage Central Excavation Unit Fieldwork Summary for Central Excavation Unit Site 424 by F. McAvoy, dated October 1987 (unpublished). 27 C. R. Peers, ‘Mattersey Priory, Nottinghamshire’, Archaeological Journal, 87 (1930), 16–20.

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The nuns’ buildings — or at least their east range — appear to be earlier. Its planning is 1140s to 1160s Cistercian, with the chapter house and latrine block defining a second cloister to the east, fronting a substantial infirmary hall. This plan was current when Abbot Aelred was raising his east range and infirmary at Rievaulx in the 1150s, and the layout of the east range with its latrine block set towards its mid-point appears in Abbot Henry Murdac’s buildings at Fountains in the early to mid-1140s.28 The south and west ranges are not so clearly defined because they are quite deeply buried by colluvium, but they appear to be narrow ranges with overshot cloister alleys, typical of Cistercian nunneries in Yorkshire at the suppression.29 From the south cloister alley of the nuns’ cloister, field walking produced a tap key of the 1170s in gilded bronze (Fig. 16a and 16b) that is directly comparable with a complete tap recovered from the south cloister alley at Fountains Abbey and from the wall-mounted laver there. Sempringham Priory is now sufficiently understood for us to comprehend how Gilbertine houses were planned, developed, and modified and to which a detailed study of the Institutes can now be applied. We lack the earliest phases, but we do have the context in which they were developed — the discussions between Gilbert and Abbot William of Rievaulx at the point before the Cistercians were even building stone cloisters.30 No building shown on Fig. 15 is likely to predate 1150, and the Gilbertine plan first established at Watton post-dates the addition of canons to the order in 1148. Even so, the impression given by Sempringham is that the canons’ cloister was simply bolted on to a pre-existing design where only the form of the church was modified. The fact that there were ‘Norman buildings’ recorded by Braun below his twelfth-century double church indicates that there was an earlier layout on the site that was granted in 1139 and which must equate to an early twelfth-century Gilbertine nunnery.

28 For Rievaulx, see P. Fergusson and S. Harrison, Rievaulx Abbey: Community, Architecture, Memory (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), pp. 103–36. For Fountains, see G. Coppack, Fountains Abbey: The Cistercians in Northern England (Stroud: Amberley, 2009), pp. 34–40 and Figs 14 and 15. I am indebted to Stuart Harrison for his advice on the connection with Aelred’s planning at Rievaulx. 29 G. Coppack, ‘How the Other Half Lived: Cistercian Nunneries in Early Sixteenth-Century Yorkshire’, Cîteaux: Commentarii Cisterciences, 59 (2008), 253–98. 30 For which see G. Coppack, ‘According to the Form of the Order: The Earliest Cistercian Buildings in England and their Context’, in Perspectives for an Architecture of Solitude: Essays on Cistercians, Art and Architecture in Honour of Peter Fergusson, ed. by T. Kinder (Turnhout: Brepols, 2004), pp. 35–45.

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A re-examination of Watton will almost certainly find the original nuns’ cloister to the south of the church, and this means that the northern cloister, itself attached to the north side of the double church, must be the canons’ original cloister and the northern church must be theirs too. If that is the case, then we have a canons’ cloister of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries that predates their cloister at Sempringham. However, it is still Sempringham which will inform our understanding of Gilbert’s own thoughts, for he lived there until his death in 1189 and it is inconceivable that anything happened there without his personal approval. The plan recovered at Sempringham was largely developed before Gilbert’s death and must be one that he had personally sanctioned.

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Figure 16a. The tap key from the nuns’ cloister at Sempringham. Drawing by David Hopkins.

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Figure 16b. A comparable tap from Fountains Abbey. Drawing by Judith Dobie.

‘AND THEN HE ADDED CANONS’

T HE A UGUSTINIAN C ANONS AND THEIR P ARISH C HURCHES : A K EY TO THEIR IDENTITY Nick Nichols

O

ne of the most striking characteristics of the Augustinian canons was the central role their parish churches played in their survival. From their inception, the black canons prospered in large part because of the substantial number of parish churches in their possession and the spiritualia derived from them. This hallmark of the order persisted throughout the medieval period and remained a significant facet of the canons’ identity until the Dissolution. The reasons for the canons being granted so many parish churches at their foundation and throughout their existence are manifold, and several scholars have addressed this at length.1 This phenomenon shapes much of what can be known about the canons and has many implications for the study of the order, and the questions that such a situation presents are some of the most provocative in the study of monasticism itself. 1

Among the many studies that have supported this assertion, see J. Burton, Monastic and Religious Orders in Britain, 1000–1300 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) and ‘Monasteries and Parish Churches in Eleventh and Twelfth-Century Yorkshire’, Northern History, 23 (1987), 39–50; J. C. Dickinson, The Origins of the Austin Canons and their Introduction into England (London: SPCK, 1950); A. Fizzard, ‘The Augustinian Canons of Plympton Priory and their Place in English Church and Society, 1121–c.1400’ (unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Toronto, 1999), and Plympton Priory: A House of Augustinian Canons (Leiden: Brill, 2007); R. W. Southern, Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970); and A. Hamilton Thompson, History and Architectural Description of the Priory of St Mary, Bolton-in-Wharfedale: With some Account of the Canons Regular of the Order of St Augustine and their Houses in Yorkshire, Thoresby Society Publications, 30 (Leeds: Thoresby Society, 1928), pp. 16–17.

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Nick Nichols Table 2: Spiritualities as a Percentage of Total Income for Monasteries in the Diocese of Worcester

Order

Name of Monastery

Augustinian canons

Cirencester a

St Augustine’s Bristol (M inisters’ Acct.) Lanthony (Secunda) by Gloucester Kenilworth

Studley

St Oswald’s Gloucester

Warwick, St Sepulchre

Premonstratensian canons

Halesowen b

Cistercian monks

Bordesley b

Hailes c

Flaxley

Tewkesbury c

‘Valor ecclesiasticus’ (hereafter ‘VE’) of 1535 (unless otherwise noted) S = ~£303 7s. 2d. (29%) T = ~£747 19s. 11d. (71%) Total = £1051 7s. 1d. S = ~£321 8s. 1d. (47%) T = ~£358 6s. 0d. (53%) Total = £679 14s. 1d. S = £240 1s. 7d. (37%) T = £408 3s. 4d. (63%) Total = £648 19s. 11d. S = £190 3s. 2d. (35%) T = £348 16s. 3d. (65%) Total = £538 19s. 5d. S = £33 15s. 4d. (29%) T = £83 6s. 2d. (71%) Total = £117 1s. 6d. S = £54 10s. 2d. (60%) T = £37 0s. 1d. (40%) Total = £91 10s. 3d. S = £7 18s. 2d. (19%) T = £33 12s. 0d. (81%) Total = £41 10s. 2d. S = £43 5s. 4d. (13%) T = £294 10s. 2d. (87%) Total = £337 15s. 6d. S = £50 0s 1d (13%) T = £347 15s 1d (87%) Total = £397 15s. 2d. S = ~£124 18s. 4d. (34%) T = ~£242 9s. 4d. (66%) Total = £367 7s. 8d. S = N/A (0%) T = £112 3s. 1d. (100%) Total = £112 3s. 1d. S = ~£242 7s. 3d. (15%) T = ~£1355 13s. 3d. (85%) Total = £1598 0s. 6d.

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Table 2. (Continued)

a

St Peter’s, Gloucester

S = £193 8s. 10d. (13%) T = £1325 4s. 2d. (87%) Total = £1518 13s. 0d.

Worcester Cathedral Priory b

S = £332 10s. 5d. (23%) T = £1053 19s. 3d. (77%) Total = £1386 9s. 8d.

Evesham b

S = £218 18s. 8d. (17%) T = £1055 11s. 0d. (83%) Total = £1274 9s. 9d.

Winchcombe c

S = ~£62 8s. 0d. (8%) T = ~£697 3s. 9d. (92%) Total = £759 11s. 9d.

Pershore b

S = £148 9s. 1d. (22%) T = £527 14s. 5d. (78%) Total = £676 3s. 6d.

Great Malvern Priory b

S = £117 0s. 15d. (31%) T = £257 19s. 3d. (69%) Total = £375 0s. 6d.

Leonard Stanley

S = £83 18s. 0d. (67%) T = £42 2s. 8d. (33%) Total = £126 0s. 8d.

Little Malvern b

S = £17 18s. 3d. (17%) T = £84 12s. 6d. (83%) Total = £102 10s. 9d.

This number is culled from the difficult recording of the monastery in the VE. The record orders the house’s income by obedientiaries and then by property, without drawing a clear distinction between spiritualities and temporalities. This number was arrived at by totalling all numbers that represented rectories, pensions, portions and entries listed as tithes in a location where the monastery was known to possess a church. This gross number was then reduced by the sum of the expenses paid on those same entries, including pensions vicarages. This then should be reasonably close to the correct number for the net spiritual income of the monastery. b All incomes listed are gross values. The VE for these houses lists all the assets of the abbey or priory first, with spiritualities and temporalities separated, then lists all of the liabilities of the house, without distinction. In every case, the difference in the percentage of income derived from each type if the spiritual income were taken as a percentage of the net income would change only nominally, approximately 1–3 per cent, and reduction in the net income for things that would

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apply to spiritual income would need also to be reduced proportionally, likely making the difference altogether negligible. By comparison, the same method of calculation for each of the Augustinian houses using gross values inflates their percentage, some of them substantially (Studley almost 20 per cent). c The spiritual income derived from the VE for Hailes, Winchcombe, and Tewkesbury were done using the same method as Cirencester, see note a above.

The principal goal of this study is to demonstrate that possession, exploitation, and protection of parish churches were central to the identity of the Augustinian canons. It takes as a case study the Augustinian houses in the diocese of Worcester. By examining the economic impact of spiritualia upon the monasteries of regular canons in this region, and by identifying patterns in behaviour that demonstrate the zeal of the canons in exploiting and protecting their spiritualia, this paper seeks to shed more light on the nature of the order and their interactions with the world outside the gates of the monastery.2

The Importance of Parish Churches The significance of parish churches for the Augustinian canons in Worcester can be expressed statistically in terms of the percentage of their income derived from spiritualities. Table 2 displays the total income of the houses of all male monasteries in the diocese of Worcester, grouped by order, as given in the VE, along with a breakdown into temporalities and spiritualities, in both nominal values and as a percentage of total income. The data portray the situation in fairly sharp relief. As Table 2 reveals, a comparison between the houses of different orders in the diocese of Worcester shows that the Augustinian canons had a greater dependence upon spiritualities as a percentage of their total income than either the Benedictines or the Cistercians. The Benedictine abbeys of Tewkesbury, Evesham, St Peter’s Gloucester, and Winchcombe all derived less than 20 per cent of their income from spiritualities, less than the lowest of Augustinian houses, that of St Sepulchre Warwick. Only Worcester Cathedral Priory, Pershore, and Great Malvern drew over 20 per cent of their income from their spiritual possessions, with the obvious anomaly of Leonard Stanley, which had 67 per cent of its income

2

See my recent doctoral thesis for a more thorough treatment of this topic, ‘The Augustinian Canons in the Diocese of Worcester and their Relation to the Secular and Ecclesiastical Powers in Late Medieval England’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Wales, Lampeter, 2009).

THE AUGUSTINIAN CANONS AND THEIR PARISH CHURCHES

317

from its churches, though almost all of this, £70 of a total £83, came from one single rectory. Not surprisingly, the Cistercian houses are little different. Flaxley Abbey shows no evidence of any spiritual possessions in the VE, Bordesley registers 13 per cent, roughly comparable to many Benedictine houses in the diocese, while Hailes derived 34 per cent of its income from spiritualities. Perhaps most surprising is that Halesowen, the lone Premonstratensian house in the diocese, registered only 13 per cent of its income as coming from spiritualities. In real numbers, Worcester Cathedral Priory, Tewkesbury, and St Peter’s Gloucester possessed almost exactly the same amount of income from spiritualia as St Augustine’s Bristol, Lanthony Secunda Priory, and Kenilworth Priory, respectively. This means that the canons, though surely smaller in terms of landed estates and perhaps real power and influence, had almost as much control over ecclesiastical property as did the very largest of the Benedictine monasteries in their diocese. It would seem clear from this small illustration that the spiritualities of the Augustinians were not only of substantial importance for the welfare of the order, both in real and relative terms, but also that spiritualities were more important to the success of the Augustinian canons than they were to any other order. When the Augustinians in general are considered, it would appear that larger Augustinian houses were more dependent on spiritualities than smaller houses, though only slightly.3 Table 3 shows that as a percentage of their income the wealthier Augustinian monasteries tended to draw more income from spiritualities than their smaller brothers, though not overwhelmingly so. There were thirtyseven Augustinian monasteries with an income of over £200 at the time of the VE, and twenty-nine of these (78 per cent) derived more than 25 per cent of their

3

When the houses of Augustinian canons in Worcester diocese are studied on their own, the larger houses show a greater dependence upon spiritualities than the smaller houses. The most notable exception here is St Oswald’s Gloucester. This deviation might be explainable, however, by its unique status as a royal free chapel in the patronage and under the full control of the Archbishop of York, who failed to endow the house adequately from its earliest times. See EEA, V : York, 1070–1154, ed. by J. Burton (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 1988), no. 117. Its link to the northern primate seems to have limited its local patronage and caused it to struggle for most of its existence. See also A. H. Thompson, ‘The Jurisdiction of the Archbishops of York in Gloucestershire’, Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucester Archaeological Society, 42 (1921), 84–180, for a thorough study of this house and its distinctive features. Cirencester also had a lower percentage of its income derived from spiritualities than the other larger houses in the diocese but still derived almost a third of its income from the churches in its possession. Otherwise, for the diocese of Worcester, there is a clear pattern of greater dependence upon spiritual income for the canons of the larger monasteries than for the smaller.

318

Nick Nichols

income from spiritualities. By the same token, fifty out of eighty-six (58 per cent) Augustinian monasteries with an income of less than £200 per annum drew more than 25 per cent of their income from spiritualities. A roughly equivalent number of monasteries, about 25 per cent of those above and below the £200 income level, derived more than 50 per cent of their income from spiritualities, that is, a roughly equal number of wealthy and modest houses were heavily dependent upon spiritualities for their survival. Table 3. Augustinian Monasteries and their Spiritualities as a Percentage of their Total Income According to the VE* 3a. Monasteries with annual income over £200, listed by total income Nam e

Total Incom e

Spir

20.

Launceston

1.

Cirencester

£1051 7s. 1d.

35%

21.

D unstable

2.

M erton

£963 16s. 6d.

26%

22.

Butley

3.

Plympton

£912 12s. 9d.

50%

23.

Hartland

4.

Bristol

5.

Lanthony

6. 7.

£354 0s. 11d.

40%

£344 7s. 4d.

20%

£318 17s. 3d.

34%

£306 3s. 2d.

55%

£679 14s. 1d.

47%

24.

Taunton

£286 8s. 11d.

18%

£648 19s. 11d.

37%

25.

Newnham

£284 13s. 0d.

57%

Guisboroug

£628 6s. 8d.

40%

26.

Kirkham

£269 5s. 9d.

42%

Walsingham

£625 5s. 0d.

48%

27.

Thurgarton

£259 19s. 5d.

28%

8.

Southwark

£624 6s. 6d.

30%

28.

M issenden

£261 14s. 6d.

30%

9.

Thornton

£591 0s. 3d.

12%

29.

Bodm in

£270 0s. 11d.

26%

10.

Bridlington

£547 7s. 0d.

46%

30.

West Acre

£260 13s. 8d.

11%

11.

Kenilworth

£538 19s. 5d.

35%

31.

W igm ore

£267 2s. 11d.

43%

12.

Nostell

£492 18s. 3d.

54%

32.

Haughm ond

£259 13s. 8d.

18%

13.

Bruton

£439 6s. 8d.

30%

33.

Darley

£258 13s. 6d.

26%

14.

Notley

26%

15.

Keynsham

16.

£437 6s. 8d.

23%

34.

Newark

£258 12s. 0d.

£419 10s. 4d.

8%

35.

Worksop

£239 5s. 5d.

50%

Carlisle

£418 3s. 5d.

70%

36.

Lilleshall

£229 3s. 2d.

16%

17.

Launde

£399 3s. 3d.

38%

37.

St G ermans

£227 4s. 4d.

52%

18.

Newburgh

£367 8s. 4d.

54%

19.

Leeds

£362 7s. 8d.

79%

319

THE AUGUSTINIAN CANONS AND THEIR PARISH CHURCHES

3b. Monasteries with annual income over £200, listed by percentage of income derived from spiritualities Spir

20.

Kenilworth

£538 19s. 5d.

1.

Leeds

£362 7s. 8d.

79%

21.

Butley

£318 17s. 3d.

34%

2.

Carlisle

£418 3s. 5d.

70%

22.

Southwark

£624 6s. 6d.

30%

3.

Newnham

£284 13s. 0d.

57%

23.

Bruton

£439 6s. 8d.

30%

4.

H artland

£306 3s. 2d.

55%

24.

M issenden

£261 14s. 6d.

30%

5.

Nostell

£492 18s. 3d.

54%

25.

Thurgarton

£259 19s. 5d.

28%

6.

Newburgh

£367 8s. 4d.

54%

26.

M erton

£963 16s. 6d.

26%

7.

St G ermans

£227 4s. 4d.

52%

27.

Bodm in

£270 0s. 11d.

26%

8.

Plympton

£912 12 9d.

50%

28.

Darley

£258 13s. 6d.

26%

9.

W orksop

£239 5s. 5d.

50%

29.

Newark

£258 12s. 0d.

26%

10.

Walsingham

£625 5s. 0d.

48%

30.

N otley

£437 6s. 8d.

23%

11.

Bristol

£679 14s. 1d.

47%

31.

D unstable

£344 7s. 4d.

20%

12.

Bridlington

£547 7s. 0d.

46%

32.

Taunton

£286 8s. 11d.

18%

13.

W igmore

£267 2s. 11d.

43%

33.

Haughm ond

£259 13s. 8d.

18%

14.

Kirkham

£269 5s. 9d.

42%

34.

Lilleshall

£229 3s. 2d.

16%

15.

Guisborough

£628 6s. 8d.

40%

35.

Thornton

£591 0s. 3d.

12%

16.

Launceston

£354 0s. 11d.

40%

36.

West Acre

£260 13s. 8d.

11%

17.

Launde

37.

Keynsham

£419 10s. 4d.

86%

18.

Lanthony

19.

Cirencester

Nam e

Total Incom e

£399 3s. 3d.

38%

£648 19s. 11d.

37%

£1051 7s. 1d.

35%

35%

3c. Monasteries with annual income under £200, listed by total income Total Incom e

Spir

13.

Baswich

£141 13s. 3d.

18%

£190 2s. 5d.

66%

14.

Haverfordwest

£133 11s. 1d.

78%

£168 19s. 8d.

20%

15.

Frithelstock

£132 12s. 1d.

46%

Norton

£180 7s. 7d.

54%

16.

Markby

£130 13s. 11d.

10%

Bourne

£167 14s. 7d.

39%

17.

Coxford

£121 18s. 11d.

27%

£175 8s. 3d.

19%

18.

Ivychurch

£121 18s. 7d.

52%

£167 17s. 0d.

12%

19.

Stone

£119 14s. 11d.

57%

£170 5s. 6d.

17%

20.

Repton

£118 8s. 1d.

51%

M ichelham

£160 12s. 7d.

20%

21.

Studley

£117 1s. 6d.

29%

9.

O wston

£161 14s. 2d.

15%

22.

Bam burgh

£116 12s. 5d.

88%

10.

Carlisle

£164 0s. 4d.

79%

23.

Shelford

£116 12s. 2d.

56%

11.

Marton

£151 5s. 4d.

15%

24.

Canons Ashby

£109 0s. 5d.

31%

12.

Kirby Bellars

£142 10s. 4d.

36%

25.

Buckenham

£108 10s. 3d.

17%

N am e 1.

D orchester

2.

Ixworth

3. 4. 5.

Northampton

6.

Newstead

7.

Pentney

8.

320

Nick Nichols

26.

Caldwell

£108 8s. 5d.

44%

57.

Elsham

£70 0s. 8d.

29%

27.

Trentham

£106 3s. 9d.

6%

58.

R eigate

£68 16s. 7d.

25%

28.

Thornholm e

£105 13s. 1d.

25%

59.

Healaugh

£67 3s. 11d.

11%

29.

Hickling

£101 18s. 8d.

33%

60.

Chirbury

£66 8s. 8d.

87%

30.

Kym e

£101 0s. 4d.

21%

61.

Wom bridge

£65 7s. 4d.

10%

31.

R ocester

£100 2s. 11d.

39%

62.

N . Ferriby

£60 1s. 2d.

0%

32.

Haltemprice

£100 0s. 4d.

18%

63.

Fineshade

£56 10s. 11d.

6%

33.

Barlinch

£98 14s. 8d.

34%

64.

Flitcham

£55 5s. 7d.

22%

34.

Conishead

£97 0s. 2d.

55%

65.

Hastings

£51 9s. 6d.

25%

35.

Wellow

£95 6s. 1d.

49%

66.

Woodbridge

£50 3s. 6d.

18%

36.

Arbury

£94 6s. 1d.

55%

67.

St O lave’s

£49 11s. 7d.

10%

37.

D rax

38.

G loucester

39.

£92 7s. 6d.

51%

68.

Blythburgh

£48 8s. 10d.

53%

£91 10s. 3d.

60%

69.

Bardsey

£46 1s. 5d.

55%

Cartm el

£91 6s. 3d.

25%

70.

Stonely

£45 0s. 6d.

45%

40.

R anton

£90 2s. 11d.

44%

71.

Nocton

£43 3s. 8d.

11%

41.

Ipswich H T

£88 6s. 9d.

21%

72.

Warwick

£41 10s. 2d.

19%

42.

Woodspring

£87 2s. 11d.

3%

73.

Felley

£40 19s. 1d.

16%

43.

Chacom be

£83 18s. 10d.

32%

74.

Penm on

£40 17s. 9d.

71%

44.

Ulverscroft

£83 10s. 6d.

21%

75.

Thetford

£39 6s. 8d.

30%

45.

Worm sley

£83 10s. 2d.

49%

76.

Newstead

£37 6s. 0d.

0%

46.

Maxstoke

£81 13s. 8d.

63%

77.

Hempton

£32 14s. 8d.

9%

47.

Tandridge

£81 7s. 4d.

33%

78.

Ch. G resley

£32 6s. 0d.

25%

48.

Bilsington

£81 1s. 6d.

0%

79.

Letheringham

£26 18s. 5d.

71%

49.

Combwell

£80 17s. 6d.

42%

80.

Weybourne

£24 19d. 7d.

47%

50.

Burscough

£80 7s. 6d.

44%

81.

Breedon

£24 10s. 4d.

67%

51.

Wroxton

£78 14s. 3d.

22%

82.

Bradley

£20 3s. 4d.

3%

52.

Lanercost

£77 11s. 11d.

65%

83.

Flanesford

£14 8s. 9d.

0%

53.

Tortington

£75 12s. 4d.

9%

84.

Torksey

£14 1s. 4d.

19%

54.

Shulbred

£72 15s. 11d.

22%

85.

Breadsall

£10 17s, 9d.

48%

55.

Bushm ead

£71 13s. 9d.

0%

86.

St Kynem ark

£8 4s. 8d.

40%

56.

Beddgelert

£70 3s. 8d.

90%

321

THE AUGUSTINIAN CANONS AND THEIR PARISH CHURCHES

3d. Monasteries with annual income under £200, listed by percentage of income derived from spiritualities 40.

Chacom be

1.

Beddgelert

£70 3s. 8d.

90%

41.

Canons Ashby

2.

Bamburgh

£116 12s. 5d.

88%

42.

Thetford

3.

Chirbury

£66, 8, 8d.

87%

43.

Studley

£117 1s. 6d.

29%

4.

Carlisle

£164 0s. 4d.

79%

44.

Elsham

£70 0s. 8d.

29%

5.

Haverfordwest

£133 11s. 1d.

78%

45.

Coxford

£121 18s. 11d.

27%

6.

Penmon

£40 17s. 9d.

71%

46.

Thornholme

7.

Letheringham

£26 18s. 5d.

71%

47.

8.

Breedon

£24 10s. 4d.

67%

9.

D orchester

£190 2s. 5d.

66%

10.

Lanercost

£77 11s. 11d.

11.

Maxstoke

£81 13s. 8d.

12.

G loucester

13.

Stone

14.

Shelford

15.

Nam e

Total Incom e

Spir

£83 18s. 10d.

32%

£109 0s. 5d.

31%

£39 6s. 8d.

30%

£105 13s. 1d.

25%

Cartmel

£91 6s. 3d.

25%

48.

R eigate

£68 16s. 7d.

25%

49.

Hastings

£51 9s. 6d.

25%

65%

50.

Ch. G resley

£32 6s. 0d.

25%

63%

51.

Wroxton

£78 14s. 3d.

22%

£91 10s. 3d.

60%

52.

Shulbred

£72 15s. 11d.

22%

£119 14s. 11d.

57%

53.

Flitcham

£55 5s. 7d.

22%

£116 12s. 2d.

56%

54.

Kym e

Conishead

£97 0s. 2d.

55%

55.

Ipswich H T

16.

Arbury

£94 6s. 1d.

55%

56.

Ulverscroft

17.

Bardsey

£46 1s. 5d.

55%

57.

Ixworth

£168 19s. 8d.

20%

18.

Norton

£180 7s. 7d.

54%

58.

M ichelham

£160 12s. 7d.

20%

19.

Blythburgh

19%

20.

Ivychurch

21.

R epton

22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28.

Stonely

29.

Caldwell

30.

R anton

31.

Burscough

32.

Com bwell

33.

St Kynemark

34.

Bourne

35.

R ocester

36.

Kirby Bellars

37.

Barlinch

38.

Hickling

39.

Tandridge

£101 0s. 4d.

21%

£88 6s. 9d.

21%

£83 10s. 6d.

21%

£48 8s. 10d.

53%

59.

Northampton

£175 8s. 3d.

£121 18s. 7d.

52%

60.

Warwick

£41 10s. 2d.

19%

£118 8s. 1d.

51%

61.

Torksey

£14 1s. 4d.

19%

D rax

£92 7s. 6d.

51%

62.

Baswich

£141 13s. 3d.

18%

Wellow

£95 6s. 1d.

49%

63.

Haltemprice

£100 0s. 4d.

18%

Wormsley

£83 10s. 2d.

49%

64.

Woodbridge

Breadsall

£10 17s. 9d.

48%

65.

Pentney

Weybourne

£24 19s. 7d.

47%

66.

Buckenham

Frithelstock

£132 12s. 1d.

46%

67.

Felley

£45 0s. 6d.

45%

68.

O wston

£161 14s. 2d.

15%

£108 8s. 5d.

44%

69.

Marton

£151 5s. 4d.

15%

£90 2s. 11d.

44%

70.

Newstead

£167 17s. 0d.

12%

£80 7s. 6d.

44%

71.

Healaugh

£67 3s. 11d.

11%

£80 17s. 6d.

42%

72.

Nocton

£43 3s. 8d.

11%

£8 4s. 8d.

40%

73.

Markby

£130 13s. 11d.

10%

£167 14s. 7d.

39%

74.

Wom bridge

£65 7s. 4d.

10%

£100 2s. 11d.

39%

75.

St O lave’s

£49 11s. 7d.

10%

£142 10s. 4d.

36%

76.

Tortington

£75 12s. 4d.

9%

£98 14s. 8d.

34%

77.

Hempton

£32 14s. 8d.

9%

£101 18s. 8d.

33%

78.

Trentham

£106 3s. 9d.

6%

£81 7s. 4d.

33%

79.

Fineshade

£56 10s. 11d.

6%

£50 3s. 6d.

18%

£170 5s. 6d.

17%

£108 10s. 3d.

17%

£40 19s. 1d.

16%

322

Nick Nichols

80.

Woodspring

81.

Bradley

82.

Bilsington

83.

Bushm ead

£87 2s. 11d.

3%

84.

N . Ferriby

£60 1s. 2d.

0%

£20 3s. 4d.

3%

85.

Newstead

£37 6s. 0d.

0%

£81 1s. 6d.

0%

86.

Flanesford

£14 8s. 9d.

0%

£71 13s. 9d.

0%

*All data for Table 3 derived from Appendix 14 in D. Robinson, The Geography of Augustinian Settlement, British Archaeology Reports, British Series, 80, 2 vols (Oxford: British Archaeology Reports, 1980), II , 382–88.

In general terms, there does seem to be a slightly greater dependence upon spiritualities in the larger Augustinian houses than in the smaller.4 Given their dependence upon the spiritualities in their possession, it should be no surprise that the struggles of the canons to acquire and maintain their parish churches are plentiful in the historical record. The case studies that follow have been chosen to highlight the willingness of Augustinian houses to exchange lands for parish churches, to demonstrate the remarkable lengths to which the canons went in order to re-acquire churches after they lost them due to their own negligence, and to show how the canons’ struggles for their parish churches reveal their own understanding of their identity and place in the religious world, as a part of the undying institution of the Church. It is hoped that with such illustrations, a more complete understanding of the identity of the Augustinian canons as an order might be obtained.

Exchange of Property for Parish Churches Though the extant records for the canons in Worcester diocese record only a handful of instances where the canons exchanged property in the later medieval period, in these instances the monasteries exchanged lands for churches. This is true of large and small monasteries, but the most compelling example of an

4

A regression analysis of the percentage of spiritual income relative to actual income reveals a very slight upward trend towards the larger houses of the order, that is, the difference between the extremes is not very great. The average percentage of spiritual income for all houses is about 37 per cent. Beyond the correspondence of the larger houses showing a slightly greater dependence on spiritual income than smaller monasteries, there is little discernable pattern for the order as a whole. Date of foundation does not seem to correspond in any discernable way with the percentage of spiritual income, and without substantial research into the patrons or benefactors of every house, there is little that can be said regarding the status of the founders/benefactors and the percentage of spiritual income.

323

THE AUGUSTINIAN CANONS AND THEIR PARISH CHURCHES

Augustinian house exchanging temporal property for a parish church involved the small priory of St Sepulchre Warwick and the parish church of Snitterfield. The struggle of the priory to acquire the church of Snitterfield is most instructive for this study, as it illustrates well the importance of the parish churches to the prosperity and success of small houses of canons in late medieval England. According to the VE the income from Snitterfield amounted to approximately 15 per cent of the convent’s total income. The tithes of the church were valued at £7, and the annual temporal income from lands held at Snitterfield amounted to 6s. 3d., making Snitterfield the house’s second-most valuable possession, behind only the rents from lands and tenements held in Warwick and Hatton.5 When the canons of St Sepulchre first came into possession of the church of Snitterfield is not entirely clear. At the time of the Taxatio in 1291 the house enjoyed a pension from the church of Snitterfield of 13s. 4d.6 In the early fourteenth century the monastery sought and acquired full appropriation of Snitterfield, and it is in this transaction that priorities of the monastery are revealed.7 The monastery held, from the early thirteenth century at least, property in London — some interest in the parish church of St Clement Danes and lands and tenements in the parish of St Peter’s in Westminster.8 On at least four different occasions between 1227 and 1243 the canons were involved in suits surrounding their London property and were for the most part successful in defending their properties and rights.9 In 1280 William de Braose, bishop of Llandaff, was granted the right to reside in the inn of the canons opposite St Clements without the bar of the Temple whenever he came to London.10 By 1324 they possessed five messuages, 5

Valor ecclesiasticus, temp. Henrici VIII auctoritate regia institutus, ed. by J. Caley and J. Hunter, Record Commission Publications, 9, 6 vols (London: Record Commission, 1810–34). 6

Taxatio ecclesiastica Angliae et Walliae auctoritate P. Nicholai IV, circa T. Astle, S. Ayscough, and J. Caley (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1802), p. 228.

AD

1291, ed. by

7

Kew (London), The National Archives (hereafter TNA), E328/21/xiii; this charter is one in a long roll of charters and other documents, seventeen in all, dealing with Snitterfield, dating from 1318 to 1328. 8

Several of these properties came into dispute in the thirteenth century, see Curia Regis Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office, 20 vols to date (London, HMSO, 1922–), XVII: 26 to 27 Henry III (1242–1243), ed. by A. Nicol (1991), no. 1008. 9

Curia Regis Rolls, XIII: 11 to 14 Henry III (1959), nos 973, 2442; XVI, 21 to 26 Henry III (1237–1242), ed. by L.C. Hector (1979), nos 1018, 1123; XVII: 26 to 27 Henry III (1242–1243), ed. by Nicol (1991), no. 1008. 10

Calendar of Patent Rolls (hereafter CPR): Edward I, 4 vols (London: HMSO, 1893–1901),

I: 1272–81 (1901), p. 371. This may have been the ‘hospitalium’ of St Clement’s that Edmund, earl

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one carucate of land, rents valued at 10s. 10d., and the advowson of the church of St Clement Danes in the city of Westminster.11 This London property, of reasonable though by no means outstanding value, approximately £9 to £10 yearly, became the bartering chip for the monastery in the appropriation of Snitterfield Church.12 Letters patent of Edward II, dated 6 March 1324, allowed for the alienation by St Sepulchre to Walter Stapledon, bishop of Exeter, of the messuages, land, rents, and advowson of the church of St Clement Danes in exchange for 8 acres of land in Snitterfield, and the advowson of and right to appropriate the church of Snitterfield.13 The exchange seems to be a fairly equal one, monetarily, but the transaction seems surprising given that for most of the preceding century, the canons had been fighting for the very same London property they freely alienated in 1324. Just why they decided to participate in the exchange at this particular time is unclear. Though they are nowhere stated, there are numerous potential reasons for the transaction. It could be that the priory simply had not had the opportunity to make such an exchange earlier. It could be that St Sepulchre had been attempting to consolidate its holdings for some time but had not found an amenable party. David Robinson has demonstrated that the regular canons generally held the majority of their properties quite near their priory or abbey.14 It should not be surprising then that the canons of St Sepulchre would seek to gain property near their own house. Whatever the motive, it is clear that the house took the opportunity to consolidate its holdings, trading away its only property outside of

of Leicester had given into the custody of the priory sometime before 1278. See VCH: Middlesex, ed. by W. Page and others, 13 vols to date (London: Constable, 1911–), XIII, pt I: The City of Westminster: Landownership and Religious History, ed. by P. E. C. Croot (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2009), pp. 38, 78; TNA, DL 42/2, fol. 217, no. 3. 11

CPR: Edward I, I, 371.

12

See the VCH: Middlesex, XIII: The City of Westminster, ed. by P. E. C. Croot with A. Thacker and E. Williamson, 1 part to date (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2009–). See also

[accessed 13 November 2009]. 13

CPR: Edward II, 5 vols (London: HSMO, 1894–1904), IV : 1321–24 (1904), p. 390. VCH: Warwickshire, ed. by H. A. Doubleday and others, 9 vols (London: Constable, 1904–69), II, ed. by W. Page (1908), p. 97, has 1323 listed as the date. 14

See vol. 2 of D. Robinson, Geography of Augustinian Settlements; see Appendix 25 (p. 472), for data relating to the geographical structure of the estates of Augustinian canons.

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Warwickshire except the church of Gretham in Rutland.15 The canons exchanged lands and tenements of some worth in favour of a parish church and little more; according to the Ministers’ Accounts and VE the 8 acres of land in Snitterfield only earned the canons 6s. of annual income, while the tithes of the rectory were valued at £7.16 Here it seems that the priory was favouring the possession of a church in the west midlands over the possession of urban property in London.

The Zeal to Reclaim Churches Lost Two Augustinian houses in the diocese of Worcester, Cirencester Abbey and Studley Priory, serve as excellent examples of monasteries that showed tremendous zeal for the parish churches in their possession. Representative large and small monasteries of the order both went to astounding lengths to acquire parish churches in the later medieval period. Ironically, the protracted and costly battles that the monasteries faced in acquiring these churches came only after the respective communities had, generations earlier, lost the very churches for which they were fighting. Though the ambivalence both monasteries displayed seems to present evidence contrary to the idea of the importance of parish churches to the canons, it also serves to explain something about their ultimate importance, for both monasteries clearly felt that they had a right to reclaim the churches they had lost and launched ingenious schemes and long, costly legal battles to reclaim them. Cirencester Abbey and the Churches of Ampney St Mary and Hagbourne The church of Ampney St Mary, in Gloucestershire, was part of the original endowment of Cirencester Abbey, the house with the greatest income of all Augustinian houses at the Dissolution. The 1133 foundation charter of Henry I 15

It is unclear, even to Dugdale, when the house acquired Gretham, but the VCH confirms that the church was appropriated during the reign of Edward III, the advowson having been granted during the reign of Henry III. This would date the appropriation of Snitterfield before the appropriation of Gretham. See VCH: Warwickshire, II (1908), 98. The identified source in the VCH is Wright, Rutland (1686), p. 67, which is likely James Wright, The History and Antiquities of the County of Rutland: Collected from Records, Ancient Manuscripts, Monuments on the Place, and Other Authorities (London: Griffin [etc.], 1684). 16

William Dugdale, Monasticon anglicanum, ed. by J. Caley, H. Ellis, and B. Bandinel (hereafter Monasticon), 6 vols (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, 1817–30), VI (1830), 603 and VE, III, 86.

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lists Ampney as part of the possessions of Regenbald, totam tenuram Reinbadi presbituri in terris et ecclesiis et ceteris, which were granted to the abbey at its establishment.17 In the charter, the abbey was granted In Amenel iiii hydas et i virgatam et ecclesiam ville.18 Though it is unclear precisely what part of the church they were granted, it seems that, along with most of the churches formerly held of Regenbald (nineteen in all), the canons would have obtained full possession of the church. This can be supported by the numerous papal confirmations obtained by the abbey in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries.19 Sometime between 1229 and 1249 the abbey lost full possession of the church. A charter of Thomas, archdeacon of Gloucester, dated 1249, records that the abbey held only the advowson of the church of Ampney.20 It is probable that Hugh of Bampnett, whose abbacy likely spanned from 1230 to 1250, would have been abbot at this time.21 The abbey was not drawing any income from the church in the later thirteenth century, as the 1254 Valuation of Norwich, registered in the abbey’s cartulary, makes no mention of any spiritualities from Ampney St Mary, though it does list the temporal income of 6 marks drawn from lands there.22 At some point between 1254 and 1290, however, the abbey regained some of the income of the church, for a charter of Pope Nicholas IV, dated 1290, listed the four hides and one virgate, like Henry I’s original charter did, but added ‘et ecclesiam quam habetis ibidem

17

The Cartulary of Cirencester Abbey, Gloucestershire, ed. by C. D. Ross and Mary Devine, 3 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964–77), I, no. 28. 18

The Cartulary of Cirencester, ed. by Ross and Devine, I, no. 28.

19

The Cartulary of Cirencester, ed. by Ross and Devine, I, nos 145/77, p. 140, no. 152, p. 150, no. 154, p. 154, and no. 168, are all papal confirmations of this grant. Though this does not settle the issue of the portion of the church possessed by the abbey, it clearly shows they had more than the advowson as they were drawing income from it. 20

The Cartulary of Cirencester, ed. by Ross and Devine, I, no. 329.

21

It ought to be noted that another church, that of Driffield, was listed in the 1229 bull along with Ampney and others with no specified annual income listed, and the 1249 charter shows that the abbey drew only a pension of a half-mark from it. The abbey’s spiritualities in 1254 include the half-mark pension from Driffield. See The Cartulary of Cirencester, ed. by Ross and Devine, II, no. 459. 22

The Cartulary of Cirencester, ed. by Ross and Devine, II, no. 460.

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cum pertinenciis suis’.23 The Taxatio, ordered by the same pope, records a pension of 10s. from the church.24 It is clear from the cartulary and the register of Godfrey Giffard (1268–1301) that a pension of 10s. was not sufficient for the then abbot, Henry of Hampnett. During Henry’s abbacy (1281–1307), Cirencester sought the reclamation of the church in full, and luckily it was in the hands of a conciliatory rector, Walter de Cheltenham, who was also a close associate of the Abbot and a significant patron of the monastery.25 Walter, who first appears in the abbey’s records in 1269 as rector of Ampney St Mary, was reluctant but willing to return the church to the abbey in 1298. The cartulary records the proceedings of the transaction. Bishop Giffard granted, upon request of the abbey of Cirencester, and with the consent of Walter, that the church be returned to the abbey. A former abbot had apparently granted the church surreptitiously to his own nephew: ‘quidam abbas vestri monasterii sigillum vestrum commune surripiens quendam nepotem suum parsonum secularem absque consensu vestri conventus’.26 The rector had presented and the candidate was admitted to the benefice to the great harm of the monastery (‘in grave prejudicium et enormem vestri monasterii lesionem’).27 The letter claims that Giffard’s predecessor confirmed the candidate. Despite this, Giffard restored the church to the abbey, stating that the church had been appropriated to the abbey from its foundation: ‘Henrici senioris quondam regis Angl’ tunc patroni ecclesie de Amenel’ sancte Marie, nostre diocesis, donacione juris patronatus ipsius ecclesie per ipsium regem vobis in fundacione vestri monasterii prius facta in usus proprios pleno.’28 The charter goes on to say that Walter acknowledged such claims to be true, and that the abbey was to have the church back in its possession.29 It

23

The Cartulary of Cirencester, ed. by Ross and Devine, I, no. 144, p. 137. However, a charter of Robert Kilwardby, archbishop of Canterbury, dated 9 December 1277, surveying their appropriated churches, does not include Ampney St Mary, so it may be presumed that the recovery of that portion was acquired after this time. See ibid., III, no. 310. 24

Robinson, Geography of Augustinian Settlements, app. 10, p. 371.

25

Walter de Cheltenham first appeared in the cartulary in 1269 as rector of Ampney St Mary and served the abbot and monastery as witness, grantor, and grantee with some frequency before his death in 1306. See The Cartulary of Cirencester, ed. by Ross and Devine, III, no. 195n. 26

The Cartulary of Cirencester, ed. by Ross and Devine, III, no. 410.

27

The Cartulary of Cirencester, ed. by Ross and Devine, III, no. 410.

28

The Cartulary of Cirencester, ed. by Ross and Devine, III, no. 410.

29

The charter goes on to grant the right to the abbey to have the church served by its own canons or by seculars per the charter of Alexander III, referring to his letter preserved in The

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appears that the abbey was then able to hold the church in hand until the Dissolution, as the Ministers’ Accounts for the abbey recorded the value of the church of Ampney, which was at farm, at £11.30 Cirencester, one of the largest, wealthiest houses in the Augustinian Order, through deceit on behalf of its own abbot and apparently without the knowledge of the rest of the monastery, lost the fruits of a fairly valuable parish church for perhaps seventy years. Regardless of the scope of their initial claims to the church of Ampney, the canons allowed it to be in the hands of others throughout most of the thirteenth century. Whatever the reason for this loss, it was not unique to the abbey: Cirencester Abbey was involved in another instance where it lost possession of one of its churches and had to work very hard to recover it decades later. The church of Hagbourne in Berkshire, in the diocese of Salisbury, presents a similar scenario to that of Ampney St Mary, though in this instance some of the pieces to the story are missing. Like Ampney St Mary, it was granted, at least in part, to the canons at their foundation. Henry’s 1133 charter stated that the canons received eleven hides and three virgates of land ‘et ecclesiam eiusdem ville cum capella et decimas alterius Hackeburne’ .31 The canons received several papal confirmations for this church as well.32 They maintained possession of the church, it seems, throughout the thirteenth century; the Valuation of Norwich recorded the church in their possession, the abbey claiming £11 of income and tithing 22s.33 The Taxatio, however, records that the abbey held only a portion of the church, though a substantial portion, valued at £13 6s. 8d.34 Precisely when the portion of the church was granted to another was unclear, though Ross, citing the register of Simon de Gandavo, claims that in 1278, Robert Wickhampton, bishop of Salisbury, in making an ordinance for the apportionment of tithes in the parish, remarked that the abbot and convent, ‘a privilegio et concessione huiusmodi per simplicitatem recedentes’, had assigned the church to secular persons and it had remained a rectory.35 This is consistent with the timeline of the change, after the

Cartulary of Cirencester, ed. by Ross and Devine, I, no. 150, dated 5 May 1178. Giffard’s register contains the said agreement, see Episcopal Registers, Diocese of Worcester, ed. by J. W. Willis-Bund, 2 vols in 4 pts (Oxford: Worcestershire Historical Society, 1898–1902), II, 508, 551. 30

Monasticon, VI, 179.

31

The Cartulary of Cirencester, ed. by Ross and Devine, I, no. 28.

32

The Cartulary of Cirencester, ed. by Ross and Devine, nos 145, 152, 153, 154, 157, and 168.

33

The Cartulary of Cirencester, ed. by Ross and Devine, II, no. 459.

34

Robinson, Geography of Augustinian Settlements, app. 10, p. 371.

35

The Cartulary of Cirencester, ed. by Ross and Devine, I, xxix.

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1254 Valuation of Norwich yet before the Taxatio, though why the canons would make such a choice is rather hard to ascertain. The abbot at this time, Henry de Mundene (1267–81), must not have considered the church worth the trouble or effort to maintain. Whatever the reason for retiring from the church, it was not to be a permanent situation. This reclamation project was not undertaken by Henry de Hampnett, who secured the return of Ampney, but was begun by Richard de Charlton, abbot from 1320 to 1325. Nearly fifty years after the canons all but abandoned the church of Hagbourne, they decided to attempt to reclaim it. On 1 June 1322 they received a licence to appropriate in mortmain a moiety of the church of Hagbourne. In allowing the appropriation, King Edward II appointed his clerk, Thomas Springehouse, to the rectory.36 This caused upheaval in the church, for Robert de Ayleston was already the rector there. Perhaps in an attempt to quell the conflict, the convent then presented a vicar, William of Ampney, in 1323.37 Roger Martival, bishop of Salisbury, did not leave his church undefended, however. Since the living of the church was a rectory and no vicarage had been ordained, the convent had no right to appoint a vicar, though they had so appointed anyway. In 1324, Roger commissioned Robert de Preston, vicar of the church of Latton, to collect and hold the rectorial fruits of the moiety of Hagbourne, which was still in dispute between the abbot and convent and the then rector, Robert de Ayleston.38 The dispute went on for some time until in 1325, apparently conceding that the church was indeed still a rectory, the abbey appointed William de Ayleston (Robert’s brother, perhaps, in place of the retiring Robert?) to the rectory of Hagbourne. After this, nothing is heard of the church in relation to the abbey again for almost thirty-five years.39 Then, on 2 November 1359, the cartulary reveals that the canons took decisive action under Abbot William of Martley. Commissioning one of their own, they

36

The Cartulary of Cirencester, ed. by Ross and Devine, I, no. 99. See also, CPR: Edward II, II: 1313–17 (1898), p. 123. Interestingly the patent roll claims that Thomas Sprenghouse was the King’s clerk who requested that the abbey appropriate the moiety of Hagbourne, which was said to be of the abbey’s advowson. It also indicates that the King would lose the right to present in a voidance, but during the reign of Edward III, the King did present in a voidance. See CPR: Edward III, 16 vols (London: HMSO, 1891–1916), III: 1334–38 (1895), p. 175. 37 The Registers of Roger Martival, Bishop of Salisbury, 1315–1330, ed. by K. Edwards, 4 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1959–1975), II, 243. 38

Registers of Roger Martival, p. 463.

39

Registers of Roger Martival, p. 282.

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sent Nicholas de Ampney,40 their proctor, to take possession of the church of Hagbourne. The charter granted virtually complete and total power to Nicholas to direct the church, what today might be compared to a hostile takeover of the church.41 Clearly the abbey was intending to make a play for complete control over the church, for in January 1360, one of their brothers, Henry of Shallingford, ‘tempore guerre inter regnum Anglie et regnum Francie velut Christi fortis athleta intrepide ad partes adiit transmarinas […] et invento ibidem rege Anglie cum exercitu suo negocia subscripta feliciter et pro libito expedivit’.42 Likely bearing the next-transcribed request in hand, a petition from the Abbot for a licence to appropriate in mortmain the church of Hagbourne, the highly praised brother completed his task, presenting his charter to Edward III in Pogny-sur-Marne. The letter that he carried, written in French, requested that another licence in mortmain be granted because the first licence, issued by the King’s father, Edward II, was not executed due to ‘certain ambiguities and doubts’ (pur ascunes abiguites et doutes) concerning it.43 The King responded by writ on 26 January 1360, ordering the chancellor to grant a licence in mortmain.44 The mortmain licence as transcribed in the cartulary is quite instructive. Edward III recounted how his father had granted the moiety of the church to the abbot and convent, but the other moiety had remained with the rectors of the church because of ambiguities and doubts over the licence as granted by Edward II. Clearly, the King had accepted the story of the abbey, and proceeded to grant in full the church of Hagbourne to the abbot and convent, ‘for their greater security of the now abbot and convent and their successors in the future’ (pro majori securitate ipsorum nunc abbatis et conventus et successorum suorum in futuram).45 The King granted full appropriation of the church ‘of his special grace’ and for £20 paid in the hanaper. Perhaps most interesting of all, however, is that the next charter in the cartulary is the confirmation of the appropriation by the Bishop of Salisbury. Consent to the appropriation was granted, at least in part,

40

Nicholas would become abbot in 1363. See The Heads of Religious Houses: England and Wales, ed. by D. Knowles and others, 3 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972–2008), II (2006), 368. 41

The Cartulary of Cirencester, ed. by Ross and Devine, I, no. 141.

42

The Cartulary of Cirencester, ed. by Ross and Devine, I, no. 135.

43

The Cartulary of Cirencester, ed. by Ross and Devine, I, no. 136.

44

The Cartulary of Cirencester, ed. by Ross and Devine, I, no. 137.

45

The Cartulary of Cirencester, ed. by Ross and Devine, I, no. 139.

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because Cirencester had granted Edward, the Black Prince, a chantry in their abbey. The Black Prince appealed to the Bishop of Salisbury to grant the appropriation, commenting that the abbey was situated on a street that was highly travelled by the king and also by the poor, and that the burdens on the house were great. He also commended the abbey to the bishop because of the chantry. Because of these things, the bishop assented to the appropriation.46 The canons presented their candidate to the vicarage, duly ordained by Robert, bishop of Salisbury,47 and paid a £2 pension that had been negotiated between the Bishop and the abbot and convent, to the dean and chapter of Salisbury, in recompense for the lost rectory.48 This episode reveals many curious features about the canons. Firstly, it again shows the apparent laxity with which the canons of this large and prosperous monastery handled their spiritualities. Though according to the Ministers’ Accounts the manor and tithes at Hagbourne brought the convent nearly £100 annually, the canons were seemingly more than happy in the late thirteenth century to concede away a church that they had owned since their foundation, sacrificing substantial amounts of income for nearly eighty years. Still more surprising are the lengths to which the canons went to reclaim the church. In what can only be seen as a calculated move, the canons sent one of their own overseas to get a licence to appropriate, attained the licence, and used a chantry for the king’s son as leverage against the Bishop of Salisbury, a known friend of Isabella and Mortimer’s regime, into acquiescence.49 It seems the abbey had finally grown weary of the situation and took great strides to regain what had been theirs. Though it may have been their own poor management that cost them their share in the church, it was their tenacity and cunning that repossessed it. Cirencester’s fight for Hagbourne may be the most calculated attempt to repossess a church, but it may not be the most extreme. Studley Priory merited that honour in their protracted battle with Maxstoke Priory, another Augustinian house, over the church of Aston Cantlowe.

46

The Cartulary of Cirencester, ed. by Ross and Devine, I, no. 140.

47

The Cartulary of Cirencester, ed. by Ross and Devine, I, no. 142.

48

The Cartulary of Cirencester, ed. by Ross and Devine, I, no. 143.

49

Little seems to be written about Robert Wyville, though one article, J. R . L. Highfield, ‘The English Hierarchy in the Reign of Edward III’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser., 6 (1956), 115–38, claims that he alone of the bishops during the reign of Edward III was influenced by Mortimer and Isabella. It may be too much to claim that this had an effect at this late date, but clearly to have remained in one bishopric for forty-five years, he was either much loved by or much beholden to Edward for his position.

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Studley Priory and the Church of Aston Cantlowe The episode began in 1242, when the church of Aston Cantlowe was granted to the canons of Studley. In that year, William Cantilupe, son of William, then patron of the house, granted land to the priory of Studley in Aston worth £10.50 From other charter evidence it can be learned that the same William granted the priory the advowson of the church of Aston Cantlowe in 1243, and Walter de Cantilupe, bishop of Worcester, confirmed the complete appropriation of the church to the house in 1253.51 Shortly thereafter, in 1254, their patron, William Cantilupe III, died, and the patronage of the house passed to his son, George Cantilupe, who was at the time only three years of age. George was a ward of Queen Eleanor, wife of Henry III and mother of Edward I, and though she is reported to have exploited his lands while they were in her possession,52 he seems to have attainted to his majority with his father’s estates essentially intact. However, he died childless shortly after entering in to his inheritance, in 1273. The Calendar of Close Rolls details the partitioning out of George’s estates in some detail, and the fate of Studley Priory, and by extension the church of Aston Cantlowe, is therein revealed. Upon George’s death, his estates were divided among his sisters and their male relations, Joan, who had married Henry Hastings, and Millicent, who married Eudo la Zouche. John de Hastings, son of Joan de Hastings (Cantilupe), received George’s vast estate in Bergavenny and, among many other grants, his estates in Aston, Warwickshire, valued at £59 4s. 2d.53 Millicent (Cantilupe) and Eudo la Zouche were granted many of George’s other estates, including the advowson of Studley Priory.54 This change of the patronage of Studley Priory changed its fortunes dramatically.

50

Calendar of Charter Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office, 6 vols (hereafter CChR) (London: HMSO, 1903–27), I: Henry III, AD 1226–1257, ed. by R. D. Trimmer and C. G. Crump (1903), p. 264. There are two dates in the register, 26 December and 22 December 1242, 26 Henry III. 51

CChR, IV : 1–14 Edward III, AD 1327–1341, ed. by C. G. Crump and C. H. Jenkinson (1912), p. 60, and EEA, XIII: Worcester, 1218–1268, ed. by P. M. Hoskin (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 1997), no. 150. 52

ODNB, X , s.v. ‘George de Cantilupe’. This entry records that Matthew Paris reported that she dealt severely with his lands while they were in her hands. 53

Calendar of Close Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office (hereafter CCR): Edward I, ed. by W. H. Stevenson, 5 vols (London: HMSO, 1900–08), I: 1272–79 (1900), 114–15. 54

CCR: Edward I, I, 295.

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Precisely what happened to the church of Aston Cantlowe at this time is not known, since it is not identified explicitly in the doling out of the estate of George Cantilupe. It is possible that Eleanor seized the advowson while it was in the wardship of George or of John de Hastings. It seems most likely that it passed with the Cantilupe estates in Aston to John de Hastings, for in 1296 Edward I granted licence after an inspection ad quod damnum to ‘John de Hastyng, tenant in chief, to assign in mortmain to the prior and convent of Stodeleye the advowson of the church of Aston Caunteleue in exchange for land there of the value of £13 yearly which they hold of him in frank almoin’.55 The advowson of the church, which had been appropriated in full to the canons in 1253, now had to be repurchased with the lands around the estate. How did this happen? It is possible that the appropriation was never finalized. Studley would certainly not have been the only Augustinian monastery not to execute a licence to appropriate.56 It could have been the death of their patron so soon after the appropriation that caused things to get muddled. It would seem perhaps as likely, if not more likely, that the new patrons, Eudo and Millicent la Zouche, were lax in protecting their priory or ignorant of the situation altogether. Having been granted the advowson of the priory but not the Aston estates could have led to confusion over precisely who possessed the legal right to the church, and though both the Zouche family and the Hastings were nobility, the closeness of John Hastings with the Crown during his life could have led to either a concession or a collusive act to wrest the church from the priory. Whatever the case might have been, John de Hastings ended up in possession of the church, and Studley Priory was forced to buy back the advowson of Aston Cantlowe in 1296. It seems that the priory was wanting in terms of good leadership, from both its patrons and its priors, since there is no record of the priory ever presenting to the church, even when they had the advowson in hand in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century. As such, the possession of the church passed through the Hastings family until it came to the Earl of Huntingdon, William de Clinton, the founder of Maxstoke Priory. The register of Wolstan de Bransford reports that in 1345, Clinton, wishing to strengthen the monastery he founded at Maxstoke in 1336, appropriated the church of Aston Cantlowe to the priory. Apparently they already had been granted the patronage of the church, but at their request, since the house

55

CPR: Edward I, III: 1292–1301 (1895), p. 210.

