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SCENES AND CHARACTERS OF THE MIDDLE AGES
[Illustration: _King Henry the Eighth's Army._]
SCENES & CHARACTERS OF THE MIDDLE AGES
by
THE REV. EDWARD L. CUTTS, B.A.
Late Hon. Sec. of the Essex Archæolocical Society
With One Hundred and Eighty-Two Illustrations
THIRD EDITION
London: Alexander Moring Limited
The De La More Press 32 George Street
Hanover Square W 1911
CONTENTS.
THE MONKS OF THE MIDDLE AGES.
CHAP. PAGE
I. THE ORIGIN OF MONACHISM 1
II. THE BENEDICTINE ORDERS 6
III. THE AUGUSTINIAN ORDER 18
IV. THE MILITARY ORDERS 26
V. THE ORDERS OF FRIARS 36
VI. THE CONVENT 54
VII. THE MONASTERY 70
THE HERMITS AND RECLUSES OF THE MIDDLE AGES.
I. THE HERMITS 93
II. ANCHORESSES, OR FEMALE RECLUSES 120
III. ANCHORAGES 132
IV. CONSECRATED WIDOWS 152
THE PILGRIMS OF THE MIDDLE AGES.
I. PILGRIMS 157
II. OUR LADY OF WALSINGHAM AND ST. THOMAS OF CANTERBURY 176
THE SECULAR CLERGY OF THE MIDDLE AGES.
I. THE PAROCHIAL CLERGY 195
II. CLERKS IN MINOR ORDERS 214
III. THE PARISH PRIEST 222
IV. CLERICAL COSTUME 232
V. PARSONAGE HOUSES 252
THE MINSTRELS OF THE MIDDLE AGES.
I. 267
II. SACRED MUSIC 284
III. GUILDS OF MINSTRELS 298
THE KNIGHTS OF THE MIDDLE AGES.
I. SAXON ARMS AND ARMOUR 311
II. ARMS AND ARMOUR, FROM THE NORMAN CONQUEST DOWNWARDS 326
III. ARMOUR OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY 338
IV. THE DAYS OF CHIVALRY 353
V. KNIGHTS-ERRANT 369
VI. MILITARY ENGINES 380
VII. ARMOUR OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 394
VIII. THE KNIGHT'S EDUCATION 406
IX. ON TOURNAMENTS 423
X. MEDIÆVAL BOWMEN 439
XI. FIFTEENTH CENTURY AND LATER ARMOUR 452
THE MERCHANTS OF THE MIDDLE AGES.
I. BEGINNINGS OF BRITISH COMMERCE 461
II. THE NAVY 475
III. THE SOCIAL POSITION OF THE MEDIÆVAL MERCHANTS 487
IV. MEDIÆVAL TRADE 503
V. COSTUME 518
VI. MEDIÆVAL TOWNS 529
THE MONKS OF THE MIDDLE AGES.
CHAPTER I.
THE ORIGIN OF MONACHISM.
We do not aim in these chapters at writing general history, or systematic
treatises. Our business is to give a series of sketches of mediæval life
and mediæval characters, looked at especially from the artist's point of
view. And first we have to do with the monks of the Middle Ages. One
branch of this subject has already been treated in Mrs. Jameson's "Legends
of the Monastic Orders." This accomplished lady has very pleasingly
narrated the traditionary histories of the founders and saints of the
orders, which have furnished subjects for the greatest works of mediæval
art; and she has placed monachism before her readers in its noblest and
most poetical aspect. Our humbler task is to give a view of the familiar
daily life of ordinary monks in their monasteries, and of the way in which
they enter into the general life without the cloister;--such a sketch as
an art-student might wish to have who is about to study that picturesque
mediæval period of English history for subjects for his pencil. The
religious orders occupied so important a position in mediæval society,
that they cannot be overlooked by the historical student; and the flowing
black robe and severe intellectual features of the Benedictine monk, or
the coarse frock and sandalled feet of the mendicant friar, are too
characteristic and too effective, in contrast with the gleaming armour
and richly-coloured and embroidered robes of the sumptuous civil costumes
of the period, to be neglected by the artist. Such an art-student would
desire first to have a general sketch of the whole history of monachism,
as a necessary preliminary to the fuller study of any particular portion
of it. He would wish for a sketch of the internal economy of the cloister;
how the various buildings of a monastery were arranged; and what was the
daily routine of the life of its inmates. He would seek to know under what
circumstances these recluses mingled with the outer world. He would
require accurate particulars of costumes and the like antiquarian details,
that the accessories of his picture might be correct. And, if his monks
are to be anything better than representations of monkish habits hung upon
"lay figures," he must know what kind of men the Middle Age monks were
intellectually and morally. These particulars we proceed to supply as
fully as the space at our command will permit.
Monachism arose in Egypt. As early as the second century we read of men
and women who, attracted by the charms of a peaceful, contemplative life,
far away from the fierce, sensual, persecuting heathen world, betook
themselves to a life of solitary asceticism. The mountainous desert on the
east of the Nile valley was their favourite resort; there they lived in
little hermitages, rudely piled up of stones, or hollowed out of the
mountain side, or in the cells of the ancient Egyptian sepulchres, feeding
on pulse and herbs, and water from the neighbouring spring.
One of the frescoes in the Campo Santo, at Pisa, by Pietro Laurati,
engraved in Mrs. Jameson's "Legendary Art," gives a curious illustration
of this phase of the eremitical life. It gives us a panorama of the
desert, with the Nile in the foreground, and the rock caverns, and the
little hermitages built among the date-palms, and the hermits at their
ordinary occupations: here is one angling in the Nile, and another
dragging out a net; there is one sitting at the door of his cell shaping
wooden spoons. Here, again, we see them engaged in those mystical scenes
in which an over-wrought imagination pictured to them the temptations of
their senses in visible demon-shapes--beautiful to tempt or terrible to
affright; or materialised the spiritual joys of their minds in angelic or
divine visions: Anthony driving out with his staff the beautiful demon
from his cell, or rapt in ecstasy beneath the Divine apparition.[1] Such
pictures of the early hermits are not infrequent in mediæval art--one,
from a fifteenth century MS. Psalter in the British Museum (Domit. A.
xvii. f. 4 v), will be found in a subsequent chapter of this book.
We can picture to ourselves how it must have startled the refined
Græco-Egyptian world of Alexandria when occasionally some man, long lost
to society and forgotten by his friends, reappeared in the streets and
squares of the city, with attenuated limbs and mortified countenance, with
a dark hair-cloth tunic for his only clothing, with a reputation for
exalted sanctity and spiritual wisdom, and vague rumours of supernatural
revelations of the unseen world; like another John Baptist sent to preach
repentance to the luxurious citizens; or fetched, perhaps, by the
Alexandrian bishop to give to the church the weight of his testimony to
the ancient truth of some doctrine which began to be questioned in the
schools.
Such men, when they returned to the desert, were frequently accompanied by
numbers of others, whom the fame of their sanctity and the persuasion of
their preaching had induced to adopt the eremitical life. It is not to be
wondered at that these new converts should frequently build, or select,
their cells in the neighbourhood of that of the teacher whom they had
followed into the desert, and should continue to look up to him as their
spiritual guide. Gradually, this arrangement became systematised; a number
of separate cells, grouped round a common oratory, contained a community
of recluses who agreed to certain rules and to the guidance of a chosen
head; an enclosure wall was generally built around this group, and the
establishment was called a _laura_.
The transition from this arrangement of a group of anchorites occupying
the anchorages of a laura under a spiritual head, to that of a community
living together in one building under the rule of an abbot, was natural
and easy. The authorship of this coenobite system is attributed to St.
Anthony, who occupied a ruined castle in the Nile desert, with a community
of disciples, in the former half of the fourth century. The coenobitical
institution did not supersede the eremitical; both continued to flourish
together in every country of Christendom.[2]
The first written code of laws for the regulation of the lives of these
communities was drawn up by Pachomius, a disciple of Anthony's. Pachomius
is said to have peopled the island of Tabenne, in the Nile, with
coenobites, divided into monasteries, each of which had a superior, and a
dean to every ten monks; Pachomius himself being the general director of
the whole group of monasteries, which are said to have contained eleven
hundred monks. The monks of St. Anthony are represented in ancient Greek
pictures with a black or brown robe, and often with a tau cross of blue
upon the shoulder or breast.
St. Basil, afterwards bishop of Cesaræa, who died A.D. 378, introduced
monachism into Asia Minor, whence it spread over the East. He drew up a
code of laws founded upon the rule of Pachomius, which was the foundation
of all succeeding monastic institutions, and which is still the rule
followed by all the monasteries of the Greek Church. The rule of St. Basil
enjoins poverty, obedience, and chastity, and self-mortification. The
habit both of monks and nuns was, and still is, universally in the Greek
Church, a plain, coarse, black frock with a cowl, and a girdle of leather,
or cord. The monks went barefooted and barelegged, and wore the Eastern
tonsure, in which the hair is shaved in a crescent off the fore part of
the head, instead of the Western tonsure, in which it is shaved in a
circle off the crown. Hilarion is reputed to have introduced the Basilican
institution into Syria; St. Augustine into Africa; St. Martin of Tours
into France; St. Patrick into Ireland, in the fifth century.
The early history of the British Church is enveloped in thick obscurity,
but it seems to have derived its Christianity (indirectly perhaps) from an
Eastern source, and its monastic system was probably derived from that
established in France by St. Martin, the abbot-bishop of Tours. One
remarkable feature in it is the constant union of the abbatical and
episcopal offices; this conjunction, which was foreign to the usage of the
church in general, seems to have obtained all but universally in the
British, and subsequently in the English Church. The British monasteries
appear to have been very large; Bede tells us that there were no less than
two thousand one hundred monks in the monastic establishment of Bangor in
the sixth century, and there is reason to believe that the number is not
overstated. They appear to have been schools of learning. The vows do not
appear to have been perpetual; in the legends of the British saints we
constantly find that the monks quitted the cloister without scruple. The
legends lead us to imagine that a provost, steward, and deans, were the
officers under the abbot; answering, perhaps, to the prior, cellarer, and
deans of Benedictine institutions. The abbot-bishop, at least, was
sometimes a married man.
CHAPTER II.
THE BENEDICTINE ORDERS.
In the year 529 A.D., St. Benedict, an Italian of noble birth and great
reputation, introduced into his new monastery on Monte Cassino--a hill
between Rome and Naples--a new monastic rule. To the three vows of
obedience, poverty, and chastity, which formed the foundation of most of
the old rules, he added another, that of manual labour (for seven hours a
day), not only for self-support, but also as a duty to God and man.
Another important feature of his rule was that its vows were perpetual.
And his rule lays down a daily routine of monastic life in much greater
detail than the preceding rules appear to have done. The rule of St.
Benedict speedily became popular, the majority of the existing monasteries
embraced it; nearly all new monasteries for centuries afterwards adopted
it; and we are told, in proof of the universality of its acceptation, that
when Charlemagne caused inquiries to be made about the beginning of the
eighth century, no other monastic rule was found existing throughout his
wide dominions. The monasteries of the British Church, however, do not
appear to have embraced the new rule.
St. Augustine, the apostle of the Anglo-Saxons, was prior of the
Benedictine monastery which Gregory the Great had founded upon the Celian
Hill, and his forty missionaries were monks of the same house. It cannot
be doubted that they would introduce their order into those parts of
England over which their influence extended. But a large part of Saxon
England owed its Christianity to missionaries of the native church sent
forth from the great monastic institution at Iona and afterwards at
Lindisfarne, and these would doubtless introduce their own monastic
system. We find, in fact, that no uniform rule was observed by the Saxon
monasteries; some seem to have kept the rule of Basil, some the rule of
Benedict, and others seem to have modified the ancient rules, so as to
adapt them to their own circumstances and wishes. We are not surprised to
learn that under such circumstances some of the monasteries were lax in
their discipline; from Bede's accounts we gather that some of them were
only convents of secular clerks, bound by certain rules, and performing
divine offices daily, but enjoying all the privileges of other clerks, and
even sometimes being married. Indeed, in the eighth century the primitive
monastic discipline appears to have become very much relaxed, both in the
East and West, though the popular admiration and veneration of the monks
was not diminished.
In the illuminations of Anglo-Saxon MSS. of the ninth and tenth centuries,
we find the habits of the Saxon monks represented of different colours,
viz., white, black, dark brown, and grey.[3] In the early MS. Nero C. iv.,
in the British Museum, at f. 37, occurs a very clearly drawn group of
monks in white habits; another group occurs at f. 34, rather more stiffly
drawn, in which the margin of the hood and the sleeves is bordered with a
narrow edge of ornamental work.
About the middle of the ninth century, however, Archbishop Dunstan reduced
all the Saxon monasteries to the rule of St. Benedict; not without
opposition on the part of some of them, and not without rather peremptory
treatment on his part; and thus the Benedictine rule became universal in
the West. The habit of the Benedictines consisted of a white woollen
cassock, and over that an ample black gown and a black hood. We give here
an excellent representation of a Benedictine monk, from a book which
formerly belonged to St. Alban's Abbey, and now is preserved in the
British Museum (Nero D. vii. f. 81). The book is the official catalogue
which each monastery kept of those who had been benefactors to the house,
and who were thereby entitled to their grateful remembrance and their
prayers. In many cases the record of a benefaction is accompanied by an
illuminated portrait of the benefactor. In the present case, he is
represented as holding a golden tankard in one hand and an embroidered
cloth in the other, gifts which he made to the abbey, and for which he is
thus immortalised in their _Catalogus Benefactorum_. Other illustrations
of Benedictine monks, of early fourteenth century date, may be found in
the Add. MS. 17,687, at f. 3; again at f. 6, where a Benedictine is
preaching; and again at f. 34, where one is preaching to a group of nuns
of the same order; and at f. 41, where one is sitting writing at a desk
(as in the scriptorium, probably). Yet again in the MS. Royal 20 D. vii.,
is a picture of St. Benedict preaching to a group of his monks. A
considerable number of pictures of Benedictine monks, illustrating a
mediæval legend of which they are the subject, occur in the lower margin
of the MS. Royal 10 E. iv., which is of late thirteenth or early
fourteenth century date. A drawing of Abbot Islip of Westminster, who died
A.D. 1532, is given in the "Vetusta Monumenta," vol. iv. Pl. xvi. In
working and travelling they wore over the cossack a black sleeveless tunic
of shorter and less ample dimensions.
[Illustration: _Benedictine Monk._]
The female houses of the order had the same regulations as those of the
monks; their costume too was the same, a white under garment, a black gown
and black veil, with a white wimple around the face and neck. They had in
England, at the dissolution of the monasteries, one hundred and twelve
monasteries and seventy-four nunneries.[4] For illustration of an abbess
see the fifteenth century MS. Royal 16 F. ii. at f. 137.
The Benedictine rule was all but universal in the West for four centuries;
but during this period its observance gradually became relaxed. We cannot
be surprised if it was found that the seven hours of manual labour which
the rule required occupied time which might better be devoted to the
learned studies for which the Benedictines were then, as they have always
been, distinguished. We should have anticipated that the excessive
abstinence, and many other of the mechanical observances of the rule,
would soon be found to have little real utility when simply enforced by a
rule, and not practised willingly for the sake of self-discipline. We are
not therefore surprised, nor should we in these days attribute it as a
fault, that the obligation to labour appears to have been very generally
dispensed with, and some humane and sensible relaxations of the severe
ascetic discipline and dietary of the primitive rule to have been very
generally adopted. Nor will any one who has any experience of human nature
expect otherwise than that among so large a body of men--many of them
educated from childhood[5] to the monastic profession--there would be some
who were wholly unsuited for it, and some whose vices brought disgrace
upon it. The Benedictine monasteries, then, at the time of which we are
speaking, had become different from the poor retired communities of
self-denying ascetics which they were originally. Their general character
was, and continued throughout the Middle Ages to be, that of wealthy and
learned bodies; influential from their broad possessions, but still more
influential from the fact that nearly all the literature, and art, and
science of the period was to be found in their body. They were good
landlords to their tenants, good cultivators of their demesnes; great
patrons of architecture, and sculpture, and painting; educators of the
people in their schools; healers of the sick in their hospitals; great
almsgivers to the poor; freely hospitable to travellers; they continued
regular and constant in their religious services; but in housing,
clothing, and diet, they lived the life of temperate gentlemen rather than
of self-mortifying ascetics. Doubtless, as we have said, in some
monasteries there were evil men, whose vices brought disgrace upon their
calling; and there were some monasteries in which weak or wicked rulers
had allowed the evil to prevail. The quiet, unostentatious, every-day
virtues of such monastics as these were not such as to satisfy the
enthusiastical seeker after monastical perfection. Nor were they such as
to command the admiration of the unthinking and illiterate, who are always
more prone to reverence fanaticism than to appreciate the more sober
virtues, who are ever inclined to sneer at religious men and religious
bodies who have wealth, and are accustomed to attribute to a whole class
the vices of its disreputable members.
The popular disrepute into which the monastics had fallen through their
increased wealth, and their departure from primitive monastical austerity,
led, during the next two centuries, viz., from the beginning of the tenth
to the end of the eleventh, to a series of endeavours to revive the
primitive discipline. The history of all these attempts is very nearly
alike. Some young monk of enthusiastic disposition, disgusted with the
laxity or the vices of his brother monks, flies from the monastery, and
betakes himself to an eremitical life in a neighbouring forest or wild
mountain valley. Gradually a few men of like earnestness assemble round
him. He is at length induced to permit himself to be placed at their head
as their abbot, requires his followers to observe strictly the ancient
rule, and gives them a few other directions of still stricter life. The
new community gradually becomes famous for its virtues; the Pope's
sanction is obtained for it; its followers assume a distinctive dress and
name; and take their place as a new religious order. This is in brief the
history of the successive rise of the Clugniacs, the Carthusians, the
Cistercians, and the orders of Camaldoli and Vallombrosa and Grandmont;
they all sprang thus out of the Benedictine order, retaining the rule of
Benedict as the groundwork of their several systems. Their departures from
the Benedictine rule were comparatively few and trifling, and need not be
enumerated in such a sketch as this: they were in fact only reformed
Benedictines, and in a general classification may be included with the
parent order, to which these rivals imparted new tone and vigour.
The following account of the foundation of Clairvaux by St. Bernard will
illustrate these general remarks. It is true that the founding of
Clairvaux was not technically the founding of a new order, for it had been
founded fifteen years before in Citeaux; but St. Bernard was rightly
esteemed a second founder of the Cistercians, and his going forth from the
parent house to found the new establishment at Clairvaux was under
circumstances which make the narrative an excellent illustration of the
subject.
"Twelve monks and their abbot," says his life in the "Acta Sanctorum,"
"representing our Lord and his apostles, were assembled in the church.
Stephen placed a cross in Bernard's hands, who solemnly, at the head of
his small band, walked forth from Citeaux.... Bernard struck away to the
northward. For a distance of nearly ninety miles he kept this course,
passing up by the source of the Seine, by Chatillon, of school-day
memories, till he arrived at La Ferté, about equally distant between
Troyes and Chaumont, in the diocese of Langres, and situated on the river
Aube. About four miles beyond La Ferté was a deep valley opening to the
east. Thick umbrageous forests gave it a character of gloom and wildness;
but a gushing stream of limpid water which ran through it was sufficient
to redeem every disadvantage. In June, A.D. 1115, Bernard took up his
abode in the valley of Wormwood, as it was called, and began to look for
means of shelter and sustenance against the approaching winter. The rude
fabric which he and his monks raised with their own hands was long
preserved by the pious veneration of the Cistercians. It consisted of a
building covered by a single roof, under which chapel, dormitory, and
refectory were all included. Neither stone nor wood hid the bare earth,
which served for floor. Windows scarcely wider than a man's hand admitted
a feeble light. In this room the monks took their frugal meals of herbs
and water. Immediately above the refectory was the sleeping apartment. It
was reached by a ladder, and was, in truth, a sort of loft. Here were the
monks' beds, which were peculiar. They were made in the form of boxes or
bins of wooden planks, long and wide enough for a man to lie down in. A
small space, hewn out with an axe, allowed room for the sleeper to get in
or out. The inside was strewn with chaff, or dried leaves, which, with the
woodwork, seem to have been the only covering permitted.... The monks had
thus got a house over their heads; but they had very little else. They had
left Citeaux in June. Their journey had probably occupied them a
fortnight, their clearing, preparations, and building, perhaps two months;
and thus they would be near September when this portion of their labour
was accomplished. Autumn and winter were approaching, and they had no
store laid by. Their food during the summer had been a compound of leaves
intermixed with coarse grain. Beech-nuts and roots were to be their main
support during the winter. And now to the privations of insufficient food
was added the wearing out of their shoes and clothes. Their necessities
grew with the severity of the season, till at last even salt failed them;
and presently Bernard heard murmurs. He argued and exhorted; he spoke to
them of the fear and love of God, and strove to rouse their drooping
spirits by dwelling on the hopes of eternal life and Divine recompense.
Their sufferings made them deaf and indifferent to their abbot's words.
They would not remain in this valley of bitterness; they would return to
Citeaux. Bernard, seeing they had lost their trust in God, reproved them
no more; but himself sought in earnest prayer for release from their
difficulties. Presently a voice from heaven said, 'Arise, Bernard, thy
prayer is granted thee.' Upon which the monks said, 'What didst thou ask
of the Lord?' 'Wait, and ye shall see, ye of little faith,' was the reply;
and presently came a stranger who gave the abbot ten livres."
William of St. Thierry, the friend and biographer of St. Bernard,
describes the external aspect and the internal life of Clairvaux. We
extract it as a sketch of the highest type of monastic life, and as a
corrective of the revelations of corrupter life among the monks which find
illustration in these pages.
"At the first glance as you entered Clairvaux by descending the hill you
could see it was a temple of God; and the still, silent valley bespoke, in
the modest simplicity of its buildings, the unfeigned humility of Christ's
poor. Moreover, in this valley full of men, where no one was permitted to
be idle, where one and all were occupied with their allotted tasks, a
silence deep as that of night prevailed. The sounds of labour, or the
chants of the brethren in the choral service, were the only exceptions.
The order of this silence, and the fame that went forth of it, struck such
a reverence even into secular persons that they dreaded breaking it--I
will not say by idle or wicked conversation, but even by pertinent
remarks. The solitude, also, of the place--between dense forests in a
narrow gorge of neighbouring hills--in a certain sense recalled the cave
of our father St. Benedict, so that while they strove to imitate his life,
they also had some similarity to him in their habitation and
loneliness.... Although the monastery is situated in a valley, it has its
foundations on the holy hills, whose gates the Lord loveth more than all
the dwellings of Jacob. Glorious things are spoken of it, because the
glorious and wonderful God therein worketh great marvels. There the insane
recover their reason, and although their outward man is worn away,
inwardly they are born again. There the proud are humbled, the rich are
made poor, and the poor have the Gospel preached to them, and the darkness
of sinners is changed into light. A large multitude of blessed poor from
the ends of the earth have there assembled, yet have they one heart and
one mind; justly, therefore, do all who dwell there rejoice with no empty
joy. They have the certain hope of perennial joy, of their ascension
heavenward already commenced. In Clairvaux they have found Jacob's ladder,
with angels upon it; some descending, who so provide for their bodies that
they faint not on the way; others ascending, who so rule their souls that
their bodies hereafter may be glorified with them.
"For my part, the more attentively I watch them day by day, the more do I
believe that they are perfect followers of Christ in all things. When they
pray and speak to God in spirit and in truth, by their friendly and quiet
speech to Him, as well as by their humbleness of demeanour, they are
plainly seen to be God's companions and friends. When, on the other hand,
they openly praise God with psalmody, how pure and fervent are their
minds, is shown by their posture of body in holy fear and reverence, while
by their careful pronunciation and modulation of the psalms, is shown how
sweet to their lips are the words of God--sweeter than honey to their
mouths. As I watch them, therefore, singing without fatigue from before
midnight to the dawn of day, with only a brief interval, they appear a
little less than the angels, but much more than men....
"As regards their manual labour, so patiently and placidly, with such
quiet countenances, in such sweet and holy order, do they perform all
things, that although they exercise themselves at many works, they never
seem moved or burdened in anything, whatever the labour may be. Whence it
is manifest that that Holy Spirit worketh in them who disposeth of all
things with sweetness, in whom they are refreshed, so that they rest even
in their toil. Many of them, I hear, are bishops and earls, and many
illustrious through their birth or knowledge; but now, by God's grace, all
acceptation of persons being dead among them, the greater any one thought
himself in the world, the more in this flock does he regard himself as
less than the least. I see them in the garden with hoes, in the meadows
with forks or rakes, in the fields with scythes, in the forest with axes.
To judge from their outward appearance, their tools, their bad and
disordered clothes, they appear a race of fools, without speech or sense.
But a true thought in my mind tells me that their life in Christ is hidden
in the heavens. Among them I see Godfrey of Peronne, Raynald of Picardy,
William of St. Omer, Walter of Lisle, all of whom I knew formerly in the
old man, whereof I now see no trace, by God's favour. I knew them proud
and puffed up; I see them walking humbly under the merciful hand of God."
The first of these reformed orders was the CLUGNIAC, so called because it
was founded, in the year 927, at Clugny, in Burgundy, by Odo the Abbot.
The Clugniacs formally abrogated the requirement of manual labour required
in the Benedictine rule, and professed to devote themselves more
sedulously to the cultivation of the mind. The order was first introduced
into England in the year 1077 A.D., at Lewes, in Sussex; but it never
became popular in England, and never had more than twenty houses here, and
they small ones, and nearly all of them founded before the reign of Henry
II. Until the fourteenth century they were all priories dependent on the
parent house of Clugny; though the prior of Lewes was the High
Chamberlain, and often the Vicar-general, of the Abbot of Clugny, and
exercised a supervision over the English houses of the order. The English
houses were all governed by foreigners, and contained more foreign than
English monks, and sent large portions of their surplus revenues to
Clugny. Hence they were often seized, during war between England and
France, as alien priories. But in the fourteenth century many of them were
made denizen, and Bermondsey was made an abbey, and they were all
discharged from subjection to the foreign abbeys. The Clugniacs retained
the Benedictine habit. At Cowfold Church, Sussex, still remains a
monumental brass of Thomas Nelond, who was prior of Lewes at his death, in
1433 A.D., in which he is represented in the habit of his order.[6]
[Illustration: _Carthusian Monk._]
In the year 1084 A.D., the CARTHUSIAN order was founded by St. Bruno, a
monk of Cologne, at Chartreux, near Grenoble. This was the most severe of
all the reformed Benedictine orders. To the strictest observance of the
rule of Benedict they added almost perpetual silence; flesh was forbidden
even to the sick; their food was confined to one meal of pulse, bread, and
water, daily. It is remarkable that this the strictest of all monastic
rules has, even to the present day, been but slightly modified; and that
the monks have never been accused of personally deviating from it. The
order was numerous on the Continent, but only nine houses of the order
were ever established in England. The principal of these was the
Charterhouse (Chartreux), in London, which, at the dissolution, was
rescued by Thomas Sutton to serve one at least of the purposes of its
original foundation--the training of youth in sound religious learning.
There were few nunneries of the order--none in England. The Carthusian
habit consisted of a white cassock and hood, over that a white
scapulary--a long piece of cloth which hangs down before and behind, and
is joined at the sides by a band of the same colour, about six inches
wide; unlike the other orders, they shaved the head entirely.
The representation of a Carthusian monk, on previous page, is reduced from
one of Hollar's well-known series of prints of monastic costumes. Another
illustration may be referred to in a fifteenth century book of Hours
(Add.), at f. 10, where one occurs in a group of religious, which includes
also a Benedictine and a Cistercian abbot, and others.
[Illustration: _Cistercian Monk._]
In 1098 A.D., arose the CISTERCIAN order. It took the name from Citeaux
(Latinised into Cistercium), the house in which the new order was founded
by Robert de Thierry. Stephen Harding, an Englishman, the third abbot,
brought the new order into some repute; but it is to the fame of St.
Bernard, who joined it in 1113 A.D., that the speedy and widespread
popularity of the new order is to be attributed. The order was introduced
into England at Waverly, in Surrey, in 1128 A.D. The Cistercians professed
to observe the rule of St. Benedict with rigid exactness, only that some
of the hours which were devoted by the Benedictines to reading and study,
the Cistercians devoted to manual labour. They affected a severe
simplicity; their houses were to be simple, with no lofty towers, no
carvings or representation of saints, except the crucifix; the furniture
and ornaments of their establishments were to be in keeping--chasubles of
fustian, candlesticks of iron, napkins of coarse cloth, the cross of wood,
and only the chalice might be of precious metal. The amount of manual
labour prevented the Cistercians from becoming a learned order, though
they did produce a few men distinguished in literature; they were
excellent farmers and horticulturists, and are said in early times to have
almost monopolised the wool trade of the kingdom. They changed the colour
of the Benedictine habit, wearing a white gown and hood over a white
cassock; when they went beyond the walls of the monastery they also wore a
black cloak. St. Bernard of Clairvaux is the great saint of the order.
They had seventy-five monasteries and twenty-six nunneries in England,
including some of the largest and finest in the kingdom.
The cut represents a group of Cistercian monks, from a MS. (Vitellius A.
13) in the British Museum. It shows some of them sitting with hands
crossed and concealed in their sleeves--an attitude which was considered
modest and respectful in the presence of superiors; some with the cowl
over the head. It will be observed that some are and some are not bearded.
[Illustration: _Group of Cistercian Monks._]
The Cistercian monk, whom we give in the opposite woodcut, is taken from
Hollar's plate.
Other reformed Benedictine orders which arose in the eleventh century,
viz., the order of CAMALDOLI, in 1027 A.D., and that of VALLOMBROSA, in
1073 A.D., did not extend to England. The order of the GRANDMONTINES had
one or two alien priories here.
The preceding orders differ among themselves, but the rule of Benedict is
the foundation of their discipline, and they are so far impressed with a
common character, and actuated by a common spirit, that we may consider
them all as forming the Benedictine family.
CHAPTER III.
THE AUGUSTINIAN ORDERS.
We come next to another great monastic family which is included under the
generic name of Augustinians. The Augustinians claim the great St.
Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, as their founder, and relate that he
established the monastic communities in Africa, and gave them a rule. That
he did patronise monachism in Africa we gather from his writings, but it
is not clear that he founded any distinct order; nor was any order called
after his name until the middle of the ninth century. About that time all
the various denominations of clergy who had not entered the ranks of
monachism--priests, canons, clerks, &c.--were incorporated by a decree of
Pope Leo III. and the Emperor Lothaire into one great order, and were
enjoined to observe the rule which was then known under the name of St.
Augustine, but which is said to have been really compiled by Ivo de
Chartres from the writings of St. Augustine. It was a much milder rule
than the Benedictine. The Augustinians were divided into Canons Secular
and Canons Regular.
The CANONS SECULAR OF ST. AUGUSTINE were in fact the clergy of cathedral
and collegiate churches, who lived in community on the monastic model;
their habit was a long black cassock (the parochial clergy did not then
universally wear black); over which, during divine service, they wore a
surplice and a fur tippet, called an _almuce_, and a four-square black
cap, called a _baret_; and at other times a black cloak and hood with a
leather girdle. According to their rule they might wear their beards, but
from the thirteenth century downwards we find them usually shaven. In the
Canon's Yeoman's tale, from which the following extract is taken, Chaucer
gives us a pen-and-ink sketch of a canon, from which it would seem that
even on a journey he wore the surplice and fur hood under the black
cloak:--
"Ere we had ridden fully five mile,
At Brighton under Blee us gan atake [overtake]
A man that clothed was in clothes blake,
And underneath he wered a surplice.
* * * * *
And in my hearte wondren I began
What that he was, till that I understood
How that his cloak was sewed to his hood,[7]
For which when I had long avised me,
I deemed him some chanon for to be.
His hat hung at his back down by a lace."
The hat which hung behind may have been like that of the abbot in a
subsequent woodcut; but he wore his hood; and Chaucer, with his usual
humour and life-like portraiture, tells us how he had put a burdock leaf
under his hood because of the heat:--
"A clote-leaf he had laid under his hood
For sweat, and for to keep his head from heat."
Chaucer rightly classes the canons rather with priests than monks:--
"All be he monk or frere,
Priest or chanon, or any other wight."
The canon whom we give in the wood-cut over-leaf, from one of Hollar's
plates, is in ordinary costume. An engraving of a semi-choir of canons in
their furred tippets from the MS. Domitian xvii, will be found in a
subsequent chapter on the Secular Clergy.
There are numerous existing monumental brasses in which the effigies of
canons are represented in choir costume, viz., surplice and amice, and
often with a cope over all; they are all bareheaded and shaven. We may
mention specially that of William Tannere, first master of Cobham College
(died 1418 A.D.), in Cobham Church, Kent, in which the almuce, with its
fringe of bell-shaped ornaments, over the surplice, is very distinctly
shown; it is fastened at the throat with a jewel. The effigy of Sir John
Stodeley, canon, in Over Winchendon Church, Bucks (died 1505), is in
ordinary costume, an under garment reaching to the heels, over that a
shorter black cassock, girded with a leather girdle, and over all a long
cloak and hood.
The CANONS REGULAR OF ST. AUGUSTINE were perhaps the least ascetic of the
monastic orders. Enyol de Provins, a minstrel (and afterwards a monk) of
the thirteenth century, says of them: "Among them one is well shod, well
clothed, and well fed. They go out when they like, mix with the world, and
talk at table." They were little known till the tenth or eleventh century,
and the general opinion is, that they were first introduced into England,
at Colchester, in the reign of Henry I., where the ruins of their church,
of Norman style, built of Roman bricks, still remain. Their habit was like
that of the secular canons--a long black cassock, cloak and hood, and
leather girdle, and four-square cap; they are distinguished from the
secular canons by not wearing the beard. According to Tanner, they had one
hundred and seventy-four houses in England--one hundred and fifty-eight
for monks, and sixteen for nuns; but the editors of the last edition of
the "Monasticon" have recovered the names of additional small houses,
which make up a total of two hundred and sixteen houses of the order.
[Illustration: _Canon of St. Augustine._]
The Augustinian order branches out into a number of denominations; indeed,
it is considered as the parent rule of all the monastic orders and
religious communities which are not included under the Benedictine order;
and retrospectively it is made to include all the distinguished recluses
and clerics before the institution of St. Benedict, from the fourth to the
sixth century.
The most important branch of the Regular Canons is the PREMONSTRATENSIAN,
founded by St. Norbert, a German nobleman, who died in 1134 A.D.; his
first house, in a barren spot in the valley of Coucy, in Picardy, called
Pré-montre, gave its name to the order. The rule was that of Augustine,
with a severe discipline superadded; the habit was a coarse black cassock,
with a white woollen cloak and a white four-square cap. Their abbots were
not to use any episcopal insignia. The Premonstratensian nuns were not to
sing in choir or church, and to pray in silence. They had only thirty-six
houses in England, of which Welbeck was the chief; but the order was very
popular on the Continent, and at length numbered one thousand abbeys and
five hundred nunneries.
Under this rule are also included the GILBERTINES, who were founded by a
Lincolnshire priest, Gilbert of Sempringham, in the year 1139 A.D. There
were twenty-six houses of the order, most of them in Lincolnshire and
Yorkshire; they were all priories dependent upon the house of Sempringham,
whose head, as prior-general, appointed the priors of the other houses,
and ruled absolutely the whole order. All the houses of this order were
double houses, that is, monks and nuns lived in the same enclosure, though
with a rigid separation between their two divisions. The monks followed
the Augustinian rule; the nuns followed the rule of the Cistercian nuns.
The habit was a black cassock, a white cloak, and hood lined with
lambskin. The "Monasticon" gives very effective representations (after
Hollar) of the Gilbertine monk and nun.
The NUNS OF FONTEVRAUD was another female order of Augustinians, of which
little is known. It was founded at Fontevraud in France, and three houses
of the order were established in England in the time of Henry II.; they
had monks and nuns within the same enclosure, and all subject to the rule
of an abbess.
The BONHOMMES were another small order of the Augustinian rule, of little
repute in England; they had only two houses here, which, however, were
reckoned among the greater abbeys, viz., Esserug in Bucks, and Edindon in
Wilts.
The female ORDER OF OUR SAVIOUR, or, as they are usually called, the
BRIGITTINES, were founded by St. Bridget of Sweden, in 1363 A.D. They
were introduced into England by Henry V., who built for them the once
glorious nunnery of Sion House. At the dissolution, the nuns fled to
Lisbon, where their successors still exist. Some of the relics and
vestments which they carried from Sion House have been carefully preserved
ever since, and are now in the possession of the Earl of Shrewsbury.[8]
Their habit was like that of the Benedictine nuns--a black tunic, white
wimple and veil, but is distinguished by a black band on the veil across
the forehead.
Other small offshoots of the great Augustinian tree were those which
observed the rule of St. Austin according to the regulations of St.
Nicholas of Arroasia, which had four houses here; and those which observed
the order of St. Victor, which had three houses.
We may refer the reader to two MS. illuminations of groups of religious
for further illustration of their costumes. One is in the beautiful
fourteenth century MS. of Froissart in the British Museum (Harl. 4,380, at
f. 18 v). It represents a dying pope surrounded by a group of
representative religious, cardinals, &c. Among them are one in a brown
beard, and with no appearance of tonsure (? a hermit); another in a white
scapular and hood (? a Carthusian); another in a black cloak and hood over
a white frock (? a Cistercian); another in a brown robe and hood,
tonsured. Again, in the MS. Tiberius B iii. article 3, f. 6, the text
speaks of "Convens of monkys, chanons and chartreus, celestynes, freres
and prestes, palmers, pylgreymys, hermytes, and reclus," and the
illuminator has illustrated it with a row of religious--first a
Benedictine abbot; then a canon with red cassock and almuce over surplice;
then a monk with white frock and white scapular banded at the sides, as in
Hollar's cut given above, is clearly the Carthusian; then comes a man in
brown, with a knotted girdle, holding a cross staff and a book, who is
perhaps a friar; then one in white surplice over red cassock, who is the
priest; then a hermit, in brown cloak over dark grey gown; and in the
background are partly seen two pilgrims and a monk. Other illustrations of
monks are frequent in the illuminated MSS.
The HOSPITALS of the Middle Ages deserve a more extended notice than we
can afford them here. Some were founded at places of pilgrimage and along
the high roads, for the entertainment of poor pilgrims and travellers.
Thus at St. Edmund's Bury there was St. John's Hospital, or God's House,
without the south gate; and St. Nicholas Hospital, without the east gate;
and St. Peter's Hospital, without the Risley gate; and St. Saviour's
Hospital, without the north gate--all founded and endowed by abbots of St.
Edmund. At Reading there was the Hospital of St. Mary Magdalene, for
twelve leprous persons and chaplains; and the Hospital of St. Lawrence,
for twenty-six poor people and for the entertainment of strangers and
pilgrims--both founded by abbots of Reading; one at the gate of Fountains
Abbey, for poor persons and travellers; one at Glastonbury, under the care
of the almoner, for poor and infirm persons; &c., &c. Indeed, they were
scattered so profusely up and down the country that the last edition of
the "Monasticon" enumerates no less than three hundred and seventy of
them. Those for the poor had usually a little chamber for each person, a
common hall in which they took their meals, a chapel in which they
attended daily service. They usually were under the care and government of
one or more clergymen; sometimes in large hospitals of a prior and
bretheren, who were Augustinian canons. The canons of some of these
hospitals had special statutes in addition to the general rules, and were
distinguished by some peculiarity of habit; for example, the canons of the
Hospital of St. John Baptist at Coventry wore a cross on the breast of
their black cassock, and a similar one on the shoulder of their cloak. The
poor people were also under a simple rule, and were regarded as part of
the community. The accompanying woodcut enables us to place a group of
them before the eye of the reader. It is from one of the initial letters
of the deed (Harl. 1,498) by which Henry VII. founded a fraternity of
thirteen poor men (thirteen was a favourite number for such hospitals) in
Westminster Abbey, who were to be under the governance of the monks, and
to repay the king's bounty by their prayers. The group represents the
abbot and some of the monks, and behind them some of the bedesmen, each of
whom has the royal badge--the rose and crown--on the shoulder of his
habit, and holds in his hand his rosary, the symbol of his prayers.
Happily some of these ancient foundations have continued to the present
day, and the brethren may be seen yet in coats of antique fashion, with a
cross or other badge on the sleeve. Examples of the architecture of the
buildings may be seen in the Bede Houses in Higham Ferrers Churchyard,
built by Archbishop Chechele in 1422; St. Thomas's Hospital, Northampton;
Wyston's Hospital, Leicester; Ford's Hospital, Coventry; the Alms Houses
at Sherborne; the Leicester Hospital at Warwick, &c. Mr. Turner, in the
"Domestic Architecture," says that there exists a complete chronological
series from the twelfth century downwards.
[Illustration: _Bedesmen. Temp. Hen. VII._]
Hospitals were also established for the treatment of the sick, of which
St. Bartholomew's Hospital is perhaps our most illustrious instance. It
was founded to be an infirmary for the sick and infirm poor, a lying-in
hospital for women--there were sisters on the hospital staff, and if the
women happened to die in hospital their children were taken care of till
seven years of age. The staff usually consisted of a community living
under monastic vows and rule, viz., a prior and a number of brethren who
were educated and trained to the treatment of sickness and disease, and
one or more of whom were also priests; a college, in short, of clerical
physicians and surgeons and hospital dressers, who devoted themselves to
the service of the sick poor as an act of religion, and had always in mind
our Lord's words, "Inasmuch as ye do it to one of the least of these my
brethren, ye do it unto me." In the still existing church of St.
Bartholomew's Hospital, in Smithfield, is a monument of the founder
"Rahere, first canon and prior," which is, however, of much later date,
probably of about 1410 A.D.; his recumbent effigy, and the kneeling
figures of two of his canons beside him, afford good authorities for
costume. They have been engraved in the "Vetusta Monumenta," vol. ii. Pl.
xxxvi.
The building usually consisted of a great hall in which the sick lay, a
chapel for their worship, apartments for the hospital staff, and other
apartments for guests. We are not aware of any examples in England so
perfect as some which exist in other countries, and we shall therefore
borrow some foreign examples in illustration of the subject. The commonest
form of these hospitals seems to have been a great hall divided by pillars
into a centre and aisles, in which rows of beds were arranged; with a
chapel in a separate building at one end of the hall, and other buildings
irregularly disposed in a courtyard; as at the Hôtel Dieu of Chartres, a
building of 1153 A.D.,[9] and the Salle des Morts at Ourscamp.[10] At
Tonerre we find a modification of the above plan. The hospital is still a
vast hall, but is divided by timber partitions along the side walls into
little separate cells. Above these cells, against the side walls, and
projecting partly over the cells, are two galleries, along which the
attendants might walk and look down into the cells. At the east end of
this hall two bays were screened off for the chapel, so that they who were
able might go up into the chapel, and they who could not rise from their
beds could still take part in the service.[11] At Tartoine, near Laon la
Fère, is a hospital on a different plan: a hall, with cells on one side of
it, is placed on one side of a square courtyard, and the chapel and
lodgings for the brethren on another side of the court.[12]
CHAPTER IV.
THE MILITARY ORDERS.
We have already sketched the history of the rise of monachism in the
fourth century out of the groups of Egyptian eremites, and the rapid
spread of the institution, under the rule of Basil, over Christendom; the
adoption in the west of the new rule of Benedict in the sixth century; the
rise of the reformed orders of Benedictines in the tenth and eleventh
centuries; and the institution in the eleventh and twelfth centuries of a
new group of orders under the milder discipline of the Augustinian rule.
We come now to a class of monastics who are included under the Augustinian
rule, since that rule formed the basis of their discipline, but whose
striking features of difference from all other religious orders entitle
them to be reckoned as a distinct class, under the designation of the
Military Orders. When the history of the mendicant orders which arose in
the thirteenth century has been read, it will be seen that these military
orders had anticipated the active religious spirit which formed the
characteristic of the friars, as opposed to the contemplative religious
spirit of the monks. But that which peculiarly characterises the military
orders, is their adoption of the chivalrous crusading spirit of the age in
which they arose: they were half friars, half crusaders.
The order of the KNIGHTS OF THE TEMPLE was founded at Jerusalem in 1118
A.D., during the interval between the first and second crusades, and in
the reign of Baldwin I. Hugh de Payens, and eight other brave knights, in
the presence of the king and his barons, and in the hands of the
Patriarch, bound themselves into a fraternity which embraced the
fundamental monastic vows of obedience, poverty, and chastity; and, in
addition, as the special object of the fraternity, they undertook the task
of escorting the companies of pilgrims from the coast up to Jerusalem, and
thence on the usual tour to the Holy Places. For the open country was
perpetually exposed to the incursions of irregular bands of Saracen and
Turkish horsemen, and death or slavery was the fate which awaited any
caravan of helpless pilgrims whom the infidel descried as they swept over
the plains, or whom they could waylay in the mountain passes. The new
knights undertook besides to wage a continual war in defence of the Cross
against the infidel. The canons of the Temple at Jerusalem gave the new
fraternity a piece of ground adjoining the Temple for the site of their
home, and hence they took their name of Knights of the Temple; and they
gradually acquired dependent houses, which were in fact strong castles,
whose ruins may still be seen, in many a strong place in Palestine. Ten
years after, when Baldwin II. sent envoys to Europe to implore the aid of
the Christian powers in support of his kingdom against the Saracens, Hugh
de Payens was sent as one of the envoys. His order received the approval
of the Council of Troyes, and of Pope Eugene III., and the patronage of
St. Bernard, who became the great preacher of the second crusade; and when
Hugh de Payens returned to Palestine, he was at the head of three hundred
knights of the noblest houses of Europe, who had become members of the
order. Endowments, too, for their support flowed in abundantly; and
gradually the order established dependent houses on its estates in nearly
every country of Europe. The order was introduced into England in the
reign of King Stephen; at first its chief house, "the Temple,"[13] was on
the south side of Holborn, London, near Southampton Buildings; afterwards
it was removed to Fleet Street, where the establishment still remains,
long since converted to other uses; but the original church, with its
round nave, after the form of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at
Jerusalem,[14] still continues a monument of the wealth and grandeur of
the ancient knights. They had only five other houses in England, which
were called Preceptories, and were dependent upon the Temple in London.
The knights wore the usual armour of the period; but while other knights
wore the flowing surcoat of the twelfth or thirteenth centuries, or the
tight-fitting jupon of the fourteenth, or the tabard of the fifteenth, of
any colour which pleased their taste, and often embroidered with their
armorial bearings, the Knights of the Temple were distinguished by wearing
this portion of their equipment of white, with a red cross over the
breast; and over all a long flowing white mantle, with a red cross on the
shoulder; they also wore the monastic tonsure. In the early fourteenth
century MS. in the British Museum, Royal 1,696, at f. 335, is a
representation of Eracles, Prior at Jerusalem, the Prior of the Hospital,
and the Master of the Temple, sent to France to ask for succour. The
illumination shows us the King of France sitting on his throne, and before
him is standing a religious in mitre and crozier, who is no doubt Eracles,
and another in a peculiarly shaped black robe, with a cross patee on the
left shoulder, who is either Hugh de Payens the Templar, or Raymond de Puy
the Hospitaller, but which it is difficult to determine. Again, in the
fine fourteenth century MS., Nero E. 2, at f. 345 v, is a representation
of the trial of the Templars: there are three of them standing before the
Pope and the King of France, dressed in a grey tunic, and over that a
black mantle with a red cross on the left breast, and a pointed hood over
the shoulders. Folio 350 represents the Master of the Temple being burnt
to death in presence of the king and nobles. Again, in the fine MS. Royal
20, c. viii., of the time of our Richard II., at f. 42 and f. 48, are
representations of the same scenes. Folio 42 is a group of Templars
habited in long black coat, fitting close up to the neck, like the
ordinary civil robes of the time, with a pointed hood (like that with
which we are familiar in the portraits of Dante), with a cross patee on
the right shoulder; the hair is tonsured. At f. 45 is the burning of a
group of Templars (not tonsured), and at f. 48 the burning of the Master
of the Temple and another (tonsured). Their banner was of a black and
white striped cloth, called _beauseant_, which word they adopted as a
war-cry. The rule allowed three horses and a servant to each knight.
Married knights were admitted, but there were no sisters of the order. The
order was suppressed with circumstances of gross injustice and cruelty in
the fourteenth century, and the bulk of their estates was given to the
Hospitallers. The knight here given, from Hollar's plate, is a prior of
the order, in armour of the thirteenth century.
[Illustration: _A Knight Templar._]
The KNIGHTS OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM, or the Knights Hospitallers,
originally were not a military order; they were founded about 1092 by the
merchants of Amalfi, in Italy, for the purpose of affording hospitality to
pilgrims in the Holy Land. Their chief house, which was called the
Hospital, was situated at Jerusalem, over against the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre; and they had independent hospitals in other places in the Holy
Land, which were frequented by the pilgrims. Their kindness to the sick
and wounded soldiers of the first crusade made them popular, and several
of the crusading princes endowed them with estates; while many of the
crusaders, instead of returning home, laid down their arms, and joined the
brotherhood of the Hospital. During this period of their history their
habit was a plain black robe, with a linen cross upon the left breast.
At length their endowments having become greater than the needs of their
hospitals required, and incited by the example of the Templars, a little
before established, Raymond de Puy, the then master of the hospital,
offered to King Baldwin II. to reconstruct the order on the model of the
Templars. From this time the two military orders formed a powerful
standing army for the defence of the kingdom of Jerusalem.
When Palestine was finally lost to the Christians, the Knights of St. John
passed into the Isle of Cyprus, afterwards to the Isle of Rhodes, and,
finally, to the Isle of Malta,[15] maintaining a constant warfare against
the infidel, and doing good service in checking the westward progress of
the Mohammedan arms. In the latter part of their history, and down to a
recent period, they conferred great benefits by checking the ravages of
the corsairs of North Africa on the commerce of the Mediterranean and the
coast towns of Southern Europe. They patrolled the sea in war-galleys,
rowed by galley-slaves, each of which carried a force of armed
soldiers--inferior brethren of the order, officered by its knights. They
are not even now extinct.
The order was first introduced into England in the reign of Henry I., at
Clerkenwell; which continued the principal house of the order in England,
and was styled the Hospital. The Hospitallers had also dependent houses,
called Commanderies, on many of their English estates, to the number of
fifty-three in all. The houses of the military knights in England were
only cells, erected on the estates with which they had been endowed, in
order to cultivate those estates for the support of the order, and to form
depôts for recruits; _i.e._ for novices, where they might be trained, not
in learning like Benedictines, or agriculture like Cistercians, or
preaching like Dominicans, but in piety and in military exercises. A plan
and elevation of the Commandery of Chabburn, Northumberland, are engraved
in Turner's "Domestic Architecture," vol. iii. p. 197. The superior of the
order in England sat in Parliament, and was accounted the first lay
baron. When on military duty the knights wore the ordinary armour of the
period, with a red surcoat marked with a white cross on the breast, and a
red mantle with a white cross on the shoulder. Some of their churches in
England possibly had circular naves, like the church of the Temple in
Jerusalem; out of the four "round churches," which remain, one belonged to
the Knights of the Hospital. The chapel at Chabburn is a rectangular
building. There were many sisters of the order, but only one house of them
in England.