56

St Oswald’s did this twice and Cirencester at least once.

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had grown to nineteen canons, the church was fully appropriated.57 Shortly thereafter, in 1349, Maxstoke Priory presented a vicar to the church and began enjoying the fruits thereof. In all of this, the priory of Studley is not even mentioned. It is difficult to know how the canons allowed such a possession to slip out of their hands without any resistance whatsoever, but a later generation of canons would try to reclaim Aston Cantlowe as their own and cause Maxstoke tremendous trouble in the process. In December 1400, fifty-five years after the church had been appropriated to Maxstoke, the canons of Studley petitioned the pope to annul the grant of the church of Aston Cantlowe to Maxstoke, citing that ‘the Augustinian prior and convent of Maxstok […] procured from the late William Clynton […] whom they falsely pretended to be the patron, a grant of the said patronage, and, making no mention of the appropriation to Stodeley, obtained surreptitious confirmation by papal authority’.58 Studley claimed that after litigation they recovered the possession of the church, and they requested that the original donation and appropriation to Studley be confirmed, the grant of the same to Maxstoke, made by Clement VI, annulled, and appropriation anew be made to Studley, ‘so that on resignation or death of the vicar they might have it served by a canon, being a priest of Stodeley, or other secular priest appointed and removed by the prior and convent’.59 A patent letter of Henry IV reveals how the canons further went about trying to reclaim the church. When the church of Aston Cantlowe became vacant, John, prior of Studley, sued in the king’s court for the right to present, which was countered by the king. The king won the case and presented to the vicarage one Thomas Burdet, on 25 June 1402.60 Shortly thereafter, the king requested the names of all who had been presented to Aston Cantlowe since the time of Henry III. Bishop Clifford’s register contains the reply to that letter, and it shows that

57

A Calendar of the Register of Wolstan de Bransford, Bishop of Worcester, 1339–49, ed. by R . M. Haines (London: HMSO, 1966), pp. 126–27. 58

Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers Relating to Great Britain and Ireland, Papal Letters, ed. by W. H. Bliss and others (hereafter CPL), 20 vols to date (London: HMSO, 1893–1966; Dublin: Stationery Office, 1978–), V : 1396–1404, ed. by W. H. Bliss and J. A. Twemlow (1904), pp. 359–60. 59

CPL, V , 359–60. Interestingly for the discussion that follows, the canons requested the right to appoint their own canons to serve the church, should they get their way. 60

The Register of Richard Clifford, Bishop of Worcester, 1401–1407: A Calendar, ed. by W. E. L. Smith, Subsidia mediaevalia, 6 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1976), p. 58.

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Maxstoke had presented five times since 1349, and only twice before that date was presentation known, though by whom, the records did not indicate.61 Though Maxstoke had lost the presentation of 1402, it seemed that the prior and convent of Studley would be done with the fight for good. However, the king’s presentee, Thomas Burdet, died soon after being presented, and Studley seized the opportunity to falsely present again. This time, on 22 May 1403, the candidate of the prior and convent, Thomas Shelford, was admitted and instituted to the vicarage of Aston Cantlowe.62 When discovered, this act did not go unchallenged, as King Henry IV granted anew the advowson and licence to appropriate in full the church of Aston Cantlowe to Maxstoke, in exchange for prayers for himself and his progenitors. This right cost the priory of Maxstoke £71 11s.63 Remarkably, the prior and convent of Studley did not stop even there. Instead, they took their suit to the archbishop and the pope, and here several manuscripts in the National Archives fill in some of the details of the litigation between the two houses of canons. Though too long to detail here in full, the canons of Maxstoke were able to trace clearly the lineage of the church through the Cantilupes to John de Hastings, eventually to William de Clinton.64 The fight for the church was still ongoing in 1410, when Studley petitioned the pope again for aid. The papal register for the first year of John XXIII’s pontificate (1410) recounts the first petition to Boniface IX, and explains the more recent petition, to John XXIII, by the prior of Studley. Apparently, after the first petition, Maxstoke had wasted no time in going to the archdeacon of Worcester, who in turn secured royal writs to seize the church from Studley ‘by force of arms’. The prior of Studley and several canons were brought before secular judges and detained ‘until under heavy pains they promised not to proceed with the cause without the realm’. Maxstoke then sought and obtained papal sentences to strip Studley of the church and secure condemnation in fruits and costs, all of which was done in ignorance of the church of Studley. The canons of Maxstoke then went to the archbishop of Canterbury, who ordered writs of excommunication, suspension, and interdict for the prior and canons of Studley. Studley, protesting all these actions, sought again papal interaction to free it from excommunication and inquire de novo about the legal

61

Register of Richard Clifford, p. 113.

62

Register of Richard Clifford, p. 64.

63

CPR: Henry IV, 4 vols (London: HMSO, 1903–09), III: 1405–08 (1905), pp. 399–400.

64

TNA, E135/23/13, 16, 18.

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owner of the church, the canons claiming that they could prove their right to the church.65 In 1412 a papal letter written to the archbishop of Canterbury and the bishops of Lincoln and Hereford, related again the process and the consequences that the prior and canons of Studley had suffered. Having been found guilty by the archbishop, they had been stripped of the church and ordered to pay back 100 marks’ worth of corn they had taken from the manse of the church. Having refused to pay back the corn, though giving up claim to the church, the priory was excommunicated and placed under suspension and interdict. Finally, while still defying the archbishop, the pope ordered all three men to ‘take the usual proceedings and aggravate them, invoking if necessary the secular arm’. Finally, the resolution of the matter is recorded: ‘If the said prior and convent remain contumacious for more than a year, they are to be cited as suspect of heresy, and if they fail to clear themselves are to be declared heretics.’66 At this, the priory of Studley relented, accepting at long last the fate that they likely knew was coming. One last document, however, reveals the lethargy of the canons in formalizing the entire episode. In 1493 the canons finally renounced all claims pertaining to the church of Aston Cantlowe and declared the canons of Maxstoke to own it completely and peacefully, nearly a hundred years after Studley Priory caused the sharp conflict over the church.67

Conclusion The preceding examples shed light on both the self-understanding and perceived identity of Augustinian priories in the late medieval era. Though the canons might have been popularly perceived as not fulfilling their spiritual purpose in later medieval society, they clearly understood one of the main reasons for their existence: the preservation of the undying institution of the Church. From the beginning of the Gregorian Reform movement in the eleventh century, a clear attempt was made to wrest the church out of the hands of laymen and to get control of the churches into the ‘Mortmain’ of the Roman Church, manifested most clearly by the granting of churches to monasteries. Both Cirencester Abbey

65

CPL, VI: 1404–15, ed. by J. A. Twemlow (1904), pp. 236–37.

66

CPL, VI, 279–80.

67

TNA, E327/133. This charter marks the complete end of the struggle, as Studley finally released all rights to the church.

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and Studley Priory show quite plainly that the Augustinian houses of late medieval England understood that the struggle was not for the present year or even the following year, but the struggles over the possession of churches were really about an ongoing, undying source of life for their religious communities. Without the ability to collect the tithes of the churches, the priories would not have survived. The acquisition of Snitterfield by St Sepulchre, the struggle over the parish church of Aston Cantlowe between Maxstoke and Studley priories, and the efforts to reacquire Ampney St Mary and Hagbourne churches by Cirencester Abbey exemplify the significance of parish churches for both large and small houses of canons. This study has attempted to demonstrate, both through statistics and analysis of historical narrative, that a central aspect of the identity of the Augustinian canons rested in their possession, exploitation, and protection of parish churches. Though no doubt other attributes can be found to characterize the canons in broad terms, the statistical data and the stories that reveal their actions demonstrate the self-understanding of the canons and the key role that spiritual possessions played in the identity of the Augustinian Order.

T HE S IGNIFICANCE OF D EVOTION TO THE A UGUSTINIAN C ANONS BY M EMBERS OF THE N OBILITY AND G ENTRY IN THE F OURTEENTH C ENTURY* Graham St John

F

or the most part, any mention of growth of the religious orders in later medieval England has coincided with a discussion of the Carthusians.1 While this trend is important to understanding devotion in the period, scholars have overemphasized the genuine interest the gentry and nobility had in the Carthusians’ particularly ascetic lifestyle. An extensive examination of the types of religious institutions receiving donations from the gentry and nobility in the fourteenth century has revealed just how limited devotion to the Carthusians was. Alternatively, this same examination has revealed that the Augustinian canons overwhelmingly formed the mainstay of religious benefactions. Out of 431 *

When using the term ‘Augustinian’ canons it is implied that this also refers to the smaller orders that followed the rule as well, including the Arrouaisians, Victorines, and Augustinian Canons of the Holy Sepulchre. J. C. Dickinson, The Origins of the Austin Canons and their Introduction into England (London: SPCK, 1950), pp. 46–48; R . Hanna, ‘Augustinian Canons and Middle English Literature,’ in The English Medieval Book: Studies in Memory of Jeremy Griffiths, ed. by A. S. G. Edwards, V. Gillespie, and R . Hanna (London: British Library, 2000), p. 27. 1 J. A. F. Thomson, The Transformation of Medieval England, 1370–1529 (London: Longman, 1983), p. 336; Maurice Keen, English Society in the Later Middle Ages, 1348–1500 (London: Penguin, 1990), pp. 264–65; Jeremy Catto, ‘Religion and the English Nobility in the Later Fourteenth Century’, in History and Imagination: Essays in Honour of H. R. Trevor-Roper, ed. by H. Lloyd-Jones (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), pp. 41, 52; R. G. Davies, ‘Richard II and the Church’, in Richard II: The Art of Kingship, ed. by A. Goodman and J. Gillespie (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), p. 87.

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alienations in mortmain and frankalmoin made by over 300 individuals from seventy noble and gentry families between 1283 and 1407, over 26 per cent of these alienations were made to the Augustinian or regular canons.2 The regular canons received a greater number of donations than even chantries or colleges, while the second-most popular order receiving donations in this period, the Benedictines, only received 8 per cent — over three times less. The Carthusians, traditionally presented as the most popular and influential order of late medieval monasticism, received less than 5 per cent of all donations.3 A great deal has been inferred about the preferences of donors in this period from the foundation of six new Charterhouses between 1339 and 1398, yet seven new houses of Augustinian canons were also founded between 1320 and 1378. These are Badlesmere, begun by Bartholomew Badlesmere in 1320; Haltemprice, founded by Thomas Wake in 1322; Bisham, by William Montagu, later earl of Salisbury, in 1336; Maxstoke, by William de Clinton, earl of Huntingdon in 1338; Flanesford, in 1346, by Sir Richard Talbot; Kirby Bellars by Roger Beler and his heirs in 1359; and a new cell of Hexham at Ovingham in 1378 by Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland.4 With the Augustinian canons receiving such a large percentage of overall patronage, why then has their role been largely ignored? After 1950 when J. C. Dickinson declared that the Augustinian canons were, ‘the most neglected religious order of the medieval church’, almost no one answered his call.5 The opinion of David Knowles that the regular canons were ‘by the fifteenth century the least fervent, the worst disciplined and the most decayed of all the religious houses’ seems to have influenced the views of many subsequent scholars.6 R. W. Southern stated that, ‘the Augustinian canons indeed, as a whole, lacked every

2

Drawn from 431 alienations between 1283 and 1407, with the Augustinians receiving 117 donations. This calculation is based on the number of donations themselves, rather than value of the grants made. See G. E. St John, ‘The Religiosity of English Men-at-Arms in the Fourteenth Century’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Cambridge, 2009), pp. xv, 19–22. 3

St John, ‘The Religiosity of English Men-at-Arms’, p. 106.

4

J. T. Rosenthal, The Purchase of Paradise: Gift Giving and the Aristocracy, 1307–1485 (London: Routledge, 1972), p. 61; this paper will not discuss the foundations of Badlesmere or Ovingham. 5

A notable exception is D. Robinson, The Geography of the Augustinian Settlement in Medieval England and Wales, British Archaeology Reports, British Series, 80, 2 vols (Oxford: British Archaeology Reports, 1980), I, 2. 6

D. Knowles, The Religious Orders in England, 3 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1948–59), II (1955), 361.

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mark of greatness. They were neither very rich, nor very learned, nor very religious, nor very influential’.7 Is it perhaps a misinterpretation of the nature of the canons and what they were — and were not — that is to blame for the lack of secondary scholarship until recently? Have historians been looking for examples of greatness from a religious order which never set out to attain such eminence? Has their definition of greatness been limited to the Opus Dei carried out by large Benedictine abbeys? Unlike almost any other religious order, regular canons do not fit neatly into one particular role: they were not dead to, and free of, the world like the Benedictines or the Carthusians, and by the fourteenth century they seem to have, for the most part, ceased venturing out from their priories to teach or exercise cure of souls.8 Nor were they especially prolific writers; only sixty-three of the over two thousand British Latin authors listed by Richard Sharpe were associated with the order.9 Unlike with orders that have a firmly established rule, it is nearly impossible to discern what was the ‘standard’ routine and practices for an Augustinian canon, quite simply because there was hardly a standard at all. This is something which has confused historians, who have attempted to brand the order as either a monastic variant or a transitional group somewhere between monks and friars.10 Towards the end of his examination of monasticism, Christopher Brooke claimed that the difference between monks and Augustinian canons was nearly indefinable, yet earlier he had emphasized the unique flexibility of their customs.11 Some historians have presumed that founders and patrons were only excited by the asceticism of an order, although there were numerous other factors influencing where they chose to make donations.12 For donors in the fourteenth century it may have been the very ambiguity of their nature that made the Augustinian canons so appealing. Most patrons who were intent on founding a new religious establishment did so through an order that would allow them to have some amount of personal involvement and control over the order of prayers and manner of commemoration. It was this desire that made

7

R . W. Southern, Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1971), p. 248. 8

See below, p. 345.

9

Hanna, ‘Augustinian Canons and Middle English Literature’, p. 29.

10

C. Walker Bynum, Docere, verbo et exemplo: An Aspect of Twelfth-Century Spirituality (Missoula: Scolar, 1979), p. 3. 11 12

C. Brooke, The Age of the Cloister (Stroud: Sutton, 2003), pp. 155–56, 165.

See K. Stöber, Late Medieval Monasteries and their Patrons: England and Wales, c. 1300– 1540 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2007), who emphasizes the appeal of the regular canons to lay patrons.

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donations to the Augustinian canons, chantries, and colleges so prominent in this period: cumulatively they received 60 per cent of all benefaction amongst noble and gentry donors.13 The customs governing individual houses of canons varied in accordance with the inclinations of those who lived there, the motivation of the prior, regional circumstances, and the desires of the founders and patrons.14 The malleable nature of the Augustinian lifestyle allowed the canons to adapt their roles to the changing desires of founders and patrons for specific and more frequent masses, as became necessary between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries.15 While the rule of the Augustinian canons was flexible, it did still bind the canons to their houses, providing stability and ensuring an unbroken cycle of masses for the founder and his family. Perhaps their greatest draw was the fact that because they were priests, each member of the house was capable of performing masses, whereas most monks were not. The founders of these new houses were men who rose significantly in status through military, political, or legal service. For most of them, their increase in status was signified by a growth in their fortunes and the acquisition of new lands, and this period saw many families relocating their caputs.16 By founding new religious houses near to their new lands, these men demonstrated their arrival amongst the local elite, while also establishing prayers for themselves and their families in surroundings befitting their status, in the same way that the first generation of founders of Augustinian houses had done in the twelfth century. In the fourteenth century, the comparatively inexpensive nature of founding a house of Augustinian canons allowed these men to establish their personalized priories wherever they wanted and they frequently did so within sight of their new caputs

13

The Augustinian canons received one hundred and seventeen donations (27 per cent), chantries received eighty-five donations (20 per cent), and colleges received fifty-five donations (13 per cent): St John, ‘The Religiosity of English Men-at-Arms’, p. xiii. 14 T. Colk, ‘Twelfth-Century East Anglian Canons: A Monastic Life?’, in Medieval East Anglia, ed. by C. Harper-Bill (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2005), p. 219; Dickinson, Origins of the Austin Canons, pp. 165–66. 15

C. Burgess, ‘Longing to Be Prayed for: Death and Commemoration in an English Medieval Parish in the Later Middle Ages’, in The Place of the Dead, ed. by B. Gordon and P. Marshall (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 49; J. C. Dickinson, The Later Middle Ages: From the Norman Conquest to the Eve of the Reformation (London: Black, 1979), p. 258; B. Thompson, ‘Monasteries and their Patrons at Foundation and Dissolution’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th ser., 4 (1994), 108. 16

Stöber, Late Medieval Monasteries and their Patrons, p. 18.

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rather than merely maintaining or strengthening the existing links they had with religious houses. The ways in which these men established themselves in the religious landscape reveals that which was truly important to donors in this period. This article will reveal how the desires of founders to establish religious foundations close to their caputs, where specific, personalized acts of commemoration and intercession could be celebrated, and to do so for as little financial outlay as possible, led them to found and endow houses of Augustinian canons. In spite of pre-existing bonds of patronage, in the early years of Edward III’s reign, these men all decided to found new houses of Augustinian canons close to their new caputs. Like Thomas Wake, whose ancestors were the founders and patrons of the Arrouaisian house of Augustinian canons at Bourne, Richard Talbot and William Montagu’s families also had ancient ties to the religious houses of Wormsley, Montacute (Cluniac), Christchurch (Twynham), and Bruton.17 The ancestors of Gilbert, first Lord Talbot, and Richard, second Lord Talbot, had founded a house of Augustinian canons at Wormsley, late in the reign of John or early in that of Henry III.18 This moderately sized priory, assessed at £89 3s. 9d. in the Valor ecclesiasticus, was located north-west of the majority of the Talbots’ lands in Herefordshire and Gloucestershire.19 It was in the early years of Edward III’s reign that the Talbots’ status began to rise in earnest, benefiting first from their long-standing relationship with Roger Mortimer and then with Edward III.20 At some point between 24 July 1326 and 23 March 1327, Richard Talbot married Elizabeth Comyn, daughter and co-heir of John Comyn, Lord of Badenoch, the

17

Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem and Other Analogous Documents Preserved in the Public Record Office (1236–1432), 23 vols (hereafter CIPM) (London: HMSO, 1904–2004), III (1912), 448–50; Bourne was founded in 1138 by Baldwin, a younger son of Gilbert de Clare. Through the marriage of his daughter to Hugh Wake the patronage passed to the lords of Liddell. VCH: Lincolnshire, ed. by W. Page, 1 vol. (no. 2) to date (London: Constable, 1906–), II (1906), 177; Stöber, Late Medieval Monasteries and their Patrons, pp. 148–52. 18 William Dugdale, Monasticon anglicanum, ed. by J. Caley, H. Ellis, and B. Bandinel (hereafter Monasticon), 6 vols (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, 1817–30), VI, pt I (1830), 398. 19

Monasticon, VI, pt I, 398; S. L. Waugh, ‘Talbot, Richard, Second Lord Talbot (c. 1306–1356)’, ODNB, LIII, 696. 20

It was Mortimer who secured for the elder Talbot the position of king’s chamberlain in August 1327. Gilbert Talbot does not seem to have been a mere puppet of Mortimer, however, as Edward III kept him as chamberlain until 1334. Calendar of Patent Rolls (hereafter CPR): Edward III, 16 vols (London: HMSO, 1891–1916), I: 1327–30 (1891), p. 159; S. L. Waugh, ‘Talbot, Gilbert, first Lord Talbot (1276–1346)’, ODNB, LIII, 696.

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former claimant to the Scottish throne. Elizabeth was also the coheir of her uncle, Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke.21 This marriage not only made Richard one of the ‘disinherited’ Scottish lords, but also significantly increased his lands in Herefordshire and the Welsh march, including the important manor of Castle Goodrich, about thirty kilometres (or 20 miles) south-east of Wormsley.22 It was also at this time, with their increasing wealth and prestige, that both Gilbert and Richard began making donations to religious houses.23 Between the summer of 1338 and the spring of 1342, Richard decided to establish a priory at Flanesford, within sight of Castle Goodrich.24 In 1343, he received a papal licence for the priory to appropriate the parish church of Westbury and for it to be served by a vicar.25 In 1346, eight years after his initial donation, the foundation stone was finally laid at Flanesford.26 That December, Richard received a licence to grant the priory an orchard, nine messuages, three mills, five virgates, and 340½ acres of various lands in frankalmoin.27 Although John Cosyn, a canon of Wormsley, was named as the first prior and the foundation went ahead, the donation made in

21 The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, ed by G. E. Cokayne, 2nd edn, rev. and enlarged by V. Gibbs, 12 vols in 13 (hereafter CP) (London: St Catherine, 1910–59), XII, pt I (1959), 613–14; Waugh, ‘Talbot, Richard, Second Lord Talbot’, ODNB, LIII, 715. 22

R . Nicholson, Edward III and the Scots: The Formative Years of a Military Career, 1327–1335 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965), p. 66. See CIPM, X (1921), 277–79. 23

Talbot’s exact date of birth is unknown: CPR: Edward III, I, 196, 540. He made additional grants in fulfilment of this licence in 1336: CPR: Edward III, III: 1334–38 (1895), p. 270. 24 The first and only reference to a priory at Flanesford is from a papal licence for the appropriation of the advowson of the church of Westbury from 28 April 1342: Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers Relating to Great Britain and Ireland, Papal Letters, ed. by W. H. Bliss and others (hereafter CPL), 20 vols to date (London: HMSO, 1893–1966; Dublin: Stationery Office, 1978–), III: 1342–62, ed. by W. H. Bliss and C. Johnson (1897), p. 69. 25

The papal licence for the appropriation of the church of Westbury was invalidated in 1347 because when the licence was granted in 1342, no canons were actually in residence at Flanesford. Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers Relating to Great Britain and Ireland, Petitions to the Pope, AD 1342–1419, ed. by W. H. Bliss (hereafter CPP) (London: HMSO, 1896), pp. 16, 336. 26

Richard Talbot was serving abroad in 1342 and from 1345 to 1349 in his capacity as steward. N. Saul, Knights and Esquires: The Gloucestershire Gentry in the Fourteenth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), p. 79; Registrum Johannis de Trillek, Episcopi Herefordensis, ed. by J. H. Parry (London: Canterbury and York Society, 1912), pp. 88–89. 27

CPR: Edward III, VII: 1345–48 (1903), p. 220.

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1346 was seemingly the first and last ever made to Flanesford by the Talbots.28 This is surprising for a man who did very well for himself from his position in the household and from the war, being granted a gift of £812 6s. 4d. by the King in 1349.29 Even though Richard is said to have chosen to be buried there, neither he nor his heirs appear to have donated any more money to this small priory.30 From the size of the refectory and the existence of a cloister, as commented upon by Nikolaus Pevsner, it appears that the founder intended for there to be more than just the few canons who eventually resided therein.31 David Knowles cites the coming of the Black Death soon after the foundation as the reason why Richard did not endow Flanesford further, although he provides no evidence for this supposition.32 Eamon Duffy makes the point that in the wake of the plague some patrons saw giving to larger religious houses as being a better guarantee of permanent commemoration.33 Indeed, with only two or three canons at Flanesford, all could easily have succumbed to the disease, thus ending the prayers for the Talbots’ souls. As Richard’s son Gilbert returned to making donations to the larger family house of Wormsley in 1371 and 1373, instead of ensuring that his father’s foundation was suitably established, this may have been

28

Registrum Johannis de Trillek, p. 89; C. Reade, Memorials of Old Herefordshire (London: Bemrose, 1904), p. 145. 29

CPR: Edward III, VIII: 1348–50 (1905), p. 287.

30

The Complete Peerage states this to be the case, citing Duncomb’s discussion of the altartomb which is said to have been his and have originally stood in Flanesford, and is now in Goodrich parish church. However, more recent works have dated the tomb to c. 1280. CP, XII, pt I, 614; D. L. Crawford, An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in Herefordshire (London: HMSO, 1931), pp. 78–79, pl. 44; except for the addition of 7s. worth of land acquired at some point, those lands listed in the Valor ecclesiasticus as belonging to the house in 1535 are exactly the same properties given to them by Richard Talbot in December 1346. These properties were only worth £14 8s. 9d. in total; see Valor ecclesiasticus, temp. Henrici VIII auctoritate regia institutus, ed. by J. Caley and J. Hunter (hereafter VE), Record Commission Publications, 9, 6 vols (London: Record Commission, 1810–34), III (1817), 17. For further information on the suppression, see Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, ed. by J. Gairdner and others (hereafter L&P), 21 vols plus addenda in 37 (London: HMSO, 1862–1932), XII, pt I: January–July 1537 (1890), p. 155. 31

Crawford, Inventory of the Historical Monuments in Herefordshire, pp. 78–79; N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England: Herefordshire (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963), p. 139. 32 33

Knowles and Hadcock, MRH, p. 157.

E. Duffy, ‘Religious Belief’, in A Social History of England, 1200–1500, ed. by R. Horrox and W. M. Ormrod (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 310.

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a concern.34 Unfortunately, the reasons for the Talbots’ meagre donations to this new priory within sight of their caput remain unknown to us. Still, Richard Talbot’s ability to found this small house within sight of his castle shows the affordability and appeal of houses of Augustinian canons. As was the case with Thomas Wake and Richard Talbot, with their growing status in the early years of Edward III’s reign, the Montagus, too, moved away from their traditional familial house of prayer and burial in favour of a newer, smaller establishment. In the case of Bisham — the foundation of which has been examined by Karen Stöber — although it became the wealthiest of the new Augustinian houses founded in the century, it took two generations to be established. The Montagu family of Somerset were already ancient patrons of two abbeys in that county: the Cluniac house of Montacute and the Augustinian house of Bruton. It was this latter house where the majority of the family was buried between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries.35 William Montagu, later the first earl of Salisbury, became Edward III’s chief advisor and greatest beneficiary of his patronage until his death in 1344.36 With this patronage, William was able to make donations of £10 worth of land and rent to the Augustinian houses of Chetwode in Buckinghamshire and Christchurch Twynham in Hampshire in 1333 and 1336.37 It was shortly thereafter that the King granted him the manor of Bisham.38 William was the manor’s first owner to show a real preference for it, making it his caput.39 Although the establishment of Bisham took longer than any other Augustinian priory in this period, it was eventually the wealthiest of them all, 34

CPR: Edward III, XV : 1370–74 (1914), pp. 120, 255. Despite having a very small income, there were at least two canons in residence at Flanesford, with records of their institutions appearing throughout the registers of the bishops of Hereford up until the Dissolution. On 20 April 1383, Thomas Newbold was made prior: Registrum Johannis Gilbert, Episcopi Herefordensis, 1375–89, ed. by J. H. Parry (London: Canterbury and York Society, 1915), p. 117; Registrum Johannis Trefnant, Episcopi Herefordensis, 1389–1404, ed. by W. W. Capes (London: Canterbury and York Society, 1916), pp. 184, 186; The Heads of Religious Houses: England and Wales, ed. by D. Knowles and others, 3 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972–2008), II (2006), 380 and III (2008), 428. 35

Stöber, Late Medieval Monasteries and their Patrons, pp. 148, 153–56.

36

W. M. Ormrod, Edward III (Stroud: Tempus, 1990; repr. 2005), p. 24; Calendar of the Fine Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office, 22 vols (London: HMSO, 1911–62), III: Edward II, AD 1319–1327 (1912), p. 56. 37

CPR: Edward III, II: 1330–34 (1893), p. 455; CPR: Edward III, III, 237.

38

P. Compton, The Story of Bisham Abbey (Maidenhead: Thames Valley, 1973), pp. 9–11.

39

Compton, Story of Bisham Abbey, p. 24.

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worth somewhere between £185 11s. ½d. and £327 4s. 6d. at the time of Dissolution.40 Unlike Bisham, Thomas Wake’s foundation at Haltemprice was founded in a relatively short period of time and was done with a great deal of thought for the long-term stability of the house. Through his father John (d. 1300) and mother Joan (d. 1309) he inherited lands in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, with extensive lands in Westmorland and Cumberland.41 While his family had long been established at Bourne in Lincolnshire, by the early part of the century, Liddel Castle on the Scottish borders had become their caput. The establishment of his new house of canons was not without difficulties. The canons whom Thomas Wake brought from Bourne to establish his house occupied a site at Cottingham, near Hull, for as many as five years before he abandoned it and relocated the canons to Haltemprice. The reasons for this move are only elucidated in one document, but they reflect Thomas’s desire to ensure the stability of the house, not only during his lifetime, but forever. The papal licence for the transfer of the house simply states that, ‘it appears, according to the statutes and customs of the realm, that T. Wake’s heirs will have the power of uprooting the monastery at Cottingham’.42 According to the papal licence, the church and other buildings had been built and there were several canons from Bourne in residence celebrating divine offices.43 In order to secure the house’s future he uprooted it and moved it about a mile south to Haltemprice and started again. Thomas Wake’s dedication to the project is exemplified by the host of notable witnesses to the foundation charter, dated on 27 January 1325. They included William Melton, archbishop of 40

The summary of the 1536 VE gives the first valuation, but the full account for Berkshire is missing. The ministers’ accounts of the Augmentation Office gives the latter value. VCH: Berkshire, ed. by P. H. Ditchfield and W. Page, 5 vols (London: Constable, 1906–27), II (1907), 83. Tanner lists a middle valuation of £285 11s. ½d. T. Tanner, Notitia monastica, 2nd edn, 5 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1787), IV : Berkshire; V : Bustlesham. 41

W. M. Ormrod, ‘Wake, Thomas, Second Lord Wake (1298–1349)’, ODNB, LVI, 720.

42

CPL, II: 1305–42, ed. by W. H. Bliss (1895), p. 245. In Monasticon, VI, pt I, 520, it states more fully, ‘Verum, comperto postmodum, quod, propter nonnulla statuta, constitutiones, et consuetudines regni Angliae haeredes sive successors ipsius nobilis, in loco, ubi dictum monasterium est fundatum, monasterium possint diruere, ac etiam demoliri.’ 43

‘Postque idem nobilis preælibatum monasterium, inibi ædificare cœpit, ecclesiamque oratoria, et domos plures construxit; et plures canonici monasterii de Brunne, dicte ordinis Lincolniensis diœcesis; de licentia tamen abbatis ipsorum, ad ipsus nobilis instantiam, ad ipsus monasterium incœptam accesserunt, et inibi commorantes missarum solempnia, et alia celebrarunt divina.’ Monasticon, VI, pt I, 520.

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York, Henry Burghersh, bishop of Lincoln, the abbot of the nearby Cistercian house of Meaux, Thomas’s father-in-law Henry, earl of Lancaster, Edmund, earl of Kent, and various important members of the northern nobility, including William de Ros, Henry Beaumont, and Henry Percy.44 While Richard Talbot, William Clinton, and William Montagu placed their establishments close to their most important manors, we may ask why Thomas Wake established his priory of Haltemprice over 130 miles south-east of his caput at Liddel?45 The ongoing wars with Scotland were almost certainly the reason. By placing his new priory on his important estates around Cottingham, he brought his familial prayer-factory seventy miles further north towards his caput than if he had simply maintained the house at Bourne. Being at Cottingham left the priory far enough away from the Scottish march to avoid being attacked, as almost all of the border abbeys were attacked at one point or another. The risk posed to lands or abbeys in the Borders is clearly shown in the Inquisitio post mortem from 1300 for John Wake’s Cumberland lands. In it the manor of Liddel is described as being ‘worth nothing on account of the war, […] divers messuages &c. are wasted and burned by the Scots’, while at Stubhill, it is said there ‘were many manses and tenants who have been slain by the Scots and the town burnt’.46 By establishing his new house at Haltemprice and adequately endowing it up until his death in 1349, Thomas Wake was carefully executing his role as founder and patron of a new house of Augustinian canons.47 The desires of the founders and patrons of these new houses to have personalized prayers for themselves and their families may be seen in their individual foundation charters. For example, in the charter for Thomas Lord Wake’s house of Haltemprice, Thomas expressed his desire to establish his house in honour of the nativity of Jesus Christ, the annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the exaltation of the Holy Cross, for the good of his soul, that of his wife, his parents, ancestors, and heirs. Thomas’s establishment of the first successful new house of Augustinian canons to be founded in England for over forty years was carried out with a dedication and vision rarely exhibited by 44

Monasticon, VI, pt I, 521.

45

The author’s own calculations.

46

CIPM, III, 488.

47

Wake made donations to Haltemprice in 1327, 1328, two in 1331, 1332, two in 1337, 1338, and 1339, and two in both 1340 and 1342, see CPR: Edward III, I, 26, 178, 251; CPR: Edward III, II, 67, 151, 260; CPR: Edward III, III, 469, 473; CPR: Edward III, IV : 1338–40 (1898), pp. 97, 120, 300, 470, 546; CPR: Edward III, V : 1340–43 (1900), pp. 529, 536.

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founders.48 Unfortunately, there is no extant evidence revealing the specific ways in which he wished the canons to commemorate him and his family. Whatever further statutes there once may have been have not survived.49 Thomas’s bestowal of various relics on the house provide some indication of his personal religious practices.50 These relics included an arm of St George, a piece of the True Cross, and the girdle of Mary, which was said to aid in childbirth. Thomas’s tomb itself eventually became a focus of local pilgrimage, as he was thought to cure fever.51 The ordinances of William Clinton, earl of Huntingdon’s house of Maxstoke, provide us with greater insight into the specific acts of commemoration desired by one founder. Having the only extant set of ordinances from any of the new Augustinian houses founded in the fourteenth century, the ordinances of Maxstoke provide a unique glimpse into exactly what one noble patron wanted from his foundation. Of course, the influence which William had in the actual creation of these ordinances is unknown to us, but he, at the very least, consented to their form. Maxstoke, like Kirby Bellars which will be discussed below, evolved from a chantry to a priory, although in a much shorter period of time. In 1336, William Clinton, soon to be made earl of Huntingdon, was led, ‘by divine inspiration’, to change the chantry of six chaplains, near his manor of the same name, into a priory of Augustinian canons and appropriated the church of Maxstoke to them.52 The records of the Bishop of Worcester list the initial number of occupants as the prior and four canons, but Clinton quickly expanded the

48

His plan to build a new house of Augustinian canons is first mentioned in a letter from Pope John XXII to the Archbishop of York on 2 Kal. Jan 1320. He did not receive a licence from the King until 26 June 1322: CPL, II, 210; CPR: Edward II, 5 vols (London: HMSO, 1894–1904), IV : 1321–24 (1904), p. 138. 49

The last Augustinian foundation was that of St Anthony in Roseland, Cornwall, founded before 1288. It was a cell of Plympton and only ever consisted of a prior and a single canon: MRH, p. 152; Badlesmere was founded by Bartholomew de Badlesmere in 1320: CPR: Edward II, III: 1317–21 (1903), p. 449; Cottingham, later Haltemprice, was founded by Thomas Wake in 1322: CPR: Edward II, IV , 138; Monasticon, VI, pt I, 520, 521. 50

It was presumably through Wake that the house received the relics, as it had no other major donors. The visitation lists ‘the duke of Richmond’ as the founder, but this is completely incorrect and there is no record of a duke, or earl, of Richmond ever donating to the house. L&P, X : 1536 (1887), p. 139. 51 52

L&P, X , 139.

CPR: Edward III, II, 181. There are six chaplains listed in 1332: CPR: Edward III, II, 265; CPR: Edward III, III, 309–10.

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house.53 In terms of William’s desires for the dedication and the specific prayers he wished the canons to say, he founded Maxstoke in the name of the ‘holy and indivisible Trinity, father, and son and holy spirit and the blessed Virgin Mary, St Michael the Archangel and all the saints’, while the canons were to pray for William, his wife Juliana, King Edward, Laurence Hastings, future earl of Pembroke, Roger Northburgh, bishop of Coventry, and Henry Irreys, prior of Coventry.54 Also, they were to pray for the souls of William’s father John, his mother Ida, his brother John, all his ancestors and heirs, and all the faithful departed.55 William also made the quite unique stipulation that, along with the masses of the Virgin, the day, and the canonical hours, the Angelical Salutation was to be said. Every morning, after the office of the Virgin at Matins, the celebrant should say the following: Ave Maria, gracia plena, Dominus tecum, benedicta tu in mulieribus et benedictus fructus ventris tui Jhesus, Amen. Et benedicta sit venerabilis mater tua Anna, ex qua tua caro virginea et immaculata processit.56

Through these personalized ordinances, William Clinton makes clear his desire for the priory at Maxstoke to be a place of prayer for himself and his ancestors, close to his primary manor. With his elevation to the earldom of Huntingdon and the acquisition of 1000 marks a year to support his estate, William was given the means with which to endow Maxstoke further.57 On 4 February 1338 he received two separate licences granting Maxstoke the advowson of Haughton, Leicestershire, and a general licence for the priory to acquire £40 of land and rent in mortmain.58 In addition, in 1340 he petitioned Bishop Bransford of Worcester to appropriate the church of Tamworth, which the Bishop granted on account of William’s ‘fervour of devotion which has kindled in him so worthy a design’, and because the original endowment of the church was apparently no longer sufficient

53

A Calendar of the Register of Wolstan de Bransford, Bishop of Worcester, 1399–1349, ed. by R . M. Haines, Historical Manuscripts Commission, 9/Worcestershire Historical Society Publications, n.s., 4 (London: HMSO, 1966), pp. 125–26. 54

Monasticon, VI, pt I, 524; Laurence Hastings was William’s step-son. A. Ayton, ‘Hastings, Laurence, Twelfth Earl of Pembroke (1320–1348)’, ODNB, XXV , 769–70. 55

Monasticon, VI, pt I.

56

Monasticon, VI, pt I, 525.

57

CPR : Edward III, III, 409; The Parliament Rolls of Medieval England, ed. by C. GivenWilson and others, 16 vols (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2005), IV , 229–30. 58

CPR: Edward III, IV , 19, 21.

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for the number of canons.59 By 1345 it appears that there were nineteen canons and a prior at Maxstoke — a remarkable amount of growth for a house established only nine years before and with a founder who was regularly occupied, both at home and abroad.60 In the case of Bisham Priory, begun by William Montagu, later the first earl of Salisbury, the initial licence for its founding, given on 10 April 1336, states that he wished to build a house of canons close to his manor in honour of Jesus Christ and Mary and as an initial grant gave them a manor and lands in Somerset.61 The foundation charter, first dated on 22 April 1337, lists the foundation and initial grants to the house, but unfortunately reveals little about the founder’s religious interests and motivations.62 It is known, however, that William gave the house relics of various saints, including St Cosmas and St Damian.63 Interestingly, some time between the issuing of the foundation charter and the consecration, it seems that William decided to change the dedication of the house, as in all subsequent references it is referred to as being dedicated to the Trinity.64 Founders such as Thomas Wake, William Clinton, and William Montagu appear to have been attracted to the flexibility of the rule of the Augustinian canons, their ability to stipulate what specific prayers should be said, and the ability of each member of their new houses to celebrate mass for the founder and his family. A further indication of the desire of these men to have their foundations be personalized houses of prayer and burial is that there is very little indication that they wished for their canons to be involved in exercising cure of souls in the local community. Along with the ability of each member of the priory to celebrate mass, the practice of pastoral care and preaching is frequently cited as a characteristic that distinguished regular canons from monks.65 Certainly, the majority of the income for Augustinian houses in England — 36 per cent — came from appropriated

59

It does not appear that the church was ever actually appropriated to Maxstoke, as there are no licences in mortmain, nor is it listed amongst its holdings in the VE, the Register of Wolstan de Bransford, Bishop of Worcester, 1339–1349, p. 66. 60

CPP, p. 92.

61

For more on the foundation and establishment of Bisham, see Stöber, Late Medieval Monasteries and their Patrons, pp. 148 and 153–56. 62

CPR: Edward III, III, 243, 545; VCH: Berkshire, II, 82; Monasticon, VI, pt I, 527–28.

63

Compton, Story of Bisham Abbey, p. 28.

64

VCH: Berkshire, II, 82.

65

VCH: Berkshire, II, 212.

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churches, whereas the overall percentage of income coming from spiritualities for all the religious orders in England, including the Augustinians, was only 19 per cent.66 With so many churches in their possession, it would seem that the Augustinian canons had a greater possibility of exercising cure of souls than any other order. However, from the mid-twelfth and especially the early thirteenth century onwards, with the coming of the friars and the development of the vicarage system, it became increasingly unlikely that Augustinian canons were directly exercising cure of souls.67 The nature and size of the houses founded in the fourteenth century also indicates that their founders had little desire for their canons to do much besides pray for their souls and those of their families. Until around 1135, new Augustinian houses generally consisted of at least thirteen canons, but after this time such large establishments became exceptional.68 This made it more difficult for canons to leave their house to serve appropriated churches and doing so, especially alone, was discouraged.69 Even at older houses, such as the priory of Ulverscroft, it does not seem that pastoral care was being exercised. In the survey of religious houses in Warwickshire from 1536, George Giffard attempted to intercede with Thomas Cromwell on behalf of Ulverscroft, saying that, The governor [prior] is a very good husband for the house, and has four religious persons, priests, of good conversion, such as we have not found elsewhere. There is not one of them but practices embroidery, writing books with very fair hand, making their own garments, carving, painting, or ‘graffyng’.70

66

VCH: Berkshire, II, 172; Hanna, ‘Augustinian Canons and Middle English Literature’, p. 28. Note also N. Nichols’s chapter in this volume. 67 J. C. Dickinson, The Later Middle Ages, p. 287; Robinson, Geography of the Augustinian Settlement, pp. 176, 177–84; J. Hughes, ‘The Administration of Confession in the Diocese of York in the Fourteenth Century’, in Studies in Clergy and Ministry in Medieval England, ed. by D. M. Smith (York: Borthwick Institute of Historical Research, University of York, 1991), p. 80; Colk, ‘Twelfth-Century East Anglian Canons’, p. 210. 68

Robinson, Geography of the Augustinian Settlement, p. 41.

69

Robinson, Geography of the Augustinian Settlement, pp. 41–45; When Bishop Antony Bek allowed Guisborough Priory to send a canon to serve as vicar of Hart in 1308, it was expressly stated that he should have a fellow canon sent along with him. It seems it was practical for the canons of Guisborough to do this, as in 1380, even in the wake of successive outbreaks of the Black Death, the priory consisted of a prior and twenty-five canons. R . A. R . Hartridge, A History of Vicarages in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1930), p. 177; VCH: County of York, ed. by W. Page, 4 vols (London: Constable, 1907–25), III (1913), 211. 70

L&P, X , 487–88.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF DEVOTION TO THE AUGUSTINIAN CANONS

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Seemingly, those canons from houses which were ‘of good conversion’ found many other ways to fill their time besides exercising cura animarium.71 The new Augustinian houses founded in the fourteenth century were a fraction of the size of houses like Ulverscroft or John Mirk’s house of Lilleshall, and some, like Flanesford or Ovingham, were barely able to sustain their influence at the most basic local level. For most of the fourteenth-century foundations, it would have been impractical to send two canons to each of their appropriations, and doing so would certainly have wrecked the Opus Dei at the conventual church.72 Amongst the foundation charters and statutes of these new fourteenth-century houses, there is little indication that founders and patrons wanted the canons to be exercising pastoral care in their spiritual holdings. In the detailed foundation charter for William Clinton’s house at Maxstoke, there is no indication that the founder wished the canons to leave the house to exercise cura animarum in any of their appropriated churches.73 The charter deals with numerous matters relating to the running of the house: the ways in which the prior should be elected, vacancies handled, new canons admitted, and transgressions dealt with, along with specifications for the further expansion of the house. In the charter, dated 2 April 1337, Clinton states that he envisaged the house eventually comprising a prior and twenty canons.74 If possible, for every 10 pounds worth of land that the house received, the prior was to add a new canon.75 In spite of the size of the house, the only occasion the charter mentions when the canons were to have contact with the people of Maxstoke was on the founder’s anniversary, when 40s. worth of bread

71

For more on the exercise of pastoral care, see St John, ‘The Religiosity of English Men-atArms’, pp. 141–44; for more on John Mirk, see J. Mirk, Instructions for Parish Priests, ed. by G. Kristensson (Lund: Gleerup, 1974), p. 10; J. A. Ford, John Mirk’s Festial: Orthodoxy, Lollardy, and the Common People in Fourteenth-Century England (Cambridge: Brewer, 2006), pp. 13, 17; VCH: Shropshire, ed. by W. Page and others, 6 vols to date (London: Constable, 1907–), II, ed. by A. T. Gaydon (London: Oxford University Press, 1973), pp. 70–71. 72

Dickinson, Origins of the Austin Canons, p. 229; nor is there any indication in the surviving acts of the Augustinian canons from this period that parochial work was being carried out. Chapters of the Augustinian Canons, ed. by H. E. Salter (London: Canterbury and York Society, 1922), pp. ix, xviii, 18–19; pp. xxiii–iv; p. 56. 73

Chapters of the Augustinian Canons, pp. 524–25.

74

Monasticon, VI, pt I, 524.

75

Monasticon, VI, pt I, 524–25.

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was to be distributed between one hundred poor people from the parish.76 The survey of Warwickshire from 1536 further supports this; at that time, the priory was listed as being worth £112 9s. 4¾d. and having seven canons in residence, including the prior.77 Under the list of servants and those who received incomes from the priory are listed, ‘2 priests to serve the church of Maxstok [sic] and sing mass in the chapel of Bentley, in the parish of Shewstoke’.78 It appears, as these priests were listed under the servants of the house, that Maxstoke was hiring vicars to serve in chapels such as Bentley, six miles north-east of the house, or even in the chapel of Maxstoke, just next to the priory. Even with this evidence, the question might still be posed, why then did patrons alienate so many advowsons and appropriations of churches to Augustinian houses if they did not wish for them to be served by the canons, instead of providing some general form of income such as lands or rents? The answer seems to be one of funding: ‘Founding a house of canons was easy, and consequently, a form of gentry piety “on the cheap”; the upwardly mobile could simply toss together a handful of advowsons as an endowment.’79 Not only was it easy for the founder, but appropriated churches were an ideal source of revenue for religious houses, requiring little energy, but providing a substantial income.80 It was this affordability which attracted so many founders and patrons to the Augustinian canons and allowed these men to build these new houses of prayer close to their caputs. Unlike the foundations of Haltemprice, Bisham, and Flanesford, Roger Beler’s foundation at Kirby Bellars was a project that, like Maxstoke, went through numerous transformations, from chantry to college, and finally to Augustinian priory. In the case of Kirby Bellars, we are fortunate enough to have the statutes of the chantry, college, and subsequent Augustinian priory, which help to illuminate the desires of Roger Beler and his family.81 This example highlights the ways in

76

‘Et quod ipso die obitus mei, fiat distributio centum pauperibus, cuilibet videlicet unus panis ponderantis quinquaginta solidos, de parochia de Maxstoke.’ Monasticon, VI, pt I, 525. 77

L&P, X , 497.

78

L&P, X , 497.

79

Hanna, ‘Augustinian Canons and Middle English Literature’, p. 29.

80

Robinson, Geography of the Augustinian Settlement, p. 188.

81

These have been edited and printed. A. Hamilton Thompson, ‘The Chapel of St Peter at Kirby-upon-Wreak (Kirby Bellars)’, Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological Society, 16 (1929–31), 130–212.

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which foundations could change over time and the specific qualities of the Augustinian lifestyle that attracted founders. These attributes included all of the aforementioned qualities — the ability of each canon to celebrate mass, affordability, and flexibility of customs — but also, particularly in the case of Kirby Bellars, the importance of having some form of monastic rule which bound the Augustinian canons to their houses and ensured that they would provide an unbroken cycle of prayers for the founder and his family. Kirby Bellars may also serve as an example of the numerous chantries in the period which grew into colleges of secular canons and some of the spiritual and practical shortcomings of such establishments.82 The remainder of this chapter will examine the foundation of Kirby Bellars in detail, using the ways in which this house was founded and evolved to exemplify how the flexible and adaptable nature of houses of Augustinian canons made them so attractive to donors and patrons in the fourteenth century. Roger Beler, from Lincolnshire, began his career in the service of Thomas of Lancaster. Although he represented the earl of Lancaster in the final days of the York parliament from 22 November to 9 December 1318, his eventual abandonment of the Lancastrian camp was a decision from which he profited greatly.83 Following the earl of Lancaster’s defeat at Boroughbridge, until May 1322, Beler was granted control of all Lancaster’s lands in Leicestershire, Staffordshire, and Derbyshire.84 As he was also one of the chief auditors of the profits of confiscated lands, he was able to operate with an almost completely free hand.85 His loyalty to Edward II and perhaps more importantly the younger Hugh Despenser — whose attorney he was — was further rewarded in the summer, when on 20 July he was made a baron of the Exchequer.86 His hegemony would almost certainly have continued until Edward II’s deposition were it not for his murder

82

For more on this, see C. Burgess, ‘An Institution for all Seasons: The Late Medieval English College’, in The Late Medieval English College and its Context, ed. by C. Burgess and M. Heale (Woodbridge: York Medieval Press, 2008), pp. 3–27. 83 J. R. Maddicott, Thomas of Lancaster, 1307–1322: A Study in the Reign of Edward II (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970), p. 229; R . M. Haines, King Edward II (London: McGillQueen’s University Press, 2003), p. 114. 84

CPR: Edward II, III, 299. J. Röhrkasten, ‘Beler, Sir Roger (d. 1326)’, ODNB, IV , 886. On 21 June 1321 the King pardoned him of a large debt. CPR: Edward II, IV , 161. Röhrkasten, ‘Beler, Sir Roger’, p. 886. 85

Haines, King Edward II, p. 165.

86

CPR: Edward II, IV , 182, 189.

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on 19 January 1326 by three members of the subsequently infamous Folville family.87 While the reasons for their attack on him are unknown, it seems that Beler was unpopular with his Leicestershire neighbours and had threatened the Folvilles at some point.88 In his initial mortmain licence from 1316 and in the statutes for his chantry founded in the chapel of St Peter, Kirby [Kirby Bellars], Leicestershire, Roger Beler stipulated that the first chaplain, William Spigurnel, was to be responsible for finding another to serve with him.89 From the statutes we are able to see the specific prayers which Roger wished his chaplains to say for him and his family. He wished for them to keep the canonical hours and sing the office of the Virgin Mary, the seven penitential psalms before mass, and the Placebo and Dirige before vespers. Additionally, throughout each week, the masses of St John the Baptist, St John the Evangelist, St Peter, and on every Sunday the mass of the Virgin Mary, were to be said.90 Despite his apparently poor relations with others in Leicestershire, Beler wished for his chapel to provide some spiritual assistance to those who lived near it, as ‘the parishioners who dwell about the chapel are at no small distance from the parish church, so that it is with difficulty that on ordinary days they are able to hear their masses in the same church’. Therefore, he stipulated that the ‘warden shall take advantage of the hour at which most of the dwellers in the neighbourhood and of the passers-by should in his opinion be at their mass, and he shall celebrate at such an hour’.91As an additional act of charity, on the Annunciation each year, the chaplains were to give 150 farthings of bread to the local poor.92 He completed the statutes by listing the books and vestments he was giving to his church, including two gold missals, a ‘great’ two-volume breviary with the psalms in each volume, another ‘good’ breviary, and a legend of the seasons and of saints’ lives.93 Three years later, at the same time as he was first entering royal service, Roger Beler began to transform his chantry into something more grand and befitting of a man of his ambitions. In May 1319 he was granted a licence to alienate £20 worth

87

Röhrkasten, ‘Beler, Sir Roger’, p. 886.

88

E. L. G. Stones, ‘The Folvilles of Ashby–Folville, Leicestershire, and their Associates in Crime’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser., 7 (1957), 119. 89

CPR: Edward II, II: 1313–17 (1898), 438.

90

Thompson, ‘The Chapel of St Peter at Kirby-upon-Wreak’, p. 158.

91

Thompson, ‘The Chapel of St Peter at Kirby-upon-Wreak’, p. 158.

92

Thompson, ‘The Chapel of St Peter at Kirby-upon-Wreak’, pp. 158, 160.

93

Thompson, ‘The Chapel of St Peter at Kirby-upon-Wreak’, p. 161.

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of lands and rents to the chantry and also secured various liberties exempting them from both royal and clerical taxation.94 These grants were made in anticipation of the expansion of the chantry, a plan the founder enacted on 31 August. Along with the warden, there were now to be twelve other perpetual chaplains, ‘for the increase of divine worship’.95 These chaplains were to keep the same hours and say the same prayers as were stipulated in the original charter, but they were to live a communal life — living, eating, and sleeping together.96 They were to follow the customs for the saying of the masses and canonical hours as were in use at Salisbury Cathedral, which was becoming the standard for most colleges by this point.97 As for their appearance, he wished them all to wear a ‘decent round tonsure’, a black mantle with a white key sewn on the left side, a surplice, and a black cope, ‘after the manner of vicars of cathedral churches’.98 With these ordinances, it seems that, by 1319, Roger Beler wished for the chaplains in his developing college to live a life somewhere in between those of secular and regular canons. Indeed, in the papal confirmation of the foundation of the college, Beler’s customs were referred to as a ‘rule’.99 On the same day as the foundation of the college, the original ordinances were inspected and confirmed by a host of notable witnesses at Kirby, including William de Brackeleye, abbot of the nearby Premonstratensian house of Croxton, a local knight, Sir John Hamelin, as well as members of the Brabazon and Bereford families.100

94

CPR: Edward II, III, 333, 340.

95

Thompson, ‘The Chapel of St Peter at Kirby-upon-Wreak’, p. 168; Lincoln, Lincolnshire Archives (hereafter LArch), Episcopal Register of Bishop John Dalderby, fol. 340r. 96

Thompson, ‘The Chapel of St Peter at Kirby-upon-Wreak’, p. 173; LArch, Episcopal Register of Bishop John Dalderby, fol. 341r; Thompson, ‘The Chapel of St Peter at Kirby-uponWreak’, p. 177; LArch, Episcopal Register of Bishop John Dalderby, fol. 343r. 97

Thompson, ‘The Chapel of St Peter at Kirby-upon-Wreak,’ p. 180; LArch, Episcopal Register of Bishop John Dalderby, fol. 342r. 98 Thompson, ‘The Chapel of St Peter at Kirby-upon-Wreak’, p. 176; LArch, Episcopal Register of Bishop John Dalderby, fol. 342v . 99

CPL, II, 232.

100

CPR: Edward II, III, 392. William Brabazoun [sic] and Simon de Bereford, both of whom are listed as knights. I have otherwise been unable to trace their relation to the royal justices Roger Brabazon (d. 1317) and William Bereford (d. 1326). Over the next few years, as his favour with the King and the Despensers increased, Roger Beler continued to alienate lands to the chaplains at Kirby: CPR: Edward II, IV , 218, 356; CPR: Edward II, V : 1324–27 (1904), pp. 42, 118, 158; CPR: Edward II, IV , 355.

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The transformation of Kirby Bellars from a chantry to a college and finally to a priory is worth some reflection. While we may only very tentatively surmise the desires of Roger Beler, it seems very likely that had he not been murdered, Kirby Bellars would have been turned into a house of Augustinian canons earlier than it was. While Roger was more conscientious than most founders and patrons of religious houses in the fourteenth century, even this did not guarantee the spiritual stability of his college, which would have seventy-four different institutions to its thirteen stalls between 1319 and 1357. The records of institutions contained in the register of Bishop Burghersh of Lincoln reveal a good deal about those who staffed the college at Kirby Bellars. On 2 September 1319 at Stow Park, Bishop Burghersh instituted the full complement of thirteen canons, including the original warden, William Spigurnel.101 However, just over a year later, William de Rakedale, the occupant of the second stall on the right side of the choir, became the first of a great number of resignations and changes at the college.102 While twenty of the vacancies were caused by death, thirty-four were because of simple resignation. Four institutions were made because of an exchange with another religious house, while for the other sixteen no reason is listed.103 Some individuals, such as Thomas de Malthorpe and John Herlewyn only remained at Kirby Bellars for a matter of months.104 Of the twelve stalls, excluding that of the warden, each changed hands an average of more than seven times between 1319 and 1357.105 The reasons for the wanderlust of the secular canons of Kirby Bellars are difficult to ascertain. While Roger Beler provided for the canons, giving them 5½ marks yearly, perhaps some of the canons who passed through Kirby Bellars were able to find better-paying, and less rigorous, positions elsewhere, especially in the wake of the Black Death.106 Such continual changing of canons was not conducive to providing an unbroken cycle of masses, and was not to the satisfaction of Roger Beler’s widow, son, or the Bishop of Lincoln. Therefore in 1359 Bishop John Gynwell, at the

101

Thompson, ‘The Chapel of St Peter at Kirby-upon-Wreak’, pp. 194–206.

102

The Registers of Bishop Henry Burghersh, 1320–1342, ed. by N. Bennett, Publications of the Lincoln Record Society, 87 and 90, 2 vols (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1999–2003), I, 105, n. 826. 103

Thompson, ‘The Chapel of St Peter at Kirby-upon-Wreak’, pp. 194–206.

104

Thompson, ‘The Chapel of St Peter at Kirby-upon-Wreak’, pp. 111–12, 200.

105

The author’s own calculations. This number would certainly have been higher were it not that the sixth stall on the left of the choir was left vacant from the spring of 1326 onwards. Thompson, ‘The Chapel of St Peter at Kirby-upon-Wreak’, p. 206. 106

Thompson, ‘The Chapel of St Peter at Kirby-upon-Wreak’, p. 173.

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request of Alice and Roger II Beler, turned this house of secular canons into one of Augustinian canons. The problems that the constant migration of canons had caused over the years are listed in the foundation charter and are worth quoting at length as an example of the contemporary opinion of secular versus regular canons: Since verily most certain information has on many occasions been received by us, that the chantry of Kirkeby super Wrethek, […] founded under the names of a warden and secular priests twelve in number, by reason of their frequent changings and sudden migration, their long wanderings abroad and voluntary retirements, and now by the scarceness of suitable priests, who cannot easily be found up to the said number, and for several other reasons, has never attained the perfection of its institution, nor it is believed will attain it in future, while it happens to be governed by such priests: We, being therefore willing, to the praise and honour of God, […] to make favourable provision for the indemnity of the said chapel, and considering that the said chapel will be more perfectly and profitably governed by men of religion who specially imitate the life of Christ and the apostolic church, and that divine worship will receive more praiseworthy increase, especially seeing as they will thus be unable to migrate or change their place or to depart […] and also that less expense will serve to suffice for them than at the present time would be agreeable to secular chaplains, and that this was the final intention and express will of the first founder, which, being prevented by death, he was unable to fulfil, […] decree that the aforesaid chapel, henceforth to be named under the name of a priory, shall be governed henceforward by regular canons.107

The six priests who were still in residence at Kirby Bellars were therefore removed and the house and all of its possessions were handed over to Roger of Cotes and Roger of Seusterne, canons of the nearby abbey of Owston. The adaptation of the college into a priory succeeded in finally bringing stability to Kirby Bellars. During his visitation in November 1440 Bishop Alnwick recorded that there was the full complement of thirteen canons and that he ‘found therein, albeit few things that were grievous, yet some things worthy of reform’.108 Judging by his ordinances from 1319 Roger Beler wished for the secular canons at Kirby Bellars to live a strict communal life, yet they were apparently reluctant to do so. It may have been a desire for direct control over his foundation that first led him to establish a college rather than a priory; however, whereas the Augustinian canons had a vague rule binding them to the house, a community of secular canons had none. Therefore, while Beler could shape the religious observances

107

Italics are my own. Thompson, ‘The Chapel of St Peter at Kirby-upon-Wreak’, pp. 207–08; LArch, Episcopal Register of Bishop John Gynwell, fol. 372v. 108

Records of Visitation held by William Alnwick, Bishop of Lincoln, 1436–1449, ed. by A. Hamilton Thompson, Publications of the Lincoln Record Society, 14 (Horncastle: Lincoln Record Society, 1918), p. 167.

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of his college to whatever form he wished, there was little way of compelling these secular canons to remain at Kirby Bellars, as there would be for regular canons. The evolution of Kirby Bellars shows us how the Augustinian canons struck the balance between having a rule which could be flexible enough to fulfil the specific desires of their patrons, while still retaining enough structure to guarantee spiritual stability and perpetual commemoration. It is not only the establishment of these new houses of Augustinians which reveals their widespread popularity, but also the very large number of smaller donations made by members of the nobility and gentry across England. Out of 431 donations examined between 1283 and 1407, 117 were to houses of Augustinian canons, meaning that the canons were receiving over a quarter of all the grants made to religious houses. The full extent of devotion to the Augustinian canons by members of the gentry and nobility is far too great to discuss fully here, but that makes it all the more surprising that they have been predominantly ignored in secondary scholarship until recently.109 While the problems of the sources, and lack thereof, are partially to blame for this, the critical views of scholars such as Knowles and Pantin seem to have influenced a whole generation of historians.110 While Christopher Brooke implied that by the fourteenth century there was little difference between monks and regular canons, as we have seen, it was clearly the subtle variations between the two that made all the difference for fourteenthcentury patrons.111 It was the Augustinian canons’ ability to balance their own rule with the desires of their patrons that made them so well suited to fulfil their intercessory needs. Apart from this malleability, perhaps their greatest appeal was the fact that as they were priests, each member of the house was capable of performing masses, whereas most monks were not. Every evil act had to be balanced by some form of atonement, and the Augustinian canons provided atonement on a budget. The donation of an advowson worth £10 was enough to provide for one canon to say masses forever.112 It was not only lesser members of the nobility and gentry in this period who sought masses from the Augustinian canons, but also those from old families on the rise. The profits from royal service 109

But note Stöber, Late Medieval Monasteries and their Patrons; see also St John, ‘The Religiosity of English Men-at-Arms’, pp. 132–74. 110

Knowles’s views have been discussed above, whereas W. A. Pantin makes little mention of the canons in The English Church in the Fourteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1955). 111

Brooke, The Age of the Cloister, pp. 164–65.

112

Hanna, ‘Augustinian Canons and Middle English Literature’, p. 28.

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brought new lands and income to men such as Roger Beler, Thomas Wake, Richard Talbot, William Montagu, and William Clinton. With their changing roles, such as Wake’s significant involvement in Scotland, or simply changing preferences, such as William Montagu’s for Bisham, old family seats of power were being left for new ones. These men wanted Kirby Bellars, Haltemprice, Bisham, Maxstoke, and Flanesford to be manifestations of both noble and religious grandeur. With the possibility of building Augustinian priories close to their homes, these men could display not only their profits of war and administration, but also grand familial centres of atonement. The flexibility of the Augustinian rule allowed them to balance their desires for both wealth and heaven.

K INSHIP, L OCALITY, AND B ENEFACTION : T HE U PPINGTON H EIRESSES AND THE P RIORY OF W OMBRIDGE IN T HIRTEENTH-C ENTURY SHROPSHIRE Emma Cavell

O

ne of the principal difficulties in studying the lesser nobility of medieval England is the paucity of the source material, only partially resolved, as Susan Johns noted, ‘where sequential or near-sequential copies of charters by the same grantors or their families exist’.1It is fortunate, therefore, that there survives a cartulary of the Augustinian priory of Wombridge in eastern central Shropshire which contains just such a sequence of charters relating to one modest knightly family from the county: the Mussons of Uppington near the modern-day Wrekin. Less fortunately perhaps, the charters in question survive only as scribal fair copies dating from around 1500 and belonging to a single volume, evidently created during the ascendancy of the energetic Thomas Forster (d. 1520) as prior of Wombridge.2 Despite the obvious disadvantages attached to 1

S. M. Johns, Noblewomen, Aristocracy and Power in the Twelfth-Century Anglo-Norman Realm (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003), p. 153. 2 The Cartulary of Wombridge Priory (hereafter Wombr. Cart.) is found in London, British Library (hereafter BL), MS Egerton 3712. Forster’s name appears on fols 1r and 97v. Segments of what may have been a version of the Egerton MS belong to Stafford, Staffordshire Record Office (hereafter SRO), MS D593, while abstracts of the Egerton cartulary are printed in Transactions of the Shropshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, 1st ser., 9 (1886), 305–80; 11 (1888), 325–48; 2nd ser., 1 (1889), 294–310; 9 (1897), 96–106; 10 (1898), 180–92, 331–46; 12 (1900), 205–28. I have located only one original charter pertaining to the priory’s possessions: a grant, c. 1245, of Hywel ap Gruffudd de Sutton from lands held of William Dodd (Shrewsbury: Shropshire Archives, Free Public Library Collection, 6000/399; and see Wombr. Cart., fol. 5v, no. 19).

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scribal reproduction, this rich but little-tapped resource3 contains over two hundred charters relating to the Mussons and their descendants — a family remarkable for its robust female progeny over successive generations. This paper explores the relationship between the daughters and descendants of Sir Roger Musson (d. c. 1191) and the small Augustinian priory of Wombridge during the long thirteenth century. The house of black canons, established in a remote clearing in Hadley Wood in the 1130s and dedicated to the Virgin Mary and St Leonard, was probably the second Augustinian community in the county after that at Haughmond, and it was a far humbler affair. Endowed by the FitzAlan vassal William de Hadley (d. c. 1136), his wife Seburga Peverel, and their son Alan, the original community owed much to the input of the lady Seburga, the illegitimate daughter of Hamon Peverel: it was Seburga’s own extensive lands in the fee of Hadley, granted to her by her father, which furnished the resources for the foundation and subsequent grants, and she maintained an interest in the canons in widowhood.4 Although by 1194 the formal patronage of Wombridge Priory had passed to the Corbet family of Taseley, the web of kinship and connection embracing the original Hadley-Peverel union drew others into a quasiobligational relationship with the priory that at once sustained the canons and

3

With two notable exceptions: R . W. Eyton, Antiquities of Shropshire, 12 vols (London: Smith, 1854–60), esp. II (1855), 151–94, and A. Abram, ‘The Augustinian Priory of Wombridge and its Benefactors in the Later Middle Ages’, in Monasteries and Society in the British Isles in the Later Middle Ages, ed. by J. Burton and K. Stöber, Studies in the History of Medieval Religion, 35 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2008). 4 Evidence of the original endowment survives in FitzAlan’s confirmation charter of c. 1130–36: Wombr. Cart., fol. 78r, no. 8, and Eyton, Antiquities of Shropshire, VII (1858), 363–73 (p. 363). Further confirmations were issued by Henry II (1181) and Urban III (1187): Wombr. Cart., fol. 79r , no. 1 and fols 84v –85r , no. 4; London, BL, MS Harley 3868 (register of Lichfield Cathedral), fol. 5r . A comprehensive inspeximus of 1319 is printed in William Dugdale, Monasticon anglicanum, ed. by J. Caley, H. Ellis, and B. Bandinel (hereafter Monasticon), 6 vols (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, 1817–30), VI, pt I (1830), 388 (and see Calendar of Charter Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office, 6 vols (hereafter CChR) (London: HMSO, 1903–27), III: Edward I, Edward II, AD 1300–1326, ed. by C. G. Crump (1908), pp. 404–06. For further papal bulls, episcopal and archiepiscopal confirmation charters, and royal endorsements, see Wombr. Cart., fols 79r–93v and SRO, MS D593. See also Eyton, Antiquities of Shropshire, VII, 363–73; G. C. Baugh and D. C. Cox, Monastic Shropshire (Shrewsbury: Shropshire Libraries, 1982; repr. 1988), pp. 17–24; VCH: Shropshire, ed. by W. Page and others, 6 vols to date (London: Constable, 1907–), II, ed. by A. T. Gaydon (London: Oxford University Press, 1973), pp. 80–83; Abram, ‘Wombridge and its Benefactors’, esp. pp 83–85. For Seburga’s connection, see Wombr. Cart., fol 76 v (no. 5); fol. 91v (no. 12); Eyton, Antiquities of Shropshire, VII, 363.

Insert Graph 1 (end of this file) broadside on this page

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Graph 1. Genealogy of the Musson family.

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Graph 1 (Continued).

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catered to the donors’ needs.5 Among the most prominent of these donors was the Musson family.

The Mussons and their Kin The remarkable, female-rich family of Musson of Uppington first comes to light in the records of the latter half of the twelfth century, when its founder and patriarch Sir Roger Musson appears as vassal of William FitzAlan II (d. 1215), a servant of the Crown, and a Shropshire landholder.6 He was married to a woman named Galiena, whose own origins are obscure, but who may have been the daughter of another local knight. Around 1175, as a reward for his services, Sir Roger Musson was enfeoffed by Henry II in the central-Shropshire manor of Uppington in place of its former lord Hamon Peverel, who had died in 1136 without legitimate issue.7 As part of the same grant Musson also received a 50solidate parcel of land in the former Peverel holding at Harrington, a member of the large Domesday manor of Sutton in eastern-most Shropshire.8 For the two holdings together Musson was to render yearly to his royal suzerain one sore sparrowhawk — a juvenile hunting bird presumably reared in the hawk-eyries of his new caput manor. Lying in the shadow of Mount Gilbert, now known as ‘the Wrekin’, the manor of Uppington was located at the southern flank of Shropshire’s lowland plain, on fertile ground and a mile or so north-east of the ancient Roman township of Wroxeter. Once held by the powerful Saxon earl, Godwin of Wessex, Uppington contained two geldable hides in 1086, extensive demesne arable, a league of woodland, and a hedged enclosure; it was worth 35s. a year, having been rescued 5 Cecily, daughter and sole heir of Alan de Hadley and granddaughter of William de Hadley and Seburga Peverel, married Roger Corbet I of Tasley: Kew (London), The National Archives (hereafter TNA), C(ommon) P(leas) 25/1/193/4, no. 34; Eyton, Antiquities of Shropshire, I, 86–101; VII, 355. 6 Monasticon, V , 359; see the pipe rolls by regnal year, in the Great Rolls of the Pipe (Henry II, Richard I, John & Henry III) (hereafter cited as PR), Publications of the Pipe Roll Society, 38 vols (London: Pipe Roll Society, 1884–1929), 8 Hen. II, p. 16; 16 Hen. II, pp. 55, 154; 19 Hen. II, p. 108; 22 Hen. II, pp. 165, 219; 23 Hen. II, p. 140; 24 Hen. II, pp. 97, 98; 25 Hen. II, pp. 97, 98; 26 Hen. II, p. 12; 27 Hen. II, p. 115; 28 Hen. II, pp. 32, 33; 29 Hen. II, pp. 96, 97; 30 Hen. II, p. 67; 31 Hen. I, pp. 128, 164, 165; 33 Hen. II, p. 149; 34 Hen. II, p. 47; 2 Ric. I, p. 126. 7 Wombr. Cart., fol. 36r, no. 216. 8 Sir Roger already had some acquaintance with the manor of Sutton Maddock, PR, 12 Hen. II, p. 59.

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from waste by its first Norman lord, Gerard de Tournai.9 This was clearly the lordship with which Sir Roger Musson identified himself, and proudly so, for his seal is said to have borne the image of a hawk in reference to the serjeanty tenure granted to him by the King.10 On Musson’s death around the year 1191, his prized manor of Uppington, and his other estates, fractured among his widow and nine daughters, the co-heiresses to his recently formed lordship. Sir Roger’s nine daughters — Aline, Sybil, Petronilla, Eleanor, Denise, Alice, Isabel, Isolde (also known as Cecily), and Gillian — are themselves fascinating, if rather enigmatic, thirteenth-century women. That two should have acquired alternative names during their careers is curious: the sobriquet ‘Medusa’, applied to one of the sisters, was perhaps a childhood nickname referring to unruly hair;11 Isolde may have been so labelled in deference to the legend of Tristan and Isolde, which enjoyed widespread popularity in early thirteenth-century Britain, only to revert to Cecily in adulthood. But such speculation is beyond the scope of the present paper. Most, if not all, of the nine sisters were evidently either already widowed or altogether unmarried when their father died, for in 1191 their mother fined 100s. with the chancellor ‘for licence to marry her daughters to whomsoever she should wish’ (pro licentia maritandi filias suas quibus voluerit).12 Although Galiena had discharged the last part of this debt in 1194, on Richard I’s return from captivity that same year she fined a further 5 marks for having possession of land, presumably her dower, in Uppington (Oppinton), Harrington (Addinton), and Hill Wootton (Wutton and Hulle), and for the right to the marriages of her nine daughters.13 The widowed Galiena Musson wasted no time in putting her royal licences into effect. Around 1195 she made a grant to Wombridge Priory which was witnessed by, among others, her brother-in-law Gilbert Musson, and two men, Alexander Fisher (Piscator) of Newport (Novo Burgo) and Richard de Chatsall (Chesthull), who were not only neighbouring Shropshire landholders but also her sons-in-

9

DB: Shropshire, 4, 23, 2. A damage report was filed in 1346 when Musson’s seal was dropped and broken: Wombr. Cart., fol. 35v , no. 215. See also Eyton, Antiquities of Shropshire, VIII, 155. 11 The question of which of Sir Roger Musson’s daughters was periodically referred to as ‘Medusa’ is a mystery which even Eyton declined to ‘hazard a guess or enter on an argument’: Eyton, Antiquities of Shropshire, VIII, 190. However, circumstantial evidence and the balance of probability suggest to me that ‘Medusa’ was Eleanor Musson. 12 PR, 3 and 4 Ric. I, p. 80. 13 PR, 7 Ric. I, p. 246. This debt she discharged before Michaelmas 1195. 10

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law.14A third son-in-law, Roger Bossard of Bourton and Pulley, already had two infant daughters when he died around Easter 1194.15 By 1211 the serjeanty of Uppington was sustained by nine different men, including three who were second husbands to certain of the Musson sisters.16 Of the nine daughters and coheiresses of Roger Musson, six — Aline, Petronilla, Sybil, Eleanor, Alice, and Isabel — married only once; Denise, Isolde (or Cecily), and Gillian married twice. As far as it is possible to tell, each of the women took husbands from the immediate locality, whose own estates lay in and around northern and central Shropshire. As we shall see, each woman carried her active association with the nearby priory of Wombridge through one or two marriages and, in several cases, into periods of widowhood as well. Six of the nine sisters produced male heirs to inherit their ninth portions of the Musson patrimony intact: Aline, probably the eldest, married Hugh de Beckbury (d. 1226) and had two sons, John and Hugh, and a daughter Amabel; Petronilla was the wife of Alexander de Newport (occ. 1195–1211) and her heir was Roger de Newport; Sybil was married to Richard de Bridgnorth (d. before 1236) and had a number of sons; Alice married Adam de Charlton senior (d. before 1225) and produced Adam de Charlton junior; Gillian married twice, having a son, Reginald Corbrond, from her first marriage; Isolde-Cecily who married first a landholder from Alveley in south-eastern Shropshire (d. before 1202)17 and second William Marshal (d. c. 1244), had a son with the former. For the remaining three sisters, however, it was an different story: Eleanor and her husband, Robert de Lostford (d. before 1221), had a son, William, who seems to have pre-deceased his mother, and at least four surviving daughters — Denise (alias Dimota?),18 Alice, Sybil, and Isabel — while Denise Musson and her first husband, Roger Bossard, had two daughters: Isabel and Alice. Their sister Isabel Musson, whose first husband was Richard de Chatsall (d. before 1218), seems to have been followed to the grave around 1223 by both her sons, Roger and John, 14

Wombr. Cart., fol. 51v , no 5; Liber feodorum: The Book of Fees Commonly Called Testa de Nevill, 3 vols (London: HMSO, 1920–31), I: 1198–1242 (1920), p. 145. 15 PR, 6 Ric. I, p. 5; 7 Ric. I, pp. 42, 246. 16 Rotuli Hundredorum, temp. Henry III and Edward I, ed. by W. Illingworth, 2 vols (London: Record Commission, 1812–18), II, 56. 17 The man’s surname was Dodd, but his Christian name is not known. 18 Dimota appears only in one document (Wombr. Cart., fol. 29r , no. 177), where she is said to be the eldest daughter of Eleanor Musson. Her absence from other documents and the curious form of her name, which may well be a diminutive of Dionisia, makes it possible that she and Denise were one and the same. Cf. Eyton, Antiquities of Shropshire, VIII, 169.

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leaving three daughters to share her estates: Isabel, Petronilla, and Mabel. Neither Denise nor Isabel appears to have produced offspring during their second marriage. Female progeny born to subsequent generations of the original nuclear family helped further to dismantle Uppington through co-inheritance or the provision of intra-familial settlements. While six of the nine Musson sisters produced descendants that survived in the male line past the year 1300, for the other three, as we have seen, remarkable genetic inheritance encouraged the birth and robust health of multiple female offspring. Thus some nine of Sir Roger’s known granddaughters — ‘Dimota’, Alice, Sybil, and Isabel de Lostford (daughters of Eleanor Musson); Isabel and Alice Bossard (daughters of Denise Musson); and Isabel, Petronilla, and Mabel de Chatsall (daughters of Isabel Musson) — were coheiresses at birth, or ultimately became co-heiresses on the death of the nearest male heir. Another granddaughter, Amabel, the non-inheriting or ‘ordinary’ daughter of Aline Musson and Hugh de Beckbury, received a marriage portion of three nooks within Uppington township carved out of her mother’s inheritance.19 To such an extent did the balance of power in Uppington shift during the course of the thirteenth century that by 1292 only three, possibly four, hereditary descendants of the nine Musson sisters still had any interest in the lordship. By this time, too, the bishop of Bath and Wells, Robert Burnel, had been installed over the top of the co-parceners: in 1286 he had been granted the seigneury of Uppington by Edward I and thereby took direct responsibility for the sparrowhawk serjeanty, receiving thenceforth a money rent from each of his undertenants.20 By the close of the century the lordship of Uppington can have contributed scarcely anything to the socio-economic status of those of Sir Roger Musson’s descendants who still held land there.

A Relationship with Wombridge The Musson family’s close association with Wombridge Priory had its inception around the year 1189 with two contemporaneous grants by Sir Roger Musson, who thereby ‘assumed responsibility for the alms and obligations of the family whose former lands he had received from the king’ — the Peverels.21 One of Sir Roger’s two gifts, issued for the spiritual health of his late suzerain Henry II, and for his

19

Womb. Cart., fol. 16v , no. 107. Eyton, Antiquities of Shropshire, VIII, 157–59. 21 VCH: Shropshire, II, 80. 20

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own and his wife’s souls, comprised the advowson of the chapel of Uppington ‘as that which is of my demesne and table (sicut dominii et mense mee)’.22 The other, given for his own salvation and that of his wife Galiena, encompassed all his waste and woodland or scrub (nemorosa) in Wichley within Uppington manor.23 The witnesses to Musson’s two charters included county notables like Walter de Dunstanville, a benefactor of the priory and lord of the neighbouring Shropshire manor of Shifnal, and William de Hadley II, lord of Hadley and Ercall and a grandson to the late Hamon Peverel, Musson’s predecessor in Uppington and Harrington.24 Sir Roger’s brother Gilbert also appears among the witnesses to both charters. When Musson died a short time later, his widow Galiena and their nine daughters stepped into the breach. In 1195, presumably with her daughters’ consent, Galiena donated to Wombridge Priory her half-virgate of dower land in Harrington, for her own salvation and that of her late husband, her father and mother, and all her ancestors and successors.25 Besides her brother-in-law, Gilbert Musson, and her two sons-in-law, Alexander de Newport and Richard de Chatsall, Galiena’s charter was attested by Uppington’s newly appointed chaplain Ernald, and by a number of neighbouring landholders. Within around five years of their mother’s grant, several of Roger Musson’s daughters, together with their husbands, had begun issuing the first of their charters to Wombridge Priory. There are over forty separate deeds detailing the Musson sisters’ participation in the endowment of Wombridge Priory, and which show the heiresses to have acted variously as sole donors, co-grantors with their husbands, or consenters to gifts and confirmations made by family members. Around the year 1200, and before the same set of witnesses, sisters Aline and Petronilla Musson and their respective husbands, Hugh de Beckbury and Alexander de Newport, issued four near-identical charters to Wombridge, each conveying the individual donor’s interests in Wichley.26 Each of the four charters was issued for the spiritual health of the donor, the donor’s spouse, and the donor’s ancestors and successors, and all four documents reserved an annual rent of 12d. on the land in question, presumably to be paid to the donors by the priory. Although the transaction itself

22

Wombr. Cart., fol. 35v , no. 213. Wombr. Cart., fol. 29v , no. 180. 24 Hadley was a younger son of Peverel’s illegitimate daughter, Seburga, and her husband William de Hadley senior. 25 Wombr. Cart., fol. 51v , no 5. 26 Wombr. Cart., fols 10r, no 59; 11 v, nos 69–71; 13v, no. 82; 30r, no. 185. 23

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appears to have been a confirmation of the gift granted by the women’s late father in c. 1189, the requirement of rent on the land had not been part of Sir Roger’s original donation. For their part, concerned to forestall any argument over their right to Wichley, the Wombridge canons probably urged the production of separate charters by husband and wife as an extra security measure. The land at Wichley was highly prized by the Wombridge canons, who were at that time ‘determinedly assarting round their granges’, Wichley included, and who had begun to erect new buildings on the site by 1220, if not earlier.27 Over two decades from around 1200 the priory received at least twenty-five separate charters relating to Wichley alone, as at least eight of the nine sisters, in widowhood or with husbands, relinquished their interests there or repeated their earlier transactions. Around 1220, as the last of the couples had begun confirming or bolstering the canons’ rights in Wichley, Aline and Hugh de Beckbury reissued their original charters in much the same form as twenty years earlier; only this time there was no mention of that 12d. rent.28 Each of the Wichley deeds was of a similar tenor to those first issued by Aline and Petronilla and their husbands at the turn of the century; several also required an annual 12d. rent from the canons;29 and the majority besought spiritual reward for the donor and his or her kin.30 The correlation of the witness lists on certain of these charters suggests that multiple deeds might be issued in ‘job lots’, as donors and recipients gathered together on a single occasion to conduct their business. So important was Wichley grange to Wombridge Priory, in fact, that the canons were prepared to assign Sybil Musson and her husband an equivalent parcel of land in Uppington manor proper to secure the couple’s portion of Wichley, and to present Alice Musson and her husband with a half-virgate in Harrington for theirs.31 Besides Wichley, the Musson sisters and their husbands also concurred in releasing still more of their inheritance in Uppington to Wombridge Priory during the first half of the thirteenth century. Between 1220 and the 1240s, the canons secured extensive shares in Uppington mill and animal enclosure (vivarium), in the 27

VCH: Shropshire, II, 83. Wombr. Cart., fol. 11v , nos 69–70. 29 Wombr. Cart., fols 10r, no. 57; 14r, no. 87; 27v, no. 170; 30r, no. 184; 30v , no. 187. 30 Wombr. Cart., fols 9r, nos 48–50; 9v nos 51, 53–54; 10r, nos 55–57, 59; 11v , nos 69, 70–71; 13v, no. 82; 14 r , nos 87–88; 16v, no. 104; 26r, no. 160; 27r, nos 168–70; 28r, no. 173; 30r, nos 184–86; 30v , nos 187, 189; 31r, no. 190; 33v , nos 225–26. 31 Wombr. Cart., fols 9r, no. 50; 9v , no. 51; 10r, no. 55. Cf. fol. 10r, no. 56. The half-virgate received by the Cherletons was that given in frankalmoign around 1195 by Roger Musson’s widow, Galiena: Wombr. Cart., fol. 51v , no. 5. 28

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meadows, open fields and grazing pastures of the manor, in urban tenements within Uppington township, as well as in the manor’s waste and woodland, where their cultivation was slowly breaking onto the lower slopes of Mount Gilbert.32 At least two of the grants explicitly reserved 4d. per annum on their share of Uppington mill, which was to contribute to the purchase of the king’s sparrowhawk each year.33 Although most, if not all, of the Wichley grants appear to have been confirmations of Sir Roger Musson’s original gift there, at least some of those for Uppington proper offered fresh bequests which brought the donors and their kin additional spiritual benefit and clearly enabled the canons of Wombridge to capitalize further on their relationship with a local family. Before the century was out they had taken complete possession of the ninth shares of Uppington once held by sisters Eleanor and Isolde-Cecily, and much more of the manor besides.34 Moreover, in contrast to the canons’ desire for separate charters from husband and wife where Wichley grange was concerned, for Uppington proper they appear to have been satisfied with single documents in which each couple appeared together, jointly issuing, warranting, and sealing their charters. Three of the Musson sisters, Denise, Isolde-Cecily, and Gillian, lost their first husbands within a few years of marriage, so that their chief involvement with Wombridge Priory came from the period of their second marriages, each of which had taken place by 1203. It was in that very year, as the wife of William de Longner (d. c. 1223), and with the assent of her two daughters from her previous marriage, the would-be heiresses to the interests in question, that Denise Musson issued her Wichley charter in favour of the Wombridge canons.35 Much the same is the case for Gillian, and also for Isolde-Cecily who, with her second spouse, made a series of grants to the priory between 1202 and her death around 1239.36As there is no evidence of earlier bequests by these three women, it seems that, for whatever reason, they only became actively involved with Wombridge Priory during the period of their second marriages. In widowhood, too, Denise Musson and several of her sisters continued their involvement with the priory, issuing both fresh grants and confirmation charters of older transactions. Some time after her husband’s death, Aline Musson issued

32

VCH: Shropshire, II, 81; Eyton, Antiquities of Shropshire, VIII, 193. Wombr. Cart., fols 20r, no. 117; 27v, no. 168. 34 Eyton, Antiquities of Shropshire, VIII, 158, 167, 186. 35 Wombr. Cart., fol. 16v , no. 104. 36 Wombr. Cart., fols 4r , no. 11; 8r , no. 39; 9r , no. 49; 9v , no. 53. Gillian’s grants are at Wombr. Cart., fols 10r, no. 58; 14r, no. 87; 26v , no. 163; 27v , no. 170; 30v , no. 208. (See also fol. 30r, no. 186.) 33

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two further charters to Wombridge Priory re-confirming to the canons her share of Wichley grange and reiterating the release of their interests in the woodland, waste, mill, and animal enclosure of Uppington, this time with the addition of two further acres.37 In the latter charter she reserved 4d. on the mill for the sparrowhawk. Her widowed sister Eleanor, who alone of the nine siblings was not explicitly associated with Wichley grange,38 single-handedly issued thirteen charters to Wombridge Priory between c. 1220 and her death around twenty years later. Together these documents furnished frankalmoign grants and at least one outright sale of her interests in land, woods, meadow, park, and mill, as Eleanor gave the larger part of her ninth share of Uppington and, finally, her earthly remains to Wombridge Priory.39 She too required the 4d. ‘sparrowhawk’ payment on Uppington mill.40 Sybil Musson likewise repeated and augmented earlier grants,41 while Denise was twice-widowed by 1223 when she confirmed her Wichley grant.42 When she died in c. 1241, aged fifty or more, Eleanor Musson was represented not by her son William, who was already dead, but by several daughters who became co-heiresses of her estates, confirmers of her gifts to Wombridge Priory, and perhaps also donors in their own right. By this generation it becomes difficult to differentiate between confirmation and fresh bequest, although spiritual remuneration continued to be requested in certain of the charters, underscoring the donors’ belief in the pious import of their actions. From these women the canons ultimately obtained acknowledgement, if not also augmentation, of Eleanor’s grants, as each relinquished her claim to Uppington, saving only certain rents from subtenants long since established on the land in question.43 In the case of three of the sisters no husbands have been traced. The remaining co-heiress, Isabel, was very much married, however; for she and her husband, Philip fitz

37

Wombr. Cart., fol. 27v , nos 168–69. The mysterious ‘Medusa’ Musson was, however: Wombr. Cart., fols 9v, no. 54; 31r, no. 190; v 33 , no. 203. This is one of the reasons for identifying her with Eleanor, who otherwise appears to be the most frequent donor among the sisters. See above, n. 11. 39 Wombr. Cart., fols 15v , no. 98; 19r , nos 106–07; 19v , nos 108–12; 20r, nos 113–17. 40 Wombr. Cart., fol. 20r, no. 117. This charter was issued between c. 1227 and 1240, probably in the latter part of the period. 41 Wombr. Cart., fols 30v , no. 189; 33v , no. 204. 42 Wombr. Cart., fol. 28r, no. 173. 43 Wombr. Cart., fols 12r, no. 74; 16v , no. 106; 17r , no. 110; 29r, no. 177. 38

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Richard of Huntington in southern Shropshire, were together still giving to Wombridge Priory in 1262.44 Denise Musson was also succeeded around 1227 by co-heiresses, her two daughters Alice and Isabel Bossard, who were similarly engaged in the confirmation and perhaps augmentation of their mother’s grants to Wombridge Priory.45 By c. 1227, when she succeeded to her portion of Uppington, now but a fraction of her grandfather’s prized lordship, Alice Bossard had already lost her second husband, Elias de Bourton.46 So little was left of Denise Musson’s ninth share of Uppington by this time that her daughters’ moieties were valued at only 10s. each,47 and Alice had soon enfeoffed a tenant in all that remained of her demesne there.48 Her sister Isabel had a male heir, but elected to give her land at Uppington to her own daughter, another Alice, to hold for the token annual rent of a pair of gloves, thereby continuing the transmission of her Uppington interest in the female line.49As the wife of a man named Henry Panton in c. 1247, and again as a widow around 1262, Alice daughter of Isabel Bossard issued two charters concerning Uppington township to the priory and so took her place in the intense and enduring relationship with the Wombridge canons that had been established long ago by her great-grandfather.50 Continuing to trace the threads of descent from the nine Musson sisters, one finds members of the fifth generation still giving to Wombridge Priory. As late as 1345 John de Beckbury, a great-grandson of Aline Musson, for the health of his own soul and those of his ancestors and successors, transferred the remainder of his line’s interest in Uppington manor, the rent due from an undertenant, to the 44

Wombr. Cart., fols 7r, no. 32; 7v , no. 34; 14r, no. 89; 15v, no. 97; 26 v, no. 161. Wombr. Cart., fols 4r, no. 12; 13v , no. 85. 46 Wombr. Cart., fol. 24v , no. 150; Liber feodorum, I, 383; Eyton, Antiquities of Shropshire, VI (1858), 176, 207–08; VIII, 172. Alice’s first husband was Thomas, the heir of her guardian Elias de Etchingham. See also Rolls of the Justices in Eyre for Gloucestershire, Warwickshire and [Shropshire] 1221–1222, ed. by Doris M. Stenton, Selden Society, 59 (London: Quaritch, 1940), no. 1261. 47 Liber feodorum, I, 383. 48 Wombr. Cart., fol. 24v , no. 150. The sisters had also inherited land from their father in the central Shropshire manors of Bourton and Pulley: see Eyton, Antiquities of Shropshire, VI, 173–81, 206–13; Pleas before the King or his Justices, 1198–1212, ed. by Doris M. Stenton, Selden Society, 67–68, 83–84, 4 vols (London: Quaritch, 1952–67), III (1967), no. 634; Eyre Rolls for Gloucs., Warwicks., and [Shrops.] 1221–1222, no. 1261; Cart. Haugh., no. 117. 49 Wombr. Cart., fol. 4r, no. 12. The constituent fragments of Uppington and Harrington were perhaps considered ideal for inter vivos grants to women and younger sons: Wombr. Cart., fol. 14r, no . 93; Eyton, Antiquities of Shropshire, II, 133; VIII, 173, 174–81, 189. 50 Wombr. Cart., fols 11v , no. 68; 14r, no. 90. See also Wombr. Cart., fol. 11r, no. 64. 45

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canons of Wombridge Priory.51 Standing witness to John’s charter were his own son John and his grandson Robert, who could thenceforward pretend to no claim whatsoever in their ancestor’s prized lordship.

Some Motivations and Connections It is clear that the relationship between Wombridge Priory and the daughters and descendants of the original donor, Sir Roger Musson, was sustained by the dynamic interplay of genuine pious sentiment, family loyalty, and gritty economic realities, as both sides sought to maximize their own gains or, in the case of the benefactors, to mitigate the financial cost of repeated donation. For the co-heiresses, their husbands, and their descendants, as for Sir Roger himself, the importance of the spiritual returns on their grants of land, buildings, and rents to the Augustinian canons at Wombridge cannot be gainsaid. The spiritual reimbursement of the donor, and his essential role in the salvation of his kin languishing in purgatory, was as important to the local county knight as it was to the great feudal baron. The same considerations presumably informed the choice of pro anima beneficiaries in the bequests of the lesser noble benefactor, albeit within the context of more limited economic and social milieux. That St Leonard (of Noblac) was the patron saint of women in labour surely cannot have gone unnoticed by this (re)productive and female-rich family. The pious bequests of the nine Musson sisters were issued chiefly for the health of their own souls, for the salvation of generalized ‘ancestors’ and ‘successors’, and on occasion for the spiritual well-being of husbands, both living and dead. The men followed suit, seeking salvation chiefly for themselves and for their antecessores and successores, and in several cases also for their living wives, the Uppington coheiresses whose lands sustained the donors’ interaction with the priory. In the charters expedited by husband and wife together and bearing verbs of joint gift, warranty, and sealing, reference is typically to the salvation of the donors themselves and their combined kin. Nor does life cycle appear to have had any significant impact on the women’s choice of pro anima beneficiaries, for apart from the career-dependent commemoration of a deceased husband by a widow, the sisters’ principal focus remained on unnamed ancestors and successors and, of course, on their own spiritual health.

51

Wombr. Cart., fol. 17r, no. 111. See also Eyton, Antiquities of Shropshire, VIII, 161.

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Where pro anima clauses appear in the deeds of subsequent generations of the family — and spiritual requests become increasingly rare in the charters of the later kin — much the same patterning may be detected.52 The sense of partnership between husband and wife in donation and commemoration is perhaps indicative of a more cooperative and ‘hands on’ approach to familio-estate management among the ranks of landholding society to which the Mussons and their descendants belonged. The contrast between the inclusion of the living spouse in the pro anima clauses of the Uppington charters and the findings of Emma Cownie and others that the deceased spouse was far more likely than the living to feature in donors’ spiritual requests is certainly noteworthy.53 However, the passage of time between the Anglo-Norman period and the thirteenth century, and the gradual changes to both the nature of religious benefaction and the status and character of donors, precludes further comment at this stage. More significant is the donors’ evident awareness of the importance of kinship and socio-territorial identity sustaining and promoting their relationship with the local priory. On occasion more explicit spiritual or commemorative requirements were outlined in the Uppington charters, beyond the regular plea for salvation. In 1264 Joan, widow of Hugh de Beckbury II (a younger son of Aline Musson), requested that her name be entered in the martyrology of Wombridge Priory, that special prayers be said for her soul, and that her anniversary be observed.54 Exactly what was intended by entry into confraternity is unclear, and Andrew Abram has demonstrated that the widowed Joan de Beckbury was not the only benefactor of Wombridge Priory to have made special demands on the canons’ intercessory powers; yet Joan’s request, as Abram notes, clearly signals the enduring bond between the community of religious and the family into which she had married.55 Similarly, when in 1245 William Dodd, the son and heir of Isolde-Cecily Musson, acknowledged certain of Prior Baldwin’s rights in Uppington and Wichley, it was written into the agreement that he be received into the prayers of the canons.56 The pious and eleemosynary commitment of several family members to the priory crystallized when they gave their bodies for burial there: at least three of the

52

Wombr. Cart., fol. 7r–v, nos 32, 34; 14r, no. 89; 15v, no. 97. E. Cownie, Religious Patronage in Anglo-Norman England 1066–1135 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1998); E. Mason, ‘The Donors of Westminster Abbey Charters, c. 1066–1240’, Medieval Prosopography, 8th ser., 2 (1987), 23–39. 54 Wombr. Cart., fols 51r–v, nos 3–4. 55 Abram, ‘Wombridge and its Benefactors’, p. 89. 56 Eyton, Antiquities of Shropshire, VIII, 185. 53

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original nine heiresses, along with one husband, one of Sir Roger’s grandsons, and a woman who married into the family at the third generation ( Joan de Beckbury) are known to have made pre mortem arrangements for interment at Wombridge Priory and eternal commemoration by its brethren.57 The funerary arrangements of the Musson kin belonged squarely to that ‘second phase’, identified by David Postles, of monastic burial among lay benefactors, when a wider group of donors sought interment within the precincts of a religious house than had been the case in the previous century, and offered only modest bequest cum corpore to secure their plot.58 Each of the burial requests issued by the Musson kin, including that of the ‘in-law’ Joan de Beckbury, was accompanied by relatively humble offerings carved out of the original Musson patrimony.59 Much later, a great-grandson of Alice Musson also opted for burial at Wombridge Priory, and in his last will and testament, an instrument now replacing the old cum corpore charter of donation, he instructed that his body be interred in the priory cemetery.60 One presumes that he was laid to rest near other members of his family, since interment in the priory cemetery, rather than within the foundation’s walls, seems to have been the default resting place for benefactors of more limited means and whose charters rarely supplied instructions for the disposal of the corpse.61 Despite their limited resources and social standing, the Mussons’ establishment of something like a family mausoleum at Wombridge Priory mirrors the activities of their county superiors like the FitzAlans of Clun and Oswestry, whose own preferred burial location was the family foundation at Haughmond. The Musson sisters and their husbands and descendants were clearly aware not only of their responsibility to the souls of deceased kin and their own safety in the afterlife, but also of the tenurial and kinship connections that sustained their association with Wombridge Priory. While pro anima clauses alone provide only limited expression of the link between donor, kin, and family lands, further insight is offered by the naming patterns used in the donors’ charters. Almost without exception, the nine original co-heiresses appear in their charters of religious 57

Wombr. Cart., fols 8r, no. 39; 9r–v, nos 46 and 52; 20r, no. 113; 26v, no. 161; 28r, no. 173; 51r,

no. 3. 58 D. Postles, ‘Monastic Burials of Non-Patronal Lay Benefactors’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 47 (1996), 620–37 (p. 622). 59 E. Cavell, ‘The Burial of Noblewomen in Thirteenth-Century Shropshire’, in J. Burton, Thirteenth-Century England, XI, ed. by P. Schofield, K. Stöber, and B. Weiler (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2007), p. 182. 60 This was Richard de Bury of Uppington (d. c. 1307). Wombr. Cart., fol. 35r, no. 212. 61 Postles, ‘Monastic Burials of Non-Patronal Lay Benefactors’, p. 634.

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benefaction under their surname Musson62 or — more often — as the daughter of Roger Musson,63 notwithstanding the progression of their life cycles and regardless of whether they are simultaneously identified as the wife or widow of a local landholder.64 Their husbands’ charters, on the other hand, show greater variation and, not unnaturally perhaps, a preference for identification first and foremost by their own territorial or family connections: ‘Hugh lord of Beckbury’, ‘Alexander son of Reginald de Newport’, and ‘Adam de Cherleton’. The Musson sisters are certainly present in their husbands’ charters in some form or other (as consenting to or requesting the grant, and as pro anima beneficiaries), and they are typically identified by their Christian names; but in only two or three cases is the wife’s natal identity actually stated.65 Slightly less explicit is Adam de Cherleton’s acknowledgement that his stake in Uppington comes from his wife ‘Alice’.66 Yet the jure uxoris link is present, by implication at least, in each ‘husband’ charter, and it is possible that its open advertisement was less imperative in light of the prolonged and comprehensive nature of the interaction between family and priory and the existence, in certain cases, of equal and matching charters issued by the heiresses themselves. Such important group activity over more than a century, and involving some of the priory’s most cherished acquisitions, was hardly likely to have been forgotten by the canons, and would have been widely appreciated both within the locality and among the associates of Sir Roger Musson and his descendants. In the subsequent generation, inheriting women engaged in the endowment of Wombridge Priory are once again typically identified according to their relationship to their tenurial predecessor in Uppington — in this case their mothers, the original co-parceners in Uppington manor. The daughters of Eleanor Musson, themselves heiresses following the death of their brother William shortly before 1241, are chiefly identified by their relationship to their 62

For example, Wombr. Cart., fol. 16v, no. 104. For example, Wombr. Cart., fols 8r, no. 39; 9r, nos 46 and 50; 9v, nos 51–54; 10r, no. 58; 14r, nos 87 and 88; 15v , no. 98; 19r, nos 106 and 107; 19v , nos 108, 110, 111, 113; 20r, nos 113–17; 26v, no. 163; 27v, nos 168 and 169; 28r , no. 173; 30r, nos 184 and 185; 30 v, nos 187 and 189; 33 v, nos 203 and 204. 64 For example, Wombr. Cart., fols 9 r , no. 50; 9v, nos 51 and 53; 10r, no. 58; 14r, no. 88; 16v, no. 104; 26v , no. 163; 27v , no. 169; 28r, no. 173; 33v , no. 204. Exceptions to the pattern outlined above include: Wombr. Cart., fols 10r, no. 59; 11v, no. 70; 19 v, no. 109. 65 Wombr. Cart., fols 9r, no. 46; 26r, no. 160. 66 Wombr. Cart., fol. 9r , no. 49; Cf. Wombr. Cart., fol. 10r , no. 56. 63

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mother.67 Only Isabel, married to Philip de Huntingdon at the time of her involvement with Wombridge Priory, does not observe this pattern closely — she appears once as ‘Isabel daughter of Eleanor Musson’, but is otherwise given as ‘Isabel’ or ‘Isabel fitz Eleanor’68 — a fact that raises intriguing questions about the implications of marriage for the status and identity of an heiress. Unfortunately for this investigation, however, Isabel fitz Eleanor’s inheriting female cousins, the daughters of Denise and Isabel Musson, do not appear to have had any involvement with the canons.69 In the latter generations of the family, too, male heirs are sometimes found using the descriptor ‘of Uppington’, either on its own or in addition to their own family name. This is especially remarkable in light of the fact that the portions of Uppington descending through the generations were but tiny fractions of the original lordship. Gillian Musson’s grandson Richard Corbrond is more often than not entitled Richard Corbrond of Uppington — indeed, Gillian’s line still use this descriptor in the reign of Richard II70 — while Alice Musson’s great-grandson features as Richard de Bury of Uppington.71 The Bury surname itself, first used on an occasional basis by Richard’s father William, derives from the location of their principal residence at a site within Uppington known to contemporaries as The Bury.72 Of course, the Wombridge charters’ deliberate emphasis on the Musson surname or the Uppington connection over many generations, particularly in the heiresses’ charters, may equally be the work of the canons or their scribes seeking to underscore the link between donor and gift, rather than the choice of the benefactors themselves; but this possibility is no less illustrative of the importance of kinship and territorial networks to contemporary landed society, or of the role inheritance played in shaping the women’s identity, at least in the eyes of those with whom they associated.

67

Wombr. Cart., fols 12r, no. 74; 16v , no. 106; 17r , no. 110; 29r, no. 177. In contrast, the noninheriting Alice, granddaughter of Denise Musson and widow of Henry Panton, is identified by her father and not her mother, the heiress Isabel Bossard: Wombr. Cart., fol. 14r, no. 90. 68 Wombr. Cart., fols 5r, no. 18; 7 r, no. 32; 7 v, no. 34; 14r, no. 89; 15v, no. 97; fol. 17r, no. 108. 69 In the case of Isabel’s daughters, their late brother Roger had already given their mother’s share of Uppington to their aunt Alice Musson and her husband: Wombr. Cart., fol. 21v, no. 127(ii); Eyton, Antiquities of Shropshire, VIII, 175, 177. 70 Wombr. Cart., fols 4 v, no. 15; 22r, no. 149. 71 For example, Wombr. Cart., fols 5r, no. 17; 12v, no. 77; 13v, no. 5; 16v, no. 103; 26r, no. 156; r 34 , no. 207; 34v, nos 209 and 10; 35r, no. 212. 72 Hence another of William’s appellations — de la Court: Eyton, Antiquities of Shropshire, VIII, 178. See also Wombr. Cart., fols 28r, nos 172, 174; 30v , no. 188; 33v , no. 202.

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Although the spiritual returns anticipated by the Musson sisters and their husbands and descendants are outlined in the charters, the temporal, material aspect of the enduring relationship between religious house and local lay family is striking. At a time when English monastic houses were consolidating their demesnes for cultivation, the Wombridge canons strove tirelessly to protect and augment their acquisitions from the Mussons and their kin through multiple guarantees from all possible claimants over successive generations, and the encouragement of further gift-giving. The female life cycle may also have played a role in influencing the canons’ desire for confirmation of their most important lands, or the urgency with which they sought fresh bequests, as the introduction through marriage of the outside interests of a woman’s husband had the potential to undermine the smooth process of acquisition and confirmation, if not also the stability of their established possessions. The great volume of charters pertaining to the manor of Uppington, many of them confirmations or repeat issues, and the fact that several individual and joint donors were held to account by pledges or bonds, attest to the economic and legalized aspects of the relationship between the Wombridge canons and the daughters and descendants of Sir Roger Musson. In the early 1220s, Sybil Musson bound herself and her heirs by a penalty of 20 marks to observe a deed confirming both her Wichley release and an exchange she and her husband had made with the canons.73 During the same interval, her sister Eleanor was similarly bound by a 40 mark penalty to observe a comprehensive grant of all she had in Uppington, although this transaction appears ultimately to have been invalid and was replaced piecemeal by a series of smaller gifts to the priory.74 In 1242–43, Eleanor’s daughter Isabel, in a charter issued with her husband Philip de Huntingdon, was required to provide sureties, bound by a 10 mark penalty, against the possibility that she in widowhood, or her heirs after her, might molest the canons in their possessions.75 The Wombridge canons may have anticipated problems with Isabel and her descendants, for the process of securing confirmation of Eleanor Musson’s bequests from the Huntingdons seems to have been longer and more complicated than was the case with Isabel’s sisters. Within two years or so, Isabel and Philip had bound themselves by 20 marks to observe a second agreement with the priory.76

73

Wombr. Cart., fol. 30v , no. 189. Wombr. Cart., fol. 15v, no. 98. 75 Wombr. Cart., fol. 7v , no. 34. 76 Wombr. Cart., fol. 26v , no. 161. 74

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Moreover, both the 12d. rent reserved on Wichley by several of the sisters and their husbands, as they (in all other respects) confirmed Sir Roger Musson’s original donation, and the fact that certain of this generation’s bequests were in the form of an exchange for parcels of land elsewhere, suggest that the donors could not afford, or were unwilling, to relinquish their rights out-of-hand. Certainly, the sparrowhawk serjeanty by which Uppington and Harrington were held had to be maintained, and those co-parceners who donated their share of Uppington mill to Wombridge Priory, or indeed enfeoffed undertenants therein, were inclined to withhold a 4d. rent expressly earmarked for the purchase of a bird of prey each year.77 In the case of Wichley the Beckburys later abandoned their earlier rent reservation, suggesting that it may have been an interim agreement with the canons to allow the couple to establish some financial stability. In the third and subsequent generations of the kinship network donors, family members increasingly received financial consideration on their grants, a fact that further serves to highlight the stark economic realities of repeated donation, particularly at the lower rungs of knightly society. Rent reservations on tenements within Uppington are a reasonably common feature of these deeds, and they seem to have included both charges imposed upon the priory by the donors, such as the Wichley and ‘sparrowhawk’ rents, and the withholding of payments already owed to the donor by pre-existing tenants. Reginald Corbrond reissued Gillian Musson’s Wichely grant with its 12d. rent reservation, while Dimota daughter of Eleanor Musson retained for life a rent owed to her by one William the Parson.78 For their part, the Huntingdons, also successors to Eleanor Musson, managed twice to obtain cash in hand from the canons in return for their grants, as in one instance did Henry de Bourton, a grandson of Denise Musson.79 In the 1250s, Henry’s own daughter and sole heir Felicia, with her husband, received maintenance and an annuity on a gift from her inheritance.80 It is difficult to escape the feeling that the

77

See Wombr. Cart., fols 14v , no. 91; 16r , no. 102; 27v , nos 168 and 169; 20r, no. 117; and also Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem and Other Analogous Documents Preserved in the Public Record Office (1236–1432) (hereafter CIPM), 23 vols (London: HMSO, 1904–2004), I, no. 267, where Roger de Newport, heir to Petronilla Musson, was receiving 4d. on his mill portion at his death in 1252. 78 Wombr. Cart., fols 30r, no. 186 (dated 1236–43), and 29r, no. 177 (dated c. 1245). Corbrond made a cum corpore bequest to the canons of 12d. rent from Uppington proper at some point before his death in 1243: Wombr. Cart., 26v, no. 161. 79 Wombr. Cart., fols 7v , no. 34; 13v , no. 85; 26v , no. 161. Henry was the heir of Alice Bossard, a co-heiress of Denise Musson. 80 Wombr. Cart., fol. 28r, no. 174.

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Wombridge canons were prepared at times to exert significant pressure on the original heiresses and their descendants, many of whom were also co-parceners to increasingly small segments of the original Musson patrimony. By 1304 Richard de Bury, a descendant of Alice Musson, was in debt to the priory by some £17.81 To some extent the canons may have been forced into a hard-line stance by the very nature of their house. As a modest foundation by baronial vassals of middling rank, Wombridge Priory was neither prestigious nor wealthy. It lay near to larger and more impressive houses, many of them also Augustinian, which had been founded by kings, bishops, earls, and barons, and which represented formidable competition for benefaction.82 The Wombridge canons were not, of course, alone in their exploitation of donors’ generosity or weaknesses: they were part of a growing trend in monastic land-exploitation that had religious houses across England resuming direct control of farmed or alienated lands, and augmenting their demesnes.83 Given its limited size and wealth, Wombridge Priory, no less than secular lords of middling and lower rank, stood to benefit from the maintenance of a compact and workable estate, and the determined consolidation of key interests like Wichley was clearly a deliberate policy on the part of the brethren. Indeed, the Wombridge canons, with their major properties lying within twelve or so miles of their house, enjoyed little-rivalled economic success among the Augustinian communities of Shropshire.84 The material bartering between priory and donor was a two-way street, moreover; and the canons of Wombridge Priory were not alone in seeking economic benefit from the relationship. Around 1220 an exchange took place between the priory and Aline Musson and Hugh de Beckbury, which suggests that the two parties coveted land in the other’s possession and also points to the action of husband and wife in striking a material bargain. With the will and consent of his wife Aline, Hugh exchanged a half-virgate in Uppington for an equal amount of land in the central Shropshire manor of Golding, approximately 8 kilometres south-west of Uppington.85 Hugh already had an undertenancy in Golding and was

81

Wombr. Cart., fol. 26r, nos 156, 159. See VCH: Shropshire, II, ‘Religious Houses’, esp. pp. 27–83; Eyton, Antiquities of Shropshire, VII, 363–73. 83 D. Knowles, The Religious Orders in England, 3 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1948–59), I, 37–38; Baugh and Cox, Monastic Shropshire, passim; VCH: Shropshire, II, ‘Religious Houses’, passim. 84 Baugh and Cox, Monastic Shropshire, pp. 17–19. 85 Wombr. Cart., fol. 72r. 82

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evidently keen to bolster his holdings there, for around the time of the Wombridge exchange he also made a very similar deal with Haughmond Abbey.86 It was the Beckburys’ half-virgate in Uppington, moreover, that was used by Wombridge to compensate Aline’s sister Sybil and her husband for their share of Wichley. Likewise Gillian Musson and her second husband, Walter de Beckbury (probably a younger brother of Hugh), were also able to come to an agreement with the canons that better suited them financially than outright donation: in 1230 the couple committed their share of Broadmeadow in Uppington to Wombridge, not in perpetuity, but for a fixed term of twelve years commencing the following year.87 Of the nine original coheiresses of Uppington, it is Aline Musson whose activities, at least in widowhood, warrant attention for what looks distinctly like double dealing. Shortly before his death in c. 1227 her husband Hugh de Beckbury, with her consent and for the health of her soul, granted all of his wood on Mount Gilbert, as pertained to the township of Uppington, to Lilleshall Abbey in eastern Shropshire.88 While we cannot know if Aline had any real input into her husband’s donation beyond the requisite nominal consent, she did subsequently confirm the gift in widowhood, specifically asserting that the woodland was hers by hereditary right and supplementing the bequest with free entry to the wood and common pasture.89 Yet by the time of her own death in 1237, the widowed heiress had granted the very same interests to Wombridge Priory, seemingly without regard for the earlier endowment of Lilleshall Abbey.90 It is impossible to reconcile the two grants, which in all respects appear identical and perpetual. It is equally impossible to know whether, having initially acquiesced to her husband’s wishes, and even confirmed and augmented his grant in widowhood, Aline had later withdrawn the gift and turned the lands over to the house favoured by her natal family. Wombridge Priory was, after all, where she had already elected to be buried. It is always possible that the Wombridge canons had brought pressure to bear on the widow who had been party to the alienation of land they coveted; but without

86 The Cartulary of Haughmond Abbey, ed. by Una Rees (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1985), no. 1198. See also Eyton, Antiquities of Shropshire, VI, 98–100. 87 Wombr. Cart., fol. 58r. 88 The Cartulary of Lilleshall Abbey, ed. by U. Rees (Shrewsbury: Shropshire Archaeological and Historical Society, 1997), no. 118. 89 Cartulary of Lilleshall Abbey, no. 119. 90 Wombr. Cart., fol. 27v , no. 168.