One of two earlier representations of knights of the order may be noted
here. In a MS. in the Library at Ghent, of the date of our Edward IV., is
a picture of John Lonstrother, prior of the order; he wears a long
sleeveless gown over armour. It is engraved in the "Archælogia," xiii. 14.
The MS. Add. 18,143 in the British Museum is said in a note at the
beginning of the volume to have been the missal of Phillippe de Villiers
de l'Isle Adam, the famous Grand Master of the Order of St. John of
Jerusalem from 1521 to 1534. In the frontispiece is a portrait of the
Grand Master in a black robe lined with fur, and a cross patee on the
breast. On the opposite page is another portrait of him in a robe of
different fashion, with a cross rather differently shaped. The monument of
the last English Prior, Sir Thomas Tresham, in his robes as prior of the
order, still remains in Rushton Church, Northants. A fine portrait of a
Knight of Malta is in the National Gallery. The Hospitaller given on the
preceding page, from Hollar's plate, is a (not very good) representation
of one in the armour of the early part of the fourteenth century, with the
usual knight's _chapeau_, instead of the mail hood or the basinet, on his
head.
[Illustration: _A Knight Hospitaller._]
It will be gathered from the authorities of the costume of the Knights of
the Temple and of the Hospital here noted, that when we picture to
ourselves the knights on duty in the Holy Land or elsewhere, it should be
in the armour of their period with the uniform surcoat of their order; but
when we desire to realise their appearance as they were to be ordinarily
seen, in chapel or refectory, or about their estates, or forming part of
any ordinary scene of English life, it must be in the long cassock-like
gown, with the cross on the shoulder, and the tonsured head, described in
the above authorities, which would make their appearance resemble that of
other religious persons.
Other military orders, which never extended to England, were the order of
TEUTONIC KNIGHTS, a fraternity similar to that of the Templars, but
consisting entirely of Germans; and the order of OUR LADY OF MERCY, a
Spanish knightly order in imitation of that of the Trinitarians.
One other order of religious--the TRINITARIANS--we have reserved for this
place, because while by their rule they are classed among the Augustinian
orders, the object of their foundation gives them an affinity with the
military orders, and their mode of pursuing that object makes their
organisation and life resemble that of friars. The moral interest of their
work, and its picturesque scenes and associations, lead us to give a
little larger space to them than we have been able to do to most of the
other orders. It is difficult for us to realise that the Mohammedan power
seemed at one time not unlikely to subjugate all Europe; and that after
their career of conquest had been arrested, the Mohammedan states of North
Africa continued for centuries to be a scourge to the commerce of Europe,
and a terror to the inhabitants of the coasts of the Mediterranean. They
scoured the Great Sea with their galleys, and captured ships; they made
descents on the coasts, and plundered towns and villages; and carried off
the captives into slavery, and retreated in safety with their booty, to
their African harbours. It is only within quite recent times that the last
of these strongholds was destroyed by an English fleet, and that the Greek
and Italian feluccas have ceased to fear the Algerine pirates. We have
already briefly stated how the Hospitallers, after their original service
was ended by the expulsion of the Christians from the Holy Land, settled
first at Cyprus, then at Rhodes, and did good service as a bulwark against
the Mohammedan progress; and lastly, as Knights of Malta, acted as the
police of the Mediterranean, and did their best to oppose the piracies of
the Corsairs. But in spite of the vigilance and prowess of the knights,
many a merchant ship was captured, many a fishing village was sacked, and
many captives, men, women, and children of all ranks of society, were
carried off into slavery; and their slavery was a cruel one, exaggerated
by the scorn and hatred bred of antagonism in race and religion, and made
ruthless by the recollection of ages of mutual injuries. The relations and
friends of the unhappy captives, where they were people of wealth and
influence, used every exertion to rescue those who were dear to them, and
their captors were ordinarily willing to set them to ransom; but hopeless
indeed was the lot of those--and they, of course, were the great
majority--who had no friends rich enough to help them.
The miserable fate of these helpless ones moved the compassion of some
Christ-like souls. John de Matha, born, in 1154, of noble parents in
Provence, with Felix de Valois, retired to a desert place, where, at the
foot of a little hill, a fountain of cold water issued forth; a white hart
was accustomed to resort to this fountain, and hence it had received the
name of Cervus Frigidus, represented in French by (or representing the
French?) Cerfroy. There, about A.D. 1197, these two good men--the Clarkson
and Wilberforce of their time--arranged the institution of a new Order for
the Redemption of Captives. The new order received the approval of the
Pope Innocent III., and took its place among the recognised orders of the
church. This Papal approval of their institution constituted an
authorisation from the head of the church to seek alms from all
Christendom in furtherance of their object. Their rules directed that
one-third of their income only should be reserved for their own
maintenance, one-third should be given to the poor, and one-third for the
special object of redeeming captives. The two philanthropists preached
throughout France, collecting alms, and recruiting men who were willing to
join them in their good work. In the first year they were able to send two
brethren to Africa, to negotiate the redemption of a hundred and
eighty-six Christian captives; next year, John himself went, and brought
back a thankful company of a hundred and ten; and on a third voyage, a
hundred and twenty more; and the order continued to flourish,[16] and
established a house of the order in Africa, as its agent with the infidel.
They were introduced into England by Sir William Lucy of Charlecote, on
his return from the Crusade; who built and endowed for them Thellesford
Priory in Warwickshire; and subsequently they had eleven other houses in
England. St. Rhadegunda was their tutelary saint. Their habit was white,
with a Greek cross of red and blue on the breast--the three colours being
taken to signify the three persons of the Holy Trinity, viz., the white,
the Eternal Father; the blue, which was the transverse limb of the cross,
the Son; and the red, the charity of the Holy Spirit.
The order were called TRINITARIANS, from their devotion to the Blessed
Trinity, all their houses being so dedicated, and hence the significance
of their badge; they were commonly called MATHURINS, after the name of
their founder; and BRETHREN OF THE ORDER OF THE HOLY TRINITY FOR THE
REDEMPTION OF CAPTIVES, from their object.
* * * * *
Before turning from the monks to the friars, we must devote a brief
sentence to the ALIEN PRIORIES. These were cells of foreign abbeys,
founded upon estates which English proprietors had given to the foreign
houses. After the expenses of the establishment had been defrayed, the
surplus revenue, or a fixed sum in lieu of it, was remitted to the parent
house abroad. There were over one hundred and twenty of them when Edward
I., on the breaking out of the war with France, seized upon them, in
1285, as belonging to the enemy. Edward II. appears to have pursued the
same course; and, again, Edward III., in 1337. Henry IV. only reserved to
himself, in time of war, what these houses had been accustomed to pay to
the foreign abbeys in time of peace. But at length they were all dissolved
by act of Parliament in the second year of Henry V., and their possessions
were devoted for the most part to religious and charitable uses.
CHAPTER V.
THE ORDERS OF FRIARS.
We have seen how for three centuries, from the beginning of the tenth to
the end of the twelfth, a series of religious orders arose, each aiming at
a more successful reproduction of the monastic ideal. The thirteenth
century saw the rise of a new class of religious orders, actuated by a
different principle from that of monachism. The principle of monachism, we
have said, was seclusion from mankind, and abstraction from worldly
affairs, for the sake of religious contemplation. To this end monasteries
were founded in the wilds, far from the abodes of men; and he who least
often suffered his feet or his thoughts to wander beyond the cloister was
so far the best monk. The principle which inspired the FRIARS was that of
devotion to the performance of active religious duties among mankind.
Their houses were built in or near the great towns; and to the majority of
the brethren the houses of the order were mere temporary resting-places,
from which they issued to make their journeys through town and country,
preaching in the parish churches, or from the steps of the market-crosses,
and carrying their ministrations to every castle and every cottage.
"I speke of many hundred years ago,
For now can no man see non elves mo;
For now the great charity and prayers
Of lymytours and other holy freres
That serchen every land and every stream
As thick as motis in the sunne-beam,
Blessing halls, chambers, kitchens, and bowers,
Cities and burghs, castles high and towers,
Thorps and barns, shippons and dairies,
This maketh that there been no fairies.
For there as wont to walken was an elf,
There walketh now the lymytour himself
In undermeles and in morwenings,[17]
And sayeth his matins and his holy things,
As he goeth in his lymytacioun."--_Wife of Bath's Tale._
They were, in fact, home missionaries; and the zeal and earnestness of
their early efforts, falling upon times when such an agency was greatly
needed, produced very striking results. "Till the days of Martin Luther,"
says Sir James Stephen, "the church had never seen so great and effectual
a reform as theirs.... Nothing in the histories of Wesley or of Whitefield
can be compared with the enthusiasm which everywhere welcomed them, or
with the immediate visible result of their labours." In the character of
St. Francis, notwithstanding its superstition and exaggerated asceticism,
there is something specially attractive: in his intense sympathy with the
sorrows and sufferings of the poor, his tender and respectful love for
them as members of Christ, his heroic self-devotion to their service for
Christ's sake, in his vivid realisation of the truth that birds, beasts,
and fishes are God's creatures, and our fellow-creatures. In the work of
both Francis and Dominic there is much which is worth careful study at the
present day. Now, too, there is a mass of misery in our large towns huge
and horrible enough to kindle the Christ-like pity of another Francis; in
country as well as town there are ignorance and irreligion enough to call
forth the zeal of another Dominic. In our Sisters of Mercy we see among
women a wonderful rekindling of the old spirit of self-sacrifice, in a
shape adapted to our time; we need not despair of seeing the same spirit
rekindled among men, freed from the old superstitions and avoiding the old
blunders, and setting itself to combat the gigantic evils which threaten
to overwhelm both religion and social order.
Both these reformers took great pains to fit their followers for the
office of preachers and teachers, sending them in large numbers to the
universities, and founding colleges there for the reception of their
students. With an admirable largeness of view, they did not confine their
studies to theology, but cultivated the whole range of Science and Art,
and so successful were they, that in a short time the professional chairs
of the universities of Europe were almost monopolised by the learned
members of the mendicant orders.[18] The constitutions required that no
one should be licensed as a general preacher until he had studied theology
for three years; then a provincial or general chapter examined into his
character and learning; and, if these were satisfactory, gave him his
commission, either limiting his ministry to a certain district (whence he
was called in English a _limitour_, like Chaucer's Friar Hubert), or
allowing him to exercise it where he listed (when he was called a
_lister_). This authority to preach, and exercise other spiritual
functions, necessarily brought the friars into collision with the
parochial clergy;[19] and while a learned and good friar would do much
good in parishes which were cursed with an ignorant, or slothful, or
wicked pastor, on the other hand, the inferior class of friars are accused
of abusing their position by setting the people against their pastors
whose pulpits they usurped, and interfering injuriously with the
discipline of the parishes into which they intruded. For it was not very
long before the primitive purity and zeal of the mendicant orders began to
deteriorate. This was inevitable; zeal and goodness cannot be perpetuated
by a system; all human societies of superior pretensions gradually
deteriorate, even as the Apostolic Church itself did. But there were
peculiar circumstances in the system of the mendicant orders which tended
to induce rapid deterioration. The profession of mendicancy tended to
encourage the use of all those little paltry arts of popularity-hunting
which injure the usefulness of a minister of religion, and lower his moral
tone: the fact that an increased number of friars was a source of
additional wealth to a convent, since it gave an increased number of
collectors of alms for it, tended to make the convents less scrupulous as
to the fitness of the men whom they admitted. So that we can believe the
truth of the accusations of the old satirists, that dissolute,
good-for-nothing fellows sought the friar's frock and cowl, for the
license which it gave to lead a vagabond life, and levy contributions on
the charitable. Such men could easily appropriate to themselves a portion
of what was given them for the convent; and they had ample opportunity,
away from the control of their ecclesiastical superiors, to spend their
peculations in dissolute living.[20] We may take, therefore, Chaucer's
Friar John, of the Sompnour's Tale, as a type of a certain class of
friars; but we must remember that at the same time there were many
earnest, learned, and excellent men in the mendicant orders; even as
Mawworm and John Wesley might flourish together in the same body.
[Illustration: _Costumes of the Four Orders of Friars._]
The convents of friars were not independent bodies, like the Benedictine
and Augustinian abbeys; each order was an organised body, governed by the
general of the order, and under him, by provincial priors, priors of the
convents, and their subordinate officials. There are usually reckoned four
orders of friars--the Dominicans, Franciscans, Carmelites, and
Augustines.
"I found there freres,
All the foure orders,
Techynge the peple
To profit of themselves."
_Piers Ploughman_, l. 115.
The four orders are pictured together in the woodcut on the preceding page
from the thirteenth century MS. Harl. 1,527.
They were called _Friars_ because, out of humility, their founders would
not have them called _Father_ and _Dominus_, like the monks, but simply
_Brother_ (_Frater, Frère, Friar_).
The DOMINICANS and FRANCISCANS arose simultaneously at the beginning of
the thirteenth century. Dominic, an Augustinian canon, a Spaniard of noble
birth, was seized with a zeal for converting heretics, and having
gradually associated a few ecclesiastics with himself, he at length
conceived the idea of founding an order of men who should spend their
lives in preaching. Simultaneously, Francis, the son of a rich Italian
merchant, was inspired with a design to establish a new order of men, who
should spend their lives in preaching the Gospel and doing works of
charity among the people. These two men met in Rome in the year 1216 A.D.,
and some attempt was made to induce them to unite their institutions in
one; but Francis was unwilling, and the Pope sanctioned both. Both adopted
the Augustinian rule, and both required not only that their followers
personally should have no property, but also that they should not possess
any property collectively as a body; their followers were to work for a
livelihood, or to live on alms. The two orders retained something of the
character of their founders: the Dominicans that of the learned,
energetic, dogmatic, and stern controversialist; they were defenders of
the orthodox faith, not only by argument, but by the terrors of the
Inquisition, which was in their hands; even as their master is, rightly
or wrongly, said to have sanctioned the cruelties which were used against
the Albigenses when his preaching had failed to convince them. The
Franciscans retained something of the character of the pious, ardent,
fanciful enthusiast from whom they took their name.
[Illustration: _S. Dominic and S. Francis._]
Dominic gave to his order the name of Preaching Friars; more commonly they
were styled Dominicans, or, from the colour of their habits, Black
Friars[21]--their habit consisting of a white tunic, fastened with a white
girdle, over that a white scapulary, and over all a black mantle and hood,
and shoes; the lay brethren wore a black scapulary.
The woodcut which we give on the preceding page of two friars, with their
names, DOMINIC and FRANCIS, inscribed over them, is taken from a
representation in a MS. of the end of the thirteenth century (Sloan 346),
of a legend of a vision of Dominic related in the "Legenda Aurea," in
which the Virgin Mary is deprecating the wrath of Christ, about to destroy
the world for its iniquity, and presenting to him Dominic and Francis,
with a promise that they will convert the world from its wickedness. The
next woodcut is from Hollar's print in the "Monasticon." An early
fifteenth century illustration of a Dominican friar, in black mantle and
brown hood over a white tunic, may be found on the last page of the
Harleian MS., 1,527. A fine picture of St. Dominic, by Mario Zoppo
(1471-98), in the National Gallery, shows the costume admirably; he stands
preaching, with book and rosary in his left hand. The Dominican nuns wore
the same dress with a white veil. They had, according to the last edition
of the "Monasticon," fifty-eight houses in England.
[Illustration: _A Dominican Friar._]
The Franciscans were styled by their founder Fratri Minori--lesser
brothers, Friars Minors; they were more usually called Grey Friars, from
the colour of their habits, or Cordeliers, from the knotted cord which
formed their characteristic girdle. Their habit was originally a grey
tunic with long loose sleeves (but not quite so loose as those of the
Benedictines), a knotted cord for a girdle, and a black hood; the feet
always bare, or only protected by sandals. In the fifteenth century the
colour of the habit was altered to a dark brown. The woodcut is from
Hollar's print. A picture of St. Francis, by Felippino Lippi (1460-1505),
in the National Gallery shows the costume very clearly. Piers Ploughman
describes the irregular indulgences in habit worn by less strict members
of the order:--
"In cutting of his cope
Is more cloth y-folden
Than was in Frauncis' froc,
When he them first made.
And yet under that cope
A coat hath he, furred
With foyns or with fichews
Or fur of beaver,
And that is cut to the knee,
And quaintly y-buttoned
Lest any spiritual man
Espie that guile.
Fraunceys bad his brethren
Barefoot to wenden.
Now have they buckled shoon
For blenying [blistering] of ther heels,
And hosen in harde weather
Y-hamled [tied] by the ancle."
A beautiful little picture of St. Francis receiving the stigmata may be
found in a Book of Offices of the end of the fourteenth century (Harl.
2,897, f. 407 v.). Another fifteenth-century picture of the same subject
is in a Book of Hours (Harl. 5,328, f. 123). Some fine sixteenth-century
authorities for Franciscan costumes are in the MS. life of St. Francis
(Harl. 3,229, f. 26). The principal picture represents St. Bonaventura, a
saint of the order, in a gorgeous cope over his brown frock and hood,
seated writing in his cell; through the open door is seen a corridor with
doors opening off it to other cells. In the corners of the page are other
pictures of St. Anthony of Padua, and St. Bernardine, and another saint,
and St. Clare, foundress of the female order of Franciscans. A very good
illumination of two Franciscans in grey frocks and hoods, girded with rope
and barefooted, will be found in the MS. Add. 17,687 of date 1498. The
Franciscan nuns, or Minoresses, or Poor Clares, as they were sometimes
called, from St. Clare, the patron saint and first nun of the order, wore
the same habit as the monks, only with a black veil instead of a hood. For
another illustration of minoresses see MS. Royal 1,696, f. 111, v. The
Franciscans were first introduced into England, at Canterbury, in the year
1223 A.D., and there were sixty-five houses of the order in England,
besides four of minoresses.
[Illustration: _A Franciscan Friar._]
While the Dominicans retained their unity of organisation to the last, the
Franciscans divided into several branches, under the names of Minorites,
Capuchins, Minims, Observants, Recollets, &c.
The CARMELITE FRIARS had their origin, as their name indicates, in the
East. According to their own traditions, ever since the days of Elijah,
whom they claim as their founder, the rocks of Carmel have been inhabited
by a succession of hermits, who have lived after the pattern of the great
prophet. Their institution as an order of friars, however, dates from the
beginning of the thirteenth century, when Albert, Patriarch of Jerusalem,
gave them a rule, founded upon, but more severe than, that of St. Basil;
and gave them a habit of white and red stripes, which, according to
tradition, was the fashion of the wonder-working mantle of their
prophet-founder. The order immediately spread into the West, and Pope
Honorius III. sanctioned it, and changed the habit to a white frock over a
dark brown tunic; and very soon after, the third general of the order, an
Englishman, Simon Stock, added the scapulary, of the same colour as the
tunic, by which they are to be distinguished from the Premonstratensian
canons, whose habit is the same, except that it wants the scapulary. From
the colour of the habit the popular English name for the Carmelites was
the White Friars. Sir John de Vesci, an English crusader, in the early
part of the thirteenth century, made the ascent of Mount Carmel, and
found these religious living there, claiming to be the successors of
Elijah. The romantic incident seems to have interested him, and he brought
back some of them to England, and thus introduced the order here, where it
became more popular than elsewhere in Europe, but it was never an
influential order. They had ultimately fifty houses in England.
[Illustration: _A Carmelite Friar._]
The AUSTIN FRIARS were founded in the middle of the thirteenth century.
There were still at that time some small communities which were not
enrolled among any of the great recognised orders, and a great number of
hermits and solitaries, who lived under no rule at all. Pope Innocent IV.
decreed that all these hermits, solitaries, and separate communities,
should be incorporated into a new order, under the rule of St. Augustine,
with some stricter clauses added, under the name of Ermiti Augustini,
Hermits of St. Augustine, or, as they were popularly called, Austin
Friars. Their exterior habit was a black gown with broad sleeves, girded
with a leather belt, and black cloth hood. There were forty-five houses of
them in England.
There were also some minor orders of friars, who do not need a detailed
description. The Crutched (crossed) Friars, so called because they had a
red cross on the back and breast of their blue habit, were introduced into
England in the middle of the thirteenth century, and had ten houses here.
The Friars de Poenitentiâ, or the Friars of the Sack, were introduced a
little later, and had nine houses. And there were six other friaries of
obscure orders. But all these minor mendicant orders--all except the four
great orders, the Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustinians, and
Carmelites--were suppressed by the Council of Lyons, A.D. 1370.
Chaucer lived in the latter half of the fourteenth century, when, after a
hundred and forty years' existence, the orders of friars, or at least many
individuals of the orders, had lost much of their primitive holiness and
zeal. His avowed purpose is to satirise their abuses; so that, while we
quote him largely for the life-like pictures of ancient customs and
manners which he gives us, we must make allowance for the exaggerations of
a satirist, and especially we must not take the faulty or vicious
individuals, whom it suits his purpose to depict, as fair samples of the
whole class. We have a nineteenth-century satirist of the failings and
foibles of the clergy, to whom future generations will turn for
illustrations of the life of cathedral towns and country parishes. We know
how wrongly they would suppose that Dr. Proudie was a fair sample of
nineteenth-century bishops, or Dr. Grantley of archdeacons "of the
period," or Mr. Smylie of the evangelical clergy; we know there is no real
bishop, archdeacon, or incumbent among us of whom those characters, so
cleverly and amusingly, and in one sense so truthfully, drawn, are
anything but exaggerated likenesses. With this caution, we do not hesitate
to borrow illustrations of our subject from Chaucer and other contemporary
writers.
In his description of Friar Hubert, who was one of the Canterbury
pilgrims, he tells us how--
"Full well beloved and familiar was he
With frankelins over all in his countrie;
And eke with worthy women of the town,[22]
For he had power of confession,
As said himself, more than a curate,
For of his order he was licenciate.
Full sweetely heard he confession,
And pleasant was his absolution.
He was an easy man to give penance
There as he wist to have a good pittance,
For unto a poor order for to give,
Is signe that a man is well y-shrive.
* * * * *
His tippet was aye farsed[23] full of knives
And pinnés for to give to fairé wives.
And certainly he had a merry note,
Well could he sing and playen on a rote.[24]
* * * * *
And over all there as profit should arise,
Courteous he was, and lowly of service.
There was no man no where so virtuous,
He was the beste beggar in all his house,
And gave a certain ferme for the grant
None of his brethren came in his haunt."
As to his costume:--
"For there was he not like a cloisterer,
With threadbare cope, as is a poor scholar,
But he was like a master or a pope,
Of double worsted was his semi-cope,[25]
That round was as a bell out of the press."
In the Sompnour's tale the character, here merely sketched, is worked out
in detail, and gives such a wonderfully life-like picture of a friar, and
of his occupation, and his intercourse with the people, that we cannot do
better than lay considerable extracts from it before our readers:--
"Lordings there is in Yorkshire, as I guess,
A marsh country y-called Holderness,
In which there went a limitour[26] about
To preach, and eke to beg, it is no doubt.
And so befel that on a day this frere
Had preached at a church in his mannére,
And specially aboven every thing
Excited he the people in his preaching
To trentals,[27] and to give for Goddé's sake,
Wherewith men mighten holy houses make,
There as divine service is honoured,
Not there as it is wasted and devoured.[28]
'Trentals,' said he, 'deliver from penance
Ther friendés' soules, as well old as young,
Yea, when that they are speedily y-sung.
Not for to hold a priest jolly and gay,
He singeth not but one mass[29] of a day,
Deliver out,' quoth he, 'anon[30] the souls.
Full hard it is, with flesh-hook or with owles
To be y-clawed, or to burn or bake:
Now speed you heartily, for Christé's sake.'
And when this frere had said all his intent,
With _qui cum patre_[31] forth his way he went;
When folk in church had given him what they lest
He went his way, no longer would he rest."
Then he takes his way through the village with his brother friar (it seems
to have been the rule for them to go in couples) and a servant after them
to carry their sack, begging at every house.
"With scrippe and tipped staff, y-tucked high,
In every house he gan to pore and pry;
And begged meal or cheese, or ellés corn.
His fellow had a staff tipped with horn,
A pair of tables all of ivory,
And a pointel y-polished fetisly,
And wrote always the namés, as he stood,
Of allé folk that gave them any good,
As though that he woulde for them pray.
'Give us a bushel of wheat, or malt, or rye,
A Goddé's kichel,[32] or a trippe of cheese;
Or ellés what you list, we may not chese;[33]
A Godde's halfpenny, or a mass penny,
Or give us of your bran, if ye have any,
A dagon[34] of your blanket, dearé dame,
Our sister dear (lo! here I write your name):
Bacon or beef, or such thing as you find.'
A sturdy harlot[35] went them aye behind,
That was their hosté's man, and bare a sack,
And what men gave them laid it on his back.
And when that he was out at door, anon
He planed away the names every one,
That he before had written on his tables;
He served them with triffles[36] and with fables."
At length he comes to a house in which, the goodwife being _devôte_, he
has been accustomed to be hospitably received:--
"So along he went, from house to house, till he
Came to a house where he was wont to be
Refreshed more than in a hundred places.
Sick lay the husbandman whose that the place is;
Bedrid upon a couché low he lay:
'_Deus hic_,' quoth he, 'O Thomas, friend, good day'
Said this frere, all courteously and soft.
'Thomas,' quoth he, 'God yield[37] it you, full oft
Have I upon this bench fared full well,
Here have I eaten many a merry meal.'
And from the bench he drove away the cat,
And laid adown his potent[38] and his hat,
And eke his scrip, and set himself adown:
His fellow was y-walked into town
Forth with his knave, into that hostlery
Where as he shope him thilké night to lie
'O deré master,' quoth this sické man,
'How have ye fared since that March began?
I saw you not this fourteen night and more.'
'God wot,' quoth he, 'laboured have I full sore;
And specially for thy salvation
Have I sayd many a precious orison,
And for our other friendes, God them bless.
I have this day been at your church at messe,
And said a sermon to my simple wit.
* * * * *
And there I saw our dame. Ah! where is she?'
'Yonder I trow that in the yard she be,'
Saidé this man, 'and she will come anon.'
'Eh master, welcome be ye, by St. John!'
Saide this wife; 'how fare ye heartily?'
This friar ariseth up full courteously,
And her embraceth in his armés narwe,[39]
And kisseth her sweet, and chirketh as a sparrow
With his lippes: 'Dame,' quoth he, 'right well.
As he that is your servant every deal.[40]
Thanked be God that you gave soul and life,
Yet saw I not this day so fair a wife
In all the churché, God so save me.'
'Yea, God amendé defaults, sire,' quoth she:
'Algates welcome be ye, by my fay.'
'_Graunt mercy_, dame; that have I found alway.
But of your great goodness, by your leve,
I wouldé pray you that ye not you grieve,
I will with Thomas speak a little throw;
These curates be so negligent and slow
To searchen tenderly a conscience.
In shrift, in preaching, is my diligence,
And study, on Peter's words and on Paul's,
I walk and fishen Christian menne's souls,
To yield our Lord Jesu his proper rent;
To spread his word is set all mine intent.'
'Now, by your faith, dere sir,' quoth she,
'Chide him well for Seinté Charitee.
He is as angry as a pissemire,'" &c.
Whereupon the friar begins at once to scold the goodman:--
"'O Thomas, _je vous die_, Thomas, Thomas,
This maketh the fiend, this must be amended.
Ire is a thing that high God hath defended,[41]
And therefore will I speak a word or two.'
'Now, master,' quoth the wife, 'ere that I go,
What will ye dine? I will go thereabout.'
'Now, dame,' quoth he, '_je vous dis sans doubte_,
Have I not of a capon but the liver,
And of your white bread but a shiver,
And after that a roasted piggé's head
(But I ne would for me no beast were dead),
Then had I with you homely suffisance;
I am a man of little sustenance,
My spirit hath his fostering in the Bible.
My body is aye so ready and so penible
To waken, that my stomach is destroyed.
I pray you, dame, that ye be not annoyed,
Though I so friendly you my counsel shew.
By God! I n'old[42] have told it but a few.'
'Now, sir,' quoth she, 'but one word ere I go.
My child is dead within these weekés two,
Soon after that ye went out of this town.'[43]
'His death saw I by revelation,'
Said this frere, 'at home in our dortour.[44]
I dare well say that ere that half an hour
After his death, I saw him borne to blisse
In mine vision, so God me wisse.
So did our sexton and our fermerere,[45]
That have been trué friars fifty year;
They may now, God be thanked of his loan,
Make their jubilee and walke alone.'"[46]
We do not care to continue the blasphemous lies with which he plays upon
the mother's tenderness for her dead babe. At length, addressing the sick
goodman, he continues:--
"'Thomas, Thomas, so might I ride or go,
And by that lord that cleped is St. Ive,
N'ere[47] thou our brother, shouldest thou not thrive,
In our chapter pray we[48] day and night
To Christ that he thee send hele and might[49]
Thy body for to welden hastily.'
'God wot,' quoth he, 'I nothing thereof feel,
So help me Christ, as I in fewé years
Have spended upon divers manner freres
Full many a pound, yet fare I never the bet.'
The frere answered, 'O Thomas, dost thou so?
What need have you diverse friars to seche?
What needeth him that hath a perfect leech[50]
To seeken other leches in the town?
Your inconstancy is your confusion.
Hold ye then me, or elles our convent,
To pray for you is insufficient?
Thomas, that jape is not worth a mite;
Your malady is for we have too lite.[51]
Ah! give that convent half a quarter of oates;
And give that convent four and twenty groats;
And give that friar a penny and let him go;
Nay, nay, Thomas, it may nothing be so;
What is a farthing worth parted in twelve?"
And so he takes up the cue the wife had given him, and reads him a long
sermon on anger, quoting Seneca, and giving, for instances, Cambyses and
Cyrus, and at length urges him to confession. To this--
"'Nay,' quoth the sick man, 'by Saint Simon,
I have been shriven this day by my curate.'
* * * * *
'Give me then of thy gold to make our cloister,'"
and again he proclaims the virtues and morals of his order.
"'For if ye lack our predication,[52]
Then goth this world all to destruction.
For whoso from this world would us bereave,
So God me save, Thomas, by your leave,
He would bereave out of this world the sun,'" &c.
And so ends with the ever-recurring burden:--
"'Now, Thomas, help for Sainte Charitee.'
This sicke man wax well nigh wood for ire,[53]
He woulde that the frere had been a fire,
With his false dissimulation;"
and proceeds to play a practical joke upon him, which will not bear even
hinting at, but which sufficiently shows that superstition did not prevent
men from taking great liberties, expressing the utmost contempt of these
men. Moreover,--
"His mennie which had hearden this affray,
Came leaping in and chased out the frere."
Thus ignominiously turned out of the goodman's house, the friar goes to
the court-house of the lord of the village:--
"A sturdy pace down to the court he goth,
Whereat there woned[54] a man of great honour,
To whom this friar was alway confessour;
This worthy man was lord of that village.
This frere came, as he were in a rage,
Whereas this lord sat eating at his board.
* * * * *
This lord gan look, and saide, '_Benedicite!_
What, frere John! what manner of world is this?
I see well that something there is amiss.'"
We need only complete the picture by adding the then actors in it:--
"The lady of the house aye stille sat,
Till she had herde what the friar said."
And
"Now stood the lorde's squire at the board,
That carved his meat, and hearde every word
Of all the things of which I have you said."
And it needs little help of the imagination to complete this contemporary
picture of an English fourteenth-century village, with its lord and its
well-to-do farmer, and its villagers, its village inn, its parish church
and priest, and the fortnightly visit of the itinerant friars.
* * * * *
We have now completed our sketch of the rise of the religious orders, and
of their general character; we have only to conclude this portion of our
task with a brief history of their suppression in England. Henry VIII. had
resolved to break with the pope; the religious orders were great upholders
of the papal supremacy; the friars especially were called "the pope's
militia;" the king resolved, therefore, upon the destruction of the
friars. The pretext was a reform of the religious orders. At the end of
the year 1535 a royal commission undertook the visitation of all the
religious houses, above one thousand three hundred in number, including
their cells and hospitals. They performed their task with incredible
celerity--"the king's command was exceeding urgent;" and in ten weeks they
presented their report. The small houses they reported to be full of
irregularity and vice; while "in the great solemne monasteries, thanks be
to God, religion was right well observed and kept up." So the king's
decree went forth, and parliament ratified it, that all the religious
houses of less than £200 annual value should be suppressed. This just
caught all the friaries, and a few of the less powerful monasteries for
the sake of impartiality. Perhaps the monks were not greatly moved at the
destruction which had come upon their rivals; but their turn very speedily
came. They were not suppressed forcibly; but they were induced to
surrender. The patronage of most of the abbacies was in the king's hands,
or under his control. He induced some of the abbots by threats or
cajolery, and the offer of place and pension, to surrender their
monasteries into his hand; others he induced to surrender their abbatial
offices only, into which he placed creatures of his own, who completed the
surrender. Some few intractable abbots--like those of Reading,
Glastonbury, and St. John's, Colchester, who would do neither one nor the
other--were found guilty of high treason--no difficult matter when it had
been made high treason by act of Parliament to "publish in words" that the
king was an "heretic, schismatic, or tyrant"--and they were disposed of by
hanging, drawing, and quartering. The Hospitallers of Clerkenwell were
still more difficult to deal with, and required a special act of
Parliament to suppress them. Those who gave no trouble were rewarded with
bishoprics, livings, and pensions; the rest were turned adrift on the wide
world, to dig, or beg, or starve. We are not defending the principle of
monasticism; it may be that, with the altered circumstances of the church
and nation, the day of usefulness of the monasteries had passed. But we
cannot restrain an expression of indignation at the shameless, reckless
manner of the suppression. The commissioners suggested, and Bishop Latimer
entreated in vain, that two or three monasteries should be left in every
shire for religious, and learned, and charitable uses; they were all
shared among the king and his courtiers. The magnificent churches were
pulled down; the libraries, of inestimable value, were destroyed; the alms
which the monks gave to the poor, the hospitals which they maintained for
the old and impotent, the infirmaries for the sick, the schools for the
people--all went in the wreck; and the tithes of parishes which were in
the hands of the monasteries, were swallowed up indiscriminately--they
were not men to strain at such gnats while they were swallowing
camels--some three thousand parishes, including those of the most populous
and important towns, were left impoverished to this day. No wonder that
the fountains of religious endowment in England have been dried up ever
since;--and the course of modern legislation is not calculated to set them
again a-flowing.
CHAPTER VI.
THE CONVENT.
Having thus given a sketch of the history of the various monastic orders
in England, we proceed to give some account of the constitution of a
convent, taking that of a Benedictine monastery as a type, from which the
other orders departed only in minor particulars.
The _convent_ is the name especially appropriate to the body of
individuals who composed a religious community. These were the body of
cloister monks, lay and clerical; the professed brethren, who were also
lay and clerical; the clerks; the novices; and the servants and
artificers. The servants and artificers were of course taken from the
lower ranks of society; all the rest were originally of the most various
degrees of rank and social position. We constantly meet with instances of
noble men and women, knights and ladies, minstrels and merchants, quitting
their secular occupations at various periods of their life, and taking the
religious habit; some of them continuing simply professed brethren, others
rising to high offices in their order. Scions of noble houses were not
infrequently entered at an early age as novices, either devoted to the
religious life by the piety of their parents, or, with more worldly
motives, thus provided with a calling and a maintenance; and sometimes
considerable interest was used to procure the admittance of novices into
the great monasteries. Again, the children of the poor were received into
the monastic schools, and such as showed peculiar aptitude were sometimes
at length admitted as monks,[55] and were eligible, and were often chosen,
to the highest ecclesiastical dignities.
The whole convent was under the government of the _abbot_, who, however,
was bound to govern according to the rule of the order. Sometimes he was
elected by the convent; sometimes the king or some patron had a share in
the election. Frequently there were estates attached to the office,
distinct from those of the convent; sometimes the abbot had only an
allowance out of the convent estates; but always he had great power over
the property of the convent, and bad abbots are frequently accused of
wasting the property of the house, and enriching their relatives and
friends out of it. The abbots of some of the more important houses were
mitred abbots, and were summoned to Parliament. In the time of Henry VIII.
twenty-four abbots and the prior of Coventry had seats in the House of
Peers.[56]
The abbot did not live in common with his monks; he had a separate
establishment of his own within the precincts of the house, sometimes over
the entrance gate, called the Abbot's Lodgings.[57] He ate in his own
hall, slept in his own chamber, had a chapel, or oratory, for his private
devotions, and accommodation for a retinue of chaplains and servants. His
duty was to set to his monks an example of observance of the rule, to keep
them to its observance, to punish breaches of it, to attend the services
in church when not hindered by his other duties, to preach on holy days to
the people, to attend chapter and preach on the rule, to act as confessor
to the monks. But an abbot was also involved in many secular duties; there
were manors of his own, and of the convent's, far and near, which required
visiting; and these manors involved the abbot in all the numerous duties
which the feudal system devolved upon a lord towards his tenants, and
towards his feudal superior. The greater abbots were barons, and sometimes
were thus involved in such duties as those of justices in eyre, military
leaders of their vassals, peers of Parliament. Hospitality was one of the
great monastic virtues. The usual regulation in convents was that the
abbot should entertain all guests of gentle degree, while the convent
entertained all others. This again found abundance of occupation for my
lord abbot in performing all the offices of a courteous host, which seems
to have been done in a way becoming his character as a lord of wealth and
dignity; his table was bountifully spread, even if he chose to confine
himself to pulse and water; a band of wandering minstrels was always
welcome to the abbot's hall to entertain his gentle and fair guests; and
his falconer could furnish a cast of hawks, and his forester a leash of
hounds, and the lord abbot would not decline to ride by the river or into
his manor parks to witness and to share in the sport. In the Harl. MS.
1,527, at fol. 108 (?), is a picture of an abbot on horseback casting off
a hawk from his fist. A pretty little illustration of this abbatial
hospitality occurs in Marie's "Lay of Ywonec."[58] A baron and his family
are travelling in obedience to the royal summons, to keep one of the high
festivals at Caerleon. In the course of their journey they stop for a
night at a spacious abbey, where they are received with the greatest
hospitality. "The good abbot, for the sake of detaining his guests during
another day, exhibited to them the whole of the apartments, the dormitory,
the refectory, and the chapter-house, in which last they beheld a
splendid tomb covered with a superb pall fringed with gold, surrounded by
twenty waxen tapers in golden candlesticks, while a vast silver censer,
constantly burning, filled the air with fumes of incense."
[Illustration: _A Benedictine Abbot._]
An abbot's ordinary habit was the same as that of his monks. In the
processions which were made on certain great feasts he held his crosier,
and, if he were a mitred abbot, he wore his mitre: this was also his
parliamentary costume. We give on the opposite page a beautiful drawing of
a Benedictine abbot of St. Alban's, thus habited, from the _Catalogus
Benefactorum_ of that abbey. When the abbot celebrated high mass on
certain great festivals he wore the full episcopal costume. Thomas
Delamere, abbot of St. Alban's, is so represented in his magnificent
sepulchral brass in that abbey, executed in his lifetime, circa 1375 A.D.
Richard Bewferest, abbot of the Augustine canons of Dorchester,
Oxfordshire, has a brass in that church, date circa 1520 A.D.,
representing him in episcopal costume, bareheaded, with his staff; and in
the same church is an incised gravestone, representing Abbot Roger, circa
1510 A.D., in full episcopal vestments. Abbesses bore the crosier in
addition to the ordinal costume of their order; the sepulchral brass of
Elizabeth Harvey, abbess of the Benedictine Abbey of Elstow, Bedfordshire,
circa 1530 A.D., thus represents her, in the church of that place. Our
representation of a Benedictine abbess on the previous page is from the
fourteenth century MS. Royal, 2 B. vii.
[Illustration: _Benedictine Abbess and Nun._]
Under the abbot were a number of officials (_obedientiarii_), the chief of
whom were the Prior, Precentor, Cellarer, Sacrist, Hospitaller,
Infirmarer, Almoner, Master of the Novices, Porter, Kitchener, Seneschal,
&c. It was only in large monasteries that all these officers were to be
found; in the smaller houses one monk would perform the duties of several
offices. The officers seem to have been elected by the convent, subject to
the approval of the abbot, by whom they might be deposed. Some brief notes
of the duties of these obedientiaries will serve to give a considerable
insight into the economy of a convent. And first for the _Prior_:--
In some orders there was only one abbey, and all the other houses were
priories, as in the Clugniac, the Gilbertine, and in the Military and the
Mendicant orders. In all the orders there were abbeys, which had had
distant estates granted to them, on which either the donor had built a
house, and made it subject to the abbey; or the abbey had built a house
for the management of the estates, and the celebration of divine and
charitable offices upon them. These priories varied in size, from a mere
cell containing a prior and two monks, to an establishment as large as an
abbey; and the dignity and power of the prior varied from that of a mere
steward of the distant estate of the parent house, to that of an
autocratic head, only nominally dependent on the parent house, and himself
in everything but name an abbot.
The majority of the female houses of the various orders (except those
which were especially female orders, like the Brigittines, &c.) were kept
subject to some monastery, so that the superiors of these houses usually
bore only the title of prioress, though they had the power of an abbess in
the internal discipline of the house. One cannot forbear to quote at least
a portion of Chaucer's very beautiful description of his prioress, among
the Canterbury pilgrims:--
"That of her smiling ful simple was and coy."
She sang the divine service sweetly; she spoke French correctly, though
with an accent which savoured of the Benedictine convent at
Stratford-le-Bow, where she had been educated, rather than of Paris; she
behaved with lady-like delicacy at table; she was cheerful of mood, and
amiable; with a pretty affectation of courtly breeding, and a care to
exhibit a reverend stateliness becoming her office:--
"But for to speken of her conscience,
She was so charitable and so piteous,
She would wepe if that she saw a mouse
Caught in a trappe, if it were dead or bled;
Of smalé houndés had she that she fed
With rosted flesh, and milk, and wastel bread;
But sore wept she if one of them were dead,
Or if men smote it with a yerdé smerte;
And all was conscience and tendre herte.
Ful semély her wimple y-pinched was;
Her nose tretis,[59] her eyen grey as glass,
Her mouth full small, and thereto soft and red,
And sickerly she had a fayre forehed--
It was almost a spanné broad I trow,
And hardily she was not undergrow."[60]
Her habit was becoming; her beads were of red coral gauded with green, to
which was hung a jewel of gold, on which was--
"Written a crowned A,
And after, _Amor vincit omnia_.
Another nun also with her had she,
That was her chapelleine, and priestés three."
But in abbeys the chief of the obedientiaries was styled prior; and we
cannot, perhaps, give a better idea of his functions than by borrowing a
naval analogy, and calling him the abbot's first lieutenant; for, like
that officer in a ship, the prior at all times carried on the internal
discipline of the convent, and in the abbot's absence he was his
vicegerent; wielding all the abbot's powers, except those of making or
deposing obedientiaries and consecrating novices. He had a suite of
apartments of his own, called the prior's chamber, or the prior's lodging;
he could leave the house for a day or two on the business of the house,
and had horses and servants appropriated to his use; whenever he entered
the monks present rose out of respect; some little license in diet was
allowed him in refectory, and he might also have refreshment in his own
apartments; sometimes he entertained guests of a certain condition in his
prior's chamber. Neither the prior, nor any of the obedientiaries, wore
any distinctive dress or badge of office. In large convents he was
assisted by a sub-prior.
The _Sub-prior_ was the prior's deputy, sharing his duties in his
residence, and fulfilling them in his absences. The especial functions
appropriated to him seem to have been to say grace at dinner and supper,
to see that all the doors were locked at five in the evening, and keep the
keys until five next morning; and, by sleeping near the dormitory door,
and by making private search, to prevent wandering about at night. In
large monasteries there were additional sub-priors.
The _Chantor_, or _Precentor_, appears to come next in order and dignity,
since we are told that he was censed after the abbot and prior. He was
choir-master; taught music to the monks and novices; and arranged and
ruled everything which related to the conduct of divine service. His place
in church was in the middle of the choir on the right side; he held an
instrument in his hand, as modern leaders use a bâton; and his side of the
choir commenced the chant. He was besides librarian, and keeper of the
archives, and keeper of the abbey seal.
He was assisted by a _Succentor_, who sat on the left side of the choir,
and led that half of the choir in service. He assisted the chantor, and in
his absence undertook his duties.
The _Cellarer_ was in fact the steward of the house; his modern
representative is the bursar of a college. He had the care of everything
relating to the provision of the food and vessels of the convent. He was
exempt from the observance of some of the services in church; he had the
use of horses and servants for the fulfilment of his duties, and sometimes
he appears to have had separate apartments. The cellarer, as we have
said, wore no distinctive dress or badge; but in the _Catalogus
Benefactorum_ of St. Alban's there occurs a portrait of one "Adam
Cellarius," who for his distinguished merit had been buried among the
abbots in the chapter-house, and had his name and effigy recorded in the
_Catalogus_; he is holding two keys in one hand and a purse in the other,
the symbols of his office; and in his quaint features--so different from
those of the dignified abbot whom we have given from the same book--the
limner seems to have given us the type of a business-like and not ungenial
cellarer.
[Illustration: _Adam the Cellarer._]
The _Sacrist_, or _Sacristan_ (whence our word sexton), had the care and
charge of the fabric, and furniture, and ornaments of the church, and
generally of all the material appliances of divine service. He, or some
one in his stead, slept in a chamber built for him in the church, in order
to protect it during the night. There is such a chamber in St. Alban's
Abbey Church, engraved in the _Builder_ for August, 1856. There was often
a sub-sacrist to assist the sacrist in his duties.
The duty of the _Hospitaller_ was, as his name implies, to perform the
duties of hospitality on behalf of the convent. The monasteries received
all travellers to food and lodging for a day and a night as of right, and
for a longer period if the prior saw reason to grant it.[61] A special
hall was provided for the entertainment of these guests, and chambers for
their accommodation. The hospitaller performed the part of host on behalf
of the convent, saw to the accommodation of the guests who belonged to the
convent, introduced into the refectory strange priests or others who
desired and had leave to dine there, and ushered guests of degree to the
abbot to be entertained by him. He showed the church and house at suitable
times to guests whose curiosity prompted the desire.
Every abbey had an infirmary, which was usually a detached building with
its own kitchen and chapel, besides suitable apartments for the sick, and
for aged monks, who sometimes took up their permanent residence in the
infirmary, and were excused irksome duties, and allowed indulgences in
food and social intercourse. Not only the sick monks, but other sick folk
were received into the infirmary; it is a very common incident in mediæval
romances to find a wounded knight carried to a neighbouring monastery to
be healed. The officer who had charge of everything relating to this
department was styled the _Infirmarer_. He slept in the infirmary, was
excused from some of the "hours;" in the great houses had two brethren to
assist him besides the necessary servants, and often a clerk learned in
pharmacy as physician.
The _Almoner_ had charge of the distribution of the alms of the house.
Sometimes money was left by benefactors to be distributed to the poor
annually at their obits; the distribution of this was confided to the
almoner. One of his men attended in the abbot's chamber when he had
guests, to receive what alms they chose to give to the poor. Moneys
belonging to the convent were also devoted to this purpose; besides food
and drink, the surplus of the convent meals. He had assistants allowed him
to go and visit the sick and infirm folk of the neighbourhood. And at
Christmas he provided cloth and shoes for widows, orphans, poor clerks,
and others whom he thought to need it most.
The _Master of the Novices_ was a grave and learned monk, who
superintended the education of the youths in the schools of the abbey, and
taught the rule to those who were candidates for the monastic profession.
The _Porter_ was an officer of some importance; he was chosen for his age
and gravity; he had an apartment in the gate lodge, an assistant, and a
lad to run on his messages. But sometimes the porter seems to have been a
layman. And, in small houses and in nunneries, his office involved other
duties, which we have seen in great abbeys distributed among a number of
officials. Thus, in Marie's "Lay le Fraine," we read of the porter of an
abbey of nuns:--
"The porter of the abbey arose,
And did his office in the close;
Rung the bells, and tapers light,
Laid forth books and all ready dight.
The church door he undid," &c.;
and in the sequel it appears that he had a daughter, and therefore in all
probability was a layman.
The _Kitchener_, or _Cook_, was usually a monk, and, as his name implies,
he ruled in the kitchen, went to market, provided the meals of the house,
&c.
[Illustration: _Alan Middleton._]
The _Seneschal_ in great abbeys was often a layman of rank, who did the
secular business which the tenure of large estates, and consequently of
secular offices, devolved upon abbots and convents; such as holding
manorial courts, and the like. But there was, Fosbroke tells us, another
officer with the same name, but of inferior dignity, who did the convent
business of the prior and cellarer which was to be done out of the house;
and, when at home, carried a rod and acted as marshal of the guest-hall.
He had horses and servants allowed for the duties of his office; and at
the Benedictine Abbey of Winchcombe he had a robe of clerk's cloth once a
year, with lamb's fur for a supertunic, and for a hood of budge fur; he
had the same commons in hall as the cellarer, and £2 every year at
Michaelmas. Probably an officer of this kind was Alan Middleton, who is
recorded in the _Catalogus_ of St. Alban's as "collector of rents of the
obedientiaries of that monastery, and especially of those of the bursar."
_Prudenter in omnibus se agebat_, and so, deserving well of the house,
they put a portrait of him among their benefactors, clothed in a blue
robe, of "clerk's cloth" perhaps, furred at the wrists and throat with
"lamb's fur" or "budge fur;" a small tonsure shows that he had taken some
minor order, the penner and inkhorn at his girdle denote the nature of his
office; and he is just opening the door of one of the abbey tenants to
perform his unwelcome function. They were grateful men, these Benedictines
of St. Alban's; they have immortalised another of their inferior officers,
_Walterus de Hamuntesham, fidelis minister hujus ecclesiæ_, because on one
occasion he received a beating at the hands of the rabble of St.
Alban's--_inter villanos Sci Albani_--while standing up for the rights and
liberties of the church.
[Illustration: _Walter of Hamuntesham attacked by a Mob._]
Next in dignity after the obedientiaries come the _Cloister Monks_; of
these some had received holy orders at the hands of the bishop, some not.
Their number was limited. A cloister monk in a rich abbey seems to have
been something like in dignity to the fellow of a modern college, and a
good deal of interest was sometimes employed to obtain the admission of a
youth as a novice, with a view to his ultimately arriving at this
dignified degree. Next in order come the _Professed Brethren_. These seem
to be monks who had not been elected to the dignity of cloister monks;
some of them were admitted late in life. Those monks who had been brought
up in the house were called _nutriti_, those who came later in life
_conversi_; the lay brothers were also sometimes called _conversi_. There
were again the _Novices_, who were not all necessarily young, for a
_conversus_ passed through a noviciate; and even a monk of another order,
or of another house of their own order, and even a monk from a cell of
their own house, was reckoned among the novices. There were also the
_Chaplains_ of the abbot and other high officials; and frequently there
were other clerics living in the monastery, who served the chantries in
the abbey church, and the churches and chapels which belonged to the
monastery and were in its neighbourhood. Again, there were the _Artificers
and Servants_ of the monastery: millers, bakers, tailors, shoemakers,
smiths, and similar artificers, were often a part of a monastic
establishment. And there were numerous men-servants, grooms, and the like:
these were all under certain vows, and were kept under discipline. In the
Cistercian abbey of Waverley there were in 1187 A.D. seventy monks and one
hundred and twenty _conversi_, besides priests, clerks, servants, &c. In
the great Benedictine abbey of St. Edmund's Bury, in the time of Edward
I., there were eighty monks; fifteen chaplains attendant on the abbot and
chief officers; about one hundred and eleven servants in the various
offices, chiefly residing within the walls of the monastery; forty
priests, officiating in the several chapels, chantries, and monastic
appendages in the town; and an indefinite number of professed brethren.
The following notes will give an idea of the occupations of the servants.
In the time of William Rufus the servants at Evesham numbered--five in the
church, two in the infirmary, two in the cellar, five in the kitchen,
seven in the bakehouse, four brewers, four menders, two in the bath, two
shoemakers, two in the orchard, three gardeners, one at the cloister gate,
two at the great gate, five at the vineyard, four who served the monks
when they went out, four fishermen, four in the abbot's chamber, three in
the hall. At Salley Abbey, at the end of the fourteenth century, there
were about thirty-five servants, among whom are mentioned the shoemaker
and barber, the prior's chamberlain, the abbot's cook, the convent cook
and baker's mate, the baker, brewers, tailor, cowherd, waggoners, pages of
the kitchen, poultry-keeper, labourers, a keeper of animals and birds,
bailiffs, foresters, shepherds, smiths: there are others mentioned by
name, without a note of their office. But it was only a few of the larger
houses which had such numerous establishments as these; the majority of
the monasteries contained from five to twenty cloister monks. Some of the
monasteries were famous as places of education, and we must add to their
establishment a number of children of good family, and the learned clerks
or ladies who acted as tutors; thus the abbey of St. Mary, Winchester, in
1536, contained twenty-six nuns, five priests, thirteen lay sisters,
thirty-two officers and servants, and twenty-six children, daughters of
lords and knights, who were brought up in the house.
Lastly, there were a number of persons of all ranks and conditions who
were admitted to "fraternity." Among the Hospitallers (and probably it was
the same with the other orders) they took oath to love the house and
brethren, to defend the house from ill-doers, to enter that house if they
did enter any, and to make an annual present to the house. In return, they
were enrolled in the register of the house, they received the prayers of
the brethren, and at death were buried in the cemetery. Chaucer's
Dominican friar (p. 48), writes the names of those who gave him donations
in his "tables." In the following extract from Piers Ploughman's Creed, an
Austin friar promises more definitely to have his donors enrolled in the
fraternity of his house:--
"And gyf thou hast any good,
And will thyself helpen,
Help us herblich therewith.
And here I undertake,
Thou shalt ben brother of oure hous,
And a book habben,
At the next chapetre,
Clerliche enseled.
And then our provincial
Hath power to assoylen
Alle sustren and brethren
That beth of our ordre."
_Piers Ploughman's Creed_, p. 645.
In the book of St. Alban's, which we have before quoted, there is a list
of many persons, knights and merchants, ladies and children, vicars and
rectors, received _ad fraternitatem hujus monasterii_. In many cases
portraits of them are given: they are in the ordinary costume of their
time and class, without any badge of their monastic fraternisation.
Chaucer gives several sketches which enable us to fill out our realisation
of the monks, as they appeared outside the cloister associating with their
fellow-men. He includes one among the merry company of his Canterbury
pilgrims; and first in the Monk's Prologue, makes the Host address the
monk thus:--
"'My lord, the monk,' quod he ...
'By my trothe I can not tell youre name.
Whether shall I call you my Lord Dan John,
Or Dan Thomas, or elles Dan Albon?
Of what house be ye by your father kin?
I vow to God thou hast a full fair skin;
It is a gentle pasture ther thou goest,
Thou art not like a penaunt[62] or a ghost.
Upon my faith thou art some officer,
Some worthy sextern or some celerer.
For by my father's soul, as to my dome,
Thou art a maister when thou art at home;
No poure cloisterer, ne non novice,
But a governor both ware and wise.'"
Chaucer himself describes the same monk in his Prologue thus:--
"A monk there was, a fayre for the maisterie,
An out-rider that lovered venerie,[63]
A manly man to be an abbot able.
Ful many a dainty horse had he in stable;
And when he rode men might his bridle hear
Gingling in a whistling wind as clear,
And eke as loud as doth the chapel bell,
Whereas this lord was keeper of the cell.
The rule of Saint Maur and of Saint Benet,
Because that it was old and somedeal strait,
This ilke monk let olde thinges pace,
And held after the newe world the trace.
He gave not of the text a pulled hen,
That saith, that hunters been not holy men;
Ne that a monk, when he is regneless,[64]
Is like a fish that is waterless;
That is to say, a monk out of his cloister:
This ilke text he held not worth an oyster.
And I say his pinion was good.
Why should he study, and make himselven wood,
Upon a book in cloister alway to pore,
Or swinkin with his handis, and labour,
As Austin bid? How shall the world be served?
Therefore he was a prickasoure aright:
Greyhounds he had as swift as fowls of flight;
Of pricking and of hunting for the hare
Was all his lust, for no cost would he spare.
I saw his sleeves purfled at the hand
With gris, and that the finest of the land.
And for to fasten his hood under his chin
He had of gold y-wrought a curious pin:
A love-knot in the greater end there was.
* * * * *
His bootis supple, his horse in great estate;
Now certainly he was a fair prelate."
Again, in the "Shipman's Tale" we learn that such an officer had
considerable freedom, so that he was able to pay very frequent visits to
his friends. The whole passage is worth giving:--
"A marchant whilom dwelled at St. Denise,
That riche was, for which men held him wise.
* * * * *
This noble marchant held a worthy house,
For which he had all day so great repair
For his largesse, and for his wife was fair.
What wonder is? but hearken to my tale.
Amonges all these guestes great and small
There was a monk, a fair man and a bold,
I trow a thirty winters he was old,
That ever anon was drawing to that place.
This youngé monk that was so fair of face,
Acquainted was so with this goodé man,
Sithen that their firste knowledge began,
That in his house as familiar was he
As it possible is any friend to be.
And for as mochel as this goodé man,
And eke this monk, of which that I began,
Were bothé two y-born in one village,
The monk him claimeth as for cosinage;
And he again him said not onés nay,
But was as glad thereof, as fowl of day;
For to his heart it was a great plesaunce;
Thus ben they knit with eterne alliance,
And eche of them gan other for to ensure
Of brotherhood, while that life may endure."
Notwithstanding his vow of poverty, he was also able to make presents to
his friends, for the tale continues:--
"Free was Dan John, and namely of despence
As in that house, and full of diligence
To don plesaunce, and also great costage;
He not forgat to give the leaste page
In all that house, but, after their degree,
He gave the lord, and sithen his mennie,
When that he came, some manner honest thing;
For which they were as glad of his coming
As fowl is fain when that the sun upriseth."
Chaucer does not forget to let us know how it was that this monk came to
have such liberty and such command of means:--
"This noble monk, of which I you devise,
Hath of his abbot, as him list, licence
(Because he was a man of high prudence,
And eke an officer), out for to ride
To see their granges and their barnés wide."
CHAPTER VII.
THE MONASTERY.
We proceed next to give some account of the buildings which compose the
fabric of a monastery. And first as to the site. The orders of the
Benedictine family preferred sites as secluded and remote from towns and
villages as possible. The Augustinian orders did not cultivate seclusion
so strictly; their houses are not unfrequently near towns and villages,
and sometimes a portion of their conventual church--the nave,
generally--formed the parish church. The Friaries, Colleges of secular
canons, and Hospitals, were generally in or near the towns. There is a
popular idea that the monks chose out the most beautiful and fertile spots
in the kingdom for their abodes. A little reflection would show that the
choice of the site of a new monastery must be confined within the limits
of the lands which the founder was pleased to bestow upon the convent.
Sometimes the founder gave a good manor, and gave money besides, to help
to build the house upon it; sometimes what was given was a tract of
unreclaimed land, upon which the first handful of monks squatted like
settlers in a new country. Even the settled land, in those days, was only
half cultivated; and on good land, unreclaimed or only half reclaimed, the
skill and energy of a company of first-rate farmers would soon produce
great results; barren commons would be dotted over with sheep, and rushy
valleys would become rich pastures covered with cattle, and great
clearings in the forest would grow green with rye and barley. The revenues
of the monastic estates would rapidly augment; little of them would be
required for the coarse dress and frugal fare of the monks; they did not,
like the lay landowners, spend them on gilded armour and jewelled robes,
and troops of armed retainers, and tournaments, and journeys to court;
and so they had enough for plentiful charity and unrestricted hospitality,
and the surplus they spent upon those magnificent buildings whose very
ruins are among the architectural glories of the land. The Cistercians had
an especial rule that their houses should be built on the lowest possible
sites, in token of humility; but it was the general custom in the Middle
Ages to choose low and sheltered sites for houses which were not
especially intended as strongholds, and therefore it is that we find
nearly all monasteries in sheltered spots. To the monks the neighbourhood
of a stream was of especial importance: when headed up it supplied a pond
for their fish, and water-power for their corn-mill. If, therefore, there
were within the limits of their domain a quiet valley with a rivulet
running through it, that was the site which the monks would select for
their house. And here, beside the rivulet, in the midst of the green
pasture land of the valley dotted with sheep and kine, shut in from the
world by the hills, whose tops were fringed with the forest which
stretched for miles around, the stately buildings of the monastery would
rise year after year; the cloister court, and the great church, and the
abbot's lodge, and the numerous offices, all surrounded by a stone wall
with a stately gate-tower, like a goodly walled town, and a suburban
hamlet of labourers' and servants' cottages sheltering beneath its walls.
There was a certain plan for the arrangement of the principal buildings of
a monastery, which, with minor variations, was followed by nearly all the
monastic orders, except the Carthusians. These latter differed from the
other orders in this, that each monk had his separate cell, in which he
lived, and ate, and slept apart from the rest, the whole community meeting
only in church and chapter.[65] Our limits will not permit us to enter
into exceptional arrangements.
The nucleus of a monastery was the cloister court. It was a quadrangular
space of green sward, around which were arranged the cloister buildings,
viz., the church, the chapter-house, the refectory, and the dormitory.[66]
The court was called the Paradise--the blessed garden in which the inmates
passed their lives of holy peace. A porter was often placed at the
cloister-gate, and the monks might not quit its seclusion, nor strangers
enter to disturb its quiet, save under exceptional circumstances.
The cloister-court had generally, though it is doubtful whether it was
always the case, a covered ambulatory round its four sides. The
ambulatories of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries have usually an open
arcade on the side facing the court, which supports the groined roof. In
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, instead of an open arcade, we
usually find a series of large traceried windows, tolerably close
together; in many cases they were glazed, sometimes with painted glass,
and formed doubtless a grand series of scriptural or historical paintings.
The blank wall opposite was also sometimes painted. This covered
ambulatory was not merely a promenade for the monks; it was the place in
which the convent assembled regularly every day, at certain hours, for
study and meditation; and in some instances (_e.g._, at Durham) a portion
of it was fitted up with little wooden closets for studies for the elder
monks, with book-cupboards in the wall opposite for books. The monks were
sometimes buried in the cloister, either under the turf in the open
square, or beneath the pavement of the ambulatory. There was sometimes a
fountain at the corner of the cloister, or on its south side near the
entrance to the refectory, at which the monks washed before meals.
The church was always the principal building of a monastery. Many of them
remain entire, though despoiled of their shrines, and tombs, and altars,
and costly furniture, and many more remain in ruins, and they fill us with
astonishment at their magnitude and splendour. Our existing cathedrals
were, in fact, abbey churches; nine or ten of them were the churches of
Benedictine monasteries, the remainder of secular Augustines. But these,
the reader may imagine, had the wealth of bishops and the offerings of
dioceses lavished upon them, and may not be therefore fair examples of
ordinary abbey churches. But some of them originally were ordinary abbey
churches, and were subsequently made Episcopal sees, such as Beverley,
Gloucester, Christ Church Oxford, and Peterborough, which were originally
Benedictine abbey churches; Bristol was the church of a house of regular
canons; Ripon was the church of a college of secular canons. The
Benedictine churches of Westminster and St. Alban's, and the collegiate
church of Southwell, are equal in magnitude and splendour to any of the
cathedrals; and the ruins of Fountains, and Tintern, and Netley, show that
the Cistercians equalled any of the other orders in the magnitude and
beauty of their churches.
It is indeed hard to conceive that communities of a score or two of monks
should have built such edifices as Westminster and Southwell as private
chapels attached to their monasteries. And this, though it is one aspect
of the fact, is not the true one. They did not build them for private
chapels to say their daily prayers in; they built them for temples in
which they believed that the Eternal and Almighty condescended to dwell;
to whose contemplation and worship they devoted their lives. They did not
think of the church as an appendage to their monastery, but of their
monastery as an appendage to the church. The cloister, under the shadow
and protection of the church, was the court of the Temple, in which its
priests and Levites dwelt.
The church of a monastery was almost always a cross church, with a nave
and aisles; a central tower (in Cistercian churches the tower was only to
rise one story above the roof); transepts, which usually have three
chapels on the north side of each transept, or an aisle divided into three
chapels by parclose screens; a choir with or without aisles; a
retro-choir or presbytery; and often a Lady chapel, east of the
presbytery, or in some instances parallel with the choir.
The entrance for the monks was usually on the south side opposite to the
eastern alley of the cloisters; there was also in Cistercian churches, and
in some others, a newel stair in the south transept, by means of which the
monks could descend from their dormitory (which was in the upper story of
the east side of the cloister court) into the church for the night
services, without going into the open air. The principal entrance for the
laity was on the north side, and was usually provided with a porch. The
great western entrance was chiefly used for processions; the great
entrance gate in the enclosure wall of the abbey being usually opposite to
it or nearly so. In several instances stones have been found, set in the
pavements of the naves of conventual churches, to mark the places where
the different members of the convent were to stand before they issued
forth in procession, amidst the tolling of the great bell, with cross and
banner, and chanted psalms, to meet the abbot at the abbey-gate, on his
return from an absence, or any person to whom it was fitting that the
convent should show such honour.
[Illustration: _A Semi-choir of Franciscan Friars._]
The internal arrangements of an abbey-church were very nearly like those
of our cathedrals. The convent occupied the stalls in the choir; the place
of the abbot was in the first stall on the right-hand (south) side to one
entering from the west--it is still appropriated to the dean in
cathedrals; in the corresponding stall on the other side sat the prior;
the precentor sat in the middle stall on the right or south side; the
succentor in the middle stall on the north side.
The beautiful little picture of a semi-choir of Franciscan friars on the
opposite page is from a fourteenth-century psalter in the British Museum
(Domitian, A. 17). It is from a large picture, which gives a beautiful
representation of the interior of the choir of the church. The picture is
worth careful examination for the costume of the friars--grey frock and
cowl, with knotted cord girdle and sandalled feet; some wearing the hood
drawn over the head, some leaving it thrown back on the neck and
shoulders; one with his hands folded under his sleeves like the
Cistercians at p. 17. The precentor may be easily distinguished in the
middle stall beating time, with an air of leadership. There is much
character in all the faces and attitudes--_e.g._, in the withered old face
on the left, with his cowl pulled over his ears to keep off the draughts,
or the one on the precentor's left, a rather burly friar, evidently
singing bass.[67] On the next page is an engraving from the same MS. of a
similar semi-choir of minoresses, which also is only a portion of a large
church interior.
[Illustration: _A Semi-choir of Minoresses._]
When there was a shrine of a noted saint[68] it was placed in the
presbytery, behind the high-altar; and here, and in the choir aisles, were
frequently placed the monuments of the abbots, and of founders and
distinguished benefactors of the house; sometimes heads of the house and
founders were buried in the chapter-house.
It would require a more elaborate description than our plan will admit to
endeavour to bring before the mind's-eye of the reader one of these abbey
churches before its spoliation;--when the sculptures were unmutilated and
the paintings fresh, and the windows filled with their stained glass, and
the choir hung with hangings, and banners and tapestries waved from the
arches of the triforium, and the altar shone gloriously with jewelled
plate, and the monuments[69] of abbots and nobles were still perfect, and
the wax tapers burned night and day[70] in the hearses, throwing a
flickering light on the solemn effigies below, and glancing upon the
tarnished armour and the dusty banners[71] which hung over the tombs,
while the cowled monks sat in their stalls and prayed. Or when, on some
high festival, the convent walked round the lofty aisles in procession,
two and two, clad in rich copes over their coarse frocks, preceded by
cross and banner, with swinging censers pouring forth clouds of incense,
while one of those angelic boy's voices which we still sometimes hear in
cathedrals chanted the solemn litany--the pure sweet ringing voice
floating along the vaulted aisles, until it was lost in the swell of the
chorus of the whole procession--_Ora! Ora! Ora! pro nobis!_
* * * * *
The Cloister was usually situated on the south side of the nave of the
church, so that the nave formed its north side, and the south transept a
part of its eastern side; but sometimes, from reasons of local
convenience, the cloister was on the north side of the nave, and then the
relative positions of the other buildings were similarly transposed.
The Chapter-house was always on the east side of the court. In
establishments of secular canons it seems to have been always
multi-sided[72] with a central pillar to support its groining, and a
lofty, conical, lead-covered roof. In these instances it is placed in the
open space eastward of the cloister, and is usually approached by a
passage from the east side of the cloister court. In the houses of all the
other orders[73] the chapter-house is rectangular, even where the church
is a cathedral. Usually, then, the chapter-house is a rectangular building
on the east side of the cloister, and its longest axis is east and west;
at Durham it has an eastern apse.[74] It was a large and handsome room,
with a good deal of architectural ornament;[75] often the western end of
it is divided off as a vestibule or ante-room; and generally it is so
large as to be divided into two or three aisles by rows of pillars.
Internally, rows of stalls or benches were arranged round the walls for
the convent; there was a higher seat at the east end for the abbot or
prior, and a desk in the middle from which certain things were read. Every
day after the service called Terce, the convent walked in procession from
the choir to the chapter-house, and took their proper places. When the
abbot had taken his place, the monks descended one step and bowed; he
returned their salutation, and all took their seats. A sentence of the
rule of the order was read by one of the novices from the desk, and the
abbot, or in his absence the prior, delivered an explanatory or hortatory
sermon upon it; then from another portion of the book was read the names
of brethren, and benefactors, and persons who had been received into
fraternity, whose decease had happened on that day of the year; and the
convent prayed a _requiescant in pace_ for their souls, and the souls of
all the faithful departed this life. Then members of the convent who had
been guilty of slight breaches of discipline confessed them, kneeling upon
a low stool in the middle, and on a bow from the abbot, intimating his
remission of the breach, they resumed their seats. If any had a complaint
to make against any brother, it was here made and adjudged.[76] Convent
business was also transacted. The woodcut gives an example of the kind.
Henry VII. had made grants to Westminster Abbey, on condition that the
convent should perform certain religious services on his behalf;[77] and
in order that the services should not fall into disuse, he directed that
yearly, at a certain period, the chief-justice, or the king's attorney, or
the recorder of London, should attend in chapter, and the abstract of the
grant and agreement between the king and the convent should be read. The
grant which was thus to be read still exists in the British Museum; it is
written in a volume superbly bound, with the royal seals attached in
silver cases; it is from the illuminated letter at the head of one of the
deeds in this book[78] that our woodcut is taken. It rudely represents the
chapter-house, with the chief-justice and a group of lawyers on one side,
the abbot and convent on the other, and a monk reading the grant from the
desk in the middle.
[Illustration: _Monks and Lawyers in Chapter-house._]
Lydgate's "Life of St. Edmund" (Harl. 2,278) was written A.D. 1433, by
command of his abbot--he was a monk of St. Edmund's Bury--on the occasion
of King Henry VI. being received--
"Of their chapter a brother for to be;"
that is, to the fraternity of the house. An illumination on f. 6 seems to
represent the king sitting in the abbot's place in the chapter-house, with
royal officers behind him, monks in their places on each side of the
chapter-house, the lectern in the middle, and a group of clerks at the
west end. It is probably intended as a picture of the scene of the king's
being received to fraternity.
Adjoining the south transept is usually a narrow apartment; the
description of Durham, drawn up soon after the Dissolution, says that it
was the "Locutory." Another conjecture is that it may have been the
vestry. At Netley it has a door at the west, with a trefoil light over it,
a two-light window at the east, two niches, like monumental niches, in its
north and south walls, and a piscina at the east end of its south wall.
Again, between this and the chapter-house is often found a small
apartment, which some have conjectured to be the penitential cell. In
other cases it seems to be merely a passage from the cloister-court to the
space beyond; in which space the abbot's lodging is often situated, so
that it may have been the abbot's entrance to the church and chapter.
In Cistercian houses there is usually another long building south of the
chapter-house, its axis running north and south. This was perhaps in its
lower story the Frater-house, a room to which the monks retired after
refection to converse, and to take their allowance of wine, or other
indulgences in diet which were allowed to them; and some quotations in
Fosbroke would lead us to imagine that the monks dined here on feast days.
It would answer to the great chamber of mediæval houses, and in some
respects to the Combination-room[79] of modern colleges. The upper story
of this building was probably the Dormitory. This was a long room, with a
vaulted or open timber roof, in which the pallets were arranged in rows on
each side against the wall. The prior or sub-prior usually slept in the
dormitory, with a light burning near him, in order to maintain order. The
monks slept in the same habits[80] which they wore in the day-time.
About the middle of the south side of the court, in Cistercian houses,
there is a long room, whose longer axis lies north and south, with a
smaller room on each side of it, which was probably the Refectory. In
other houses, the refectory forms the south side of the cloister court,
lying parallel with the nave of the church. Very commonly it has a row of
pillars down the centre, to support the groined roof. It was arranged,
like all mediæval halls, with a dais at the upper end and a screen at the
lower. In place of the oriel window of mediæval halls, there was a pulpit,
which was often in the embrasure of a quasi-oriel window, in which one of
the brethren read some edifying book during meals.
The remaining apartments of the cloister-court it is more difficult to
appropriate. In some of the great Cistercian houses whose ground-plan can
be traced--as Fountains, Salley, Netley, &c.--possibly the long apartment
which is found on the west side of the cloister was the hall of the
Hospitium, with chambers over it. Another conjecture is, that it was the
house of the lay brethren.
In the uncertainty which at present exists on these points of monastic
arrangement, we cannot speak with any degree of certainty; but we throw
together some data on the subject in the subjoined note.[81]
The Scriptorium is said to have been usually over the chapter-house. It
was therefore a large apartment, capable of containing many persons, and,
in fact, many persons did work together in it in a very business-like
manner at the transcription of books. For example, William, Abbot of
Herschau, in the eleventh century, as stated by his biographer: "Knowing,
what he had learned by laudable experience, that sacred reading is the
necessary food of the mind, made twelve of his monks very excellent
writers, to whom he committed the office of transcribing the holy
Scriptures, and the treatises of the Fathers. Besides these, there were an
indefinite number of other scribes, who wrought with equal diligence on
the transcription of other books. Over them was a monk well versed in all
kinds of knowledge, whose business it was to appoint some good work as a
task for each, and to correct the mistakes of those who wrote
negligently."[82] The general chapter of the Cistercian order, held in
A.D. 1134, directs that the same silence should be maintained in the
scriptorium as in the cloister. Sometimes perhaps little separate studies
of wainscot were made round this large apartment, in which the writers sat
at their desks. Sometimes this literary work was carried on in the
cloister, which, being glazed, would be a not uncomfortable place in
temperate weather, and a very comfortable place in summer, with its
coolness and quiet, and the peep through its windows on the green court
and the fountain in the centre, and the grey walls of the monastic
buildings beyond; the slow footfall of a brother going to and fro, and the
cawing of the rooks in the minster tower, would add to the dreamy charm of
such a library.[83]
Odo, Abbot of St. Martin's, at Tournay, about 1093, "used to exult in the
number of writers the Lord had given him; for if you had gone into the
cloister you might in general have seen a dozen young monks sitting on
chairs in perfect silence, writing at tables carefully and artificially
constructed. All Jerome's commentaries on the Prophets, all the works of
St. Gregory, and everything that he could find of St. Augustine, Ambrose,
Isodore, Bede, and the Lord Anselm, then Abbot of Bec, and afterwards
Archbishop of Canterbury, he caused to be transcribed. So that you would
scarcely have found such a monastery in that part of the country, and
everybody was begging for our copies to correct their own." Sometimes
little studies of wainscot were erected in the cloisters for the monks to
study or transcribe in. At Gloucester Cathedral, at Beaulieu, and at
Melrose, for example, there are traces of the way in which the windows of
the cloisters were enclosed and turned into such studies.[84]
[Illustration: _Monk in Scriptorium._]
There are numerous illuminations representing monks and ecclesiastics
writing; they sit in chairs of various kinds, some faldstools, some armed
chairs, some armed backed; and they have desks and bookstands before them
of various shapes, commonly a stand with sloping desk like a Bible
lectern, not unfrequently a kind of dumb-waiter besides on which are
several books. We see also in these illuminations the forms of the pens,
knives, inkstands, &c., which were used. We will only mention two of
unusual interest. One is in a late fourteenth-century Psalter, Harl.
2,897, at p. 186, v., where St. Jude sits writing his Epistle in a
canopied chair, with a shelf across the front of the chair to serve as a
desk; a string with a weight at the end holds his parchment down, and
there is a bench beside, on which lies a book. A chair with a similar
shelf is at f. 12 of the MS. Egerton, 1,070. Our woodcut on the preceding
page is from a MS. in the Library of Soissons. We also find
representations of ecclesiastics writing in a small cell which may
represent the enclosed scriptoria--_e.g._ St. Bonaventine writing, in the
MS. Harl. 3,229; St. John painting, in the late fifteenth-century MS. Add.
15,677, f. 35.
The Abbot's Lodging sometimes formed a portion of one of the monastic
courts, as at St. Mary, Bridlington, where it formed the western side of
the cloister-court; but more usually it was a detached house, precisely
similar to the contemporary unfortified houses of laymen of similar rank
and wealth. No particular site relative to the monastic buildings was
appropriated to it; it was erected wherever was most convenient within the
abbey enclosure. The principal rooms of an abbot's house are the Hall, the
Great Chamber, the Kitchen, Buttery, Cellars, &c., the Chambers, and the
Chapel. We must remember that the abbots of the greater houses were
powerful noblemen; the abbots of the smaller houses were equal in rank and
wealth to country gentlemen. They had a very constant succession of noble
and gentle guests, whose entertainment was such as their rank and habits
required. This involved a suitable habitation and establishment; and all
this must be borne in mind when we endeavour to picture to ourselves an
abbot's lodging. To give an idea of the magnitude of some of the abbots'
houses, we may record that the hall of the Abbot of Fountains was divided
by two rows of pillars into a centre and aisles, and that it was 170 feet
long by 70 feet wide.[85] Half a dozen noble guests, with their retinues
of knights and squires, and men-at-arms and lacqueys, and all the abbot's
men to boot, would be lost in such a hall. On the great feast-days it
might, perhaps, be comfortably filled. But even such a hall would hardly
contain the companies who were sometimes entertained, on such great days
for instance as an abbot's installation-day, when it is on record that an
abbot of one of the greater houses would give a feast to three or four
thousand people.
Of the lodgings of the superiors of smaller houses, we may take that of
the Prior of St. Mary's, Bridlington, as an example. It is very accurately
described by King Henry's commissioners; it formed the west side of the
cloister-court; it contained a hall with an undercroft, eighteen paces
long from the screen to the dais,[86] and ten paces wide; on its north
side a great chamber, twenty paces long and nineteen wide; at the west end
of the great chamber the prior's sleeping-chamber, and over that a garret;
on the east side of the same chamber a little chamber and a closet; at the
south end of the hall the buttery and pantry, and a chamber called the
Auditor's Chamber; at the same end of the hall a fair parlour, called the
Low Summer Parlour; and over it another fair chamber; and adjoining that
three little chambers for servants; at the south end of the hall the
Prior's Kitchen, with three houses covered with lead, and adjoining it a
chamber called the South Cellarer's Chamber.[87]
[Illustration: _A Present of Fish._]
There were several other buildings of a monastery, which were sometimes
detached, and placed as convenience dictated. The Infirmary especially
seems to have been more commonly detached; in many cases it had its own
kitchen, and refectory, and chapel, and chambers, which sometimes were
arranged round a court, and formed a complete little separate
establishment.
The Hospitium, or Guest-house, was sometimes detached; but more usually
it seems to have formed a portion of an outer court, westward of the
cloister-court, which court was entered from the great gates, or from one
of the outer gates of the abbey. In Cistercian houses, as we have said,
the guest-house, with its hall below and its chambers above, perhaps
occupied the west side of the cloister-court, and would therefore form the
eastern range of buildings of this outer court. At St. Mary's,
Bridlington, where the prior's lodging occupied this position, the
"lodgings and stables for strangers" were on the north side of this outer
court. The guest-houses were often of great extent and magnificence. The
Guesten-hall of St. Augustine's, Canterbury, still remains, and is a very
noble building, 150 feet long by 50 broad, of Norman date, raised on an
undercroft. The Guesten-hall of Worcester also remains, a very noble
building on an undercroft, with a fine carved timber roof, and portions of
the painting which decorated the wall behind the dais still visible.[88]
Besides the hall, the guest-house contained often a great-chamber
(answering to our modern drawing-room) and sleeping-chambers, and a
chapel, in which service was performed for guests--for in those days it
was the custom always to hear prayers before dinner and supper.
Thus, at Durham, we are told that "a famous house of hospitality was kept
within the abbey garth, called the Guest-hall, and was situate in the west
side, towards the water. The sub-prior of the house was the master
thereof, as one appointed to give entertainment to all estates, noble,
gentle, or what other degree soever, came thither as strangers. Their
entertainment was not inferior to that of any place in England, both for
the goodness of their diet, the clean and neat furniture of their
lodgings, and generally all things necessary for travellers; and, with
this entertainment, no man was required to depart while he continued
honest and of good behaviour. This hall was a stately place, not unlike
the body of a church, supported on each side by very fine pillars, and in
the midst of the hall a long range for the fire. The chambers and lodgings
belonging to it were kept very clean and richly furnished." At St. Albans,
the Guest-house was an enormous range of rooms, with stabling for three
hundred horses.
There is a passage in the correspondence of Coldingham Priory (published
by the Surties Society, 1841, p. 52) which gives us a graphic sketch of
the arrival of guests at a monastery:--"On St. Alban's-day, June 17 [year
not given--it was towards the end of Edward III.], two monks, with a
company of certain secular persons, came riding into the gateway of the
monastery about nine o'clock in the morning. This day happened to be
Sunday, but they were hospitably and reverently received, had lodgings
assigned them, a special mass service performed for them, and after a
refection and washing their feet, it being supposed that they were about
to pursue their journey to London the next morning, they were left at an
early hour to take repose. While the bell was summoning the rest of the
brotherhood to vespers, the monk who had been in attendance upon them (the
hospitaller) having gone with the rest to sing his chant in the choir, the
secular persons appear to have asked the two monks to take a walk with
them to look at the Castle of Durham," &c.[89]
There could hardly have been any place in the Middle Ages which could have
presented such a constant succession of picturesque scenes as the
Hospitium of a monastery. And what a contrast must often have existed
between the Hospitium and the Cloister. Here a crowd of people of every
degree--nobles and ladies, knights and dames, traders with their wares,
minstrels with their songs and juggling tricks, monks and clerks, palmers,
friars, beggars--bustling about the court or crowding the long tables of
the hall; and, a few paces off, the dark-frocked monks, with faces buried
in their cowls, pacing the ambulatory in silent meditation, or sitting at
their meagre refection, enlivened only by the monotonous sound of the
novice's voice reading a homily from the pulpit!
Many of the remaining buildings of the monastery were arranged around this
outer court. Ingulphus tells us that the second court of the Saxon
monastery of Croyland (about 875 A.D.) had the gate on the north, and the
almonry near it--a very usual position for it; the shops of the tailors
and shoe-makers, the hall of the novices, and the abbot's lodgings on the
east; the guest-hall and its chambers on the south; and the stable-house,
and granary, and bake-house on the west. The Gate-house was usually a
large and handsome tower, with the porter's lodge on one side of the
arched entrance; and often a strong room on the other, which served as the
prison of the manor-court of the convent; and often a handsome room over
the entrance, in which the manorial court was held. In the middle of the
court was often a stone cross, round which markets and fairs were often
held.
In the "Vision of Piers Ploughman" an interesting description is given of
a Dominican convent of the fourteenth century. We will not trouble the
reader with the very archaic original, but will give him a paraphrase of
it. The writer says that, on approaching, he was so bewildered by their
magnitude and beauty, that for a long time he could distinguish nothing
certainly but stately buildings of stone, pillars carved and painted, and
great windows well wrought. In the quadrangle he notices the cross
standing in the centre, surrounded with tabernacle-work: he enters the
minster (church), and describes the arches carved and gilded, the wide
windows full of shields of arms and merchants' marks on stained glass, the
high tombs under canopies, with armed effigies in alabaster, and lovely
ladies lying by their sides in many gay garments. He passes into the
cloister and sees it pillared and painted, and covered with lead and paved
with tiles, and conduits of white metal pouring their water into latten
(bronze) lavatories beautifully wrought. The chapter-house he says was
wrought like a great church, carved and painted like a parliament-house.
Then he went into the fratry, and found it a hall fit for a knight and his
household, with broad boards (tables) and clean benches, and windows
wrought as in a church. Then he wandered all about--
"And seigh halles ful heigh, and houses ful noble,
Chambres with chymneys, and chapeles gaye,
And kychenes for an high kynge in castels to holden,
And their dortoure ydight with dores ful stronge,
Fermerye, and fraitur, with fele more houses,
And all strong stone wall, sterne opon heithe,
With gay garites and grete, and ich whole yglazed,
And other houses ynowe to herberwe the queene."
The churches of the friars differed from those of monks. They were
frequently composed either of a nave only or a nave and two (often very
narrow) aisles, without transepts, or chapels, or towers; they were
adapted especially for preaching to large congregations--_e.g._ the Austin
Friars' Church in the City of London, lately restored; St. Andrew's Hall,
Norwich. In Viollet le Duc's "Dictionary of Architecture" is given a
bird's-eye view of the monastery of the Augustine Friars of St. Marie des
Vaux Verts, near Brussels, which is a complete example of one of these
houses.[90]
Every monastery had a number of dependent establishments of greater or
less size: cells on its distant estates; granges on its manors; chapels in
places where the abbey tenants were at a distance from a church; and often
hermitages under its protection. A ground-plan and view of one of these
cells, the Priory of St. Jean-les-Bons-hommes, of the end of the twelfth
century, still remaining in a tolerably perfect state, is given by Viollet
le Duc (Dict Arch., i. 276, 277). It is a miniature monastery, with a
little cloistered court, surrounded by the usual buildings: an oratory on
the north side; on the east a sacristy, and chapter-house, and long range
of buildings, with dormitory over; on the south side the refectory and
kitchen; and another exterior court, with stables and offices. The
preceptory of Hospitallers at Chibburn, Northumberland, which remains
almost as the knights left it, is another example of these small rural
houses. It is engraved in Turner's "Domestic Architecture," vol. ii. p.
197. It also consists of a small court, with a chapel about forty-five
feet long, on the west side; and other buildings, which we cannot
appropriate, on the remaining sides. Of the monastic cells we have already
spoken in describing the office of prior. The one or two brethren who were
placed in a cell to manage the distant estates of the monastery would
probably be chosen rather for their qualities as prudent stewards than
for their piety. The command of money which their office gave them, and
their distance from the supervision of their ecclesiastical superiors,
brought them under temptation, and it is probably in these cells, and
among the brethren who superintended the granges, and the officials who
could leave the monastery at pleasure on the plea of convent business,
that we are to look for the irregularities of which the Middle-Age
satirists speak. The monk among Chaucer's "Canterbury Pilgrims" was prior
of a cell, for we read that--
"When he rode, men might his bridel here
Gingeling in a whistling sound, as clere
And eke as loud _as doth the chapelle belle,
Ther as this lord was keeper of the celle_."
The monk on whose intrigue "The Shipman's Tale" is founded, was probably
the cellarer of his convent:--
"This noble monk of which I you devise,
Had of his abbot, as him list, licence;
Because he was a man of high prudence,
And eke an officer, out for to ride
To seen his granges and his bernes wide."
[Illustration: _An Abbot travelling._]
The abbot, too, sometimes gave license to the monks to go and see their
friends, or to pass two or three days at one or other of the manors of
the house for recreation; and sometimes he took a monk with him on his
own journeys. In a MS. romance, in the British Museum (Add. 10,293, f.
11), is a representation of a monk with his hood on, journeying on
horseback. We give here, from the St. Alban's Book (Nero, D. vii.), a
woodcut of an abbot on horseback, with a hat over his hood--"an abbot on
an ambling pad;" he is giving his benediction in return to the salute of
some passing traveller.
Hermitages or anchorages sometimes depended on a monastery, and were not
necessarily occupied by brethren of the monastery, but by any one desirous
to embrace this mode of life whom the convent might choose. The hermit,
however, probably, usually wore the habit of the order. The monastery
often supplied the hermit with his food. In a picture in the MS. romance,
before quoted (Add. 10,292, f. 98), is a representation of a knight-errant
on horseback, conversing by the way with a clerk, who is carrying bread
and wine to a hermitage.
The woodcut with which we conclude, from the Harleian MS., 1,527,
represents the characteristic costume of three orders of religious with
whom we have been concerned--a bishop, an abbot, and a clerk.
[Illustration: _Bishop, Abbot, and Clerk._]
THE HERMITS AND RECLUSES OF THE MIDDLE AGES.
CHAPTER I.
THE HERMITS.
We have already related, in a former chapter (p. 3), that the ascetics who
abandoned the stirring world of the Ægypto-Greek cities, and resorted to
the Theban desert to lead a life of self-mortification and contemplation,
frequently associated themselves into communities, and thus gave rise to
the coenobitical orders of Christendom. But there were others who still
preferred the solitary life; and they had their imitators in every age and
country of the Christian world. We have not the same fulness of
information respecting these solitaries that we have respecting the great
orders of monks and friars; but the scattered notices which remain of
them, when brought together, form a very curious chapter in the history of
human nature, well worthy of being written out in full. The business of
the present paper, however, is not to write the whole chapter, but only to
select that page of it which relates to the English solitaries, and to
give as distinct a picture as we can of the part which the Hermits and
Recluses played on the picturesque stage of the England of the Middle
Ages.
We have to remember, at the outset, that it was not all who bore the name
of Eremite who lived a solitary life. We have already had occasion to
mention that Innocent IV., in the middle of the thirteenth century, found
a number of small religious communities and solitaries, who were not in
any of the recognised religious orders, and observed no authorised rule;
and that he enrolled them all into a new order, with the rule of St.
Augustine, under the name of Eremiti Augustini. The new order took root,
and flourished, and gave rise to a considerable number of large
communities, very similar in every respect to the communities of friars of
the three orders previously existing. The members of these new communities
did not affect seclusion, but went about among the people, as the
Dominicans, and Franciscans, and Carmelites did. The popular tongue seems
to have divided the formal title of the new order, and to have applied the
name of _Augustine_, or, popularly, _Austin Friars_, to these new
communities of friars; while it reserved the distinctive name of
_Eremites_, or Hermits, for the religious, who, whether they lived
absolutely alone, or in little aggregations of solitaries, still professed
the old eremitical principle of seclusion from the world. These hermits
may again be subdivided into Hermits proper, and Recluses. The difference
between them was this: that the hermit, though he professed a general
seclusion from the world, yet, in fact, held communication with his
fellow-men as freely as he pleased, and might go in and out of his
hermitage as inclination prompted, or need required; the recluse was
understood to maintain a more strict abstinence from unnecessary
intercourse with others, and had entered into a formal obligation not to
go outside the doors of his hermitage. In the imperfect notices which we
have of them, it is often impossible to determine whether a particular
individual was a hermit or a recluse; but we incline to the opinion that
of the male solitaries few had taken the vows of reclusion; while the
female solitaries appear to have been all recluses. So that, practically,
the distinction almost amounts to this--that the male solitaries were
hermits, and the females recluses.
Very much of what we have to say of the mediæval solitaries, of their
abodes, and of their domestic economy, applies both to those who had, and
to those who had not, made the further vow of reclusion. We shall,
therefore, treat first of those points which are common to them, and then
devote a further paper to those things which are peculiar to the recluses.
* * * * *
The popular idea of a hermit is that of a man who was either a half-crazed
enthusiast, or a misanthrope--a kind of Christian Timon--who abandoned the
abodes of men, and scooped out for himself a cave in the rocks, or built
himself a rude hut in the forest; and lived there a half-savage life, clad
in sackcloth or skins,[91] eating roots and wild fruits, and drinking of
the neighbouring spring; visited occasionally by superstitious people, who
gazed and listened in fear at the mystic ravings, or wild denunciations,
of the gaunt and haggard prophet. This ideal has probably been derived
from the traditional histories, once so popular,[92] of the early
hermit-saints; and there may have been, perhaps, always an individual or
two of whom this traditional picture was a more or less exaggerated
representation. But the ordinary English hermit of the Middle Ages was a
totally different type of man. He was a sober-minded and civilised person,
who dressed in a robe very much like the robes of the other religious
orders; lived in a comfortable little house of stone or timber; often had
estates, or a pension, for his maintenance, besides what charitable people
were pleased to leave him in their wills, or to offer in their lifetime;
he lived on bread and meat, and beer and wine, and had a chaplain to say
daily prayers for him, and a servant or two to wait upon him; his
hermitage was not always up in the lonely hills, or deep-buried in the
shady forests--very often it was by the great high roads, and sometimes in
the heart of great towns and cities.
This summary description is so utterly opposed to all the popular notions,
that we shall take pains to fortify our assertions with sufficient proofs;
indeed, the whole subject is so little known that we shall illustrate it
freely from all the sources at our command. And first, as it is one of our
especial objects to furnish authorities for the pictorial representation
of these old hermits, we shall inquire what kind of dress they did
actually wear in place of the skins, or the sackcloth, with which the
popular imagination has clothed them.
We should be inclined to assume _a priori_ that the hermits would wear the
habit prescribed by Papal authority for the Eremiti Augustini, which,
according to Stevens, consisted of "a white garment, and a white scapular
over it, when they are in the house; but in the choir, and when they go
abroad, they put on, over all, a sort of cowl and a large hood, both
black, the hood round before, and hanging down to the waist in a point,
being girt with a black leather thong." And in the rude woodcuts which
adorn Caxton's "Vitas Patrum," or "Lives of the Hermits," we do find some
of the religious men in a habit which looks like a gown, with the arms
coming through slits, which may be intended to represent a scapular, and
with hoods and cowls of the fashion described; while others, in the same
book, are in a loose gown, in shape more like that of a Benedictine.
Again, in Albert Durer's "St. Christopher," as engraved by Mrs. Jameson,
in her "Sacred and Legendary Art," p. 445, the hermit is represented in a
frock and scapular, with a cowl and hood. But in the majority of the
representations of hermits which we meet with in mediæval paintings and
illuminated manuscripts, the costume consists of a frock, sometimes
girded, sometimes not, and over it an ample gown, like a cloak, with a
hood; and in the cases where the colour of the robe is indicated, it is
almost always indicated by a light brown tint.[93] It is not unlikely that
there were varieties of costume among the hermits. Perhaps those who were
attached to the monasteries of monks and friars, and who seem to have been
usually admitted to the fraternity of the house,[94] may have worn the
costume of the order to which they were attached; while priest-hermits
serving chantries may have worn the usual costume of a secular priest.
Bishop Poore, who died 1237, in his "Ancren Riewle," speaks of the fashion
of the dress to be worn, at least by female recluses, as indifferent.
Bilney, speaking especially of the recluses in his day, just before the
Reformation, says, "their apparell is indifferent, so it be dissonant from
the laity." In the woodcuts, from various sources, which illustrate this
paper, the reader will see for himself how the hermits are represented by
the mediæval artists, who had them constantly under their observation, and
who at least tried their best to represent faithfully what they saw. The
best and clearest illustration which we have been able to find of the
usual costume in which the hermits are represented, we here give to the
reader. It is from the figure of St. Damasus, one of the group in the fine
picture of "St. Jerome," by Cosimo Roselli (who lived from 1439 to 1506),
now in the National Gallery. The hermit-saint wears a light-brown frock,
and scapular, with no girdle, and, over all, a cloak and hood of the same
colour, and his naked feet are protected by wooden clogs.
[Illustration: _St. Damasus, Hermit._]
Other illustrations of hermits may be found in the early fourteenth
century MS. Romances Additional 10,293 f. 335, and 10,294 f. 95. In the
latter case there are two hermits in one hermitage; also in Royal 16 G.
vi. Illustrations of St. Anthony, which give authorities for hermit
costume, and indications of what hermitages were, abound in the later
MSS.; for example, in King René's "Book of Hours" (Egerton 1,070), at f.
108, the hermit-saint is habited in a grey frock and black cloak with a
T-cross on the breast; he holds bell and book and staff in his hands. In
Egerton 1,149, of the middle of the fifteenth century. In Add. 15,677, of
the latter part of the fifteenth century, at f. 150, is St. Anthony in
brown frock and narrow scapulary, with a grey cloak and hood and a red
skull cap; he holds a staff and book; his hermitage, in the background, is
a building like a little chapel with a bell-cot on the gable, within a
grassy enclosure fenced with a low wattled fence. Add. 18,854, of date
1525 A.D., f. 146, represents St. Anthony in a blue-grey gown and hood,
holding bell, rosary, and staff, entering his hermitage, a little building
with a bell-cot on the gable.
A man could not take upon himself the character of a hermit at his own
pleasure. It was a regular order of religion, into which a man could not
enter without the consent of the bishop of the diocese, and into which he
was admitted by a formal religious service. And just as bishops do not
ordain men to holy orders until they have obtained a "title," a place in
which to exercise their ministry, so bishops did not admit men to the
order of Hermits until they had obtained a hermitage in which to exercise
their vocation.
The form of the vow made by a hermit is here given, from the Institution
Books of Norwich, lib. xiv. fo. 27a ("East Anglian," No. 9, p. 107). "I,
John Fferys, nott maridd, promyt and avowe to God, o{r} Lady Sent Mary,
and to all the seynts in heven, in the p'sence of you reverend fadre in
God, Richard bishop of Norwich, the wowe of chastite, after the rule of
sent paule the heremite. In the name of the fadre, sone, and holy gost.
JOHN FFERERE. xiij. meii, anno dni. MLVCIIIJ. in capella de Thorpe."
We summarize the service for habiting and blessing a hermit[95] from the
pontifical of Bishop Lacy of Exeter, of the fourteenth century.[96] It
begins with several psalms; then several short prayers for the incepting
hermit, mentioning him by name.[97] Then follow two prayers for the
benediction of his vestments, apparently for different parts of his habit;
the first mentioning "hec indumenta humilitatem cordis et mundi contemptum
significancia,"--these garments signifying humility of heart, and contempt
of the world; the second blesses "hanc vestem pro conservande castitatis
signo,"--this vestment the sign of chastity. The priest then delivers the
vestments to the hermit kneeling before him, with these words, "Brother,
behold we give to thee the eremitical habit (_habitum heremiticum_), with
which we admonish thee to live henceforth chastely, soberly, and holily;
in holy watchings, in fastings, in labours, in prayers, in works of mercy,
that thou mayest have eternal life, and live for ever and ever." And he
receives them saying, "Behold, I receive them in the name of the Lord; and
promise myself so to do according to my power, the grace of God, and of
the saints, helping me." Then he puts off his secular habit, the priest
saying to him, "The Lord put off from thee the old man with his deeds;"
and while he puts on his hermit's habit, the priest says, "The Lord put on
thee the new man, which, after God, is created in righteousness and true
holiness." Then follow a collect and certain psalms, and finally the
priest sprinkles him with holy water, and blesses him.
Men of all ranks took upon them the hermit life, and we find the popular
writers of the time sometimes distinguishing among them; one is a
"hermit-priest,"[98] another is a "gentle hermit," not in the sense of
the "gentle hermit of the dale," but meaning that he was a man of gentle
birth. The hermit in whose hermitage Sir Launcelot passed long time is
described as a "gentle hermit, which sometime was a noble knight and a
great lord of possessions, and for great goodness he hath taken him unto
wilful poverty, and hath forsaken his possessions, and his name is Sir
Baldwin of Britain, and he is a full noble surgeon, and a right good
leech." This was the type of hermit who was venerated by the popular
superstition of the day: a great and rich man who had taken to wilful
poverty, or a man who lived wild in the woods--a St. Julian, or a St.
Anthony. A poor man who turned hermit, and lived a prosaic, pious, useful
life, showing travellers the way through a forest, or over a bog, or
across a ferry, and humbly taking their alms in return, presented nothing
dramatic and striking to the popular mind; very likely, too, many men
adopted the hermit life for the sake of the idleness and the alms,[99] and
deserved the small repute they had.
It is _àpropos_ of Sir Launcelot's hermit above-mentioned that the
romancer complains "for in those days it was not with the guise of hermits
as it now is in these days. For there were no hermits in those days, but
that they have been men of worship and prowess, and those hermits held
great households, and refreshed people that were in distress." We find the
author of "Piers Ploughman" making the same complaint. We have, as in
other cases, a little modernised his language:--
"But eremites that inhabit them by the highways,
And in boroughs among brewers, and beg in churches,
All that holy eremites hated and despised,
(As riches, and reverences, and rich men's alms),
These lollers,[100] latche drawers,[101] lewd eremites,
Covet on the contrary. Nor live holy as eremites,
That lived wild in woods, with bears and lions.
Some had livelihood from their lineage[102] and of no life else;
And some lived by their learning, and the labour of their hands.