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surviving evidence of litigation we are deprived of further insight into Aline’s actions. Doubtless social pretension also had a role to play in the pious giving of the Musson sisters and their husbands and descendants. By the time that he died, Sir Roger Musson, a royal vassal and Shropshire knight, had set himself up nicely in the locality. He worked for the Crown, married a woman of local county society, had nine robust — if female — children, and moved in the circles of regional notables such as William FitzAlan and Walter de Dunstanville. In filling, at least in part, the socio-religious breach left by Hamon Peverel, who had died without legitimate heirs, Musson effectively established something of a quasi-patronal obligation to the modest Augustinian priory, a relationship that both epitomized and sustained his newly won place in the county. Each of his nine daughters and their husbands were likewise central to the fulfilment of the family’s responsibilities to the priory and in ensuring that the canons reciprocated, for this was a dynamic interrelationship. Many of the men and women who married into the family in subsequent generations also adopted the religious focus, burial preferences, and ‘de Uppinton’ descriptor of Sir Roger Musson and his daughters and descendants. Although the wealth and social prominence of this voluminous kinship network was apt to wane with the repeated fragmentation of its caput estate in the shadow of Mount Gilbert, the nine Musson sisters and their husbands, the original co-parceners in Uppington and Harrington, could presumably continue for a time to ride the crest of their father’s wave. The role of the knightly woman in transmitting the social, tenurial, and religious connections, and all that such connections entailed in thirteenth-century England, is nowhere more apparent than in the activities of the Musson family of Uppington under Mount Gilbert and its kin. Indeed, the role of a small but determined cohort of black canons in bolstering a local knightly family’s social pretensions is nowhere more apparent than in the activities of the brethren of Wombridge Priory during the long thirteenth century.

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f the thirty-five houses for male religious and one double house in medieval Yorkshire, one-third, twelve, belonged to the Augustinian canons, the Cistercians had eight foundations, the Benedictines had five, and the Cluniacs, Carthusians, Grandmontines, Premonstratensians, and Gilbertines had between one and four. At a conservative estimate, in the mid1530s the Augustinian priories contained slightly over two hundred canons, a little below the Cistercian abbeys with some two hundred and thirty monks, but considerably above the Benedictine monasteries with around one hundred and sixty. The expulsion of so many religious in a mere three years between 1536 and 1539 had major repercussions not only for the county but also for the nation at large. After first tracing the reactions of the Augustinian communities to the threat of dissolution, this chapter will explore how the dispossessed canons made their way in the secular church in the second half of the sixteenth century.1 The Valor ecclesiasticus (VE) of 1535 listed Guisborough Priory, with an annual income of a little over £628, as the fourth-richest monastery in Yorkshire, behind only St Mary’s Abbey, York, rated at £1650, Fountains Abbey at £1,115, and Selby Abbey at £719. Three other Augustinian priories, Bridlington, Nostell, and Newburgh, worth a little over £547, £492, and £457 respectively, came immediately after Guisborough. Kirkham and Bolton priories appeared reasonably

1

These estimates are derived from Monks, Friars and Nuns in Sixteenth Century Yorkshire, ed. by C. Cross and N. Vickers, Yorkshire Archaeological Society, Record Series, 150 (Leeds: Yorkshire Archaeological Society, 1995), pp. 20–95, 98–206, 242–349.

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prosperous, with incomes of just over £269 and £212. Six minor Augustinian priories — Marton valued at a little in excess of £151, Warter at £144, Haltemprice at £100, Drax at £92, Healaugh Park at £67, and North Ferriby at only £60 — brought up the rear.2 Some time before the compilation of the VE the local ecclesiastical authorities had been turning an ultra-critical eye upon the monastic observance of several of these lesser Augustinian priories. At an archiepiscopal visitation of Marton in 1531, the visitors uncovered evidence of a total breakdown of community, with the canons collectively denouncing the prior, George Davy, for grossly favouring his kin, wasting the house’s goods, and giving no hospitality to the poor, and the prior accusing the canons of conspiring against him. Their findings resulted in the speedy deposition of Davy and the election of a new prior, Thomas Judson, on 7 June 1531. Three years later the archbishop turned his attention to the smaller priories in the East Riding, in August 1534 prohibiting the prior and convent of Haltemprice from admitting canons or corrodians without archiepiscopal licence, and in October issuing injunctions to both Haltemprice and Warter, which amongst much else required the prior to present his accounts in the chapter house, the canons to eat in common in the refectory, to sleep in the dormitory, to cease wearing girdles ornamented with silver or gold, and in general to keep their rule more strictly. Such faults and abuses, endemic in poorly endowed institutions, had surfaced many times in the past, but their recurrence in the 1530s played into the hands of an increasingly hostile state.3 When government officials descended upon Yorkshire in February 1536 in search of incriminating evidence against the monasteries, only two of the Augustinian priories, Bolton and Kirkham, escaped censure. Having been accused of illicit relations with divers women, the Prior of Guisborough, James Cockerell, was reluctantly induced to resign, though only on the award of a generous pension. As his successor the convent elected Cromwell’s nominee, Robert Pursglove STP, a humanist and highly competent administrator, but an outsider. On 9 February, some weeks before the act for the dissolution of the lesser monasteries had

2

These statistics are based upon Valor ecclesiasticus, temp. Henrici VIII auctoritate regia institutus, ed. by J. Caley and J. Hunter, Record Commission Publications, 9, 6 vols (London: Record Commission, 1810–34), V (1825), 12–14, 80, and VCH: County of York, ed. by W. Page, 4 vols (London: Constable, 1907–25), III (1913), 91–105, 107–12, 131–58, 184–86, 190–238, 241–56, 387–91. 3

York, Borthwick Institute, Mon. Misc. 9; York, Borthwick Institute, Abp. Reg. 28, fols 94v–95 r, 96v–97 r.

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completed its passage through parliament, the commissioners achieved an even more spectacular outcome at Marton, when they prevailed upon the ‘lewd canon and his flock’ to surrender their priory to the Crown. For his compliance, in lieu of a pension, the Prior was appointed a royal chaplain and received the two rectories of Sheriff Hutton and Sutton on the Forest, previously appropriated to the house.4 Five other Yorkshire Augustinian priories with incomes of below £200 fell within the remit of the 1536 act. Royal commissioners took possession of Healaugh on 4 August, of Warter on 11 August, of Haltemprice on 12 August, of North Ferriby on 13 August, and of Drax on 24 August 1536. In compensation for their loss of office they allocated William Holme, prior of Warter, a pension of £22, Robert Collinson of Haltemprice one of £20, Richard Roundall of Healaugh and William Emson of Drax pensions of £18, and John Bawdewyn of North Ferriby, the poorest priory, a pension of £10. Having been given the choice of applying for a dispensation to take up a living in the secular church or transferring to another house of their order, most of their convents preferred the former alternative, but four out of the nine Haltemprice canons decided to persevere in the religious life, two going to Guisborough, one to Kirkham, and one to St Leonard’s Hospital in York, while two of the four canons at Drax went to Nostell and a third to St Leonard’s.5 Little more than a month after this spate of dissolutions the Pilgrimage of Grace erupted at Beverley in the East Riding. With Robert Aske’s encouragement the commons certainly took steps to restore two of the priories, Healaugh and Warter, and may have intended to bring back all six. At Warter, in the absence of the prior, the subprior and kitchener co-operated enthusiastically with the rebels. The recent purchaser of the site of Healaugh, Sir Thomas Wharton, subsequently complained that he had lost mares, a cow, swine, grain, and household goods to the

4

Kew (London), The National Archives (hereafter TNA), SP1/102 fols 88r–v, 89r, 90 r, 90v, 91r, 92 , 96 r, 96v , 97 r, 98 r; Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, ed. by J. Gairdner and others (hereafter L&P), 21 vols plus addenda in 37 (London: HMSO, 1862–1932), X : 1536 (1887), 155; L&P, XIII, pt I: January–July 1538 (1892), 574; Eighth Report of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records (London, 1847), app. II, p. 30. r

5

TNA, SC6/Hen VIII/4641 m. 14 v –15 r ; L&P, XIII, pt I, 575; Yorkshire Monasteries Suppression Papers, ed. by J. W. Clay, Yorkshire Archaeological Society, Record Series, 48 (Leeds, 1912), pp. 122–24; Monks, Friars and Nuns, ed. by Cross and Vickers, pp. 278, 284, 302, 337, 339–40, 514.

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value of £100 when Richard Roundall and his canons reoccupied the priory for the space of twenty weeks.6 Though not affected by the 1536 act, three of the greater Augustinian houses also participated in the ‘great commotion’. The pressure Cromwell had put him under in the previous twelve months, both to acknowledge the Crown as the founder of his monastery and to grant a lease to one of his candidates, had given William Wood, prior of Bridlington, good cause to distrust state intervention. During or perhaps a little before the rising he made the dangerous decision to offer hospitality to the former prior of the York Dominicans, Dr John Pickering, a known opponent of the royal supremacy. While at the house, Pickering proclaimed the insurrection to be ‘well done for the wealth of the church’, and composed a rhyme beginning, ‘O faithful people of the Boreal Region’, which the commons adopted as their marching song. For his part the Prior not only publicly commended these sentiments but also sent two of his canons and eleven men on horseback to the rebels’ camp.7 Personal pique seems to have been the primary motive for James Cockerell’s involvement in the Pilgrimage. Despite the award of a pension of £40, which he had subsequently exchanged for a mansion called the Bishop’s Palace, and other property in Guisborough, Cockerell bitterly resented the way in which the royal visitors had enforced his resignation the previous February. The revolt now presented him with an ideal opportunity to eject Pursglove and gain his own reinstatement. Having made overtures to Sir Francis Bigod to this effect, he too played with fire by discussing the book Bigod had recently made ‘against the title of supreme head, the statute of suppression, and the taking away the liberties of the church’.8 The failure of the second rising proved fatal for most of these protagonists. After a hasty trial the subprior and kitchener of Warter were hanged at York in February 1537. Sent down to London and found guilty of treason, James Cockerell, the quondam of Guisborough, died at Tyburn the following May. The one exception was the Prior of Healaugh. Having successfully pleaded that the commons had constrained him into returning to his priory, after a period of

6

Monastic Chancery Proceedings (Yorkshire), ed. by J. S. Purvis, Yorkshire Archaeological Society, Record Series, 88 (Leeds, 1934), pp. 63–64; L&P, XII, pt I: January–July 1537 (1890), no. 410. 7

L&P, IX : 1535 (1886), no. 670; X , nos 501, 998; XII, pt I, no. 1019.

8

L&P, X , no. 927; XI, no. 1295; XII, pt I, no. 1087 (p. 499).

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imprisonment in York Castle with one of his canons, Richard Roundall was permitted to go free.9 William Wood’s alliance with John Pickering, the propagandist of the Pilgrimage, sealed not only his fate but that of his house, and on his attainder and execution in London in May 1537, Bridlington Priory was declared forfeited to the Crown. Allowed the same terms as those given to houses dissolved under the act of 1536, most of the canons applied for dispensations to take up livings in the secular church, but Robert Burdus opted to transfer to Bolton, John Pullane and John Ward to Nostell, Robert Watson to Guisborough, and Peter Williamson to Kirkham. Even though the priory had remained aloof during the troubles, late in 1537 it seemed that Newburgh might also go the same way as Bridlington, because of seditious words concerning both Norfolk and the king, allegedly spoken by the prior. Only Robert Metcalf’s fortuitous death in prison early the following year before he could be brought to trial removed the threat to the priory for a few more months.10 In an attempt to persuade the remaining monasteries to disband voluntarily, during this crucial reprieve Cromwell devised a scheme under which the state undertook to provide pensions not, as in the past, exclusively for the head of a house but for the entire community. Rising to the bait, Kirkham and Bolton, the two least wealthy of the five surviving Yorkshire Augustinian priories, submitted to the Crown in quick succession. Having surrendered their house on 8 December 1538, John Kildwick, prior of Kirkham, and his seventeen canons, obtained pensions ranging from a substantial £50 for the prior, £10 for the subprior, £6 13s. 4d. for a senior canon, and £5 13s. 4d. for almost all the other canons to a mere 40s. for the two novices. On its dissolution on 20 January 1539, Bolton Priory, with an annual income some £50 below that of Kirkham, received rather less favourable terms, the prior, Richard Mone, being awarded a pension of £40, the subprior one of £6 13s. 4d., a senior canon one of £6, and the twelve other canons, with the exception of a junior canon, pensions of £5 6s. 8d. Although the head of a house in these settlements was still far better compensated than the rest of his community,

9

L&P, XII, pt I, nos 410, 416(2), 1207(8); XII, pt II: August–December 1537 (1890), no. 181; Purvis, Monastic Chancery Proceedings, pp. 63–64. 10

L&P, XII, pt I, nos 1172, 1192, 1207(8), 1285; XII, pt II, nos 1181, 1231; XIII, pt I, nos 107, 743; Monks, Friars and Nuns, ed. by Cross and Vickers, pp. 245–46, 283, 307, 341, 338–39.

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all the pensions apart from those of the novices at the very least reached the basic wage for a stipendiary priest in the secular church.11 On 22 January, only two days after the demise of Bolton, the commissioners dissolved Newburgh, allocating the prior, William Lenewood, a pension of £50 and his seventeen canons pensions of between £6 13s. 4d. and £4. With an income of £457, over twice that of Bolton, the prior and his community might well have expected more generous terms, but, as he had only become prior as Cromwell’s preferred candidate the previous spring, Lenewood may have been in no position to bargain.12 The priors of Nostell and Guisborough, Robert Ferrar and Robert Pursglove, both university men of some stature, proved far more adept at arguing their case. Very soon after his election as prior in June 1538, Ferrar had begun sending his canons out to evangelize the surrounding countryside. The following September he petitioned Cromwell for the conversion of Nostell into a college ‘for the nourishment of youth in virtue and learning to the increase and advancement of the lively Word of God, diligently, sincerely and truly to be preached to God’s people and the king’s in these parts’.13 Such radical ideas attracted little support in high places, and the house fell on 20 November 1539. Ferrar came away with a very large pension of £80, the Prior of Woodkirk, the priory’s cell, with a pension of £12, the subprior with a pension of £8, and the twenty-six canons with pensions of between £6 13s. 4d. and £5.14 The government deliberately left the richest Augustinian house in the county, Guisborough, until the end. Robert Pursglove, who was already acting as a suffragan bishop for the archbishop of York, bowed to the inevitable and, with his convent, surrendered the priory on 22 December 1539. For his compliance he obtained a huge pension of £166 13s. 4d., his twenty-three canons pensions of between £8 and £5 6s. 8d. according to seniority, and a novice not yet in priestly orders a pension of £4.15

11

L&P, XIII, pt II: August–December 1538 (1893), no. 1009; XIV , pt I: August–December 1539 (1894), nos 162 (1, 2), 185, p. 603. 12

L&P, XIV , pt I, nos 123, 185, p. 603; TNA, E 315/245, fol. 50v, E 315/232, fols 169v–272v, E 164/31, fols 55r–56r. 13

L&P, XIII, pt II, no. 285.

14

L&P, XIV , pt II: August–December 1539 (1895), no. 557.

15

L&P, XIII, pt II, no. 1182 (28), XIV , pt II, no. 721.

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The dissolution of the Augustinian priories alongside all the other Yorkshire monasteries left the country with a horde of displaced religious now seeking alternative employment in the secular church. Cushioned by their more-thanadequate, in some cases lavish pensions the priors seem to have adapted most easily to the new circumstances. In addition to William Wood of Bridlington, executed in the aftermath of the Pilgrimage of Grace, three died naturally soon after losing office — William Holme, prior of Warter since 1526, by Michaelmas 1540, Richard Moone, prior of Bolton since 1513, and William Lenewood, prior of Newburgh only since 1538, by Whitsun the following year. The eight remaining priors had the financial independence to decide whether to opt for an active or passive life in the rapidly changing Church.16 Singled out by the Archbishop of York for diocesan administration while still prior of Guisborough, Pursglove immediately embarked upon a highly lucrative ecclesiastical career. In 1548, when he was still a mere forty-four years old, the chantry commissioners reported that besides his monastic pension of £166 13s. 4d., he enjoyed a prebend in York Minster valued at £58, and the mastership of Jesus College, Rotherham, worth a further £13 6s. 8d., as well as perquisites in kind. These three sources alone brought him a total income in excess of £238 a year. In 1549 he acquired the vicarage of his native Tideswell in Derbyshire, and in the next year added the oversight of the archdeaconry of Nottingham to his episcopal duties as the suffragan bishop of Hull. Despite his innate conservatism, he managed to work within the increasingly radical religious settlements of Edward VI, but came into his own on the restoration of Catholicism under Mary. Refusing to accept Elizabeth as the supreme governor of the English Church, he lost all his preferment, though not his monastic pension, in 1559. ‘Very wealthy’ and ‘stiff in papistry’, he used some of his fortune in his retirement to found a grammar school and almshouse at Guisborough, and a second school at his birthplace. He died a very old man at Tideswell in May 1579.17 Robert Ferrar, who had joined a Lutheran cell at Oxford as early as 1528, and in 1535 had accompanied the religiously suspect William Barlow on an embassy to Scotland three years before his election as prior of Nostell, pursued a very different path. Undeterred by his failure to transform his priory into an evangelical

16

L&P, XII, pt I, no. 1285; XIII, pt II, no. 108; York, Borthwick Institute, Abp. Reg. 26, fols 40v –41r; Abp. Reg. 27, fols 84v –85r; TNA, LR 6/121/1 m. 50; LR 6/121/2 m. 47. 17

The Certificates of the Commissioners Appointed to Survey the Chantries, Guilds, Hospitals etc. in the County of York, ed. by W. Page, Surtees Society, 91–92, 2 vols (Durham: Andrews, 1894–95), II, 381; York, Borthwick Institute, Abp. Reg. 29, fol. 32r; Emden, BRUO, IV , 467–48.

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seminary he continued to disseminate his advanced opinions after the fall of his house. This brought him before the York Court of Audience on a charge of heresy in 1540, and he was forced to go into hiding for the rest of the reign. The tide then turned in his favour on the accession of Edward VI. Having served for a short time as chaplain to both Cranmer and the Duke of Somerset, he became bishop of St David’s in 1548 on Barlow’s promotion to the see of Bath and Wells. Like so many of the reformers he chose to marry in the Edwardian period as an outward and visible sign of his commitment to Protestantism. In the next reign the ecclesiastical authorities immediately imprisoned him and deprived him of his bishopric for this breach of his monastic vows. Subsequently convicted of heresy, on his refusal to recant, he was sent back to his former diocese, where he died for his faith at Carmarthen on 30 March 1555.18 In contrast to Pursglove and Ferrar, John Kildwick of Kirkham, a considerably older man, elected prior in 1518, lived quietly in the neighbourhood of the priory on his generous pension of £50 until his death early in 1552. Making no attempt in his will to disguise his conservative religious beliefs, he sought the prayers of Christ’s ‘blessed mother, Our Lady St Mary, and all the holy company of heaven’. In addition to making numerous bequests to the poor in the villages around Kirkham, he left gold angels to five former members of his community, James Parkinson, William Beckfield, Edmund Newton, Anthony Watson, and Richard Morwing.19 Compared with Kildwick, the priors of the lesser Yorkshire Augustinian houses seem to have taken a considerably more active part in their local church. After his imprisonment in York Castle for his involvement in the Pilgrimage of Grace, Richard Roundall, the last prior of Healaugh, went on to become rector of St Saviour’s Church in York in 1538. He then immersed himself in civic life, serving as a keeper of the Corpus Christi guild, and prosecuting his rights to tithes through the courts. He also made a conservative will in June 1550, desiring to be buried in St Saviour’s choir and remembering the parish poor. The inventory of his

18

Emden, BRUO, IV , 202–03; G. Williams, ‘Robert Ferrar’, ODNB, XIX , 419–20; A. G. Dickens, Lollards and Protestants in the Diocese of York, 1509–1558 (London: Oxford University Press, 1959), pp. 148–51; Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reigns of Edward VI, Mary, Elizabeth, with Addenda, 12 vols (London: HMSO, 1856–72), VI: Elizabeth 1601–03, ed. by E. Green (1870), p. 521. 19

York, Borthwick Institute, Abp. Reg. 27, fols 39v– 40 r, Prob. Reg. 13, pt II, fol. 846r–v.

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goods, which included £18 in his purse and £7 in arrears on his pension, amounted to the sizeable sum of £84.20 After surrendering his house, Robert Collinson, the last prior of Haltemprice, migrated to Cottingham. In addition to the customary donations to the poor in his will of 28 March 1552, he gave ‘to them that will study, to remain in the parish church of Cottingham for ever, one Latin Bible, The Works of Origen, Morals of St Gregory, Vita Christi after Ludolphus, Master of Sentences, Master of Histories, Sermones parati, Rationale divinorum, with others’. These books, which he may well have salvaged from his priory, were to be placed on a specially made bookstand under the vault where the holy cross had stood, where there was a fair window and good light.21 For a time at least two of the other priors held benefices previously appropriated to their houses. The last prior of Drax, William Emson, admitted to the vicarage of Wressle in September 1525, continued there until 1543. He seems to have survived for more than a decade after resigning his vicarage, as he was still receiving his pension of £18 in 1556. Thomas Judson, the prior of Marton, obtained the priory’s rectories of Sheriff Hutton and Sutton on the Forest on the surrender of the priory in 1536, but exchanged them for Whenby and Barnby Dun in 1547. Because he had married in the reign of Edward VI, he lost this preferment in 1554.22 Far less well provided for, if provided for at all, the individual canons faced a much more uncertain future than the heads of their houses. A considerable number found economic security in appropriations. All the twelve Yorkshire priories possessed at least one or two livings, the larger houses twenty or even thirty. Like the prior of Drax, some of the canons presented to one of their house’s cures in the earlier part of the sixteenth century simply stayed on after the dissolution. Ordained subdeacon, deacon, and priest from Bolton between September 1504 and June 1506, Robert Whixley held the priory’s vicarage of

20

York, Borthwick Institute, Abp. Reg. 27, fol. 53r–v, Abp. Reg. 28, fol. 17r, Abp. Reg. 29, fol. 104A r–v , CP G 298, Orig. Chancery Wills Invent., 30 October 1550; The Register of the Guild of Corpus Christi in the City of York, ed. by R . H. Skaife, Surtees Society, 57 (Durham: Andrews, 1872), p. 320. 21 22

York, Borthwick Institute, Prob. Reg. 13, pt II, fols 951v –952r.

York, Borthwick Institute, Abp. Reg. 27, fol. 81r, Abp. Reg. 28, fol. 25v– 26r, Abp. Reg. 29, fols 24v , 25 v , Sede Vac. Reg. 5A, fol. 696r, Chanc. AB 6, fol. 20r, Chanc. AB 7, fol. 33 r; York, York Minster Library, L I/8 J. Torre, ‘Antiquities Ecclesiastical of the City of York’ (1691), p. 107; TNA, E 164/31, fol. 55; L&P, XIII, pt I, 574.

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Kildwick from 1514 until his death in 1558. Richard Styane, instituted to his priory’s appropriation of Healaugh in 1530, was witnessing the wills of his parishioners there a quarter of a century later. Richard Wagger, canon regular of Haltemprice, acted as vicar of the priory’s church of Kirk Ella from 1534 until he was deprived for having married in 1554.23 In addition to the canons who remained in their priory’s livings, many more acquired these appropriations after they had passed to the Crown. In 1537, a year after he had applied for a dispensation to hold a benefice, Alexander Jennings of Drax obtained the vicarage of Bingley, formerly appropriated to the priory, and, despite his doubts about acknowledging the royal supremacy in 1559, continued to officiate in the village until 1572. The confiscation of Bridlington on the Prior’s attainder at the beginning of 1537 did not prevent William Toye from receiving the cure of Bessingby chapel a few months later. Having possibly previously served as a stipendiary priest in Guisborough, Oliver Grayson became rector of Easington, one of the priory’s appropriations, in 1540. He retained this living until just before his death in 1578, when he bequeathed the huge sum of £100 to the local poor.24 Of all the Yorkshire Augustinian houses, Bolton seems to have been the most adroit in exploiting its patronage. Appointed to the priory’s vicarage of Skipton in 1521 to which he added Marton, another of the priory’s appropriations, in 1534, William Blackbourne held both until his death in 1560, for part of this period employing as his curate George Richmond, a former fellow canon. When Richmond died in 1554, he bequeathed his chalice and two vestments ‘to the monastery of Bolton whensoever it shall please God that it shall be restored’. Thomas Preston alias Hall, who acted as one of Richmond’s executors, had been vicar of Long Preston, another of the priory’s appropriations, since 1534. Christopher Broadbelt occupied the priory’s living of Broughton from 1534 until he died in 1556, during which time another of his colleagues, William Malhome, 23

York, Borthwick Institute, Abp. Reg. 25, fols 125v, 126v, 135r, Abp. Reg. 28, fol. 24v, Sede Vac. Reg. 5A, fol. 626v ; Prob. Reg. 15, pt I, fol. 156r , Inst. AB 1, fol. 36, Chanc. AB 7, fol. 20v , Fasti parochiales, ed. by C. Clay and others, Yorkshire Archaeological Society, Record Series, 85, 107, 129, 133, 143, 5 vols (Leeds/Wakefield: Yorkshire Archaeological Society, 1933–85), IV : Deanery of Craven, ed. by N. K. M. Gurney and C. Clay (1971), p. 81. 24

York, Borthwick Institute, Abp. Reg. 28, fol. 14v, Abp. Reg. 21, pt I, fol. 242v, Cav. bk I, fol. 28 , Inst. AB 3, fol. 120r; ‘A Selection of Monastic Rentals and Dissolution Papers’, ed. by J. S. Purvis, in Miscellanea III, Yorkshire Archaeological Society, Record Series, 80 (Wakefield: Yorkshire Archaeological Society, 1931), p. 34, Fasti parochiales, IV , ed. by Gurney and Clay, p. 14; The Royal Visitation of 1559, ed. by C. J. Kitching, Surtees Society, 187 (Gateshead: Northumberland, 1975), fol. 172v . r

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was serving in the parish as a stipendiary priest. Percival Walker continued as rector of yet another appropriation, Harewood, from before the dissolution until his death in 1566, while the former subprior Christopher Leeds alias Midgeley succeeded his colleague Robert Whixley as vicar of Kildwick in 1556 and retained the living until his resignation in 1572.25 The chances of dispossessed canons without this privileged access to appropriations gaining benefices in the Church at large improved markedly from the mid-century onwards because of the dramatic fall in the number of candidates offering themselves for ordination. Anthony Watson of Kirkham, for instance, had become vicar of Whitby by 1546, and it seems that Anthony Fleming of Nostell became vicar of Sherburn in the succeeding decade, even though neither of the parishes appears to have had previous links with their priories. Others had to look much further afield. To cite but three, in 1549, John Gibson of Nostell moved from Yorkshire to take up the living of Burnham Deepdale in Norfolk, James Barwicke of Newburgh that of Great Whelnetham in Suffolk, and at about the same time Robert Gregg of Guisborough that of Little Missenden in Buckinghamshire.26 In the first decade after the dissolution other canons achieved a comfortable existence as chantry priests in the more prestigious and better remunerated institutions in the secular church. Thomas Grayson from Newburgh, together with Robert Gregg and George Hawkesly, both from Guisborough, secured chantries in York Minster. William Hinde, also of Guisborough, and Robert Appleby of Warter became cantarists in Holy Trinity, Hull, while Robert Todde of Bridlington can probably be identified with the chantry priest of the same name in Beverley Minster. Richard Batte went the short distance from Nostell to the chantry on the bridge in Wakefield, William Gray seems to have gone from Newburgh to a chantry in Boroughbridge Church, John Ward from Nostell to a 25

Fasti parochiales, IV , ed. by Gurney and Clay, pp. 28, 110; D. S. Chambers, Faculty Office Registers, 1534–1549 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), p. 17; Borthwick Institute, Inst AB 1, fol. 81r, Prob. Reg. 14, fols 118r– 119r, Abp. Reg. 28, fol. 10r, Chanc AB 8A, fol. 99r, Chanc CB 1570–74, fol. 37v , Inst. Bonds IV B C 95; The Certificates of the Commissioners, ed. by Page, II, 406; Bolton Priory Rentals and Ministers’ Accounts, 1473–1539, ed. by I. Kershaw, Yorkshire Archaeological Society, Record Series, 132 (Leeds: Yorkshire Archaeological Society, 1970), p. 60. 26

York, Borthwick Institute, Exch. AB 2, fol. 15r, Peculiar wills Fenton 1558; G. A. J. Hodgett, The State of the Ex-Religious and Former Chantry Priests in the Diocese of Lincoln, 1547–1574 from Returns in the Exchequer, Lincoln Record Society, 53 (Lincoln: Lincoln Record Society, 1959), p. 99; G. Baskerville, ‘Married Clergy and the Pensioned Religious in Norwich Diocese, 1555’, English Historical Review, 48 (1933), 199–228 (pp. 214–15, 222).

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chantry in Helmsley Church, and William Modye of Warter to a chantry in Pocklington Church. Laurence Plumpton of Bolton possessed an unspecified chantry, apparently in Lincolnshire. All these former canons automatically qualified for a pension, some for the first and some for the second time, on the Crown’s confiscation of the chantries in 1548.27 At the beginning of the sixteenth century, Kirkham Priory was running a school in Kirkham parish church,28 Healaugh canons were also teaching boys, and it seems likely that most if not all the Yorkshire Augustinian priories at this date were engaged in providing some form of education for the laity. After the dissolution some canons made use of their expertise to supplement their pensions. Richard Lyne of Kirkham, who also owned a modern Latin dictionary, in 1550 bequeathed Erasmus’s New Testament to John, son of Robert Bulmer. At his death in 1556 John Clarkson, who had stayed on in Guisborough as a stipendiary priest, left young George Tocottes a commentary on St Paul’s Epistles and any other book his father might ‘think good and profitable and for the learning of the said George, his son’. Sir William Brokesbank, priest and schoolmaster of Arksey, who in 1558 testified to the suitability of a former pupil for ordination, can almost certainly be identified with the Nostell canon of the same name.29 Apart from Robert Ferrar very few of these former Augustinians displayed any explicit commitment to Protestantism in the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Mary. A rare exception seems to have been William Chamber of Healaugh. When in 1554 he sought to succeed his fellow canon, John Bucktrowte, in the vicarage of Wighill, formerly appropriated to priory, the Marian authorities admonished him not from henceforth to ‘say unto his parishioners any evil, pernicious or heretical opinions, especially against the blessed sacrament of the altar, nor any other new opinions the which may engender any discord or debate amongst the queen’s

27

The Certificates of the Commissioners, by W. Page, I, 199, 89; The Certificates of the Commissioners, ed. by Page, II, 264, 435, 436, 417, 441, 508, 521, 534; Hodgett, The State of the ExReligious, pp. 99, 110. 28

See also J. Burton, Kirkham Priory from Foundation to Dissolution, Borthwick Papers, 86 (York: University of York, 1995), esp. pp. 24–26; and Burton, ‘Priory and Parish: Kirkham and its Parishioners, 1496–97’, in Monasteries and Society in Medieval England: Proceedings of the 1994 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. by B. Thompson (Stamford: Watkins, 1999), pp. 329–47. 29

York, Borthwick Institute, CP F 307, CP G 2103, CP G 2648; Prob. Reg. 11, pt I, fol. 557r; Prob. Reg. 15, pt I, fols 242v –243r; Ord. 1554–58 1/37.

THE LAST GENERATION OF AUGUSTINIAN CANONS

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highness’ subjects, and specially amongst that parish whereupon he hath cure of souls’.30 A number of canons, nevertheless, had diverged sufficiently far from Catholic orthodoxy to take advantage of the new freedom to marry during the Edwardian period. John Gibson, the ‘faithful brother’ recommended to Cromwell by Ferrar just before the surrender of Nostell, was deprived from the rectory of Burnham Deepdale in Norfolk on this account in 1554. In the same year Thomas Whitby, who had proceeded to the degree of Batchelor of Divinity at Cambridge just after the surrender of Guisborough, and subsequently secured the benefices of Aylsham in Norfolk and Hutton Cranswick in the East Riding, lost both for the same reason. After repudiating his wife, he was later permitted to take up alternative livings in East Anglia. He regained Aylsham on Elizabeth’s accession, before moving on to Laxfield in Suffolk in 1561, which he held together with Elsing until his death, still in receipt of his pension, in 1583. In addition to Chamber, Gibson and Whitby, who may have consciously sympathized with Protestantism to a greater or lesser degree, Richard Wagger of Haltemprice, Thomas Judson of Marton, and James Barwick and Richard Lolly of Newburgh had also married by 1554.31 Just as the Marian restoration of Catholicism proved a stumbling block for evangelicals, Elizabeth’s reinstatement of Protestantism ushered in a testing time for conservatives. Like Robert Pursglove, Alexander Jennyns of Drax refused to recognize the royal supremacy in 1559, but subsequently conformed and remained vicar of Bingley until he died in 1572. William Wisedale of Haltemprice still called upon the intercession of the Virgin Mary and the saints when he made his will as curate at Welwick in 1564. Thomas Walker the former Guisborough canon may possibly have been the same man as the vicar of North Frodingham, who at a visitation in 1567 denied that he ‘used to say any communion for the dead’. Edmund Barker, curate of Ayton, accused of siding with the rebels at the time of the rising of the Northern Earls in 1569, may perhaps also have once been a canon of Marton. Thomas Shutt, who had transferred from Drax to Nostell in 1536, and

30 31

York, Borthwick Institute, Inst. AB 2, fol. 1r–v.

L&P, XIV , pt II, nos 558, 559; J. and J. A. Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses: Part 1. From the Earliest Times to 1751, 4 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1922–27), IV (1927), 385 (ThomasWhitby); Baskerville, ‘Married Clergy and the Pensioned Religious […]’, pp. 211–12, 214–15, 222; York, Borthwick Institute, Abp. Reg. 29, fol. 51r; Chanc. AB 6, fol. 30v , A. G. Dickens, The Marian Reaction in the Diocese of York, I: The Clergy, Borthwick Papers, 11 (York: St Anthony’s, 1957), pp. 25, 28.

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was officiating as a clerk at Masham early in Elizabeth’s reign, was required by the high commission in 1571 to enter into a bond ‘not to harbour any papistical priests deprived, or accompany them, or say or hear any mass or other papistical service’. In his will of the following year Shutt consigned his soul to ‘God Almighty, to Our Lady St Mary and to all the holy company of heaven’. If the John Bolton, deprived from the rectory of Hilston in Holderness for his obstinate recusancy in 1559, imprisoned in York Castle ten years later, and finally in 1576 sent to die a lingering death in the Block Houses in Hull, can be identified with the canon of Warter, the Augustinians may even have produced a Catholic confessor.32 Several of these former canons lived on well into the third decade of Elizabeth’s reign. Both Edward Cockerell and John Lighton were still drawing their Guisborough pensions in 1582; their colleague, Thomas Whitby, died the pluralist vicar of Laxfield in Suffolk in 1583. Another migrant to East Anglia, James Barwicke of Newburgh, held the rectory of Hitcham from 1561 until 1585. Apparently the last to survive was the octogenarian Anthony Watson who, almost fifty years after his expulsion from Kirkham, made his will at Whitby on 24 February 1587. While a very few may have committed themselves to Protestantism and slightly more to Catholicism in some cases at the cost of their livelihoods if not their lives, the ability to make the best use they could of their contacts and simply soldier on seems to have been the most enduring characteristic of this last generation of Augustinian canons in sixteenth-century Yorkshire.33

32

Royal Visitation of 1559, ed. by Kitching, fol. 172v; Fasti parochiales, IV , ed. by Gurney and Clay, p. 14; J. C. H. Aveling, Northern Catholics (London: Chapman, 1966), p. 45; Borthwick Institute, HC AB 5, fols 53r, 78 r; HC AB 6, fols 30v, 47v; Prob. Reg. 17, fols 442v–443r; Prob. Reg. 21, pt I, fol. 85v ; V 1567/8 CB 1, fol. 207v. 33

TNA, LR/6/122/9 m. 21; Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses, pt I, IV , 385; Baskerville, ‘Married Clergy and the Pensioned Religious […]’, p. 222; York, Borthwick Institute, Prob. Reg. 23, pt II, fols 533r–534r.

P ART IV Cultural Contexts

T HE A UGUSTINIANS, H ISTORY, AND L ITERATURE IN L ATE M EDIEVAL E NGLAND James G. Clark

I

n later medieval Europe, the scholars and writers of the Augustinian tradition represented something of an intellectual avant garde. Their contribution to continental currents is, of course, well known, not only in the development and dissemination of new scholarly values — in the studia litterarum, pastoral and personal theology, and even the ars scribendi, characterized by the communities of brethren pioneering the devotio moderna — but also in the resurgence of the old universities such as a Bologna whose emerging reputation in theology owed much to Augustinian friars; and in shaping the (reformist) syllabus of the eighteen new universities of central Europe.1 Of course, theirs was also the dominant influence on the modish monastic milieu that formed Erasmus and Luther.2 It was not nostalgia, politic caution, but perhaps a sense of his scholarly roots that still bound

1

P. F. Grendler, ‘The Universities of the Renaissance and Reformation’, Renaissance Quarterly, 57 (2004), 1–42, and The Universities of the Italian Renaissance (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), pp. 351–59. For Bologna in this period, see also D. D. Martin, Fifteenth-Century Carthusian Reform: The World of Nicholas Kempf (Leiden: Brill, 1992), p. 40; F. Andrews, The Other Friars: The Carmelite, Augustinian, Sack and Pied Friars in the Middle Ages (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2006), pp. 152–53. 2

For Luther’s withdrawal from his fraternal vows, see J. Van Engen, Sisters and Brothers of the Common Life: The Devotio moderna and the World of the Later Middle Ages (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), pp. 316–18. For Erasmus’s continuing ties to Steyn, see The Correspondence of Erasmus: Letters 1356–1534, 1523–1524, ed. by R. A. B. Mynors and A. Dalzell (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1992), p. 227 and n. 234.

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the Rotterdammer affectively to his Augustinian convent at Steyn long after he had escaped its confines. New research has suggested that certain Augustinians pioneered the same spirit of scholarly renewal and reinvention in England, at least among the principal centres of their mendicant constituency. Certainly it is difficult not to see in a number of the surviving books and book catalogues early signs of the studia humanitatis, not only at York, which held in custody the books of the exceptional scholar, John Ergom, but also at Cambridge.3 Kathryn Kerby Fulton has also suggested that the English Austin friars were paying close attention in this period to a more subversive trend — neo-Joachimism — transmitted from the European mainland, part, she alleges, of a ‘project to promote radical prophecy and to court the laity with ideas about church reform’.4 Yet there remains no place in these discussions for their colleagues among the regular canons. Indeed the intellectual life of the black canons of the later Middle Ages has long been overlooked. In a celebrated essay on the monastic culture of England, David Knowles declared there was nothing distinctive to be said for the canons after the close of the thirteenth century.5 Recently the post-Black-Death generation of Augustinians have drawn passing attention for their role in the reception of vernacular literature, Ricardian poetry, and, in particular, the pastoralia of the secular divines that rose to prominence against the background of Archbishop Arundel’s constitutions and the anti-Lollard purges. The Augustinian affiliation of Walter Hilton and John Mirk have been noted, although corporate influence on their work is far from clear and the conviction is hardening that the conventual role in the circulation of their texts was only circumstantial: Hilton’s Scala perfectionis was published under ‘Carthusian auspices’ according to A. I. Doyle, and Mirk’s identity as a canon cannot be elaborated beyond the bald 3

K. W. Humphreys, The Friars’ Libraries, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues, 1 (London: British Academy/British Library, 1990), A8 (pp. 11–154). For Ergom, see also Emden, BRUO, I, 644–45; A. G. Rigg, Anglo-Latin Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 264, 268. The interests of the Cambridge Austins are glimpsed in Dublin, Trinity College Library, MS 115, compiled by Adam Stocton, a member of the convent, in the course of a south-eastern preaching tour. The principal content of the manuscript is Pierre Bersuire’s Ovidius moralizatus, perhaps the earliest witness to the text in England. 4

K. Kerby-Fulton, Books under Suspicion: Censorship and Tolerance of Revelatory Writing in Late Medieval England (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006), pp. 76, 109–24, 137. Kerby-Fulton’s interest has focused on Cambridge, University Library, MS Dd. 1. 17. 5

D. Knowles, ‘The Cultural Influence of English Medieval Monasticism’, Cambridge Historical Journal, 7 (1943), 146–59 (p. 154).

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‘biographical’ claim of a colophon.6 At the same time, the association of the canons with vernacular literature has tended to eclipse the traces of Latin learning that may still be connected with their convents. It has been argued that the handful of English texts that passed in (and out) of their individual (and corporate) ownership attest to the collapse of traditional (Latinate) clerical culture. Ralph Hanna contends: ‘English literature gained through the very absence of an Augustinian Latin culture in the later Middle Ages and [at any rate] […] the evidence for Augustinian Latin composition is at best sporadic, and most of it is early.’7 In fact the evidence of the learned culture of the canons is neither as sporadic nor as exclusively early as has been claimed. The traces from the later Middle Ages are comparatively rich, at least by comparison with their monastic and mendicant counterparts. It is true that the surviving pre-1250 books outnumber those for the pre-Reformation periods, but the chance survivals in this small group of later books are significant.8 One of the striking features of the surviving books is the preservation of whole shelf-sequences of books, for example from Cirencester Abbey: eighteen in sequence at Hereford, twelve at Jesus College, Oxford — something which, generally speaking, we do not have for the Benedictines (other than at Bury and Durham).9 There is also a greater number of complete, or near complete, postBlack-Death book catalogues than survive for any other monastic order in England. We are fortunate to have a more or less complete conspectus from Leicester, a list of some two thousand books in the library by the late fifteenth century; another lengthy list, made a century earlier, survives from Lanthony (Secunda), with some 6

For Hilton, see M. G. Sargent, ‘Walter Hilton’s Scale of Perfection and the London Manuscript Group Reconsidered’, Medium Ævum, 52 (1983), 189–216. For Mirk, see S. Powell, ‘John Mirk’s Festial and the Pastoral Programme’, Leeds Studies in English, n.s., 22 (1991), 85–110; A. J. Fletcher, ‘Unnoticed Sermons in John Mirk’s Festial’, Speculum, 55 (1980), 514–22. 7 R . Hanna, ‘Augustinian Canons and Middle English Literature’, The English Medieval Book: Studies in Memory of Jeremy Griffiths, ed. by A. S. G Edwards, V. Gillespie, and R . Hanna, British Library Studies in the History of the Book (London: British Library, 2000), pp. 27–42 (p. 29). 8

The starting point for any survey of the surviving books of the English canons is the lists compiled by Neil R. Ker and corrected and extended by Andrew G. Watson. See N. R. Ker, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain, Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks, 3, 2nd edn (London: Royal Historical Society, 1964); N. R . Ker and A. G. Watson, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: Supplement to the Second Edition, Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks, 15 (London: Royal Historical Society, 1987). 9

Ker, Medieval Libraries, pp. 51–52.

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five hundred books.10 The number of surviving books compiled or copied in the post-1350 period is smaller than those from the first century of foundation. Yet this small group offers much in terms of insights into the dynamics of learning in a cross section of canon communities. There are none of the professional commissions or deluxe purchases that are conspicuous among the later medieval manuscripts of the Benedictines (quite simply because they appealed to the king’s commissioners in the 1530s); nor are there many of the staple, and in terms of some material, sterile textbooks which the black monks in their energetic commitment to the universities made their main quarry in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.11 The majority of the late medieval Augustinian manuscripts by contrast are personal compilations or indeed compositions which reflect the work, interests, and personal patterns of reading of individual and small integrated groups of canons. At the core of this collection of manuscripts is a coherent group — of about a dozen — which can provide a valuable glimpse of the hitherto lost and, as some have assumed, entirely extinct, tradition of Latin learning that prevailed in the precincts. Their contents are varied (although it is possible to speculate on textual relationships between them), Latin prose and poetry, particularly on historical themes, often interspersed with teaching texts and glosses on grammar, metre, and rhetoric. These books can be connected to a cross section of the Augustinian congregation in England. Several were from houses in the front rank — Lanthony Secunda, Leicester, Merton, Waltham — but there are others from less exalted convents — Kenilworth, Leeds Priory, and St Osyth.12 They also allow us to trace

10

The Libraries of the Augustinian Canons, ed. by A. G. Watson and T. Webber, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues, 6 (London: British Academy, 1998), A16 (Llanthony); A20 (Leicester), pp. 38–94, 109–399. 11

For the comparative corpus of Benedictine books, see English Benedictine Libraries: The Shorter Catalogues, ed. by R . Sharpe, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues, 4 (British Academy: 1996). See also the catalogues of books held at the leading Benedictine communities of Christ Church and St Augustine’s, Canterbury: M. R. James, Ancient Libraries of Canterbury and Dover (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1903), and the succession of inventories surviving from Durham Cathedral Priory: Catalogi veteres librorum Ecclesiae cathedralis Dunelm, ed. by B. Botfield, Surtees Society Publications, 7 (London: Nichols, 1838). See also A. Coates, English Medieval Books: The Reading Abbey Book Collections from Foundation to Dispersal (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999); J. G. Clark, A Monastic Renaissance at St Albans: Thomas Walsingham and his Circle, c.1350–c.1440 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004). 12

For the size and status of these houses, see Knowles and Hadcock, MRH, pp. 141, 143–44, 146, 152. A printed Cicero (Lyon, 1499: copy examined at Dublin, Trinity College Library,

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Latin learning over several generations: the earliest manuscript in this group dates from the middle years of the fourteenth century, the latest from before 1469. The centrepiece of this collection is a clutch of original compositions, for the most part, historical texts: Henry Knighton’s celebrated chronicle — called in one manuscript an Historia de eventibus Anglie — which covers much of the second half of the fourteenth century,13 the chronicles compiled by John Strecche of Kenilworth, an Historia fundationis of his abbey, an associated Gesta abbatum, and an overarching Historia regum omnium angkirum’ incorporating a lively Historia vitaque of Henries IV and V,14 a sequence of memorial verses of the kings of England, and a selection of historical glosses and verses gathered by the precentor of Waltham, John Wylde, in the middle years of the fifteenth century.15 Interwoven with this historical material there is a parallel series of literary compositions: Strecche’s accessus to Nigel Whiteacre’s Speculum stultorum, an edited accessus to Ovid in Wylde’s anthology, as well as what appears to be a series of original glosses gathered from classical originalia, and the significant translations from the classics, both by John Walton, canon of Oseney, a translation into English of Boethius’s Consolatio and of Vegetius’s De re militari.16 These original compilations are surrounded by a rich selection of readings in history and literature: a number of Augustinian histories from the first century of Q.cc.30) was in the possession of canon William Feversham alias Shepherd, a member of the convent at Leeds (Kent) at the time of its surrender. For the traces of Latin learning at other houses listed here see below. 13

Knighton’s chronicle survives in London, British Library (BL), MS Cotton Tiberius C. vii, fols 62r–237r, which may have been compiled under his supervision, and London, BL, MS Cotton Claudius E. iii, fols 169r–307r , where it is anthologized with the histories of Ralph of Diss, Tito Livio Frulovisi, and the ‘pseudo-’ William Rishanger. The text was edited and translated by Geoffrey Martin: Knighton’s Chronicle, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995). See also R. Sharpe, A Handlist of Latin Writers of Great Britain and Ireland before 1540 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1997), p. 172. 14

Strecche’s historical anthology survives as London, BL, M S Additional 35695, fols 233r–279v. His Historia vitaque was part-edited by Frank Taylor: Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 16 (1932), 146–87. See also an incomplete entry, Sharpe, Latin Writers, p. 324. 15

For Wylde, see Oxford, Bodleian Library (Bodl.), MS Rawlinson B. 214. See also A. G. Rigg, ‘Medieval Poetic Anthologies, I’, Mediaeval Studies, 39 (1977), 281–330 (pp. 313–24). Wylde also compiled London, BL, MS Lansdowne 763, an anthology of texts on musical notation which perhaps bears witness to his place in a network of textual transmissions. 16

For Walton, see D. Gray, ‘John Walton, fl. 1410’, ODNB, 28655; I. Johnson, ‘New Evidence for the Authorship of Walton’s Boethius’, Notes and Queries, 43 (1996), 19–21; Emden, BRUO, III, 1975.

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foundation; a Polychronicon from Keynsham;17 an important group of classical authorities — copies of Cicero’s De inventione and De officiis and a rare commentary of Manegold of Lautenbach,18 early manuscripts of Ovid from Lanthony Secunda, and Leicester and even a Greek, Basilian liturgy from Darley;19 as well as examples of contemporary studies, such as an anthology of John Seward’s metrical treatises from St Osyth,20 close to the author, and showing signs of correction and editing, and unique copies (at Waltham) of the classical studies of the monks, Thomas Walsingham and John Wheathampstead.21 To appreciate the place of these texts in an Augustinian context, we must recover what can be known of their patterns of learning in the later Middle Ages. The intellectual inheritance from their formative years was significant. The fourteenth-century catalogues suggest the foundation catalogues had passed down to the post-Black-Death generation, and these collections were well founded in the Latin literary tradition.22 There are few signs of the programmes of purchase, the restocking we see among the Benedictines of this period. Now the collections grew incrementally, and predominantly through the personal acquisitions of individual canons.23 Indeed, the canons appear to have been more energetic in building personal libraries than the black monks, or at least on a more ambitious scale.24 17

Taunton, Somerset Record Office, MS 1. The late fourteenth-century book bears an institutional ex libris, fol. iiir and p. 436. 18

York, York Minster, M S XVI M. 6 and MS XVI M. 7 (the latter bearing the ex libris of canon William Charyte); Libraries of the Augustinian Canons, ed. by Watson and Webber, A20. 980; 1064; 1066 (pp. 122, 293). 19

Of the Ovidian canon, the multiple copies of Metamorphoses at Leicester are perhaps most notable: Libraries of the Augustinian Canons, ed. by Watson and Webber, A16. 406; A20. 1027–30, 1031b, 1048, 1053, 1055–56 (pp. 301, 303–04); Oxford, Bodl., MS Laud gr. 28; Ker, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain, p. 56. 20

Now Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Library, MS 135.

21

John Wylde’s anthology, MS Rawlinson B. 214 contains the unique copy of Walsingham’s Dites ditatus, and historical verses perhaps attributable to John Wheathampstead. 22

Libraries of the Augustinian Canons, ed. by Watson and Webber, A16, A20.

23

Libraries of the Augustinian Canons, ed. by Watson and Webber, A16, A20.

24

Of course, the contingency of preservation prevents a precise record of the frequency and scale of the personal libraries of either canons or monks. Perhaps the greatest canon book collector of this period was Richard Calne of Lanthony Secunda: Ker, Medieval Libraries, pp. 108–12, 272–73; of the monks, other than the superiors, perhaps the only point of comparison is John of London of St Augustine’s, Canterbury, who appears to have been unprofessed: James, Ancient Libraries, pp. 196–406, 540.

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Another distinctive feature was the number of books that came through the donations of secular clerks and even laymen.25 It is possible that a number of the contemporary works attested in this group of manuscripts entered the canon houses through these channels. The canons preserved the intellectual framework of their formative years, but like other monastic orders in the fourteenth century they were pressed into a close relationship with the universities, subject to the same expectations in university study as the black monks under the papal canons of 1339.26 The English canons were no strangers to the schools, and Oseney had served as a portal for Oxford for at least a century, but the coordination of the chapters did not have the transformative effect it had on the Benedictines.27 There were canons known at the universities — John Forester’s commentary on Book I of the Sentences appears to have been cited widely although it no longer survives, and at least one English canon made it as far as Bologna, but by the time a dedicated Oxford studium was founded in 1439 the schools had already failed to provide a prime focus for Augustinian learning.28 The energy, such as it was, continued to reside in the network of provincial convents. Without Oxford as a central focus, and with a notably under-mighty cathedral priory, the provincial convents tended to follow their own patterns of teaching and learning.29 In-house book production appears

25

For an index of donors to Leicester Abbey, see Libraries of the Augustinian Canons, ed. by Watson and Webber, pp. 567–70. 26

For the background to these developments, see H. E. Salter, Chapters of the Augustinian Canons, Oxford Historical Society, 74 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1922), pp. 214–67. For the papal canons, see Concilia Magnae Brittaniae et Hiberniae, ed. by D. Wilkins 3 vols (London: Gosling, 1737), II, 629–52. 27

For Oseney, see Knowles and Hadcock, MRH, p. 149; D. Postles, ‘The Foundation of Oseney Abbey’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 53 (1980), 242–44; S. Forde, ‘The Educational Organization of the Augustinian Canons in England and Wales, and their University Life at Oxford, 1325–1448’, History of Universities, 13 (1994), 21–60. 28

For John Forester, a Scots canon, see Sharpe, Latin Writers, p. 248. For the Bologna student (Thomas Legge), see R . J. Mitchell, ‘English Law Students at Bologna in the Fifteenth Century’, English Historical Review, 51 (1936), 270–87 (p. 273). 29

For Carlisle Cathedral Priory, see Knowles and Hadcock, MRH, p. 132; R. B. Dobson, ‘Cathedral Chapters and Cathedral Cities: York, Durham and Carlisle in the Fifteenth Century’, Northern History, 19 (1983), 15–44; H. R. Summerson, ‘Medieval Carlisle: Cathedral and City from Foundation to Dissolution’, in Carlisle and Cumbria: Roman and Medieval Architecture, Art and Archaeology, ed. by M. McCarthy and D. Weston, British Archaeological Association, Conference Transactions, 27 (Leeds: British Archaeological Association, 2004), pp. 29–38.

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to have continued, at least at the larger houses, and the vigour of their networks ensured a supply of new material, even if they were denied the rarities that a firmer tie to Oxford might have given them. Claustral education endured and was now enhanced by the parallel presence of secular schoolboys.30 The effects of these trends can be seen clearly in the surviving Latin manuscripts. In fact, on the face of it, their contents might seem as provincial and introspective as patterns of learning had become. The historical collections might seem especially narrow, a return to the narratives of their formative years. The imprint of these structures initially appears indelible in the surviving traces of Latin texts. The historical collections appear notably narrow and parochial, a return to the narratives of their formative years. The foundation histories of Merton and Smithfield were rediscovered, reproduced, and at Smithfield and also Kenilworth, they were continued down to the fifteenth century.31 John Strecche also appears to signal that the old tensions within and between the Augustinian orders had resurfaced in the reigns of the first Lancastrians, together with the apologia and argumenta that they had originally generated.32 Yet close attention reveals wider horizons: particularly, a remarkable degree of research underpinning these works. The anonymous compilers at Merton and Waltham had uncovered texts for which there was no continuous manuscript tradition: these were discoveries of texts perhaps not read in their own community since the twelfth century.33 Strecche had searched within and, it seems, beyond Kenilworth to recover memorial verses of various kinds, certainly in the west and midlands, since he reported burials at Gloucester and Worcester and a ‘vulgata

30 For the foundation of elementary schools at Augustinian houses, see N. Orme, Medieval Schools: From Roman Britain to Renaissance England (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), pp. 255–87. See also R . Bowers, ‘The Almonry Schools of the English Monasteries, c.1265–1540’, in Monasteries and Society in Medieval Britain: Proceedings of the 1994 Harlaxton Symposium, Harlaxton Medieval Studies, 6 (Stamford: Watkins, 1999), pp. 177–222. 31

The Merton history is preserved in London, College of Arms, MS Arundel 28, fols 1r–13 v; the Smithfield text survives in London, BL, MS Cotton Vespasian B. ix, fols 1r–40v. The Kenilworth text is the work of John Strecche contained in London, BL, MS Additional 35295, fols 249r–265v. At Waltham, Abbot Robert Fuller embarked upon an ambitious cartulary in the shadow of the surrender. Its rich decoration attests to the scriptorial tastes (if not in-house skills) of the last generation of canons: London, BL, MS Additional 37665. 32

London, BL, MS Additional 38665, fols 5r–18v. See, for example, fol. 6r: ‘Cronica cuiusdam amici veritatis in argumentum functacionis Canonicorum Regularium ordinis Sancti Augustini.’ 33

London, College of Arms, MS Arundel 28.

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fama’ circulating at Swineshead on the death of King John.34 Strecche and Knighton were also adept at sifting more contemporary material. Strecche picked up early news of the ‘micra siue miralcula’ surrounding the tomb of Archbishop Scrope. Geoffrey Martin noted the one hundred and thirty or so newsletters that Knighton incorporated, or cited, in his chronicle.35 John Wylde was also well aware of the currents of historical writing within the monastic network and incorporated several texts, uniquely, into his own compilation, including an important sequence of historical verses from the pen, probably, of the Benedictine abbot John Wheathampstead of St Albans.36 In pursuit of these rarities, these compilers displayed a degree of antiquarianism that also distinguishes them from their predecessors. In marshalling ancient verses, Strecche distinguished between the poeta responsible for the earlier verses he copied, the metrista from whom he derives the moralizing verses for figures of the medieval past — those on the tomb of Richard I, for example — and the scriptores of his own day.37 There also appears to be a qualitative distinction implied in these terms. Both Strecche and Wylde also apply their antiquarian sensibility to their narratives, showing a sharper sense of chronology and era, and giving antique or at least faux-antique names to peoples and polities — the French, the Normans — a feature occasionally glimpsed in the work of contemporary Benedictine chroniclers, but which is used continually in these Augustinian compilations.38 Wylde even applies it to English place names: in his hands St Albans becomes Verolamium.39 Their self-conscious, if somewhat misplaced antiquarianism is indicative of an increasingly classicizing approach to their historical writing. Here perhaps only Henry Knighton stands apart from the group, and if we can determine in these texts as a whole a development in Augustinian historical writing, then Knighton is perhaps best interpreted as something of a transitional

34

MS Add. 35295, fols 233r–279v (251v , 255r).

35

MS Add. 35295, fol. 265v; Knighton’s Chronicle, ed. by G. H. Martin, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. xxxii–xl. 36

MS Rawlinson B. 214, fol. 114v .

37

MS Add. 35295, fols 233r–279v (249v , 268r, 269v, 278 v).

38

MS Add. 35295, fols 233r –279v (239r , 241v ), where King Edgaw is compared to Romulus, Alexander, and Charlemagne; MS Rawlinson B. 214. Tellingly Wylde refers to St Albans as Verolamium (fol. 105r). For a Benedictine comparison, see the Chronica maiora of Thomas Walsingham: Clark, Monastic Renaissance, pp. 163–208. 39

MS Rawlinson B. 214, fol. 106r.

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figure.40 For the others in this group, the adoption of faux-antique names and titles is only part of a grander enterprise to locate their narratives in a literary frame. There was a continuous fusion of poetry and prose in both Strecche and Wylde’s work; indeed Strecche’s history of England since the Conquest is given almost an entirely prosi-metrical structure, reminiscent more of classical models (or their pseudo-classical imitations) than contemporary modes.41 In the case of both compilers, this is not ‘classicizing-by-numbers’, or at least by florilegium, but rather the full integration of passages from classical and high medieval pseudo-classical verse. There was also a determination in these writers to recast their own narratives, including those of their own houses, as an epic of classical proportions. Both Strecche and Wylde’s compilations are consciously arranged so that each begins with the fall of Troy, though in different narrative versions: for Strecche it is Guido of Colonna, for Wylde it is Thomas Walsingham’s rendering of Dictys Cretensis’s Ephemeris belli Troiani and Simon de Chevre d’Or’s Ylias.42 Both texts are edited by their compilers to culminate with the tale of Brutus and the foundation of Britain.43 The narrative continues with the descent of British and English kingship, again by means of different, but complementary authorities: Wylde uses verse and prose histories from John Wheathampstead and Thomas Elmham, while Strecche uses Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Britonum, and his own compositions, down to the reigns, respectively, of Henry V and Henry VI.44 The epic tone is maintained throughout and the later, rather more prosaic narration of recent times is bound to the earlier legends by the use of verses which underline the heroic, or indeed the villainous, qualities of recent monarchs.45 This reading, or re-reading, of history as epic reflected the deep immersion of these successive cohorts of Augustinian compilers in the wider canon of Latin literature.

40

For Knighton’s use of citations and echoes from scripture and secular literature, see Knighton’s Chronicle, ed. by Martin, pp. 558–59. 41

MS Add. 35295, fols 233r–279v .

42

MS Add. 35295, fols 7r –136r ; MS Rawlinson B. 214, fols 1r –106r , 107r–112v . For Walsingham’s Dites ditatus, see also Clark, Monastic Renaissance, pp. 163–208. 43

MS Add. 35295, fol. 229r; MS Rawlinson B. 214, fols 113r–114v.

44

MS Add. 35295, fols 233r–246v; MS Rawlinson B. 214, fols 113 r–114v, 137ra–148vb . For the verses employed by Wylde, see also A. G. Rigg, ‘Medieval Poetic Anthologies, I’. 45

For Strecche memorial verses form part of the framework with which he constructs a history of each post-Conquest monarch: MS Add. 35295, fols 233r–246v.

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Examined closely these manuscripts bear witness to a rich variety of literary references. The predominant presence in the texts themselves and their accompanying, marginal cross references are the great auctores of the Imperial ‘Golden’ and ‘Silver’ ages, such as Lucan, Ovid, Statius, and Virgil.46 Wylde also appears to be aware of authors of which even his immediate predecessors may have lacked first-hand knowledge.47 The pseudo-classical epics of the twelfth century were also a staple of their reading. Strecche presents an annotated (and illustrated) redaction of Nigel Whiteacre’s Speculum stultorum in his anthology, but both compilers appear to have been familiar with a wide variety of these schoolroom classics.48 Contemporary verse incorporating the figmenta poetarum also appears to have penetrated their precincts. Certainly, John Walton was read alongside Chaucer, John Gower, and Jean de Meun.49 John Wylde may have been one of the few English clerks to follow the Ovide moralisé.50 The medieval critical tradition clearly also had a place in their reading and it is notable that, in contrast to their Benedictine counterparts, these readers eschewed the ‘integumental’ interpretations of the mendicant tradition in favour of earlier, literal-historical accessus, biographies, and the ‘literal sense’ academic commentaries of Nicholas Trevet, Walton’s principal source for his Boethius translation.51 The catalogue of authors and critical authorities represented in these manuscripts speaks of a high level of personal scholarship but the common ground between them is rather the pedagogic purpose which was probably the principal 46 See, for example, MS Add. 35295, fols 3r–v (Virgil); MS Rawlinson B. 214, fols 1r–106r (87v, 88v inter alia). 47

See, for example, the glosses to the text of Dites ditatus in MS Rawlinson B. 214, fols 3r–105r.

48 MS Add. 38665, fols 85r–156r; MS Add. 35295, fol. 278v; MS Rawlinson B. 214, fols 159r–165v, 167r–181v. 49

See, for example, John Shirley’s inclusion of eight lines from Walton’s Boethius translation in an anthology of English and French vernacular verse and prose: London, BL, MS Royal 20 B. xv, fol. 1v . 50

An immensely popular work, the Ovide appears to have been eclipsed in English clerical communities, by its Latin counterpart, the Ovidius moralizatus of Pierre Bersuire; yet the images of the pagan gods with which Wylde illustrated his manuscript may have been informed by the French manual: MS Rawlinson B. 214, fols 108r–112r. See also now C. Lord, ‘A Survey of Imagery in Medieval Manuscripts of Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Related Commentaries’, in Ovid in the Middle Ages, ed. by J. G. Clark, F. T. Coulson, and K. L. McKinley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 257–87 (p. 272). 51

Both Strecche and Wylde incorporate accessus in their anthologies: MS Add. 38665, fol. 85r; MS Rawlinson B. 214, fols 200v –201v .

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rationale for their compilation. There seems to have been a general shift in patterns of elementary education among the religious orders during the decades either side of the Black Death (1348–50), stimulated not only by their growing interaction with the academic schools — and, it should be remembered, the extra-mural masters of grammar and dictamen — but also by the garnering of masters and scholars in their own almonries.52 These developments it seems led the Benedictines to revive the trivium, the threefold syllabus of verbal arts, which had thrived in their cloister scholae in earlier centuries.53 The corpus of later medieval codices would suggest that teaching in the canon houses now took a similar course, albeit with some differences of emphasis. Cicero appears to have enjoyed an early prominence as a master of precepts and a model of style. Ciceronian manuals on rhetoric are recorded at Leicester Abbey in the middle years of the fourteenth century, among them a rare copy of the commentary of Mangeold.54 A century later a fine copy of De officiis was apparently made at Oseney for the use of the abbot.55 Such an early introduction to De inventione (among other manuals) surely stimulated the interest in the steeper slopes of the syllabus, beyond the principles of grammar to the possibilities of rhetorical ‘colour’ and the complexities of cadence and metre. Short expositions of metre are found in several of the manuscripts in focus here.56 The St Osyth manuscript bears witness to the teaching of John Seward, master of the parochial grammar school of St Peter’s Cornhill in the city of London.57 His versified surveys of metrical paradigms were reproduced presumably for the canon pupils of the Essex abbey; their rich literary reminiscences and rather laboured comedy were perhaps unsuited to the typical almonry boy. Strecche’s anthology brings this new-found curriculum into focus. His book provides more or less a complete Latin course, beginning with Cato and Aesop, the staple schoolboy readers, before progressing to the Speculum stultorum, whose verse form, vocabulary, and sharp satire were appropriate for the advanced student,

52

For these developments, see Orme, Medieval Schools, pp. 255–87.

53

Clark, Monastic Renaissance, pp. 42–78.

54

Libraries of the Augustinian Canons, ed. by Watson and Webber, A20. 1064, 1066 (p. 304).

55

Now, Oxford, Brasenose College, MS 5. The MS is not described in Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, ed. by Ker and others, or in Ker (and Watson), Medieval Libraries of Great Britain. 56

Most notably, MS Add. 38665, fols 33r–35r.

57

Edinburgh University Library, MS 136; Clark, Monastic Renaissance, pp. 218–26.

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accompanied by a summary survey of rhetorical principles, closing thereafter with a sequence of practice verses. Such a selection might be seen in a Benedictine commonplace of the same period but Strecche’s book displays some distinctive features: editorial comments that continue throughout, a mix of the schoolmasterly, such as the description of Aesop as ‘bread for the boys’, the scholarly, clarifying points of grammar, vocabulary, and metre, and the corporate, noting the distinctions between the orders in the Speculum.58 He also employs visual tools to guide his pupils through these texts. The Aesop and the Speculum stultorum are fully illustrated. There are no fewer than four detailed portraits of Brunellus the Ass in his different attitudes — as master of the schools, as prelate of the church, and so on.59 Yet it would be wrong to dismiss all this material as merely ‘bread for the boys’. Even the boy readers of these manuscripts could glimpse the deep scholarship beyond. The compilers of these manuscript anthologies, and the translator Walton, were clearly engaged in the exposition of this material, in spite of a nod, in Walton’s Boethius preface, in the direction of traditional integumental interpretations, but in fact he, and in his regula, preferred literal and historical readings of classical material. Both Strecche and Wylde approached their material similarly, to lay bare the features of a new society. Wylde glosses his texts with expositions of Roman mores; Strecche’s glosses are filled with historical detail. If there is any higher purpose, it seems it is rather a secular one: Strecche, Walton, and Wylde are wont to highlight the secular virtues of honour, or nobility, emerging from their readings. As Walton writes: ‘pere is namore parayllous pestilence | pan hye estate given un to shrewys’.60 This does, of course, raise the question of whether we can find in these manuscripts traces of a humanist sensibility in the houses of the Augustinian canons. There are few traces of genuine humanist texts, although the reading of Chaucer brings them closer perhaps, but the scholarly habits of these compilers do have much in common with their modish continental counterparts. All of these compilers are, to a greater or lesser extent, preoccupied with their own role as author/compiler, their relationship to earlier authorities, and their selfrepresentation as scholars. While each of them, Knighton, Strecche, Walton, and Wylde, hide their names in cryptic acrostics, they also self-consciously proclaim

58

MS Add. 38665, fols 33r–35 r, 55r, 126r.

59

MS Add. 38665, fols 41r–56v (Aesop), 85r–156v (88v , 107r, 114v, 132 r) (Speculum).

60

MS Royal 20 B. xv, fol. 1v .

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their authorship in lavish monograms, and in verse encomia composed by themselves. Their enthusiasm for producing an autograph manuscript — Knighton excepted — and their experimentation — also carries some echo of the scriptorial sensibilities of the continental humanists.61 Early commentators represented the convents of the regular canons as a cultural world apart from the older monastic order. It was the self-conscious freedom of the canon house that Alexander Nequam, a reluctant professus, celebrated in his later career, reflecting on the advantages of a convent where he might begin work with a draught of wine.62 Such a climate fostered diverse and vigorous patterns of learning in the principal houses of the later Middle Ages. Early traditions were continued, indeed renewed, but the striking feature of the surviving compilations is their innovation, in the form and style of historical discourse, and in the study of metre, rhetoric, and the monuments of classical literature, which appear to reflect underlying changes in claustral teaching. There are traces here of tastes that are reminiscent of the progressive Augustinians of mainland Europe — the interest in the studia litterarum, especially, and in the remarkable, illustrated anthologies of John Strecche, canon of Kenilworth, even of the ars scribendi. Of course, it is difficult to find signs of influence or impact beyond their own corporate networks, but in the work of John Walton of Oseney and the reception of the teaching of John Seward of St Osyth, it is possible that, in a small way, they did contribute to the renewal of Latin learning in the clerical establishment.

61

Strecche and Wylde were the scribes of both of the manuscripts that each is known to have compiled. Knighton is not thought to be the scribe of the Tiberius manuscript but it would appear it was compiled under his direction. 62

R . W. Hunt, The Cloister and the Schools, ed. by M. T. Gibson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), pp. 15–16.

T HE IDOL OF O RIGINS: R ETROSPECTION IN A UGUSTINIAN A RT DURING THE L ATER M IDDLE A GES* Julian M. Luxford

A

familiar medieval apology for chronicle-writing was that knowledge of people, things, and deeds worthy of commemoration could only be lastingly transmitted through the pen.1 This idea, a sort of Historismus which is still fundamental to the teaching and practice of history as an academic discipline, is obviously true to the extent that the language in which texts share articulates facts in a uniquely comprehensible, if not necessarily accurate, way. However, it has done a good deal to prejudice scholarship against the use of the medieval visual sources that expressed concepts as emphatically as texts, and often with stronger definition and imaginativeness.2 It is both an irony and an apparent justification of the chronicler’s topos that most of the commemorative objects now loosely termed ‘works of art’ are known only because their existence is recorded in some written account. Even in the Middle Ages, specific understanding of what these objects were for commonly relied on an associated text, which must

*

The term ‘idol of origins’ was invented by Marc Bloch to characterize historians’ explanation of societies, institutions, etc. with reference to foundational events: M. Bloch, The Historian’s Craft, trans. by P. Putnam (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1954), pp. 29–34. 1

See the useful analysis in C. Given-Wilson, Chronicles: The Writing of History in Medieval England (London: Hambledon, 2004), pp. 56–78. 2

Michael Clanchy has sought to close the textual–visual gap with his discussion of documents as ‘portentous objects’, a term which might equally be applied to the material discussed here. See, for example, M. T. Clanchy, ‘“Tenacious Letters”: Archives and Memory in the Middle Ages’, Archivaria, 9 (1981), 115–25.

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ultimately be considered part and parcel of the object itself. (In the case of a tomb, the most familiar type of visual memento, this was usually an epitaph.) The fact that texts by themselves were not thought sufficient for effective commemoration is obvious: considerable sums would not have been spent, nor important spaces given up, had physical memorials not carried a practical and associative potential that words did not. Medieval writers knew this, and cited such objects in support of their claims, as Knighton cited King Harold II’s tomb at Waltham Abbey, and the chroniclers of Stone and Worksop Priories the tombs in their own churches. The psychological impact of form, size, colour, privileged location, and the manifest deference of patrons and custodians helped to make physical, non-textual commemoration a conspicuous characteristic of later medieval life, in both ecclesiastical and secular spheres. Accordingly, and notwithstanding its low evidence-value for the sort of history which many scholars are conditioned to write, it has been widely studied. However, the interest of certain aspects of this material has been insufficiently recognized. One of these is what has been called ‘retrospective’ commemoration: objects made, retained, or collected together to raise or refresh awareness of people and circumstances of historical, and not simply current, value to their custodians. Typically, these seem to have been tombs or cenotaphs, which, for a variety of reasons, had particular evidential value in the later Middle Ages. Fairly large numbers of these are recorded in medieval and antiquarian texts; some survive, and have been capably, but individually, studied. ‘Seem’ is perhaps the operative word here. Medieval and early modern writers tended to single out tombs from material contexts which must often have included other types of objects intended to function, like the panel paintings at Hexham discussed below, to the same or analogous ends. Whatever the original balance may have been, questions of material and form are of less importance for this brief account of retrospection in Augustinian art than the witness such art bears to the nourishing value of foundational and patronage histories. It is, of course, no revelation that religious houses valued and often vaunted the accounts of their origins and development. Self-preservation, spiritual and temporal obligation, and domestic solidarity were all as closely bound up with the past as the present. But the demonstration of age, the nobility and sanctity of a convent’s progenitors, and thus the basis of its material and moral entitlements, are customarily discussed with reference to charters, chronicles, hagiographies, and other categories of text. From a forensic point of view these things were vital; but, notwithstanding the evidential value of archaic script and the Anglo-Saxon language, they did not convey an impression of antiquity, continuity, and maintenance of religious obligations as directly, nor to such a large

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audience, as a founder’s tomb next to a high altar, a patronal mausoleum, or for that matter a compelling but stylistically outmoded piece of architecture. Monumental, visual resources of this kind did not simply back up written documentation, but functioned in symbiosis with it, adding texture and sophistication to institutional strategy in relation to both internal and external interests.

Retention and Collocation In the second part of this paper, examples of retrospective objects commissioned and manufactured de novo for Augustinian houses are individually examined. At the outset, however, it is worth expanding on the idea that artistic retrospection did not always have to do with manufacture, but could involve strategic retention of existing objects during campaigns of rebuilding and re-embellishment, or the deliberate collocation of such objects. That medieval institutions preserved early art and architecture at times of renovation intentionally to maintain visual and imaginative links with earlier periods is difficult to prove, and is complicated by other possible reasons for retention, including respect for the decisions of past benefactors (the preservation of sepulchral monuments can often be seen in this light), the perceived sanctity of objects and structures (an obvious example being Glastonbury’s Ealdechirche), the need for economy, and, perhaps, the expectations of current institutional supporters. In any case, no such decision was ever made for a single reason, and such considerations are perfectly compatible with the desire to advertise an illustrious past. Where monks or canons engaged in extensive campaigns of rebuilding decided to preserve a chapter house, cloister, chapel, or other structure whose prestige would ordinarily have made it liable to renovation, an interest in evoking the past is particularly likely. Among English Augustinian convents, Victorine Bristol retains perhaps the least ambiguous examples of strategic retention. Here, the ornate Romanesque chapter house, which was almost three-quarters the length of the original nave and obviously intended by its builders as a visual assertion of the foundation’s unity and magnificence, was preserved, although most other conventual structures were progressively replaced by Gothic buildings.3 Nearby, and in a more public position, the visible Romanesque parts of the lower storey of the main gatehouse, heavily reinforced by new but largely hidden

3

William Worcestre: The Topography of Medieval Bristol, ed. by F. Neale, Bristol Record Society Publications, 51 (Bristol: Bristol Record Society, 2000), p. 278 (respective lengths of chapter house and nave).

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masonry, were also retained when this structure was renovated during the early sixteenth century (Fig. 17).4 The sensitivity of this buttressing to the visual integrity of the original work demonstrates the canons’ desire for preservation over modishness. Two late-Gothic storeys were erected over the twelfth-century arches and passageway, evoking the fundamental support of the original foundation for its progeny. That this evocation was planned is indicated by the addition, on the Gothic part of the outer façade, of four monumental sculptures of the abbey’s progenitors, each in a tabernacle. The royal figure at the lower left represents King Henry II holding a foundational charter with seals attached. (A document issued under King Stephen identifies Henry, then duke of Normandy, as the abbey’s fundator.5) To the lower right is a modern sculpture of a canon with charter and model church, clearly replacing a pre-Reformation version of the same figure, and representing Robert fitz Harding (d. 1171), the Bristol burgess and merchant styled ‘primer fundator and chanon of [the] monastery of Seint Augustines bi Bristowe’ in a contemporary genealogy of the Berkeley family commissioned by the abbey.6 Beneath, and divided in half by the hood-mould of the entrance arch, runs a corresponding inscription reading ‘Rex henricus secu[n]dus et d[omi]n[u]s Robertus fili[us] herdyngi filij regis dacie hui[us] monasterij primi fundatores extiterunt’ (King Henry the Second and sir Robert, son of Harding, a son of the king of Denmark, were the first founders of this monastery). This anonymous Danish king, whose introduction to the ancestry of Robert fitz Harding (and, thence, the Berkeley family) added additional royal lustre to the abbey, was evidently of some importance to the canons.7 He is the only figure physically represented in the genealogy quoted from above, where his position at the top of the pedigree is confidently supported by a passage ‘wreten in Polecronicon’, concerning a Danish practice of sending all but firstborn princes abroad.8

4

The phasing is shown on the coloured plan in R. W. Paul, ‘The Plan of the Church and Monastery of St Augustine, Bristol’, Archaeologia, 63 (1911–12), 231–50. 5 This document is discussed in J. C. Dickinson, ‘The Origins of St Augustine’s, Bristol’, in Essays in Bristol and Gloucestershire History, ed. by P. McGrath and J. Cannon (Bristol: Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, 1976), pp. 109–26 (pp. 110–12). 6

Berkeley (Gloucestershire), Castle Muniments, S 97, membrane 2 (a parchment roll).

7

In fact, Robert fitz Harding’s paternal grandfather was a Saxon thegn, Eadnoth the Staller (d. 1068). 8

Berkeley (Gloucestershire), Castle Muniments, S 97, membrane 2. However, no such passage appears in the Rolls Series edition of the Polychronicon.

THE IDOL OF ORIGINS

Figure 17. The north façade of the precinctual gate at St Augustine’s, Bristol. Photograph by Julian Luxford.

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It is likely that the second crowned sculpture on the gatehouse façade, above that of Henry II, represents him, and that the corresponding figure on the right, which stands over Robert fitz Harding, is meant for Harding himself. This would mean that all four figures mentioned in the inscription are represented. Bristol’s gatehouse is an example of both retention and manufacture in the service of historical retrospection, and a reminder of the fact, which is in any case obvious, that the strategies being discussed need not be exclusive of one another. The other expedient mentioned for evoking institutional histories, the marshalling and collocation of architectural and artistic ‘relics’ during periods of renovation, is more easily demonstrated with reference to Benedictine monasteries than Augustinian. A widely recognized example relates to St Augustine’s Abbey in Canterbury, where the high altar screen, rebuilt during the late Middle Ages, supported a display of ancient books, some in treasure bindings, along with reliquaries and two processional crosses. The latter were possibly the Crux Augustini and crux ex marmore porphiritico noted by John Leland when he toured the church in the 1530s.9 Elsewhere, at St Peter’s Abbey in Gloucester, the retrospective tombs or cenotaphs of the traditional founder, Osric of the Hwicce (d. c. 679), King Henry I’s brother Robert Curthose (d. 1134), and the illustrious builder-abbot, Serlo (1072–1104), though made at different periods, were arranged from north to south across the presbytery, where they would be seen by anyone looking towards the high altar from the west.10 A similar arrangement seems to have existed at Glastonbury, where monuments commemorating kings Edward the Elder (d. 924) and Edmund Ironside (d. 1016) were located in the presbytery on either side of the tomb of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere. This central tomb, made between 1191 and 1193, was located in a position in front of the high altar in 1278.11 It may be that Augustinian Hexham can be placed in this company, although it is doubtful whether the components of the Anglo-Saxon church preserved during the renovations of c. 1180–1256 (east end and transepts) and the fifteenth century (nave) were ever closely grouped. It can be said, at least, that the power of the seventh-century crypt, slightly later ‘frith stool’, and sumptuous stone cross 9

St Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury, ed. by B. Barker-Benfield, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues, 13, 3 vols (London: British Library and British Academy, 2008), III, 1651, 1690. 10

J. M. Luxford, The Art and Architecture of English Benedictine Monasteries, 1300–1540: A Patronage History (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2005), p. 167. 11

P. G. Lindley, Tomb Destruction and Scholarship: Medieval Monuments in Early Modern England (Donington: Tyas, 2007), pp. 149–58.

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associated with the intramural grave of Bishop Acca (ruled 709–32) to evoke the saintly past so important to subsequent Hexham chroniclers is likely to have been strengthened by their existence and display under the same roof, and that in this sense they constituted a collection of objects whose function was, inter alia, retrospective.12 A succession of patrons’ tombs in a cloister, chapter house, and church can also be interpreted in light of historical retrospection. In such cases the collocation of monuments was due more to organic accretion than planned synthesis, but with time it had the same effect of evoking institutional history. Just as manuscript genealogies mapped the chronology of lineage through series of roundels and lines of descent, so a succession of monuments (even if, as often, it contained gaps) charted the lineage of elevated lay or clerical association with a particular house.13 An accumulation of this sort was dynamic in its suggestion of a narrative of patronage or religious leadership, rather than, as with the examples of retention and embellishment noted at Bristol, a single act or process of foundation. A specifically retrospective understanding of the mausoleums in English Augustinian houses is revealed in written sources, and may also be implicated in the reconstruction of conventual churches, chapter houses, and cloisters. It has been suggested, for example, that the east end of Kirkham Priory in Yorkshire was greatly enlarged in the later thirteenth century to provide an honorific setting for patrons’ tombs. Harold Brakspear supposed the same thing of Wigmore Abbey in Herefordshire, whose eastern limb, containing monuments of up to fourteen heads of the Mortimer family, was rebuilt a century later.14 To the extent that respect for men rather than religion did drive such projects, the provision of a magnificent architectural context for the tombs of later benefactors signified more than gratitude and fulfilment of obligation. In a more sophisticated sense, and one

12

See N. Pevsner and I. Richmond, The Buildings of England: Northumberland, rev. edn (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), pp. 323–24 (crypt); R . Cramp, Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture: County Durham and Northumberland, 2 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), I, 174–93; II, pls 167–85 (surviving Anglo-Saxon sculpture). For inscriptions from other tombs existing at Hexham in 1154, see The Priory of Hexham: Its Chronicles, Endowments, and Annals, ed. by J. Raine, Surtees Society, 44, 46, 2 vols (Durham: Surtees Society, 1864–65), I, 194–200. 13

Cf. H. Brakspear, ‘Wigmore Abbey’, Archaeological Journal, 90 (1933), 26–51 (p. 46); Brakspear comments that the presbytery at Wigmore ‘must have contained a pedigree in stone’ of the Mortimer family, fourteen of whose heads were buried at the abbey. 14

J. Burton, Kirkham Priory from Foundation to Dissolution, Borthwick Papers, 86 (York: Bothwick Publications, 1995), p. 23; Brakspear, ‘Wigmore Abbey’, pp. 29, 46.

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which corresponds to the Llanthony Prima chronicler’s evocation of a church built out of stones but simultaneously and more essentially constituted of Christ’s servants, it also expressed the burgeoning of a monastic community from a nourishing root which could be traced back to grave slabs of first founders and superiors in a chapter house or cloister.15 As well as stimulating and furnishing a metaphor for architectural growth, the existence of a well-stocked founders’ mausoleum could provide a convent with a consoling sense of historical continuity in the wake of destruction. This seems to have been the case at Lanthony by Gloucester, or Lanthony Secunda, where the church and part of the conventual complex was incinerated in 1301. For one hundred and twenty years before this the Lanthony mausoleum had been cultivated in the chapter house, before branching out into the church during the 1270s. In the later fourteenth century, with the house reduced by fire, debts, and disease, and its Bohun patrons now entrusting their corpses to the Benedictines of Walden, the canons composed a stemma fundatoris, which rehearsed the location of each important burial in their monastery, beginning with that of the first founder, Milo, constable of Hereford (d. 1143).16 They copied this, prefaced by a separate list of sixteen founders and benefactors buried in the chapter house, into a manuscript which also contained their rule, and other matter relating to St Augustine: a juxtaposition of spiritual and temporal patrons which epitomizes the latter’s fundamental importance to the community.17 Neither list mentions anything more than burial location, but the monuments which must have distinguished most or all of the graves, each one ineluctably familiar to the canons, were the obvious physical referents for readers of the names and genealogical accounts. In a similar way, the lists of monastic superiors compiled by the domestic historians of Nostell Priory and Thornton Abbey also mention burial locations

15

William Dugdale, Monasticon anglicanum, ed. by J. Caley, H. Ellis, and B. Bandinel (hereafter Monasticon), 6 vols (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, 1817–30), VI, pt I (1830), 132: ‘Et quid est ecclesia? nunquid lapides? nonne Christi fideles?’ 16

It is just possible that this genealogy was composed elsewhere. However, the preponderance of material relating to the priory, and the fact that a copy of it exists in a fourteenth-century manuscript belonging to the canons, all but certifies a Lanthony provenance. 17

Formerly Bristol, Baptist College, MS Z d 5: N. R . Ker and others, Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, 5 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969–2002), II (1977), 190–91.

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rather than tombs, but, as Judith Frost has pointed out, acquaintance with the monuments lurks behind and informs both accounts.18 At the priories of Stone in Staffordshire and Worksop in Nottinghamshire, retrospective narratives both textual and monumental complemented one another with particular clarity. The texts in question are alike in style and subject matter, and are examples of a sort of local publicity which seems to have been widespread in the late Middle Ages: they share, for example, many similarities with an early sixteenth-century verse chronicle displayed in the nave of Gloucester Abbey. Neither is a straightforward genealogy. Each contains material of intrinsically monastic concern, and the voices of both authors are unambiguously institutional. Both texts are metrical, written in English, and thus fairly obviously designed for the attention of visitors.19 Indeed, Stone’s is stated to have hung in the priory, probably on wooden boards displayed in the church, while that from Worksop concludes with an exhortation to say a Paternoster and an Ave for the souls of those it mentions, or De profundis ‘if thow a clerk be’, suggesting that it, too, was exhibited in some manner. Each text guides the reader through the domestic mausoleum, impressing his or her imagination with the illustrious history of the house. The Stone account was paired with a second set of verses rehearsing the legend of the local, seventh-century saint, Wulfad, a juxtaposition which reinforced the priory’s prestige by referring to distant and saintly roots. It tends to mention burial places rather than monuments, but concludes by referring readers to the ‘south side of this quier’, where they could see the ‘fayre new tombe’ of Hugh, Lord Bourchier (d. 1420), beside that of his father, Sir Hugh II de Stafford (d. 1386): the redolent, sculpted blooms at the top of the stem. The Worksop author, who appreciated more keenly the value of describing such objects for his readers, mentioned numerous founders’ tombs. One was a ‘white stone’, another exhibited a ‘helm on his hede’ and was inset with precious stones, and a third was hidden up to the head beneath a stall in the Lady chapel. Others are distinguished with reference to their material; ‘alabaster’, ‘free-stone’, and ‘merbill’. These are particularly lucid examples of canons’ awareness of the historical value (and its corollaries) of founders’ and patrons’ mausoleums. In theory, any such collection of monuments, Augustinian and otherwise, could be understood in this way; it is hardly playing fast and loose with history to assume that this was 18

J. A. Frost, The Foundation of Nostell Priory, 1109–1153, Borthwick Papers, 111 (York: Borthwick Institute of Historical Research, University of York, 2007), pp. 14, 52 n. 40. 19

They are printed in Monasticon, VI, pt I, 122–24 (Worksop), 230–31 (Stone). It is clear that neither is an antiquarian translation from Latin. Note also A. Abram’s chapter in this volume.

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realized in the Middle Ages. Robust support for the idea exists in the groups of retrospective effigies and tombs manufactured en bloc for the canons of Wells and Hereford cathedrals, and, across the channel, the Benedictines of Jumièges, St-Remi at Reims, and St-Denis.20 To the best of this author’s knowledge, no English Augustinian house had a series of retrospective tombs, cenotaphs, or grave markers made. However, as already noted in the case of Bristol, a number did commission single retrospective set pieces, and it is with these that the remainder of this paper is concerned.

Retrospective Commissions Some of these commissioned objects related to a pre-Augustinian, pre-Conquest past. Uniquely in the context of the order, but fittingly for such an important house, that at Waltham Abbey commemorated a king of England. Whether Harold II, who enlarged and enriched Waltham during the late 1050s, was in fact buried there has never been proven, but the canons certainly considered themselves in possession of his body. Harold’s remains are said to have been moved three times to different parts of the church (perhaps including the chapter house or cloister) before the introduction of the Augustinian chapter by Henry II in 1177: presumably, they ended up in the choir or presbytery.21 During this process, the monument which must originally have marked Harold’s grave may or may not have been moved with the corpse. At some stage, however, a new monument, with a retrospective effigy on top, seems to have been commissioned. The Leicester chronicler Henry Knighton (d. c. 1396), treading cautiously in light of a tradition (transmitted by no less an authority than Higden) that Harold had escaped the battlefield and become a hermit at Chester, nevertheless expressed confessional solidarity in the observation that ‘tumulatio ejus cum imagine superposita’ could

20

See respectively M. M. Reeve, ‘The Retrospective Effigies of Anglo-Saxon Bishops at Wells Cathedral: A Reassessment’, Somerset Archaeology, 142 (1999), 235–59; P. G. Lindley, ‘Retrospective Effigies, the Past and Lies’, in Medieval Art, Architecture and Archaeology at Hereford, ed. by D. Whitehead, British Archaeological Association, Conference Transactions, 15 (Leeds: British Archaeological Association, 1995), pp. 111–21; J. Adhémar and G. Dordor, ‘Les Tombeaux de la Collection Gaignières: Dessins d’archéologie du XVIIe siècle’, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 6th ser., 84 (1974), 1–192 (pp. 45–46 ( Jumièges)); A. Prache, ‘Les Monuments funéraires des carolingiens élevés à St-Remi de Reims au XIIe siècle’, Revue de l’Art, 6 (1969), 68–76; G. S. Wright, ‘A Royal Tomb Program in the Reign of St Louis’, Art Bulletin, 56 (1974), 224–43. 21

R . Fleming, ‘Harold II’, in ODNB, XXV , 352–62 (p. 361) (pre-1177 translations).

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be seen in the church at Waltham, ‘ubi dicitur Haraldum humatum fuisse’.22 While they are found c. 1100 in Germany, there is no English evidence for effigial tombs of the sort Knighton refers to before the mid- to later twelfth century, and the earliest example produced for an English king is that of John at Worcester (made c. 1232: there are slightly earlier effigies of Henry II and Richard I at Fontevrault in Anjou).23 A new monument, or an effigy to lie on top of the old one, must have been produced for the Augustinian canons, probably in conjunction with the church’s late twelfth- to mid-thirteenth-century rebuilding (the rededication occurred in 1242). A similar renovation seems to have occurred at Benedictine Reading Abbey, where an effigial monument to King Henry I existed in the late fourteenth century.24 (If Knighton’s imagine superposita indicates a monumental brass then the terminus post quem is pushed even later, as brasses did not enter the sepulchral repertory until the later thirteenth century.25) The same dating criterion can be used to show that a retrospective episcopal effigy existed at Arrouaisian Dorchester in Oxfordshire. Like Hexham, this abbey occupied the site of an AngloSaxon cathedral, with which it claimed a degree of historical continuity.26 A certain amount of retrospective imagery expressing this connection is thus likely to have been commissioned. Indeed, a sample survives in the stained glass of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries representing the first bishop, St Birinus (634–c. 650), whose remains were translated into a new sculpted shrine c. 1320.27 This glass functioned as a declaration not simply of holiness but also of the antiquity that

22

Chronicon Henrici Knighton, vel Cnitthon, monachi Leycestrensis, ed. by J. R. Lumby, Rolls Series, 92, 2 vols (London: HMSO, 1889–95), I, 57. 23

N. Saul, English Church Monuments in the Middle Ages: History and Representation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 28–29, 145. 24

J. M. Luxford, ‘The Tomb of King Henry I at Reading Abbey: New Evidence Concerning its Appearance and the Date of its Effigy’, Reading Medieval Studies, 30 (2004), 15–31. 25 P. Binski, ‘The Stylistic Sequence of London Figure Brasses’, in The Earliest English Brasses, ed. by J. Coales (London: Monumental Brass Society, 1987), pp. 69–131. ‘Superposita’ seems to disqualify the possibility that an incised slab is intended. Even if it were, the ‘imagine’ indicates a thirteenth-century, or later, date. 26

VCH: Oxfordshire, ed. by W. Page and others, 16 vols to date (London: Constable, 1907–), Ecclesiastical History, Religious Houses, Social & Economic History, Industries, Ancient Earthworks, Sport, ed. by W. Page (1907), p. 87; VII: Dorchester Hundred, Thame Hundred, ed. by M. Lobel (London: Oxford University Press, 1962), pp. 59–60. II:

27

P. H. Newton and J. Kerr, The County of Oxford: A Catalogue of Medieval Stained Glass, Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi Great Britain, 1 (Oxford: British Academy, 1979), pp. 80 and 84–85, and pls 29(a), 31(a).

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informed sanctity in the minds of viewers. The effigy in question is known through John Leland, who was at Dorchester shortly after the monastery was dissolved in 1536. He observed that ‘there yet remainith the image of free stone that lay on the tumbe of Bisshop Æschwine [i.e. Æscwig, d. 1002], as apperith by the inscription’.28 Here, as at Waltham, is evidence for the retrospective manufacture of an effigy to a pre-Conquest celebrity; or, at least, and much less likely, the appropriation and recontextuali-zation of a pre-existing effigy. The outstanding example of retrospection with a pre-Conquest focus exists at Hexham Abbey in Northumberland. This is not a sepulchral monument but a series of seven painted panels, slightly cut down at the top, representing bishops of the cathedral established on the site by St Wilfrid (674–78, 705–09) and his successor Eata (678–81) (Fig. 18).29 The figures are approximately 1.5 metres in height; each has a sculpted canopy over it and a projecting polygonal plinth at its feet: the intention was thus to evoke sculpted figures of a sort which the canons may not have been able to afford or procure, or which would have been inappropriate to the place in which they were originally displayed. Each figure is represented haloed, mitred, and vested in either a cope or chasuble, blessing with the right hand and holding a staff of office in the left. A date of execution in the later fifteenth century is indicated by both the figure style and the fact that the ensemble incorporates the arms of George Neville, archbishop of York from 1465 to 1476. (This is not necessarily, or even probably, evidence of patronage.) There must originally have been eight figures in the series, representing the number of Hexham bishops who were canonized. The missing saint is Tilbeorht (781–89); surviving, and identified by inscriptions on the plinths, are Eahlmund (767–81), Eata, Wilfrid, John of Beverley (687–705), Acca, Frithubeorht (734–66), and Cuthbert, the latter not consecrated to Hexham, but bishop of Lindisfarne (685–87) at a time when the cathedral of Bernicia shifted between the two locations. These panels are now part of a hybrid furnishing on the north side of the choir, but they originally formed part either of the high altar retable or of a

28

J. Leland, Itinerary in England and Wales, ed. by L. T. Smith, 5 vols (London: Centaur Press, 1964), I, 117. The fourteenth-century mitred freestone effigy surviving at Dorchester and sometimes connected with Leland’s description (for example VCH: Oxfordshire, VII (1962), 60) lacks an inscription. 29

For general accounts, see A. B. Hinds, A History of Northumberland, 15 vols (Newcastle upon Tyne: Northumberland County History Committee, 1893–1940), III, pt I: Hexhamshire (1896), p. 194; J. Clark, ‘The Late Medieval Fittings in Hexham Abbey’ (unpublished master’s thesis, University of Leicester, 2005), pp. 145–58.

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Figure 18. The hybrid furnishing on the north side of the choir at Hexham, including the seven panels of bishop-saints. Photograph by David Robinson: reproduced with permission.

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monumental screen with a doorway through the middle of it. The figures are disposed in two groups: one of three (Eahlmund–Wilfrid) on a truncated section of screen which must originally have had Tilbeorht at what is now its western end; the other of four on a separate section. All of the figures except Eata, whose pose is conventionally adjusted for the sake of variety, look towards, and bless, whatever was originally located between the two sections. The archbishops, Wilfrid and John of Beverley, were strategically located on either side of the division. If originally part of a retable, then the central subject is likely to have been either St Andrew (the priory’s patron saint), Christ, or the Virgin and Child. In any case, it seems worth speculating that the scheme relates to earlier, lost representations of Hexham’s saints. A ‘table’ (tabula) which Aelred of Rievaulx reports was erected near the high altar for the reception of the relics of saints Acca, Eahlmund, Frithubeorht, and Tilbeorht was ‘joined together with three columns, and variously and most attractively sculpted and painted’.30 By 1154, the year in which this translation occurred, it is possible and perhaps likely that such embellishment included images of the four men on whom the monastery’s reputation for sanctity rested. Two other series of bishops, painted slightly later, also survive at Hexham. Sixteen mitred figures occupy the panels of the dado of the pulpitum built under Prior Thomas Smithson (1491–1524), and another ten are found on the dado of the screen of St Etheldreda’s chapel in the south transept. The latter also seem to represent local bishops: although the names on the scrolls they hold have nearly all been lost, one certainly reads ‘Eata’.31 The pulpitum figures, some of which have had tituli inscribed upon them at a later date, are less easily identifiable, though they include Cuthbert. Considered together, this massing of episcopal iconography indicates the strength with which the late medieval canons related to, and hoped to be identified with, a prestigious and remote antiquity. That many of the bishops in question were saints, with tombs and shrines in the church and hagiographies in the canons’ library, is of course central to understanding the retrospective function of these images, but it does not wholly account for their existence. Those located on west-facing screens were not so much devotionally orientated as protective of the sacred spaces and objects beyond them. The interwoven strands of spiritual veneration and historical commemoration are in any case impossible to separate (sacred history not being amenable to scientific distinctions). They 30

See The Priory of Hexham, I, 200, for the tabula ‘tribus innexa columpnis, sculpturis et picturis decentissime variata’. 31

Clark, ‘Late Medieval Fittings’, p. 270.

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reinforced one another constantly, and their conflation is detectable even where, as in the example from Kenilworth discussed below, there was no suggestion that anyone considered the focus of retrospection saintly. Other monastic houses claiming relationships with ancient bishoprics but lacking the density of saints enjoyed by Hexham also contained retrospective episcopal imagery, and here the conflation of the sacred and historical is equally conspicuous. At the priory of St Germans in Cornwall, also Augustinian, Leland reports the existence, ‘beside the hye altare […] on the ryght hand’, of ‘a tumbe yn the walle with an image of a bisshop, and over the tumbe a[nother] xi. bisshops paynted with their names and verses as token of so many bisshops biried theere, or that ther had beene so many Bisshoppes of Cornwalle that had theyr seete theer’. The main, probably effigial, image surely represented St Germanus of Auxerre, who was supposed to have founded the house c. 430, and whose relics were kept there. (Substantial new relics were received by the canons in 1358.32 ) For their part, the supplementary figures demonstrated the historical integrity of a foundation made holy by its consecration, its relics, and its origins in the works of a sacred individual; works — to underscore the point about conflation — which themselves evidenced and augmented his saintliness. Again, at Benedictine Sherborne in Dorset, seat of a bishopric until 1078, Leland noted that ‘the chapitre house is ancient, and yn the volte of it be payntid the images of bisshops that had their sete at Shirburn’.33 Here the series must have begun with St Ealdhelm (705–09), whose character channelled sacredness into the institutional history epitomized in the images of his non-saintly successors. And, as noted above, Dorchester also had a tomb to at least one of its uncanonized pre-Conquest bishops, lying in some sort of proximity to the shrine of St Birinus. History endowed few Augustinian houses with licence for this sort of retrospective display. Most could exhibit no pre-Conquest credentials other than nebulous references to communities of ‘hermits’ who had formerly occupied their sites; and no such group or member thereof is known to have been evoked in the manner discussed here.34 Accordingly, the first founders of the aristocratic and knightly classes on whom Augustinian expansion so heavily relied were the usual foci of retrospective commemoration. A representative example is recorded at Oseney Abbey in Oxfordshire. This house was founded by Robert II d’Oilly and

32

N. Orme, The Saints of Cornwall (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 128.

33

Leland, Itinerary, I, 153 (Sherborne), 324 (St Germans).

34

On these eremitical communities, see, refreshingly, Frost, Foundation of Nostell Priory, pp. 21–22.

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his wife Edith Forne in 1129, but Robert chose burial at Benedictine Eynsham, and his successor, Henry I d’Oilly, also seems to have been interred elsewhere. As David Postles has pointed out, it was not until 1232 that a head of the founding family was buried at Oseney.35 This was, perhaps, embarrassing for a monastery raised to abbey status c. 1154, not least because it indicated a lack of complete faith in its intercession and custodianship. Moreover, like a major church without a significant relic-cult, a conventual church without a founder’s tomb lacked a functional and fashionable accessory: a foundational charter or text of the cronica breuis de fundatore nostro sort specified in the Leicester Abbey catalogue and variously printed in the Monasticon anglicanum, while economical and efficient in its presentation of facts, could not manifest these facts in nearly such an obvious or accessible way.36 Fortunately, however, the first founder’s wife was buried at Oseney, and consequently became an important historiographical and visual focus. The canons insisted that she had initiated the foundation, and a story was invented to illustrate the assertion, recorded, once more, by Leland.37 According to this, Edith, often surprised by a flock of magpies chattering at her in an agitated way, sought the advice of Ralph, a local canon, who told her that the birds were urging her to build a church on the spot where they perched. Thus inspired, she exerted the necessary pressure on her husband. Leland then adds: The cumming of Edith to Oseney and Radulph waiting on her, and the tre with the chattering pies be painted in the waulle of tharch over Edith tumbe in Oseney priorie. There lyith an image of Edith of stone in thabbite of a wowes, holding an hart in her right hond, on the north side of the high altare.

This tomb and its painting must have been retrospective. The story of the portentous magpies seems very unlikely to have originated before Edith’s death c. 1152; and the mid-twelfth-century is, as previously noted, almost certainly too

35

D. Postles, ‘“Patronus et Advocatus Noster”: Oseney Abbey and the Oilly Family’, Historical Research, 60 (1987), 101–03. 36

The Libraries of the Augustinian Canons, ed. by T. Webber and A. G. Watson, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues, 6 (London: British Library and British Academy, 1998), pp. 238, 347–48; Monasticon, VI, pt I, 79, 86–87, 128–36, 147–48, 208–09, 218, 226–30, 239–40, 262, 267–68, 292–95, 298–99, 303–04, 326, 342, 344–55, 438–40, 450–51, 466–67, 481, 487–88, 501–02, 517, 602. 37

Cartulary of Oseney Abbey, ed. by O. E. Salter, Oxford Historical Society, 89–91, 97–98, 101, 6 vols (Oxford: Oxford Historical Society, 1929–36), I, p. xviii; D. Postles, ‘The Foundation of Oseney Abbey’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 53 (1980), 242–44 (canons’ emphasis on Edith as catalyst); Leland, Itinerary, I, 123–24.

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early for a stone effigy. Moreover, Leland’s description, and the fact that the tomb occupied the so-called ‘founder’s position’ on the north side of the high altar, must mean either that the monument was a free-standing canopy tomb with a solid wall at the back above the effigy, or, more probably, an arched recess, perhaps with a gable over, set into the thickness of the wall.38 The earliest and most familiar English example of the former type is that built in the 1290s for Aveline of Forz, countess of Pembroke, in the presbytery at Westminster Abbey. Tombs incorporating arched recesses existed earlier (there were early twelfth-century examples at St Augustine’s Abbey in Canterbury, made for exceptional burials), but the rebuilding of Oseney’s presbytery in the years before 1267 provides a terminus post quem for any monument cut into and painted on its north wall.39 At Bolton Priory in Yorkshire an elaborate mural tomb of this sort was built into the wall immediately north of the high altar in the late fourteenth century. Alexander Hamilton Thompson speculated that this was part of a retrospective ensemble made to commemorate Cecily de Rumilly, who founded the priory with her husband William Meschin in c. 1120.40 If this is correct (and Thompson’s argument for it is circular, resting essentially on analogy with Rahere’s monument at St Bartholomew the Great, discussed below), a parallel is provided for the Oseney monument in terms of form and location. John Strecche, the early fifteenth-century chronicler of Kenilworth Priory (raised to an abbey in 1439), also mentions a founder’s tomb with painted components.41 His is the unique record of the manufacture of a retrospective tomb by an English Augustinian convent. The event was clearly important to him and his readers, for it is one of few domestic matters related in detail in his chronicle. Under a separate heading, ‘De tumba et pictura fundatorum’, Strecche provides a

38

It is apparently not known whether Oseney’s presbytery was aisled. If it was, then a freestanding canopy tomb standing beneath the arcade is more likely. 39 P. Binski, Westminster Abbey and the Plantagenets: Kingship and the Representation of Power, 1200–1400 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), pp. 113–15 (Aveline of Forz’s tomb); VCH: Oxfordshire, IV : The City of Oxford, ed. by A. Crossley (London: Oxford University Press, 1979), 365 (Oseney’s presbytery completed by 1267). 40

A. Hamilton Thompson, History and Architectural Description of the Priory of St Mary, Bolton-in-Wharfedale: With Some Account of the Canons Regular of the Order of St Augustine and their Houses in Yorkshire, Thoresby Society Publications, 30 (Leeds: Thoresby Society, 1928), p. 139, n. 2 and pl. 18. 41

Printed in F. Taylor, ‘The Chronicle of John Strecche for the Reign of Henry V (1414–1422)’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 16 (1932), 137–87 (pp. 159–60).

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moving account of the exhumation in 1417 of the first founder, Geoffrey de Clinton (d. c. 1133). Led by the cellarer, the canons removed a certain tumba lignea which stood or lay over three founders’ graves in the chapter house. Beneath it they discovered three lapides marmorei, the central one protecting the skeleton of Geoffrey. After they had reverently inspected and touched some of the bones, the stone was replaced, and dictam tumbam — the wooden grave-cover rather than the central marble stone is evidently meant — was ‘solemnly painted with images of the founders so that they [the canons] could admire them in the open’.42 It is difficult to decide what this renovated monument looked like, because no object fitting the description survives.43 But the handling of the bones, and Strecche’s assurance that Geoffrey’s grave was ‘fragrant’ (redolenti), are enough to indicate the quasi-saintly significance of the founder for the canons, and their consequent desire to elevate and display his image three centuries after his burial. There are two further examples to discuss, each of which illustrates important points about retrospective culture and, in its ostentation and sumptuousness as well as its detail and spatial contextualization, reinforces the significance of the material aspects of this culture for later medieval Augustinians. The better known of these is the monument of Rahere, which occupies the ‘founder’s position’ at St Bartholomew the Great in London (Fig. 19). Rahere, a former royal courtier, established a hospital at Smithfield in 1123, and when this was converted into an Augustinian priory he became its first ruler. The retrospective monument, which postdates his death in 1144 by at least two hundred and fifty years, evidently belongs to a larger programme of building and embellishment underway at the end of the fourteenth century and beginning of the fifteenth.44 It is in the style of the period’s pre-eminent architect, Henry Yevele, and, whether by him or a close follower, was obviously a lavish commission in which a large amount of conventual planning and pride was invested.45 At the heart of the monument lies Rahere’s

42

Et dictam tumbam cum ymaginibus fundatorum solempniter depinxerunt ut ibidem palam possent intueri. Cf. S. Badham, ‘“A new feire peynted stone”: Medieval English Incised Slabs?’, Church Monuments, 19 (2004), 21–52 (p. 49). 43

The nearest thing may be the wooden tomb-chest of William Longspée (d. 1226) at Salisbury Cathedral. 44

S. Bradley and N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England, London, I: The City of London (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), p. 196. 45

C. Wilson, ‘The Medieval Monuments’, in The History of Canterbury Cathedral, ed. by P. Collinson, N. Ramsay, and M. Sparks (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 451–510 (pp. 471–72, n. 93) (Yevele-esque character). In general, see Bradley and Pevsner, London, I, p. 202;

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Figure 19. Rahere’s monument at St Bartholomew the Great, Smithfield. Conway Library, the Courtauld Institute of Art. Reproduced with permission.

B. Cherry, ‘Some New Types of Late Medieval Tombs in the London Area’, in Medieval Art, Architecture and Archaeology in London, ed. by L. Grant, British Archaeological Association, Conference Transactions, 10 (Leeds: British Archaeological Association, 1990), pp. 140–54 (p. 143).

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effigy, magnificent in its setting and hortatory in its attitude of perpetual prayer. An inscription on the plinth of the effigial slab, ‘Hic iacet Raherus primus canonicus et primus prior hujus ecclesie’, declaims the founder’s fundamental consequence. The diminutive black-habited figures of intercessors sculpted on either side of the effigy suggest immediately the notion of pigmies standing, temporally and spiritually, on the shoulders of a giant. Apart from the tomb, the egregious nature of Rahere’s virtues in the eyes of the convent, and the canons’ desire to promote these merits, is exhibited in a late twelfth-century account of the priory’s foundation and the miracles performed there. This survives, copied in both Latin and English, in a superb manuscript made during the same period as the monument: word and object thus reinforced one another in terms both demotic and erudite (Fig. 20).46 The text, taking hagiography rather than historiography for its model, interlaces the sanctity of St Bartholomew and the piety of Rahere in a manner calculated to suggest (without actually proclaiming) that the founder himself was saintly. As well as an appropriate manifestation of devotion, these conventual endeavours were probably responsive to increased competition for the patronage needed to meet abnormal expenses, like those of renovation, without reduction in living standards.47 In this period particularly, the canons faced such competition from the London Charterhouse, founded and built in the years after 1371 on land immediately opposite their own precincts. The Carthusians’ own foundational history demonstrates the quantity of local esteem and benefaction they were then absorbing; and the equally high quality of their own art and architecture is known from other sources. Henry Yevele is credited as designer of, among other things, the founder’s tomb which stood in the middle of the charterhouse choir.48 John Stow’s observation that Rahere’s monument had been ‘of late renued by pryor Bolton [1506–32]’ suggests an ongoing

46 Now London, British Library (BL), MS Cotton Vespasian B. ix; the priory’s ownership inscription is on fol. 81v. The full text is accessibly reproduced in The Book of the Foundation of the Church of St Bartholomew, London, ed. by E. A. Webb, trans. by H. H. King and W. Barnard (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1923). 47

A papal indulgence for offerings to the priory, issued sometime between 1404 and 1409, cites contemporaneous building works: Bradley and Pevsner, London, I, p. 196. 48

For the charterhouse’s benefactors, see particularly A. R. Wines, ‘The London Charterhouse in the Later Middle Ages: An Institutional History’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Cambridge, 1998); for Yevele there, see J. H. Harvey, Henry Yevele, 2nd edn (London: Batsford, 1946), p. 31.