Some had foreigners for friends, that their food sent;
And birds brought to some bread, whereby they lived.
All these holy eremites were of high kin,
Forsook land and lordship, and likings of the body.
But these eremites that edify by the highways
Whilome were workmen--webbers, and tailors,
And carter's knaves, and clerks without grace.
They held a hungry house. And had much want,
Long labour, and light winnings. And at last espied
That lazy fellows in friar's clothing had fat cheeks.
Forthwith left they their labour, these lewd knaves,
And clothed them in copes as they were clerks,
Or one of some order [of monks or friars], or else prophets [eremites]."
This curious extract from "Piers Ploughman" leads us to notice the
localities in which hermitages were situated. Sometimes, no doubt, they
were in lonely and retired places among the hills, or hidden in the depths
of the forests which then covered so large a portion of the land. On the
next page is a very interesting little picture of hermit life, from a MS.
Book of Hours, executed for Richard II. (British Museum, Domitian, A.
xvii., folio 4 v.) The artist probably intended to represent the old
hermits of the Egyptian desert, Piers Ploughman's--
"Holy eremites,
That lived wild in woods
With bears and lions;"
but, after the custom of mediæval art, he has introduced the scenery,
costume, and architecture of his own time. Erase the bears, which stand
for the whole tribe of outlandish beasts, and we have a very pretty bit of
English mountain scenery. The stags are characteristic enough of the
scenery of mediæval England. The hermitage on the right seems to be of the
ruder sort, made in part of wattled work. On the left we have the more
usual hermitage of stone, with its little chapel bell in a bell-cot on the
gable. The venerable old hermit, coming out of the doorway, is a
charming illustration of the typical hermit, with his venerable beard,
and his form bowed by age, leaning with one hand on his cross-staff, and
carrying his rosary in the other. The hermit in the illustration hereafter
given from the "History of Launcelot," on page 114, leans on a similar
staff; it would seem as if such a staff was a usual part of the hermit's
equipment.[103] The hermit in Albert Dürer's "St. Christopher." already
mentioned, also leans on a staff, but of rather different shape. Here is a
companion-picture, in pen and ink, from the "Morte d'Arthur:"--"Then he
departed from the cross [a stone cross which parted two ways in waste
land, under which he had been sleeping], on foot, into a wild forest. And
so by prime he came unto an high mountain, and there he found an
hermitage, and an hermit therein, which was going to mass. And then Sir
Launcelot kneeled down upon both his knees, and cried out, 'Lord, mercy!'
for his wicked works that he had done. So when mass was done, Sir
Launcelot called the hermit to him, and prayed him for charity to hear his
confession. 'With a good will,' said the good man."
[Illustration: _Hermits and Hermitages._]
But many of the hermitages were erected along the great highways of the
country, and especially at bridges and fords,[104] apparently with the
express view of their being serviceable to travellers. One of the
hermit-saints set up as a pattern for their imitation was St. Julian, who,
with his wife, devoted his property and life to showing hospitality to
travellers; and the hermit who is always associated in the legends and
pictures with St. Christopher, is represented as holding out his torch or
lantern to light the giant ferryman, as he transports his passengers
across the dangerous ford by which the hermitage was built. When
hostelries, where the traveller could command entertainment for hire, were
to be found only in the great towns, the religious houses were the chief
resting-places of the traveller; not only the conventual establishments,
but the country clergy also were expected to be given to hospitality.[105]
But both monasteries and country parsonages often lay at a distance of
miles of miry and intricate by-road off the highway. We must picture this
state of the country and of society to ourselves, before we can appreciate
the intentions of those who founded these hospitable establishments; we
must try to imagine ourselves travellers, getting belated in a dreary part
of the road, where it ran over a bleak wold, or dived through a dark
forest, or approached an unknown ford, before we can appreciate the
gratitude of those who suddenly caught the light from the hermit's
window, or heard the faint tinkle of his chapel bell ringing for vespers.
Such incidents occur frequently in the romances. Here is an example:--"Sir
Launcelot rode all that day and all that night in a forest; and at the
last, he was ware of an hermitage and a chapel that stood between two
cliffs; and then he heard a little bell ring to mass, and thither he rode,
and alighted, and tied his horse to the gate, and heard mass." Again: "Sir
Gawayne rode till he came to an hermitage, and there he found the good man
saying his even-song of our Lady. And there Sir Gawayne asked harbour for
charity, and the good man granted it him gladly."
We shall, perhaps, most outrage the popular idea of a hermit, when we
assert that hermits sometimes lived in towns. The extract from "Piers
Ploughman's Vision," already quoted, tells us of--
"Eremites that inhabit them
In boroughs among brewers."
The difficulty of distinguishing between hermits proper and recluses
becomes very perplexing in this part of our subject. There is abundant
proof, which we shall have occasion to give later, that recluses, both
male and female, usually lived in towns and villages, and these recluses
are sometimes called hermits, as well as by their more usual and peculiar
name of anchorites and anchoresses. But we are inclined to the opinion,
that not all the male solitaries who lived in towns were recluses. The
author of "Piers Ploughman's Vision" speaks of the eremites who inhabited
in boroughs as if they were of the same class as those who lived by the
highways, and who ought to have lived in the wildernesses, like St.
Anthony. The theory under which it was made possible for a solitary, an
eremite, a man of the desert, to live in a town, was, that a churchyard
formed a solitary place--a desert--within the town. The curious history
which we are going to relate, seems to refer to hermits, not to recluses.
The Mayor of Sudbury, under date January 28, 1433, petitioned the Bishop
of Norwich, setting forth that the bishop had refused to admit "Richard
Appleby, of Sudbury, conversant with John Levynton, of the same town,
heremyte, to the order of Hermits, unless he was sure to be inhabited in a
solitary place where virtues might be increased, and vice exiled;" and
that therefore "we have granted hym, be the assent of all the sayd parish
and cherch reves, to be inhabited with the sayd John Levynton in his
solitary place and hermytage, whych y{t} is made at the cost of the
parysh, in the cherchyard of St. Gregory Cherche, to dwellen togedyr as
(long as) yey liven, or whiche of them longest liveth;" and thereupon the
mayor prays the bishop to admit Richard Appleby to the order.
This curious incident of two solitaries living together has a parallel in
the romance of "King Arthur." When the bold Sir Bedivere had lost his lord
King Arthur, he rode away, and, after some adventures, came to a chapel
and an hermitage between two hills, "and he prayed the hermit that he
might abide there still with him, to live with fasting and prayers. So Sir
Bedivere abode there still with the hermit; and there Sir Bedivere put
upon him poor clothes, and served the hermit full lowly in fasting and in
prayers." And afterwards (as we have already related) Sir Launcelot "rode
all that day and all that night in a forest. And at the last he was ware
of an hermitage and a chapel that stood between two cliffs, and then he
heard a little bell ring to mass; and thither he rode, and alighted, and
tied his horse to the gate and heard mass." He had stumbled upon the
hermitage in which Sir Bedivere was living. And when Sir Bedivere had made
himself known, and had "told him his tale all whole," "Sir Launcelot's
heart almost burst for sorrow, and Sir Launcelot threw abroad his armour,
and said,--'Alas! who may trust this world?' And then he kneeled down on
his knees, and prayed the hermit for to shrive him and assoil him. And
then he besought the hermit that he might be his brother. And he put an
habit upon Sir Launcelot, and there he served God day and night with
prayers and fastings." And afterwards Sir Bors came in the same way. And
within half a year there was come Sir Galahad, Sir Galiodin, Sir
Bleoberis, Sir Villiers, Sir Clarus, and Sir Gahalatine. "So these seven
noble knights abode there still: and when they saw that Sir Launcelot had
taken him unto such perfection, they had no list to depart, but took such
an habit as he had. Thus they endured in great penance six years, and then
Sir Launcelot took the habit of priesthood, and twelve months he sung the
mass; and there was none of these other knights but that they read in
books, and helped for to sing mass, and ring bells, and did lowly all
manner of service. And so their horses went where they would, for they
took no regard in worldly riches." And after a little time Sir Launcelot
died at the hermitage: "then was there weeping and wringing of hands, and
the greatest dole they made that ever made man. And on the morrow the
bishop-hermit sung his mass of requiem." The accompanying wood-cut, from
one of the small compartments at the bottom of Cosimo Roselli's picture of
St. Jerome, from which we have already taken the figure of St. Damasus,
may serve to illustrate this incident. It represents a number of hermits
mourning over one of their brethren, while a priest in the robes proper to
his office, stands at the head of the bier and says prayers, and his
deacon stands at the foot, holding a processional cross. The contrast
between the robes of the priest and those of the hermits is lost in the
woodcut; in the original the priest's cope and amys are coloured red,
while those of the hermits are tinted with light brown.
[Illustration: _Funeral Service of a Hermit._]
If the reader has wondered how the one hermitage could accommodate these
seven additional habitants, the romancer does not forget to satisfy his
curiosity: a few pages farther we read--"So at the season of the night
they went all to their beds, for they all lay in one chamber." It was not
very unusual for hermitages to be built for more than one occupant; but
probably, in all such cases, each hermit had his own cell, adjoining their
common chapel. This was the original arrangement of the hermits of the
Thebais in their laura. The great difference between a hermitage with more
than one hermit, and a small cell of one of the other religious orders,
was that in such a cell one monk or friar would have been the prior, and
the others subject to him; but each hermit was independent of any
authority on the part of the other; he was subject only to the obligation
of his rule, and the visitation of his bishop.
The life[106] of the famous hermit, Richard of Hampole, which has lately
been published for the first time by the Early English Text Society, will
enable us to realise in some detail the character and life of a mediæval
hermit of the highest type. Saint Richard was born[107] in the village of
Thornton, in Yorkshire. At a suitable age he was sent to school by the
care of his parents, and afterwards was sent by Richard Neville,
Archdeacon of Durham, to Oxford, where he gave himself specially to
theological study. At the age of nineteen, considering the uncertainty of
life and the awfulness of judgment, especially to those who waste life in
pleasure or spend it in acquiring wealth, and fearing lest he should fall
into such courses, he left Oxford and returned to his father's house. One
day he asked of his sister two of her gowns (tunicas), one white, the
other grey, and a cloak and hood of his father's. He cut up the two gowns,
and fashioned out of them and of the hooded cloak an imitation of a
hermit's habit, and next day he went off into a neighbouring wood bent
upon living a hermit life. Soon after, on the vigil of the Assumption of
the Blessed Virgin, he went to a certain church, and knelt down to pray in
the place which the wife of a certain worthy knight, John de Dalton, was
accustomed to occupy. When the lady came to church, her servants would
have turned out the intruder, but she would not permit it. When vespers
were over and he rose from his knees, the sons of Sir John, who were
students at Oxford, recognised him as the son of William Rolle, whom they
had known at Oxford. Next day Richard again went to the same church, and
without any bidding put on a surplice and sang mattins and the office of
the mass with the rest. And when the gospel was to be read at mass, he
sought the blessing of the priest, and then entered the pulpit and
preached a sermon to the people of such wonderful edification that many
were touched with compunction even to tears, and all said they had never
heard before a sermon of such power and efficacy. After mass Sir John
Dalton invited him to dinner. When he entered into the manor he took his
place in a ruined building, and would not enter the hall, according to the
evangelical precept, "When thou art bidden to a wedding sit down in the
lowest room, and when he that hath bidden thee shall see it he will say to
thee, Friend, go up higher;" which was fulfilled in him, for the knight
made him sit at table with his own sons. But he kept such silence at
dinner that he did not speak one word; and when he had eaten sufficiently
he rose before they took away the table and would have departed, but the
knight told him this was contrary to custom, and made him sit down again.
After dinner the knight had some private conversation with him, and being
satisfied that he was not a madman, but really seemed to have the vocation
to a hermit's life, he clothed him at his own cost in a hermit's habit,
and retained him a long time in his own house, giving him a solitary
chamber (_locum mansionis solitariæ_)[108] and providing him with all
necessaries. Our hermit then gave himself up to ascetic discipline and a
contemplative life. He wrote books; he counselled those who came to him.
He did both at the same time; for one afternoon the lady of the house
came to him with many other persons and found him writing very rapidly,
and begged him to stop writing and speak some words of edification to
them; and he began at once and continued to address them for two hours
with admirable exhortations to cultivate virtue and to put away worldly
vanities, and to increase the love of their hearts for God; but at the
same time he went on writing as fast as before. He used to be so absorbed
in prayer that his friends took off his torn cloak, and when it had been
mended put it on him again, without his knowing it. Soon we hear of his
having temptations like those which assailed St. Anthony, the devil
tempting him in the form of a beautiful woman. He was specially desirous
to help recluses and those who required spiritual consolation, and who
were vexed by evil spirits.
At length Lady Dalton died, and (whether as a result of this is not
stated) the hermit left his cell and began to move from place to place.
One time he came near the cell of Dame Margaret, the recluse of Anderby in
Richmondshire, and was told that she was dumb and suffering from some
strange disease, and went to her. And he sat down at the window of the
house of the recluse,[109] and when they had eaten, the recluse felt a
desire to sleep; and being oppressed with sleep her head fell towards the
window at which St. Richard was reclined. And when she had slept a little,
leaning somewhat on Richard, suddenly she was seized with a convulsion,
and awoke with her power of speech restored.
He wrote many works of ascetic and mystical divinity which were greatly
esteemed. The Early English Text Society has published some specimens in
the work from which these notices are gathered, which show that his
reputation as a devotional writer was not undeserved. At length he settled
at Hampole, where was a Cistercian nunnery. Here he died, and in the
church of the nunnery he was buried. We are indebted for the Officium and
Legenda from which we have gathered this outline of his life to the pious
care of the nuns of Hampole, to whom the fame of Richard's sanctity was a
source of great profit and honour. That he had a line of successors in
his anchorage is indicated by the fact hereafter stated (p. 128), that in
1415 A.D., Lord Scrope left by will a bequest to Elizabeth, late servant
to the anchoret of Hampole.
[Illustration: _Sir Launcelot and a Hermit._]
There are indications that these hermitages were sometimes mere bothies of
branches; there is a representation of one, from which we here give a
woodcut, in an illuminated MS. romance of Sir Launcelot, of early
fourteenth-century date (British Museum, Add. 10,293, folio 118 v., date
1316): we have already noticed another of wattled work.[110] There are
also caves[111] here and there in the country which are said by tradition
to have been hermitages: one is described in the _Archæological Journal_,
vol. iv., p. 150. It is a small cave, not easy of access, in the side of a
hill called Carcliff Tor, near Rowsley, a little miserable village not far
from Haddon Hall. In a recess, on the right side as you enter the cave, is
a crucifix about four feet high, sculptured in bold relief in the red grit
rock out of which the cave is hollowed; and close to it, on the right, is
a rude niche, perhaps to hold a lamp.
St. Robert's Chapel, at Knaresborough, Yorkshire, is a very excellent
example of a hermitage.[112] It is hewn out of the rock, at the bottom of
a cliff, in the corner of a sequestered dell. The exterior, a view of
which is given below, presents us with a simply arched doorway at the
bottom of the rough cliff, with an arched window on the left, and a little
square opening between, which looks like the little square window of a
recluse. Internally we find the cell sculptured into the fashion of a
little chapel, with a groined ceiling, the groining shafts and ribs well
enough designed, but rather rudely executed. There is a semi-octagonal
apsidal recess at the east end, in which the altar stands; a piscina and a
credence and stone seat in the north wall; a row of sculptured heads in
the south wall, and a grave-stone in the middle of the floor. This chapel
appears to have been also the hermit's living room. The view of the
exterior, and of the interior and ground-plan, are from Carter's "Ancient
Architecture," pl. lxvii. Another hermitage, whose chapel is very similar
to this, is at Warkworth. It is half-way up the cliff, on one side of a
deep, romantic valley, through which runs the river Coquet, overhung with
woods. The chapel is hewn out of the rock, 18 feet long by 7-1/2 wide,
with a little entrance-porch on the south, also hewn in the rock; and, on
the farther side, a long, narrow apartment, with a small altar at the east
end, and a window looking upon the chapel altar. This long apartment was
probably the hermit's living room; but when the Earls of Northumberland
endowed the hermitage for a chantry priest, the priest seems to have lived
in a small house, with a garden attached, at the foot of the cliff. The
chapel is groined, and has Gothic windows, very like that of
Knaresborough. A minute description of this hermitage, and of the legend
connected with it, is given in a poem called "The History of Warkworth"
(4to, 1775), and in a letter in Grose's "Antiquities," vol. iii., is a
ground-plan of the chapel and its appurtenances. A view of the exterior,
showing its picturesque situation, will be found in Herne's "Antiquities
of Great Britain," pl. 9.
[Illustration: _Exterior View of St. Robert's Chapel, Knaresborough._]
[Illustration: _Interior View of St. Robert's Chapel._]
There is a little cell, or oratory, called the hermitage, cut out of the
face of a rock near Dale Abbey, Derbyshire. On the south side are the door
and three windows; at the east end, an altar standing upon a raised
platform, both cut out of the rock; there are little niches in the walls,
and a stone seat all round.[113]
There is another hermitage of three cells at Wetheral, near Carlisle,
called Wetheral Safeguard, or St. Constantine's Cells--Wetheral Priory was
dedicated to St. Constantine, and this hermitage seems to have belonged to
the priory. It is not far from Wetheral Priory, in the face of a rock
standing 100 feet perpendicularly out of the river Eden, which washes its
base; the hill rising several hundred feet higher still above this rocky
escarpment. The hermitage is at a height of 40 feet from the river, and
can only be approached from above by a narrow and difficult path down the
face of the precipice. It consists of three square cells, close together,
about 10 feet square and 8 feet high; each with a short passage leading to
it, which increases its total length to about 20 feet. These passages
communicate with a little platform of rock in front of the cells. At a
lower level than this platform, by about 7 feet, there is a narrow gallery
built up of masonry; the door to the hermitage is at one end of it, so
that access to the cells can only be obtained by means of a ladder from
this gallery to the platform of rock 7 feet above it. In the front of the
gallery are three windows, opposite to the three cells, to give them
light, and one chimney. An engraving will be found in Hutchinson's
"History of Cumberland," vol. i. p. 160, which shows the picturesque
scene--the rocky hill-side, with the river washing round its base, and the
three windows of the hermitage, half-way up, peeping through the foliage;
there is also a careful plan of the cells in the letterpress.
[Illustration: _Ground-Plan of St. Robert's Chapel._]
A chapel, and a range of rooms--which communicate with one another, and
form a tolerably commodious house of two floors, are excavated out of a
rocky hill-side, called Blackstone Rock, which forms the bank of the
Severn, near Bewdley, Worcestershire. A view of the exterior of the rock,
and a plan and section of the chambers, are given both in Stukeley's
"Itinerarium Curiosum," pls. 13 and 14, and in Nash's "History of
Worcestershire," vol. ii. p. 48.
[Illustration]
At Lenton, near Nottingham, there is a chapel and a range of cells
excavated out of the face of a semicircular sweep of rock, which crops out
on the bank of the river Leen. The river winds round the other semicircle,
leaving a space of greensward between the rock and the river, upon which
the cells open. Now, the whole place is enclosed, and used as a public
garden and bowling-green, its original features being, however, preserved
with a praiseworthy appreciation of their interest. In former days this
hermitage was just within the verge of the park of the royal castle of
Nottingham; it was doubtless screened by the trees of the park; and its
inmates might pace to and fro on their secluded grass-plot, fenced in by
the rock and the river from every intruding foot, and yet in full view of
the walls and towers of the castle, with the royal banner waving from its
keep, and catch a glimpse of the populous borough, and see the parties of
knights and ladies prance over the level meadows which stretched out to
the neighbouring Trent like a green carpet, embroidered in spring and
autumn by the purple crocus, which grows wild there in myriads. Stukeley,
in his "Itinerarium Curiosum," pl. 39, gives a view and ground-plan of
these curious cells. Carter also figures them in his "Ancient
Architecture," pl. 12, and gives details of a Norman shaft and arch in the
chapel.
But nearly all the hermitages which we read of in the romances, or see
depicted in the illuminations and paintings, or find noticed in ancient
historical documents, are substantial buildings of stone or timber. Here
is one from folio 56 of the "History of Launcelot" (Add. 10,293): the
hermit stands at the door of his house, giving his parting benediction to
Sir Launcelot, who, with his attendant physician, is taking his leave
after a night's sojourn at the hermitage. In the paintings of the Campo
Santo, at Pisa (engraved in Mrs. Jameson's "Sacred and Legendary Art"),
which represent the hermits of the Egyptian desert, some of the hermitages
are caves, some are little houses of stone. In Caxton's "Vitas Patrum" the
hermitages are little houses; one has a stepped gable; another is like a
gateway, with a room over it.[114] They were founded and built, and often
endowed, by the same men who founded chantries, and built churches, and
endowed monasteries; and from the same motives of piety, charity, or
superstition. And the founders seem often to have retained the patronage
of the hermitages, as of valuable benefices, in their own hands.[115] A
hermitage was, in fact, a miniature monastery, inhabited by one
religious, who was abbot, and prior, and convent, all in one: sometimes
also by a chaplain,[116] where the hermit was not a priest, and by several
lay brethren, _i.e._ servants. It had a chapel of its own, in which divine
service was performed daily. It had also the apartments necessary for the
accommodation of the hermit, and his chaplain--when one lived in the
hermitage--and his servants, and the necessary accommodation for
travellers besides; and it had often, perhaps generally, its court-yard
and garden.
The chapel of the hermitage seems not to have been appropriated solely to
the performance of divine offices, but to have been made useful for other
more secular purposes also. Indeed, the churches and chapels in the Middle
Ages seem often to have been used for great occasions of a semi-religious
character, when a large apartment was requisite, _e.g._ for holding
councils, for judicial proceedings, and the like. Godric of Finchale, a
hermit who lived about the time of Henry II.,[117] had two chapels
adjoining his cell; one he called by the name of St. John Baptist, the
other after the Blessed Virgin. He had a kind of common room, "communis
domus," in which he cooked his food and saw visitors; but he lived
chiefly, day and night, in the chapel of St. John, removing his bed to the
chapel of St. Mary at times of more solemn devotion.
In an illumination on folio 153 of the "History of Launcelot," already
quoted (British Mus., Add. 10,293), is a picture of King Arthur taking
counsel with a hermit in his hermitage. The building in which they are
seated has a nave and aisles, a rose-window in its gable, and a
bell-turret, and seems intended to represent the chapel of the hermitage.
Again, at folio 107 of the same MS. is a picture of a hermit talking to a
man, with the title,--"Ensi y come une hermites prole en une chapele de
son hermitage,"--"How a hermit conversed in the chapel of his hermitage."
It may, perhaps, have been in the chapel that the hermit received those
who sought his counsel on spiritual or on secular affairs.
In addition to the references which have already been given to
illustrations of the subject in the illuminations of MSS., we call the
special attention of the student to a series of pictures illustrating a
mediæval story of which a hermit is the hero, in the late thirteenth
century MS. Royal 10 E IV.; it begins at folio 113 v., and runs on for
many pages, and is full of interesting passages.
We also add a few lines from Lydgate's unpublished "Life of St Edmund," as
a typical picture of a hermit, drawn in the second quarter of the
fifteenth century:--
"--holy Ffremund though he were yonge of age,
And ther he bilte a litel hermitage
Be side a ryver with al his besy peyne,
He and his fellawis that were in nombre tweyne.
"A litel chapel he dide ther edifie,
Day be day to make in his praiere,
In the reverence only off Marie
And in the worshipe of her Sone deere,
And the space fully off sevene yeere
Hooly Ffremund, lik as it is founde,
Leved be frut and rootes off the grounde.
"Off frutes wilde, his story doth us telle,
Was his repast penance for t' endure,
To stanch his thurst drank water off the welle
And eet acorns to sustene his nature,
Kernelles off notis [nuts] when he myhte hem recure.
To God alway doying reverence,
What ever he sent took it in patience."
And in concluding this chapter let us call to mind Spenser's description
of a typical hermit and hermitage, while the originals still lingered in
the living memory of the people:--
"At length they chaunst to meet upon the way
An aged sire, in long blacke weedes yclad,
His feet all bare, his head all hoarie gray,
And by his belt his booke he hanging had;
Sober he seemde, and very sagely sad,
And to the ground his eyes were lowly bent,
Simple in shew, and voide of malice bad;
And all the way he prayed as he went,
And often knockt his brest as one that did repent.
"He faire the knight saluted, louting low,
Who faire him quited, as that courteous was;
And after asked him if he did know
Of strange adventures which abroad did pas.
'Ah! my dear sonne,' quoth he, 'how should, alas!
Silly[118] old man, that lives in hidden cell,
Bidding his beades all day for his trespas,
Tidings of war and worldly trouble tell?
With holy father sits not with such things to mell.'[119]
* * * * *
Quoth then that aged man, 'The way to win
Is wisely to advise. Now day is spent,
Therefore with me ye may take up your in
For this same night.' The knight was well content;
So with that godly father to his home he went.
"A little lowly hermitage it was,
Down in a dale, hard by a forest's side,
Far from resort of people that did pass
In traveill to and froe; a little wyde
There was an holy chappell edifyde,
Wherein the hermite dewly wont to say
His holy things, each morne and eventyde;
Hereby a chrystall streame did gently play,
Which from a sacred fountaine welled forth alway.
"Arrived there, the little house they fill;
Ne look for entertainment where none was;
Rest is their feast, and all things at their will:
The noblest mind the best contentment has.
With fair discourse the evening so they pas;
For that old man of pleasing words had store,
And well could file his tongue as smooth as glas;
He told of saintes and popes, and evermore
He strowd an Ave-Mary after and before."[120]
_Faery Queen_, i. 1, 29, 33, 34, 35.
CHAPTER II.
ANCHORESSES, OR FEMALE RECLUSES.
And now we proceed to speak more particularly of the recluses. The old
legend tells us that John the Hermit, the contemporary of St. Anthony,
would hold communication with no man except through the window of his
cell.[121] But the recluses of more modern days were not content to quote
John the Egyptian as their founder. As the Carmelite friars claimed
Elijah, so the recluses, at least the female recluses, looked up to Judith
as the foundress of their mode of life, and patroness of their order.
Mabillon tells us that the first who made any formal rule for recluses was
one Grimlac, who lived about 900 A.D. The principal regulations of his
rule are, that the candidate for reclusion, if a monk, should signify his
intention a year beforehand, and during the interval should continue to
live among his brethren. If not already a monk, the period of probation
was doubled. The leave of the bishop of the diocese was to be first
obtained, and if the candidate were a monk, the leave of his abbot and
convent also. When he had entered his cell, the bishop was to put his seal
upon the door, which was never again to be opened,[122] unless for the
help of the recluse in time of sickness or on the approach of death.
Successive councils published canons to regulate this kind of life. That
of Millo, in 692, repeats in substance the rule of Grimlac. That of
Frankfort, in 787, refers to the recluses. The synod of Richard de la
Wich, Bishop of Chichester, A.D. 1246, makes some canons concerning them:
"Also we ordain to recluses that they shall not receive or keep any person
in their houses concerning whom any sinister suspicion might arise. Also
that they have narrow and proper windows; and we permit them to have
secret communication with those persons only whose gravity and honesty do
not admit of suspicion."[123]
Towards the end of the twelfth century a rule for anchorites was written
by Bishop Richard Poore[124] of Chichester, and afterwards of Salisbury,
who died A.D. 1237, which throws abundant light upon their mode of life;
for it is not merely a brief code of the regulations obligatory upon them,
but it is a book of paternal counsels, which enters at great length, and
in minute detail, into the circumstances of the recluse life, and will be
of great use to us in the subsequent part of this chapter.
There were doubtless different degrees of austerity among the recluses;
but, on the whole, we must banish from our minds the popular[125] idea
that they inhabited a living grave, and lived a life of the extremest
mortification. Doubtless there were instances in which religious
enthusiasm led the recluse into frightful and inhuman self-torture, like
that of Thaysis, in the "Golden Legend:" "She went to the place whiche th'
abbot had assygned to her, and there was a monasterye of vyrgyns; and
there he closed her in a celle, and sealed the door with led. And the
celle was lytyll and strayte, and but one lytell wyndowe open, by whyche
was mynistred to her poor lyvinge; for the abbot commanded that they shold
gyve to her a lytell brede and water."[126] Thaysis submitted to it at the
command of Abbot Pafnucius, as penance for a sinful life, in the early
days of Egyptian austerity; and now and then throughout the subsequent
ages the self-hatred of an earnest, impassioned nature, suddenly roused to
a feeling of exceeding sinfulness; the remorse of a wild, strong spirit,
conscious of great crimes; or the enthusiasm of a weak mind and morbid
conscience, might urge men and women to such self-revenges, to such
penances, as these. Bishop Poore gives us episodically a pathetic example,
which our readers will thank us for repeating here. "Nothing is ever so
hard that love doth not make tender, and soft, and sweet. Love maketh all
things easy. What do men and women endure for false love, and would endure
more! And what is more to be wondered at is, that love which is faithful
and true, and sweeter than any other love, doth not overmaster us as doth
sinful love! Yet I know a man who weareth at the same time both a heavy
cuirass[127] and haircloth, bound with iron round the middle too, and his
arms with broad and thick bands, so that to bear the sweat of it is severe
suffering. He fasteth, he watcheth, he laboureth, and, Christ knoweth, he
complaineth, and saith that it doth not oppress him; and often asks me to
teach him something wherewith he might give his body pain. God knoweth
that he, the most sorrowful of men, weepeth to me, and saith that God hath
quite forgotten him, because He sendeth him no great sickness; whatever is
bitter seems sweet to him for our Lord's sake. God knoweth love doth this,
because, as he often saith to me, he could never love God the less for any
evil thing that He might do to him, even were He to cast him into hell
with those that perish. And if any believe any such thing of him, he is
more confounded than a thief taken with his theft. I know also a woman of
like mind that suffereth little less. And what remaineth but to thank God
for the strength that He giveth them; and let us humbly acknowledge our
own weakness, and love their merit, and thus it becomes our own. For as
St. Gregory says, love is of so great power that it maketh the merit of
others our own, without labour." But though powerful motives and great
force of character might enable an individual here and there to persevere
with such austerities, when the severities of the recluse life had to be
reduced to rule and system, and when a succession of occupants had to be
found for the vacant anchorholds, ordinary human nature revolted from
these unnatural austerities, and the common sense of mankind easily
granted a tacit dispensation from them; and the recluse life was speedily
toned down in practice to a life which a religiously-minded person,
especially one who had been wounded and worsted in the battle of life,
might gladly embrace and easily endure.
Usually, even where the cell consisted of a single room, it was large
enough for the comfortable abode of a single inmate, and it was not
destitute of such furnishing as comfort required. But it was not unusual
for the cell to be in fact a house of several apartments, with a garden
attached: and it would seem that the technical "cell" within which the
recluse was immured, included house and garden, and everything within the
boundary wall.[128] It is true that many of the recluses lived entirely,
and perhaps all partly, upon the alms of pious and charitable people. An
alms-box was hung up to receive contributions, as appears from "Piers
Ploughman,"--
"In ancres there a box hangeth."
And in the extracts hereafter given from the "Ancren Riewle," we shall
find several allusions to the giving of alms to recluses as a usual
custom. But it was the bishop's duty, before giving license for the
building of a reclusorium, to satisfy himself that there would be, either
from alms or from an endowment, a sufficient maintenance for the recluse.
Practically, they do not seem often to have been in want; they were
restricted as to the times when they might eat flesh-meat, but otherwise
their abstemiousness depended upon their own religious feeling on the
subject; and the only check upon excess was in their own moderation. They
occupied themselves, besides their frequent devotions, in reading,
writing, illuminating, and needlework; and though the recluses attached to
some monasteries seem to have been under an obligation of silence, yet in
the usual case the recluse held a perpetual levee at the open window, and
gossiping and scandal appear to have been among her besetting sins. It
will be our business to verify and further to illustrate this general
sketch of the recluse life.
[Illustration: _Sir Percival at the Reclusorium._]
And, first, let us speak more in detail of their habitations. The
reclusorium, or anchorhold, seems sometimes to have been, like the
hermitage, a house of timber or stone, or a grotto in a solitary place. In
Sir T. Mallory's "Prince Arthur" we are introduced to one of these, which
afforded all the appliances for lodging and entertaining even male guests.
We read:--"Sir Percival returned again unto the recluse, where he deemed
to have tidings of that knight which Sir Launcelot followed. And so he
kneeled at her window, and anon the recluse opened it, and asked Sir
Percival what he would. 'Madam,' said he, 'I am a knight of King Arthur's
court, and my name is Sir Percival de Galis.' So when the recluse heard
his name, she made passing great joy of him, for greatly she loved him
before all other knights of the world; and so of right she ought to do,
for she was his aunt. And then she commanded that the gates should be
opened to him, and then Sir Percival had all the cheer that she might make
him, and all that was in her power was at his commandment." But it does
not seem that she entertained him in person; for the story continues that
"on the morrow Sir Percival went unto the recluse," _i.e._, to her little
audience-window, to propound his question, "if she knew that knight with
the white shield." Opposite is a woodcut of a picture in the MS. "History
of Sir Launcelot" (Royal 14, E. III. folio 101 v.), entitled, "Ensi q
Percheva retourna à la rencluse qui estait en son hermitage."[129]
In the case of these large remote anchorholds, the recluse must have had a
chaplain to come and say mass for her every day in the chapel of her
hermitage.[130] But in the vast majority of cases, anchorholds were
attached to a church either of a religious house, or of a town, or of a
village; and in these situations they appear to have been much more
numerous than is at all suspected by those who have not inquired into this
little-known portion of our mediæval antiquities. Very many of our village
churches had a recluse living within or beside them, and it will, perhaps,
especially surprise the majority of our readers to learn that these
recluses were specially numerous in the mediæval towns.[131] The proofs of
this fact are abundant; here are some. Henry, Lord Scrope, of Masham, by
will, dated 23rd June, 1415, bequeathed to every anchoret[132] and recluse
dwelling in London or its suburbs 6_s._ 8_d._; also to every anchoret and
recluse dwelling in York and its suburbs 6_s._ 8_d._ From other sources we
learn more about these York anchorets and recluses. The will of Adam
Wigan, rector of St. Saviour, York (April 20, 1433, A.D.)[133], leaves
3_s._ 4_d._ to Dan John, who dwelt in the Chapel of St. Martin, within the
parish of St. Saviour. The female recluses of York were three in number in
the year 1433, as we learn from the will of Margaret, relict of Nicholas
Blackburne:[134] "Lego tribus reclusis Ebor.," ij_s._ Where their cells
were situated we learn from the will of Richard Rupell (A.D. 1435[135]),
who bequeaths to the recluse in the cemetery of the Church of St.
Margaret, York, five marks; and to the recluse in the cemetery of St.
Helen, in Fishergate, five marks; and to the recluse in the cemetery of
All Saints, in North Street, York, five marks. They are also all three
mentioned in the will of Adam Wigan, who leaves to the anchorite enclosed
in Fishergate 2_s._; to her enclosed near the church of St. Margaret
2_s._; to her enclosed in North Street, near the Church of All Saints,
2_s._ The will of Lady Margaret Stapelton, 1465 A.D.,[136] mentions
anchorites in Watergate and Fishergate, in the suburbs of York, and in
another place the anchorite of the nunnery of St. Clement, York. At
Lincoln, also, we are able to trace a similar succession of anchoresses.
In 1383 A.D., William de Belay, of Lincoln, left to an anchoress named
Isabella, who dwelt in the Church of the Holy Trinity, in Wigford, within
the city of Lincoln, 13_s._ 4_d._ In 1391, John de Sutton left her 20_s._;
in 1374, John de Ramsay left her 12_d._ Besides these she had numerous
other legacies from citizens. In 1453, an anchoress named Matilda supplied
the place of Isabella, who we may suppose had long since gone to her
reward. In that year John Tilney--one of the Tilneys of Boston--left
"Domine Matilde incluse infra ecclesiam sanctæ Trinitatis ad gressus in
civitate Lincoln, vj_s._ viij_d._" In 1502, Master John Watson, a chaplain
in Master Robert Flemyng's chantry, left xij_d._ to the "ankers" at the
Greese foot. This Church of the Holy Trinity "ad gressus" seems to have
been for a long period the abode of a female recluse.[137] The will of
Roger Eston, rector of Richmond, Yorkshire, A.D. 1446, also mentions the
recluses in the city of York and its suburbs. The will of Adam Wilson
also mentions Lady Agnes, enclosed at (_apud_) the parish church of
Thorganby, and anchorites (female) at Beston and Pontefract. Sir Hugh
Willoughby, of Wollaton, in 1463 bequeathed 6_s._ 5_d._ to the anchoress
of Nottingham.[138] The will of Lady Joan Wombewell, A.D. 1454,[139] also
mentions the anchoress of Beyston. The will of John Brompton, of Beverley,
A.D. 1444,[140] bequeaths 3_s._ 4_d._ to the recluse by the Church of St.
Giles, and 1_s._ 6_d._ to anchorite at the friary of St. Nicholas of
Beverley. Roger Eston also leaves a bequest to the anchorite of his parish
of Richmond, respecting whom the editor gives a note whose substance is
given elsewhere. In a will of the fifteenth century[141] we have a bequest
"to the ancher in the wall beside Bishopsgate, London."[142] In the will
of St. Richard, Bishop of Chichester,[143] we have bequests to Friar
Humphrey, the recluse of Pageham, to the recluse of Hogton, to the recluse
of Stopeham, to the recluse of Herringham; and in the will of Walter de
Suffield, Bishop of Norwich, bequests to "anchers" and recluses in his
diocese, and especially to his niece Ela, _in reclusorio_ at
Massingham.[144]
Among the other notices which we have of solitaries living in towns,
Lydgate mentions one in the town of Wakefield. Morant says there was one
in Holy Trinity churchyard, Colchester. The episcopal registers of
Lichfield show that there was an anchorage for several female recluses in
the churchyard of St. George's Chapel, Shrewsbury. The will of Henry, Lord
Scrope, already quoted, leaves 100_s._ and the pair of beads which the
testator was accustomed to use to the anchorite of Westminster: it was his
predecessor, doubtless, who is mentioned in the time of Richard II.: when
the young king was going to meet Wat Tyler in Smithfield, he went to
Westminster Abbey, "then to the church, and so to the high altar, where he
devoutedly prayed and offered; after which he spake with the anchore, to
whom he confessed himself."[145] Lord Scrope's will goes on to bequeath
40_s._ to Robert, the recluse of Beverley; 13_s._ 4_d._ each to the
anchorets of Stafford, of Kurkebeck, of Wath, of Peasholme, near York, of
Kirby, Thorganby, near Colingworth, of Leek, near Upsale, of Gainsburgh,
of Kneesall, near South Well, of Dartford, of Stamford, living in the
parish church there; to Thomas, the chaplain dwelling continually in the
church of St. Nicholas, Gloucester; to Elizabeth, late servant to the
anchoret of Hamphole; and to the recluse in the house of the Dominicans at
Newcastle; and also 6_s._ 8_d._ to every other anchorite and anchoritess
that could be easily found within three months of his decease.
We have already had occasion to mention that there were several female
recluses, in addition to the male solitaries, in the churchyards of the
then great city of Norwich. The particulars which that laborious
antiquary, Blomfield, has collected together respecting several of them
will throw a little additional light upon our subject, and fill up still
further the outlines of the picture which we are engaged in painting.
There was a hermitage in the churchyard of St. Julian, Norwich, which was
inhabited by a succession of anchoresses, some of whose names Blomfield
records:--Dame Agnes, in 1472; Dame Elizabeth Scot, in 1481; Lady
Elizabeth, in 1510; Dame Agnes Edrigge, in 1524. The Lady Julian, who was
the anchoress in 1393, is said to have had two servants to attend her in
her old age. "She was esteemed of great holiness. Mr. Francis Peck had a
vellum MS. containing an account of her visions." Blomfield says that the
foundations of the anchorage might still be seen in his time, on the east
side of St. Julian's churchyard. There was also an anchorage in St.
Ethelred's churchyard, which was rebuilt in 1305, and an anchor
continually dwelt there till the Reformation, when it was pulled down, and
the grange, or tithe-barn, at Brakendale was built with its timber; so
that it must have been a timber house of some magnitude. Also in St.
Edward's churchyard, joining to the church on the north side, was a cell,
whose ruins were still visible in Blomfield's time, and most persons who
died in Norwich left small sums towards its maintenance. In 1428 Lady
Joan was anchoress here, to whom Walter Ledman left 20_s._, and 40_d._ to
each of her servants. In 1458, Dame Anneys Kite was the recluse here; in
1516, Margaret Norman, widow, was buried here, and gave a legacy to the
lady anchoress by the church. St. John the Evangelist's Church, in
Southgate, was, about A.D. 1300, annexed to the parish of St. Peter per
Montergate, and the Grey Friars bought the site; they pulled down the
whole building, except a small part left for an anchorage, in which they
placed an anchor, to whom they assigned part of the churchyard for his
garden. Also there used anciently to be a recluse dwelling in a little
cell joining to the north side of the tower of St. John the Baptist's
Church, Timber Hill, but it was down before the Dissolution. Also there
was an anchor, or hermit, who had an anchorage in or adjoining to All
Saints' Church. Also in Henry III.'s time a recluse dwelt in the
churchyard of St. John the Baptist, and the Holy Sepulchre, in Ber Street.
In the monastery of the Carmelites, or White Friars, at Norwich, there
were two anchorages--one for a man, who was admitted brother of the house,
and another for a woman, who was admitted sister thereof. The latter was
under the chapel of the Holy Cross, which was still standing in
Blomfield's time, though converted into dwelling-houses. The former stood
by St. Martin's Bridge, on the east side of the street, and had a small
garden to it, which ran down to the river. In 1442, December 2nd, the Lady
Emma, recluse, or anchoress, and religious sister of the Carmelite order,
was buried in their church. In 1443, Thomas Scroope was anchorite in this
house. In 1465, Brother John Castleacre, a priest, was anchorite. In 1494
there were legacies given to the anchor of the White Friars. This Thomas
Scroope was originally a Benedictine monk; in 1430 he became anchorite
here (being received a brother of the Carmelite order), and led an
anchorite's life for many years, seldom going out of his cell but when he
preached; about 1446 Pope Eugenius made him Bishop of Down, which see he
afterwards resigned, and came again to his convent, and became suffragan
to the Bishop of Norwich. He died, and was buried at Lowestoft, being near
a hundred years old.
The document which we are about to quote from Whittaker's "History of
Whalley" (pp. 72 and 77), illustrates many points in the history of their
anchorholds. The anchorage therein mentioned was built in a parish
churchyard, it depended upon a monastery, and was endowed with an
allowance in money and kind from the monastery; it was founded for two
recluses; they had a chaplain and servants; and the patronage was retained
by the founder. The document will also give us some very curious and
minute details of the domestic economy of the recluse life; and, lastly,
it will give us an historical proof that the assertions of the
contemporary satirists, of the laxity[146] with which the vows were
sometimes kept, were not without foundation.
"In 1349, Henry, Duke of Lancaster, granted in trust to the abbot and
convent of Whalley rather large endowments to support two recluses (women)
in a certain place within the churchyard of the parish church of Whalley,
and two women servants to attend them, there to pray for the soul of the
duke, &c.; to find them seventeen ordinary loaves, and seven inferior
loaves, eight gallons of better beer, and 3_d._ per week; and yearly ten
large stock-fish, one bushel of oatmeal, one of rye, two gallons of oil
for lamps, one pound of tallow for candles, six loads of turf, and one
load of faggots; also to repair their habitations; and to find a chaplain
to say mass in the chapel of these recluses daily; their successors to be
nominated by the duke and his heirs. On July 6, 15th Henry VI., the king
nominated Isole de Heton, widow, to be an _anachorita_ for life, _in loco
ad hoc ordinato juxta ecclesiam parochialem de Whalley_. Isole, however,
grew tired of the solitary life, and quitted it; for afterwards a
representation was made to the king that 'divers that had been anchores
and recluses in the seyd place aforetyme, have broken oute of the seyd
place wherein they were reclusyd, and departyd therefrom wythout any
reconsilyation;' and that Isole de Heton had broken out two years before,
and was not willing to return; and that divers of the women that had been
servants there had been with child. So Henry VI. dissolved the hermitage,
and appointed instead two chaplains to say mass daily, &c." Whittaker
thinks that the hermitage occupied the site of some cottages on the west
side of the churchyard, which opened into the churchyard until he had the
doors walled up.
There was a similar hermitage for several female recluses in the
churchyard of St. Romauld, Shrewsbury, as we learn from a document among
the Bishop of Lichfield's registers,[147] in which he directs the Dean of
St. Chadd, or his procurator, to enclose Isolda de Hungerford an anchorite
in the houses of the churchyard of St. Romauld, where the other anchorites
dwell. Also in the same registry there is a precept, dated Feb. 1, 1310,
from Walter de Langton, Bishop, to Emma Sprenghose, admitting her an
anchorite in the houses of the churchyard of St. George's Chapel, Salop,
and he appoints the archdeacon to enclose her. Another license from Roger,
Bishop of Lichfield, dated 1362, to Robert de Worthin, permitting him, on
the nomination of Queen Isabella, to serve God in the reclusorium built
adjoining (_juxta_) the chapel of St. John Baptist in the city of
Coventry, has been published _in extenso_ by Dugdale, and we transcribe it
for the benefit of the curious.[148] Thomas Hearne has printed an
Episcopal Commission, dated 1402, for enclosing John Cherde, a monk of
Ford Abbey. Burnett's "History of Bristol" mentions a commission opened by
Bishop William of Wykham, in August, 1403, for enclosing Lucy de
Newchurch, an anchoritess in the hermitage of St. Brendon in Bristol.
Richard Francis, an ankret, is spoken of as _inter quatuor parietes pro
christi inclusus_ in Langtoft's "Chronicle," ij. 625.
CHAPTER III.
ANCHORAGES.
Just as in a monastery, though it might be large or small in magnitude,
simple or gorgeous in style, with more or fewer offices and appendages,
according to the number and wealth of the establishment, yet there was
always a certain suite of conventual buildings, church, chapter refectory,
dormitory, &c., arranged in a certain order, which formed the cloister;
and this cloister was the nucleus of all the rest of the buildings of the
establishment; so, in a reclusorium, or anchorhold, there was always a
"cell" of a certain construction, to which all things else, parlours or
chapels, apartments for servants and guests, yards and gardens, were
accidental appendages. Bader's rule for recluses in Bavaria[149] describes
the dimensions and plan of the cell minutely; the _domus inclusi_ was to
be 12 feet long by as many broad, and was to have three windows--one
towards the choir (of the church to which it was attached), through which
he might receive the Holy Sacrament; another on the opposite side, through
which he might receive his victuals; and a third to give light, which last
ought always to be closed with glass or horn.
The reader will have already gathered from the preceding extracts that the
reclusorium was sometimes a house of timber or stone within the
churchyard, and most usually adjoining the church itself. At the west end
of Laindon Church, Essex, there is a unique erection of timber, of which
we here give a representation. It has been modernised in appearance by
the insertion of windows and doors; and there are no architectural details
of a character to reveal with certainty its date, but in its mode of
construction--the massive timbers being placed close together--and in its
general appearance, there is an air of considerable antiquity. It is
improbable that a house would be erected in such a situation after the
Reformation, and it accords generally with the descriptions of a recluse
house. Probably, however, many of the anchorholds attached to churches
were of smaller dimensions; sometimes, perhaps, only a single little
timber apartment on the ground floor, or sometimes probably raised upon an
under croft, according to a common custom in mediæval domestic buildings.
Very probably some of those little windows which occur in many of our
churches, in various situations, at various heights, and which, under the
name of "low side windows," have formed the subject of so much discussion
among ecclesiologists, may have been the windows of such anchorholds. The
peculiarity of these windows is that they are sometimes merely a square
opening, which originally was not glazed, but closed with a shutter;
sometimes a small glazed window, in a position where it was clearly not
intended to light the church generally; sometimes a window has a stone
transom across, and the upper part is glazed, while the lower part is
closed only by a shutter. It is clear that some of these may have served
to enable the anchorite, living in a cell _outside_ the church, to see the
altar. It seems to have been such a window which is alluded to in the
following incident from Mallory's "Prince Arthur:"--"Then Sir Launcelot
armed him and took his horse, and as he rode that way he saw a chapel
where was a recluse, which had a window that she might see up to the
altar; and all aloud she called Sir Launcelot, because he seemed a knight
arrant.... And (after a long conversation) she commanded Launcelot to
dinner." In the late thirteenth-century MS., Royal 10 E. IV. at f. 181, is
a representation of a recluse-house, in which, besides two two-light
arched windows high up in the wall, there is a smaller square "low side
window" very distinctly shown. Others of these low side windows may have
been for the use of wooden anchorholds built _within_ the church,
combining two of the usual three windows of the cell, viz., the one to
give light, and the one through which to receive food and communicate
with the outer world. There is an anchorhold still remaining in a
tolerably unmutilated state at Rettenden, Essex. It is a stone building of
fifteenth-century date, of two stories, adjoining the north side of the
chancel. It is entered by a rather elaborately moulded doorway from the
chancel. The lower story is now used as a vestry, and is lighted by a
modern window broken through its east wall; but it is described as having
been a dark room, and there is no trace of any original window. In the
north wall, and towards the east, is a bracket, such as would hold a small
statue or a lamp. In the west side of this room, on the left immediately
on entering it from the chancel, is the door of a stone winding stair
(built up in the nave aisle, but now screened towards the aisle by a very
large monument), which gives access to the upper story. This story
consists of a room which very exactly agrees with the description of a
recluse's cell (see opposite woodcut). On the south side are two arched
niches, in which are stone benches, and the back of the easternmost of
these niches is pierced by a small arched window, now blocked up, which
looked down upon the altar. On the north side is a chimney, now filled
with a modern fireplace, but the chimney is a part of the original
building; and westward of the chimney is a small square opening, now
filled with modern glazing, but the hook upon which the original shutter
hung still remains. This window is not splayed in the usual mediæval
manner, but is recessed in such a way as to allow the head of a person to
look out, and especially down, with facility. On the exterior this window
is about 10 feet from the ground. In this respect it resembles the
situation of a low side window in Prior Crawden's Chapel, Ely
Cathedral,[150] which is on the first floor, having a room, lighted only
by narrow slits, beneath it; and at the Sainte Chapelle, in Paris, which
also has an undercroft, there is a similar example of a side window, at a
still greater height from the ground. The east side of the Rettenden
reclusorium has now a modern window, probably occupying the place of the
original window which gave light to the cell. The stair-turret at the top
of the winding staircase, seems to have been intended to serve for a
little closet: it obtained some light through a small loop which looked
out into the north aisle of the church; the wall on the north side of it
is recessed so as to form a shelf, and a square slab of stone, which looks
like a portion of a thirteenth-century coffin-stone, is laid upon the top
of the newel, and fitted into the wall, so as to form another shelf or
little table.