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Figure 20. The book of the foundation of St Bartholomew’s at the point where the Latin text ends and its English translation begins. London, BL, MS Cotton Vespasian B. xi, fols 40 v –41 r . Reproduced with permission of the British Library Board.

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concern simultaneously with historical memory, intercessory duty, and maintenance of forinsec support.49 The final example is unusually complex in its iconography and interpretation. It is the Brus ‘cenotaph’ (a misnomer) at Guisborough Priory in Yorkshire, a large (c. 2.75 × 1.1 metre), low retrospective tomb of dark Egglestone marble which must originally have been elevated on a plinth somewhere in the east end of the conventual church (it is now in the parish church (see Fig. 21)).50 The barren, polished surface of the cover-slab, which seems to be original, encourages the speculaftion that it was intended to support the Passiontide Easter Sepulchre, in which case it would have stood directly to the north of the high altar. On the east end, the foundational Augustinian community is presented: twelve small figures of canons kneeling around their seated, monumental prior (William, the brother of the priory’s founder), who holds a shield of the institutional arms, and whose head is flanked by figures of the Virgin and Child (a reference to the priory’s dedication) and St James (Fig. 22). This composition, and the inclusion of Prior James Cockrell’s rebus on the north side, show that the monument was a conventual commission, probably of the period 1519–34.51 Each of the long sides displays five armoured figures, interspersed with smaller representations of saints (the Evangelists to the south and doctors of the Latin Church, including, of course, St Augustine, to the north). The armoured figures represent the family of the founder, Robert de Brus, which on his death in 1142 split into two distinct branches — one ‘English’, based locally at Skelton, the other ‘Scottish’, with its caput honoris in Annandale. A number of these men were buried in the priory, and had their names and commemoration entitlements inscribed in its liturgical calendar.52 Each figure holds a heraldic shield, permitting its individual identification. 49

J. Stow, A Survey of London, Reprinted from the Text of 1603, with introduction and notes by C. L. Kingsford, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), II, 25. 50 For the stone, see S. Badham and G. Blacker, Northern Rock: The Use of Egglestone Marble for Monuments in Medieval England, British Archaeological Reports, British Series, 480 (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2009), pp. 41–43 and 76, and pls 28–30. 51 R . M. Blakely, The Brus Family in England and Scotland 1100–1295 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2005), pp. 184–85, calls an old, silly theory that the monument was commissioned by Margaret Tudor, wife of James IV of Scotland, ‘not entirely convincing’, but says that ‘no better theory has yet been forthcoming’. Here it may be observed that such a patron would not have had Cockrell’s rebus (nor, indeed, the foundational community) represented, but would certainly have had included some unambiguous reference to herself and her late husband. 52

F. Wormald, ‘A Liturgical Calendar from Guisborough Priory, with some Obits’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, 31 (1932–34), 5–35 (esp. pp. 13–35).

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Figure 21. The northern or ‘English’ side of the Brus cenotaph, now in the parish church of St Nicholas, Guisborough. Conway Library, the Courtauld Institute of Art. Reproduced with permission.

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Figure 22. The eastern end of the Brus cenotaph, showing the foundational Augustinian community dominated by the first prior, William de Brus. Photograph by Julian Luxford.

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Heads of the ‘English’ branch, from Adam I, the founder’s first son (d. 1167), to Peter III (d. 1272), are represented on what was the north side, and heads of the ‘Scottish’ branch, from Robert II (d. 1194), second son of the founder, to Robert VI (d. 1304), occupy what was the south.53 The secular display culminated, chronologically and hierarchically, in a representation of King Robert I of Scotland (1306–29) on the now-lost west end.54 In all of this the founder himself is absent, which has led to speculation that the prior on the east end is in fact Robert I habited as an Augustinian, rather than William, his brother.55 But this is too cryptic for the context in which the monument was made and viewed: a much more cogent hypothesis is that the founder was understood to be present beneath the monument, in the form of a corpse.56 Because a whole end-panel is devoted to King Robert I, who was an Annandale Brus, because the ‘Scottish’ Brus knights faced south, and because the south side has an ornamented moulding not present on the north, it has recently been claimed that the monument was ‘clearly erected to commemorate the Scottish Bruses’.57 Indeed, nothing could be less obvious. Members of both branches were buried in the priory, and the sculptural symmetry in terms of number and individuality of treatment reveals a wish to commemorate the family as an illustrious unicum. (Perhaps the ‘English’ Bruses faced north simply because their caput was just north of Guisborough.) That the canons would wish to single out the most famous member of their founding family, from whichever branch he sprang, seems obvious: royal blood was always to be advertised, both for the honour it did its progenitor and the glow it shed on the foundation (this has been noted above in the early sixteenth century with reference to Bristol). At Durham Cathedral, the choir screen displayed retrospective images of English and Scottish monarchs together, with the intention of commemorating royal patronage and its attendant prestige regardless of which side of the border it issued from.58 The same

53

Blakely, Brus Family, p. 184. As Blakely shows, the numbering of the Annandale Bruses specified in W. Brown, ‘The Brus Cenotaph at Guisborough’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, 13 (1894–95), 226–61 (pp. 249–55), and followed by later writers, is confused. 54

Monasticon, VI, pt I, pl. between pp. 264–65.

55

Brown, ‘Brus Cenotaph’, p. 242; Blakely, Brus Family, p. 185.

56

The brief foundational history mentions Robert I’s burial in Guisborough Priory, but gives no specific location: Monasticon, VI, pt I, 267. 57

Blakely, Brus Family, pp. 184, 185 (quotation).

58

Rites of Durham, ed. by J. T. Fowler, Surtees Society, 107 (Durham: Surtees Society, 1902), p. 17.

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can be said, mutatis mutandis, of the Brus monument, whose imagery, though chronologically sequential if read from east to west, is designed ultimately to refer back through king, knights, and convent to the invisible but essential presence at its heart, who had given life to it all, and who, at the Last Judgement, would rise again amidst the polished evidence of his nobility and piety.

Conclusion While the iconography of the Brus monument is unparalleled, there is nothing in general which distinguishes the visual retrospection of the English Augustinians from that of other religious organizations in the later Middle Ages. The interest in evoking institutional history through the retention of antique structures and furnishings, the collocation (whether premeditated or ‘organic’) of tombs and other phenomena relating to founders and patrons, and the commission and manufacture of new retrospective objects, all of which have been discussed here, was common to Benedictine and cathedral chapters, lesser collegiate organizations, and even parochial communities. Local reasons for evoking the past in these ways are often perceptible, but a satisfactory explanation of the phenomenon in the round is a more demanding object which can hardly be attempted here. It would clearly be sensible to seek it in pervasive traits of ecclesiastical history. Thus, visual retrospection might be identified as a product of and response to such things as enthusiasm and nostalgia for ‘primitive’ conventual culture; competition for benefaction and public esteem; desire to demonstrate constancy in spiritual matters; awareness, amid increasing commemorative obligations, of the most worthy recipients of prayer; growing need to emphasize founders’ monuments amidst intramural partition and clutter; appreciation that knowledge of local history was valuable; and, in a monastic context, conviction that a whole order, and those who had founded it, were honoured by the renown of its individual members. To the extent, however, that any complete picture is a product of separate pieces, Augustinian examples will always be central to the study of visual retrospection in medieval England, for they include a number of the most illustrative and compelling examples.59

59

Acknowledgements: I thank John Clark for the generous loan of his MA thesis on Hexham, John McNeill and David Robinson for advice and images, David Smith for access to the Berkeley Castle archives, and Janet Burton and Karen Stöber for their editorial equanimity and care.

T HE S TANDING F ABRIC AND THE R OCKERIES: R ECONSTRUCTING T HURGARTON P RIORY C HURCH Jennifer S. Alexander

T

hurgarton Priory remains a shadow of its former self; the monastic buildings have disappeared from view and the church is a much-reduced and altered fragment. The nineteenth-century restoration was benign, however, and the house that embraces the south flank of the church, and takes the place of one of its towers, retains the west cloister’s undercroft as its cellar and so there is still some evidence for the form of the medieval priory (Fig. 23). Fragments of worked and moulded stone scattered around gardens in the village or built into nearby houses provide further clues about the architecture of the priory buildings. The church will have been of an impressive size, to judge from what remains, and would have rivalled its near neighbour, the collegiate church of Southwell, in architectural richness. Both had major building phases in the Gothic period, and there is evidence that ideas moved between the two buildings, but their exterior appearance is very different and Thurgarton’s twin-towered facade from the midthirteenth century would have made Southwell’s Romanesque one look very dated. The priory of St Peter, Thurgarton, was founded between 1119 and 1139, by Ralph, Lord Deyncourt, and placed under the care of the Augustinians.1 It was not solely dependent upon one family, however, but relied on a large number of smallerscale benefactors, and as a result its lands covered a wide area in Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire.

1

The Thurgarton Cartulary, ed. by Trevor Foulds (Stamford: Watkins, 1994), p. xviii.

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Figure 23. General view of Thurgarton Priory church and the house on the site of the west cloister from the west.

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The first half of the twelfth century was a period in which a number of other Augustinian houses were founded in Nottinghamshire, and some were linked to Thurgarton through shared patronage, such as the much smaller Felley Priory at Underwood, which was a daughter house of Worksop Priory. Thurgarton was the largest of the county’s Augustinian houses and the second wealthiest Nottinghamshire monastery, both in 1291 and at the Dissolution. The evidence for its foundation and for the development of the priory is contained in an extensive cartulary, which has been transcribed and edited in the recent past and which provides the definitive source for all historical investigation of the priory.2 The foundation charter reveals that the priory was established within Ralph Deyncourt’s land holdings at Thurgarton, and may have included the church there that is mentioned in Domesday.3 The site of the church has not been determined but it is probably at Castle Hill, a mound to the south-west of the priory that was excavated between 1948 and 1955 but was then identified as a possible mortuary chapel for the priory. The chapel was a lightly constructed building consisting of a stone foundation on which timber walls were probably raised, but the burials found were of both sexes and included children, and are thus unlikely to have been monastic.4 The dating evidence is that the site was abandoned at about the same time that the priory was founded and it seems more Figure 24. Section of twelfth-century likely that this was the church arch moulding of Thurgarton, possibly a sub-

2

Thurgarton Cartulary, ed. by Foulds.

3

DB: Nottinghamshire, I, fol. 288c.

4

H. W. M. Hodges, ‘Excavations on Castle Hill, Thurgarton’, Transactions of the Thoroton Society, 58 (1954), 21–36; and P. W. Gathercole and B. Wailes, ‘Excavations in Castle Hill, Thurgarton, Nottinghamshire, 1954–55’, Transactions of the Thoroton Society, 63 (1959), 24–56.

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minster church of Southwell, from the late Saxon period.5 The existing church fabric is from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, but there was clearly a stone church before this date. The first reference to building work occurs in a charter from 1168–73 when land rent is given, ad operacionem ecclesie Sancti Petri,6 and there are several twelfth-century architectural fragments from an ambitious stone church, such as the section of decorated soffit moulding from a large arch which is from the second half of the century and resembles work from the west front of Lincoln of the mid-twelfth century (Figs 24 and 25). Additionally, a charter of pre1185 refers to the founding of an altar of St James in the conventual church, for which no evidence was found on Castle Hill.7

Figure 25. Lincoln Cathedral north-west portal showing its outer arch moulding.

5 T. Foulds, ‘The History of Thurgarton Priory before 1316’, Transactions of the Thoroton Society, 84 (1980), 21–32 (p. 22). 6

Thurgarton Cartulary, ed. by Foulds, no. 963.

7

Thurgarton Cartulary, ed. by Foulds, no. 5.

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Most references to the church date from between 1200 and 1258, and from these we know that as well as the altar to St James, there were others to St Anne, St Nicholas, St Mary, and St Thomas Becket, with a further altar to the Virgin in the infirmary, and by the fifteenth century there was also an altar to St Katherine.8 Royal gifts of timber from Sherwood Forest in the same period, the first half of the thirteenth century, refer to work on the church; three oaks for works on the church in 1228, twenty oaks in 1236 for the fabric of the church, ten oaks for works in 1252, and six oaks with their loppings in 1258 for the prior.9

Figure 26. Detail of Buck’s 1726 engraving of the church and house then standing.

8

For the altar to St Anne, see VCH: Nottinghamshire, ed. by W. Page, 2 vols (London: Constable, 1906–10), II (1910), 120, citing Pat. 9, Hen. VI, pt I, m. 3 (Calendar of Patent Rolls (hereafter CPR): Henry VI, 6 vols (London: HMSO, 1901–10), I: 1422–29 (1901)); Thurgarton Cartulary, ed. by Foulds, no. 320 (St Nicholas), nos 561, 1055, 1056 (St Mary), no. 320 (St Thomas Martyr), which also mentions capella sancte Marie de infirmario. St Katherine’s altar is mentioned in a chantry foundation of 1442, see further below. 9

Calendar of Charter Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office, 6 vols (hereafter CChR) (London: HMSO, 1903–27), I: Henry III, AD 1226–1257, ed. by R. D. Trimmer and C. G. Crump (1903), 1227–31, p. 13; 1234–37, p. 305; 1251–53, p. 38; 1256–59, p. 267.

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The centre of the nave of the priory church, which belongs to this period, was retained as the parish church after the Dissolution, together with part of the west facade, while the rest of the church was destroyed. The south tower and upper levels of the nave had been removed before 1726 when Buck drew the west view of the priory, and the eastern parts of the church are also likely to have been lost by then (Fig. 26). There are several early descriptions of the church that confirm this: in 1790 it consisted of ‘one dark aisle’, with a richly moulded portal that had been converted to a window; a slightly later sketch plan, drawn by Rev. David Powell, shows the church without aisles or south tower and with a porch sited immediately behind the north-west tower, but extending no further than the current end of the nave.10 The building was enlarged to take on its current appearance by a local architect, Thomas Chambers Hine, in 1853, at the same time as he extended the house on the south. Hine re-exposed and restored both arcades and created a chancel. He replaced the north aisle wall approximately on the site of the medieval original, built a new porch, into which he installed the medieval north portal, and added the narrow south aisle in the space between the church and the house. Thurgarton was only his second church commission and his first major restoration of a medieval structure. Hine’s church buildings attracted a certain amount of adverse comment at the time, but his reworking of Thurgarton is both sympathetic and surprisingly archaeological in its approach.11 On the interior only three bays of the medieval nave arcades survive, and most of the stonework of the upper levels has been removed (Fig. 27). The arcade piers are of three types; the tower piers are a form of clustered pier, but stretched into a rectangular shape to provide support for the tower, and they have unusual angled ends to which are attached half-shafts and tiny angle-shafts. Their responds, both on the west and in the aisle to the north, repeat part of the design on a more regular 10

Thoroton History of Nottinghamshire, Edited and Enlarged, ed. by John Throsby, 3 vols (Nottingham: Burbage, 1790–96), III, 54–60 (p. 60). The drawing by D. T. Powell (?1772–1848) is undated, but is from the first half of the nineteenth century. His accompanying notes are brief and he did not get into either the church or the adjoining house. He was aware that the church had once been considerably longer, although he did not attempt to reconstruct any part beyond the nave. London, British Library, MS Additional 19915. I am grateful to Ellis Morgan for this reference. 11

Aisthorpe church in Lincolnshire, which Hine rebuilt in 1866, provoked the comment from the Lincoln Society that ‘more liberty has been taken with some of the features than we should have allowed in designing a church on strict medieval principles’, and the apse of his church of All Saints, Raleigh Street, Nottingham was described as ‘a mere confusion and muddle’ by Building News in 1867. For T. C. Hine, see K. Brand, Thomas Chambers Hine, Architect of Victorian Nottingham (Nottingham: Nottingham Civic Society, 2003).

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scale. There were clearly other piers of a similar design in the church, since dismantled sections resembling this type of pier can be found amongst the loose stone collection. The next pair to the east form the second type, i.e. large piers in the form of an octagon with slender en délit shafts at the cardinal points.

Figure 27. Interior of the church showing the nave’s north arcade from the west.

The third type, now cut in half and used as the eastern responds, were more slender quatrefoil piers with inset shafts and annulets. All the capitals are moulded but vary in design. The bases of all three pier types are also different, although all are of the water-holding type. In each case a shaft rises from the pier abacus to define the bay and now provides the support for the nineteenth-century roof. The shafts on the south side have fillets and the north ones are beaded. The tower piers are of an uncommon type, but can be parallelled at Bourne Abbey in Lincolnshire, another Augustinian house. This abbey was founded in 1138 by Baldwin fitz Gilbert de Clare and the western parts of the church survive as the parish church.12 The west block was built, or rebuilt, in the thirteenth

12

N. Pevsner, J. Harris, and N. Antram, The Buildings of England, Lincolnshire, 2nd edn (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1989), p. 172.

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century, and extensive remodelling of the ends of the arcades was undertaken to install heavy piers to support the towers planned over the west bays of the aisles, although only one tower was raised. These piers consist of heavy rectangular sections with substantial half shafts to the west, and slender shafts attached by annulets on the inner faces. The piers rise to the full height of the elevation to support moulded arches. Similarly massive arches opened from this new west work into the ends of the nave aisles, with heavy polygonal cores and slender monolithic shafts and it is these that most closely resemble Thurgarton’s tower piers (Fig. 28). A parallel for the octagonal piers is one of the pier types from Cistercian Croxden in Staffordshire, which consists of an octagonal core with hollows Figure 28. Bourne Abbey church, respond to north-east tower pier in the nave’s north aisle. in which sit slender shafts. Only the base survives, but it is of water-holding type and measures about 1.3 metres from north to south, with c. 125 millimetre diameter shafts.13 By contrast, Thurgarton’s pier measures 1.78 metres with 150 millimetre shafts. The third type, quatrefoil, is found in the 1230s at Southwell at the entrance to the choir aisle chapels and used as the arcade responds; this is an unusual pier type and is derived from one of Lincoln’s transept pier types, the originator of the design in the period between 1200–20.14

13

J. Hall, ‘Croxden Abbey Church: Architecture, Burial and Patronage’, Journal of the British Archaeological Association, 160 (2007), 39–128 (pp. 111–13). 14

For Lincoln’s pier types, see L. Hoey, ‘Pier Alternation in Early English Gothic Architecture’, Journal of the British Archaeological Association, 139 (1986), 45–67 (p. 52).

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There is no evidence left of the length of the original nave. Nineteenth-century writers refer to it being of seven bays, although without providing any evidence for this figure.15 Thurgarton’s bay length of approximately six metres is comparable to that of Thornton Abbey in Lincolnshire, but that had an eight-bay nave that was over forty metres long with a width of 9.8 metres compared to Thurgarton’s 9.0 metres. Both were in building during the thirteenth century, although Thornton followed Thurgarton in date, and it is possible that the churches were of comparable scale.16 Certainly the pier sizes are similar, and the unusual thirteenth-century buttresses on Thornton’s south transept share the idea of slender shafts around a massive core. The evidence for Thurgarton’s three-storied elevation Figure 29. Reconstruction drawing of the tower bay of the nave. is preserved in the tower, with the bases from one bay of the triforium trapped under the aisle roof (Fig. 29). The rest of the triforium is visible

15

Nineteenth-century writers describe the church as being about one hundred metres long, but it is hard to know how this figure has been arrived at. A Nottingham architect, G. G. Place, is recorded to have shown a complete plan of the church, with two west towers and a crossing tower, together with a reconstruction west elevation of the building to a meeting of the Ecclesiological Meeting in 1850, reported in The Ecclesiologist, 10 (1851), 55–56. These drawings do not seem to have been published, although his drawing of the west front from 1842 can be seen in the Illustrated London News, 1, no. 12 (1842), 185. No excavation has taken place to the east of the current church and landscaping of this area would make excavation problematic. 16

Thornton’s nave was begun in 1264 and the bay size established at this time although building work was in two phases with most work carried out in the fourteenth century. See K. Major, ‘The Thornton Abbey Chronicle (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Tanner 166) with Extracts Relating to the Fabric of the Abbey’, Archaeological Journal, 103 (1974), 174–78.

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inside the tower (Fig. 30), and the clerestory can be seen from the roof above the nave (Fig. 31). Double chamfered arches and moulded capitals are used throughout, with whorl labelstops, from Southwell’s choir of the 1230s (Fig. 32), or from Lincoln where they are found in the building period associated with Bishop Robert Grosseteste (1235–53). The clerestory arcade is made up of three equal-height arched openings to the church backed by a single window to the exterior. There is a large expanse of plain walling above the clerestory, equal to its arcade height, but

Figure 30. Blocked nave triforium arch from tower upper floor.

Figure 31. Clerestory arcade from the west.

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there is no evidence that a stone vault was intended and a high flat or coved wooden ceiling must have been used instead, resting on the string course visible just below the weathering for the roof. The aisles were also unvaulted and there is a shaft and capital on the aisle side of each of the north piers to support a ceiling. Parts of the lost building clearly did have rib vaults, since two carved roof bosses and several sections of rib remain in the loose stone collection. One boss is for a junction between a transverse Figure 32. Southwell Minster south choir windows and ridge rib that had moulded with whorl label-stop. ribs, and the other boss is from an asymmetric, five-part vault (another Southwell or Lincoln-derived feature) with chamfered ribs. Both bosses have stiff-leaf foliage decoration and date from the thirteenth century. Parallels for the elevation are not hard to find: for example, Lanercost’s east end or Jedburgh’s nave (Fig. 33) share the clerestory form and their triforia are also similar, but significantly both have an enclosing arch to their triforia, which Thurgarton lacks, although this is common to a large number of other thirteenthcentury buildings such as Rievaulx or Salisbury, or more locally, Lincoln. Doublechamfered arches used with moulded capitals can also be found nearby in the midthirteenth-century Lady Chapel at Worksop Priory.17

17

For Jedburgh, see J. Watson, Jedburgh Abbey, Historical and Descriptive (Edinburgh: Douglas, 1894); for Lanercost, see H. Summerson and S. Harrison, Lanercost Priory, Cumbria: A Survey and Documentary History, Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society Research Series, 10 (Kendal: Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, 2000); and for Worksop, see M. Thurlby, ‘Worksop Priory Church: The Romanesque and Early Gothic Fabric’, in Southwell and Nottinghamshire: Medieval Art, Architecture and Industry, ed. by J. S. Alexander, British Archaeological Association, Conference Transactions, 21 (Leeds: British Archaeological Association, 1998), pp. 101–09.

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Figure 33. Jedburgh Abbey nave from the west.

Thurgarton’s western triforium bay is unusual in being ornamented on the rarely seen inner face (Fig. 30). Access to this area is also more elaborate than that needed for occasional visitors, consisting of a broad newel stair from ground level that crosses the north and west walls of the tower through vaulted passageways to emerge at the corner of the triforium. The space is well lit, with a large west window and smaller ones to the north and east, and the east wall has an enclosing arch that rises higher than the gallery roof beyond and must originally

Figure 34. East wall of triforium-level chamber showing large enclosing arch and window over left spandrel.

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have framed something more elaborate than a doorway into the roof space of the aisle (Fig. 34). It seems that this area was set aside for a specific purpose, perhaps providing the site for a first-floor chapel, as is the case at Wenlock Priory where such a chapel, dedicated to St Michael, survives at the west end of the nave (Fig. 35).

Figure 35. Wenlock Priory upper chapel at the west end of the nave, from the cloister.

Upper chapels frequently have dedications to saints having particular connections to high places, sharing the dedications with churches such as St Michael’s at Glastonbury Tor, Mont-St-Michel, or St Michael’s Mount, and St Katherine is also invoked in similar areas, as at Abbotsbury in Dorset where the headland chapel is dedicated to her. The site of Thurgarton’s altar to St Katherine cannot now be identified in the church but it may have been in an elevated position, in which case a western upper chapel would have been an appropriate site for it.18

18

St Katherine’s altar is mentioned in a chantry bequest of 1442, the wording of which does not imply that the altar is newly founded, A. H. Thompson, ‘The Chantry Certificate Rolls for the County of Nottingham’, Transactions of the Thoroton Society, 16 (1913), 91–133.

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It seems likely that the east end of the church was reworked in the fourteenth century. A pair of traceried windows from the late thirteenth century had been modified in c. 1330 to incorporate a beautiful sculptured niche for an image (Fig. 36). The niche can be related to the Southwell pulpitum and to other elaborately decorated work produced by masons from the region in the county and in Lincolnshire. The windows and the niche are both mentioned in the pre-restoration antiquarian accounts and were re-sited by Figure 36. Upper part of east wall niche. Hine behind the altar in his new 19 chancel. Further fourteenthcentury mouldings, from archways and soffits, are in the stone collection and suggest that the reworking may have been substantial. Thurgarton’s mid-thirteenth-century north-west tower is richly decorated with blind arcading and tall lancet windows which extend around all four sides (Fig. 23). The gabled buttresses are capped off with stone roofs carved to appear tiled, and the heads of the narrowest lancets have an unusual use of dog-tooth in the chamfered soffits. This feature was also used with round arches at Bourne, where the stones survive as dismantled fragments. Despite the reduced state of the west front it is clear that Thurgarton’s tower was designed to be read separately from the centre of the facade and it is only once the tower has reached the level of the nave roof that its blind arcades are allowed to cross both the tower walls and their buttresses in a continuous horizontal zone. Thurgarton had a second tower on the south, of which only one buttress remains,20 19

The niche may have been connected with the dedication of altars described as constructed de novo following a commission of Archbishop Melton in 1323. J. Standish, ‘Priory and Church of St Peter’s, Thurgarton, Notts’, Transactions of the Thoroton Society, 5 (1901), 33–44 (p. 36). 20

The site of the second tower lies under one nineteenth-century wing of the house and its existence can be demonstrated by the measurements taken of the undercroft beneath the house, see further below.

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and it therefore belongs to the group of twin-towered facades built in the area during the Romanesque period, such as Southwell and Worksop or Melbourne in Derbyshire. For thirteenth-century facades with towers, Bourne provides an example within the region, and there are twin-towered facades from further afield, such as Ripon, Bridlington, Old Malton, or Lichfield, but these examples demonstrate a different treatment of the facade with the towers integrated into the design of the facade in a way that Thurgarton clearly avoids, in which heavy string courses or sculpture continue across the whole facade and create a strong horizontal emphasis to balance the verticality of the towers.

Figure 37. Joint between the original lancet window of the centre of the west front and the nineteenth-century gable.

Thurgarton’s west front gable with a row of stepped lancets is entirely the work of Hine, but the join between the original and the replaced stonework is visible beside the north blind lancet (Fig. 37), and this enables a reconstruction to be made. The height of the gable can be found from the weathering of the nave

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Figure 38. Schematized reconstruction drawing of the west front with four lancets.

roof preserved on the tower, and a row of long lancet windows evidently spanned the gable, flanked by tiny blind arches on either side that started at capital height. The lancets had deeply chamfered jambs beneath a more elaborate arch moulding, which included an order of dog-tooth, and was supported by moulded shafts and capitals on both faces of the wall.21 The lancets start at the triforium string course and there was a wall passage that crossed the centre of the west front at the base of the windows on the interior. Two reconstructions are possible: one, based on the east wall at Southwell, in building during the 1230s, uses four equal-height lancets separated by slender shafts with annulets (Fig. 38); the other, derived from buildings in the north, such as Ripon and Lanercost, uses five stepped lancets (Fig. 39). The second version pushes the gable roof-lights higher up the facade and is the preferred reconstruction, since the stepped lancets relate better to the height

21

Antiquarian drawings, such as the Buck engraving from 1726 and Place’s 1842 sketch, show a completely plain low gable without windows. The portal through the base of the tower was glazed to provide some light at the west end of the nave.

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Figure 39. Alternative version of the west front reconstruction with five lancets.

of the ceiling on the interior. The one surviving lancet is about 5.5 metres in length, with the top of its arch level with the clerestory arches; the arch capitals on the interior also match in height (Fig. 40). If the nave ceiling was flat then there would have been a two-metre section of blank walling on the interior of the west front that would have been the same size as that above the clerestory, and equally without purpose, and the effect would have been more pronounced if the ceiling was canted. If stepped lancets were used then the central one could have risen to the same height as the ceiling string, or to just below it if the ceiling was flat, and been about 7.5 metres in length. Although long, this would not have been an unprecedented length for a lancet in the mid-thirteenth century, since those on the west front at Croxden, for example, are over ten metres long. The monastic buildings have mostly disappeared and there has been a house on the site of the west range of the cloister since the late sixteenth century, from which a date stone inscribed ‘W C 1598’ (or possibly 1589) survives, cut into the

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Figure 40. Rear of the west front gable showing the shaft framing the north lancet, the end of the clerestory arcade and the blocked triforium openings below.

back of a reused window sill.22 The date stone most probably belonged to the house shown on the Buck engraving (Fig. 26), which consisted of three wings around a courtyard. Although the relationships between the different sections, and between the north range and the priory church are unclear, the detailing on the tower is sufficiently accurate to inspire some confidence in the rest of the drawing. The north range appears to be separated from the church by a distance equivalent to the width of the church’s north tower, which, if this is correct, may suggest that the tower was actually still standing, at least in part, when the house was first laid out. The two parallel wings must be aligned with the church’s west front, since the windows at the base of the walls, which are shown half submerged, are almost 22

The priory site passed to William Cooper in 1537 and the stone may refer to building works by a member of his family. It was recovered from the space between the first and second floors of the current building during work in the 1950s when the house belonged to the firm of Boots the Chemist, together with ‘other worked stones […] of a similar origin’, which cannot now be identified. Unpublished Internal Report, Bacteriology Division Research Department, Boots Pure Drug Company, 22 December 1952, section 6, p. 22.

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certainly the windows of the original cloister range that still remains under the current house. Buck shows few architectural details, although he does indicate that it was a stone building, and further medieval loose stones from the priory bear evidence of having been reused in it, for example the soffit moulding in Figure 24, which has been recut on the back to form a section of a drip stone. Buck also shows a large building to the south which is referred to as the kitchen in the antiquarian literature and occupies the usual site for such a building. The Thurgarton Beck, a stream that runs through the site, is stone-lined under this area, and may well have been the kitchen watercourse. A description of the house, when it was leased in 1752, refers to a wide range of domestic and farm buildings associated with it, including a brewhouse, a washhouse, and a pigeon cote, and some of these may have been survivals of the monastic ones, although all that now remains is the stable yard to the north of the church which appears to be from the eighteenth century.23

Figure 41. The west range undercroft from the north-east. The blocked east doorway is behind the timber stacked on the left.

23

The London Evening Post, 23 January 1752.

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The stone house has been demolished and a brick house now replaces it. It was built in 1777 for John Gilbert Cooper and extended at both ends by Hine in 1853. It stands on the site of the ends of the north and south ranges of its predecessor and across the west side of its courtyard, and it covers the whole of the medieval undercroft. The ground has been made up for the construction of the house to a height of between two and three metres and the undercroft windows and doors are now all below ground level. It is obvious that the site used to be terraced and that the ground level of the cloister must have been considerably lower than the level of the church in the thirteenth century, and it would therefore have been possible for the west range to have been of more than two storeys.24 The undercroft is a rib-vaulted rectangular structure supported on a central row of four round piers with moulded capitals and bases, from the middle of the thirteenth century (Fig. 41). The ribs are chamfered and rest on corbels on the exterior walls, which are unmoulded with the exception of one in the south wall that may have been replaced. Each bay is approximately square and has a quadripartite rib vault with transverse but not wall ribs. The undercroft has been modified considerably with openings changed and walls built that divide up the interior, and the north end appears to have been completely reworked, doubtless during the construction of the house(s) above. Entrance to the undercroft is through an opening cut through the south wall in the west aisle. An original, although blocked, door survives in the second bay from the south on the east side that led into the cloister. The thickness of the south wall, 1.61 metres, establishes it as an original outside wall capable of supporting a substantial high gable end. The medieval undercroft can be reconstructed as a two-cell structure with a central arcade. The main part has five bays and a total internal length of 18.87 metres and width of 7.66 metres. At the north end a narrower chamber of two square bays, each about 3.45 metres long, has been created within an existing space before the outer north wall. This was originally a separate two-bay chamber divided from the main range by a partition wall, of which one side remains (Fig. 42). The west range in other priories housed the cellarer’s range and it seems likely that Thurgarton’s was also used for that purpose. A separate chamber at the north end of the range,

24 Coventry Cathedral Priory also had a marked difference in level between church and cloister, since the narrowness of the hill-top site precluded the layout of the precinct on one level. Its cloister lay to the north: see M. Rylatt and P. Mason, The Archaeology of the Medieval Cathedral and Priory of St Mary, Coventry (Coventry: Coventry City Council, 2003), p. 8. At Thurgarton a small-scale excavation in front of the current house in 1948 revealed that the ground fill consisted of large amounts of stone from the priory: Nottingham Archaeological Society 13th Annual Report for 1948 (Nottingham, 1949).

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sometimes providing access through to the rest of the cloister from the outer precinct, is also a feature of a number of other sites.

Figure 42. Reconstruction plan of the medieval nave and west range.

At Guisborough it formed the outer parlour and had a doorway on the west side, and at Lilleshall and Norton, inter alia, this room had doorways on the east and west sides.25 A western entrance is suggested for Thurgarton, since it would have provided the only original access from the west side into this range, and while there may also have been an eastern door, this area is not accessible and cannot be checked. The plan of the house at ground level was superimposed upon the undercroft plan and found to relate closely to it, with its east and west walls resting on the outer face of the medieval walls and the projecting centre of the facade extended over the made-up ground in front (Fig. 43). The south wall of the undercroft lies

25

For Guisborough, see R. Gilyard-Beer, Gisborough Priory, Cleveland, English Heritage Handbook (London: Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England, 1984); for Lilleshall, see I. Ferris, Haughmond Abbey, Lilleshall Abbey, Moreton Corbet Castle Shropshire (London: English Heritage, 2000); for Norton, see J. P. Greene, Norton Priory: The Archaeology of a Medieval Religious House (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).

Insert Figure 43 (end of this file) broadside on this page Figure 43. Plan of the parish church with the house overlaid on the plan of the undercroft.

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beneath the south end of the house, but the north end of the eighteenth-century house is above the section of undercroft that has been extensively altered and has little surviving medieval masonry. The medieval vaults have been removed, the eastern aisle filled in, and the narrow remaining part lined with brick and given brick vaults to support the corner of the house. Only one small section of stone wall remains from the north wall of the range. Beyond it lies a crude brick-lined passage with a mud floor that drops gradually as it extends northwards, and this lies under the single-storey wing that Hine built in 1853. It is also the site of the south-west tower of the church and it seems likely that Hine carried out the excavation to try to find it, although there is no evidence that he was successful and the whole structure may have been robbed out. The survival of one of the buttresses from the south tower enables the existence and site of the lost tower to be established beyond doubt. The north tower is 7.7 metres wide, measured across the extreme edges of its buttresses at the level of the lowest string course on the west face. Assuming that the south tower was of the same size, then a line 7.7 metres from the north side of the surviving buttress places the edge of the south-west tower buttress above the wall at the end of the modified end of the undercroft (Fig. 42). It may be assumed that the south tower and the structure above the undercroft of the west claustral range were demolished at the same time, presumably in the sixteenth century, and the narrowing of the north end of the undercroft represents a tidying up of the remains of this end of the range when the eighteenth-century house was built. The floor of the undercroft has risen to the level of the top of the pier bases and there is a step up to a higher-level floor on the west side. Slabs of stone forming the edging are from the top of the cloister bench and have a roll moulding to front and back. The cloister bases that would have stood on the bench are set into the bottom of one of the walls built in the post-Dissolution period to divide the undercroft into smaller spaces and only came to light recently when flood water washed the mortar out from between them (Fig. 44). Further bases have been recorded in village gardens and all are single circular moulded bases from the thirteenth century, although they are not all to the same design and some are slightly larger than others. These would have supported monolithic shafts and arches to form an open arcade to the cloister garth of a type familiar in the early thirteenth century, although most known examples have paired bases and shafts to support arcade arches of similar width to the bench slabs. The bench here measures 555 millimetres from front to back and the bases that can be measured vary between 160–250 millimetres, so it is possible that the shafts were set in pairs but not so closely that the bases needed to be joined together. No fragments of the arcade arches have yet been found. One document in the cartulary provides

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evidence for the existence of the claustral buildings by the 1230s since it refers to a series of lights at altars in both the church and the chapel of the infirmary, which would have stood in the outer part of the claustral range.26

Figure 44. Two cloister bases reused at the base of a later wall in the undercroft.

In conclusion, it is evident that Thurgarton Priory had a fine series of stone buildings that were first constructed in building campaigns during the second half of the twelfth century and continued through further works in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Stylistically it reflected the architecture of its region, adopting ideas from Southwell, including some that had been derived originally from the most significant building in the east Midlands of England, Lincoln Cathedral, but also drawing ideas from Bourne, a fellow Augustinian site in southern Lincolnshire, and other Augustinian buildings from further afield. Its current state shows only a fragment of what must have been an impressive series 26

Thurgarton Cartulary, ed. by Foulds, no. 320. Foulds notes that the chapter house was not standing in 1286 since the chapter met in a chapel at that date. However, this may have been a temporary arrangement that was in force because the chapter house was under repair or being remodelled and not evidence for the construction of the building to have been delayed until after this date. Foulds, ‘History of Thurgarton before 1316’, p. 25.

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of buildings, but detailed study both of its fabric and of the architectural fragments scattered in the locality enable some impression to be gained of its former richness. Thurgarton is only one of Nottinghamshire’s Augustinian houses to survive in reduced form; Newstead Priory has been subsumed into the Byron family home, with only the west facade of its church still standing; Worksop Priory has retained part of its church, although it has been stripped of its medieval transepts, east end and entire cloister, and the smaller houses of Shelford and Felley are both replaced by later farmhouses. Architectural fragments do survive for some of these buildings and their detailed study has the potential to provide a much fuller picture of the architecture of the Augustinians in this region, and to place Thurgarton more fully in its local context.27

27

I would like to thank the vicar and churchwardens of Thurgarton parish church, in particular Dr Linda Morgan, for allowing me to visit and record the church on numerous occasions, and Dr Ellis Morgan for arranging access to houses and gardens in the village to find stone from the priory and for his help on site. Mr Roland Duce very kindly allowed me access to the undercroft of his house and to his grounds.

A UGUSTINIAN R EGULAR C ANONS IN T WELFTH - AND T HIRTEENTH-C ENTURY IRELAND : H ISTORY, A RCHITECTURE, AND IDENTITY Tadhg O’Keeffe

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fter long years of modest advances, punctuated spectacularly in 1955–60 by the publication of Harold Leask’s three-volume Irish Churches and Monastic Buildings, and again in 1970 by the publication of Medieval Religious Houses: Ireland by Aubrey Gwynn and Neville Hadcock, the past couple of decades have seen very significant forward strides by Irish historians and archaeologists in gathering knowledge on the histories and built environments of the island’s medieval religious communities. We now have, for example, clarification on the territorial organization of the Church in pre-Gregorian Reform Ireland, as well as on its architectural traditions and on the politics that informed style choices, and we have a re-energized debate on parish origins.1 Turning to the twelfth century and later, we have a better sense today than we had a generation ago of the specific political worlds in and around which Cistercian monks, regular canons, and mendicant friars operated, as well as of the actual abbeys, priories, and friaries in which such people spent their lives as members of devotional communities.2 This particular paper is an attempt to summarize what we know of the regular canons of St Augustine and their built environment. Some of Ireland’s 1

The Parish in Medieval and Early Modern Ireland, ed. by C. Doherty and others (Dublin: Four Courts, 2006). 2 R . Stalley, The Cistercian Monasteries of Ireland (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987); T. O’Keeffe, An Anglo-Norman Monastery: Bridgetown Priory and the Architecture of the Augustinian Canons Regular in Ireland (Cork: Gandon, 1997); C. Ó Clabaigh, The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400–1534: From Reform to Reformation (Dublin: Four Courts, 2002).

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religious congregations await research projects appropriate to their importance on the national and international stages (the Knights Hospitallers, for example), and others simply await more research (the Trinitarians and Gilbertines, for example), but we are, on the whole, in a good place.

Canons Regular in Ireland and their Architecture: An Introduction Our discussion of the canons regular in Ireland needs to be prefaced with the observation that Benedictine houses were founded infrequently. The number is startlingly small when compared with those of contemporary England, and is smaller still — sixteen at most — when we exclude from the enumeration the halfdozen houses that followed a Benedictine observance before officially affiliating with the Cistercian Order.3 That low representation is attributable in large part to the preferential treatment afforded to Cistercians and Augustinians (especially of the Arrouasian observance) by Archbishop Malachy of Armagh, paterfamilias of the Irish reformed church in the early 1100s, and it sends Ireland’s monastic history (both in western Ireland, where Gaelic power survived through the Middle Ages, and in eastern Ireland, which fell under Anglo-Norman influence after 1169) on a different trajectory from that of England.4 The Augustinian canons were but one of a number of congregations in medieval Ireland following the Rule of St Augustine — others include the Premonstratensian canons, the Hospitallers (Knights and Fratres cruciferi), and the Dominican friars — but they were arguably the most important, simply by virtue of the fact that they predated the others in Ireland by many decades and introduced patrons of all political colours to the benefits of having Augustinian canons on their lands. Those benefits issued ultimately from the flexibility of the Rule itself. Congregations with different emphases of mission could all find a home under the umbrella of Augustinianism, and thus they offered patrons an amenable alternative to the Cistercians. For example, the Rule of St Augustine did not stipulate a minimum community size for an Augustinian monastery, compared with the thirteen (abbot and twelve monks) required for a Cistercian monastery, so relatively small Augustinian establishments were possible, and the cost to

3

A. Gwynn and R . Neville Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses: Ireland (London: Longman, 1970), p. 104. 4 Apart from Fore (Co. Westmeath), patronized by Hugh de Lacy, no major Benedictine house was founded in the English lordship.

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patrons was not prohibitive; moreover, land beyond the monastic precinct was less an issue for Augustinian canons than it was for Cistercian monks, and this must have been a considerable attraction for patrons, especially Anglo-Norman patrons after 1169, on an island where the capacity for great money-generating estates, secular and ecclesiastical, was limited. The canons would run parishes and hospitals, both urban and rural, which added to their attraction: for example, the survival of a rather fine thirteenth-century baptismal font-base at Bridgetown Priory (Co. Cork) testifies to their accommodation of the local rural community in the nave of their church.5Augustinian canons also provided cathedral chapters when requested to. It is worth noting, however, that running cathedrals was a rare task for them in Ireland, before or after the Anglo-Norman arrival in 1169. In the case of Christ Church (formerly Holy Trinity) Cathedral in Dublin, Lorcán Ua Tuathail, the Gaelic-Irish archbishop, did convert the secular chapter to an Arrouaisian chapter a few years before the Anglo-Normans came, even adopting Augustinian habits himself. The cathedral even continued to have a monastic chapter after the AngloNorman takeover, as testified to by claustral ranges adjoining the main church (Fig. 45). But Christ Church is an exception. Canons were rarely requested to provide chapters to the cathedrals established on foot of the reforming synods of Ráith Bressail and Kells/Mellifont in 1111 and 1152 respectively (possibly because the processes of diocesan reform and monastic reform, while almost simultaneous in early twelfth-century Ireland, were geographically separate, as I will describe below) and things did not really change after 1169. Indeed, the Anglo-Normans took control of appointments to relatively few of the Irish sees: in the first half-century after 1169 only nine out of twenty bishops were of non-Irish birth.6 This indifference to monastic chapters notwithstanding, the fact that Augustinian houses fell under diocesan authority may have been a long-term attraction for Anglo-Norman patrons who were mindful of ecclesiastical politics, especially with respect to appointments made, or expected to be made, to bishoprics. In the case of the diocese of Ossory, for example, Hugo de Rous, a canon from Bodmin in Cornwall who moved to Kells (Co. Kilkenny) when that great priory was founded, was appointed bishop around 1202 and held the see until 1218.7

5

O’Keeffe, An Anglo-Norman Monastery, p. 28. J. A. Watt, The Church and the Two Nations in Medieval Ireland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), pp. 53–54. 7 Watt, The Church and the Two Nations, p. 55. 6

Insert Figure 45 (end of this file) broadside on this page

Figure 45. Christ Church (formerly Holy Trinity) Cathedral, Dublin, and associated claustral ranges in the nineteenth century; of the claustral ranges only the foundations of the chapter house survive above ground.

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The Augustinian link with the episcopacy in Ireland, slight though it was, clearly began in pre-Anglo-Norman times with the aforementioned Malachy, whose role in the order’s establishment was recorded in the Vita by Bernard of Clairvaux and in his obituary in 1148.8 Gregorian reforms had reached Ireland by the time Malachy was installed as archbishop of Armagh in 1132, and those reforms had, by that date, been aimed squarely at providing Ireland with the proper diocesan system that it had been lacking. The reform movement that laid the foundation of territorial dioceses had been driven by southern Irish political interests, with the two earliest synods (1101 and 1111) convened in Munster. New churches — royal, monastic, and cathedral — built in the English Romanesque style but modified by indigenous taste appeared simultaneously in the province, in counties Clare (Killaloe), Tipperary (Cashel and Roscrea), Waterford (Lismore), Cork (Cork itself), and Kerry (Ardfert); their appearance and chosen stylistic forms should be understood primarily in terms of the symbolism of the secular power enjoyed by their patrons, but all of them were served by reformed clerics, including a small community of Benedictines in Cormac’s Chapel in Cashel and possibly also the cathedral in Cashel.9 Whereas reform in southern Ireland was focused initially on diocesan matters, the movement towards monastic reform was spearheaded by Malachy in the north, and its earliest successes seem to have been in the region that later became the Armagh metropolitan province. This is not to say, however, that these were two different projects: Malachy, for example, was as well known in political and ecclesiastical circles in the south as he was in the north, and he could claim some credit for Cormac Mac Carthaigh’s patronage of new churches in the diocesan centres of Lismore and Cashel in the late 1120s, and then of a new house of reformed clerics under the Rule of St Augustine in Cork in 1136–37.10 Best known for bringing Cistercians to Ireland in 1142, Malachy’s earlier achievement was as momentous: he was evidently the driving force behind the introduction of Augustinianism to the island, either in the 1120s or, more likely, the early 1130s. We do not know from where or from whom he knew the Rule in

8

St Bernard of Clairvaux’s Life of St Malachy of Armagh, ed. by H. J. Lawlor (London: Macmillan, 1920), passim; Chronicon Scotorum: A Chronicle of Irish Affairs, ed. by W. M. Hennessy (London: Longman, 1866), p. 347; S. Preston, ‘The Canons Regular of St Augustine: The Twelfth Century Reform in Action’, in Augustinians at Christ Church, ed. by S. Kinsella (Dublin: Christ Church Cathedral, 2000), pp. 23–40. 9 T. O’Keeffe, Romanesque Ireland: Architecture and Ideology in the Twelfth Century (Dublin: Four Courts, 2003). 10 Preston, ‘The Canons Regular of St Augustine’, p. 28.

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the first instance, but the likelihood is that he knew it through those English contacts about which we learn for the first time in 1140. In that year, he travelled to Rome to look for pontifical recognition for the metropolitan sees of Armagh and Cashel. His travels brought him to Guisborough Priory in Yorkshire, where he also met the prior of Kirkham Priory, located on the other side of the Yorkshire Moors. These are his first documented encounters with Augustinianism.11 On that same trip he also stayed at St Nicholas of Arrouaise in northern France, where he examined and approved its particular observance, and he had copies made of its books, including information about ‘the use’ (liturgy) of their church, for carriage back to Ireland.12 The fact that he actively supported the Arrouaisian observance in Ireland once he returned does suggest that his earlier knowledge of the Rule — the knowledge that informed the first Irish foundations in the 1130s — came from non-Arrouaisian houses in England, which suggests in turn that he was renewing acquaintances when passing through Yorkshire. It has been suggested that the monastery at Bangor had Augustinian regulations from the time that Malachy refounded it in 1124, in which case it would have been the first in Ireland.13 It is more likely, however, that Augustinian houses only began to appear after 1132, when his influence was at its most powerful, and that the now-destroyed abbey of Saints Peter and Paul in Armagh was the place where the Rule was first observed.14 Whatever the pattern of foundation thereafter, by the end of the 1130s monastic houses following the Rule were scattered across the island, especially the northern half. By the time of Malachy’s death in 1148 there were at least twenty-five and possibly as many as forty-one communities of Augustinian canons regular in Ireland.15 A century later, with the Anglo-Normans promoting new Augustinian houses from the 1180s in areas under their authority, the distribution of houses was island wide (Map 5). By that stage there were Victorine as well as Arrouaisian houses in Ireland (the latter in areas under Anglo-Norman control), and the largest Augustinian monasteries, like Kells Priory (Co. Kilkenny), Athassal Priory (Co.

11

Life of St Malachy, p. 69. P. J. Dunning, ‘The Arroasian Order in Medieval Ireland’, Irish Historical Studies, 4 (1945), 297–315. Note also the first volume of L. Milis, L’Ordre des chanoines réguliers d’Arrouaise: Son histoire et son organisation, de la fondation de l’Abbaye-mère (vers 1090) à la fin des chapitres annuels (1471), 2 vols (Brugge: De Tempel, 1969). 13 J. A. Watt, The Church in Medieval Ireland (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1972), p. 16. 14 Preston, ‘The Canons Regular of St Augustine’, p. 27. 15 Preston, ‘The Canons Regular of St Augustine’, p. 25. 12

AUGUSTINIAN REGULAR CANONS

475

Map 5. Newly founded Augustinian (mainly Arrouaisian) houses in Ireland after 1169; houses of the Victorine congregation are numbered (1: Muckamore; 2: Newtown Trim; 3: St Catherine’s; 4: St Wolstan’s; 5: St Thomas the Martyr; 6: Enniscorthy; 7: Waterford; 8: Bridgetown).

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Tipperary), and the royal priory (later abbey) of St Thomas in Dublin’s Abbey, all Anglo-Norman, rivalled the big Cistercian houses in architectural opulence and, in the latter’s case, wealth and influence.16 All of the places with Augustinian canons in the mid-twelfth century had histories of earlier Christian veneration. In the absence of good records it is difficult to know how many of these houses of canons were technically new foundations as distinct from existing monastic houses adopting a new rule. We can be fairly certain, at least, that many of the new Augustinian canons regular had earlier been priests and monks at those very places. In other words, Augustinianism in Ireland was, at first, an indigenously supported monastic phenomenon, unlike Cistercianism, which was brought in by actual overseas ecclesiastics. Unfortunately, the survival rate of twelfth-century, pre-1169 Augustinian architecture in Ireland is poor. There are fragments that can be equated with certainty with historical foundation dates: for example, voussoirs survive from Gill Abbey in Cork, that Augustinian house founded by Cormac Mac Carthaigh in 1136–37, while there are ex situ remains of the mid-twelfth-century chancel arch of St Mary de Portu Patrum in Annaghdown (Co. Galway), founded under the patronage of Connacht’s king, Toirrdelbach Ua Conchobhair.17 The stylistic tradition is ultimately English Romanesque, as noted above, but seasoned by other stylistic influences (such as the Hiberno-Scandinavian at Annaghdown).18 Alas, the sites of greatest historical interest to us offer very little by way of physical remains of probable or even possible pre-1150 date. One of the earliest, if not the earliest, Augustinian house outside of Ulster was in the western province of Connacht at Cong (Co. Mayo). This royal abbey was founded by Toirrdelbach Ua Conchobhair around 1134, and it was from here that Gill Abbey was colonized.19 The present remains at Cong, which include a nave-and-chancel church, a sacristy, and parts of the east range and cloister (Fig. 46), date from the first couple of decades of the 1200s and later.20 They seem to contain no earlier,

16

O’Keeffe, An Anglo-Norman Monastery. J. Bradley and H. A. King, ‘Romanesque Voussoirs at St Fin Barre’s Cathedral, Cork’, Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 115 (1985), 146–51; R. Cochrane, ‘Annaghdown’, Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 31 (1901), 317–20. 18 O’Keeffe, Romanesque Ireland. 19 Preston, ‘The Canons Regular of St Augustine’, p. 28. 20 H. G. Leask, ‘The Augustinian Abbey of St Mary the Virgin, Cong, Co. Mayo’, Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society, 19 (1941), 107–17; Britta Kalkreuter, Boyle Abbey and the School of the West (Bray: Wordwell, 2001), p. 106. 17

Figure 46. The west wall of the east range of Cong, Co. Mayo, showing the chapter house doorway and a fine processional doorway off the cloister to its right.

AUGUSTINIAN REGULAR CANONS 477

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Figure 47. Top: Clare Abbey, Co. Clare, a late twelfth-century Gaelic-Irish foundation, with its fifteenth-century church tower; part of the claustral range can be seen on the left. Bottom: Cahir Priory, Co. Tipperary, an Anglo-Norman foundation of the late 1100s, with the cloister site in the foreground.

AUGUSTINIAN REGULAR CANONS

479

pre-1200, fabric, although it is not inconceivable that the pre-1150 chancel survives in the footprint of the present early thirteenth-century chancel. Cong’s architecture is generally described as Transitional (as in representing a transition between Romanesque and Gothic).21 However, it and the sculpture which adorns it are better characterized as Late Romanesque, albeit bearing evidence of some fertilization from the early Gothic style which the Anglo-Normans were introducing into eastern Ireland in the late 1100s, mainly in Cistercian monasteries. Another example of a church of Augustinian canons regular which has late Romanesque forms, again modified by Gothic taste, is in the Augustinian abbey of St Mary de Petra (the so-called ‘O’Heyne’s Church’) at Kilmacduagh (Co. Galway).22 Such ‘Gothicized Romanesque’, to coin a phrase, is typical of many new churches in western Ireland at the time, and is not confined to houses of canons regular. The fact that Cong had a claustral plan built under continued Gaelic-Irish patronage around 1200 is extremely interesting. This type of plan, or some variation on it, is found in many Augustinian houses in Ireland from the later twelfth century on, both Irish-founded and English-founded (Fig. 47), but it was not an essential part of the Augustinian package. For example, around 1160 the new community of canons at St Saviour’s Priory in Glendalough (Co. Wicklow) had a small church with an attached two-storeyed room for accommodation, chapter reading, and eating, but no cloister. The earliest claustral plans in Ireland are associated with the Cistercians. The next earliest are associated with those Anglo-Norman monasteries of the different orders that were founded in the late 1100s and early 1200s, such as Athassal (Fig. 48), and with Anglo-Norman cathedral priories such as Newtown Trim (Co. Meath) and Christ Church, Dublin, already mentioned. It is only around 1200, at Cong and elsewhere in western Ireland, that we encounter Gaelic-Irish foundations with claustral plans. It is possible that cloisters were features of those 1130s Augustinian monasteries founded under Malachy’s guidance, and perhaps excavation in Cong’s cloister will someday prove the point. For the present, however, we must conclude that native founders adopted the claustral plan from Anglo-Norman houses, just as they adopted the so-called ‘Transitional’ stylistic forms that we see at Cong, Kilmacduagh, and elsewhere.

21

H. G. Leask, Irish Churches and Monastic Buildings, 3 vols (Dundalk: Dundealgan, 1955–60), II: Gothic Architecture to AD 1400 (1958), pp. 59–61. 22 J. Fahey, ‘Kilmacduagh and its Ecclesiastical Monuments’, Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 34 (1904), 220–33.