[Illustration: _Laindon Church, Essex._]
[Illustration: _Reclusorium, or Anchorhold, at Rettenden, Essex._]
At East Horndon Church, Essex, there are two transept-like projections
from the nave. In the one on the south there is a monumental niche in the
south wall, upon the back of which are the indents of the brasses of a man
and wife and several children; and there is a tradition, with which these
indents are altogether inconsistent, that the heart of the unfortunate
Queen Anne Bullen is interred therein. Over this is a chamber, open to the
nave, and now used as a gallery, approached by a modern wooden stair; and
there is a projection outside which looks like a chimney, carried out from
this floor upwards. The transeptal projection on the north side is very
similar in plan. On the ground floor there is a wide, shallow, cinque-foil
headed niche (partly blocked) in the east wall; and there is a wainscot
ceiling, very neatly divided into rectangular panels by moulded ribs of
the date of about Henry VIII. The existence of the chamber above was
unknown until the present rector discovered a doorway in the east wall of
the ground floor, which, on being opened, gave access to a stone staircase
behind the east wall, which led up into a first-floor chamber, about 12
feet from east to west, and 8 feet from north to south: the birds had had
access to it through an unglazed window in the north wall for an unknown
period, and it was half filled with their nests; the floor planks were
quite decayed. There is no trace of a chimney here. It is now opened out
to the nave to form a gallery. Though we do not find in these two
first-floor chambers the arrangements which could satisfy us that they
were recluse cells, yet it is very probable that they were habitable
chambers, inhabited, if not by recluses, perhaps by chantry priests,
serving chantry chapels of the Tyrrells.
Mr. M. H. Bloxam, in an interesting paper in the Transactions of the
Lincoln Diocesan Architectural Society, mentions several other
anchorholds:--"Adjoining the little mountain church of S. Patricio, about
five miles from Crickhowel, South Wales, is an attached building or cell.
It contains on the east side a stone altar, above which is a small
window, now blocked up, which looked towards the altar of the church; but
there was no other internal communication between this cell and the
church, to the west end of which it is annexed; it appears as if destined
for a recluse who was also a priest." Mr. Bloxam mentions some other
examples, very much resembling the one described at Rettenden. The north
transept of Clifton Campville Church, Staffordshire, a structure of the
fourteenth century, is vaulted and groined with stone; it measures 17 feet
from north to south, and 12 feet from east to west. Over this is a loft or
chamber, apparently an anchorhold or _domus inclusi_, access to which is
obtained by means of a newell staircase in the south-east angle, from a
doorway at the north-east angle of the chancel. A small window on the
south side of this chamber, now blocked up, afforded a view into the
interior of the church. The roof of this chamber has been lowered, and all
the windows blocked up.
"On the north side of the chancel of Chipping Norton Church, Oxfordshire,
is a revestry which still contains an ancient stone altar, with its
appurtenances, viz., a piscina in the wall on the north side, and a
bracket for an image projecting from the east wall, north of the altar.
Over this revestry is a loft or chamber, to which access is obtained by
means of a staircase in the north-west angle. Apertures in the wall
enabled the recluse, probably a priest, here dwelling, to overlook the
chancel and north aisle of the church.
"Adjoining the north side of the chancel of Warmington Church,
Warwickshire, is a revestry, entered through an ogee-headed doorway in the
north wall of the chancel, down a descent of three steps. This revestry
contains an ancient stone altar, projecting from a square-headed window in
the east wall, and near the altar, in the same wall, is a piscina. In the
south-west angle of this revestry is a flight of stone steps, leading up
to a chamber or loft. This chamber contains, in the west wall, a
fire-place, in the north-west angle a retiring-closet, or jakes, and in
the south wall a small pointed window, of decorated character, through
which the high-altar in the chancel might be viewed. In the north wall
there appears to have been a pointed window, filled with decorated
tracery, and in the east wall is another decorated window. This is one of
the most interesting and complete specimens of the _domus inclusi_ I have
met with."[151]
The chamber which is so frequently found over the porch of our churches,
often with a fireplace, and sometimes with a closet within it, may
probably have sometimes been inhabited by a recluse. Chambers are also
sometimes found in the towers of churches.[152] Mr. Bloxam mentions a
room, with a fire-place, in the tower of Upton Church, Nottinghamshire.
Again, at Boyton Church, Wiltshire, the tower is on the north side of the
church, "and adjoining the tower on the west side, and communicating with
it, is a room which appears to have been once permanently inhabited, and
in the north-east angle of this room is a fire-place." At Newport, Salop,
the first floor of the tower seems to have been a habitable chamber, and
has a little inner chamber corbelled out at the north-west angle of the
tower.
We have already hinted that it is not improbable that timber anchorholds
were sometimes erected inside our churches. Or perhaps the recluse lived
in the church itself, or, more definitely, in a par-closed chantry chapel,
without any chamber being purposely built for him. The indications which
lead us to this supposition are these: there is sometimes an ordinary
domestic fire-place to be found inside the church. For instance, in the
north aisle of Layer Marney Church, Essex, the western part of the aisle
is screened off for the chantry of Lord Marney, whose tomb has the chantry
altar still remaining, set crosswise at the west end of the tomb; in the
eastern division of the aisle there is an ordinary domestic fire-place in
the north wall. There is a similar fire-place, of about the same date, in
Sir Thomas Bullen's church of Hever, in Kent.
Again, we sometimes find beside the low side-windows already spoken of, an
arrangement which shows that it was intended for some one habitually to
sit there. Thus, at Somerton, Oxfordshire, on the north side of the
chancel, is a long and narrow window, with decorated tracery in the head;
the lower part is divided by a thick transom, and does not appear to have
been glazed. In the interior the wall is recessed beside the window, with
a sort of shoulder, exactly adapted to give room for a seat, in such a
position that its occupant would get the full benefit of the light through
the glazed upper part of the little window, and would be in a convenient
position for conversing through the unglazed lower portion of it.
At Elsfield Church, Oxfordshire, there is an early English lancet window,
similarly divided by a transom, the lower part, now blocked up, having
been originally unglazed, and the sill of the window in the interior has
been formed into a stone seat and desk. We reproduce here a view of the
latter from the "Oxford Architectural Society's Guide to the Neighbourhood
of Oxford." Perhaps in such instances as these, the recluse may have been
a priest serving a chantry altar, and licensed, perhaps, to hear
confessions,[153] for which the seat beside the little open window would
be a convenient arrangement. Lord Scrope's will has already told us of a
chaplain dwelling continually (_commoranti continuo_) in the Church of St.
Nicholas, Gloucester, and of an anchorite living in the parish church of
Stamford. There is a low side-window at Mawgan Church, Cornwall. In the
south-east angle between the south transept and the chancel, the inner
angle at the junction of the transept and chancel walls is cut away, from
the floor upwards, to the height of six feet, and laterally about five
feet in south and east directions from the angle. A short octagonal
pillar, six feet high, supports all that remains of the angle of these
walls, whilst the walls themselves rest on two flat segmental arches of
three feet span. A low diagonal wall is built across the angle thus
exposed, and a small lean-to roof is run up from it into the external
angle enclosing a triangular space within. In this wall the low
side-window is inserted. The sill of the window is four feet from the
pavement. Further eastward a priest's door seems to have formed part of
the arrangement. The west jamb of the doorway is cut away so that from
this triangular space and from the transept beyond a view is obtained of
the east window.
[Illustration: _Window, Elsfield Church._]
The position of the low side-windows at Grade, Cury, and Landewednack is
the same as that of Mawgan, but the window itself is different in form,
those at Grade and at Cury being small oblong openings, the former 1 ft. 9
in. by 1 ft. 4 in., the sill only 1 ft. 9 in. from the ground; the latter
is 1 ft. by 11 in., the sill 3 ft. 4 in. from ground. At Landewednack the
window has two lights, square headed, 2 ft. 6 in. by 1 ft. 4 in., sill 4
ft. 3-1/2 in. from ground. A large block of serpentine rock is fixed in
the ground beneath the window in a position convenient for a person
standing but not kneeling at the window.[154]
Knighton gives us some particulars of a recluse priest who lived at
Leicester. "There was," he says, "in those days at Leicester, a certain
priest, hight William of Swynderby, whom they commonly called William the
Hermit, because, for a long time, he had lived the hermitical life there;
they received him into a certain chamber within the church, because of the
holiness they believed to be in him, and they procured for him victuals
and a pension, after the manner of other priests."[155]
In the "Test. Ebor.," p. 244, we find a testator leaving "to the chantry
chapel of Kenby my red vestment, ... also the great missal and the great
portifer, which I bought of Dominus Thomas Cope, priest and anchorite in
that chapel." Blomfield also (ii. 75) tells us of a hermit, who lived in
St. Cuthbert's Church, Thetford, and performed divine service therein.
Who has not, at some time, been deeply impressed by the solemn stillness,
the holy calm, of an empty church? Earthly passions, and cares, and
ambitions, seemed to have died away; one's soul was filled with a
spiritual peace. One stood and listened to the wind surging against the
walls outside, as the waves of the sea may beat against the walls of an
ingulfed temple; and one felt as effectually secluded from the surge and
roar of the worldly life outside the sacred walls, as if in such a temple
at the bottom of the sea. One gazed upon the monumental effigies, with
their hands clasped in an endless prayer, and their passionless marble
faces turned for ages heavenward, and read their mouldering epitaphs, and
moralized on the royal preacher's text--"All is vanity and vexation of
spirit." And then one felt the disposition--and, perhaps, indulged it--to
kneel before the altar, all alone with God, in that still and solemn
church, and pour out one's high-wrought thoughts before Him. At such times
one has probably tasted something of the transcendental charm of the life
of a recluse priest. One could not sustain the tension long. Perhaps the
old recluse, with his experience and his aids, could maintain it for a
longer period. But to him, too, the natural reaction must have come in
time; and then he had his mechanical occupations to fell back
upon--trimming the lamps before the shrines, copying his manuscript, or
illuminating its initial letters; perhaps, for health's sake, he took a
daily walk up and down the aisle of the church, whose walls re-echoed his
measured footfalls; then he had his oft-recurring "hours" to sing, and his
books to read; and, to prevent the long hours which were still left him in
his little par-closed chapel from growing too wearily monotonous, there
came, now and then, a tap at the shutter of his "parlour" window, which
heralded the visit of some poor soul, seeking counsel or comfort in his
difficulties of this world or the next, or some pilgrim bringing news of
distant lands, or some errant knight seeking news of adventures, or some
parishioner come honestly to have a dish of gossip with the holy man,
about the good and evil doings of his neighbours.
There is a pathetic anecdote in Blomfield's "Norfolk," which will show
that the spirit and the tradition of the old recluse priests survived the
Reformation. The Rev. Mr. John Gibbs, formerly rector of Gessing, in that
county, was ejected from his rectory in 1690 as a non-juror. "He was an
odd but harmless man, both in life and conversation. After his ejection he
dwelt in the north porch chamber, and laid on the stairs that led up to
the rood-loft, between the church and chancel, having a window at his
head, so that he could lie in his couch, and see the altar. He lived to be
very old, and was buried at Frenze."
* * * * *
Let us turn again to the female recluse, in her anchor-house outside the
church. How was her cell furnished? It had always a little altar at the
east end, before which the recluse paid her frequent devotions, hearing,
besides, the daily mass in church through her window, and receiving the
Holy Sacrament at stated times. Bishop Poore advises his recluses to
receive it only fifteen times a year. The little square unglazed window
was closed with a shutter, and a black curtain with a white cross upon it
also hung before the opening, through which the recluse could converse
without being seen. The walls appear to have been sometimes painted--of
course with devotional subjects. To complete the scene add a comfortable
carved oak chair, and a little table, an embroidery frame, and such like
appliances for needlework; a book of prayers, and another of saintly
legends, not forgetting Bishop Poore's "Ancren Riewle;" a fire on the
hearth in cold weather, and the cat, which Bishop Poore expressly allows,
purring beside it; and lastly paint in the recluse, in her black habit and
veil, seated in her chair; or prostrate before her little altar; or on her
knees beside her church window listening to the chanted mass; or receiving
her basket of food from her servant, through the open parlour window; or
standing before its black curtain, conversing with a stray knight-errant;
or putting her white hand through it, to give an alms to some village
crone or wandering beggar.
A few extracts from Bishop Poore's "Ancren Riewle," already several times
alluded to, will give life to the picture we have painted. Though intended
for the general use of recluses, it seems to have been specially
addressed, in the first instance, to three sisters, who, in the bloom of
youth, forsook the world, and became the tenants of a reclusorium. It
would seem that in such cases each recluse had a separate cell, and did
not communicate, except on rare occasions, with her fellow inmates; and
each had her own separate servant to wait upon her. Here are some
particulars as to their communication with the outer world. "Hold no
conversation with any man out of a church window, but respect it for the
sake of the Holy Sacrament which ye see there through;[156] and at other
times (other whiles) take your women to the window of the house (huses
thurle), other men and women to the parlour-window to speak when
necessary; nor ought ye (to converse) but at these two windows." Here we
have three windows; we have no difficulty in understanding which was the
church-window, and the parlour-window--the window _pour parler_; but what
was the house-window, through which the recluse might speak to her
servant? Was it merely the third glazed window, through which she might,
if it were convenient, talk with her maid, but not with strangers, because
she would be seen through it? or was it a window in the larger
anchorholds, between the recluse cell, and the other apartment in which
her maid lived, and in which, perhaps, guests were entertained? The latter
seems the more probable explanation, and will receive further confirmation
when we come to the directions about the entertainment of guests. The
recluse was not to give way to the very natural temptation to put her head
out of the open window, to get sometimes a wider view of the world about
her. "A peering anchoress, who is always thrusting her head outward," he
compares to "an untamed bird in a cage"--poor human bird! In another place
he gives a more serious exhortation on the same subject "Is not she too
forward and foolhardy who holds her head boldly forth on the open
battlements while men with crossbow bolts without assail the castle?
Surely our foe, the warrior of hell, shoots, as I ween, more bolts at one
anchoress than at seventy and seven secular ladies. The battlements of the
castle are the windows of their houses; let her not look out at them, lest
she have the devil's bolts between her eyes before she even thinks of
it." Here are directions how to carry on her "parlements":--"First of all,
when you have to go to your parlour-window, learn from your maid who it is
that is come; ... and when you must needs go forth, go forth in the fear
of God to a priest, ... and sit and listen, and not cackle." They were to
be on their guard even with religious men, and not even confess, except in
presence of a witness. "If any man requests to see you (_i.e._ to have the
black curtain drawn aside), ask him what good might come of it.... If any
one become so mad and unreasonable that he puts forth his hand toward the
window-cloth (curtain), shut the window (_i.e._ close the shutter)
quickly, and leave him; ... and as soon as any man falls into evil
discourse, close the window, and go away with this verse, that he may hear
it, 'The wicked have told me foolish tales, but not according to thy law;'
and go forth before your altar, and say the 'Miserere.'" Again, "Keep your
hands within your windows, for handling or touching between a man and an
anchoress is a thing unnatural, shameful, wicked," &c.
The bishop adds a characteristic piece of detail to our picture when he
speaks of the fair complexions of the recluses because not sunburnt, and
their white hands through not working, both set in strong relief by the
black colour of the habit and veil. He says, indeed, that "since no man
seeth you, nor ye see any man, ye may be content with your clothes white
or black." But in practice they seem usually to have worn black habits,
unless, when attached to the church of any monastery, they may have worn
the habit of the order. They were not to wear rings, brooches, ornamented
girdles, or gloves. "An anchoress," he says, "ought to take sparingly (of
alms), only that which is necessary (_i.e._ she ought not to take alms to
give away again). If she can spare any fragments of her food, let her send
them away (to some poor person) privately out of her dwelling. For the
devil," he says elsewhere, "tempts anchoresses, through their charity, to
collect to give to the poor, then to a friend, then to make a feast."
"There are anchoresses," he says, "who make their meals with their friends
without; that is too much friendship." The editor thinks this to mean that
some anchoresses left their cells, and went to dine at the houses of their
friends; but the word is _gistes_ (guests), and, more probably, it only
means that the recluse ate her dinner in her cell while a guest ate hers
in the guest-room of the reclusorium, with an open window between, so that
they could see and converse with one another. For we find in another place
that she was to maintain "silence always at meals; ... and if any one hath
a guest whom she holds dear, she may cause her maid, as in her stead, to
entertain her friend with glad cheer, and she shall have leave to open her
window once or twice, and make signs to her of gladness." But "let no
_man_ eat in your presence, except he be in great need." The narrative
already given at p. 109, of the visit of St. Richard the hermit to Dame
Margaret the recluse of Anderby, also shows that in exceptional cases a
recluse ate with men. The incident of the head of the recluse, in her
convulsive sleep, falling at the window at which the hermit was reclining,
and leaning partly upon him,[157] is explained by the theory that they
were sitting in separate apartments, each close by this house window,
which was open between them. As we have already seen, in the case of Sir
Percival, a man might even sleep in the reclusorium; and so the Rule says,
"let no man sleep within your walls" as a general rule; "if, however,
great necessity should cause your house to be used" by travellers, "see
that ye have a woman of unspotted life with you day and night."
As to their occupations, he advises them to make "no purses and blodbendes
of silk, but shape and sew and mend church vestments, and poor people's
clothes, and help to clothe yourselves and your domestics." "An anchoress
must not become a school-mistress, nor turn her house into a school for
children. Her maiden may, however, teach any little girl concerning whom
it might be doubtful whether she should learn among the boys."[158]
Doubtless, we are right in inferring from the bishop's advice not to do
certain things, that anchoresses were in the habit of doing them. From
this kind of evidence we glean still further traits. He suggests to them
that in confession they will perhaps have to mention such faults as
these, "I played or spoke thus in the church; went to the play in the
churchyard;[159] looked on at this, or at the wrestling, or other foolish
sports; spoke thus, or played, in the presence of secular men, or of
religious men, in a house of anchorites, and at a different window than I
ought; or, being alone in the church, I thought thus." Again he mentions,
"Sitting too long at the parlour-window, spilling ale, dropping crumbs."
Again we find, "Make no banquetings, nor encourage any strange vagabonds
about the gate." But of all their failings, gossiping seems to have been
the besetting sin of anchoresses. "People say of anchoresses that almost
every one hath an old woman to feed her ears, a prating gossip, who tells
her all the tales of the land, a magpie that chatters to her of everything
that she sees or hears; so that it is a common saying, from mill and from
market, from smithy and from anchor-house, men bring tidings."
Let us add the sketch drawn of them by the unfavourable hand of Bilney the
Reformer, in his "Reliques of Rome," published in 1563, and we have
done:--"As touching the monastical sect of recluses, and such as be shutte
up within walls, there unto death continuall to remayne, giving themselves
to the mortification of carnal effects, to the contemplation of heavenly
and spirituall thinges, to abstinence, to prayer, and to such other
ghostly exercises, as men dead to the world, and havyng their lyfe hidden
with Christ, I have not to write. Forasmuch as I cannot fynde probably in
any author whence the profession of anckers and anckresses had the
beginning and foundation, although in this behalf I have talked with men
of that profession which could very little or nothing say of the matter.
Notwithstanding, as the Whyte Fryers father that order on Helias the
prophet (but falsely), so likewise do the ankers and ankresses make that
holy and virtuous matrone Judith their patroness and foundress; but how
unaptly who seeth not? Their profession and religion differeth as far
from the manners of Judith as light from darknesse, or God from the
devill, as shall manifestly appere to them that will diligentlye conferre
the history of Judith with their life and conversation. Judith made
herself a privy chamber where she dwelt (sayth the scripture), being
closed in with her maydens. Our recluses also close themselves within the
walls, but they suffer no man to be there with them. Judith ware a smoche
of heare, but our recluses are both softly and finely apparalled. Judith
fasted all the days of her lyfe, few excepted. Our recluses eate and
drinke at all tymes of the beste, being of the number of them _qui curios
simulant et Bacchanalia vivunt_. Judith was a woman of a very good report.
Our recluses are reported to be superstitious and idolatrous persons, and
such as all good men flye their company. Judith feared the Lord greatly,
and lyved according to His holy word. Our recluses fear the pope, and
gladly doe what his pleasure is to command them. Judith lyved of her own
substance and goods, putting no man to charge. Our recluses, as persons
only borne to consume the good fruits of the erth, lyve idely of the
labour of other men's handes. Judith, when tyme required, came out of her
closet, to do good unto other. Our recluses never come out of their
lobbies, sincke or swimme the people. Judith put herself in jeopardy for
to do good to the common countrye. Our recluses are unprofitable clods of
the earth, doing good to no man. Who seeth not how farre our ankers and
ankresses differe from the manners and life of this vertuous and godly
woman Judith, so that they cannot justly claime her to be their
patronesse? Of some idle and superstitious heremite borrowed they their
idle and superstitious religion. For who knoweth not that our recluses
have grates of yron in theyr spelunckes, and dennes out of the which they
looke, as owles out of an yvye todde, when they will vouchsafe to speake
with any man at whose hand they hope for advantage? So reade we in 'Vitis
Patrum,' that John the Heremite so enclosed himself in his hermitage that
no person came in unto him; to them that came to visite him he spoke
through a window onely. Our ankers and ankresses professe nothing but a
solitary lyfe in their hallowed house, wherein they are inclosed wyth the
vowe of obedience to the pope, and to their ordinary bishop. Their apparel
is indifferent, so it be dissonant from the laity. No kind of meates they
are forbidden to eat. At midnight they are bound to say certain prayers.
Their profession is counted to be among other professions so hardye and so
streight that they may by no means be suffered to come out of their houses
except it be to take on them an harder and streighter, which is to be made
a bishop."
It is not to be expected that mediæval paintings should give illustrations
of persons who were thus never visible in the world. In the pictures of
the hermits of the Egyptian desert, on the walls of the Campo Santo at
Pisa, we see a representation of St. Anthony holding a conversation with
St. John the Hermit, who is just visible through his grated window, "like
an owl in an ivy tod," as Bilney says; and we have already given a picture
of Sir Percival knocking at the door of a female recluse. Bilney says,
that they wore any costume, "so it were dissonant from the laity;" but in
all probability they commonly wore a costume similar in colour to that of
the male hermits. The picture which we here give of an anchoress, is taken
from a figure of St. Paula, one of the anchorite saints of the desert, in
the same picture of St. Jerome, which has already supplied us, in the
figure of St. Damasus, with our best picture of the hermit's costume.
[Illustration: _St. Paula._]
The service for enclosing a recluse[160] may be found in some of the old
Service Books. We derive the following account of it from an old
black-letter _Manuale ad usum percelebris ecclesie Sarisburiensis_
(London, 1554), in the British Museum. The rubric before the service
orders that no one shall be enclosed without the bishop's leave; that the
candidate shall be closely questioned as to his motives; that he shall be
taught not to entertain proud thoughts, as if he merited to be set apart
from intercourse with common men, but rather on account of his own
infirmity it was good that he should be removed from contact with others,
that he might be kept out of sin himself, and not contaminate them. So
that the recluse should esteem himself to be condemned for his sins, and
shut up in his solitary cell as in a prison, and unworthy, for his sins,
of the society of men. There is a note, that this office shall serve for
both sexes. On the day before the ceremony of inclusion, the
_Includendus_--the person about to be inclosed--was to confess, and to
fast that day on bread and water; and all that night he was to watch and
pray, having his wax taper burning, in the monastery,[161] near his
inclusorium. On the morrow, all being assembled in church, the bishop, or
priest appointed by him, first addressed an exhortation to the people who
had come to see the ceremony, and to the includendus himself, and then
began the service with a response, and several appropriate psalms and
collects. After that, the priest put on his chasuble, and began mass, a
special prayer being introduced for the includendus. After the reading of
the gospel, the includendus stood before the altar, and offered his taper,
which was to remain burning on the altar throughout the mass; and then,
standing before the altar-step, he read his profession, or if he were a
layman (and unable to read), one of the chorister boys read it for him.
And this was the form of his profession:--"I, brother (or sister) N, offer
and present myself to serve the Divine Goodness in the order of
Anchorites, and I promise to remain, according to the rule of that order,
in the service of God, from henceforth, by the grace of God, and the
counsel of the Church." Then he signed the document in which his
profession was written with the sign of the cross, and laid it upon the
altar on bended knees. Then the bishop or priest said a prayer, and
asperged with holy water the habit of the includendus; and he put on the
habit, and prostrated himself before the altar, and so remained, while
the priest and choir sang over him the hymn _Veni Creator Spiritus_, and
then proceeded with the mass. First the priest communicated, then the
includendus, and then the rest of the congregation; and the mass was
concluded. Next his wax taper, which had all this time been burning on the
altar, was given to the includendus, and a procession was formed; first
the choir; then the includendus, clad in his proper habit, and carrying
his lighted taper; then the bishop or priest, in his mass robes; and then
the people following; and so they proceeded, singing a solemn litany, to
the cell. And first the priest entered alone into the cell, and asperged
it with holy water, saying appropriate sentences; then he consecrated and
blessed the cell, with prayers offered before the altar of its chapel. The
third of these short prayers may be transcribed: "Benedic domine domum
istam et locum istum, ut sit in eo sanitas, sanctitas, castitas, virtus,
victoria, sanctimonia, humilitas, lenitas, mansuetudo, plenitudo, legis et
obedientæ Deo Patre et Filio et Spiritui Sancto et sit super locum istum
et super omnes habitantes in eo tua larga benedictio, ut in his manufactis
habitaculis cum solemtate manentes ipsi tuum sit semper habitaculum. Per
dominum," &c. Then the bishop or priest came out, and led in the
includendus, still carrying his lighted taper, and solemnly blessed him.
And then--a mere change in the tense of the rubric has an effect which is
quite pathetic; it is no longer the _includendus_, the person to be
enclosed, but the _inclusus_, the enclosed one, he or she upon whom the
doors of the cell have closed for ever in this life--then the enclosed is
to maintain total and solemn silence throughout, while the doors are
securely closed, the choir chanting appropriate psalms. Then the celebrant
causes all the people to pray for the inclusus privately, in solemn
silence, to God, for whose love he has left the world, and caused himself
to be inclosed in that strait prison. And after some concluding prayers,
the procession left the inclusus to his solitary life, and returned,
chanting, to the church, finishing at the step of the choir.
One cannot read this solemn--albeit superstitious--service, in the quaint
old mediæval character, out of the very book which has, perhaps, been used
in the actual enclosing of some recluse, without being moved. Was it some
frail woman, with all the affections of her heart and the hopes of her
earthly life shattered, who sought the refuge of this living tomb? was it
some man of strong passions, wild and fierce in his crimes, as wild and
fierce in his penitence? or was it some enthusiast, with the over-excited
religious sensibility, of which we have instances enough in these days? We
can see them still, in imagination, prostrate, "in total and solemn
silence," before the wax taper placed upon the altar of the little chapel,
and listening while the chant of the returning procession grows fainter
and fainter in the distance. Ah! we may scornfully smile at it all as a
wild superstition, or treat it coldly as a question of mere antiquarian
interest; but what broken hearts, what burning passions, have been
shrouded under that recluse's robe, and what wild cries of human agony
have been stifled under that "total and solemn silence!" When the
processional chant had died away in the distance, and the recluse's taper
had burnt out on his little altar, was that the end of the tragedy, or
only the end of the first act? Did the broken heart find repose? Did the
wild spirit grow tame? Or did the one pine away and die like a flower in a
dungeon, and the other beat itself to death against the bars of its
self-made cage?
CHAPTER IV.
CONSECRATED WIDOWS OF THE MIDDLE AGES.
Besides all other religious people living under vows, in community in
monasteries, or as solitaries in their anchorages, there were also a
number of Widows vowed to that life and devoted to the service of God, who
lived at home in their own houses or with their families. This was
manifestly a continuation, or imitation, of the primitive Order of Widows,
of whom St. Paul speaks in his first Epistle to Timothy (ch. v.). For
although religious women, from an early period (fourth century), were
usually nuns, the primitive Orders of Deaconesses and Widows did not
altogether cease to exist in the Church. The Service Books[162] contain
offices for their benediction; and though it is probable that in fact a
deaconess was very rarely consecrated in the Western Church, yet the
number of allusions to widows throughout the Middle Ages leads us to
suspect that there may have been no inconsiderable number of them. A
common form of commission[163] to a suffragan bishop includes the
consecrating of widows. From the Pontifical of Edmund Lacey, Bishop of
Exeter, of the fourteenth century, we give a sketch of the service.[164]
It is the same in substance as those in the earlier books. First, a rubric
states that though a widow may be blessed on any day, it is more fitting
that she be blessed on a holy day, and especially on the Lord's day.
Between the Epistle and the Gospel, the bishop sitting on a faldstool
facing the people, the widow kneeling before the bishop is to be
interrogated if she desires, putting away all carnal affections, to be
joined as a spouse to Christ. Then she shall publicly in the vulgar tongue
profess herself, in the bishop's hands, resolved to observe perpetual
continence. Then the bishop blesses her habit (clamidem), saying a
collect. Then the bishop, genuflecting, begins the hymn _Veni Creator
Spiritus_; the widow puts on the habit and veil, and the bishop blesses
and gives her the ring; and with a final prayer for appropriate virtues
and blessings, the ordinary service of Holy Communion is resumed, special
mention of the widow being made therein.
These collects are of venerable age, and have much beauty of thought and
expression. The reader may be glad to see one of them as an example, and
as an indication of the spirit in which people entered into these
religious vows: "O God, the gracious inhabiter of chaste bodies and lover
of uncorrupt souls, look we pray Thee, O Lord, upon this Thy servant, who
humbly offers her devotion to Thee. May there be in her, O Lord, the gift
of Thy spirit, a prudent modesty, a wise graciousness, a grave gentleness,
a chaste freedom; may she be fervent in charity and love nothing beside
Thee (_extra te_); may she live praiseworthy and not desire praise; may
she fear Thee and serve Thee with a chaste love; be Thou to her, O Lord,
honour, Thou delight; be Thou in sorrow her comfort, in doubt her
counsellor; be Thou to her defence in injury, in tribulation patience, in
poverty abundance, in fasting food, in sickness medicine. By Thee, whom
she desires to love above all things, may she keep what she has vowed; so
that by Thy help she may conquer the old enemy, and cast out the
defilements of sin; that she may be decorated with the gift of fruit sixty
fold,[165] and adorned with the lamps of all virtues, and by Thy grace may
be worthy to join the company of the elect widows. This we humbly ask
through Jesus Christ our Lord."
In a paper in the "Surrey Transactions," vol. iii. p. 208, Mr. Baigent,
the writer of it, finds two, and only two, entries of the consecration of
widows in the Episcopal Registers of Winchester, which go back to the
early part of the reign of Edward I. The first of these is on May 4, 1348,
of the Lady Aleanor Giffard, probably, says Mr. Baigent, the widow of John
Giffard, of Bowers Giffard, in Essex. The other entry, on October 18,
1379, is of the Benediction of Isabella Burgh, the widow of a citizen of
London (whose will is given by Mr. Baigent), and of Isabella Golafre,
widow of Sir John Golafre.
The profession of the widow is given in old French, and a translation of
it in old English, as follows: "In ye name of God, Fader and Sone and Holy
Ghost. Iche Isabelle Burghe, that was sometyme wyfe of Thomas Burghe,
wyche that is God be taught helpynge the grace of God [the parallel French
is, Quest à Dieu commande ottriaunte la grace de Dieu] behote [promise]
conversione of myn maners, and make myn avows to God, and to is swete
moder Seynte Marie and to alle seintz, into youre handes leve [dear] fader
in God, William be ye grace of God Bisshope of Wynchestre, that fro this
day forward I schal ben chaste of myn body and in holy chastite kepe me
treweliche and devouteliche all ye dayes of myn life." Another form of
profession is written on the lower margin of the Exeter Pontifical, and
probably in the handwriting of Bishop Lacy: "I, N., wedowe, avowe to God
perpetuall chastite of my body from henceforward, and in the presence of
the honorable fadyr in God, my Lord N., by the grace of God, Bishop of N.,
I promyth sabilly to leve in the Church, a wedowe. And this to do, of myne
own hand I subscribe this writing: _Et postea faciat signum crucis_."
Another example of a widow in the Winchester registers is that of
Elizabeth de Julien, widow of John Plantagenet, Earl of Kent, who made
that vow to Bishop William de Edyndon, but afterwards married Sir Eustache
Dabrichecourt, September 29, 1360, whereupon proceedings were commenced
against her by the Archbishop of Canterbury, who imposed on her a severe
and life-long penance. She survived her second husband many years, and
dying in 1411, was buried in the choir of the Friars Minor at Winchester,
near the tomb of her first husband.
The epitaph on the monumental brass of Joanna Braham, A.D. 1519, at
Frenze, in Norfolk, describes her as "Vidua ac Deo devota."
In the Book of the Knight of La Tour-Landry is a description of a lady
who, if she had not actually taken the vows of widowhood, lived the life
we should suppose to be that of a vowess. "It is of a good lady whiche
longe tyme was in wydowhode. She was of a holy lyf, and moste humble and
honourable, as the whiche every yere kepte and held a feste upon
Crystemasse-day of her neyghbours bothe farre and nere, tyll her halle was
ful of them. She served and honoured eche one after his degree, and
specially she bare grete reverence to the good and trewe wymmen, and to
them whiche has deservyd to be worshipped. Also she was of suche customme
that yf she knewe any poure gentyll woman that shold be wedded she arayed
her with her jewels. Also she wente to the obsequye of the poure gentyll
wymmen, and gaf there torches, and all such other lumynary as it neded
thereto. Her dayly ordenaunce was that she rose erly ynough, and had ever
freres, and two or three chappellayns whiche sayd matyns before her within
her oratorye; and after she herd a hyhe masse and two lowe, and sayd her
servyse full devoutely; and after this she wente and arayed herself, and
walked in her gardyn, or else aboute her plase, sayenge her other
devocions and prayers. And as tyme was she wente to dyner; and after
dyner, if she wyste and knewe ony seke folke or wymmen in theyr
childbedde, she went to see and vysited them, and made to be brought to
them of her best mete. And then, as she myght not go herself, she had a
servant propyer therefore, whiche rode upon a lytell hors, and bare with
him grete plente of good mete and drynke for to gyve to the poure and seke
folk there as they were. And after she had herd evensonge she went to her
souper, yf she fasted not. And tymely she wente to bedde; made her styward
to come to her to wete what mete sholde be had the next daye, and lyved by
good ordenaunce, and wold be purveyed byfore of alle such thynge that was
nedefull for her household. She made grete abstynence, and wered the
hayre[166] upon the Wednesday and upon the Fryday.... And she rose everye
night thre tymes, and kneled downe to the ground by her bedde, and redryd
thankynges to God, and prayd for al Crysten soules, and dyd grete almes to
the poure. This good lady, that wel is worthy to be named and preysed, had
to name my lady Cecyle of Ballavylle.... She was the most good and curtoys
lady that ever I knewe or wyste in ony countrey, and that lesse was
envious, and never she wold here say ony evyll of no body, but excused
them, and prayd to God that they myght amende them, and that none was that
knewe what to hym shold happe.... She had a ryhte noble ende, and as I
wene ryht agreable to God; and as men say commonely, of honest and good
lyf cometh ever a good ende."
In post-Reformation times there are biographies of holy women which show
that the idea of consecrated widowhood was still living in the minds of
the people. Probably the dress commonly worn by widows throughout their
widowhood is a remnant of the mediæval custom.
THE PILGRIMS OF THE MIDDLE AGES.
CHAPTER I.
The fashion of going on pilgrimage seems to have sprung up in the fourth
century. The first object of pilgrimage was the Holy Land. Jerome said, at
the outset, the most powerful thing which can be said against it; viz.,
that the way to heaven is as short from Britain as from Jerusalem--a
consolatory reflection to those who were obliged, or who preferred, to
stay at home; but it did not succeed in quenching the zeal of those many
thousands who desired to see, with their own eyes, the places which had
been hallowed by the presence and the deeds of their Lord--to tread, with
their own footsteps,
"Those holy fields
Over whose acres walked those blessed feet,
Which "eighteen" hundred years ago were nailed
For our advantage on the bitter cross;"[167]
to kneel down and pray for pardon for their sins upon that very spot where
the Great Sacrifice for sin was actually offered up; to stand upon the
summit of Mount Olivet, and gaze up into that very pathway through the sky
by which He ascended to His kingdom in Heaven.
We should, however, open up too wide a field if we were to enter into the
subject of the early pilgrims to the Holy Land;[168] to trace their route
from Britain, usually _viâ_ Rome, by sea and land; to describe how a
pilgrim passenger-traffic sprung up, of which adventurous ship-owners took
advantage; how hospitals[169] were founded here and there along the road,
to give refuge to the weary pilgrims, until they reached the Hospital _par
excellence_, which stood beside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; how
Saxon kings made treaties to secure their safe conduct through foreign
countries;[170] how the Order of the Knights of the Temple was founded to
escort the caravans of pilgrims from one to another of the holy places,
and protect them from marauding Saracens and Arabs; how the Crusades were
organised partly, no doubt, to stem the course of Mahommedan conquest, but
ostensibly to wrest the holy places from the hands of the infidel: this
part of the subject of pilgrimage would occupy too much of our space here.
Our design is to give a sketch of the less known portion of the subject,
which relates to the pilgrimages which sprung up in after-times, when the
veneration for the holy places had extended to the shrines of saints; and
when, still later, veneration had run wild into the grossest superstition,
and crowds of sane men and women flocked to relic-worships, which would be
ludicrous if they were not so pitiable and humiliating. This part of the
subject forms a chapter in the history of the manners of the Middle Ages,
which is little known to any but the antiquarian student; but it is an
important chapter to all who desire thoroughly to understand what were the
modes of thought and habits of life of our English forefathers in the
Middle Ages.
[Illustration: _Thirteenth Century Pilgrims (the two Disciples at
Emmaus)._]
The most usual foreign pilgrimages were to the Holy Land, the scene of our
Lord's earthly life; to Rome, the centre of western Christianity; and to
the shrine of St. James at Compostella.[171]
The number of pilgrims to these places must have been comparatively
limited; for a man who had any regular business or profession could not
well undertake so long an absence from home. The rich of no occupation
could afford the leisure and the cost; and the poor who chose to abandon
their lawful occupation could make these pilgrimages at the cost of
others; for the pilgrim was sure of entertainment at every hospital, or
monastery, or priory, probably at every parish priest's rectory and every
gentleman's hall,[172] on his way; and there were not a few poor men and
women who indulged a vagabond humour in a pilgrim's life. The poor pilgrim
repaid his entertainer's hospitality by bringing the news of the
countries[173] through which he had passed, and by amusing the household
after supper with marvellous saintly legends, and traveller's tales. He
raised a little money for his inevitable travelling expenses by retailing
holy trifles and curiosities, such as were sold wholesale at all the
shrines frequented by pilgrims, and which were usually supposed to have
some saintly efficacy attached to them. Sometimes the pilgrim would take a
bolder flight, and carry with him some fragment of a relic--a joint of a
bone, or a pinch of dust, or a nail-paring, or a couple of hairs of the
saint, or a rag of his clothing; and the people gladly paid the pilgrim
for thus bringing to their doors some of the advantages of the holy
shrines which he had visited. Thus Chaucer's Pardoner--"That strait was
comen from the Court of Rome"--
"In his mail[174] he had a pilwebere,[175]
Which as he saidé was oure Lady's veil;
He said he had a gobbet of the sail
Thatte St. Peter had whan that he went
Upon the sea, till Jesu Christ him hent.[176]
He had a cross of laton full of stones;[177]
And in a glass he haddé piggés bones.[178]
But with these relics whanné that he fond
A poure parson dwelling upon lond,
Upon a day he gat him more monie
Than that the parson gat in monthes tweie.
And thus with feined flattering and japes,
He made the parson and the people his apes."
In a subsequent chapter, on the Merchants of the Middle Ages, will be
found some illustrations of mediæval shipping, which also illustrate the
present subject. One is a representation of Sir John Mandeville and his
companions in mantle, hat, and staff, just landed at a foreign town on
their pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Another represents Richard Beauchamp,
Earl of Warwick, in mantle, hat, and staff, embarking in his own ship on
his departure for a similar pilgrimage. Another illustration in the
subsequent chapter on Secular Clergy represents Earl Richard at Rome,
being presented to the Pope.
But those who could not spare time or money to go to Jerusalem, or Rome,
or Compostella, could spare both for a shorter expedition; and pilgrimages
to English shrines appear to have been very common. By far the most
popular of our English pilgrimages was to the shrine of St.
Thomas-à-Becket, at Canterbury, and it was popular not only in England,
but all over Europe. The one which stood next in popular estimation, was
the pilgrimage to Our Lady of Walsingham. But nearly every cathedral and
great monastery, and many a parish church besides, had its famous saint to
whom the people resorted. There was St. Cuthbert at Durham, and St.
William at York, and little St. William at Norwich, and St. Hugh at
Lincoln, and St. Edward Confessor at Westminster, and St. Erkenwald in the
cathedral of London, and St. Wulstan at Worcester, and St. Swithin at
Winchester, and St. Edmund at Bury, and SS. Etheldreda and Withburga at
Ely, and many more, whose remains were esteemed holy relics, and whose
shrines were frequented by the devout. Some came to pray at the tomb for
the intercession of the saint in their behalf; or to seek the cure of
disease by the touch of the relic; or to offer up thanks for deliverance
believed to have been vouchsafed in time of peril through the saint's
prayers; or to obtain the number of days' pardon--_i.e._ of remission of
their time in purgatory--offered by Papal bulls to those who should pray
at the tomb. Then there were famous roods, the Rood of Chester and of
Bromholme; and statues of the Virgin, as Our Lady of Wilsden, and of
Boxley, and of this, that, and the other place. There were scores of holy
wells besides, under saintly invocations, of which St. Winifred's well
with her chapel over it still remains an excellent example.[179] Some of
these were springs of medicinal water, and were doubtless of some efficacy
in the cures for which they were noted; in others a saint had baptized his
converts; others had simply afforded water to a saint in his neighbouring
cell.[180]
Before any man[181] went on pilgrimage, he first went to his church, and
received the Church's blessing on his pious enterprise, and her prayers
for his good success and safe return. The office of pilgrims (_officium
peregrinorum_) may be found in the old service-books. We give a few notes
of it from a Sarum missal, date 1554, in the British Museum.[182] The
pilgrim is previously to have confessed. At the opening of the service he
lies prostrate before the altar, while the priest and choir sing over him
certain appropriate psalms, viz. the 24th, 50th, and 90th. Then follow
some versicles, and three collects, for safety, &c., in which the pilgrim
is mentioned by name, "thy servant, N." Then he rises, and there follows
the benediction of his scrip and staff; and the priest sprinkles the scrip
with holy water, and places it on the neck of the pilgrim, saying, "In the
name of, &c., take this scrip, the habit of your pilgrimage, that,
corrected and saved, you may be worthy to reach the thresholds of the
saints to which you desire to go, and, your journey done, may return to us
in safety." Then the priest delivers the staff, saying, "Take this staff,
the support of your journey, and of the labour of your pilgrimage, that
you may be able to conquer all the bands of the enemy, and to come safely
to the threshold of the saints to which you desire to go, and, your
journey obediently performed, return to us with joy." If any one of the
pilgrims present is going to Jerusalem, he is to bring a habit signed with
the cross, and the priest blesses it:--"... we pray that Thou wilt
vouchsafe to bless this cross, that the banner of the sacred cross, whose
figure is signed upon him, may be to Thy servant an invincible strength
against the evil temptations of the old enemy, a defence by the way, a
protection in Thy house, and may be to us everywhere a guard, through our
Lord, &c." Then he sprinkles the habit with holy water, and gives it to
the pilgrim, saying, "Take this habit, signed with the cross of the Lord
our Saviour, that by it you may come safely to his sepulchre, who, with
the Father," &c. Then follows mass; and after mass, certain prayers over
the pilgrims, prostrate at the altar; then, "let them communicate, and so
depart in the name of the Lord." The service runs in the plural, as if
there were usually a number of pilgrims to be dispatched together.
[Illustration: _Lydgate's Pilgrim._]
There was a certain costume appropriate to the pilgrim, which old writers
speak of under the title of pilgrims' weeds; the illustrations of this
paper will give examples of it. It consisted of a robe and hat, a staff
and scrip. The robe called _sclavina_ by Du Cange, and other writers, is
said to have been always of wool, and sometimes of shaggy stuff, like that
represented in the accompanying woodcut of the latter part of the
fourteenth century, from the Harleian MS., 4,826. It seems intended to
represent St. John Baptist's robe of camel's hair. Its colour does not
appear in the illuminations, but old writers speak of it as grey. The hat
seems to be commonly a round hat, of felt, and, apparently, does not
differ from the hats which travellers not uncommonly wore over their hoods
in those days.[183]
The pilgrim who was sent on pilgrimage as a penance seems usually to have
been ordered to go barefoot, and probably many others voluntarily
inflicted this hardship upon themselves in order to heighten the merit and
efficacy of their good deed. They often also made a vow not to cut the
hair or beard until the pilgrimage had been accomplished. But the special
insignia of a pilgrim were the staff and scrip. In the religious service
with which the pilgrims initiated their journey, we have seen that the
staff and scrip are the only insignia mentioned, except in the case of one
going to the Holy Land, who has a robe signed with the cross; the staff
and the scrip were specially blessed by the priest, and the pilgrim
formally invested with them by his hands.
The staff, or bourdon, was not of an invariable shape. On a
fourteenth-century grave-stone at Haltwhistle, Northumberland, it is like
a rather long walking-stick, with a natural knob at the top. In the cut
from Erasmus's "Praise of Folly," which forms the frontispiece of Mr.
Nichols's "Pilgrimages of Canterbury and Walsingham," it is a similar
walking-stick; but, usually, it was a long staff, some five, six, or
seven feet long, turned in the lathe, with a knob at the top, and another
about a foot lower down. Sometimes a little below the lower knob there is
a hook, or a staple, to which we occasionally find a water-bottle or a
small bundle attached. The hook is seen on the staff of Lydgate's pilgrim
(p. 163). Sir John Hawkins tells us[184] that the staff was sometimes
hollowed out into a kind of flute, on which the pilgrim could play. The
same kind of staff we find in illuminated MSS. in the hands of beggars and
shepherds, as well as pilgrims.
The scrip was a small bag, slung at the side by a cord over the shoulder,
to contain the pilgrim's food and his few necessaries.[185] Sometimes it
was made of leather; but probably the material varied according to the
taste and wealth of the pilgrim. We find it of different shape and size in
different examples. In the monumental effigy of a pilgrim of rank at
Ashby-de-la-Zouch, the scrip is rather long, widest at bottom, and is
ornamented with three tassels at the bottom, something like the bag in
which the Lord Chancellor carries the great seal, and it has scallop
shells fixed upon its front. In the grave-stone of a knight at
Haltwhistle, already alluded to, the knight's arms, sculptured upon the
shield on one side of his grave cross, are a _fess_ between three _garbs_
(_i.e._ wheat-sheaves); and a _garb_ is represented upon his scrip, which
is square and otherwise plain. The tomb of Abbot Chillenham, at
Tewkesbury, has the pilgrim's staff and scrip sculptured upon it as an
architectural ornament; the scrip is like the mediæval purse, with a
scallop shell on the front of it, very like that on p. 163.[186] The
pilgrim is sometimes represented with a bottle, often with a rosary, and
sometimes with other conveniences for travelling or helps to devotion.
There is a very good example in Hans Burgmaier's "Images de Saints, &c.,
of the Familly of the Emp. Maximilian I." fol. 112.
[Illustration: _Pilgrim, from Erasmus's "Praise of Folly."_]
But though the conventional pilgrim is always represented with robe, and
hat, and staff, and scrip, the actual pilgrim seems sometimes to have
dispensed with some, if not with all, of these insignia. For example,
Chaucer minutely describes the costume of the principal personages in his
company of Canterbury Pilgrims, and he not only does not describe what
would have been so marked and picturesque features in their appearance,
but his description seems to preclude the pilgrim's robe and hat. His
knight is described in the ordinary jupon,
"Of fustian he wered a jupon."
And the squire--
"Short was his gowne with sleves long and wide."
And the yeoman--
"Was clad in cote and hood of green."
And the serjeant of the law--
"Rode but homely in a medlee cote,
Girt with a seint[187] of silk with barres small."
The merchant was in motley--
"And on his hed a Flaundrish bever hat."
And so with all the rest, they are clearly described in the ordinary dress
of their class, which the pilgrim's robe would have concealed. It seems
very doubtful whether they even bore the especial insignia of staff and
scrip. Perhaps when men and women went their pilgrimage on horseback, they
did not go through the mere form of carrying a long walking-staff. The
equestrian pilgrim, of whom we shall give a woodcut hereafter, though he
is very correctly habited in robe and hat, with pilgrim signs on each, and
his rosary round his neck, does not carry the bourdon. The only trace of
pilgrim costume about Chaucer's Pilgrims, is in the Pardoner--
"A vernicle hadde he sewed in his cappe"--
but that was a sign of a former pilgrimage to Rome; and it is enough to
prove--if proof were needed--that Chaucer did not forget to clothe his
personages in pilgrim weeds, but that they did not wear them.
But besides the ordinary insignia of pilgrimage, every pilgrimage had its
special signs, which the pilgrim on his return wore conspicuously upon his
hat or his scrip, or hanging round his neck, in token that he had
accomplished that particular pilgrimage. The pilgrim who had made a long
pilgrimage, paying his devotions at every shrine in his way, might come
back as thickly decorated with signs as a modern soldier, who has been
through a stirring campaign, with medals and clasps.
The pilgrim to the Holy Land had this distinction above all others, that
he wore a special sign from the very hour that he took the vow upon him to
make that most honourable pilgrimage. This sign was a cross, formed of two
strips of coloured cloth sewn upon the shoulder of the robe; the English
pilgrim wore the cross of white, the French of red, the Flemish of green.
Some, in their fierce earnestness, had the sacred sign cut into their
flesh; in the romance of "Sir Isumbras," we read--
"With a sharpe knyfe he share
A cross upon his shoulder bare."