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Figure 48. Ground plan of Athassal Priory, Co. Tipperary.

AUGUSTINIAN REGULAR CANONS

481

To summarize, then, there were canons regular of St Augustine in Ireland for three decades before 1169, the year in which the Anglo-Norman (or, more accurately, ‘English’) occupation started, and both Irish and English patrons continued to establish houses around the island after 1169. We have seen in the brief survey above that Augustinian houses in Ireland are as architecturally variable as one would expect, given the nature of the Rule, and that English stylistic ideas permeated native-founded Augustinian architecture before 1169, judging by the Romanesque survivals, and continued to permeate it in western Ireland after 1169, judging by the evidence at Cong and elsewhere.

Looking to the Future: Intercommunity Connections and the Problem of Ethnicity There are some issues which still need our attention in Augustinian studies in Ireland, two of which I want to highlight here. The first might be described, inelegantly but accurately, as the problem of intercommunity conflict and connectivity. Each of the religious collectives on the Irish landscape possessed unique spiritual and temporal practices to sell to potential patrons. We know these well enough to deduce why specific patrons chose one type of community over another, and why certain combinations of community could be accommodated successfully in and around towns. However, we know rather less about the political and, especially, cultural relationships between these different communities when they were in close proximity to each other or when they shared space within a territory under the authority of a single lord. Were their relationships such that they would periodically share resources if needed? Did masons move between them, carrying recommendations of style from one religious house to another? Equally, there is more to learn about the relationships between the specific congregations and both their local secular communities and their local priests. There is much that we know at a general level — the patterns of advowson, for example, and the provision of baptismal and burial duties by certain religious communities — but case-by-case variation is not fully documented. The tradition of studying individual orders diachronically, as distinct from studying multiple orders synchronically, does not lend itself to clarifying these issues, although such diachronic studies do provide a baseline for further investigation. The second problem is one to which I want to draw particular attention: the role of ethnicity in the foundation of monastic houses in Ireland and in the constitution and self-identification of their resident communities.

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To begin with a general point, relatively few of the scholars who write about high medieval Ireland in general actually use the term ethnicity, but the concept as it has evolved in the social sciences in recent decades does describe reasonably well what most perceive to be the cultural differences, rationalized in the Middle Ages and since then by reference to bloodlines (hence the occasional use of the term race in the modern literature23), between the ‘Irish’ and the Anglo-Normans or, as they would have called themselves, the ‘English’.24 Contemporary medieval documentation (most of it written by the English, it must be stressed) encourages the view that such cultural and racial divisions were as real, or were at least perceived to be as real, as the contemporary political divisions; the Statutes of Kilkenny, 1366, represent the most overt statement by the English of the gap that some of them perceived between themselves and the Irish.25 Contemporary documentation also indicates that such divisions extended into the realm of monasticism, and that shared Christian beliefs could not suppress base instincts of ethnic identity, as witness the dramatic, blood-letting struggle between natives and English for abbatial control of Cistercian houses in the early thirteenth century.26 Historians who subscribe wholly to this basic model of an Ireland divided into two parts, or ‘two nations’, along ethno-political lines in the late 1100s and 1200s, also subscribe to the idea that a ‘middle nation’ (first described as such in the Remonstrance of 1317) which was comprised of acculturated (‘gaelicized’) English emerged in the later 1200s and survived as a third party in Irish political life up the sixteenth century.27 But ethnicity is a problematic concept in Irish medieval history in general, and any consideration of it in, for example, the context of Augustinians in Ireland cannot be separated from either the wider historical context in which we detect evidence of medieval ethnic divisions or, more critically, the wider historiographical context in which we might detect evidence that the ethnic

23

Watt, The Church and the Two Nations, for example. R . Bartlett, ‘Medieval and Modern Concepts of Race and Ethnicity’, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 31 (2001), 39–56. 25 J. Muldoon, ‘Medieval Notions of Difference’, in Race and Racism in Theory and Practice, ed. by B. Lang (London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000), pp. 79–98. 26 B. W. O’Dwyer, ‘The Crisis in the Cistercian Monasteries in Ireland in the Early Thirteenth Century’, Analecta Cisterciensis, 31 (1975–76), 3–112, 267–304. 27 ‘The Remonstrance of the Irish Princes to Pope John XXII, 1317’, in Irish Historical Documents, 1172–1922, ed. by E. Curtis and R . B. McDowell (London: Methuen, 1943), pp. 38–46. For historical scholarship, see, for example, J. Lydon, ‘The Middle Nation’, in The English in Medieval Ireland, ed. by J. Lydon (Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 1984), pp. 1–26. 24

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483

model owes as much to modern scholarship and its prejudices as it does to medieval realities.28 Thus, for example, the idea of ‘gaelicizaton’ is not counterbalanced in the Irish literature by the idea of ‘anglicization’, even though one could argue that English Gothic influence in western Irish monasteries (such as we saw above) was precisely that. The specific problem with ethnicity in the discourse of Irish medieval history is not so much the lack of critical thinking on the definition of race as it is the essentialist interpretation of culture, an interpretation that advertises itself most loudly in discussions of this so-called ‘middle nation’ hybridity. To put this another way, the two-nation, then three-nation, model of medieval Ireland is built on an assumption that to be ‘Irish’ or ‘English’ in the Middle Ages was to engage in very particular cultural practices. This may have been the official view (of English government at least) in the Middle Ages, as communicated to us through its documentary record, but we need to be a little more sophisticated in our reading of the evidence. To claim that members of the English colonial community ‘gaelicized’ around 1300 is to concede on the one hand that culture is adaptive, but to deny on the other hand that cultural practices among the English and Irish had been changing from the moment the English landed in Ireland in 1169. ‘Irish’ and ‘English’ remained categories of political identity through the Middle Ages but the cultural meanings of those labels changed from the moment of contact,29 and the cultural correlatives of those labels remained in flux. Houses of canons regular seem especially well suited to an investigation of ethnicity: canons regular traverse the normative divisions of chronology (preNorman and colonial Ireland) and geography (Gaelic-Irish and Anglo-Norman Ireland). I suggest that they, like the peasants and landholding classes of medieval Ireland,30 provide a lens through which we can subject those normative divisions

28

For a supportive general statement, see Medievalism and the Modernist Temper, ed. by H. Bloch and S. G. Nichols (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), p. 5. 29 Gerald of Wales himself recognized this in a speech he attributed to Maurice FitzGerald in 1170: ‘Just as we are English as far as the Irish are concerned, likewise to the English we are Irish, and the inhabitants of this island and the other assail us with an equal degree of hatred’: Giraldus Cambrensis, Expugnatio Hibernica, ed. and trans. by A. B. Scott and F. X . Martin (Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 1978), p. 81. 30 T. O’Keeffe, ‘Ethnicity and Moated Settlement in Medieval Ireland: A Review of Current Thinking’, Medieval Settlement Research Group Annual Report, 15 (2000), 21–25; O’Keeffe, ‘Concepts of “Castle” and the Construction of Identity in Medieval and Post-Medieval Ireland’, Irish Geography, 34 (2001), 68–88; O’Keeffe, The Gaelic Peoples and their Archaeological Identities,

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Tadhg O’Keeffe

to the sort of critique which they merit. I am not suggesting that descriptions of Ireland’s Augustinian houses as ‘Irish’ or ‘English’ (Anglo-Norman) based on the identities of their original founders are not valid or useful — on the contrary, I make use of them above — but that we must not allow these terms to blind us to the complex exchanges that diluted the cultural integrity of both populations, within and without that particular ecclesiastical community. The canons regular of medieval Ireland were, first and foremost, canons regular, and to see the movement of stylistic ideas between them as evidence of acculturation is to attribute to them fixed, essentialist, ethnic identities that are at best inappropriate and at worst simply wrong.

1000–1650, Quiggin Pamphlets on the Sources of Mediaeval Gaelic History, 7 (Cambridge: Department of Anglo-Saxon and Celtic, 2004).

AD

INDEX OF H OUSES OF R EGULAR C ANONS AND C ANONESSES IN THE B RITISH ISLES

Personnel of these houses are cross referenced here and appear in the main index. Aldgate, Holy Trinity, see London Annaghdown (co. Galway), Aug. priory (canonesses), 168 Annaghdown (co. Galway), St John the Baptist, Prem. abbey, 166, 168, 169, 172 abbot of, see Ó Meallaig, Tomás Annaghdown (co. Galway), St Mary de Portu Patrum, Aug. abbey, 168, 476 Arbury (Warw.), Aug. priory, 195n, 207n Armagh (co. Armagh), St Peter and St Paul, Aug. abbey, 474 Athassal (co. Tipperary), Aug. priory, 479, 480 Badlesmere (Kent), planned Aug. priory, 340, 349n Ballineual (Ireland, site unknown), Prem. abbey, 163, 165, 172 Ballymore (co. West Meath), Aug. priory, 165 Bamburgh (Northumb.), Aug. cell, 61, 319, 321 Bardsey (Caernarf.), Aug. abbey, 99, 100, 101, 102,105n, 106, 107, 109, 320, 321 abbot of, 109 Barlinch (Som.), Aug. priory, 228, 230, 320, 321 Barnwell (Cambs.), Aug. priory, 198, 208n, 219, 222, 227, 252, 259 subprior of, 259

Baswich, see Stafford Beddgelert (Caernarf.), Aug. priory, 99, 100, 101, 105, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111 prior of, 108, 109, 110, 111; see also Dafydd Conway Bentley (Middx), Aug. priory, 267, 268n Bicester (Oxon.), Aug. priory, 82, 90, 206n, 207n, 230 Bilsington (Kent), Aug. priory, 320, 322 Bisham (Berks.), Aug. priory, 340, 346, 347, 351, 354, 361 Blythburgh (Suff.), Aug. priory, 243, 247, 320, 321 Bodmin (Corn.), Aug. priory, 82, 85, 195n, 203n, 218, 318, 319 canons of, see Rawlyns, Thomas; Rous, Hugo de prior of, 224; see also Merton, Guy of Bolton (Yorks., WR), Aug. priory, 52n, 53, 61, 234n, 241n, 243n, 255n, 387, 388, 391, 392, 395, 396, 398, 433 canons of, see Blackbourne, William; Broadbelt, Christopher; Leeds, Christopher; Malhome, William; Plumpton, Laurence; Preston, Thomas; Richmond, George; Walker, Percival; Whixley, Robert prior of, see Mo(o)ne, Richard subprior of, see Leeds, Christopher

486

Index of Houses of Regular Canons and Canonesses in the British Isles

Bourne (Lincs.), Aug. abbey, 319, 320, 321, 343, 347, 348, 449, 450, 456, 457, 466 Bradley (Leics.), Aug. priory, 320, 322 Breadsall (Derbys.), Aug. priory, 320, 321 Breedon (Leics.), Aug. priory, 320, 321 Bridgetown (co. Cork), Aug. priory, 471 Bridgwater (Som.), Aug. hospital, 196n, 197n, 200n, 202n, 229 prior of, 200n Bridlington (Yorks., ER), Aug. priory, 42, 43–8, 51, 52, 55, 56, 57, 60, 64, 65, 67, 68, 69, 75, 76, 77, 78, 81, 85, 207n, 208n, 221n, 244n, 253, 255n, 283, 318, 319, 387, 391, 396, 397, 457 canons of, see Ashby, Thomas; Burdus, Robert; Pullane, John; Todde, Robert; Toye, William; Ward, John; Watson, Robert; Williamson, Peter priors of, see Robert the Scribe; Wichman; Wood, William Brinkburn (Northumb.), Aug. priory, 242 Bristol (Glos.), St Augustine, Aug. abbey, 6, 113, 198, 199, 200, 208n, 210, 216, 220, 221n, 222, 225, 228, 229, 231, 267n, 314, 317, 318, 319, 419, 421, 422, 423, 426, 441 abbots of, see Newbery, Walter; Shallingford, Henry of Brooke (Rutland), Aug. priory, 197n, 207 Bruton (Som.), Aug. priory later abbey, 225, 231, 318, 319, 343, 346 abbot of, see Gilbert, William Buckenham (Norf.), Aug. priory, 319, 321 Bullington (Lincs.), Gilb. priory, 299 Burscough (Lancs.) Aug. priory, 81, 320, 321 Bushmead (Beds.), Aug. priory, 230, 320, 322 canon of, see Stokton, Richard of Butley (Suff.) Aug. priory, 221n, 268, 270, 318, 319 Cahir (co. Tipperary), Aug. priory, 478 Caldwell (Beds.), Aug. priory, 197n, 201, 206, 207n, 320, 321 prior of, see Biggleswade, John Calke (Derbys.), Aug. priory, 79, 80n

Calwich (Staffs.), Aug. priory, 82 Cambuskenneth (Stirlingshire), Aug. abbey, 116, 124n,143; see also Stirling Canons Ashby (Northants.), Aug. priory, 220, 222, 319, 321 Canonsleigh (Devon), Aug. priory, 244 Canterbury (Kent), St Gregory’s, Aug. priory, 19, 21–40, 214, 215, 217 Carlisle (Cumb.), Aug. priory/cath. priory, 4, 53–54, 62, 119, 121, 318, 319, 321 Carmarthen (Carms.), Aug. priory, 99, 103n, 105n, 113 Carrickfergus (Woodburn) (co. Antrim), Prem. priory later abbey, 148–49, 151–53, 154, 165, 172 abbot of, see McCowragh, Gillerath prior of, see William Cartmel (Lancs.), Aug. priory, 255n, 320, 321 Chacombe (Northants.), Aug. priory, 320, 321 Chetwode (Bucks.), Aug. priory, 346 Chirbury (Shrops.), Aug. priory, 320 Christchurch Twynham (Hants.), Aug. priory, 215, 217, 221n, 343, 346 Church Gresley (Derbs.), Aug. priory, 320, 321 Cirencester (Glos.), Aug. abbey, 4, 42, 198, 207, 216, 218, 221n, 223, 225, 228, 229, 231, 236n, 314, 316, 317n, 318, 319, 325–31, 336, 337, 405 abbots of, see Bampnett, Hugh of; Charlton, Richard of; Hampnett, Henry of; Martley, William of; Mundene, Henry de; Nequam, Alexander canon of, see Shallingford, Henry of Clare (co. Clare), Aug. abbey, 478 Cockersand (Lancs.), Prem. abbey, 86 Cold Norton (Oxon.), Aug. priory, 223 Colp (co. Meath), Aug. cell, 106 Combwell (Kent), Aug. priory, 320, 321 Cong (co. Mayo), Aug. abbey, 476, 479, 481 Conishead (Lancs.), Aug. priory, 320, 321 Cottingham (Yorks., ER), Aug. priory (to Haltemprice), 347, 348, 349n Coverham (Yorks., NR), Prem. abbey, 283 canon of, see Gysburn, John

Index of Houses of Regular Canons and Canonesses in the British Isles Coxford (Norf.), Aug. priory, 216, 319, 321 Croxton (Leics.), Prem. abbey, 206, 357 abbot of, see Brackeleye, William de Darley (Derbys.), Aug. abbey, 215, 318, 319, 408 Dieux la Croisse (White Abbey) (co. Antrim) Prem. abbey, 148, 153–55, 165, 172 abbot of, see John Dodford (Worcs.), Aug. priory, 198n Dodnash (Suff.), Aug. priory, 237 Dorchester (Oxon.), Aug. abbey, 82, 202n, 207n, 319, 321, 427, 428, 431 Downpatrick see Toberglory Drax (Yorks., WR), Aug. priory, 63, 76, 81, 255n, 320, 321, 388, 389, 395, 396, 399 canons of, see Jennings, Alexander; Shutt, Thomas prior of, see Emson, William Dryburgh (Berwickshire), Prem. abbey, 149, 151, 153, 154, 172 Dublin (co. Dublin) Christ Church (formerly Holy Trinity), Aug. cath. priory, 471, 479 St Thomas, Aug. priory later abbey, 476 Dunstable (Beds.), Aug. priory, 4, 42, 215, 220, 236, 237, 318, 319 Durford (Sussex), Prem. abbey, 245, 246 Easby Abbey (Yorks., NR), Prem. abbey, 84, 91, 206, 207n Elsham (Lincs.), Aug. priory, 320, 321 Embsay (Yorks., WR), Aug. priory (to Bolton), 52, 61 Exeter (Devon), St John, Aug. hospital, 196n Felley (Notts.), Aug. priory, 320, 321, 445, 467 Fineshade (Northants.), Aug. priory, 320, 321 Flanesford (Here.), Aug. priory, 320, 322, 340, 344, 345, 346n, 353, 354, 361 priors of, see Cosyn, John; Newbold, Thomas Flitcham (Norf.), Aug. priory, 320, 321 Frithelstock (Devon), Aug. priory, 319, 321 Gill (co. Cork), Aug. abbey, 476

487

Glendalough (co. Wicklow), St Saviour’s, Aug. priory, 479 Gloucester (Glos.) Lantony Secunda, Aug. priory, 78, 106, 215, 217, 220, 221n, 223, 228, 229, 230, 267, 269, 275, 314, 317, 318, 319, 405, 406, 408, 424 canon of, see Calne, Richard St Oswald, Aug. priory, 215, 217, 314, 317n, 320, 321 Grace Dieu (Leics.), Aug. priory (canonesses), 195n, 207n Great Massingham (Norf.), Aug. priory, 223 Guisborough (Yorks, NR), Aug. priory, 52, 53, 61, 65, 76, 81, 85, 221n, 223, 227, 228, 230, 242, 253, 255n, 257, 258, 318, 319, 352n, 387, 388, 389, 390, 391, 392, 393, 396, 397, 398, 400, 438, 441, 463, 474 canons of, see Clarkson, John; Cockerell, Edward; Grayson, Oliver; Gregg, Robert; Hawkesly, George; Hinde, William; Lighton, John; Walker, Thomas; Whitby, Thomas priors of, see Ayreton, Richard; Brus, William de; Cockerell, James; Pursglove, Robert; Thweng, John Halesowen (Worcs.), Prem. abbey, 198, 199n, 208n, 314, 317 Haltemprice (Yorks., ER), Aug. priory, 255n, 320, 321, 340, 347, 348, 349n, 354, 361, 388, 389, 395, 396, 399 canons of, see Collinson, Robert; Wagger, Richard; Wisedale, William prior of, see Collinson, Robert Harrold (Beds.), Aug, priory (canonesses),117n Hartland (Devon), Aug. priory, 203, 204, 231, 318, 319 Hastings (Sussex), Aug. priory, 320, 321 Haughmond (Shrops.), Aug. abbey, 82, 197n, 202n, 242, 243, 318, 319, 364, 378, 384 Haverfordwest (Pembs.), Aug. priory, 99, 103, 113, 319, 321 Haverholme (Lincs.), Gilb., priory, 292, 293

488

Index of Houses of Regular Canons and Canonesses in the British Isles

Healaugh Park (Yorks., WR), Aug. priory, 245, 255n, 257, 320, 321, 388, 389, 390, 394, 396, 398 canons of, see Bucktrowte, John; Chamber, William; Styane, Richard priors of, 390; see also Ayreton, Richard; Roundall, Richard; York, Thomas Hempton (Norf.), Aug. priory, 320, 321 Hexham (Northumb.), Aug. priory, 46–48, 50, 51, 52, 61, 73, 74, 77, 78, 85, 221n, 340, 418, 422, 423, 427, 428, 429, 430, 431 canon of, see Edric priors of, see Ansketil; Richard; Smithson, Thomas Hickling (Norf.), Aug. priory, 320, 321 Holyrood (Midlothian), Aug. abbey, 116, 117n, 118, 121, 122, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 132, 135, 136, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144 abbot of, see Alwin cellarer of, see Reimbald Huntingdon (Hunts.), Aug. priory, 47, 48, 51, 52, 215, 217, 255n Inchaffray (Perthshire), Aug. priory later abbey, 116 Inchcolm (Fife), Aug. priory later abbey, 116, 117, 123, 132, 143 abbot of, see Bower, Walter Inishmaine (co. Mayo), Aug. priory (canonesses), 166 Ipswich, Holy Trinity (Suff.), Aug. priory, 320, 321 Ivychurch (Wilts.), Aug. priory, 228, 319, 321 Ixworth (Suff.), Aug. priory, 319, 321 Jedburgh (Roxburghshire), Aug. priory later abbey, 116, 117, 122, 124, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 132, 135, 136, 139, 140, 142, 143n, 144, 453, 454 canon of, see Robert, abbot of Scone prior of, see Osbert Kells (co. Kilkenny), Aug. priory, 471, 474 Kenilworth (Warw.), Aug. priory later abbey, 88, 89, 197n, 198, 199, 202, 206n, 207n,

221n, 226, 314, 317, 318, 319, 406, 407, 410, 431, 433 abbot of, see Wall, William canon of, see Strecche, John Keynsham (Som.), Aug. abbey, 216, 221n, 222, 318, 319, 408 Kilcreevanty (co. Galway), Aug. abbey (canonesses), 166 Killamanagh (co. Galway), Prem. priory, 168, 169, 172 Kilmacduagh (co. Galway), St Mary de Petra, Aug. abbey, 479 Kirby Bellars (Leics.), Aug. priory, 195n, 207n, 340, 349, 354, 355, 356, 358, 359, 360, 361 canons of, see Herlewyn, John; Malthorpe, Thomas de; Rakedale, William de Kirkham (Yorks., ER), Aug. priory, 52, 53, 60, 62, 63, 64, 65, 69, 70, 71, 76, 81, 208n, 253, 255n, 291, 318, 319, 387, 388, 389, 391, 394, 397, 398, 400, 423, 474 canons of, see Beckfield, William; Lyne, Richard; Morwing, Richard; Newton, Edmund; Parkinson, James; Watson, Anthony prior of, 464; see also Kildwick, John; Maurice; Waldef Kyme (Lincs.), Aug. priory, 220, 252, 254, 255n, 320, 321 prior of, see Arnold, cellarer of Thornton Lacock (W ilts.), Aug. priory/abbey (canonesses), 243 Lanercost (Cumb.), Aug. priory, 320, 321, 453, 458 Lanthony-by-Gloucester (Lanthony Secunda), see Gloucester Launceston (Corn.), Aug. priory, 82, 85, 229, 269, 318, 319 prior of, see Sher, William canon of, see Yerll, Richard Launde (Leics.), Aug. priory, 231, 318, 319 Lavendon (Bucks.), Prem. abbey, 207n

Index of Houses of Regular Canons and Canonesses in the British Isles Leeds (Kent), Aug. priory, 24n, 202, 206, 318, 319, 406, 407n canon of, see Feversham, William Leicester (Leics.), St Mary of the Meadows (de Pratis) Aug. abbey, 202, 206n, 216n, 220, 221n, 222, 223, 225, 228, 257, 268, 405, 406, 408, 409n, 414, 426, 432 abbot of, 228 canons of, see Knighton, Henry; Repingdon, Philip Lesnes (Kent), Aug. abbey, 208n Letherington (Suff.), Aug. priory, 320, 321 Lilleshall (Shrops.), Aug. abbey, 198, 208n, 318, 319, 353, 384, 463 canon of, see Mirk, John Lincoln (Lincs.), St Katherine’s, Gilb. priory, 296 Little Dunmow (Essex), Aug. priory, 42, 268 prior of, see Shether, Geoffrey Llanthony Prima (Monm.), Aug. priory, 97, 99, 102n, 103, 106, 107, 424 Loch Leven (Kinross-shire), Aug. priory, 116 London Holy Trinity, Aldgate, Aug. priory, 42, 208n, 221n, 244, 245, 246, 247 priors of, see Cornwall, Peter of; Ralph; Stephen St Bartholomew (Smithfield), Aug. priory, 221n, 433, 434, 435, 436 priors of, see Bolton, William; Rahere St Mary without Bishopsgate, Aug. hospital, 196n, 201n, 206–07n, 210 Longleat (Wilts.), Aug. priory, 4 Lough Key (co. Roscommon), Prem. abbey, 152, 155, 157–62, 163, 169, 171, 172 abbot of, see McGyllochcran, Cornelius Lough Oughter (co. Cavan). Prem. priory, 169–70, 172 Maiden Bradley (Wilts.), Aug. priory, 207n Malton (Old Malton) (Yorks., NR), Gilb. priory, 207n, 296, 297, 457 Markby (Lincs.), Aug. priory, 254, 255n, 319, 321 Marton (Yorks., NR), Aug. priory, 319, 321, 388, 389, 395, 396, 399

489

canon of, see Barker, Edmund priors of, see Davy, George; Judson, Thomas Mattersey (Notts.), Gilb. priory, 296, 307 Maxstoke (Warw.), Aug. priory, 4, 320, 321, 331, 333–36, 337, 340, 349, 350, 351, 353, 354, 361 Merton (Surrey), Aug. priory, 22, 116, 144, 198, 199, 207, 210, 218, 221n, 223, 235, 318, 319, 406, 410 canon of, see Guy Missenden (Bucks.) Aug. abbey, 220, 267–87, 318, 319 abbots of, 265–6; see also Antony, Henry; Fox, John; Honor, Henry; Honor, William; Marshall, Ralf; Risborough, Robert; Smith, William canons of, see Aylisbury, John prior of, see Tring, William Mitchelham (Sussex), Aug. priory, 319, 321 Mobberley (Ches.), Aug. priory, 81, 82, 93 Moxby (Yorks., NR), Aug. priory (canonesses), 195n, 203n, 207n canoness of, see Warde, Elizabeth Muckamore (co. Antrim), Aug. priory, 149n, 154 Newburgh (Yorks., NR), Aug. priory, 63, 64, 71, 72, 74, 76, 78, 255n, 318, 319, 387, 391, 392, 393, 397, 399, 400 canons of, see Barwick(e), James; Gray, W illiam; Grayson, Thomas; Lolly, Richard; William prior of, 74; see also Lenewood, William; Metcalf, Robert Newnham (Beds.), Aug. priory, 215, 217, 220, 223n, 318, 319 canon of, see Litlyngdon, John Newstead (Notts.), Aug. priory, 205, 206n, 207n, 319, 320, 321, 322, 467 Newstead on Ancholme (Lincs.), Gilb. priory, 296 Newtown Trim (co. Meath), Aug. cath. priory, 479 Nocton Park (Lincs.), Aug. priory, 254, 255n, 320, 321

490

Index of Houses of Regular Canons and Canonesses in the British Isles

North Ferriby (Yorks., ER), Aug. priory, 255n, 258, 388, 389 priors of, see Bawdewyn, John; Hoton, John North Ormsby (Lincs.) Gilb. priory, 203n prior of, see Robinson, William Northampton (Northants.), St James, Aug. priory, 319, 321 Norton (Ches.), Aug. priory later abbey, 83, 84, 85, 319, 321, 463 Nostell (Yorks., WR), Aug. priory, 48–52, 53, 59, 61, 62, 64, 76, 85, 116, 118, 119, 120, 132, 253, 255n, 318, 319, 387, 389, 391, 392, 393, 397, 398, 399, 424 canons of, see Batte, Richard; Fleming, Anthony; Gibson, John; Shutt, Thomas; Ward, John prior of, see Athelwold; Ferrar, Robert Notley (Bucks.), Aug. abbey, 220, 318, 319 Oseney (Oxon.), Aug. priory later abbey, 5, 198, 199n, 200, 206n, 207n, 210, 219, 221, 222, 223, 228, 409, 414, 416, 431, 432, 433 abbot of, 204 canon of, see Walton, John Ovingham (Northumb.), Aug. cell, 340, 353 Owston (Leics.), Aug. abbey, 319, 321, 359 canons of, see Cotes, Roger of; Seusterne, Roger of Oxford (Oxon.) St Frideswide’s, Aug. priory, 184, 204, 208n, 219, 221, 222 prior of, see Cricklade, Robert of St Mary’s College, Aug. college, 224, 225 Penmon (Anglesey), Aug. priory, 98, 99, 100, 101, 103, 105, 106n, 107, 108, 110, 111, 112, 320, 321 prior of, 109, 111; see also Godfrey, John; Ingram, John Pentney (Norf.), Aug. priory, 223, 319, 321 Plympton (Devon), Aug. priory, 47, 85, 206n, 221n, 318, 319, 349n prior of, 200n, 210

Puffin Island (Ynys Lannog) (Anglesey), Aug. priory, 98, 99, 100, 101, 111 Ranton (Staffs.), Aug. priory, 204n, 207n, 320, 321 Reigate (Surrey), Aug. priory, 320, 321 Repton (Derbys.), Aug. priory, 79, 80, 82, 94, 206, 207n, 319, 321 Restenneth (Angus), Aug. priory, 116 Rocester (Staffs.), Aug. abbey, 82, 84, 85, 90, 91, 92, 320, 321 abbot of, see Thurstan Runcorn (Ches.), Aug. priory (to Norton), 80, 81, 83, 84, 85, 92, 94 St Andrews (Fife), Aug. cath. priory, 62, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 132, 133, 134, 135, 137, 140, 141 prior of, 144; see also Bonar, William; Robert St Anthony in Roseland (Corn.), Aug. priory, 349n St Denys by Southampton (Hants.) Aug. priory, 4 St Germans (Corn.), Aug. priory, 82, 318, 319, 431 St Kynemark (Monm.), Aug. priory, 98, 99, 100, 320, 321 St Mary of the Meadows, see Leicester St Mary Overy (Southwark) (Surrey), Aug. priory, 221n prior of, 222 St Olave’s (Suff.), Aug. priory, 320, 321 St Osyth (Essex), Aug. priory later abbey, 82, 90, 223, 406, 408, 414 canon of, see Seward, John St Radegund (Kent), Prem. abbey, 193, 203n, 209 abbot of, see Buklar, William St Tudwal’s Island (Caernarf.), Aug. priory, 98, 99, 100, 101 Scone (Perthshire), Aug. priory later abbey, 53, 62, 116, 118, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 135, 140 priors/abbots of, see Reimbald; Robert

Index of Houses of Regular Canons and Canonesses in the British Isles Sempringham (Lincs.), Gilb. priory, 78, 175, 292, 293, 296, 299, 301, 302, 303, 304, 305, 308, 309 Shelford (Notts.), Aug. priory, 319, 321, 467 Smithfield, see London Southampton, see St Denys Southwark, see St Mary Overy Southwick (Hants.), Aug. priory, 198, 199, 234, 235, 237, 240, 241 prior of, 237, 238, 239, 240, 241 Stafford (Staffs.), St Thomas (also known as Baswich), Aug. priory, 83, 319, 321 Stavordale (Som.), Aug. priory, prior of, 203n; see also Grendon, William Stirling (Stirlingshire), 116, 117, 118, 119, 121, 132, 136, 143; see also Cambuskenneth Stone (Staffs.), Aug. priory, 81, 82, 87, 88, 89, 90, 94, 95, 235, 319, 321, 418, 425 Stonely (Hunts.), Aug. priory, 223, 320, 321 Studley (Warw.), Aug. priory, 314, 316, 319, 321, 325, 331, 332–6, 337 prior of, 334, 335; see also John Talley (Carms.), Prem. abbey, 98n, 100, 101 Tandridge (Surrey), Aug. priory, 320, 321 Taunton (Som.), Aug. priory, 203n, 223, 225, 229, 318, 319 canon of, see Grendon, William prior of, 224 Thetford (Norf.), Aug. priory, 320, 321 Thornholme (Lincs.), Aug. priory, 254, 320, 321 Thornton (Lincs.), Aug. priory later abbey, 63, 76, 197n, 198, 202n, 206n, 208n, 220, 221n, 222, 228, 251–66, 318, 319, 424, 451 abbots of, 198, 228; see also Burton, Geoffrey; Greetham, Thomas; Gryssby, William; Hoton, John; More, John; Multon, Walter; Multon, William; Ponte, Thomas de canons of, see Botheby, Hugh; Browghton, John; Burton, Geoffrey; Dalby, Richard; Edlington, John; Greetham, Thomas; Hiloft, William; Hoton, John; Hull, William;

491

Kirkeby, John; Levington, Thomas; Louth, William; Mallet, William; Marras, Robert; More, John; Multon, Walter; Multon, William; Ponte, Thomas de; Shireburn, John; Stepping; William; Thornton, John; Thornton, Richard; Tynton, Henry; Wandeford, Simon; Wrangle, Thomas cellarer of, see Arnold prior of, see Wittleshey, Adam Thurgarton (Notts.), Aug. priory, 201, 221n, 254, 255n, 318, 319, 443–67 prior of, 447; see also Aunger, John Titchfield (Hants.), Prem. abbey, 241 abbot of, 241 Toberglory (Downpatrick) (co. Down), Aug. priory of St Thomas the Martyr, 149n Torksey (Lincs.), Aug. priory, 254, 255n, 320, 321 Tortington (Sussex), Aug. priory, 320, 321 Trentham (Staffs.), Aug. priory, 82, 85n, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 198, 208, 320, 322 Tuam (co. Galway), Prem. abbey, 155, 156, 157, 166, 170, 172 canon of, see Isaac Twynham, see Christchurch Ulverscroft (Leics.), Aug. priory, 203, 207n, 228, 320, 321, 352, 353 Walsingham (Norf.), Aug. priory, 221n, 223, 225, 318, 319 Waltham (Essex), Aug. priory later abbey, 113, 221n, 228, 406, 407, 408, 410, 418, 426, 427, 428 abbot of, see Fuller, Robert precentor of, see Wylde, John Warburton (Ches.), Prem. priory, 82, 83, 86, 87 Warter (Yorks., ER), Aug. priory/Arrouaisian abbey, 63, 117n, 242, 255n, 388, 389, 390, 393, 397, 398, 400 canons of, see Appleby, Robert; Bolton, John; Modye, William priors of, see Holme, William; Wartre, William de

492

Index of Houses of Regular Canons and Canonesses in the British Isles

Warwick (Warw.), St Sepulchre, Aug. priory, 207, 314, 316, 320, 321, 323, 324, 337 Watton (Yorks., ER), Gilb. priory, 73, 293, 294, 295, 296, 299, 307, 308, 309 prior of, see Malton, Thomas of Wellow (Lincs.), Aug. abbey, 4, 254, 255n, 257, 320, 321 abbot of, see Utterby, John of West Acre (Norf.), Aug. priory, 221n, 225, 318, 319 Weybourne (Norf.), Aug. priory, 206n, 207n, 208, 320, 321 prior of, 208; see also Bulman, Thomas White Abbey, see Dieux la Croisse Wigmore (Here.), Aug. abbey, 206n, 318, 319, 423

Wombridge (Shrops.), Aug. priory, 320, 322, 363–4, 368–85 priors of, see Baldwin; Forster, Thomas Woodbridge (Suff.), Aug. priory, 320, 321 Woodburn, see Carrickfergus Woodkirk (Yorks., WR), Aug. cell, prior of, 392 Woodspring (Som.), Aug. priory, 320, 321 Worksop (Notts.), Aug. priory, 418, 425, 445, 453, 457, 467 Wormsley (Here.), Aug. priory, 320, 321, 343, 344, 345 canon of, see Cosyn, John Wroxton (Oxon.), Aug. priory, 223, 320, 321 Ynys Lannog see Puffin Island

GENERAL INDEX

Aachen, Council of, 182 Abbey Dore (Here.), Cist. abbey, 275 Abbotsbury (Dorset), Ben. abbey, 455 Aberconway (Caernarf.), Cist. abbey, abbot of, 109 Acca, bishop of Hexham, 423, 428, 430 Act of Supremacy (1534), 253 Ad decorem ecclesie (1339), 219, 221 Ada, sister of Kings Mael Coluim IV and William I of Scotland, 131 Adela, wife of Walter Espec, 81 Ælfheah, St, 28 Aelred, monk of Rievaulx, abbot of Revesby, abbot of Rievaulx, 46, 47, 51, 69, 70, 73, 308, 430 Battle of the Standard, 73 Life of Edward the Confessor, 69, 70 Lives of the Saints of Hexham, 46 Æscwig, bishop of Dorchester, 428 Aesop, 414, 415 Æthelbald, king of Mercia, 79 Æthelbert, king of Kent, 30 Æthelburg, queen of Northumbria, 24, 29, 30, 34 Æthelflaed, lady of the Mercians, 83, 84 Æthelred, king of Mercia, 84 Affreca, wife of John de Courcy, 151 Agnes Laurence, 281n Agnes, wife of Adam of Dutton, 86 Agnes, wife of Eustace fitz John, 296

Agnes, wife of Henry Skytter, 202n Agnes, wife of Nicholas Bucklar, 193, 209 Airth (Stirlingshire), church, 128 Aisthorpe (Lincs.), 449n Alexander I, king of Scotland, 53n, 62, 116, 122, 123, 124, 129, 131, 132 Alexander III, pope, 129 Alexander V, pope, 251 Alexander, bishop of Lincoln, 119n, 175, 292 Alfred ‘larwa’, sacrist of Durham, 46, 61n Alice (Bossard), daughter of Denise Musson, 369, 370, 375 husbands of, see Bourton, Elias de; Etchingham, Thomas fitz Elias de Alice (de Lostford), daughter of Eleanor Musson, 369, 370 Alice, daughter of Isabel Bossard, 375 husband of, see Panton, Henry Alice, daughter of Sir Roger Musson, 368, 369, 372, 379, 380, 383 husband of, see Charlton, Adam de senior great-grandson of, see Bury, Richard de son of, see Charlton, Adam de junior Alice, widow of Roger Beler, 359 Alice, wife of John Whyte, 202 Alice, wife of Roger Lankaschyre, 202n Alice, wife of William Bulpane, 200n Aline, daughter of Sir Roger Musson, 368, 369, 370, 371, 372, 373, 375, 377, 383, 384

494 daughter of, see Amabel great grandson of, see Beckbury, John de husband of, see Beckbury, Hugh I de sons of, see Beckbury, Hugh II de; Beckbury, John de almonries and almonry schools, 213, 226–29, 230, 231, 232, 414 Alnwick, William, bishop of Lincoln, 228, 359 Alveley (Shrops.), 369 Alwin, abbot of Holyrood, 136n Amabel (de Beckbury), daughter of Aline Musson, 369, 370 Amabile, wife of Norman of Lennel, 138n Ambrose, St, 69 Amiens (Somme), Prem. abbey, 100 Ampney, Nicholas of, 330 Ampney, William of, vicar of Hagbourne, 329 Ampney St Mary (Glos.), church, 325–30, 337 vicar of, see Cheltenham, Walter de Anglo-Saxon saints and cults, 24–30, 34, 36–40, 61, 79–95 Anian, bishop of Bangor, 108 Annaghdown, bishop of, see Ó Flaithbheartaig, Muirchertach Annandale (Scotland), 438, 441 Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury, 28, 37, 42 Anselm of Laon, 67 Ansketil, prior of Hexham, 47, 51 Antony, Henry, abbot of Missenden, 277, 280, 282 Appleby, Robert, canon of Warter, 397 architecture and buildings, 294–311, 419–42, 443–68, 469–84 Ardfert (co. Kerry), 473 Arksey (Yorks., WR), 398 Armagh (co. Armagh) archbishop of, see Malachy province of, 165, 169, 172, 473, 474 Arnold, abbot of Kelso, bishop of St Andrews, 134 Arnold, cellarer of Thornton, prior of Kyme, 252 Arrouaise (Somme), Aug. abbey, 118, 119, 121, 157, 474 order of, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 180, 184, 185, 188, 189, 343, 427, 471, 474

General Index Arthur, king, 422 Arundel, Thomas, archbishop of Canterbury, 404 Ascue, James, 198 Ashby, Thomas, canon of Bridlington, 44, 283 Aske, Robert, 389 Aslackby (Lincs.), 292 Aston Cantlowe (Warw.), church, 331–36, 337 vicar of, see Shelford, Thomas Athelwold, prior of Nostell, bishop of Carlisle, 52, 54, 61, 62, 63, 119, 120 Athmoy (co. Sligo), 161, 162 Atwater, William, bishop of Lincoln, 270 Augustine, St, of Hippo, 67, 72, 77, 179, 438; see also Rule of St Augustine Augustine, son of Liefwin, 24n Augustinian (Austin) friars, 404 Aumale, William of, earl of York, 63, 260 Aunger, John, prior of Thurgarton, 201 Ayleston, Robert de, rector of Hagbourne, 329 Ayleston, William de, rector of Hagbourne, 329 Aylisbury, John, canon of Missenden, 273 Aylsham (Norf.), 399 Ayreton, Richard, prior of Healaugh Park, prior of Guisborough, 257 Ayton, see Great Ayton Bacon, Richard, 84, 90, 92 Badlesmere, Bartholomew, 340, 349n Bainard, Geoffrey, 42 Baker, John, 279 Baldwin, prior of Wombridge, 377 Bampnett, Hugh of, abbot of Cirencester, 326 Bangor (co. Down.), monastery, 474 bishop of, see Anian Bardney (Lincs.), Ben. abbey, 45 Barker, Edmund, canon of Marton, 399 Barlow, William, bishop of St Davids, bishop of Bath and Wells, 393, 394 Barnby Dun (Yorks., WR), 395 Barwick(e), James, canon of Newburgh, 397, 399, 400 Basevile, Sir G., 241

General Index Basingwerk (Flintshire), 86 Cist. abbey, 275 Bath and Wells, bishop of, 229; see also Barlow, William; Burnel, Robert Batte, Richard, canon of Nostell, 397 Battle (Sussex), Ben. abbey, 99 Battle of the Standard, 63, 73 Bawdewyn, John, prior of North Ferriby, 389 Beaufort, Lady Margaret, 280 Beaulieu (Hants.), Cist. abbey, 199n Beaumont, Henry, 348 Beauvais (Oisne), Aug. abbey, 117 Beche, John, 204n Beckbury, family, 382 Hugh I de, 369, 370, 371, 372, 379, 383, 384 wife of, see Aline Hugh II de, son of Aline Musson, 369, 377 widow of, see Joan John de, great grandson of Aline Musson, 375, 376 John son of, 376 John de, son of Aline Musson, 369 Robert son of John, 376 Walter de, husband of Gillian Musson, 384 Beckfield, William, canon of Kirkham, 394 Bede, 70, 72, 73, 76 Bedford (Beds.), 215, 217 archdeacon of, see Nicholas Bek, Anthony, bishop of Durham, 352n Beler, Roger I, 340, 354, 355, 356, 357, 358, 359, 361 widow of, see Alice Beler, Roger II, 359 Belmeis, Richard de, bishop of London, 50, 81 Ben, James, bishop of St Andrews, 118 Benedict XII, pope, 219, 220, 225 Bentley (Warw.), 354 Bereford family, 357 Simon de, 357n William, royal justice, 357n Berkeley family, 198n, 420 Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, 147, 176, 292, 473 Bernard, bishop of St Davids, 99 Bertelin, St, 80, 83 Bertram,William, 242

495 Berwick on Tweed (Northumb.), 135, 136 sheriff of, see Norman Bessingby (Yorks., ER), church, 51, 57, 396 Béthune, Robert of, 218 Beverley (Yorks., ER), 389 minster church, 42, 47, 397 canon of, see Maton, Richard de Bidandehors, William, 239 Biggleswade, John, prior of Caldwell, 201 Bigod, Sir Francis, 390 Bingley (Yorks., WR), 396, 399 Binny (West Lothian), 138 Birinus, bishop of Dorchester, 427, 431 Birkenhead (Ches.), Ben priory, 94 Bisham (Berks.), 346 Ben. abbey, 110 Blaby, John, 230 Blackbourne, William, canon of Bolton, 396 Blithbury (Staffs.) Ben. priory, 94 Bloet, Robert, bishop of Lincoln, 175, 291 Bluntesmere, Isabel de, 234 Boethius, 407, 413, 415 Bohun family, 424 Bologna (Italy), 403, 409 Bolton, John, canon of Warter, 400 Bolton, William, prior of Smithfield, 436 Bonar, William, prior of St Andrews, 118 Boniface IX, pope, 335 books and texts, 67–78, 282–86, 395–98, 405–09, 413–15; see also manuscripts Bordesley (Worcs.), Cist. abbey, 314, 317 Boroughbridge (Yorks., WR), 355, 397 Borthwick (Midlothian), church, 131 Bossard, Roger, of Bourton and Pulley, 369 see also Alice (Bossard), Isabel (Bossard) Botheby, Hugh de, canon of Thornton, 263, 264 Bourchier, Hugh Lord, 425 Bourne (Lincs.), 347 Bourton (Shrops.), Elias de, 375 wife of, see Alice (Bossard) Bourton, Henry de, grandson of Denise Musson, 382 daughter of, see Felicia Bower, Walter, abbot of Inchcolm, 123, 142

496 Boyle (co. Roscommon), Cist. abbey, 158 Brabazon family, 357 Roger, 357n William, 357n Brackeleye, William de, abbot of Croxton, 357 Bradshaw, Henry, monk of Chester, 86, 92 Bramham, prebend of, 54 Bransford, Wolstan de, bishop of Worcester, 333, 350 Braose, William de, bishop of Llandaff, 323 Brasbrydge, William, 202 Bray, Reynold, 280 Bridgnorth, Richard de, 369 Bridlington (Yorks., ER), church, 43, 44, 45, 65 Bridlington Dialogue, 55–6, 65, 67, 75, 252; see also Robert the Scribe Bristol (Glos.), 216 Broadbelt, Christopher, canon of Bolton, 396 Brocas, Robert, 201n Brokesbank, Sir William, priest of Arksey, 398 Bromflete, Henry, lord Vescy, 280 Broughton in Craven (Yorks., WR), 396 Broughton, John, sheriff of Buckinghamshire, 276 Browghton, John, canon of Thornton, 264, 265 Bruno (of Cologne), founder of La Grande Chartreuse, 291 Brus, Adam I de, 441 Brus, Peter III de, 441 Brus, Robert I de, 52, 53, 60, 65, 81, 438, 441 Brus, Robert II de, 441 Brus, Robert VI de, 441 Brus, William de, prior of Guisborough, 65, 430, 438, 441 Brus cenotaph (Guisborough Priory), 438–42 Buck, Samuel, 447, 448, 458n, 460, 461 Buckinghamshire, sheriff of, 275, 276; see also Broughton, John Buckland (Devon), Cist. abbey, 275 Bucklar (Buklar), Nicholas, 193, 209 wife of, see Agnes Bucktrowte, John, canon of Healaugh Park, 398 Buklar, William, abbot of St Radegund, 203n, 209 Bulkeley, Anne, ? Birgittine nun, 283

General Index Bulkeley, Sir Richard, 112 Bulman, Geoffrey, 208 wife of, see Isabell Bulman,Thomas, prior of Weybourne, 208, 209 Bulmer, John son of Robert, 398 Bulpane, William, 200n wife of, see Alice Burdet, Thomas, 334, 335 Burdus, Robert, canon of Bridlington, 391 Burghersh, Henry, bishop of Lincoln, 348, 358 burial, 86, 87, 88, 89, 94–5, 106, 241, 294, 346, 351, 377, 378, 385, 410, 424, 425, 432, 433, 434, 446; see also tombs and memorials Burnel, Robert, bishop of Bath and Wells, 370 Burnham Deepdale (Norf.), 397, 399 Burton-upon-Trent (Staffs.), Ben. abbey, 94, 199, 231 Burton, Geoffrey, abbot of Thornton, 256, 258 Burton, Simon, 200 Bury, Richard de (alias de Cherleton), greatgrandson of Alice Musson, 380, 383 Bury St Edmunds (Suff.), Ben. abbey, 217, 227, 405 Byland (Yorks., NR), Cist. abbey, 64, 75, 296 abbot of, see Roger Calixtus II, pope, 51, 52, 53, 54, 85 Calle, Richard, 284 Calne, Richard, canon of Lanthony Secunda, 408n Cambridge (Cambs.), 219, 220, 223, 224, 225, 399, 404 Aug. friary, friar of, see Stocton, Adam Corpus Christi College, 224 Gonville and Caius College, 224 Queens College, 224 university, 399 Canterbury (Kent), 22, 23, 24, 33, 35, 36, 37 North Gate, 21 Westgate, 24n religious houses Christ Church, Ben. cathedral priory, 22, 23, 27, 28, 33, 35, 36

General Index monks of, see Gervase; Osbern; Whiteacre, Nigel Dominican priory, 34 Franciscan priory, 34 St Augustine’s, Ben. abbey, 19, 25, 26, 27, 28, 33, 37, 38, 39, 230, 422, 433 abbot of, 26, 33, 37 monks of, see Goscelin; London, John of St James’s Hospital, 36n St John’s Hospital, 22 St Sepulchre, Ben. nunnery, 22 Canterbury, archbishop of, 37, 42, 48, 50, 335, 336; see also Anselm; Arundel, Thomas; Corbeil, William of; Dover, Richard of; Lanfranc; Langton, Stephen; Rich, Edmund; Theobald; Thomas (Becket); Warham, William Cantilupe, George, son of William III de, 332, 333 Cantilupe, Walter de, bishop of Worcester, 332 Cantilupe, William III de, 332 Capon, John, 281 Capon, John son of John, 281, 285 Capon, Richard son of John, 281, 285 Caradog, St, 99 Carlisle (Cumb.), 53, 54, 62, 63 cathedral, 53, 54, 62 Carlisle, bishop of, see Athelwold Carlisle, diocese of, 62 Carmarthen (Carms.), 99, 394 Ben. priory, 99 Carrickfergus (co. Antrim), 149, 151, 152, 172 Carriden (West Lothian), church, 140, 141 Carrington (Midlothian), church, 131 Cashel (co. Tipperary) cathedral, 473 St Cormac’s chapel, 473 Cashel, diocese of, 473, 474 Cassian, John, 69 Castle Goodrich (Heref.), 344 Castleton (Roxburghshire), 128 Cathal Crobderg, king of Connacht, see Ó Conchobair Cato, 414 Cecily (de Hadley), wife of Roger Corbet of Tasley, 367n

497 Chad, St, 87 Chamber, William, canon of Healaugh Park, 398, 399 Charlton (Cherleton) family Adam de, junior, son of Alice Musson, 369 Adam de, senior, husband of Alice Musson, 369, 379 Charlton, Richard of, abbot of Cirencester, 329 Chatsall, John de, son of Isabel Musson, 369 Chatsall, Richard de, husband of Isabel Musson, 368, 369, 371 Chatsall, Roger de, son of Isabel Musson, 369 Chaucer, Geoffrey, 413, 415 Chaure, Ralph de, 236 Chedworth, John, bishop of Lincoln, 274 Cheltenham, Walter de, rector of Ampney St Mary, 327 Cherleton, see Charlton Chester (Ches.), 82, 84, 94, 242, 426 constables of, 83, 84, 86, 87; see also Eustace fitz John; John; Roger; William countess of, see Matilda earl of, 92; see also Hugh; Hugh II; Ranulf II; Richard Chester, Ben. abbey, 82, 85, 86, 92, 94 monk of, see Bradshaw, Henry Cicero, 406n, 408, 414 Cirencester (Glos.), priest of, see Regenbald Cistercian Order, General Chapter of, 292 Cîteaux (Côte d’Or), Cist. abbey, 292 Clairvaux (Aube), Cist abbey, 147, 157, 292 abbot of, see Bernard Clare, Baldwin fitz Gilbert de, 343n, 449 Clarkson, John, canon of Guisborough, 398 clas churches, converted to houses of regular canons, 99–100, 101–02, 104 Clement VI, pope, 334 Cleybroke, Dr William, 195n Clifford, Richard de, bishop of Worcester, 334 Clifford, Walter II de, 243 Clinton, Geoffrey de, 88, 89, 434 Clinton, John de, father of William, 350 wife of, see Ida Clinton, John, son of John, 350

498 Clinton, Roger de, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, 85, 94 Clinton, William (de), earl of Huntingdon, 4, 333, 335, 340, 348, 349, 350, 351, 353, 361 wife of, see Juliana Cockerell, Edward, canon of Guisborough, 400 Cock(e)rell, James, prior of Guisborough, 388, 390, 438 Coelred, abbot of Peterborough, 305 Coggeshall (Essex), Cist. abbey, 199n Coldingham (Berwickshire), Ben. priory, 124n, 135 Coldstream (Berwickshire.), Cist. nunnery, 138n Collinson, Robert, canon and prior of Haltemprice, 389, 395 Collishull, John, 281 Colyn, John, 284 Comestor, Peter, 70 Comyn, Elizabeth, wife of Richard II Lord Talbot, 343, 344 Comyn, John, lord of Badenoch, 343 Connor, bishop of, see Isaac; Reginald Coole (co. Antrim), 154 Cooper, John Gilbert, 462 Cooper, William, 460n Corbeil, William of, archbishop of Canterbury, 22 Corbet family of Tasley, 364 Roger I, 367n wife of, see Cecily (de Hadley) Corbrond, Reginald, son of Gillian Musson, 369, 382 Corbrond, Richard, grandson of Gillian Musson, 380 Cork (co. Cork), 473 Cornwall, Peter of, prior of Holy Trinity Aldgate, 218, 244 corrodies, 194–211, 234–40 Corstorphine (Midlothian), chapel, 125, 126 Cospatric, sheriff of Roxburgh, 127 Cosyn, John, canon of Wormsley, prior of Flanesford, 344 Cotes, Roger, canon of Owston, 359 Cottingham (Yorks., ER), 347, 348, 395

General Index Courcy, John de, 148, 149, 151, 152, 153, 154, 165, 172 wife of, see Affreca Coventry (Warw.), Ben. priory, 94, 217, 463n prior of, see Irreys, Henry Coventry and Lichfield, bishops of, 42; see also Clinton, Roger de; Limesey, Robert de; Muschamp, Geoffrey; Northburgh, Roger; Peche, Richard; Stavensby, Alexander diocese of, 80, 81, 92, 93, 94, 95 Coxwold (Yorks., NR), 64 Crag (Perthshire), chapel, 130 Crailing (Roxburghshire), chapel, 127 Crailinghall (Roxburghshire), 128 Cranmer, Thomas, 394 Cresshawe, Ralph, 279 Crevequer, Hamo de, 24 Cricklade, Robert of, prior of St Frideswide’s, Oxford, 218 Cromwell, Thomas, 112, 352, 388, 390, 391, 392, 399 Crowland (Lincs.), Anglo-Saxon monastery, 79 Croxden (Staffs.), Cist. abbey, 450, 459 Cuddesdon (Oxon.), vicar of, see Stok, Richard Cumbria, lordship of, 53, 54 Cuthbert, St, bishop of Lindisfarne, 46, 62, 428, 430 Cynlas, of Penmon, 111 Dafydd ap Gruffudd, 109 Dafydd ap Llywelyn, 111 Dafydd Conway, prior of Beddgelert, 110 Dalby, Richard, canon of Thornton, 264 Darel, Beatrice, 243 Dares Phrygius, 71 David I, king of Scotland, 62, 63, 116, 117, 121, 122, 124, 125, 126, 128, 129, 131, 132, 133, 137, 143, 144, 149 Davy, George, prior of Marton, 388 Dee, river, 86, 242 Denise, daughter of Sir Roger Musson, 368, 369, 370, 373, 374, 375, 380, 382 daughters of, see Alice (Bossard), Isabel (Bossard) granddaughter of, see Alice, daughter of Isabel (Bossard)

General Index great-granddaughter of, see Felicia, daughter of Henry de Bourton husband of, see Bossard, Roger Denise (Dimota) de Lostford, daughter of Eleanor Musson, 369, 370, 382 Derby (Derbys.), 215 Derwent, river, 65, 242 Despenser, Hugh, 355 Deyncourt, Ralph Lord, 443, 445 Dimota, see Denise (de Lostford) Dodd, William, son of Isolde Musson, 363n, 377 Doddington (Shrops.), 128 Dolwyddelan (Caernarf.), 108 Dorchester, bishop of, see Æscwig Dover (Kent), Ben. priory, 22 Dover, Richard of, archbishop of Canterbury, 23 Downpatrick (co. Down), St John the Baptist, hospital, 149, 152 Ben. priory, 151, 152 Dublin (co. Dublin), Dominican friary, 147 Dublin, archbishop of, see Lorcan Ua Tuathail Dunfermline (Fife), Ben. abbey, 138 abbot of, 138 Dunstanville, Walter de, 371, 385 Durham, Community of St Cuthbert, 46 sacrist of, see Alfred Durham, Ben. cathedral priory, 48, 62, 66, 67, 72, 73, 74, 76, 77, 78, 217, 227, 405, 441 monk of, see Symeon subprior of, see Maurice Durham, bishops of, see Bek, Anthony; Edmund; Puiset, Hugh du; St Calais, William of Durham, diocese of, 48, 61, 62 Dutton, family of, 86, 87 Dutton, Adam of, 86 wife of, see Agnes John, son of, 86 Dyfrig, St, 106 Eadbald, king of Kent, 24 Eadburg, abbess of Minster, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 32, 34

499 Eafe, abbess of Minster, 24, 25 Eahlmund, bishop of Hexham, 428, 430 Ealdhelm, bishop of Sherborne, 431 Easby (Yorks., NR), minster, 84, 91 Easington (Yorks., NR), 396 Eata, bishop of Hexham, 428, 430 Ecgred, bishop of Lindisfarne, 126, 127 Edinburgh (Midlothian), 125 church of St Cuthbert, 124, 125, 126 127, 130 Edith Forne, wife of Robert II d’Oilly, 432 Edith (Matilda), see Matilda Edlington, John, canon of Thornton, 264 Edmund, bishop of Durham, 46 Edmund, earl of Kent, 348 Edmund, earl of Leicester, 323n Edmund Ironside, king of England, 422 Edmunds, Henry, 229 Edric, canon of Hexham, 47 Edrom (Berwickshire), church, 135 education, see schools, universities Edward, the Black Prince, 331 Edward the Elder, king of England, 422 Edward I, king of England, 109, 332, 333, 343, 370 Edward II, king of England, 324, 329, 330, 355 Edward III, king of England, 330, 343, 346, 350 Edward IV, king of England, 198, 273, 274, 285 Edward VI, king of England, 393, 394, 395, 398 Egbert, king of Kent, 24 Eilaf son of Alfred, priest of Hexham, 46 Eilaf son of Eilaf, priest of Hexham, 46, 47, 61 Eleanor (alias Medusa), daughter of Sir Roger Musson, 368, 369, 370, 373, 374, 379, 380, 381, 382 daughters of, see Alice (de Lostford); Denise (de Lostford); Isabel (de Lostford); Sybil (de Lostford) husband of, see Lostford, Robert de son of, see Lostford, William de Eleanor, queen, wife of Henry III, 332, 333 Ellen, daughter of Sir John Iwardby, 281

500 Elizabeth I, queen of England, 393, 399, 400 Elmham, Thomas, 412 Elphin, archdeacon of, see Mac Mailin, Clarus bishop of, see Ó Morda, Dionysius Elsing (Norf.), 399 Elton, John, 205n wife of, see Grace Emson, Richard, 279 Emson, William, prior of Drax, 389, 395 Erasmus Desiderius, 398, 403 Ercall (Shrops.), 371 Ergom, John, 404 Ernald, abbot of Rievaulx, 68, 71, 74, 75 Ernald, chaplain of Uppington, 371 Espec, Walter, 52, 53, 60, 64, 65 Etchingham, Elias de, 375n, Thomas fitz Elias de, 375n Eugenius III, pope, 45n, 55, 121, 176, 178, 292 Eustace fitz John, constable of Chester, 84, 296 wife of, see Agnes Evesham (Worcs.), Ben. abbey, 79, 89, 231, 315, 316 Eylof, Richard, 239 Eynsham (Oxon.), Ben. abbey, 432 Exeter, bishop of, 42; see also Grandisson, John; Neville, George; Stapledon, Walter; Warelwast, William Farnworth (Lancs.), 231 Fayrewell, Thomas, 279 Featherstone (Yorks., WR), church, 49, 50 priest of, 49 Felicia, daughter of Henry de Bourton, 382 Ferrar, Robert, prior of Nostell, bishop of St Davids, 392, 393, 394, 398, 399 Ferrers, Robert of, 79 Feversham, William (alias Shepherd), canon of Leeds, 407n Fisher, Alexander of Newport, son of Reginald (alias ‘Piscator’), 368, 369, 371, 379 fitz Alan family of Clun and Oswestry, 378 William II, 367, 385 fitz Gerald, Maurice, 171, 483n fitz Harding, Robert, 420, 422 fitz Richard, Philip, de Huntingdon, 374–75, 380, 381

General Index fitz Richard, Robert, 99 Flaxley (Glos.), Cist. abbey, 314, 317 Fleming, Anthony, canon of Nostell, 397 Folkestone (Kent), Ben. priory, 275 Folville family, 356 Fontevrault (Maine et Loire), abbey, 427 order of, 176, 293 Forester, John, canon, 409 Forster, Thomas, prior of Wombridge, 363 Fortescue, Richard, 200n Forz, Aveline of, countess of Pembroke, 433 Fountains (Yorks., NR), Cist. abbey, 64, 67, 73, 75, 305, 308, 387 abbot of, see Murdac, Henry Fourth Lateran Council (1215), 33, 116, 136n, 137, 141, 143, 178 Fowler, Thomas, 279 Fox, John, abbot of Missenden, 270, 271 Foxe, Thomas, 229 Frithubeorht, bishop of Hexham, 428, 430 Fuller, Robert, abbot of Waltham, 410n Galiena, wife of Sir Roger Musson, 367, 368, 371 Galway (co. Galway), 170–71 St Mary’s Hospital, 170 Gandavo, Simon de, bishop of Salisbury, 328 Gant, Gilbert II de, earl of Lincoln, 44, 55n, 64, 292 Gant, Gislebert I de, 44, 45, 55n Gant, Walter de, 42, 43, 44, 45, 55, 60, 65, 81 Geoffrey of Monmouth, 71, 74, 412 Historia Regum Britanniae, Historia Britonum, 71 Gerald of Wales (Giraldus Cambrensis), 97, 99, 101, 106, 113, 148 Gerard, archbishop of York, 41, 69 Germanus of Auxerre, St, 431 Gervase, abbot of Louth Park, 67 Gervase, abbot of Prémontré, bishop of Seez, 155 Gervase, monk of Canterbury, 111 Gery, Henry, 276n, 279 Gery, William, 276n Gibson, John, canon of Nostell, 397, 399

General Index Giffard, George, 352 Giffard, Godfrey, bishop of Worcester, 327, 328 Giffard, William, bishop of Winchester, 50 Gilbert of Sempringham (Gilbert fitz Jocelin), 69, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 187, 291, 292, 293, 296, 302, 308, 309 Gilbert, William, abbot of Bruton, 225, 231 Gilbertine Order, 9, 69, 173, 176, 177, 181, 184, 188, 219, 292, 293, 294, 296, 299, 308, 470 Gildas, 72 Gillian, daughter of Sir Roger Musson, 368, 369, 373, 380, 382, 384 grandson of, see Corbrond, Richard husband of, see Beckbury, Walter de son of, see Corbrond, Reginald Glasgow, bishop of, 50, 137; see also Jocelin; John diocese of, 133, 136, 139 Glastonbury (Som.), Ben. abbey, 419, 422 monk of, 283 Glastonbury Tor, church of St Michael, 455 Gloucester (Glos.), 215, 217 Gloucester, St Peter, Ben. abbey, 97, 315, 316, 317, 410, 422, 425 abbot of, see Serlo Gloucester, duke of, see Richard Gloucester, earl of, see William Glyn, John,199n, 210 Glyn Dër, see Owain Glyn, William, 112 Godfrey, John, prior of Penmon, 112 Godwin, earl of Wessex, 367 Golding (Shrops.), 383 Goscelin, monk of St Augustine’s, Canterbury, 26, 27, 28 Goudlyne, John, 243 Gower, John, 413 Goyne, John, 198 Grace, wife of John Elton, 205n Grandisson, John, bishop of Exeter, 229 Gray, William, canon of Newburgh, 397 Grayson, Oliver, canon of Guisborough, 396 Grayson, Thomas, canon of Newburgh, 397

501 Great Ayton (Yorks., NR), 399 Great Kimble (Bucks.), 275, 279 Great Malvern (Worcs.), Ben. priory, 315, 316 Great Missenden (Bucks.), 270, 280, 281, 318 Great Whelnetham (Suff.), 397 Greetham, Thomas, canon and abbot of Thornton, 251, 253, 256, 257, 261, 262–65 Gregg, Robert, canon of Guisborough, 397 Gregory I (the Great), pope, 68–69, 395 Gregory, magister, medicus, 247 Gregory Nazianzen, 77 Grendon, William, canon of Taunton, prior of Stavordale, 203n Gretham (Rutland), church, 325 Grey Abbey (co. Down), Cist. abbey, 151 Greyhorse, Richard, 202n Grimsby (Lincs.), 262 Grosseteste, Robert, bishop of Lincoln, 452 Gruffudd ab Ednyfed, 109 Gryssby, William, abbot of Thornton, 264 Guisborough (Yorks., NR), 65, 390, 393, 396 Guthlac, St, 79, 80 Guy, canon of Merton, prior of Bodmin, 218 Gynwell, John, bishop of Lincoln, 358 Gysburn, John, canon of Coverham, 283 Hadley, Alan de, 364 daughter of, see Cecily, wife of Roger Corbet Hadley, William de, 364, 371n sons of, see Alan de; William II de wife of, see Seburga Peverel Hadley, William II de, 371 Hadley Wood (Shrops.), 364 Hagbourne (Berks.), church, 325, 328, 329, 330, 331, 337 rector of, see Ayleston, Robert de vicar of, see Ampney, William of Hailes (Glos.), Cist. abbey, 314, 316, 317 Hall, Thomas, see Preston Halton (Ches.), 83, 86, 87 Hamelin, Sir John, 357 Hampnett, Henry of, abbot of Cirencester, 327, 329 Hampton, Denis de, 238 Harewood (Yorks., WR), 397

502 Harold II, king of England, 418, 426 Harrington (Shrops.), 367, 368, 371, 372, 382, 385 Hartland (Devon), parish church of St Nectan, curate of, see Husband, John Hastings, Henry, 332 wife of, see Joan Hastings, John, son of Joan, 332, 333, 335 Hastings, Laurence, earl of Pembroke, 350 Hatton (Worcs.), 323 Haughton (Leics.), 350 Haverholme (Lincs.), Cist. abbey, 292 Hawkesly, George, canon of Guisborough, 397 Healaugh Park (Yorks., WR), church, 396 Helmsley (Yorks., NR), 65 parish church, 65, 398 Henry I, king of England, 4, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 49, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 77, 81, 82, 88, 92, 106, 141, 151, 325, 326, 328, 422, 427 Henry II, king of England, 93, 367, 370, 420, 422, 426, 427 Henry III, king of England, 332, 334, 343 Henry IV, king of England, 334, 335 Henry V, king of England, 412 Henry VI, king of England, 272, 275, 412 Henry VII, king of England, 195, 196, 198, 210 Henry VIII, king of England, 195, 196, 198, 199n, 210, 254, 398 Henry, earl of Lancaster, 348 Hereford (Here.) constable of, see Milo earl of, see Milo Hereford cathedral, 405, 426 Hereford, bishop of, 336; see also Robert Herlewyn, John, canon of Kirby Bellars, 358 Hexham (Northumb.) church, 46, 47, 48, 50, 61 priest of, see Eilaf Hexham, bishops of, 428; see also Acca; Eahlmund; Eata; Frithubeorht; John of Beverley; Tilbeorht; Wilfrid Hidune, Clarice de, 244 Hill, Richard, 284 Hill Wootton (Shrops.), 368

General Index Hiloft, William, canon of Thornton, 263 Hilston (Yorks., ER), 400 Hilton, Walter, 404 Hinde, William, canon of Guisborough, 397 Hine, Thomas Chambers, architect, 448, 456, 457, 462, 465 history, interest in among houses of canons, 403–16, 417–42 Hitcham (Suff.), 400 Hogges, John, 229 Holme, William, prior of Warter, 389, 393 Holywell (Flintshire), 86 Honor, Adrian, 280 Honor, Harry, 280 wife of, see Isabel Honor, Henry, alias Missenden, abbot of Missenden, 269, 271, 272, 273, 274, 275, 276, 277, 278, 279, 280, 281, 282, 283, 284, 285, 286, 287 Honor, John, 280 Honor, W illiam, abbot of Missenden, 278, 281n Hope, Alice, 281 Hose, Henry, 246 Hose, Matthew, 246 Hoton, John, canon and abbot of Thornton, 256, 257 Hoton, John, prior of North Ferriby, 258 Hugh I, earl of Chester, 85, 92, 94 Hugh II, earl of Chester, 92 Hugh, canon of St Victor (Paris), 69, 186 Hugh, precentor of York (Hugh the Chanter), 48, 50 Hugh ap Rhys (ap Rice), prebendary of Rochester, treasurer of St Davids, 204 Hughenden (Bucks.), 281 Hull (Yorks., ER), 400 Holy Trinity church, 397 Hull, suffragan bishop of, 393 Hull, William, canon of Thornton, 264 Huntingdon, earl of, see Clinton, William (de) Huntingdon family, 382; see also fitz Richard, Philip Husband, John, curate of St Nectan in Hartland, 203–04

General Index Hutton Cranswick (Yorks., ER), 399 Hywel ap Gruffudd of Sutton, 363n Ida, wife of John de Clinton, 350 Ieuan Deulwyn, poet, 101 Inch (co. Down), Cist. abbey, 149n, 152 Ingram, John, prior of Penmon, 112 Innisheskillegan (co. Sligo), 162 Innocent II, pope, 54 Innocent III, pope, 156, 178 intellectual activities and interests of the canons, 67–78, 403–16 Invergowrie (Perthshire), 123, 124 Irreys, Henry, prior of Coventry, 350 Isaac, bishop of Connor, 154 Isaac, canon of Tuam, 155 Isabel (Bossard), daughter of Denise Musson, 369, 370, 375 Isabel (de Lostford), daughter of Eleanor Musson, 369, 370, 374, 380, 381 husband of, see fitz Richard, Philip Isabel (de Chatsall) daughter of Isabel Musson, 370 Isabel, daughter of Sir Roger Musson, 368, 369, 380 daughters of, see Isabel de Chatsall; Mabel de Chatsall husband of, see Chatsall, Richard de sons of, see Chatsall, John de; Chatsall, Roger de Isabel, wife of Harry Honor, 280 Isabell, wife of Geoffrey Bulman, 208 Isabella, queen, wife of Edward II, 331 Isidore of Seville, 69, 72 Isolde (alias Cecily), daughter of Sir Roger Musson, 368, 369, 373, 377 son of, see Dodd, William Iwardby, John, 273, 280, 281 daughter of, see Ellen wife of, see Katherine Iwardby, Nicholas, 272 Jarrow (co. Durham) Anglo-Saxon monastery, 64 Ben. priory, 64

503 Jee, Nicholas, 201 Jennings (Jennyns), Alexander, canon of Drax, 396, 399 Jervaulx (Yorks., NR), Cist. abbey, 70 Joan, widow of Hugh II de Beckbury, 377, 378 Joan, wife of Henry Hastings, 332 Jocelin, abbot of Melrose, bishop of Glasgow, 134, 135 John XXIII, pope, 335 John, abbot of Dieux la Croisse, 154 John, bishop of Glasgow, 117, 126–7, 137, 143 John, chaplain to Earl Ranulf of Chester, 91 John, constable of Chester, 86 John, king of England, 343, 411, 427 John, prior of Studley, 335 John of Beverley, St, bishop of Hexham, 428, 430 Johns, Edward, 199 Judson, Thomas, prior of Marton, 388, 395, 399 Juliana, wife of William de Clinton, 350 Jumièges (Seine-Maritime), Ben. abbey, 426 Jumièges, William of, 72 Justise, Stephen, 239 Katherine, wife of John Iwardby, 280 Katherine, wife of Robert Ryvelay, 202n Kells-Mellifont, synod of (1152), 156, 157, 471 Kelso (Roxburghshire), Tironensian abbey, 134, 138n abbot of, see Arnold Kent, earl of, see Edmund Kent, kings of, see Æthelbert; Eadbald; Egbert K idderm inster, R ich ard, abbot of Winchcombe, 214 Kildwick (Yorks., WR), 396, 397 Kildwick, John, prior of Kirkham, 391, 394 Kilkenny, Statutes of (1366), 482 Killeentrynode (co. Mayo), 162 Kilmacowen (co. Sligo), 162 Kilross (co. Sligo), 162 Kirby Bellars (Leics.), chapel of St Peter, 356, 357 chaplain of, see Spigurnel, William Kirby Muxloe (Leics.), castle, 201n

504 Kirk Ella (Yorks., ER), 396 Kirkeby, John, canon of Thornton, 263 Kirkham (Yorks., ER), 52, 65 parish church, 398 Kirknewton (Midlothian), 138 Kirkstall (Yorks., WR), Cist. abbey, 72 Knighton, Henry, canon of Leicester, 407, 411, 415, 416, 418, 426, 427 Kyrkeby, Emma de, 236 La Charite sur Loire (Nièvre), Cluniac abbey, 49, 50 Lacy family, lords of Pontefract, 48, 49 Lacy, Hugh de (of Meath), 149, 470n Lacy, Hugh de (of Pontefract), 99 Lacy, Robert de (of Pontefract), 50, 60, 64 Lambe, John, 198n Lambert, Anthony, 202n Lambert of Utrecht, 67 Lancaster, earl of, see Henry; Thomas Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury, 21, 22, 26, 27, 28, 29, 32, 35, 37, 38, 215 Constitutions of, 182 Langton, Stephen, archbishop of Canterbury, 23, 36 Lankaschyre, Roger, 202n wife of, see Alice Lanton (Roxburghshire), 127 Laon (Aisne), 78, 157, 291 Prem. abbey of St Martin, 157 Latton, vicar of, see Preston, Robert de Laurence, Agnes, 281 Laurence, Richard, 281 Laxfield (Suff.), 399, 400 Leadburn (Midlothian), 125 Leeds, Christopher (alias Midgeley), canon and subprior of Bolton, 397 Leland, John, 216, 422, 428, 431, 432, 433 Lelay, Hugh de, 243 Lenewood, William, prior of Newburgh, 392, 393 Lennel, Norman of, 138n wife of, see Amabile Leonard Stanley (Glos.), Ben. priory, 315, 316 Levington, Thomas, canon of Thornton, 264 Lexington, Stephen of, abbot of Stanley, Clairvaux and Cîteaux, 161

General Index Liberton (Midlothian), 125, 126 Lichfield (Staffs.), minster, 457 Liddel Castle (Cumb.), 347, 348 Liddesdale (Roxburghshire), church of St Martin, 128 Liff (Angus), 123, 124 Lighe, Ralph I de, 239 Lighton, John, canon of Guisborough, 400 Limesey, Robert de, bishop of Chester/ Coventry and Lichfield, 50, 81, 85, 94 Lincoln, bishops of, 220, 222, 230, 257, 275n, 336, 358; see also Alexander; Alnwick, William; Atwater, William; Bloet, Robert; Burghersh, Henry; Chedworth, John; Grosseteste, Robert; Gynwell, John; Longland, John; Rotherham, Thomas; Sutton, Oliver Lincoln (Lincs.), cathedral, 80n, 175, 446, 450, 452, 453, 466 Lincoln, earl of, see Gant, Gilbert de; Roumare, William de Lindisfarne, bishop of, see Cuthbert; Ecgred Lismore, see of, 473 Litlyngdon, John, canon of Newnham, 223n Little Missenden (Bucks.), 397 Livingston (West Lothian), 138 Llandaff, bishop of, see Braose, William de Llywelyn ab Iorwerth, 99n, 108, 111 Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, 99n, 108, 109, 111, 112 Lolly, Richard, canon of Newburgh, 399 London, 245, 274, 279, 323, 324, 325, 390, 391 Fleet Prison, 273 Tyburn, 390 churches and parishes St Clement Danes, 323, 324 St Peter, Cornhill, 414 hospitals St Bartholomew, Smithfield, 434 religious houses Charterhouse, 436 London, bishops of, see Belmeis, Richard de; Maurice London, John of, monk of St Augustine, Canterbury, 408n

General Index Long Preston (Yorks., WR), 396 Longforgan (Perthshire), 140 Longland, John, bishop of Lincoln, 271 Longner, William of, 373 Longus, Henry of Southampton, 240 Lorcan Ua Tuathail, archbishop of Dublin, 471 Lostford, Robert de, husband of Eleanor Musson, 369 Lostford, William, son of Eleanor Musson, 369, 374, 379 Louth, William of, canon of Thornton, 265, 266 Louth Park (Lincs.), Cist. abbey, 263 abbot of, see Gervase Lucan, 413 Ludolphus of Saxony, 395 Lyminge (Kent), Anglo-Saxon monastery, 24, 25, 27, 29, 34, 36, 37, 38 abbess of, see Selethryth Lyne, Richard, canon of Kirkham, 398 Lyngen, William, 200 Lysle, Lancelot, 199 Lytull, Robert, 199n Mabel (de Chatsall), daughter of Isabel Musson, 370 Mac Carthaigh, Cormac, 473, 476 Mac Diarmada (Mac Dermot), dynasty, 158, 161, 162, 172 Mac Diarmada, Donnchad, lord of Moylurg, 161 Mac Donchaidh (Mac Donagh), family/lordship, 162 Hugh, 162 Mac Mailin, Clarus, archdeacon of Elphin, 158, 161, 162, 163, 169, 171, 172 Mael-beatha, lord of Liberton, 125 Mael Coluim (Malcolm) IV, king of Scotland, 129, 137 Malachy, archbishop of Armagh, bishop of Down, 146, 147, 157, 470, 473, 474, 479 Malbanc, Adelicia, 89 Malhome, William, canon of Bolton, 396 Mallet, William, canon of Thornton, 264 Malthorpe, Thomas de, canon of Kirby Bellars,

505 358 Malton, Thomas of, prior of Watton, 294 Manuscripts 66–77 Berkeley Castle, Muniments S97, 420n Bristol, Baptist College, MS Z d 5, 424n Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 66, 73 MS 139, 73 Cambridge, University Library MS Ff. 1. 6 (Findern Manuscript), 284 MS Ff. 5. 48, 284 MS Ff. 1. 27, 73 Dublin, Trinity College, MS 516, 284 Durham, Cathedral Library MS B II 35, 73 MS B III 8, 55n Durham, University Library, MS Cosin U. v. 19, 44 Edinburgh, University Library, MS 136, 414n Gotha, Landesbibliothek, MS I. 81, 27 Liège, Université Bibliothèque Générale, MS 369C, 72 London, British Library MS Add. 35295, 410n MS Add. 35695, 407n MS Add. 37665, 410n MS Add. 38665, 410n, 413n, 414n, 415n MS Add. 38817, 70, 76 MS Arundel 36, 76 MS Arundel 218, 76, 77 MS Arundel 252, 76 MS Burney 216, 76 MS Cotton MS Caligula A viii, 73 MS Cotton MS Claudius A v, 75 MS Cotton MS Claudius E iii, 407n MS Cotton MS Tiberius C vii, 407n MS Cotton MS Titus A. xxv, 158 MS Cotton MS Vespasian B ix, 410n, 436n MS Harley 50, 68, 69 MS Lansdowne 762, 284 MS Lansdowne 763, 407n MS Royal 20 B xv, 413n MS Sloane 747, 269, 277–8, 284

506 MS Stowe 62, 71, 75, 76 London, College of Arms MS Arundel 28, 410n Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Bodley 236, 77 MS Laud gr. MS 28, 408n MS Rawlinson B 214, 407n, 408n MS Tanner 166, 253–66, passim Oxford, Brasenose College, MS 5, 414n Taunton, Somerset Record Office, MS 1, 408n York, Minster Library MS XVI 1 8, 70 MS XVI M 6, 408n MS XVI M 7, 408n Maredudd ap Rhys, 105n, 109, 111 Margaret, wife of Henry of Ospringe, 24 Marras, Robert, canon of Thornton, 263 Marshal, William, 369 Marshall, Ralf, abbot of Missenden, 271 Martival, Roger, bishop of Salisbury, 329 Martley, William of, abbot of Cirencester, 329 Marton in Cleveland (Yorks., NR), 396 Mary, queen of England, 393, 398 Masham (Yorks., NR), 400 Matilda, countess of Chester, 79 Matilda, empress, 62, 91 Matilda (Edith), queen, wife of Henry I, 4, 59, 85, 245 Maton, Richard de, canon of Beverley, prebendary of York, 46, 47 Matthew Paris, monk of St Albans, 30 Maude, wife of John Smyth alias Piper, 201 Maurice, bishop of London, 50 Maurice, prior of Kirkham, 69, 70, 76, 77, 292 Maurice, subprior of Durham, 66 May, Ralph, 246–47 McCowragh, Gillerath, abbot of Carrickfergus, 153 McGyllochcran, Cornelius, abbot of Lough Key, 161 Meaux (Yorks., ER), Cist. abbey, 263, 348 ‘Medusa’, see Eleanor, daughter of Sir Roger Musson Melbourne (Derbys.), 457

General Index Mellifont (co. Louth), Cist. abbey, 147, 158 Melrose (Roxburghshire), Cist. abbey, abbot of, see Jocelin Melton, William, archbishop of York, 347, 456n Mercia, kingdom of, 79, 83 Mersey, river, 83, 86 Merton, Guy of, prior of Bodmin, 218 Meschin, Ranulf le, 53–54 Meschin, William, lord of Copeland, 52, 54, 61, 433 Metcalf, Robert, prior of Newburgh, 391 Meun, Jean de, 413 Midgeley, Christopher, see Leeds Milburga, St, 84 Mildred (Mildrith), St, 19, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 32, 33, 34, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40 Millicent, wife of Eudo la Zouche, 332 Milo, constable/earl of Hereford, 106, 424 Minster-in-Thanet (Kent), Anglo-Saxon nunnery, 24, 25, 26, 27, 34, 38 abbesses of, see Eadburg; Eafe; Selethryth minsters, parish churches, and secular colleges converted to houses of canons, 48–49, 64, 79–94, 123, 125–28, 217, 356–57, 447; see also clas churches Mirk, John, canon of Lilleshall, 353, 404 Mobberley (Ches.), church, 93 Mobberley, Patrick of, 93 Modye, William, canon of Warter, 398 Mo(o)ne, Richard, prior of Bolton, 391, 393 Mont St Michel (Basse-Normandie), Ben. abbey, 455 Montacute (Som.), Cluniac priory, 343, 346 Montagu family, 343, 346 Montagu, William, earl of Salisbury, 340, 343, 346, 348, 351, 361 More, John, canon and abbot of Thornton, 261 More, Richard, 279 More, Thomas, schoolmaster, 217 Moreman, Thomas, 203 Mores ap Denevet, 199n, 210 Moreville, Hugh de, lord of Lauderdale, 149 Mortain, count of, see Robert

General Index Mortimer family, 423 Mortimer, Roger, 343 Morville (Shrops.), minster, 94 Morwing, Richard, canon of Kirkham, 394 Mount Gilbert (Wrekin, Shrops.), 367, 373, 384, 385 Mowbray, Roger de, 63, 64 Much Wenlock (Shrops.), Cluniac priory, 82, 84, 455 Multon, Walter, canon and abbot of Thornton, 261 Multon, William, canon and abbot of Thornton, 261 Mundene, Henry de, abbot of Cirencester, 329 Munster, synods of, 473 Murdac, Henry, abbot of Fountains, 308 Muschamp, Geoffrey, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, 93 Musson family of Uppington, 363–85 Gilbert, 368, 371 Sir Roger, 364, 367, 368, 369, 370, 371, 372, 373, 376, 379, 381, 382, 385 brother of, see Musson, Gilbert daughters of, see Alice; Aline; Denise; Eleanor; Gillian; Isabel; Isolde (Cecily); Petronilla; Sybil overlord of, see fitz Alan, William wife of, see Galiena Nackington (Kent), 24n Nendrum (co. Down), Ben. priory, 149n, 151, 152 Nennius, 72, 73 Nequam, Alexander, abbot of Cirencester, 218, 416 Neville, George, bishop of Exeter, archbishop of York, lord chancellor, 272, 273, 428 Newbattle (Midlothian), Cist. abbey, 138 Newbery, Walter, abbot of Bristol, 275 Newbold, Thomas, prior of Flanesford, 346n Newport, Alexander de, see Fisher, Alexander Newport, Reginald de, father-in-law of Petronilla Musson, 379 Newport, Roger de, son of Petronilla Musson, 369

507 Newton, Edmund, canon of Kirkham, 394 Nicholas IV, pope, 326 Nicholas, archdeacon of Bedford, 217 Ninove (Oost-Vlaanderen), Prem. abbey, 153, 165 Nisbet (Roxburghshire), 127 Norbert, St (of Xanten), 145, 152 Norman, sheriff of Berwick on Tweed, 125 North Frodingham (Yorks., ER), 399 Northampton (Northants.), 70, 219 Hamund of, 234 St Andrews Cluniac priory, 275, 319, 321 Northbayll, grange of Thornton Abbey, 260, 261, 265 Northburgh, Roger, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, 350 Northumberland, earl of, see Percy, Henry Norton, Thomas, 202, 206 Norwich (Norf.), 216 Ben. cath. priory, 226, 230 Norwich, Valuation of (1254), 326, 328, 329 Nostell (Yorks., WR), church/clerks of, 49, 50 Nottingham (Notts.), All Saints church Raleigh Street, 449n Nottingham, archdeaconry of, 393 Nynehead (Som.), 203n Ó Birn (Tireowne), 162 Ó Conchobair (O’Conor), dynasty, 156, 157, 162, 166, 172 Briain Luigneach, 162 Cathal Crobderg, 156, 157, 162 Domnall, 156, 162 Feilimid, 171 Lassairfhina, daughter of Cathal Crobderg, 162 Ruaidhri, 156, 162 Ó Conchobair Shligigh (O’Conor Sligo), dynasty, 162 Ó Dubhaig (O’Duffy), family, 156 Ó Dubhda (O’Dowd), family, 163 Ó Flaithbheartaig (O’Flaherty) family, 166, 168, 169, 172 Muirchertach, bishop of Annaghdown, 166 Ó hAllmhuráin (O’ Halloran), 170

508 Ó Meallaig family, 169 Tomás, abbot of Annaghdown, 166, 169 Ó Morda (O’Moore), Dionysius, bishop of Elphin, 158, 161 Ó Raghallaig (O’Reilly), family, 169, 172 Cathal, 169, 170 Ó Ruadáin (O’Ruane), Felix, archbishop of Tuam, 156 Ogilface (West Lothian), 141 Oilly, Henry I de, 432 Oilly, Robert II de, 431, 432 wife of, see Edith Forne Orkney, bishop of, 50 Orm son of Eilaf, 128 Orosius, 71 Osbern, monk and precentor of Christ Church Canterbury, 27–28 Osbert, prior of Jedburgh, 136 Ospringe, Henry of, 24n wife of, see Margaret Osric, king of the Hwicce, 422 Ossory, bishop of, see Rous, Hugo de Ossory, diocese of, 471 Oswald, king of Northumbria, saint, 61, 84 Ovid, 407, 408, 413 Owain ap Gruffudd, 111 Owain Glyn Dër, 101, 110 Oxford (Oxon.), 218, 219, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225, 409, 410 Council of (1222), 237 religious houses and colleges Canterbury College, 226 Durham College, 218 Frewin Hall, 224 Gloucester College, 218 Jesus College, 204n, 405 Magdalen College, 204 Queen’s College, 224 St Edward Hall, 226 University College, 224 streets New Inn Hall Street, 224 Panton, Henry, 375

General Index wife of, see Alice, daughter of Isabel Bossard Paris, 78, 170, 220 parish churches, granted to and held by canons, 54–57, 122–32, 313–37, 350–54, 395–97, 471 Parkinson, James, canon of Kirkham, 394 Paschal II, pope, 51 Pate, John, 199 Patensoune, John, 201n Paynel, William of Drax, 63, 81 Peche, Richard, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, 85 Pembroke, countess of, see Forz, Aveline de Pembroke, earl of, see Hastings, Laurence; Valence, Aymer de Percy family, 73 Percy, Henry, earl of Northumberland, 340, 348 Pershore (Worcs.), Ben. abbey, 315, 316 Peter, prior of Holy Trinity, Aldgate, see Cornwall, Peter of Peterborough (Northants.), Anglo-Saxon/Ben. abbey, abbot of, see Coelred Petronilla, daughter of Sir Roger Musson, 368, 369, 371, 372 father-in-law of, see Newport, Reginald de husband of, see Fisher, Alexander of Newport son of, see Newport, Roger de Petronilla (de Chatsall), daughter of Isabel Musson, 370 Peverel family, 367, 370 Hamon, 364, 367, 371, 385 daughter of, see Seburga Pickering, John, prior of the York Dominican friars, 390, 391 Pilgrimage of Grace, 389, 393, 394 Place, G. G., architect, 452n Plumpton, Laurence, canon of Bolton, 398 Pockington (Yorks., ER), 398 Pont L’Evêque, Roger, archbishop of York, 296, 297 Ponte, Thomas de, canon and abbot of Thornton, 261 Pontefract (Yorks., WR), 49, 60 Cluniac priory, 50, 64

General Index popes, see Alexander III; Alexander V; Benedict XII; Boniface IX; Calixtus II; Eugenius III; Gregory I; Innocent II; Innocent III; John XXIII; Nicholas IV; Paschal II Portsmouth (Hants.), 237, 238, 241 Powell, Rev. David, 448 Prémontré (Aisne), Prem. abbey, 155, 156, 157, 163, 172 abbot of, see Gervase Prémontré, Order of (Premonstratensian Order), 101, 145, 146, 151, 155, 163, 165, 171, 172, 176, 181, 185, 188 Preston, Robert de, vicar of Latton, 329 Preston (alias Hall), Thomas, canon of Bolton, 396 Preston-next-Wingham (Kent), church, 34n Price, Dr Elys, 112 Priscian, 69 Puiset, Hugh du, bishop of Durham, 70, 73 Pullane, John, canon of Bridlington, 391 Pulley (Shrops.), 369 Pursglove, Robert, prior of Guisborough, 388, 390, 392, 393, 394, 399 Rabanus (Raban Maur), 69 Raggy, Hugh, 237, 238, 239, 240 Raggy, Nicholas, 237, 238 Raggy, Thomas, 237, 238 Ragner, St, 70 Rahere, founder and prior of St Bartholomew, London, 433, 434, 435, 436 Rainolde, William, of Blankley, 201 Ráith Bressail, synod of (1111), 471 Rakedale, William de, canon of Kirby Bellars, 358 Ralph, canon, 432 Ralph, prior of Holy Trinity Aldgate, 244 Ramsey (Hunts.), Ben. abbey, 199n Ranulf II, earl of Chester, 79, 86n, 90, 91, 92, 93, 242 Rawlyns, Thomas, canon of Bodmin, 195n, 203n Reading (Berks.), Ben. abbey, 217, 231, 427 Rede, Robert, chief justice, 280 Regenbald, priest of Cirencester, 326

509 Reginald, bishop of Connor, 151, 153, 165 Regularis Concordia, 182 Reimbald, cellarer of Holyrood, abbot of Scone, 142 Reims (Marne), Ben. abbey, 426 Repingdon, Philip, abbot of Leicester, 224 Repton (Derbys.), Ben. abbey, 79 parish church/minster, 79, 83, 90 Revesby (Lincs.), Cist. abbey, 292 abbot of, see Aelred Rewley (Oxon.), Cist. abbey, 218 Reynes, Robert of Acle, 284 Rhys ap Gruffudd (Lord Rhys), 100 Rich, Edmund, archbishop of Canterbury, 36 Richard I, king of England, 368, 411, 427 Richard, bishop of St Andrews, 130 Richard, butler, 92 Richard, duke of Gloucester, 274 Richard, earl of Chester, 79, 86, 92 Richard, prior of Hexham, 46, 47 Richmond, constable of, see Roald Richmond, George, canon of Bolton, 396 Rievaulx (Yorks., NR), Cist. abbey, 64, 65, 70, 71, 74, 75, 78, 291, 294, 308, 453 abbot of, see Aelred; Ernald; William Rindown (co. Roscommon), 163 Ripon (Yorks., WR), minster, 296, 457, 458 Risborough, Robert, abbot of Missenden, 270n, 271–3, 274, 275, 276, 277, 278, 282, 286 Rising of the Northern Earls (1569), 399 Roald, constable of Richmond, 91 Robert I, king of Scotland, 441 Robert, abbot of Scone, formerly canon of Jedburgh, 142 Robert, bishop of St Andrews, formerly canon of Nostell and prior of Scone, 53n, 118, 119, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 143 Robert, bishop of Hereford, 106 Robert, count of Mortain and earl of Cornwall, 60 Robert Curthose, brother of King Henry I 422 Robert, prior of Bridlington (Robert the Scribe), 55, 56, 67, 69, 75, 78, 218

510 Robert, prior of St Andrews, former canon of Nostell, 119, 120, 121 Robinson, William, prior of North Ormsby, 203n Rocester (Staffs.), church/minster, 82, 84, 85, 90, 91 Roche (Yorks., WR), Cist. abbey, 305 Roches, Geoffrey de, 241 Rochester (Kent), cathedral, prebendary of, see Hugh ap Rhys Roger, abbot of Byland, 68, 71 Roger, constable of Chester, 86 Rome, 42, 78, 87, 147, 156, 474 Roper, George, 200 Ros, William de, 348 Rosbyrne (co. Sligo), 162 Roscrea (co. Tipperary), 473 Rotherham (Yorks., WR), Jesus College, 393 Rotherham, Thomas, bishop of Lincoln, 275 Roumare, William de, earl of Lincoln, 63 Roundall, Richard, prior of Healaugh Park, 389, 390, 391, 394 Rous, Hugo de, canon of Bodmin, bishop of Ossory, 471 Rudham (Norf.), 216 Rufinus, son of King Wulfhere, 87, 94 Rule of St Augustine, 3, 55, 97, 116, 173, 174, 178, 179–81, 185, 186, 187, 188, 196, 218, 251, 470, 473 Rule of St Benedict, 174, 181, 183, 187, 218 Rule of St Chrodegang, 183 Rule of St Columban, 183 Rumilly, Avice de, 63 Rumilly, Cecily de, Lady of Skipton, 52, 61, 63, 433 Runcorn (Ches.), 81, 83 minster, 81, 83, 84, 85 Rygmayden, Thomas, 203 Ryvelay, Robert, 202n wife of, see Katherine St Albans (Herts.), 411 Ben. abbey, 217 abbot of, see Wheathampstead, John monk of, see Matthew Paris; Walsingham, Thomas

General Index St Andrews in Ards (co. Down), Ben. priory, 149n, 151 St Andrews (Fife), Aug. cathedral priory prior of, 144 St Andrews, bishops of, 50, 120; see also Arnold; Ben, James; Richard; Robert diocese of, 133, 137, 139 St Bees (Cumb.), Ben. priory, 54 St Calais, William of, bishop of Durham, 46, 62, 72 St David’s, bishop of, 110; see also Barlow, William; Bernard; Ferrar, Robert cathedral, treasurer of, see Hugh ap Rhys St Denis (Paris), Ben. abbey, 426 St Leonard, priory of, see Wombridge Priory St Michael’s Mount (Cornw.), Ben. priory, 455 St Victor (Paris), canon of, see Hugh Salisbury, bishop of, 330, 331; see also Gandavo, Simon de; Martival, Roger; Wickhampton, Robert; Wyville, Robert Salisbury (Wilts.), cathedral, 357, 453 dean and chapter of, 331 Salisbury, earl of, see Montagu, William Sallay, see Sawley Samson, bishop of Worcester, 215 Sandwell (Staffs.), Ben. priory, 94 Sawley (Yorks., WR), Cist. abbey, 73 Schäftlarn (Bavaria), Prem. abbey, 165 schools, 214–21, 229–31 Scotland, kings of, see Alexander I; David I; Edgar; Robert I Scraesburgh (Roxburghshire), chapel, 127 Seburga, 364 father of, see Peverel, Hamon granddaughter of, see Cecily, wife of Roger Corbet husband of, see Hadley, William de sons of, see Hadley, Alan de; Hadley, William II de Séez, bishop of, see Gervase Segiswicke, John, 199 Seiriol of Penmon, 111 Selby (Yorks., WR), Ben. abbey, 60, 70, 387 Selethryth, abbess of Minster-in-Thanet and Lyminge, 25

General Index Sempringham (Lincs.), village and parish church, 291, 292, 299, 302, 305 Sempringham, see Gilbertine Order Serlo, abbot of Gloucester, 422 Seusterne, Roger of, canon of Owston, 359 Seward, John, master of St Peter Cornhill, canon of St Osyth, 408, 414, 416 Seymour, Edward, duke of Somerset, 394 Shallingford, Henry of, canon of Cirencester, abbot of Bristol, 330 Shelford, Thomas, vicar of Aston Cantlowe, 335 Sher, William, prior of Launceston, 269 Sherborne (Dorset), Ben. abbey, 431 Sherborne, bishop of, see Ealdhelm Sherburn (Yorks., WR), 397 Sheriff Hutton (Yorks., NR), 389, 395 Sherwood Forest, 447 Shether, Geoffrey, prior of Little Dunmow, 268 Shifnal (Shrops.), 371 Shireburn, John, canon of Thornton, 264 Shrewsbury (Shrops.), Ben. abbey, 94 Shutt, Thomas, canon of Drax, canon of Nostell, 399, 400 Silver, Henry of Bridlington, 244n Skelton (Yorks.NR), 438 Skelton, John, poet, 282 Skipton (Yorks., NR), 61, 396 Skytter, Henry, blacksmith at Thornton Abbey, 202n wife of, see Agnes Slannynge, Nicholas, 200n Sleaford (Lincs.), 305 Sligo (co. Sligo), 171 Holy Trinity Hospital, 171 Smaragdus, 69 Smith, Smyth, alias Pyper, John, 201 wife of, see Maude Smith, William, abbot of Missenden, 270, 278, 280 Smithson, Thomas, prior of Hexham, 430 Snitterfield (Warw.), 323, 324, 325, 337 Somerset, duke of, see Seymour, Edward Southwell (Notts.), minster church, 50, 443, 446, 450, 451, 453, 456, 457, 458

511 Spigurnel, William, chaplain of Kirby Bellars, 356, 358 Sprenghouse (Springehouse), Thomas, 329 Stafford (Staffs.), 83, 87 minster, 83 Stafford, family, 89, 94, 95 Hervey de, 95 Hugh II de, 425 Nicholas de, 88, 95 Robert de, 87, 88, 89 Robert II de, 88 Stainsby in Cleveland (Yorks., NR), 242 Stapledon, Walter, bishop of Exeter, 324 Staunton, John, 199n Stavensby, Alexander, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, 85 Stephen, king, 61, 62, 63, 92, 420 Stephen, prior of Holy Trinity Aldgate, 244, 245, 247 Stepping, William, canon of Thornton, 263 Stocton, Adam, friar of Cambridge, 404n Stok, Richard, fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, and vicar of Cuddesdon, 204 Stokton, Richard of, canon of Bushmead, 230 Stone (Staffs.), 87, 88 parish church, 87, 88, 89, 90 Stow, John, 436 Strecche, John, canon of Kenilworth, 407, 410, 411, 412, 413, 414, 415, 416, 433, 434 Stubbington (Hants.), 235, 238, 239, 240, 241 Styane, Richard, canon of Healaugh Park, 396 Sules, Ranulf de, 128 Sutton Maddock (Shrops.), 367 Sutton on the Forest (Yorks., NR), 389, 395 Sutton, Oliver, bishop of Lincoln, 252 Sutton, Thomas, 275 Swan, William, 281 Sybil (de Lostford), daughter of Eleanor Musson, 369, 370 Sybil, daughter of Sir Roger Musson, 368, 369, 372, 374, 381, 384 husband of, see Bridgnorth, Richard de Symeon, monk of Durham, 73 Sywardby (Yorks, ER), 244n

512 Talbot, Gilbert, 1st Lord, 343, 344 Talbot, Gilbert, son of Richard, 3rd Lord, 345 Talbot, Richard, son of Gilbert, 2nd Lord, 340, 343, 344, 345, 346, 348, 361 wife of, see Comyn, Elizabeth Tamerton, William de, 242 Tamworth (Staffs.), 83, 350 Tappe, Henry, 199, 210 Tauntone, Luke de, 240 Taxatio ecclesiastica (1291), 253, 323, 327, 328, 329 Tenterden (Kent), church of, 34n Tewkesbury (Glos.), Ben abbey, 314, 316, 317 Thanet, island of (Kent), 24, 26 Thanington (Kent), church, 37n Thelwall (Ches.), 83 Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury, 23, 33 Thomas (Becket), archbishop of Canterbury, 23, 33, 36, 44, 448 Thomas I, archbishop of York, 42, 46, 62 Thomas II, archbishop of York, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 54, 55, 57, 61, 81, 85 Thomas, archdeacon of Gloucester, 326 Thomas, earl of Lancaster, 355 Thomys, John, 202n Thor son of Swein, 138 Thornton, John, canon of Thornton, 263, 264 Thornton, Richard, canon of Thornton, 263 Threckington (Lincs.), 92 Throwgood, John, 199, 210 Thurgarton (Notts.), 201, 446 Thurstan, abbot of Rocester, 90 Thurstan, archbishop of York, 41, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 57, 61, 62, 63, 64, 81, 85 Thurstan son of Levig, 138 Thweng, John, prior of Guisborough, 257 Tideswell (Derbys.), 393 Tilbeorht, bishop of Hexham, 428, 430 Tintern (Monm.), Cist. abbey, 103 Tocottes, George, 398 Todde, Robert, canon of Bridlington, 397 tombs and memorials, 418–42 Torphichen, Knights Hospitaller at, 141 Tournai, Gerard de, 368

General Index Toye, William, canon of Bridlington, 396 Tranent (East Lothian), church, 138, 139 Trecastell (Anglesey), 111 Tregot, William, of Portsmouth, 241 Trentham (Staffs.), parish church, 82, 90, 91, 92 Trevet, Nicholas, 413 Tring, William, prior of Missenden, 273 Tuam, archbishopric, 156, 166, 172 archbishop of, see Ó Ruadain, Felix Tutbury (Staffs.), Ben. priory, 94 Tyngrith, Isabel de, 236 Tyngrith, Nicholas de, 236 Tynton, Henry, canon of Thornton, 263 Tywardraeth (Corn.), Ben. priory, 200 Ua Conchobhair, Toirdelbach, king of Connacht, 476 Uí Briúin Bréifne, 169 Ulster, 148, 149, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 165, 172, 476 Ummeryroe (co. Sligo), 162 universities, 218–26 Upholland (Lancs.), Ben. priory, 94 Uppington (Shrops.), 363, 367–85 chaplain of, see Ernald Utterby, John of, abbot of Wellow, 257, 258 Vale, John, 284 Valence, Aymer de, earl of Pembroke, 344 Valle Crucis (Denb.), Cist. abbey, 103 Valor ecclesiasticus (1535), 253, 267, 314, 315. 318–22, 343, 387, 388 Virgil, 413 Wadel, Hugh de, 236 Wagger, Richard, canon of Haltemprice, 396, 399 Wake, Hugh, 343n Wake, Joan, 347 Wake, John, 347, 348 Wake, Thomas II, Lord, son of Joan and John, 340, 343, 346, 347, 348, 349, 351, 361 Wakefield (Yorks., WR), 397 Walberswick (Suff.), 243

General Index Waldef, prior of Kirkham, 62, 63 Walden (Essex), Ben. priory later abbey, 424 Wall, William, abbot of Kenilworth, 202 Walker, Percival, canon of Bolton, 397 Walker, Thomas, canon of Guisborough, 399 Walsingham, Thomas, monk of St Albans, 408, 412 Walter, abbot of Vicoigne (Flanders), 155 Walter, priest of Carlisle, 54 Waltheof, earl of Northumbria, 62 Walton (Staffs.), 88 Walton, Enisan of, son of Ernald I, 87, 88, 89 Walton, Ernald I of, 88 Walton Ernald II of, son of Enisan, 88, 89 Walton, John, canon of Oseney, 407, 413, 415, 416 Wandeford, Simon, canon of Thornton, 264 Warblington (Hants.), vicar of, 239 Warburton (Ches.), 83, 87 church, 82, 87 Ward, John, canon of Bridlington, 391 Ward, John, canon of Nostell, 397 Warde, Elizabeth, canoness of Moxby, 195n, 203n Warelwast, William, bishop of Exeter, 50, 85 Warham, William, archbishop of Canterbury, 112, 280 Wartre, William de, prior of Warter, 258 Warwick (Warw.), 323 Watson, Anthony, canon of Kirkham, 394, 397, 400 Watson, Robert, canon of Bridlington, 391 Wearmouth (Monkwearmouth, co. Durham), Anglo-Saxon monastery/Ben. priory, 64 Week St Mary (Corn.), 231 Wellisburne, John, 281 Welwick (Yorks., ER), 399 Wenlock, see Much Wenlock Weobley (Here.), 106 Werburgh, St, 82, 84, 86, 87, 91, 92, 94 West Hardwick (Yorks., WR), 49 Westminster (Middx), Ben. abbey, 69, 205, 206, 273, 433 Wetheral (Cumb.), Ben. priory, 54 Wharton, Sir Thomas, 389 Wheathampstead, John, abbot of St Albans,

513 408, 411, 412 Whenby (Yorks., NR), 395 Whitby (Yorks., NR), 400 Anglo-Saxon monastery, 64 Ben. abbey, 60, 64, 77 parish church, 397 Whitby, Thomas, canon of Guisborough, 399, 400 Whiteacre (Wireker), Nigel, monk of Christ Church, Canterbury, 407, 413 Whixley, Robert, canon of Bolton, 395, 397 Whyte, John, 202 wife of, see Alice Wichley (in Uppington, Shrops.), 371, 372, 373, 374, 377, 382, 383, 384 Wichman, prior of Bridlington, 55 Wickhampton, Robert, bishop of Salisbury, 328, 331 Wickwane, William, chancellor of York, 230 Widnes (Lancs.), 87 Wighill (Yorks., WR), 398 Wiglaf, king of Mercia, 79 Wilfrid, bishop of Hexham, bishop of York, 46, 82, 93, 428, 430 Wilkyns, Henry, 198 William I, king of England, 29, 60, 66 William I, king of Scotland, 130, 137, 140, 142 William II (Rufus), king of England, 62, 92 William, abbot of Rievaulx, 175, 292, 308 William ap Howell, 199 William, canon of Holyrood, 117n William, canon of Newburgh, 48, 68, 71–2, 73, 74, 75, 78, 218 William, constable of Chester, 80, 84, 85, 86, 92, 94 William, earl of Gloucester, 216 William, prior of Carrickfergus, 151 Williamson, Peter, canon of Bridlington, 391 Winchcombe (Glos.), Ben. abbey, 214, 231, 315, 316 abbot of, see Kidderminster, Richard Winchester, bishop of, see Giffard, William Winwick (Lancs.), 61 Wisedale, William, canon of Haltemprice, 399 Wisete, Geoffrey, son of Henry de, 247 Wittleshey, Adam, prior of Thornton, 264

514 Wood, William, prior of Bridlington, 390, 391, 393 Worcester, Ben. cath. priory, 283, 315, 316, 410, 427 Worcester, bishop of, 349; see also Bransford, Wolfstan de; Cantilupe, Walter de; Clifford, Richard de; Giffard, Godfrey; Samson Wotton-under-Edge (Glos.), 231 Wrangle, Thomas, canon of Thornton, 265 Wressle (Yorks., ER), 395 Wulfad, son of King Wulfhere, 82, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 94, 95, 425 Wulfere, king, 82, 87 Wylde, John, precentor of Waltham, 407, 411, 412, 413, 415 Wystan, prince of Mercia, 79, 80, 82 Wyville, Robert of, bishop of Salisbury, 331 Yerll, Richard, canon of Launceston, 269 Yevele, Henry, 434, 436 Ynys Lannog, see Puffin Island

General Index York, 54, 55, 69, 70, 263, 355, 390, 394, 404 cathedral church of St Peter, 42, 46, 48, 50, 51, 66, 67, 296, 297, 393, 397 chancellor of, see Wickwane, William chapter, 42, 47 prebendary of, see Maton, Richard de precentor of, see Hugh castle, 391, 394, 400 church of St Saviour, 394 Guild of Corpus Christi, 394 religious houses Aug. friary, 404 Dominican friary, 390 prior of, see Pickering, John St Leonard’s Hospital, 200, 204, 205, 206, 389 St Mary’s, Ben. abbey, 54, 60 64, 67, 73, 76, 387 York, archbishops of, see Gerard; Melton, William; Neville, George; Pont L’Evêque, Roger; Thomas I; Thomas II; Thurstan York, earl of, see Aumale, William of York, Thomas, prior of Healaugh Park, 257 Zouche, Eudo la, 332, 333 wife of, see Millicent

M EDIEVAL C HURCH S TUDIES

All volumes in this series are evaluated by an Editorial Board, strictly on academic grounds, based on reports prepared by referees who have been commissioned by virtue of their specialism in the appropriate field. The Board ensures that the screening is done independently and without conflicts of interest. The definitive texts supplied by authors are also subject to review by the Board before being approved for publication. Further, the volumes are copyedited to conform to the publisher’s stylebook and to the best international academic standards in the field. Titles in Series Megan Cassidy-Welch, Monastic Spaces and their Meanings: Thirteenth-Century English Cistercian Monasteries (2001) Elizabeth Freeman, Narratives of a New Order: Cistercian Historical Writing in England, 1150–1220 (2002) The Study of the Bible in the Carolingian Era, ed. by Celia Chazelle and Burton Van Name Edwards (2003) Perspectives for an Architecture of Solitude: Essays on Cistercians, Art, and Architecture in Honour of Peter Fergusson, ed. by Terryl N. Kinder (2004) The Voice of Silence: Women’s Literacy in a Men’s Church, ed. by Thérèse de Hemptinne and María Eugenia Góngora (2004) Emilia Jamroziak, Rievaulx Abbey and its Social Context, 1132–1300: Memory, Loyalty, and Networks (2005)

Saints, Scholars, and Politicians: Gender as a Tool in Medieval Studies, ed. by Mathilde van Dijk and Renée Nip (2005) Text and Controversy from Wyclif to Bale: Essays in Honour of Anne Hudson, ed. by Helen Barr and Ann M. Hutchison (2005) Alison I. Beach, Manuscripts and Monastic Culture: Reform and Renewal in Twelfth-Century Germany (2007) Lena Roos, ‘God Wants It!’ The Ideology of Martyrdom in the Hebrew Crusade Chronicles and its Jewish and Christian Background (2007) Weaving, Veiling, and Dressing: Textiles and their Metaphors in the Late Middle Ages, ed. by Kathryn M. Rudy and Barbara Baert (2007) James J. Boyce, Carmelite Liturgy and Spiritual Identity: The Choir Books of Kraków (2009) Studies in Carthusian Monasticism in the Late Middle Ages, ed. by Julian M. Luxford (2009) Kriston R . Rennie, Law and Practice in the Age of Reform: The Legatine Work of Hugh of Die (1073–1106) (2010) Gunilla Iversen, Laus angelica: Poetry in the Medieval Mass, ed. by Jane Flynn, trans. by William Flynn (2010) Kevin J. Alban, The Teaching and Impact of the ‘Doctrinale’ of Thomas Netter of Walden c.1374–1430) (2011) Wycliffite Controversies, ed. by Mishtooni Bose and J. Patrick Hornbeck II (2011) After Arundel: Religious Writing in Fifteenth-Century England, ed. by Vincent Gillespie and Kantik Ghosh (2011)

In Preparation Frederico Botana, The Works of Mercy in Italian Medieval Art (c. 1050–c. 1400) Nickiphoros I. Tsougarakis, The Latin Medieval Religious Orders in Greece, 1204–1500 Nikolaos G. Chrissis, Crusading in Frankish Greece: A Study of Byzantine-Western Relations and Attitudes, 1204–1282 Demetrio S. Yocum, Petrarch's Humanist Writing and Carthusian Monasticism: The Secret Language of the Self