Others had it branded upon them with a hot iron; one pilgrim in the
"Mirac. de S. Thomæ" of Abbot Benedict gives the obvious reason, that
though his clothes should be torn away, no one should be able to tear the
cross from his breast. At the end of the _Officium peregrinorum_, which we
have described, we find a rubric calling attention to the fact, that
burning the cross in the flesh is forbidden by the canon law on pain of
the greater excommunication; the prohibition is proof enough that at one
time it was a not uncommon practice. But when the pilgrim reached the Holy
Land, and had visited the usual round of the holy places, he became
entitled to wear the palm in token of his accomplishment of that great
pilgrimage; and from this badge he derived the name of Palmer. How the
palm was borne does not quite certainly appear; some say that it was a
branch of palm, which the returning pilgrim bore in his hand or affixed
to the top of his staff;[188] but probably in the general case it was in
the shape of sprigs of palm sewn crosswise upon the hat and scrip.
The Roman pilgrimage seems always to have ranked next in popular
estimation to that of the Holy Land;[189] and with reason, for Rome was
then the great centre of the religion and the civilization of Western
Christendom. The plenary indulgence which Boniface VIII. published in
1300, to all who should make the Jubilee pilgrimage to Rome, no doubt had
its effect in popularizing this pilgrimage _ad limina apostolorum_. Two
hundred thousand pilgrims, it is said, visited Rome in one month during
the first Jubilee; and succeeding popes shortened the interval between
these great spiritual fairs, first to fifty, then to thirty-three, and
lastly to twenty-five years. The pilgrim to Rome doubtless visited many
shrines in that great Christian capital, and was entitled to wear as many
signs; but the chief signs of the Roman pilgrimage were a badge with the
effigies of St. Peter and St. Paul, the cross-keys, and the vernicle.
Concerning the first, there is a grant from Innocent III. to the
arch-priest and canons of St. Peter's at Rome,[190] which confirms to them
(or to those to whom they shall concede it) the right to cast and to sell
the lead or pewter signs, bearing the effigies of the Apostles Peter and
Paul, with which those who have visited their threshold decorate
themselves for the increase of their devotion and a testimony of their
pilgrimage. Dr. Rock says[191] "that a friend of his has one of these
Roman pilgrim signs, which was dug up at Launde Abbey, Leicestershire. It
is of copper, in the shape of a quatrefoil, one and three-quarter inches
in diameter, and has the cross-keys on one side, the other side being
plain." An equestrian pilgrim represented in Hans Burgmaier's "Der Weise
Koenige," seems to bear on his cloak and his hat the cross-keys. The
vernicle was the kerchief of Veronica, with which, said a very popular
legend, she wiped the brow of the Saviour, when he fainted under His cross
in the Via Dolorosa, and which was found to have had miraculously
transferred to it an imprint of the sacred countenance. Chaucer's
Pardoner, as we have already seen--
"Strait was comen from the Court of Rome,"
and, therefore,
"A vernicle had he sewed upon his cap."
The sign of the Compostella pilgrimage was the scallop shell.[192] The
legend which the old Spanish writers give in explanation of the badge is
this:--When the body of the saint was being miraculously conveyed in a
ship without sails or oars, from Joppa to Galicia, it passed the village
of Bonzas, on the coast of Portugal, on the day that a marriage had been
celebrated there. The bridegroom with his friends were amusing themselves
on horseback on the sands, when his horse became unmanageable and plunged
into the sea; whereupon the miraculous ship stopped in its voyage, and
presently the bridegroom emerged, horse and man, close beside it. A
conversation ensued between the knight and the saint's disciples on board,
in which they apprised him that it was the saint who had saved him from a
watery grave, and explained the Christian religion to him. He believed,
and was baptized there and then. And immediately the ship resumed its
voyage, and the knight came galloping back over the sea to rejoin his
astonished friends. He told them all that had happened, and they too were
converted, and the knight baptized his bride with his own hand. Now, when
the knight emerged from the sea, both his dress and the trappings of his
horse were covered with scallop shells; and, therefore, the Galicians took
the scallop shell as the sign of St. James. The legend is found
represented in churches dedicated to St. James, and in ancient illuminated
MSS.[193] The scallop shell is not unfrequently found in armorial
bearings. It is hardly probable that it would be given to a man merely
because he had made the common pilgrimage to Compostella; perhaps it was
earned by service under the banner of Santiago, against the Moors in the
Spanish crusades. The Popes Alexander III., Gregory IX., and Clement V.,
granted a faculty to the Archbishops of Compostella, to excommunicate
those who sell these shells to pilgrims anywhere except in the city of
Santiago, and they assign this reason, because the shells are the badge of
the Apostle Santiago.[194] The badge was not always an actual shell, but
sometimes a jewel made in the shape of a scallop shell. In the "Journal of
the Archæological Association," iii. 126, is a woodcut of a scallop shell
of silver gilt, with a circular piece of jet set in the middle, on which
is carved an equestrian figure of Santiago.
The chief sign of the Canterbury pilgrimage was an ampul (_ampulla_, a
flask); we are told all about its origin and meaning by Abbot Benedict,
who wrote a book on the miracles of St. Thomas.[195] The monks had
carefully collected from the pavement the blood of the martyr which had
been shed upon it, and preserved it as one of the precious relics. A sick
lady who visited the shrine, begged for a drop of this blood as a
medicine; it worked a miraculous cure, and the fame of the miracle spread
far and wide, and future pilgrims were not satisfied unless they too might
be permitted the same high privilege. A drop of it used to be mixed with a
chalice full of water, that the colour and flavour might not offend the
senses, and they were allowed to taste of it. It wrought, says the abbot,
miraculous cures; and so, not only vast crowds came to take this strange
and unheard-of medicine, but those who came were anxious to take some of
it home for their sick friends and neighbours. At first they put it into
wooden vessels, but these were split by the liquid; and many of the
fragments of these vessels were hung up about the martyr's tomb in token
of this wonder. At last it came into the head of a certain young man to
cast little flasks--_ampullæ_--of lead and pewter. And then the miracle of
the breaking ceased, and they knew that it was the Divine will that the
Canterbury medicine should be carried in these ampullæ throughout the
world, and that these ampullæ should be recognised by all the world as
the sign of this pilgrimage and these wonderful cures. At first the
pilgrims had carried the wooden vases concealed under their clothes; but
these ampullæ were carried suspended round the neck; and when the pilgrims
reached home, says another authority,[196] they hung these ampullæ in
their churches for sacred relics, that the glory of the blessed martyr
might be known throughout the world. Some of these curious relics still
exist. They are thin, flat on one side, and slightly rounded on the other,
with two little ears or loops through which a cord might be passed to
suspend them. The mouth might have been closed by solder, or even by
folding over the edges of the metal. There is a little flask figured in
Gardner's "History of Dunwich," pl. iii., which has a T upon the side of
it, and which may very probably have been one of these ampullæ. But one of
a much more elaborate and interesting type is here engraved, from an
example preserved in the museum at York. The principal figure is a
somewhat stern representation of the blessed archbishop; above is a rude
representation of his shrine; and round the margin is the rhyming
legend--"Optimus egrorum: Medicus fit Thoma bonorum" ("Thomas is the best
physician for the pious sick"). On the reverse of the ampul is a design
whose intention is not very clear; two monks or priests are apparently
saying some service out of a book, and one of them is laying down a
pastoral staff; perhaps it represents the shrine with its attendants. From
the style of art, this design may be of the early part of the thirteenth
century. But though this ampul is clearly designated by the monkish
writers, whom we have quoted, as the special sign of the Canterbury
pilgrimage, there was another sign which seems to have been peculiar to
it, and that is a bell. Whether these bells were hand-bells, which the
pilgrims carried in their hands, and rang from time to time, or whether
they were little bells, like hawks' bells, fastened to their dress--as
such bells sometimes were to a canon's cope--does not certainly appear. W.
Thorpe, in the passage hereafter quoted at length from Fox, speaks of "the
noise of their singing and the sound of their piping, and the jangling of
their Canterbury bells," as a body of pilgrims passed through a town. One
of the prettiest of our wild-flowers, the _Campanula rotundifolia_, which
has clusters of blue, bell-like flowers, has obtained the common name of
Canterbury Bells.[197] There were other religious trinkets also sold and
used by pilgrims as mementoes of their visit to the famous shrine. The
most common of them seems to have been the head of St. Thomas,[198] cast
in various ornamental devices, in silver or pewter; sometimes it was
adapted to hang to a rosary,[199] more usually, in the examples which
remain to us, it was made into a brooch to be fastened upon the cap or
hood, or dress. In Mr. C. R. Smith's "Collectanea Antiqua," vol. i. pl.
31, 32, 33, and vol. ii. pl. 16, 17, 18, there are representations of no
less than fifty-one English and foreign pilgrims' signs, of which a
considerable proportion are heads of St. Thomas. The whole collection is
very curious and interesting.[200]
[Illustration: _The Canterbury Ampulla._]
The ampul was not confined to St. Thomas of Canterbury. When his ampuls
became so very popular, the guardians of the other famous shrines adopted
it, and manufactured "waters," "aquæ reliquiarum," of their own. The relic
of the saint, which they were so fortunate as to possess, was washed with
or dipped in holy water, which was thereupon supposed to
possess--diluted--the virtues of the relic itself. Thus there was a
"Durham water," being the water in which the incorruptible body of St.
Cuthbert had been washed at its last exposure; and Reginald of Durham, in
his book on the admirable virtues of the blessed Cuthbert,[201] tells us
how it used to be carried away in ampuls, and mentions a special example
in which a little of this pleasant medicine poured into the mouth of a
sick man, cured him on the spot. The same old writer tells us how the
water held in a bowl that once belonged to Editha, queen and saint, in
which a little bit of rag, which had once formed part of St. Cuthbert's
garments, was soaked, acquired from these two relics so much virtue that
it brought back health and strength to a dying clerk who drank it. In
Gardner's "History of Dunwich" (pl. iii.) we find drawings of ampullæ like
those of St. Thomas, one of which has upon its front a W surmounted by a
crown, which it is conjectured may be the pilgrim sign of Our Lady of
Walsingham, and contained, perhaps, water from the holy wells at
Walsingham, hereinafter described. Another has an R surmounted by one of
the symbols of the Blessed Virgin, a lily in a pot; the author hazards a
conjecture that it may be the sign of St. Richard of Chichester. The
pilgrim who brought away one of these flasks of medicine, or one of these
blessed relics, we may suppose, did not always hang it up in church as an
_ex voto_, but sometimes preserved it carefully in his house for use in
time of sickness, and would often be applied to by a sick neighbour for
the gift of a portion of the precious fluid out of his ampul, or for a
touch of the trinket which had touched the saint. In the "Collectanea
Antiqua," is a facsimile of a piece of paper bearing a rude woodcut of
the adoration of the Magi, and an inscription setting forth that "Ces
billets ont touché aux troi testes de saints Rois a Cologne: ils sont pour
les voyageurs contre les malheurs des chemins, maux de teste, mal caduque,
fièures, sorcellerie, toute sorte de malefice, et morte soubite." It was
found upon the person of one William Jackson, who having been sentenced
for murder in June, 1748-9, was found dead in prison a few hours before
the time of his execution. It was the charmed billet, doubtless, which
preserved him from the more ignominious death.
We find a description of a pilgrim in full costume, and decorated with
signs, in "Piers Ploughman's Vision." He was apparelled--
"In pilgrym's wise.
He bare a burdoun[202] y-bounde with a broad list,
In a withwinde-wise y-wounden about;
A bolle[203] and a bagge he bare by his side,
An hundred of ampulles; on his hat seten
Signes of Synay[204] and shells of Galice,[205]
And many a crouche[206] on his cloke and keys of Rome,
And the vernicle before, for men sholde knowe,
And se bi his signes, whom he sought hadde.
These folk prayed[207] hym first fro whence he came?
'From Synay,' he seide, 'and from our Lordes Sepulcre:
In Bethlem and in Babiloyne I have ben in bothe;
In Armonye[208] and Alesaundre, in many other places.
Ye may se by my signes, that sitten in my hat,
That I have walked ful wide in weet and in drye,
And sought good seintes for my soules helthe.'"
The little bit of satire, for the sake of which this model pilgrim is
introduced, is too telling--especially after the wretched superstitions
which we have been noticing--to be omitted here. "Knowest thou?" asks the
Ploughman--
"'Kondest thou aught a cor-saint[209] that men calle Truthe?
Canst thou aught weten[210] us the way where that wight dwelleth?'"
"Nay," replies the much-travelled pilgrim--
"'Nay, so me God helpe,
I saw nevere palmere with pyke and with scrippe
Ask after hym, ever til now in this place.'"
CHAPTER II.
OUR LADY OF WALSINGHAM AND ST. THOMAS OF CANTERBURY.
We shall not wonder that these various pilgrimages were so popular as they
were, when we learn that there were not only physical panaceas to be
obtained, and spiritual pardons and immunities to be procured at the
shrines of the saints, but that moreover the journey to them was often
made a very pleasant holiday excursion.
Far be it from us to deny that there was many a pilgrim who undertook his
pilgrimage in anything but a holiday spirit, and who made it anything but
a gay excursion; many a man who sought, howbeit mistakenly, to atone for
wrong done, by making himself an outcast upon earth, and submitting to the
privations of mendicant pilgrimage; many a one who sought thus to escape
out of reach of the stings of remorse; many a one who tore himself from
home and the knowledge of friends, and went to foreign countries to hide
his shame from the eyes of those who knew him. Certainly, here and there,
might have been met a man or a woman, whose coarse sackcloth robe, girded
to the naked skin, and unshod feet, were signs of real if mistaken
penitence; and who carried grievous memories and a sad heart through every
mile of his weary way. We give here, from Hans Burgmaier's "Images de
Saints, &c., de la Famille de l'Empereur Maximilian I.," a very excellent
illustration of a pilgrim of this class. But this was not the general
character of the home pilgrimages of which we are especially speaking. In
the great majority of cases they seem to have been little more than a
pleasant religious holiday.[211] No doubt the general intention was
devotional; very likely it was often in a moment of religious fervour that
the vow was taken; the religious ceremony with which the journey was
begun, must have had a solemnising effect; and doubtless when the pilgrim
knelt at the shrine, an unquestioning faith in all the tales which he had
heard of its sanctity and occasional miraculous power, and the imposing
effect of the scene, would affect his mind with an unusual religious
warmth and exaltation. But between the beginning and the end of the
pilgrimage there was a long interval, which we say--not in a censorious
spirit--was usually occupied by a very pleasant excursion. The same fine
work which has supplied us with so excellent an illustration of an ascetic
pilgrim, affords another equally valuable companion-picture of a pilgrim
of the more usual class. He travels on foot, indeed, staff in hand, but he
is comfortably shod and clad; and while the one girds his sackcloth shirt
to his bare body with an iron chain, the other has his belt well furnished
with little conveniences of travel. It is quite clear that the journey was
not necessarily on foot, the voluntary pilgrims might ride if they
preferred it.[212] Nor did they beg their bread as penitential pilgrims
did; but put good store of money in their purse at starting, and ambled
easily along the green roads, and lived well at the comfortable inns along
their way.
[Illustration: _Pilgrim in Hair Shirt and Cloak._]
In many instances when the time of pilgrimage is mentioned, we find that
it was the spring; Chaucer's pilgrims started--
"When that April with his showerés sote
The drouth of March had perced to the root;"
and Fosbroke "apprehends that Lent was the usual time for these
pilgrimages."
It was the custom for the pilgrims to associate in companies; indeed,
since they travelled the same roads, about the same time of year, and
stopped at the same inns and hospitals, it was inevitable; and they seem
to have taken pains to make the journey agreeable to one another.
Chaucer's "hoste of the Tabard" says to his guests:--
"Ye go to Canterbury: God you speed,
The blisful martyr quité you your mede;
And well I wot, as ye go by the way,
Ye shapen you to talken and to play;
For trewely comfort and worthe is none,
To riden by the way dumb as a stone."
Even the poor penitential pilgrim who travelled barefoot did not travel,
all the way at least, on the hard and rough highway. Special roads seem to
have been made to the great shrines. Thus the "Pilgrim's Road" may still
be traced across Kent, almost from London to Canterbury; and if the
Londoner wishes for a pleasant and interesting home excursion, he may put
a scrip on his back, and take a bourdon in his hand, and make a summer's
pilgrimage on the track of Chaucer's pilgrims. The pilgrim's road to
Walsingham is still known as the "Palmer's Way" and the "Walsingham Green
Way." It may be traced along the principal part of its course for sixty
miles in the diocese of Norwich. The common people used to call the Milky
Way the Walsingham Way.
Dr. Rock tells us[213] that "besides its badge, each pilgrimage had also
its gathering cry, which the pilgrims shouted out as, at the grey of morn,
they slowly crept through the town or hamlet where they had slept that
night." By calling aloud upon God for help, and begging the intercession
of that saint to whose shrine they were wending, they bade all their
fellow pilgrims to come forth upon their road and begin another day's
march.[214]
After having said their prayers and told their beads, occasionally did
they strive to shorten the weary length of the way by song and music. As
often as a crowd of pilgrims started together from one place, they seem
always to have hired a few singers and one or two musicians to go with
them. Just before reaching any town, they drew themselves up into a line,
and thus walked through its streets in procession, singing and ringing
their little hand-bells, with a player on the bagpipes at their head. They
ought in strictness, perhaps, to have been psalms which they sung, and the
tales with which they were accustomed to lighten the way ought to have
been saintly legends and godly discourses; but in truth they were of very
varied character, according to the character of the individual pilgrims.
The songs were often love-songs; and though Chaucer's poor parson of a
town preached a sermon and was listened to, yet the romances of chivalry
or the loose faiblieux which were current probably formed the majority of
the real "Canterbury tales." In Foxe's "Acts and Monuments," we have a
very graphic and amusing little sketch of a company of pilgrims passing
through a town:--
W. Thorpe tells Archbishop Arundel, "When diverse men and women will go
thus after their own willes, and finding out one pilgrimage, they will
order with them before to have with them both men and women that can well
synge wanton songs; and some other pilgrims will have with them
bagge-pipes, so that every towne they come throwe, what with the noyse of
their singing and with the sound of their pipyng, and with the jingling of
their Canterbury belles, and with barking out of dogges after them, that
they make more noise than if the kinge came there awaye with all his
clarions, and many other minstrelles. And if these men and women be a
moneth on their pilgrimage, many of them shall be an half year after
great janglers, tale-tellers, and liars." The archbishop defends the
fashion, and gives us further information on the subject, saying "that
pilgremys have with them both syngers and also pipers, that when one of
them that goeth barefoote striketh his toe upon a stone, and hurteth him
sore, and maketh him to blede, it is well done that he or his fellow begyn
than a songe, or else take out of his bosom a bagge-pipe, for to drive
away with such myrthe the hurte of his fellow; for with soche solace the
travell and weriness of pylgremes is lightly and merily broughte forth."
Erasmus's colloquy entitled "Peregrinatio Religionis ergo," enables us to
accompany the pilgrim to the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, and to join
him in his devotions at the shrine. We shall throw together the most
interesting portions of the narrative from Mr. J. G. Nichols's translation
of it. "It is," he says, "the most celebrated place throughout all
England,[215] nor could you easily find in that island the man who
ventures to reckon on prosperity unless he yearly salute her with some
small offering according to his ability." "The town of Walsingham," he
says, "is maintained by scarcely anything else but the number of its
visitors." The shrine of Our Lady was not within the priory church; but on
the north side was the wooden chapel dedicated to "Our Lady," about
twenty-three feet by thirteen, enclosed within a chapel of stone
forty-eight feet by thirty, which Erasmus describes as unfinished. On the
west of the church was another wooden building, in which were two holy
wells also dedicated to the Virgin. Erasmus describes these "holy places."
"Within the church, which I have called unfinished, is a small chapel made
of wainscot, and admitting the devotees on each side by a narrow little
door. The light is small, indeed scarcely any but from the wax lights. A
most grateful fragrance meets the nostrils. When you look in, you would
say it was the mansion of the saints, so much does it glitter on all sides
with jewels, gold, and silver. In the inner chapel one canon attends to
receive and take charge of the offerings," which the pilgrims placed upon
the altar. "To the east of this is a chapel full of wonders. Thither I go.
Another guide receives me. There we worshipped for a short time. Presently
the joint of a man's finger is exhibited to us, the largest of three; I
kiss it; and then I ask whose relics were these? He says, St. Peter's. The
Apostle? I ask. He said, Yes. Then observing the size of the joint, which
might have been that of a giant, I remarked, Peter must have been a man of
very large size. At this, one of my companions burst into a laugh; which I
certainly took ill, for if he had been quiet the attendant would have
shown us all the relics. However, we pacified him by offering a few pence.
Before the chapel was a shed, which they say was suddenly, in the winter
season, when everything was covered with snow, brought thither from a
great distance. Under this shed are two wells full to the brink; they say
the spring is sacred to the Holy Virgin. The water is wonderfully cold,
and efficacious in curing the pains of the head and stomach. We next
turned towards the heavenly milk of the Blessed Virgin" (kept apparently
in another chapel); "that milk is kept on the high-altar; in the centre of
which is Christ; at his right hand for honour's sake, his mother; for the
milk personifies the mother. As soon as the canon in attendance saw us, he
rose, put on his surplice, added the stole to his neck, prostrated himself
with due ceremony, and worshipped; anon he stretched forth the thrice-holy
milk to be kissed by us. On this, we also, on the lowest step of the
altar, religiously fell prostrate; and having first called upon Christ, we
addressed the Virgin with a little prayer like this, which I had prepared
for the purpose....
"'A very pious prayer; what reply did she make?'
"Each appeared to assent, if my eyes were not deceived. For the holy milk
seemed to leap a little, and the Eucharist shone somewhat brighter.
Meanwhile the ministering canon approached us, saying nothing, but holding
out a little box, such as are presented by the toll collectors on the
bridges in Germany. I gave a few pence, which he offered to the Virgin."
The visitor on this occasion being a distinguished person, and performing
a trifling service for the canons, was presented by the sub-prior with a
relic. "He then drew from a bag a fragment of wood, cut from a beam on
which the Virgin Mother had been seen to rest. A wonderful fragrance at
once proved it to be a thing extremely sacred. For my part, having
received so distinguished a present, prostrate and with uncovered head, I
kissed it three or four times with the highest veneration, and placed it
in my purse. I would not exchange that fragment, small as it is, for all
the gold in the Tagus. I will enclose it in gold, but so that it may shine
through crystal."
He is also shown some relics not shown to ordinary visitors. "Several wax
candles are lighted, and a small image is produced, neither excelling in
material nor workmanship; but in virtue most efficacious. He then
exhibited the golden and silver statues. 'This one,' says he, 'is entirely
of gold; this is silver gilt; he added the weight of each, its value, and
the name of the donor.[216] Then he drew forth from the altar itself, a
world of admirable things, the individual articles of which, if I were to
proceed to describe, this day would not suffice for the relation. So that
pilgrimage terminated most fortunately for me. I was abundantly gratified
with sights; and I bring away this inestimable gift, a token bestowed by
the Virgin herself.
"'Have you made no trial of the powers of your wood?'
"I have: in an inn, before the end of three days, I found a man afflicted
in mind, for whom charms were then in preparation. This piece of wood was
placed under his pillow, unknown to himself; he fell into a sleep equally
deep and prolonged; in the morning he rose of whole mind."
* * * * *
Chaucer left his account of the Canterbury Pilgrimage incomplete; but
another author, soon after Chaucer's death, wrote a supplement to his
great work, which, however inferior in genius to the work of the great
master, yet admirably serves our purpose of giving a graphic contemporary
picture of the doings of a company of pilgrims to St. Thomas, when arrived
at their destination. Erasmus, too, in the colloquy already so largely
quoted, enables us to add some details to the picture. The pilgrims of
Chaucer's continuator arrived in Canterbury at "mydmorowe." Erasmus tells
us what they saw as they approached the city. "The church dedicated to St.
Thomas, erects itself to heaven with such majesty, that even from a
distance it strikes religious awe into the beholders.... There are two
vast towers that seem to salute the visitor from afar, and make the
surrounding country far and wide resound with the wonderful booming of
their brazen bells." Being arrived, they took up their lodgings at the
"Chequers."[217]
"They toke their In and loggit them at midmorowe I trowe
Atte Cheker of the hope, that many a man doth know."
And mine host of the "Tabard," in Southwark, their guide, having given the
necessary orders for their dinner, they all proceeded to the cathedral to
make their offerings at the shrine of St. Thomas. At the church door they
were sprinkled with holy water as they entered. The knight and the better
sort of the company went straight to their devotions; but some of the
pilgrims of a less educated class, began to wander about the nave of the
church, curiously admiring all the objects around them. The miller and his
companions entered into a warm discussion concerning the arms in the
painted glass windows. At length the host of the "Tabard" called them
together and reproved them for their negligence, whereupon they hastened
to make their offerings:--
"Then passed they forth boystly gogling with their hedds
Kneeled down to-fore the shrine, and hertily their beads
They prayed to St. Thomas, in such wise as they couth;
And sith the holy relikes each man with his mouth
Kissed, as a goodly monk the names told and taught.
And sith to other places of holyness they raught,
And were in their devocioune tyl service were al done."
Erasmus gives a very detailed account of these "holy relikes," and of the
"other places of holiness":--
"On your entrance [by the south porch] the edifice at once displays itself
in all its spaciousness and majesty. To that part any one is admitted.
There are some books fixed to the pillars, and the monument of I know not
whom. The iron screens stop further progress, but yet admit a view of the
whole space, from the choir to the end of the church. To the choir you
mount by many steps, under which is a passage leading to the north. At
that spot is shown a wooden altar, dedicated to the Virgin, but mean, nor
remarkable in any respect, unless as a monument of antiquity, putting to
shame the extravagance of these times. There the pious old man is said to
have breathed his last farewell to the Virgin when his death was at hand.
On the altar is the point of the sword with which the head of the most
excellent prelate was cleft, and his brain stirred, that he might be the
more instantly despatched. The sacred rust of this iron, through love of
the martyr, we religiously kissed. Leaving this spot, we descended to the
crypt. It has its own priests. There was first exhibited the perforated
skull of the martyr, the forehead is left bare to be kissed, while the
other parts are covered with silver. At the same time is shown a slip of
lead, engraved with his name _Thomas Acrensis_.[218] There also hang in
the dark the hair shirts, the girdles and bandages with which that prelate
subdued his flesh; striking horror with their very appearance, and
reproaching us with our indulgence and our luxuries. From hence we
returned into the choir. On the north side the aumbrics were unlocked. It
is wonderful to tell what a quantity of bones was there brought out:
skulls, jaw-bones, teeth, hands, fingers, entire arms; on all which we
devoutly bestowed our kisses; and the exhibition seemed likely to last
for ever, if my somewhat unmanageable companion in that pilgrimage had not
interrupted the zeal of the showman.
"'Did he offend the priest?'
"When an arm was brought forward which had still the bloody flesh
adhering, he drew back from kissing it, and even betrayed some weariness.
The priest presently shut up his treasures. We next viewed the table of
the altar, and its ornaments, and then the articles which are kept under
the altar, all most sumptuous; you would say Midas and Croesus were
beggars if you saw that vast assemblage of gold and silver. After this we
were led into the sacristy. What a display was there of silken vestments,
what an array of golden candlesticks!... From this place we were conducted
back to the upper floor, for behind the high-altar you ascend again as
into a new church. There, in a little chapel, is shown the whole figure of
the excellent man, gilt and adorned with many jewels. Then the head priest
(prior) came forward. He opened to us the shrine in which what is left of
the body of the holy man is said to rest. A wooden canopy covers the
shrine, and when that is drawn up with ropes, inestimable treasures are
opened to view. The least valuable part was gold; every part glistened,
shone, and sparkled with rare and very large jewels, some of them
exceeding the size of a goose's egg. There some monks stood around with
much veneration; the cover being raised we all worshipped. The prior with
a white rod pointed out each jewel, telling its name in French, its value,
and the name of its donor, for the principal of them were offerings sent
by sovereign princes.... From hence we returned to the crypt, where the
Virgin Mother has her abode, but a somewhat dark one, being edged in by
more than one screen.
"'What was she afraid of?'
"Nothing, I imagine, but thieves; for I have never seen anything more
burdened with riches. When lamps were brought, we beheld a more than royal
spectacle.... Lastly we were conducted back to the sacristy; there was
brought out a box covered with black leather; it was laid upon the table
and opened; immediately all knelt and worshipped.
"'What was in it?'
"Some torn fragments of linen, and most of them retaining marks of
dirt.... After offering us a cup of wine, the prior courteously dismissed
us."
When Chaucer's pilgrims had seen such of this magnificence as existed in
their earlier time, noon approaching, they gathered together and went to
their dinner. Before they left the church, however, they bought signs "as
the manner was," to show to all men that they had performed this
meritorious act.
"There as manere and custom is, signes there they bought
For men of contre' should know whom they had sought.
Each man set his silver in such thing as they liked,
And in the meen while the miller had y-piked
His bosom full of signys of Canterbury broches.
Others set their signys upon their hedes, and some upon their cap,
And sith to dinner-ward they gan for to stapp."
The appearance of these shrines and their surroundings is brought before
our eyes by the pictures in a beautiful volume of Lydgate's "History of
St. Edmund" in the British Museum (Harl. 2,278). At f. 40 is a
representation of the shrine of St. Edmund in the abbey church of St.
Edmund's Bury. At f. 9 a still better representation of it, showing the
iron grille which enclosed it, a monk worshipping at it, and a clerk with
a wand, probably the custodian whose duty it was to show the various
jewels and relics--as the prior did to Erasmus at Canterbury. At f. 47 is
another shrine, with some people about it who have come in the hope of
receiving miraculous cures; still another at f. 100 v., with pilgrims
praying round it. At f. 109 a shrine, with two monks in a stall beside it
saying an office, a clerk and others present. At f. 10 v. a shrine with a
group of monks. Other representations of shrines (all no doubt intended to
represent the one shrine of St. Edmund, but differing in details) are to
be found at f. 108 v., 117, &c. In the MS. Roman "D'Alexandre," of the
latter half of the fourteenth century, in the Bodleian Library, at f.
2,660, is a very good representation of the shrine of St. Thomas the
Apostle, with several people about it, and in front are two pilgrims in
rough habits, a broad hat slung over the shoulder, and a staff.
We have hitherto spoken of male pilgrims; but it must be borne in mind
that women of all ranks were frequently to be found on pilgrimage;[219]
and all that has been said of the costume and habits of the one sex
applies equally to the other. We give here a cut of a female pilgrim with
scrip, staff, and hat, from Pl. 134 of Strutt's "Dresses and Habits of the
People of England," who professes to take it from the Harleian MS. 621. We
also give a picture of a pilgrim monk (Cotton. MS. Tiberius, A. 7.) who
bears the staff and scrip, but is otherwise habited in the proper costume
of his order.
[Illustration: _Female Pilgrim._ (Strutt, pl. 134.)]
[Illustration: _Pilgrim Monk._]
When the pilgrim had returned safely home, it was but natural and proper
that as he had been sent forth with the blessing and prayers of the
church, he should present himself again in church to give thanks for the
accomplishment of his pilgrimage and his safe return. We do not find in
the service-books--as we might have expected--any special service for this
occasion, but we find sufficient indications that it was the practice.
Knighton tells us, for example, of the famous Guy, Earl of Warwick, that
on his return from his pilgrimage to the Holy Land, before he took any
refreshment, he went to all the churches in the city to return thanks. Du
Cange tells us that palmers were received on their return home with
ecclesiastical processions; but perhaps this was only in the case of men
of some social importance. We have the details of one such occasion on
record:[220] William de Mandeville, Earl of Essex, assumed the cross, and
after procuring suitable necessaries, took with him a retinue, and among
them a chaplain to perform divine offices, for all of whom he kept a daily
table. Before he set out he went to Gilbert, Bishop of London, for his
license and benediction. He travelled by land as far as Rome, over France,
Burgundy, and the Alps, leaving his horse at Mantua. He visited every holy
place in Jerusalem and on his route; made his prayers and offerings at
each; and so returned. Upon his arrival, he made presents of silk cloths
to all the churches of his see, for copes or coverings of the altars. The
monks of Walden met him in procession, in albes and copes, singing,
"Blessed is he who cometh in the name of the Lord;" and the earl coming
to the high-altar, and there prostrating himself, the prior gave him the
benediction. After this he rose, and kneeling, offered some precious
relics in an ivory box, which he had obtained in Jerusalem and elsewhere.
This offering concluded, he rose, and stood before the altar; the prior
and convent singing the _Te Deum_. Leaving the church he went to the
chapter, to give and receive the kiss of peace from the prior and monks. A
sumptuous entertainment followed for himself and his suite; and the
succeeding days were passed in visits to relatives and friends, who
congratulated him on his safe return.
[Illustration: From "Le Pélerinage de la Vie Humaine" (French National
Library).]
Du Cange says that palmers used to present their scrips and staves to
their parish churches. And Coryatt[221] says that he saw cockle and mussel
shells, and beads, and other religious relics, hung up over the door of a
little chapel in a nunnery, which, says Fosbroke, were offerings made by
pilgrims on their return from Compostella.
The illuminated MS., Julius E. VI., illustrates, among other events of the
life of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, various scenes of his
pilgrimage to Rome and to Jerusalem. In an illumination (subsequently
engraved in the chapter on Merchants) he is seen embarking in his own
ship; in another, he is presented to the Pope and cardinals at Rome[222]
(subsequently engraved in the chapter on Secular Clergy); in another, he
is worshipping at the Holy Sepulchre, where he hung up his shield in
remembrance of his accomplished vow.
The additional MS. 24,189, is part of St. John Mandeville's history of his
travels, and its illuminations in some respects illustrate the voyage of a
pilgrim of rank.
Hans Burgmaier's "Images de Saints," &c.,--from which we take the figure
on the next page,--affords us a very excellent contemporary illustration
of a pilgrim of high rank, with his attendants, all in pilgrim costume,
and wearing the signs which show us that their pilgrimage has been
successfully accomplished.
Those who had taken any of the greater pilgrimages would probably be
regarded with a certain respect and reverence by their untravelled
neighbours, and the agnomen of Palmer or Pilgrim, which would naturally be
added to their Christian name--as William the Palmer, or John the
Pilgrim--is doubtless the origin of two sufficiently common surnames. The
tokens of pilgrimage sometimes even accompanied a man to his grave, and
were sculptured on his monument. Shells have not unfrequently been found
in stone coffins, and are taken with great probability to be relics of the
pilgrimage, which the deceased had once taken to Compostella, and which as
sacred things, and having a certain religious virtue, were strewed over
him as he was carried upon his bier in the funeral procession, and were
placed with him in his grave. For example, when the grave of Bishop
Mayhew, who died in 1516, in Hereford Cathedral, was opened some years
ago, there was found lying by his side, a common, rough, hazel wand,
between four and five feet long, and about as thick as a man's finger; and
with it a mussel and a few oyster-shells. Four other instances of such
hazel rods, without accompanying shells, buried with ecclesiastics, had
previously been observed in the same cathedral.[223] The tomb of Abbot
Cheltenham, at Tewkesbury, has the spandrels ornamented with shields
charged with scallop shells, and the pilgrim staff and scrip are
sculptured on the bosses of the groining of the canopy over the tomb.
There is a gravestone at Haltwhistle, Northumberland, to which we have
already more than once had occasion to refer,[224] on which is the usual
device of a cross sculptured in relief, and on one side of the shaft of
the cross are laid a sword and shield, charged with the arms of
Blenkinsop, a fess between three garbs, indicating, we presume, that the
deceased was a knight; on the other side of the shaft of the cross are
laid a palmer's staff, and a scrip, bearing also garbs, and indicating
that the knight had been a pilgrim.
[Illustration: _Pilgrim on Horseback._]
In the church of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire, there is, under a
monumental arch in the wall of the north aisle, a recumbent effigy, a good
deal defaced, of a man in pilgrim weeds. A tunic or gown reaches half-way
down between the knee and ankle, and he has short pointed laced boots; a
hat with its margin decorated with scallop-shells lies under his head, his
scrip tasselled and charged with scallop-shells is at his right side, and
his rosary on his left, and his staff is laid diagonally across the body.
The costly style of the monument,[225] the lion at his feet, and above all
a collar of SS. round his neck, prove that the person thus commemorated
was a person of distinction.
In the churchyard of Llanfihangel-Aber-Cowen, Carmarthenshire, there are
three graves,[226] which are assigned by the local tradition to three
holy palmers, "who wandered thither in poverty and distress, and being
about to perish for want, slew each other: the last survivor buried his
fellows and then himself in one of the graves which they had prepared, and
pulling the stone over him, left it, as it is, ill adjusted." Two of the
headstones have very rude demi-effigies, with a cross patée sculptured
upon them. In one of the graves were found, some years ago, the bones of a
female or youth, and half-a-dozen scallop-shells. There are also, among
the curious symbols which appear on mediæval coffin-stones, some which are
very likely intended for pilgrim staves. There is one at Woodhorn,
Northumberland, engraved in the "Manual of Sepulchral Slabs and Crosses,"
and another at Alnwick-le-Street, Yorkshire, is engraved in Gough's
"Sepulchral Monuments," vol. i. It may be that these were men who had made
a vow of perpetual pilgrimage, or who died in the midst of an unfinished
pilgrimage, and therefore the pilgrim insignia were placed upon their
monuments. If every man and woman who had made a pilgrimage had had its
badges carved upon their tombs, we should surely have found many other
tombs thus designated; but, indeed, we have the tombs of men who we know
had accomplished pilgrimages to Jerusalem, but have no pilgrim insignia
upon their tombs.
Other illustrations of pilgrim costume may be found scattered throughout
the illuminated MSS. References to some of the best of them are here
added. In the Royal, 1,696, at f. 163, is a good drawing of St. James as a
pilgrim. In the Add. MS. 17,687, at f. 33, another of the pilgrim saints
with scrip and staff; in the MS. Nero E 2, a half-length of the saint with
a scallop-shell in his hat; in the MS. 18,143, of early sixteenth-century
date, at f. 57 v., another. In Lydgate's "History of St. Edmund," already
quoted for its pictures of shrines, there are also several good pictures
of pilgrims. On f. 79 is a group of three pilgrims, who appear again in
different parts of the history, twice on page 80, and again at 84 and 85.
At f. 81 the three pilgrims have built themselves a hermitage and chapel,
surrounded by a fence of wicker-work. In Henry VII.'s chapel, Westminster,
the figure of a pilgrim is frequently introduced in the ornamental
sculpture of the side chapels and on the reredos, in allusion, no doubt,
to the pilgrims who figure in the legendary history of St. Edmund the
Confessor.
Having followed the pilgrim to his very tomb, there we pause. We cannot
but satirise the troops of mere religious holiday-makers, who rode a
pleasant summer's holiday through the green roads of merry England,
feasting at the inns, singing amorous songs, and telling loose stories by
the way; going through a round of sight-seeing at the end of it; and
drinking foul water in which a dead man's blood had been mingled, or a
dead man's bones had been washed. But let us be allowed to indulge the
hope that every act of real, honest, self-denial--however mistaken--in
remorse for sin, for the sake of purity, or for the honour of religion,
did benefit the honest, though mistaken devotee. Is _our_ religion so
perfect and so pure, and is _our_ practice so exactly accordant with it,
that we can afford to sit in severe judgment upon honest, self-denying
error?
THE SECULAR CLERGY OF THE MIDDLE AGES.
CHAPTER I.
THE PAROCHIAL CLERGY.
The present organisation of the Church of England dates from the Council
of Hertford, A.D. 673. Before that time the Saxon people were the object
of missionary operations, carried on by two independent bodies, the
Italian mission, having its centre at Canterbury, and the Celtic mission,
in Iona. The bishops who had been sent from one or other of these sources
into the several kingdoms of the Heptarchy, gathered a body of clergy
about them, with whom they lived in common at the cathedral town; thence
they made missionary progresses through the towns and villages of the
Saxon "bush;" returning always to the cathedral as their head-quarters and
home. The national churches which sprang from these two sources were kept
asunder by some differences of discipline and ceremonial rather than of
doctrine. These differences were reconciled at the Council of Hertford,
and all the churches there and then recognised Theodore, Archbishop of
Canterbury, as the Metropolitan of all England.
To the same archbishop we owe the establishment of the parochial
organisation of the Church of England, which has ever since continued. He
pointed out to the people the advantage of having the constant
ministrations of a regular pastor, instead of the occasional visits of a
missionary. He encouraged the thanes to provide a dwelling-house and a
parcel of glebe for the clergyman's residence; and permitted that the
tithe of each manor--which the thane had hitherto paid into the common
church-fund of the bishop--should henceforth be paid to the resident
pastor, for his own maintenance and the support of his local hospitalities
and charities; and lastly, he permitted each thane to select the pastor
for his own manor out of the general body of the clergy. Thus naturally
grew the whole establishment of the Church of England; thus each kingdom
of the Heptarchy became, in ecclesiastical language, a diocese, each manor
a parish; and thus the patronage of the benefices of England became vested
in the lords of the manors.
At the same time that a rector was thus gradually settled in every parish,
with rights and duties which soon became defined, and sanctioned by law,
the bishop continued to keep a body of clergy about him in the cathedral,
whose position also gradually became defined and settled. The number of
clergy in the cathedral establishment became settled, and they acquired
the name of canons; they were organised into a collegiate body, with a
dean and other officers. The estates of the bishops were distinguished
from those of the body of canons. Each canon had his own house within the
walled space about the cathedral, which was called the Close, and a share
in the common property of the Chapter. Besides the canons, thus limited in
number, there gradually arose a necessity for other clergymen to fulfil
the various duties of a cathedral. These received stipends, and lodged
where they could in the town; but in time these additional clergy also
were organised into a corporation, and generally some benefactor was found
to build them a quadrangle of little houses within, or hard by, the Close,
and often to endow their corporation with lands and livings. The Vicars'
Close at Wells is a very good and well-known example of these
supplementary establishments. It is a long quadrangle, with little houses
on each side, a hall at one end, and a library at the other, and a direct
communication with the cathedral. There also arose in process of time many
collegiate churches in the kingdom, which, resembled the cathedral
establishments of secular canons in every respect, except that no bishop
had his see within their church. Some of the churches of these colleges of
secular canons were architecturally equal to the cathedrals. Southwell
Minster, for example, is not even equalled by many of the cathedral
churches. It would occupy too much space to enter into any details of the
constitution of these establishments.
These canons may usually be recognised in pictures by their costume. The
most characteristic features were the square cap and the furred amys. The
amys was a fur cape worn over the shoulders, with a hood attached, and
usually has a fringe of the tails of the fur or sometimes of little bells,
and two long ends in front. In the accompanying very beautiful woodcut we
have a semi-choir of secular canons, seated in their stalls in the
cathedral, with the bishop in his stall at the west end. They are habited
in surplices, ornamented with needlework, beneath which may be seen their
robes, some pink, some blue in colour.[227] One in the subsellæ seems to
have his furred amys thrown over the arm of his stall; his right-hand
neighbour seems to have his hanging over his shoulder. He, and one in the
upper stalls, have round skull caps (birettas); others have the hood on
their heads, where it assumes a horned shape, which may be seen in other
pictures of canons. The woodcut is part of a full-page illumination of the
interior of a church, in the Book of Hours of Richard II., in the British
Museum (Domit. xvii.).
[Illustration]
These powerful ecclesiastical establishments continued to flourish
throughout the Middle Ages; their histories must be sought in Dugdale's
"Monasticon," or Britton's or Murray's "Cathedrals," or the monographs of
the several cathedrals. In the registers of the cathedrals there exists
also a vast amount of unpublished matter, which would supply all the
little life-like details that historians usually pass by, but which we
need to enable us really to enter into the cathedral life of the Middle
Ages. The world is indebted to Mr. Raine for the publication of some such
details from the registry of York, in the very interesting "York Fabric
Rolls," which he edited for the Surtees Society.
To return to the Saxon rectors. By the end of the Saxon period of our
history we find the whole kingdom divided into parishes, and in each a
rector resident. Probably the rectors were often related to the lords of
the manors, as is natural in the case of family livings; they were not a
learned clergy; speaking generally they were a married clergy; in other
respects, too, they did not affect the ascetic spirit of monasticism; they
ate and drank like other people; farmed their own glebes; spent a good
deal of their leisure in hawking and hunting, like their brothers, and
cousins, and neighbours; but all their interests were in the people and
things of their own parishes; they seem to have performed their clerical
functions fairly well; and they were bountiful to the poor; in short, they
seem to have had the virtues and failings of the country rectors of a
hundred years ago.
After the Norman conquest several causes concurred to deprive a large
majority of the parishes of the advantage of the cure of well-born,
well-endowed rectors, and to supply their places by ill-paid vicars and
parochial chaplains. First among these causes we may mention the evil of
impropriations, from which so many of our parishes are yet suffering, and
of which this is a brief explanation. Just before the Norman conquest
there was a great revival of the monastic principle; several new orders of
monks had been founded; and the religious feeling of the age set in
strongly in favour of these religious communities which then, at least,
were learned, industrious, and self-denying. The Normans founded many new
monasteries in England, and not only endowed them with lands and manors,
but introduced the custom of endowing them also with the rectories of
which they were patrons. They gave the benefice to the convent, and the
convent, as a religious corporation, took upon itself the office of
rector, and provided a vicar to perform the spiritual duties of the cure.
The apportionment of the temporalities of the benefice usually was, that
the convent took the great tithe, which formed the far larger portion of
the benefice, and gave the vicar the small tithe, and (if it were not too
large) the rectory-house and glebe for his maintenance. The position of a
poor vicar, it is easy to see, was very different in dignity and
emolument, and in prestige in the eyes of his parishioners, and the means
of conferring temporal benefits upon them, from that of the old rectors
his predecessors in the cure. By the time of the Reformation, about half
of the livings of England and Wales had thus become impropriate to
monasteries, cathedral chapters, corporations, guilds, &c.; and since the
great tithe was not restored to the parishes at the dissolution of the
religious houses, but granted to laymen together with the abbey-lands,
about half the parishes of England are still suffering from this
perversion of the ancient Saxon endowments.
Another cause of the change in the condition of the parochial clergy was
the custom of papal provisors. The popes, in the thirteenth century,
gradually assumed a power of nominating to vacant benefices. Gregory IX.
and Innocent IV., who ruled the church in the middle of this century, are
said to have presented Italian priests to all the best benefices in
England. Many of these foreigners, having preferment in their own country,
never came near their cures, but employed parish chaplains to fulfil their
duties, and sometimes neglected to do even that. Edward III. resisted
this invasion of the rights of the patrons of English livings, and in the
time of Richard II. it was finally stopped by the famous statute of
Præmunire (A.D. 1392).
The custom of allowing one man to hold several livings was another means
of depriving parishes of a resident rector, and handing them over to the
care of a curate. The extent to which this system of Pluralities was
carried in the Middle Ages seems almost incredible; we even read of one
man having from four to five hundred benefices.
Another less known abuse was the custom of presenting to benefices men who
had taken only the minor clerical orders. A glance at the lists of
incumbents of benefices in any good county history will reveal the fact
that rectors of parishes were often only deacons, sub-deacons, or
acolytes.[228] It is clear that in many of these cases--probably in the
majority of them--the men had taken a minor order only to qualify
themselves for holding the temporalities of a benefice, and never
proceeded to the priesthood at all; they employed a chaplain to perform
their spiritual functions for them, while they enjoyed the fruits of the
benefice as if it were a lay fee, the minor order which they had taken
imposing no restraint upon their living an entirely secular life.[229] It
is clear that a considerable number of priests were required to perform
the duties of the numerous parishes whose rectors were absent or in minor
orders, who seem to have been called parochial chaplains. The emolument
and social position of these parochial chaplains were not such as to make
the office a desirable one; and it would seem that the candidates for it
were, to a great extent, drawn from the lower classes of the people.
Chaucer tells us of his poor parson of a town, whose description we give
below, that
"With him there was a _ploughman_ was his brother."
In the Norwich corporation records of the time of Henry VIII. (1521 A.D.),
there is a copy of the examination of "Sir William Green," in whose sketch
of his own life, though he was only a pretended priest, we have a curious
history of the way in which many a poor man's son did really attain the
priesthood. He was the son of a labouring man, learned grammar at the
village grammar school for two years, and then went to day labour with his
father. Afterwards removing to Boston, he lived with his aunt, partly
labouring for his living, and going to school as he had opportunity. Being
evidently a clerkly lad, he was admitted to the minor orders, up to that
of acolyte, at the hands of "Friar Graunt," who was a suffragan bishop in
the diocese of Lincoln. After that he went to Cambridge, where, as at
Boston, he partly earned a livelihood by his labour, and partly availed
himself of the opportunities of learning which the university offered,
getting his meat and drink of alms. At length, having an opportunity of
going to Rome, with two monks of Whitby Abbey (perhaps in the capacity of
attendant, one Edward Prentis being of the company, who was, perhaps, his
fellow-servant to the two monks), he there endeavoured to obtain the order
of the priesthood, which seems to have been conferred rather
indiscriminately at Rome, and without a "title;" but in this he was
unsuccessful. After his return to England he laboured for his living,
first with his brother in Essex, then at Cambridge, then at Boston, then
in London. At last he went to Cambridge again, and, by the influence of
Mr. Coney, obtained of the Vice-Chancellor a licence under seal to collect
subscriptions for one year towards an exhibition to complete his
education in the schools, as was often done by poor scholars.[230] Had he
obtained money enough, completed his education, and obtained ordination in
due course, it would have completed the story in a regular way. But here
he fell into bad hands, forged first a new poor scholar's licence, and
then letters of orders, and then wandered about begging alms as an
unfortunate, destitute priest; he may furnish us with a type of the idle
and vagabond priests, of whom there were only too many in the country, and
of whom Sir Thomas More says, "the order is rebuked by the priests'
begging and lewd living, which either is fain to walk at rovers and live
upon trentals (thirty days' masses), or worse, or to serve in a secular
man's house."[231] The original of this sketch is given at length in the
note below.[232]
This custom of poor scholars gaining their livelihood and the means of
prosecuting their studies by seeking alms was very common. It should be
noticed here that the Church in the Middle Ages was the chief ladder by
which men of the lower ranks were able to climb up--and vast numbers did
climb up--into the upper ranks of society, to be clergymen, and monks, and
abbots, and bishops, statesmen, and popes. Piers Ploughman, in a very
illiberal strain, makes it a subject of reproach--
"Now might each sowter[233] his son setten to schole,
And each beggar's brat in the book learne,
And worth to a writer and with a lorde dwelle,
Or falsly to a frere the fiend for to serven.
So of that beggar's brat a Bishop that worthen,
Among the peers of the land prese to sythen;
And lordes sons lowly to the lorde's loute,
Knyghtes crooketh hem to, and coucheth ful lowe;
And his sire a sowter y-soiled with grees,[234]
His teeth with toyling of lether battered as a sawe."
The Church was the great protector and friend of the lower classes of
society, and that on the highest grounds. In this very matter of educating
the children of the poor, and opening to such as were specially gifted a
suitable career, we find so late as the date of the Reformation, Cranmer
maintaining the rights of the poor on high grounds. For among the Royal
Commissioners for reorganising the cathedral establishment at Canterbury
"were more than one or two who would have none admitted to the Grammar
School but sons or younger brothers of gentlemen. As for others,
husbandmen's children, they were more used, they said, for the plough and
to be artificers than to occupy the place of the learned sort. Whereto the
Archbishop said that poor men's children are many times endowed with more
singular gifts of nature, which are also the gifts of God, as eloquence,
memory, apt pronunciation, sobriety, and such like; and also commonly more
apt to study than is the gentleman's son, more delicately educated.
Hereunto it was, on the other part, replied that it was for the
ploughman's son to go to plough, and the artificer's son to apply to the
trade of his parent's vocation; and the gentleman's children are used to
have the knowledge of government and rule of the commonwealth. 'I grant,'
replied the Archbishop, 'much of your meaning herein as needful in a
commonwealth; but yet utterly to exclude the ploughman's son and the poor
man's son from the benefit of learning, as though they were unworthy to
have the gifts of the Holy Ghost bestowed upon them as well as upon
others, was much as to say as that Almighty God should not be at liberty
to bestow his great gifts of grace upon any person, but as we and other
men shall appoint them to be employed according to our fancy, and not
according to his most goodly will and pleasure, who giveth his gifts of
learning and other perfections in all sciences unto all kinds and states
of people indifferently."
* * * * *
Besides the rectors and vicars of parishes, there was another class of
beneficed clergymen in the middle ages, who gradually became very
numerous, viz., the chantry priests. By the end of the ante-Reformation
period there was hardly a church in the kingdom which had not one or more
chantries founded in it, and endowed for the perpetual maintenance of a
chantry priest, to say mass daily for ever for the soul's health of the
founder and his family. The churches of the large and wealthy towns had
sometimes ten or twelve such chantries. The chantry chapel was sometimes
built on to the parish church, and opening into it; sometimes it was only
a corner of the church screened off from the rest of the area by openwork
wooden screens. The chantry priest had sometimes a chantry-house to live
in, and estates for his maintenance, sometimes he had only an annual
income, charged on the estate of the founder. The chantries were
suppressed, and their endowments confiscated, in the reign of Edward VI.,
but the chantry chapels still remain as part of our parish churches, and
where the parclose screens have long since been removed, the traces of the
chantry altar are still very frequently apparent to the eye of the
ecclesiastical antiquary. Sometimes more than one priest was provided for
by wealthy people. Richard III. commenced the foundation of a chantry of
one hundred chaplains, to sing masses in the cathedral church of York; the
chantry-house was begun, and six altars were erected in York Minster, when
the king's death at Bosworth Field interrupted the completion of the
magnificent design.[235]
We have next to add to our enumeration of the various classes of the
mediæval clergy another class of chaplains, whose duties were very nearly
akin to those of the chantry priests. These were the guild priests. It was
the custom throughout the middle ages for men and women to associate
themselves in religious guilds, partly for mutual assistance in temporal
matters, but chiefly for mutual prayers for their welfare while living,
and for their soul's health when dead. These guilds usually maintained a
chaplain, whose duty it was to celebrate mass daily for the brethren and
sisters of the guild. These guild priests must have been numerous, _e.g._,
we learn from Blomfield's "Norfolk," that there were at the Reformation
ten guilds in Windham Church, Norfolk, seven at Hingham, seven at
Swaffham, seventeen at Yarmouth, &c. Moreover, a guild, like a chantry,
had sometimes more than one guild priest. Leland tells us the guild of St.
John's, in St. Botolph's Church, Boston, had ten priests, "living in a
fayre house at the west end of the parish church yard." In St. Mary's
Church, Lichfield, was a guild which had five priests.[236]
The rules of some of these religious guilds may be found in Stow's "Survey
of London," _e.g._, of St. Barbara's guild in the church of St. Katherine,
next the Tower of London (in book ii. p. 7 of Hughes's edition.)
We find bequests to the guild priests, in common with other chaplains, in
the ancient wills, _e.g._, in 1541, Henry Waller, of Richmond, leaves "to
every gyld prest of thys town, vi{d}. y{t} ar at my beryall."[237]
Dr. Rock says,[238] "Besides this, every guild priest had to go on Sundays
and holy days, and help the priests in the parochial services of the
church in which his guild kept their altar. All chantry priests were
bidden by our old English canons to do the same." The brotherhood priest
of the guild of the Holy Trinity, at St. Botolph's, in London, was
required to be "meke and obedient unto the qu'er in alle divine servyces
duryng hys time, as custome is in the citye amonge alle other p'sts."
Sometimes a chantry priest was specially required by his foundation deed
to help in the cure of souls in the parish, as in the case of a chantry
founded in St. Mary's, Maldon, and Little Bentley, Essex;[239] sometimes
the chantry chapel was built in a hamlet at a distance from the parish
church, and was intended to serve as a chapel of ease, and the priest as
an assistant curate, as at Foulness Island and Billericay, both in Essex.
But it is very doubtful whether the chantry priests generally considered
themselves bound to take any share in the parochial work of the
parish.[240] In the absence of any cure of souls, the office of chantry or
guild priest was easy, and often lucrative; and we find it a common
subject of complaint, from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries, that
it was preferred to a cure of souls; and that even parochial incumbents
were apt to leave their parishes in the hands of a parochial chaplain, and
seek for themselves a chantry or guild, or one of the temporary
engagements to celebrate annals, of which there were so many provided by
the wills of which we shall shortly have to speak. Thus Chaucer reckons,
among the virtues of his poore parson, that--
"He set not his benefice to hire,
And let his shepe accomber in the mire,
And runne to London to Saint Poule's,
To seken him a chauntrie for soules,
Or with a brotherhood to be with-held,
But dwelt at home, and kepte well his fold."
So also Piers Ploughman--
"Parsons and parisshe preistes, pleyned hem to the bisshope,
That hire parishes weren povere sith the pestilence tyme,
To have a licence and leve at London to dwelle
And syngen ther for symonie, for silver is swete."
Besides the chantry priests and guild priests, there was a great crowd of
priests who gained a livelihood by taking temporary engagements to say
masses for the souls of the departed. Nearly every will of the period we
are considering provides for the saying of masses for the soul of the
testator. Sometimes it is only by ordering a fee to be paid to every
priest who shall be present at the funeral, sometimes by ordering the
executors to have a number of masses, varying from ten to ten thousand,
said as speedily as may be; sometimes by directing that a priest shall be
engaged to say mass for a certain period, varying from thirty days to
forty or fifty years. These casual masses formed an irregular provision
for a large number of priests, many of whom performed no other clerical
function, and too often led a dissolute as well as an idle life.
Archbishop Islip says in his "Constitutions:"[241]--"We are certainly
informed, by common fame and experience, that modern priests, through
covetousness and love of ease, not content with reasonable salaries,
demand excessive pay for their labours, and receive it; and do so despise
labour and study pleasure, that they wholly refuse, as parish priests, to
serve in churches or chapels, or to attend the cure of souls, though
fitting salaries are offered them, that they may live in a leisurely
manner, by celebrating annals for the quick and dead; and so parish
churches and chapels remain unofficiated, destitute of parochial
chaplains, and even proper curates, to the grievous danger of souls."
Chaucer has introduced one of this class into the Canon's Yeoman's
tale:--
"In London was a priest, an annueller,[242]
That therein dwelled hadde many a year,
Which was so pleasant and so serviceable
Unto the wife there as he was at table
That she would suffer him no thing to pay
For board ne clothing, went he never so gay,
And spending silver had he right ynoit."[243]
Another numerous class of the clergy were the domestic chaplains. Every
nobleman and gentleman had a private chapel in his own house, and an
ecclesiastical establishment attached, proportionate to his own rank and
wealth. In royal houses and those of the great nobles, this private
establishment was not unfrequently a collegiate establishment, with a dean
and canons, clerks, and singing men and boys, who had their church and
quadrangle within the precincts of the castle, and were maintained by
ample endowments. The establishment of the royal chapel of St. George, in
Windsor Castle, is, perhaps, the only remaining example. The household
book of the Earl of Northumberland gives us very full details of his
chapel establishment, and of their duties, and of the emoluments which
they received in money and kind. They consisted of a dean, who was to be a
D.D. or LL.D. or B.D., and ten other priests, and eleven gentlemen and six
children, who composed the choir.[244] But country gentlemen of wealth
often maintained a considerable chapel establishment. Henry Machyn, in
his diary,[245] tells us, in noticing the death of Sir Thomas Jarmyn, of
Rushbrooke Hall, Suffolk, in 1552, that "he was the best housekeeper in
the county of Suffolk, and kept a goodly chapel of singing men." Knights
and gentlemen of less means, or less love of goodly singing men, were
content with a single priest as chaplain.[246] Even wealthy yeomen and
tradesmen had their domestic chaplain. Sir Thomas More says,[247] there
was "such a rabel [of priests], that every mean man must have a priest in
his house to wait upon his wife, which no man almost lacketh now." The
chapels of the great lords were often sumptuous buildings, erected within
the precincts, of which St. George's, Windsor, and the chapel within the
Tower of London may supply examples. Smaller chapels erected within the
house were still handsome and ecclesiastically-designed buildings, of
which examples may be found in nearly every old castle and manor house
which still exists; _e.g._, the chapel of Colchester Castle of the twelfth
century, of Ormsbro Castle of late twelfth century, of Beverstone Castle
of the fourteenth century, engraved in Parker's "Domestic Architecture,"
III. p. 177; that at Igtham Castle of the fifteenth century, engraved in
the same work, III. p. 173; that at Haddon Hall of the fifteenth century.
In great houses, besides the general chapel, there was often a small
oratory besides for the private use of the lord of the castle, in later
times called a closet; sometimes another oratory for the lady, as in the
case of the Earl of Northumberland.[248] In some of these domestic chapels
we find a curious internal arrangement; the western part of the apartment
is divided into two stories by a wooden floor. This is the case also with
the chapel of the preceptory of Chobham, Northumberland, of the Coyston
Almshouses at Leicester (Parker's "Dom. Arch."). It is the case in one of
the chapels in Tewkesbury Abbey Church, and in the case of a priory church
in Norway. In some cases it was probably to accommodate the tenants of
different stories of the house. The frequency with which in later times
the lord of the house had a private gallery in the chapel (a similar
arrangement occasionally occurs in parish churches) leads us to conjecture
that in these cases of two floors the upper floor was for the members of
the family, and the lower for the servants of the house. These chapels
were thoroughly furnished with vessels, books, robes, and every usual
ornament, and every object and appliance necessary for the performance of
the offices of the church, with a splendour proportioned to the means of
the master of the house. From the Household Book of the Earl of
Northumberland, we gather that the chapel had three altars, and that my
lord and my lady had each a closet, _i.e._, an oratory, in which there
were other altars. The chapel was furnished with hangings, and had a pair
of organs. There were four antiphoners and four grails--service
books--which were so famous for their beauty, that, at the earl's death,
Wolsey intimated his wish to have them. We find mention, too, of the suits
of vestments and single vestments, and copes and surplices, and
altar-cloths for the five altars. All these things were under the care of
the yeoman of the vestry, and were carried about with the earl at his
removals from one to another of his houses. Minute catalogues and
descriptions of the furniture of these domestic chapels may also be found
in the inventories attached to ancient wills.[249]
We shall give hereafter a picture of one of these domestic chaplains,
viz., of Sir Roger, chaplain of the chapel of the Earl of Warwick at
Flamstead. There is a picture of another chaplain of the Earl of Warwick
in the MS. Life of R. Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick (Julius E. IV.), where
the earl and his chaplain are represented sitting together at dinner.
Besides the clergy who were occupied in these various kinds of spiritual
work, there were also a great number of priests engaged in secular
occupations. Bishops were statesmen, generals, and ambassadors, employing
suffragan bishops[250] in the work of their dioceses. Priests were engaged
in many ways in the king's service, and in that of noblemen and others.
Piers Ploughman says:--
"Somme serven the kyng, and his silver tellen,
In cheker and in chauncelrie, chalangen his dettes,
Of wardes and of wardemotes, weyves and theyves.
And some serven as servantz, lordes and ladies,
And in stede of stywardes, sitten and demen."
The domestic chaplains were usually employed more or less in secular
duties. Thus such services are regularly allotted to the eleven priests in
the chapel of the Earls of Northumberland; one was surveyor of my lord's
lands, and another my lord's secretary. Mr. Christopher Pickering, in his
will (A.D. 1542), leaves to "my sarvands John Dobson and Frances, xx{s}.
a-pece, besydes ther wages; allso I gyve unto Sir James Edwarde my
sarvand," &c.; and one of the witnesses to the will is "Sir James Edwarde,
preste," who was probably Mr. Pickering's chaplain.[251] Sir Thomas More
says, every man has a priest to wait upon his wife; and in truth the
chaplain seems to have often performed the duties of a superior gentleman
usher. Nicholas Blackburn, a wealthy citizen of York, and twice Lord
Mayor, leaves (A.D. 1431-2) a special bequest to his wife "to find her a
gentlewoman, and a priest, and a servant."[252] Lady Elizabeth Hay leaves
bequests in this order, to her son, her chaplain, her servant, and her
maid.[253]
CHAPTER II.
CLERKS IN MINOR ORDERS.
It is necessary, to a complete sketch of the subject of the secular
clergy, to notice, however briefly, the minor orders, which have so long
been abolished in the reformed Church of England, that we have forgotten
their very names. There were seven orders through which the clerk had to
go, from the lowest to the highest step in the hierarchy. The Pontifical
of Archbishop Ecgbert gives us the form of ordination for each order; and
the ordination ceremonies and exhortations show us very fully what were
the duties of the various orders, and by what costume and symbols of
office we may recognise them. But these particulars are brought together
more concisely in a document of much later date, viz., in the account of
the degradation from the priesthood of Sir William Sawtre, the first of
the Lollards who died for heresy, in the year 1400 A.D., and a transcript
of it will suffice for our present purpose. The archbishop, assisted by
several bishops, sitting on the bishop's throne in St. Paul's--Sir William
Sawtre standing before him in priestly robes--proceeded to the degradation
as follows:--"In the name, &c., we, Thomas, &c., degrade and depose you
from the order of priests, and in token thereof we take from you the paten
and the chalice, and deprive you of all power of celebrating mass; we also
strip you of the chasuble, take from you the sacerdotal vestment, and
deprive you altogether of the dignity of the priesthood. Thee also, the
said William, dressed in the habit of a deacon, and having the book of the
gospels in thy hands, do we degrade and depose from the order of deacons,
as a condemned and relapsed heretic; and in token hereof we take from
thee the book of the gospels, and the stole, and deprive thee of the power
of reading the gospels. We degrade thee from the order of subdeacons, and
in token thereof take from thee the albe and maniple. We degrade thee from
the order of an acolyte, taking from thee in token thereof this small
pitcher and taper staff. We degrade thee from the order of an exorcist,
and take from thee in token thereof the book of exorcisms. We degrade thee
from the order of reader, and take from thee in token thereof the book of
divine lessons. Thee also, the said William Sawtre, vested in a surplice
as an ostiary,[254] do we degrade from that order, taking from thee the
surplice and the keys of the church. Furthermore, as a sign of actual
degradation, we have caused the crown and clerical tonsure to be shaved
off in our presence, and to be entirely obliterated like a layman; we have
also caused a woollen cap to be put upon thy head, as a secular layman."
The word _clericus_--clerk--was one of very wide and rather vague
significance, and included not only the various grades of clerks in
orders, of whom we have spoken, but also all men who followed any kind of
occupation which involved the use of reading and writing; finally, every
man who could read might claim the "benefit of clergy," _i.e._, the legal
immunities of a clerk. The word is still used with the same
comprehensiveness and vagueness of meaning. Clerk in Orders is still the
legal description of a clergyman; and men whose occupation is to use the
pen are still called clerks, as lawyers' clerks, merchants' clerks, &c.
Clerks were often employed in secular occupations; for example, Alan
Middleton, who was employed by the convent of St. Alban's to collect
their rents, and who is represented on page 63 ante in the picture from
their "Catalogus Benefactorum" (Nero D. vii., British Museum), is
tonsured, and therefore was a clerk. Chaucer gives us a charming picture
of a poor clerk of Oxford, who seems to have been a candidate for holy
orders, and is therefore germane to our subject:--
"A clerke there was of Oxenforde also,
That unto logike hadde long ygo,
As lene was his horse as is a rake,
And he was not right fat, I undertake,
But looked holwe and thereto soberly.
Ful thredbare was his overest courtepy,[255]
For he hadde getten him yet no benefice,
Ne was nought worldly to have an office.[256]
For him was lever han at his beddes hed
A twenty bokes, clothed in black or red,
Of Aristotle and his philosophie,
Than robes riche, or fidel or sautrie.
But all be that he was a philosophre,
Yet hadde he but little gold in cofre,
But all that he might of his frendes hente,[257]
On bokes and on lerning he it spente;
And besely gan for the soules praye
Of hem that yave him wherewith to scholaie,[258]
Of studie toke he moste cure and hede.
Not a word spake he more than was nede,
And that was said in forme and reverence,
And short and quike, and ful of high sentence.
Souning in moral vertue was his speche,
And gladly wolde he lerne and gladly teche."
In the Miller's Tale Chaucer gives us a sketch of another poor scholar of
Oxford. He lodged with a carpenter, and
"A chambre had he in that hostelerie,
Alone withouten any compaynie,
Ful fetisly 'ydight with herbés sweet."
His books great and small, and his astrological apparatus
"On shelvés couched at his beddé's head,
His press ycovered with a falding red,
And all about there lay a gay sautrie
On which he made on nightés melodie
So swetély that all the chamber rung,
And _Angelus ad Virginem_ he sung."
We give a typical illustration of the class from one of the characters in
a Dance of Death at the end of a Book of the Hours of the Blessed Virgin
Mary, in the British Museum. It is described beneath as "Un Clerc."[259]
[Illustration: _A Clerk._]
One of this class was employed by every parish to perform certain duties
on behalf of the parishioners, and to assist the clergyman in certain
functions of his office. The Parish Clerk has survived the revolution
which swept away the other minor ecclesiastical officials of the middle
ages, and still has his legal status in the parish church. Probably many
of our readers will be surprised to hear that the office is an ancient
one, and will take interest in a few original extracts which throw light
on the subject.
In the wills he frequently has a legacy left, together with the
clergy--_e.g._, "Item I leave to my parish vicar iij{s.} iiij{d.} Item I
leave to my parish clerk xij{d.} Item I leave to every chaplain present at
my obsequies and mass iiij{d.}" (Will of John Brompton, of Beverley,
merchant, 1443.)[260] Elizabeth del Hay, in 1434, leaves to "every priest
ministering at my obsequies vi{d.}; to every parish clerk iiij{d.}; to
minor clerks to each one ij{d.}"[261] Hawisia Aske, of York, in 1450-1
A.D., leaves to the "parish chaplain of St. Michael iij{s.} iiij{d.}; to
every chaplain of the said church xx{d.}; to the parish clerk of the said
church xx{d.}; to the sub-clerk of the same church x{d.}"[262] John Clerk,
formerly chaplain of the chapel of the Blessed Mary Magdalen, near York,
in 1449, leaves to "the parish clerk of St. Olave, in the suburbs of York,
xij{d.}; to each of the two chaplains of the said church being present at
my funeral and mass iiij{d.}; to the parish clerk of the said church
iiij{d.}; to the sub-clerk of the said church ij{d.}; among the little
boys of the said church wearing surplices iiij{d.}, to be distributed
equally."[263] These extracts serve to indicate the clerical staff of the
several churches mentioned.
From other sources we learn what his duties were. In 1540 the parish of
Milend, near Colchester, was presented to the archdeacon by the rector,
because in the said church there was "nother clerke nor sexten to go withe
him in tyme of visitacion [of the sick], nor to helpe him say masses, nor
to rynge to servyce."[264] And in 1543 the Vicar of Kelveden, Essex,
complains that there is not "caryed holy water,[265] nor ryngyng to
evensonge accordyng as the clerke shuld do, with other dutees to him
belongyng."[266] In the York presentations we find a similar complaint at
Wyghton in 1472; they present that the parish clerk does not perform his
services as he ought, because when he ought to go with the vicar to visit
the sick, the clerk absents himself, and sends a boy with the vicar.[267]
The clerk might be a married man, for in 1416 Thomas Curtas, parish clerk
of the parish of St. Thomas the Martyr, is presented, because with his
wife he has hindered, and still hinders, the parish clerk of St. Mary
Bishophill, York [in which parish he seems to have lived] from entering
his house on the Lord's days with holy water, as is the custom of the
city. Also it is complained that the said Thomas and his wife refuse to
come to hear divine service at their parish church, and withdraw their
oblations.[268] In the Royal MS., 10, E iv., is a series of illustrations
of a mediæval tale, which turns on the adventures of a parish clerk, as
he goes through the parish aspersing the people with holy water. Two of
the pictures will suffice to show the costume and the holy water-pot and
aspersoir, and to indicate how he went into all the rooms of the
house--now into the kitchen sprinkling the cook, now into the hall
sprinkling the lord and lady who are at breakfast. In the woodcut on p.
241, will be seen how he precedes an ecclesiastical procession, sprinkling
the people on each side as he goes. The subsequent description (p. 221) of
the parish clerk Absolon, by Chaucer, indicates that sometimes--perhaps on
some special festivals--the clerk went about censing the people instead of
sprinkling them.
[Illustration: _The Parish Clerk sprinkling the Cook._]
[Illustration: _The Parish Clerk sprinkling the Knight and Lady._]
To continue the notes of a parish clerk's duties, gathered from the
churchwardens' presentations: at Wyghton, in 1510, they find "a faut with
our parish clerk yt he hath not done his dewtee to ye kirk, yt is to say,
ryngyng of ye morne bell and ye evyn bell; and also another fawt [which
may explain the former one], he fyndes yt pour mene pays hym not his
wages."[269] At Cawood, in 1510 A.D., we find it the duty of the parish
clerk "to keepe ye clok and ryng corfer [curfew] at dew tymes appointed by
ye parrish, and also to ryng ye day bell."[270] He had his desk in church
near the clergyman, perhaps on the opposite side of the chancel, as we
gather from a presentation from St. Maurice, York, in 1416, that the desks
in the choir on both sides, especially where the parish chaplain and
parish clerk are accustomed to sit, need repair.[271] A story in Matthew
Paris[272] tells us what his office was worth: "It happened that an agent
of the pope met a petty clerk of a village carrying water in a little
vessel, with a sprinkler and some bits of bread given him for having
sprinkled some holy water, and to him the deceitful Roman thus addressed
himself: 'How much does the profit yielded to you by this church amount to
in a year?' To which the clerk, ignorant of the Roman's cunning, replied,
'To twenty shillings I think;' whereupon the agent demanded the
per-centage the pope had just demanded on all ecclesiastical benefices.
And to pay that small sum this poor man was compelled to hold schools for
many days, and by selling his books in the precincts, to drag on a
half-starved life." The parish clerks of London formed a guild, which used
to exhibit miracle plays at its annual feast, on the green, in the parish
of St. James, Clerkenwell. The parish clerks always took an important part
in the conduct of the miracle plays; and it was natural that when they
united their forces in such an exhibition on behalf of their guild the
result should be an exhibition of unusual excellence. Stow tells us that
in 1391 the guild performed before the king and queen and whole court
three days successively, and that in 1409 they produced a play of the
creation of the world, whose representation occupied eight successive
days. The Passion-play, still exhibited every ten years at Ober-Ammergau,
has made all the world acquainted with the kind of exhibition in which our
forefathers delighted. These miracle-plays still survive also in Spain,
and probably in other Roman Catholic countries.
Chaucer has not failed to give us, in his wonderful gallery of
contemporary characters (in the Miller's Tale), a portrait of the parish
clerk:--
"Now was ther of that churche a parish clerk,
The which that was ycleped Absolon.
Crulle was his here,[273] and as the gold it shon,
And strouted as a fanne large and brode;
Ful streight and even lay his jolly shode.
His rode[274] was red, his eyen grey as goos,
With Poules windowes carven on his shoos,
In hosen red he went ful fetisly,[275]
Yclad he was ful smal and proprely,
All in a kirtle of a light waget,[276]
Ful faire and thicke ben the pointes set.
An' therupon he had a gay surplise,
As white as is the blossome upon the rise.[277]
A mery child he was, so God me save,
Wel coud he leten blod, and clippe, and shave,
And make a chartre of lond and a quitance;
In twenty manere could he trip and dance,
(After the scole of Oxenforde tho)
And playen songes on a smal ribible.[278]
Therto he song, sometime a loud quinible.[278]
And as wel could he play on a giterne.
In all the toun n'as brewhouse ne taverne
That he ne visited with his solas,
Ther as that any galliard tapstere was.
This Absolon, that joly was and gay,
Goth with a censor on the holy day,
Censing the wives of the parish faste,[279]
And many a lovely loke he on hem caste.
* * * * *
Sometime to shew his lightnesse and maistrie,
He plaieth Herode on a skaffold hie."
CHAPTER III.
THE PARISH PRIEST.
We shall obtain further help to a comprehension of the character, and
position, and popular estimation of the mediæval seculars--the parish
priests--if we compare them first with the regulars--the monks and
friars--and then with their modern representatives the parochial clergy.
One great point of difference between the regulars and the seculars was
that the monks and friars affected asceticism, and the parish priests did
not. The monks and friars had taken the three vows of absolute poverty,
voluntary celibacy, and implicit obedience to the superior of the convent.
The parish priests, on the contrary, had their benefices and their private
property; they long resisted the obligations of celibacy, which popes and
councils tried to lay upon them; they were themselves spiritual rulers in
their own parishes, subject only to the constitutional rule of the bishop.
The monks professed to shut themselves up from the world, and to mortify
their bodily appetites in order the better, as they considered, to work
out their own salvation. The friars professed to be the schools of the
prophets, to have the spirit of Nazariteship, to be followers of Elijah
and John Baptist, to wear sackcloth, and live hardly, and go about as
preachers of repentance. The secular clergy had no desire and felt no need
to shut themselves up from the world like monks; they did not feel called
upon, with the friars, to imitate John Baptist, "neither eating nor
drinking," seeing that a greater than he came "eating and drinking" and
living the common life of men. They rather looked upon Christian priests
and clerks as occupying the place of the priests and Levites of the
ancient church, set apart to minister in holy things like them, but not
condemned to poverty or asceticism any more than they were. The difference
told unfavourably for the parish clergy in the popular estimation; for the
unreasoning crowd is always impressed by the dramatic exhibition of
austerity of life and the profession of extraordinary sanctity, and
undervalues the virtue which is only seen in the godly regulation of a
life of ordinary every-day occupations. The lord monks were the
aristocratic order of the clergy. Their convents were wealthy and
powerful, their minsters and houses were the glory of the land, their
officials ranked with the nobles, and the greatness of the whole house
reflected dignity upon each of its monks.
The friars were the popular order of the clergy. The Four Orders were
great organizations of itinerant preachers; powerful through their
learning and eloquence, their organization, and the Papal support;
cultivating the favour of the people by which they lived by popular
eloquence and demagogic arts.
Between these two great classes stood the secular clergy, upon whom the
practical pastoral work of the country fell. A numerous body, but
disorganized; diocesan bishops acting as statesmen, and devolving their
ecclesiastical duties on suffragans; rectors refusing to take priests'
orders, and living like laymen; the majority of the parishes practically
served by parochial chaplains; every gentleman having his own chaplain
dependent on his own pleasure; hundreds of priests engaged in secular
occupations.
Between the secular priests and the friars, as we have seen, pp. 46 _et
seq._, there was a direct rivalry and a great deal of bitter feeling. The
friars accused the parish priests of neglect of duty and ignorance in
spiritual things and worldliness of life, and came into their parishes
whenever they pleased, preaching and visiting from house to house, hearing
confessions and prescribing penances, and carrying away the offerings of
the people. The parish priests looked upon the friars as intruders in
their parishes, and accused them of setting their people against them and
undermining their spiritual influence; of corrupting discipline, by
receiving the confessions of those who were ashamed to confess to their
pastor who knew them, and enjoining light penances in order to encourage
people to come to them; and lastly, of using all the arts of low
popularity-seeking in order to extract gifts and offerings from their
people.
We have already given one contemporary illustration of this from Chaucer,
at p. 46 _ante_. We add one or two extracts from Piers Ploughman's Vision.
In one place of his elaborate allegory he introduces Wrath, saying:--
"I am Wrath, quod he, I was sum tyme a frere,
And the convent's gardyner for to graff impes[280]
On limitoures and listers lesyngs I imped
Till they bere leaves of low speech lordes to please
And sithen thier blossomed abrode in bower to hear shriftes.
And now is fallen therof a fruite, that folk have well liever
Shewen her shriftes to hem than shryve hem to ther parsones.
And now, parsons have perceyved that freres part with hem,
These possessioners preache and deprave freres,
And freres find hem in default, as folk beareth witness."--v. 143.
And again on the same grievance of the friars gaining the confidence of
the people away from their parish priests--
"And well is this y-holde: in parisches of Engelonde,
For persones and parish prestes: that shulde the peple shryve,
Ben curatoures called: to know and to hele.
Alle that ben her parishens: penaunce to enjoine,
And shulden be ashamed in her shrifte: an shame maketh hem wende,
And fleen to the freres: as fals folke to Westmynstere,
That borwith and bereth it thider."[281]
When we compare the mediæval seculars with the modern clergy, we find that
the modern clergy form a much more homogeneous body. In the mediæval
seculars the bishop was often one who had been a monk or friar; the
cathedral clergy in many dioceses were regulars. Then, besides the parsons
and parochial chaplains, who answer to our incumbents and curates, there
were the chantry and gild priests, and priests who "lived at rovers on
trentals;" the great number of domestic chaplains must have considerably
affected the relations of the parochial clergy to the gentry. Of the
inferior ecclesiastical people, deacons, sub-deacons, acolytes, readers,
exorcists, and ostiaries it is probable that in an ordinary parish there
would be only a parish clerk and a boy-acolyte; in larger churches an
ostiary besides, answering to our verger, and in cathedrals a larger staff
of minor officials; but it is doubtful whether there was any real working
staff of sub-deacons, readers, exorcists, any more than we in these days
have a working order of deacons; men passed through those orders on their
way upwards to the priesthood, but made no stay in them.
But a still greater difference between the mediæval secular clergy and the
modern parochial clergy is in their relative position with respect to
society generally. The homogeneous body of "the bishops and clergy" are
the only representatives of a clergy in the eyes of modern English
society; the relative position of the secular clergy in the eyes of the
mediæval world was less exclusive and far inferior. The seculars were only
one order of the clergy, sharing the title with monks and friars, and they
were commonly held as inferior to the one in wealth and learning, and to
the other in holiness and zeal.
Another difference between the mediæval seculars and the modern clergy is
in the superior independence of the latter. The poor parochial chaplain
was largely dependent for his means of living on the fees and offerings of
his parishioners. The domestic chaplain was only an upper servant. Even
the country incumbent, in those feudal days when the lord of the manor was
a petty sovereign, was very much under the influence of the local magnate.
In some primitive little villages, where the lord of the manor continues
to be the sovereign of his village, it is still the fashion for the
clergyman not to begin service till the squire comes. The Book of the
Knight of La Tour Landry gives two stories which serve to show that the
deference of the clergyman to the squire was sometimes carried to very
excessive lengths in the old days of which we are writing. "I have herde
of a knight and of a lady that in her youthe delited hem to rise late. And
so they used longe, tille many tymes that thei lost her masse, and made
other of her parisshe to lese it, for the knight was lorde and patron of
the chirche, and therfor the priest durst not disobeye hym. And so it
happed that on a Sunday the knight sent unto the chirche that thei shulde
abide hym. And whane he come, it was passed none, wherfor thir might not
that day have no masse, for every man saide it was passed tyme of the
day, and therfor thei durst not singe. And so that Sunday the knight, the
lady, and alle the parisshe was without masse, of the whiche the pepelle
were sori, but thir must needs suffre." And on a night there came a vision
to the parson, and the same night the knight and lady dreamed a dream. And
the parson came to the knight's house, and he told him his vision, and the
priest his, of which they greatly marvelled, for their dreams were like.
"And the priest said unto the knight, 'There is hereby in a forest an holy
ermyte that canne telle us what this avision menithe.' And than thei yede
to hym, and tolde it hym fro point to point, and as it was. And the wise
holi man, the which was of blessed lyff, expounded and declared her
avision."
The other story is of "a ladi that dwelled faste by the chirche, that toke
every day so long time to make her redy that it made every Sunday the
person of the chirche and the parisshenes to abide after her. And she
happed to abide so longe on a Sunday that it was fer dayes, and every man
said to other, 'This day we trow shall not this lady be kemed and
arraied.'"
* * * * *
The condition of the parochial clergy being such as we have sketched, it
might seem as if the people stood but a poor chance of being Christianly
and virtuously brought up. But when we come to inquire into that part of
the question the results are unexpectedly satisfactory. The priests in
charge of parishes seem, on the whole, to have done their duty better than
we should have anticipated; and the people generally had a knowledge of
the great truths of religion, greater probably than is now generally
possessed--it was taught to them by the eye in sculptures, paintings,
stained glass, miracle plays; these religious truths were probably more
constantly in their minds and on their lips than is the case now--they
occur much more frequently in popular literature; and though the people
were rude and coarse and violent and sensual enough, yet it is probable
that religion was a greater power among them generally than it is now;
there was probably more crime, but less vice; above all, an elevated
sanctity in individuals was probably more common in those times than in
these.
One interesting evidence of the actual mode of pastoral ministrations in
those days is the handbooks, which were common enough, teaching the parish
priest his duties. The Early English Text Society has lately done us a
service by publishing one of these manuals of "Instructions for Parish
Priests," which will enable us to give some notes on the subject. "Great
numbers," says the editor, "of independent works of this nature were
produced in the Middle Ages. There is probably not a language or dialect
in Europe that has not now, or had not once, several treatises of this
nature among its early literature. The growth of languages, the
Reformation, and the alteration in clerical education consequent on that
great revolution, have caused a great part of them to perish or become
forgotten. A relic of this sort fished up from the forgotten past is very
useful to us as a help towards understanding the sort of life our fathers
lived. To many it will seem strange that these directions, written without
the least thought of hostile criticism, when there was no danger in plain
speaking, and no inducements to hide or soften down, should be so free
from superstition. We have scarcely any of the nonsense which some people
still think made up the greater part of the religion of the Middle Ages,
but instead thereof good sound morality, such as it would be pleasant to
hear preached at the present day."
The book in question is by John Myrk, a canon regular of St. Austin, of
Lilleshall, in Shropshire; the beautiful ruins of his monastery may still
be seen in the grounds of the Duke of Sutherland's shooting-box at
Lilleshall. He tells us that he translated it from a Latin book called
"Pars Oculi." It is worthy of note that a former prior of Lilleshall,
Johannes Miræus, had written a work on the same subject, called "Manuale
Sacerdotis," to which John Myrk's bears much resemblance, both in subject
and treatment. The editor's sketch of the argument of the "Instructions to
Parish Priests" will help us to give a sufficient idea of its contents for
our present purpose.
The author begins by telling the parish priest what sort of man he himself
should be. Not ignorant, because
"Whenne the blynde ledeth the blynde
Into the dyche they fallen both."
He must himself be an example to his people:--
"What thee nedeth hem to teche
And whyche thou muste thy self be,
For lytel is worth thy prechynge
If thou be of evyle lyvynge."
He must be chaste, eschew lies and oaths, drunkenness, gluttony, pride,
sloth, and envy. Must keep from taverns, trading, wrestling, and shooting,
and the like manly sports; from hunting, hawking, and dancing. Must not
wear cutted clothes or pyked shoes, or dagger, but wear becoming clothes,
and shave his crown and beard. Must be given to hospitality, both to poor
and rich, read his psalter, and remember doomsday; return good for evil,
eschew jesting and ribaldry, despise the world, and follow after virtue.
The priest must not be content with knowing his own duties. He must be
prepared to teach those under his charge all that Christian men and women
should do and believe. We are told that when any one has done a sin he
must not continue long with it on his conscience, but go straight to the
priest and confess it, lest he should forget before the great shriving
time at Eastertide. Pregnant women, especially, are to go to their shrift,
and receive the Holy Communion at once. Our instructor is very strict on
the duties of midwives--women they were really in those days, and properly
licensed to their office by the ecclesiastical authorities. They are on no
account to permit children to die unbaptized. If there be no priest at
hand, they are to administer that sacrament themselves if they see danger
of death. They must be especially careful to use the right form of words,
such as our Lord taught; but it does not matter whether they say them in
Latin or English, or whether the Latin be good or bad, so that the
intention be to use the proper words. The water, and the vessel that
contained it, are not to be again employed in domestic use, but to be
burned or carried to the church and cast into the font. If no one else be
at hand, the parents themselves may baptize their children. All infants
are to be christened at Easter and Whitsuntide in the newly-blessed fonts,
if there have not been necessity to administer the Sacrament before.
Godparents are to be careful to teach their godchildren the _Pater
Noster_, _Ave Maria_, and _Credo_; and are not to be sponsors to their
godchildren at their Confirmation, for they have already contracted a
spiritual relationship. Before weddings banns are to be asked on three
holidays, and all persons who contract irregular marriages, and the
priests, clerks, and others that help thereat, are cursed for the same.
The real presence of the body and blood of our Saviour in the Sacrament of
the Altar is to be fully held; but the people are to bear in mind that the
wine and water given them after they have received Communion is not a part
of the Sacrament. It is an important thing to behave reverently in church,
for the church is God's house, not a place for idle prattle. When people
go there they are not to jest, or loll against the pillars and walls, but
kneel down on the floor and pray to their Lord for mercy and grace. When
the Gospel is read they are to stand up, and sign themselves with the
cross; and when they hear the Sanctus bell ring, they are to kneel and
worship their Maker in the Blessed Sacrament. All men are to show
reverence when they see the priest carrying the Host to the sick. He is to
teach them the "Our Father," and "Hail, Mary," and "I believe," of which
metrical versions are given, with a short exposition of the Creed.
The author gives some very interesting instructions about churchyards,
which show that they were sometimes treated with shameful irreverence. It
was not for want of good instructions that our ancestors, in the days of
the Plantagenets, played at rustic games, and that the gentry held their
manorial courts, over the sleeping-places of the dead.
Of witchcraft we hear surprisingly little. Myrk's words are such that one
might almost think he had some sceptical doubts on the subject. Not so
with usury: the taking interest for money, or lending anything to get
profit thereby, is, we are shown, "a synne full grevus."
After these and several more general instructions of a similar character,
the author gives a very good commentary on the Creed, the Sacraments, the
Commandments, and the deadly sins. The little tract ends with a few words
of instruction to priests as to the "manner of saying mass, and of giving
Holy Communion to the sick." On several subjects the author gives very
detailed instructions and advice as to the best way of dealing with
people, and his counsels are so right and sensible, that they might well
be read now, not out of mere curiosity, but for profit. Here is his
conclusion, as a specimen of the English and versification:--
"Hyt ys I-made hem[282] to schonne
That have no bokes of here[283] owne,
And other that beth of mene lore
That wolde fayn conne[284] more,
And those that here-in learnest most,
Thonke yerne the Holy Gost,
That geveth wyt to eche mon
To do the gode that he con,
And by hys travayle and hys dede
Geveth hym heven to hys mede;
The mede and the joye of heven lyht
God us graunte for hys myht. Amen."
That these instructions were not thrown away upon the mediæval parish
priests we may infer from Chaucer's beautiful description of the poor
parson of a town, who was one of his immortal band of Canterbury Pilgrims,
which we here give as a fitting conclusion of this first part of our
subject:--
"A good man there was of religioun,
That was a poure persone of a toun;
But riche he was of holy thought and werk.
He was also a lerned man, a clerk,
That Criste's gospel trewely wolde preche,
His parishens devoutly wolde he teche.
Benigne he was and wonder diligent,
And in adversite ful patient;
And such he was yproved often sithes.
Full loth were he to cursen for his tithes,
But rather wolde he given out of doubte
Unto his poure parishens about,
Of his offering and eke of his substance.
He could in litel thing have suffisance.
Wide was his parish, and houses fer asunder,
But he ne left nought for no rain ne thunder,
In sikenesse and in mischief to visite
The farthest in his parish much and lite,[285]
Upon his fete, and in his hand a staff.
This noble ensample to his sheep he gaf[286]
That first he wrought, and afterward he taught.
Out of the gospel he the wordes caught,
And this figure he added yet thereto,
That if gold rusté what should iren do?
For if a priest be foul, on whom we trust,
No wonder is a léwéd man to rust;
Well ought a preest ensample for to give,
By his clenenesse how his shepe shulde live.
He sette not his benefice to hire,
And lefte his sheep accumbered in the mire,
And ran unto London, unto Seint Poules,
To seeken him a chanterie for souls,
Or with a brotherhede to be withold,
But dwelt at home and kepté well his fold.
He was a shepherd and no mercenare;
And though he holy were and vertuous,
He was to sinful men not despitous,[287]
Ne of his speché dangerous ne digne,[288]
But in his teaching discrete and benigne.
To drawen folk to heaven with fairénesse,
By good ensample was his businesse.
But it were any persone obstinat,
What so he were of highe or low estate,
Him wolde he snibben[289] sharply for the nones,
A better preest I trow that nowhere none is.
He waited after no pomp ne reverence,
Ne maked him no spiced[290] conscience,
But Christés lore, and his apostles twelve,
He taught, but first he followed it himselve."
Thus, monk, and friar, and hermit, and recluse, and rector, and chantry
priest, played their several parts in mediæval society, until the
Reformation came and swept away the religious orders and their houses, the
chantry priests and their superstitions, and the colleges of seculars,
with all their good and evil, and left only the parish churches and the
parish priests remaining, stripped of half their tithe, and insufficient
in number, in learning, and in social _status_ to fulfil the office of the
ministry of God among the people. Since then, for three centuries the
people have multiplied, and the insufficiency of the ministry has been
proportionately aggravated. It has been left to our day to complete the
work of the Reformation by multiplying bishops and priests, and creating
an order of deacons, re-distributing the ancient revenues and supplying
what more is needed, and by effecting a general reorganization of the
ecclesiastical establishment to adapt it to the actual spiritual needs of
the people.
CHAPTER IV.
CLERICAL COSTUME.
We proceed to give some notes on the costume of the secular clergy; first
the official costume which they wore when performing the public functions
of their order, and next the ordinary costume in which they walked about
their parishes and took part in the daily affairs of the mediæval society
of which they formed so large and important a part. The first branch of
this subject is one of considerable magnitude; it can hardly be altogether
omitted in such a series of papers as this, but our limited space requires
that we should deal with it as briefly as may be.
Representations of the pope occur not infrequently in ancient paintings.
His costume is that of an archbishop, only that instead of the usual mitre
he wears a conical tiara. In later times a cross with three crossbars has
been used by artists as a symbol of the pope, with two crossbars of a
patriarch, and with one crossbar of an archbishop; but Dr. Rock assures us
that the pope never had a pastoral staff of this shape, but of one
crossbar only; that patriarchs of the Eastern Church used the cross of two
bars, but never those of the Western Church; and that the example of
Thomas-à-Becket with a cross of two bars, in Queen Mary's Psalter (Royal,
2 B. vii.) is a unique example (and possibly an error of the artist's). A
representation of Pope Leo III. from a contemporary picture is engraved in
the "Annales Archæologique," vol. viii. p. 257; another very complete and
clear representation of the pontifical costume of the time of Innocent
III. is engraved by Dr. Rock ("Church of our Fathers," p. 467) from a
fresco painting at Subiaco, near Rome. Another representation, of late
thirteenth-century date, is given in the famous MS. called the "Psalter of
Queen Mary," in the British Museum (Royal, 2 B. vii.); there the pope is
in nothing more than ordinary episcopal costume--alb, tunic, chasuble,
without the pall--and holds his cross-staff of only one bar in his right
hand, and his canonical tiara has one crown round the base. Beside him
stands a bishop in the same costume, except that he wears the mitre and
holds a crook. A good fourteenth-century representation of a pope and
cardinals is in the MS. August. V. f. 459. We give a woodcut of the
fifteenth century, from a MS. life of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick,
in the British Museum (Julius E. iv. f. 207); the subject is the
presentation of the pilgrim earl to the pope, and it enables us to bring
into one view the costumes of pope, cardinal, and bishop. A later picture
of considerable artistic merit may be found in Hans Burgmair's "Der Weise
König," where the pope, officiating at a royal marriage, is habited in a
chasuble, and has the three crowns on his tiara.
[Illustration: _Pope, Cardinal, and Bishop._]
The cardinalate is not an ecclesiastical "order." Originally the name was
applied to the priests of the chief churches of Rome, who formed the
chapter of the Bishop of Rome. In later times they were the princes of the
papal sovereignty, and the dignity was conferred not only upon the highest
order of the hierarchy, but upon priests, deacons,[291] and even upon men
who had only taken minor orders to qualify themselves for holding office
in the papal kingdom. The red hat, which became their distinctive symbol,
is said to have been given them first by Innocent VI. at the Council of
Lyons in 1245; and De Curbio says they first wore it in 1246, at the
interview between the pope and Louis IX. of France. A representation of it
may be seen in the MS. Royal, 16 G. vi., which is engraved in the
"Pictorial History of England," vol. i. 869. Another very clear and good
representation of the costume of a cardinal is in the plate in Hans
Burgmair's "Der Weise König," already mentioned; a group of them is on the
right side of the drawing, each with a fur-lined hood on his head, and his
hat over the hood. It is not the hat which is peculiar to cardinals, but
the colour of it, and the number of its tassels. Other ecclesiastics wore
the hat of the same shape, but only a cardinal wears it of scarlet.
Moreover, a priest wore only one tassel to each string, a bishop three, a
cardinal seven. It was not the hat only which was scarlet. Wolsey, we
read, was in the habit of dressing entirely in scarlet for his ordinary
costume. In the Decretals of Pope Gregory, Royal, 10 E. iv. f. 3 v., are
representations of cardinals in red gown and hood and hat. On the
following page they are represented, in _pontificalibus_.
The archbishop wore the habit of a bishop, his differences being in the
crosier and pall.[292] His crozier had a cross head instead of a curved
head like the bishop's. Over the chasuble he wore the pall, which was a
flat circular band, or collar, placed loosely round the shoulders, with
long ends hanging down behind and before, made of lambs' wool, and marked
with a number of crosses. Dr. Rock has engraved[293] two remarkably
interesting early representations of archbishops of Ravenna, in which a
very early form of the pontifical garments is given, viz., the sandals,
alb, stole, tunic, chasuble, pall, and tonsure. They are not represented
with either mitre or staff. Other representations of archbishops may be
found of the eleventh century in the Bayeux tapestry, and of the
thirteenth in the Royal MS., 2 B. vii. In the Froissart MS., Harl. 4,380,
at f. 170, is a fifteenth-century representation of the Archbishop of
Canterbury in ordinary dress--a lavender-coloured gown and red liripipe.
The bishop wore the same habit as the priest, with the addition of
sandals, gloves, a ring, the pastoral staff with a curved head, and the
mitre. The chasuble was only worn when celebrating the Holy Communion; on
any other ceremonial occasion the cope was worn, _e.g._, when in choir, as
in the woodcut on p. 197: or when preaching, as in a picture in the Harl.
MS. 1319, engraved in the "Pictorial History of England," vol. i. 806; or
when attending parliament. In illuminated MSS. bishops are very commonly
represented dressed in alb and cope only, and this seems to have been
their most usual habit. If the bishop were a monk or friar he wore the
cope over the robe proper to his order. We might multiply indefinitely
references to representations of bishops and other ecclesiastics in the
illuminated MS. We will content ourselves with one reference to a
beautifully drawn figure in the psalter of the close of the 14th century
(Harl. 2,897, f. 380). In the early fourteenth-century MS. (Royal, 14 E.
iii. at ff. 16 and 25), we find two representations of a bishop in what we
may suppose was his ordinary unofficial costume; he wears a blue-grey robe
and hood with empty falling sleeves, through which appear the blue sleeves
of his under robe; it is the ordinary civil and clerical costume of the
period, but he is marked out as a bishop by a white mitre. In the
Pontifical of the middle of the fifteenth century, already referred to
(Egerton, 1067) at f. 186 in the representation of the ceremony of the
feet-washing, the bishop in a long black sleeveless robe[294] over a white
alb, and a biretta.
The earliest form of the mitre was that of a simple cap, like a skull-cap,
of which there is a representation, giving in many respects a clear and
elaborate picture of the episcopal robes, in a woodcut of St. Dunstan in
the MS. Cotton, Claudius A. iii.[295] In this early shape it has already
the infulæ--two narrow bands hanging down behind. In the twelfth century
it is in the form of a large cap, with a depression in the middle, which
produces two blunt horns at the sides. There is a good representation of
this in the MS. Cotton, Nero C. iv. f. 34, which has been engraved by
Strutt, Shaw, and Dr. Rock.
In the Harl. MS. 5,102, f. 17, is a picture of the entombment of an
archbishop, in which is well shown the transition shape of the mitre from
the twelfth century, already described, to the cleft and pointed shape
which was used in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The depression
is here deepened into a partial cleft, and the mitre is put on so that the
horns come before and behind, instead of at the sides, but the horns are
still blunt and rounded. The archbishop's gloves in this picture are
white, like the mitre, and in shape are like mittens, _i.e._, not divided
into fingers.
The shape in the thirteenth and fourteenth century presented a stiff low
triangle in front and behind, with a gap between them. It is well shown in
a MS. of the close of the twelfth century, Harl. 2,800, f. 6, and, in a
shape a little further developed, in the pictures in the Royal MS., 2 B.
vii., already noticed. In the fifteenth century the mitre began to be made
taller, and with curved sides, as seen in the beautiful woodcut of a
bishop and his canons in choir given in our last chapter, p. 197. The
latest example in the English Church is in the brass of Archbishop
Harsnett, in Chigwell Church, in which also occur the latest examples of
the alb, stole, dalmatic, and cope.
The pastoral staff also varied in shape at different times. The earliest
examples of it are in the representations of St. Mark and St. Luke,[296]
in the "Gospels of MacDurnan," in the Lambeth Library, a work of the
middle of the ninth century. St. Luke's staff is short, St. Mark's longer
than himself; in both cases the staff terminates with a plain, slightly
reflexed curve of about three-fourths of a circle. Some actual examples of
the metal heads of these Celtic pastoral staves remain; one is engraved in
the "Archæologia Scotica," vol. ii., another is in the British Museum;
that of the abbots of Clonmacnoise, and that of the ancient bishops of
Waterford, are in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire. They were all
brought together in 1863 in the Loan Exhibition at South Kensington. One
of the earliest English representations of the staff is in the picture of
the consecration of a church, in a MS. of the ninth century, in the Rouen
Library, engraved in the "Archæologia," vol xxv. p. 17, in the "Pictorial
History of England," and by Dr. Rock, ii. p. 24. Here the staff is about
the length of an ordinary walking-stick, and is terminated by a round
knob.
Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, is represented on his great seal with a short
staff, with a tau-cross or crutch head. An actually existing staff of this
shape, which belonged to Gerard, Bishop of Limoges, who died in 1022, is
engraved in the "Annales Archæologique," vol. x. p. 176. The staves
represented in illuminations of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries have
usually a plain spiral curve of rather more than a circle;[297] in later
times they were ornamented with foliage, and sometimes with statuettes,
and were enamelled and jewelled. Numerous representations and actual
examples exist; some may be seen in the South Kensington Museum. From
early in the fourteenth century downward, a napkin of linen or silk is
often found attached by one corner to the head of the staff, whose origin
and meaning seem to be undetermined.
The official costume of the remaining orders, together with the symbols
significant of their several offices, are well brought out in the
degradation of W. Sawtre, already given at p. 214.
Some of the vestments there mentioned may need a few words of
explanation. The alb was a kind of long coat with close fitting sleeves
made of white[298] linen, and usually, at least during the celebration of
divine service, ornamented with four to six square pieces of cloth of
gold, or other rich stuff, or of goldsmith's work, which were placed on
the skirt before and behind, on the wrist of each sleeve, and on the back
and breast. The dalmatic of the deacon was a kind of tunic, reaching
generally a little below the knees, and slit some way up the sides, and
with short, broad sleeves; it was usually ornamented with a broad hem,
which passed round the side slits. The sub-deacon's tunicle was like the
dalmatic, but rather shorter, and less ornamented. The cope was a kind of
cloak, usually of rich material, fastened across the chest by a large
brooch; it was worn by priests in choir and in processions, and on other
occasions of state and ceremony. The chasuble was the Eucharistic
vestment; originally it was a circle of rich cloth with a slit in the
middle, through which the head was passed, and then it fell in ample folds
all round the figure. Gradually it was made oval in shape, continually
decreasing in width, so as to leave less of the garment to encumber the
arms. In its modern shape it consists of two stiff rectangular pieces of
cloth, one piece falling before, the other behind, and fastened together
at the shoulders of the wearer. The ancient inventories of cathedrals,
abbeys, and churches show us that the cope and chasuble were made in every
colour, of every rich material, and sometimes embroidered and jewelled.
Indeed, all the official robes of the clergy were of the costliest
material and most beautiful workmanship which could be obtained. England
was celebrated for its skill in the arts employed in their production, and
an anecdote of the time of Henry III. shows us that the English
ecclesiastical vestments excited admiration and cupidity even at Rome.
Their richness had nothing to do with personal pride or luxury on the part
of the priests. They were not the property of the clergy, but were
generally presented to the churches, to which they belonged in perpetuity;
and they were made thus costly on the principle of honouring the divine
worship. As men gave their costliest material and noblest Art for the
erection of the place in which it was offered, so also for the appliances
used in its ministration, and the robes of the ministrants.
In full sacerdotal habit the priests wore the apparelled alb, and stole,
and over that the dalmatic, and either the cope or the chasuble over all,
with the amys thrown back like a hood over the cope or chasuble.
Representations of priests _in pontificalibus_ abound in illuminated MSS.,
and in their monumental effigies, to such an extent that we need hardly
quote any particular examples. Representations of the inferior orders are
comparatively rare. Examples of deacons may be found engraved in Dr.
Rock's "Church of our Fathers," i. 376, 378, 379, 443, and 444. Two others
of early fourteenth-century date may be found in the Add. MS. 10,294, f.
72, one wearing a dalmatic of cloth of gold, the other of scarlet, over
the alb. Two others of the latter part of the fourteenth century are seen
in King Richard II.'s Book of Hours (Dom. A. xvii. f. 176), one in blue
dalmatic embroidered with gold, the other red embroidered with gold. A
monumental effigy of a deacon under a mural arch at Avon Dassett,
Warwickshire, was referred to by Mr. M. H. Bloxam, in a recent lecture at
the Architectural Museum, South Kensington. The effigy, which is of the
thirteenth century, is in alb, stole, and dalmatic. We are indebted to Mr.
Bloxam for a note of another mutilated effigy of a deacon of the
fourteenth century among the ruins of Furness Abbey; he is habited in the
alb only, with a girdle round the middle, whose tasselled knobs hang down
in front. The stole is passed across the body from the left shoulder, and
is fastened together at the right hip.
Dr. Rock, vol. i. p. 384, engraves a very good representation of a
ninth-century sub-deacon in his tunicle, holding a pitcher in one hand and
an empty chalice in the other; and in vol. ii. p. 89, an acolyte, in what
seems to be a surplice, with a scarlet hood--part of his ordinary
costume--over it, the date of the drawing being _cir._ 1395 A.D. We have
already noted the costume of an ostiary at p. 215. In the illuminations we
frequently find an inferior minister attending upon a priest when engaged
in his office, but in many cases it is difficult to determine whether he
is deacon, sub-deacon, or acolyte, _e.g._--in the early fourteenth-century
MS., Add. 10,294, at f. 72, is a priest officiating at a funeral, attended
by a minister, who is habited in a pink under robe--his ordinary
dress--and over it a short white garment with wide loose sleeves, which
may be either a deacon's dalmatic, or a sub-deacon's tunic, or an
acolyte's surplice. In the Add. MS. 10,293, at f. 154, is a representation
of a priest celebrating mass in a hermitage, with a minister kneeling
behind him, habited in a white alb only, holding a lighted taper. Again,
in the MS. Royal, 14 E. iii. f. 86, is a picture of a prior dressed like
some of the canons in our woodcut from Richard II.'s Book of Hours, in a
blue under robe, white surplice, and red stole crossed over the breast,
and his furred hood on his head; he is baptizing a heathen king, and an
attendant minister, who is dressed in the ordinary secular habit of the
time, stands beside, holding the chrismatory. In the same history of
Richard Earl of Warwick which we have already quoted, there is at f. 213
v., a boy in a short surplice with a censer. In the early
fourteenth-century MS., Royal, 14 E. iii. at f. 84 v., is a picture of a
bishop anointing a king; an attendant minister, who carries a holy water
vessel and aspersoir, is dressed in a surplice over a pink tunic. The
surplice is found in almost as many and as different shapes in the Middle
Ages as now; sometimes with narrow sleeves and tight up to the neck;
sometimes with shorter and wider sleeves and falling low at the neck;
sometimes longer and sometimes shorter in the skirt; never, however, so
long as altogether to hide the cassock beneath. In addition to the
references already given, it may be sufficient to name as further
authorities for ecclesiastical costumes generally:--for Saxon times, the
Benedictional of St. Ethelwold, engraved in the Archæologia; for the
thirteenth century, Queen Mary's Psalter, Royal, 2 B. vii.; for the
fourteenth, Royal, 20, c. vii.; for the fifteenth century, Lydgate's "Life
of St. Edmund;" for the sixteenth century, Hans Burgmaier's "Der Weise
König," and the various works on sepulchral monuments and monumental
brasses.
[Illustration: _Coronation Procession of Charles V. of France._]
The accompanying woodcut from Col. Johnes's Froissart, vol. i. p. 635,
representing the coronation procession of Charles V. of France, will help
us to exhibit some of the orders of the clergy with their proper costume
and symbols. First goes the aquabajalus, in alb, sprinkling holy water;
then a cross-bearer in cassock and surplice; then two priests, in cassock,
surplice, and cope; then follows a canon in his cap (biretta), with his
furred amys over his arm.[299]
* * * * *
But the clergy wore these robes only when actually engaged in some
official act. What was their ordinary costume is generally little known,
and it is a part of the subject in which we are especially interested in
these papers. From the earliest times of the English Church downwards it
was considered by the rulers of the Church that clergymen ought to be
distinguished from laymen not only by the tonsure, but also by their
dress. We do not find that any uniform habit was prescribed to them, such
as distinguished the regular orders of monks and friars from the laity,
and from one another; but we gather from the canons of synods, and the
injunctions of bishops, that the clergy were expected to wear their
clothes not too gay in colour, and not too fashionably cut; that they
were to abstain from wearing ornaments or carrying arms; and that their
horse furniture was to be in the same severe style. We also gather from
the frequent repetition of canons on the subject, and the growing
earnestness of their tone, that these injunctions were very generally
disregarded. We need not take the reader through the whole series of
authorities which may be found in the various collections of councils; a
single quotation from the injunctions of John (Stratford) Archbishop of
Canterbury, A.D. 1342, will suffice to give us a comprehensive sketch of
the general contents of the whole series.
"The external costume often shows the internal character and condition of
persons; and though the behaviour of clerks ought to be an example and
pattern of the laity, yet the abuse of clerks, which has gained ground
more than usually in these days in tonsures, in garments, in horse
trappings, and other things, has now generated an abominable scandal among
the people, while persons holding ecclesiastical dignities, rectories,
honourable prebends, and benefices with cure of souls, even when ordained
to holy orders, scorn to wear the crown (which is the token of the
heavenly kingdom and of perfection), and, using the distinction of hair
extended almost to the shoulders like effeminate persons, walk about
clothed in a military rather than a clerical outer habit, viz., short, or
notably scant, and with excessively wide sleeves, which do not cover the
elbows, but hang down, lined, or, as they say, turned up with fur or silk,
and hoods with tippets of wonderful length, and with long beards; and
rashly dare, contrary to the canonical sanctions, to use rings
indifferently on their fingers; and to be girt with zones, studded with
precious stones of wonderful size, with purses engraved with various
figures, enamelled and gilt, and attached to them (_i.e._ to the girdle),
with knives, hanging after the fashion of swords, also with buskins red
and even checked, green shoes and peaked and cut[300] in many ways, with
cruppers (_croperiis_) to their saddles, and horns hanging to their necks,
capes and cloaks furred openly at the edges to such an extent, that little
or no distinction appears of clerks from laymen, whereby they render
themselves, through their demerits, unworthy of the privilege of their
order and profession.
"We therefore, wishing henceforward to prevent such errors, &c., command
and ordain, that whoever obtain ecclesiastical benefices in our province,
especially if ordained to holy orders, wear clerical garments and tonsure
suitable to their status; but if any clerks of our province go publicly in
an outer garment short, or notably scant, or in one with long or
excessively wide sleeves, not touching the elbow round about, but hanging,
with untonsured hair and long beard, or publicly wear their rings on their
fingers, &c., if, on admonition, they do not reform within six months,
they shall be suspended, and shall only be absolved by their diocesan, and
then only on condition that they pay one-fifth of a year's income to the
poor of the place through the diocesan," &c., &c.
The authorities tried to get these canons observed. Grostête sent back a
curate who came to him for ordination "dressed in rings and scarlet like a
courtier."[301] Some of the vicars of York Cathedral[302] were presented
in 1362 A.D. for being in the habit of going through the city in short
tunics, ornamentally trimmed, with knives and baselards[303] hanging at
their girdles. But the evidence before us seems to prove that it was not
only the acolyte-rectors, and worldly-minded clerics, who indulged in such
fashions, but that the secular clergy generally resisted these endeavours
to impose upon them anything approaching to a regular habit like those
worn by the monks and friars, and persisted in refusing to wear sad
colours, or to cut their coats differently from other people, or to
abstain from wearing a gold ring or an ornamented girdle. In the drawings
of the secular clergy in the illuminated MSS., we constantly find them in
the ordinary civil costume. Even in representations of the different
orders and ranks of the secular clergy drawn by friendly hands, and
intended to represent them _comme il faut_, we find them dressed in
violation of the canons.
We have already had occasion to notice a bishop in a blue-grey gown and
hood, over a blue under-robe; and a prior performing a royal baptism, and
canons performing service under the presidency of their bishop, with the
blue and red robes of every-day life under their ritual surplices. The
MSS. furnish us with an abundance of other examples, _e.g._--In the early
fourteenth-century MS., Add. 10,293, at f. 131 v., is a picture showing
"how the priests read before the barony the letter which the false queen
sent to Arthur." One of the persons thus described as priests has a blue
gown and hood and black shoes, the other a claret-coloured gown and hood
and red shoes.
[Illustration: _Dns. Ricardus de Threton, Sacerdos._]
But our best examples are those in the book (Cott. Nero D. vii.) before
quoted, in which the grateful monks of St. Alban's have recorded the names
and good deeds of those who had presented gifts or done services to the
convent. In many cases the scribe has given us a portrait of the
benefactor in the margin of the record; and these portraits supply us with
an authentic gallery of typical portraits of the various orders of society
of the time at which they were executed. From these we have taken the
three examples we here present to the reader. On f. 100 v. is a portrait
of one Lawrence, a clerk, who is dressed in a brown robe; another clerk,
William by name, is in a scarlet robe and hood; on f. 93 v., Leofric, a
deacon, is in a blue robe and hood. The accompanying woodcut, from folio
105, is Dns. Ricardus de Threton, sacerdos,--Sir Richard de Threton,
priest,--who was executor of Sir Robert de Thorp, knight, formerly
chancellor of the king, and who gave twenty marks to the convent. Our
woodcut gives only the outlines of the full-length portrait. In the
original the robe and hood are of full bright blue, lined with white; the
under sleeves, which appear at the wrists, are of the same colour; and
the shoes are red. At f. 106 v. is Dns. Bartholomeus de Wendone, rector of
the church of Thakreston, and the character of the face leads us to think
that it may have been intended for a portrait. His robe and hood and
sleeves are scarlet, with black shoes. Another rector, Dns. Johannes
Rodland (at f. 105), rector of the church of Todyngton, has a green robe
and scarlet hood. Still another rector, of the church of Little Waltham,
is represented half-length in pink gown and purple hood. On f. 108 v. is
the full-length portrait which is here represented. It is of Dns. Rogerus,
chaplain of the chapel of the Earl of Warwick, at Flamsted. Over a scarlet
gown, of the same fashion as those in the preceding pictures, is a pink
cloak lined with blue; the hood is scarlet, of the same suit as the gown;
the buttons at the shoulder of the cloak are white, the shoes red. It will
be seen also that all three of these clergymen wear the moustache and
beard.
[Illustration: _Dns. Barth. de Wendone, Rector._]
[Illustration: _Dns. Rogerus, Capellanus._]
Dominus Robertus de Walsham, precentor of Sarum (f. 100 v.), is in his
choir habit, a white surplice, and over it a fur amys fastened at the
throat with a brooch. Dns. Robertus de Hereforde, Dean of Sarum (f. 101),
has a lilac robe and hood fastened by a gold brooch. There is another
dean, Magister Johnnes Appleby, Dean of St. Paul's, at f. 105, whose
costume is not very distinctly drawn. It may be necessary to assure some
of our readers, that the colours here described were not given at the
caprice of a limner wishing to make his page look gay. The portraits were
perhaps imaginary, but the personages are habited in the costume proper to
their rank and order. The series of Benedictine abbots and monks in the
same book are in black robes; other monks introduced are in the proper
habit of their order; a king in his royal robes; a knight sometimes in
armour, sometimes in the civil costume of his rank, with a sword by his
side, and a chaplet round his flowing hair; a lady in the fashionable
dress of the time; a burgher in his proper habit, with his hair cut short.
And so the clergy are represented in the dress which they usually wore;
and, for our purpose, the pictures are more valuable than if they were
actual portraits of individual peculiarities of costume, because we are
the more sure that they give us the usual and recognised costume of the
several characters. Indeed, it is a rule, which has very rare exceptions,
that the mediæval illuminators represented contemporary subjects with
scrupulous accuracy. We give another representation from the picture of
John Ball, the priest who was concerned in Wat Tyler's rebellion, taken
from a MS. of Froissart's Chronicle, in the Bibliothèque Impériale at
Paris. The whole picture is interesting; the background is a church, in
whose churchyard are three tall crosses. Ball is preaching from the pulpit
of his saddle to the crowd of insurgents who occupy the left side of the
picture. In the Froissart MS. Harl. 4,380, at f. 20, is a picture of _un
vaillant homme et clerque nommé Maistre Johan Warennes_, preaching against
Pope Boniface; he is in a pulpit panelled in green and gold, with a pall
hung over the front, and the people sit on benches before him; he is
habited in a blue robe and hood lined with white.
[Illustration: _John Ball, Priest._]
The author of Piers Ploughman, carping at the clergy in the latter half of
the fourteenth century, says it would be better
"If many a priest bare for their baselards and their brooches,
A pair of beads in their hand, and a book under their arm.
Sire[304] John and Sire Geffrey hath a girdle of silver,
A baselard and a knife, with botons overgilt."
A little later, he speaks of proud priests habited in patlocks,--a short
jacket worn by laymen,--with peaked shoes and large knives or daggers. And
in the poems of John Audelay, in the fifteenth century, a parish priest is
described in
"His girdle harnesched with silver, his baselard hangs by."
In the wills of the clergy they themselves describe their "togas" of gay
colours, trimmed with various furs, and their ornamented girdles and
purses, and make no secret of the objectionable knives and baselards. In
the Bury St. Edmunds Wills, Adam de Stanton, a chaplain, A.D. 1370,
bequeaths one girdle, with purse and knife, valued at 5_s._--a rather
large sum of money in those days. In the York wills, John Wynd-hill,
Rector of Arnecliffe, A.D. 1431, bequeaths a pair of amber beads, such as
Piers Ploughman says a priest ought "to bear in his hand, and a book under
his arm;" and, curiously enough, in the next sentence he leaves "an
English book of Piers Ploughman;" but he does not seem to have been much
influenced by the popular poet's invectives, for he goes on to bequeath
two green gowns and one of murrey and one of sanguine colour, besides two
of black, all trimmed with various furs; also, one girdle of sanguine
silk, ornamented with silver, and gilded, and another zone of green and
white, ornamented with silver and gilded; and he also leaves behind
him--_proh pudor_--his best silver girdle, and a baselard with ivory and
silver handle. John Gilby, Rector of Knesale, 1434-5, leaves a red toga,
furred with byce, a black zone of silk with gilt bars, and a zone
ornamented with silver. J. Bagule, Rector of All Saints, York, A.D. 1438,
leaves a little baselard, with a zone harnessed with silver, to Sir T.
Astell, a chaplain. W. Duffield, a chantry priest at York, A.D. 1443,
leaves a black zone silvered, a purse called a "gypsire," and a white
purse of "Burdeux." W. Siverd, chaplain, leaves to H. Hobshot a hawk-bag;
and to W. Day, parochial chaplain of Calton, a pair of hawk-bag rings; and
to J. Sarle, chaplain, "my ruby zone, silvered, and my toga, furred with
'bevers;'" and to the wife of J. Bridlington, "a ruby purse of satin." R.
Rolleston, provost of the church of Beverley, A.D. 1450, leaves a "toga
lunata" with a red hood, a toga and hood of violet, a long toga and hood
of black, trimmed with martrons, and a toga and hood of violet. J. Clyft,
chaplain, A.D. 1455, leaves a zone of silk, ornamented with silver. J.
Tidman, chaplain, A.D. 1458, a toga of violet and one of meld. C. Lassels,
chaplain, A.D. 1461, a green toga and a white zone, silvered. T. Horneby,
rector of Stokesley, A.D. 1464, a red toga and hood; and, among the
Richmondshire Wills, we find that of Sir Henry Halled, Lady-priest of the
parish of Kirby-in-Kendal, in 1542 A.D. (four years before the suppression
of the chantries), who leaves a short gown and a long gown, whose colour
is not specified, but was probably black, which seems by this time to have
been the most usual clerical wear.
The accompanying woodcut will admirably illustrate the ornamented girdle,
purse, and knife, of which we have been reading. It is from a MS. of
Chaucer's poem of the Romaunt of the Rose (Harl. 4,425, f. 143), and
represents a priest confessing a lady in a church. The characters in the
scene are, like the poem, allegorical; the priest is Genius, and the lady
is Dame Nature; but it is not the less an accurate picture of a
confessional scene of the latter part of the fourteenth century. The
priest is habited in a robe of purple, with a black cap and a black
liripipe attached to it, brought over the shoulder to the front, and
falling over the arm. The tab, peeping from beneath the cap above the ear,
is red; the girdle, purse, and knife, are, in the original illumination,
very clearly represented. In another picture of the same person, at f.
106, the black girdle is represented as ornamented with little circles of
gold.
[Illustration: _A Priest Confessing a Lady._]
Many of these clergymen had one black toga with hood _en suite_--not for
constant use in divine service, for, as we have already seen, they are
generally represented in the illuminations with coloured "togas" under
their surplices,--but perhaps, for wear on mourning occasions. Thus, in
the presentations of York Cathedral, A.D. 1519, "We thynke it were
convenient that whene we fetche a corse to the churche, that we shulde be
in our blak abbettes [habits] mornyngly, w{t} our hodes of the same of our
hedes, as is used in many other places."[305]
At the time of the Reformation, when the English clergy abandoned the
mediæval official robes, they also desisted from wearing the tonsure,
which had for many centuries been the distinguishing mark of a cleric, and
they seem generally to have adopted the academical dress, for the model
both of their official and their ordinary dress. The Puritan clergy
adopted a costume which differed little, if at all, from that of the laity
of the same school. But it is curious that this question of clerical dress
continued to be one of complaint on one side, and resistance on the other,
down to the end of our ecclesiastical legislation. The 74th canon of 1603
is as rhetorical in form, and as querulous in tone, and as minute in its
description of the way in which ecclesiastical persons should, and the way
in which they should not, dress, as is the Injunction of 1342, which we
have already quoted. "The true, ancient, and flourishing churches of
Christ, being ever desirous that their prelacy and clergy might be had as
well in outward reverence, as otherwise regarded for the worthiness of
their ministry, did think it fit, by a prescript form of decent and comely
apparel, to have them known to the people, and thereby to receive the
honour and estimation due to the special messengers and ministers of
Almighty God: we, therefore, following their grave judgment and the
ancient custom of the Church of England, and hoping that in time new
fangleness of apparel in some factious persons will die of itself, do
constitute and appoint, that the archbishops and bishops shall not
intermit to use the accustomed apparel of their degree. Likewise, all
deans, masters of colleges, archdeacons, and prebendaries, in cathedrals
and collegiate churches (being priests or deacons), doctors in divinity,
law, and physic, bachelors in divinity, masters of arts, and bachelors of
law, having any ecclesiastical living, shall wear gowns with standing
collars, and sleeves straight at the hands, or wide sleeves, as is used in
the universities, with hoods or tippets of silk or sarcenet, and square
caps; and that all other ministers admitted, or to be admitted, into that
function, shall also usually wear the like apparel as is aforesaid, except
tippets only. We do further in like manner ordain, that all the said
ecclesiastical persons above mentioned shall usually wear on their
journeys cloaks with sleeves, commonly called Priests' Cloaks, without
guards, welts, long buttons, or cuts. And no ecclesiastical person shall
wear any coif, or wrought night-cap, but only plain night caps of black
silk, satin, or velvet. In all which particulars concerning the apparel
here prescribed, our meaning is not to attribute any holiness or special
worthiness to the said garments, but for decency, gravity, and order, as
is before specified. In private houses and in their studies the said
persons ecclesiastical may use any comely and scholarlike apparel,
provided that it be not cut or pinkt; and that in public they go not in
their doublet and hose without coats or cassocks; and that they wear not
any light-coloured stockings. Likewise, poor beneficed men and curates
(not being able to provide themselves long gowns) may go in short gowns of
the fashion aforesaid."
The portraits prefixed to the folio works of the great divines of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have made us familiar with the fact,
that at the time of the Reformation the clergy wore the beard and
moustache. They continued to wear the cassock and gown as their ordinary
out-door costume until as late as the time of George II.; but in the
fashion of doublet and hose, hats, shoes, and hair, they followed the
custom of other gentlemen. Mr. Fairholt, in his "Costume in England," p.
327, gives us a woodcut from a print of 1680 A.D., which admirably
illustrates the ordinary out-door dress of a clergyman of the time of
William and Mary.
CHAPTER V.
PARSONAGE HOUSES.
When, in our endeavour to realise the life of these secular clergymen of
the Middle Ages, we come to inquire, What sort of houses did they live in?
how were these furnished? what sort of life did their occupants lead? what
kind of men were they? it is curious how little seems to be generally
known on the subject, compared with what we know about the houses and life
and character of the regular orders. Instead of gathering together what
others have said, we find ourselves engaged in an original investigation
of a new and obscure subject. The case of the cathedral and collegiate
clergy, and that of the isolated parochial clergy, form two distinct
branches of the subject. The limited space at our disposal will not permit
us to do justice to both; the latter branch of the subject is less known,
and perhaps the more generally interesting, and we shall therefore devote
the bulk of our space to it. We will only premise a few words on the
former branch.
The bishop of a cathedral of secular canons had his house near his
cathedral, in which he maintained a household equal in numbers and expense
to that of the secular barons among whom he took rank; the chief
difference being, that the spiritual lord's family consisted rather of
chaplains and clerks than of squires and men-at-arms. The bishop's palace
at Wells is a very interesting example in an unusually perfect condition.
Britton gives an engraving of it as it appeared before the reign of Edward
VI. The bishop besides had other residences on his manors, some of which
were castles like those of the other nobility. Farnham, the present
residence of the see of Winchester, is a noble example, which still
serves its original purpose. Of the cathedral closes many still remain
sufficiently unchanged to enable us to understand their original
condition. Take Lincoln for example. On the north side of the church, in
the angle between the nave and transept, was the cloister, with the
polygonal chapter-house on the east side. The lofty wall which enclosed
the precincts yet remains, with its main entrance in the middle of the
west wall, opposite the great doors of the cathedral. This gate, called
the Exchequer Gate, has chambers over it, devoted probably to the official
business of the diocese. There are two other smaller gates at the
north-east and south-east corners of the close, and there is a postern on
the south side. The bishop's palace, whose beautiful and interesting ruins
and charming grounds still remain, occupied the slope of the southern hill
outside the close. The vicar's court is in the corner of the close near
the gateway to the palace grounds. A fourteenth-century house, which was
the official residence of the chaplain of one of the endowed chantries,
still remains on the south side of the close, nearly opposite the choir
door. On the east side of the close the fifteenth-century houses of
several of the canons still remain, and are interesting examples of the
domestic architecture of the time. It is not difficult from these data to
picture to ourselves the original condition of this noble establishment
when the cathedral, with its cloister and chapter-house, stood isolated in
the middle of the green sward, and the houses of the canons and chaplains
formed a great irregular quadrangle round it, and the close walls shut
them all in from the outer world, and the halls and towers of the bishop's
palace were still perfect amidst its hanging gardens enclosed within their
own walls, the quadrangle of houses which had been built for the cathedral
vicars occupying a corner cut out of the bishop's grounds beside his
gateway. And we can repeople the restored close. Let it be on the morning
of one of the great festivals; let the great bells be ringing out their
summons to high mass; and we shall see the dignified canons in amice and
cap crossing the green singly on their way from their houses to their
stalls in the choir; the vicars conversing in a little group as they come
across from their court; the surpliced chorister boys under the charge of
their schoolmaster; a band of minstrels with flutes, and hautboys, and
viols, and harps, and organs, coming in from the city, to use their
instruments in the rood-loft to aid the voices of the choir; scattered
clerks and country clergy, and townspeople, are all converging to the
great south door; and last of all the lord bishop, in cope and mitre,
emerges from his gateway, preceded by his cross-bearer, attended by noble
or royal guests, and followed by a suite of officials and clerks; while
over all the great bells ring out their joyous peal to summon the people
to the solemn worship of God in the mother church of the vast diocese.
* * * * *
But we must turn to our researches into the humbler life of the country
rectors and vicars. And first, what sort of houses did they live in? We
have not been able to find one of the parsonage houses of an earlier date
than the Reformation still remaining in a condition sufficiently unaltered
to enable us to understand what they originally were. There is an ancient
rectory house of the fourteenth century at West Deane, Sussex,[306] of
which we give a ground-plan and north-east view on the following page; but
the rectory belonged to the prior and convent of Benedictine Monks of
Wilmington, and this house was probably their grange, or cell, and may
have been inhabited by two of their monks, or by their tenant, and not by
the parish priest. Again, there is a very picturesque rectory house, of
the fifteenth century, at Little Chesterton, near Cambridge,[307] but this
again is believed to have been a grange, or cell, of a monastic house.
In the absence of actual examples, we are driven to glean what information
we can from other sources. There remain to us a good many of the deeds of
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, by which, on the impropriation of
the benefices, provision was made for the permanent endowment of vicarages
in them. In the majority of cases the old rectory house was assigned as
the future vicarage house, and no detailed description of it was
necessary; but in the deed by which the rectories of Sawbridgeworth, in
Herts, and Kelvedon, in Essex, were appropriated to the convent of
Westminster, we are so fortunate as to find descriptions of the
fourteenth-century parsonage houses, one of which is so detailed as to
enable any one who is acquainted with the domestic architecture of the
time to form a very definite picture of the whole building. In the case of
Sawbridgeworth, the old rectory house was assigned as the vicarage house,
and is thus described--"All the messuage which is called the priest's
messuage, with the houses thereon built, that is to say, one hall with two
chambers, with a buttery, cellar, kitchen, stable, and other fitting and
decent houses, with all the garden as it is enclosed with walls to the
said messuage belonging." The description of the parsonage house at
Kelvedon is much more definite and intelligible. For this the deed tells
us the convent assigned--"One hall situate in the manor of the said abbot
and convent near the said church, with a chamber and soler at one end of
the hall and with a buttery and cellar at the other. Also one other house
in three parts, that is to say, for a kitchen with a convenient chamber in
the end of the said house for guests, and a bakehouse. Also one other
house in two parts, next the gate at the entrance of the manor, for a
stable and cowhouse. He (the vicar) shall also have a convenient grange,
to be built within a year at the expense of the prior and convent. He
shall also have the curtilage with the garden adjoining to the hall on the
north side, as it is enclosed with hedges and ditches." The date of the
deed is 1356 A.D., and it speaks of these houses as already existing. Now
the common arrangement of a small house at that date, and for near a
century before and after, was this, "a hall in the centre, with a soler at
one end and offices at the other."[308] A description which exactly agrees
with the account of the Kelvedon house, and enables us to say with great
probability that in the Sawbridgeworth "priest's messuage" also, the two
chambers were at one end of the hall, and the buttery, cellar, and kitchen
at the other, the stable and other fitting and decent houses being
detached from and not forming any portion of the dwelling house.
[Illustration: _Rectory House, West Deane, Sussex._]
[Illustration:
A Entrance door.
B Windows.
C Cellar window.
D Entrance to stair.
E A recess.
F Fire-place.
ft. in.
Length of exterior 35 6
Width of interior 14 10
Thickness of wall 2 6
Height of rooms 8 0]
Confining ourselves, however, to the Kelvedon house, a little study will
enable us to reconstruct it conjecturally with a very high probability of
being minutely accurate in our conjectures. First of all, a house of this
character in the county of Essex would, beyond question, be a timber
house. To make our description clearer we have given a rough diagram of
our conjectural arrangement. Its principal feature was, of course, the
"one hall" (A). We know at once what the hall of a timber house of this
period of architecture would be. It would be a rather spacious and lofty
apartment, with an open timber roof; the principal door of the house would
open into the "screens" (D), at the lower end of the hall, and the back
door of the house would be at the other end of the screens. At the upper
end of the hall would be the raised dais (B), at which the master of the
house sat with his family. The fireplace would either be an open hearth in
the middle of the hall, like that which still exists in the
fourteenth-century hall at Penshurst Place, Kent, or it would be an open
fireplace, under a projecting chimney, at the further side of the hall,
such as is frequently seen in MS. illuminations of the small houses of the
period. There was next "a chamber and soler at one end of the hall." The
soler of a mediæval house was the chief apartment after the hall, it
answered to the "great chamber" of the sixteenth century, and to the
parlour or drawing-room of more modern times. It was usually adjacent to
the upper end of the hall, and built on transversely to it, with a window
at each end. It was usually raised on an undercroft, which was used as a
storeroom or cellar, so that it was reached by a stair from the upper end
of the hall. Sometimes, instead of a mere undercroft, there was a chamber
under the soler, which was the case here, so that we have added these
features to our plan (C). Next there was "a buttery and cellar at the
other" end of the hall. In the buttery in those days were kept wine and
beer, table linen, cups, pots, &c.: and in the cellar the stores of
eatables which, it must be remembered, were not bought in weekly from the
village shop, or the next market town, but were partly the produce of the
glebe and tithe, and partly were laid in yearly or half-yearly at some
neighbouring fair. The buttery and cellar--they who are familiar with old
houses, or with our colleges, will remember--are always at the lower end
of the hall, and open upon the screens, with two whole or half doors side
by side; we may therefore add them thus upon our plan (H, I).
[Illustration: _Conjectural Plan of Rectory-House at Kelvedon, Essex._]
The deed adds, "Also one other house in three parts." In those days the
rooms of a house were not massed compactly together under one roof, but
were built in separate buildings more or less detached, and each building
was called a house; "One other house in three parts, that is to say, a
kitchen with a convenient chamber at one end of the said house for guests,
and a bakehouse." "The kitchen," says Mr. Parker, in his "Domestic
Architecture," "was frequently a detached building, often connected with
the hall by a passage or alley leading from the screens;" and it was often
of greater relative size and importance than modern usage would lead us to
suppose; the kitchens of old monasteries, mansion houses, and colleges
often have almost the size and architectural character of a second hall.
In the case before us it was a section of the "other house," and probably
occupied its whole height, with an open timber roof (G). In the
disposition of the bakehouse and convenient chamber for guests which were
also in this other house, we meet with our first difficulty; the "chamber"
might possibly be over the bakehouse, which took the usual form of an
undercroft beneath the guest chamber; but the definition that the house
was divided "in three parts" suggests that it was divided from top to
bottom into three distinct sections. Inclining to the latter opinion, we
have so disposed these apartments in our plan (F, E).
The elevation of the house may be conjectured with as much probability as
its plan. Standing in front of it we should have the side of the hall
towards us, with the arched door at its lower end, and perhaps two windows
in the side with carved wood tracery[309] in their heads. To the right
would be the gable end of the chamber with soler over it; the soler would
probably have a rather large arched and traceried window in the end, the
chamber a smaller and perhaps square-headed light. On the left would be
the building, perhaps a lean-to, containing the buttery and cellar, with
only a small square-headed light in front. The accompanying wood-cut of a
fourteenth-century house, from the Add. MSS. 10,292, will help to
illustrate our conjectural elevation of Kelvedon Rectory. It has the hall
with its great door and arched traceried window, and at the one end a
chamber and soler over it. It only wants the offices at the other end to
make the resemblance complete.[310]
[Illustration: _A Fourteenth Century House._]
Of later date probably and greater size, resembling a moated manor house,
was the rectory of Great Bromley, Essex, which is thus described in the
terrier of 1610 A.D.: "A large parsonage house compass'd with a Mote, a
Gate-house, with a large chamber, and a substantial bridge of timber
adjoining to it, a little yard, an orchard, and a little garden, all
within the Mote, which, together with the Circuit of the House, contains
about half an Acre of Ground; and without the Mote there is a Yard, in
which there is another Gate-house and a stable, and a hay house adjoining;
also a barn of 25 yards long and 9 yards wide, and about 79 Acres and
a-half of glebeland."[311] The outbuildings were perhaps arranged as a
courtyard outside the moat to which the gate-house formed an entrance, so
that the visitor would pass through this outer gate, through the court of
offices, over the bridge, and through the second gate-house into the base
court of the house. This is the arrangement at Ightham Mote, Kent.
The parish chaplains seem to have had houses of residence provided for
them. The parish of St. Michael-le-Belfry, York, complained in its
visitation presentment, in the year 1409, that there was no house assigned
for the parish chaplain or for the parish clerk. That they were small
houses we gather from the fact that in some of the settlements of
vicarages it is required that a competent house shall be built for the
vicar where the parish chaplain has been used to live; _e.g._ at Great
Bentley, Essex, it was ordered in 1323, that the vicars "shall have one
competent dwelling-house with a sufficient curtilage, where the parish
chaplain did use to abide, to be prepared at the cost of the said prior
and convent."[312] And at the settlement of the vicarage of St. Peter's,
Colchester, A.D. 1319, it was required that "the convent of St. Botolph's,
the impropriators, should prepare a competent house for the vicar in the
ground of the churchyard where a house was built for the parish chaplain
of the said church." At Radwinter, Essex, we find by the terrier of 1610
A.D., that there were two mansions belonging to the benefice, "on the
south side of the church, towards the west end, one called the great
vicarage, and in ancient time the Domus Capellanorum, and the other the
less vicarage," which latter "formerly served for the ease of the Parson,
and, as appears by evidence, first given to the end that if any of the
parish were sick, the party might be sure to find the Parson or his curate
near the church ready to go and visit him." At the south-west corner of
the churchyard of Doddinghurst, Essex, there still exists a little house
of fifteenth-century date, which may have been such a curate's house.
From a comparison of these parsonages with the usual plan and arrangement
of the houses of laymen of the fourteenth century, may be made the
important deduction that the houses of the parochial clergy had no
ecclesiastical peculiarities of arrangement; they were not little
monasteries or great recluse houses, they were like the houses of the
laity; and this agrees with the conclusions to which we have arrived
already by other roads, that the secular clergy lived in very much the
same style as laymen of a similar degree of wealth and social standing.
The poor clerk lived in a single chamber of a citizen's house; the town
priest had a house like those of the citizens; the country rector or vicar
a house like the manor houses of the smaller gentry.
As to the furniture of the parsonage, the wills of the clergy supply us
with ample authorities. We will select one of about the date of the
Kelvedon parsonage house which we have been studying, to help us to
conjecturally furnish the house which we have conjecturally built. Here is
an inventory of the goods of Adam de Stanton, a chaplain, date 1370 A.D.,
taken from Mr. Tymms's collection of Bury wills. "Imprimis, in money
vi{s.} viii{d.} and i seal of silver worth ijs." The money will seem a
fair sum to have in hand when we consider the greater value of money then
and especially the comparative scarcity of actual coin. The seal was
probably his official seal as chaplain of an endowed chantry; we have
extant examples of such seals of the beneficed clergy. "Item, iij brass
pots and i posnet worth xj{s.} vj{d.} Item, in plate, xxij{d.} Item, a
round pot with a laver, j{s.} vj{d.,}" probably an ewer and basin for
washing the hands, like those still used in Germany, &c. "Item, in iron
instruments, vj{s.} viiij{d.} and vj{d.,}" perhaps fire-dogs and poker,
spit, and pothook. "Item, in pewter vessels, iiij{s.} ij{d.,}" probably
plates, dishes, and spoons. "Item, of wooden utensils," which, from
comparison with other inventories of about the same period, we suppose
may be boards and trestles for tables, and benches, and a chair, and
perhaps may include trenchers and bowls. "Item, i portiforum, x{s.,}" a
book of church service so called, which must have been a handsome one to
be worth ten shillings, perhaps it was illuminated. "Item, j book de Lege
and j Par Statutorum, and j Book of Romances.[313] Item, j girdle with
purse and knife, v{s.}" on which we have already commented in our last
chapter. "Item, j pair of knives for the table, xij{d.} Item, j saddle
with bridle and spurs, iij{s.} Item, of linen and woollen garments,
xxviij{s.} and xij{d.} Item, of chests and caskets, vj{s.} ij{d.,}" Chests
and caskets then served for cupboards and drawers.[314]
If we compare these clerical inventories with those of contemporary laymen
of the same degree, we shall find that a country parson's house was
furnished like a small manor house, and that his domestic economy was very
like that of the gentry of a like income. Matthew Paris tells us an
anecdote of a certain handsome clerk, the rector of a rich church, who
surpassed all the knights living around him in giving repeated
entertainments and acts of hospitality.[315] But usually it was a rude
kind of life which the country squire or parson led, very like that which
was led by the substantial farmers of a few generations ago, when it was
the fashion for the unmarried farm labourers to live in the farm-house,
and for the farmer and his household all to sit down to meals together.
These were their hours:--
"Rise at five, dine at nine,
Sup at five, and bed at nine,
Will make a man live to ninety-and-nine."
The master of the house sat in the sole arm-chair, in the middle of the
high table on the dais, with his family on either side of him; and his men
sat at the movable tables of boards and trestles, with a bench on each
side, which we find mentioned in the inventories: or the master sat at the
same table with his men, only he sat above the salt and they below; he
drank his ale out of a silver cup while they drank it out of horn; he ate
white bread while they ate brown, and he a capon out of his curtilage
while they had pork or mutton ham; he retired to his great chamber when he
desired privacy, which was not often perhaps; and he slept in a tester bed
in the great chamber, while they slept on truckle beds in the hall.
One item in the description of the Kelvedon parsonage requires special
consideration, and opens up a rather important question as to the domestic
economy of the parochial clergy over and above what we have hitherto
gleaned. "The convenient chamber for guests" there mentioned was not a
best bedroom for any friend who might pay him a visit. It was a provision
for the efficient exercise of the hospitality to which the beneficed
parochial clergy were bound. It is a subject which perhaps needs a little
explanation. In England there were no inns where travellers could obtain
food and lodging until the middle of the fourteenth century; and for long
after that period they could only be found in the largest and most
important towns; and it was held to be a part of the duty of the clergy to
"entertain strangers," and be "given to hospitality." It was a charity not
very likely to be abused; for, thanks to bad roads, unbridged fords, no
inns, wild moors, and vast forests haunted by lawless men, very few
travelled, except for serious business; and it was a real act of Christian
charity to afford to such travellers the food and shelter which they
needed, and would have been hard put to it to have obtained otherwise. The
monasteries, we all know, exercised this hospitality on so large a scale,
that in order to avoid the interruption a constant succession of guests
would have made in the seclusion and regularity of conventual life, they
provided special buildings for it, called the hospitium or guest house, a
kind of inn within the walls, and they appointed one of the monks, under
the name of the hospitaller or guest master, to represent the convent in
entertaining the guests. Hermitages also, we have seen, were frequently
built along the high roads, especially near bridges and fords, for the
purpose of aiding travellers. Along the road which led towards some
famous place of pilgrimage hospitals, which were always religious
foundations, were founded especially for the entertainment of poor
pilgrims. And the parochial clergy were expected to exercise a similar
hospitality. Thus in the replies of the rectors of Berkshire to the papal
legate, in 1240 A.D., they say that "their churches were endowed and
enriched by their patrons with lands and revenues for the especial purpose
that the rectors of them should receive guests, rich as well as poor, and
show hospitality to laity as well as clergy, according to their means, as
the custom of the place required."[316] Again, in 1246, the clergy, on a
similar occasion, stated that "a custom has hitherto prevailed, and been
observed in England, that the rectors of parochial churches have always
been remarkable for hospitality, and have made a practice of supplying
food to their parishioners who were in want, ... and if a portion of their
benefices be taken away from them, they will be under the necessity of
refusing their hospitality, and abandoning their accustomed offices of
piety. And if these be withdrawn, they will incur the hatred of those
subject to them [their parishioners], and will lose the favour of
passers-by [travellers] and their neighbours."[317] Again, in 1253 A.D.,
Bishop Grostête, in his remonstrance to the Pope, says of the foreigners
who were intruded into English benefices, that they "could not even take
up their residence, to administer to the wants of the poor, and to receive
travellers."[318]
There is an interesting passage illustrative of the subject quoted in
Parker's "Domestic Architecture," i. p. 123. Æneus Sylvius, afterwards
Pope Pius II., describing his journey from Scotland into England, in the
year 1448, says that he entered a large village in a wild and barbarous
part of the country, about sunset, and "alighted at a rustic's house, and
supped there with the priest of the place and the host." The special
mention of the priest in the first place almost leads us to conjecture
that the foreign ecclesiastic had first gone to the priest of the place
for the usual hospitality, and had been taken on by him to the manor
house--for the "rustic" seems to have been a squire--as better able to
afford him a suitable hospitality. Sundry pottages, and fowls, and geese,
were placed on the table, but there was neither bread nor wine. He had,
however, brought with him a few loaves and a roundel of wine, which he had
received at a certain monastery. Either a stranger was a great novelty, or
the Italian ecclesiastic had something remarkable in his appearance, for
he says all "the people of the place ran to the house to stare at him."
Kelvedon being on one of the great high roads of the country, its parson
would often be called upon to exercise his duty of hospitality, hence the
provision of a special guest chamber in the parsonage house. And so in our
picture of the domestic economy and ordinary life of a mediæval country
parson we must furnish his guest chamber, and add a little to the contents
of buttery and cellar, to provide for his duty of hospitality; and we must
picture him not always sitting in solitary dignity at his high table on
the dais, but often playing the courteous host to knight and lady,
merchant, minstrel, or pilgrim; and after dinner giving the broken meat to
the poor, who in the days when there was no poor law were the regular
dependants on his bounty.
THE MINSTRELS OF THE MIDDLE AGES.
CHAPTER I.
It would carry us too far a-field to attempt to give a sketch of the early
music of the principal nations of antiquity, such as might be deduced from
the monuments of Egypt and Nineveh and Greece. We may, however, briefly
glance at the most ancient minstrelsy of the Israelites; partly for the
sake of the peculiar interest of the subject itself, partly because the
early history of music is nearly the same in all nations, and this
earliest history will illustrate and receive illustration from a
comparison with the history of music in mediæval England.
Musical instruments, we are told by the highest of all authorities, were
invented in the eighth generation of the world--that is in the third
generation before the flood--by Tubal, "the Father of all such as handle
the harp and organ, both stringed and wind instruments." The ancient
Israelites used musical instruments on the same occasions as the mediæval
Europeans--in battle; in their feasts and dances; in processions, whether
of religious or civil ceremony; and in the solemnising of divine worship.
The trumpet and the horn were then, as always, the instruments of warlike
music--"If ye go to war then shall ye blow an alarm with the silver
trumpets."[319] The trumpet regulated the march of the hosts of Israel
through the wilderness. When Joshua compassed Jericho, the seven priests
blew trumpets of rams' horns. Gideon and his three hundred discomfited the
host of the Midianites with the sound of their trumpets.
The Tabret was the common accompaniment of the troops of female dancers,
whether the occasion were religious or festive. Miriam the prophetess took
a timbrel in her hand, and all the women went out after her with timbrels
and with dances, singing a solemn chorus to the triumphant song of Moses
and of the Children of Israel over the destruction of Pharaoh in the Red
Sea,--
"Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously;
The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea."[320]
Jephthah's daughter went to meet her victorious father with timbrels and
dances:--
"The daughter of the warrior Gileadite,
From Mizpeh's tower'd gate with welcome light,
With timbrel and with song."
And so, when King Saul returned from the slaughter of the Philistines,
after the shepherd David had killed their giant champion in the valley of
Elah, the women came out of all the cities to meet the returning warriors
"singing and dancing to meet King Saul, with tabrets, with joy, and with
instruments of music;" and the women answered one another in dramatic
chorus--
"Saul hath slain his thousands,
And David his ten thousands."[321]
Laban says that he would have sent away Jacob and his wives and children,
"with mirth and with songs, with tabret and with harp." And Jeremiah
prophesying that times of ease and prosperity shall come again for Israel,
says: "O Virgin of Israel, thou shalt again be adorned with thy tabrets,
and shalt go forth in the dances of them that make merry."[322]
In their feasts these and many other instruments were used. Isaiah tells
us[323] that they had "the harp, and the viol, the tabret, and pipe, and
wine in their feasts;" and Amos tells us of the luxurious people who lie
upon beds of ivory, and "chant to the sound of the viol, and invent to
themselves instruments of music like David," and drink wine in bowls, and
anoint themselves with the costliest perfumes.
Instruments of music were used in the colleges of Prophets, which Samuel
established in the land, to accompany and inspire the delivery of their
prophetical utterances. As Saul, newly anointed, went up the hill of God
towards the city, he met a company of prophets coming down, with a
psaltery, and a tabret, and a pipe, and a harp before them, prophesying;
and the spirit of the Lord came upon Saul when he heard, and he also
prophesied.[324] When Elisha was requested by Jehoram to prophesy the fate
of the battle with the Moabites, he said: "Bring me a minstrel; and when
the minstrel played, the hand of the Lord came upon him, and he
prophesied."
When David brought up the ark from Gibeah, he and all the house of Israel
played before the Lord on all manner of instruments made of firwood, even
on harps, psalteries, timbrels, cornets, and cymbals.[325] And in the song
which he himself composed to be sung on that occasion,[326] he thus
describes the musical part of the procession:--
"It is well seen how thou goest,
How thou, my God and King, goest to the sanctuary;
The singers go before, the minstrels follow after,
In the midst are the damsels playing with the timbrels."
The instruments appointed for the regular daily service of the Temple "by
David, and Gad the king's seer, and Nathan the prophet, for so was the
commandment of the Lord by his prophets," were cymbals, psalteries, and
harps, which David made for the purpose, and which were played by four
thousand Levites.
Besides the instruments already mentioned,--the harp, tabret, timbrel,
psaltery, trumpet, cornet, cymbal, pipe, and viol,--they had also the
lyre, bag-pipes, and bells; and probably they carried back with them from
Babylon further additions, from the instruments of "all peoples, nations,
and languages" with which they would become familiarised in that capital
of the world. But from the time of Tubal down to the time when the royal
minstrel of Israel sang those glorious songs which are still the daily
solace of thousands of mankind, and further down to the time when the
captive Israelites hanged their unstrung harps upon the willows of
Babylon, and could not sing the songs of Zion in a strange land, the harp
continued still the fitting accompaniment of the voice in all poetical
utterance of a dignified and solemn character:--the recitation of the
poetical portions of historical and prophetical Scripture, for instance,
would be sustained by it, and the songs of the psalmists of Zion were
accompanied by its strains. And thus this sketch of the history of the
earliest music closes, with the minstrel harp still in the foreground;
while in the distance we hear the sound of the fanfare of cornet, flute,
harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of music, which were
concerted on great occasions; such as that on which they resounded over
the plain of Dura, to bow that bending crowd of heads, as the ripe corn
bends before the wind, to the great Image of Gold:--an idolatry, alas!
which the peoples, nations, and languages still perform almost as
fervently as of old.
* * * * *
The northern Bard, or Scald, was the father of the minstrels of mediæval
Europe. Our own early traditions afford some picturesque anecdotes,
proving the high estimation in which the character was held by the Saxons
and their kindred Danes; and showing that they were accustomed to wander
about to court, and camp, and hall; and were hospitably received, even
though the Bard were of a race against which his hosts were at that very
time encamped in hostile array. We will only remind the reader of the
Royal Alfred's assumption of the character of a minstrel, and his visit in
that disguise to the Danish camp (A.D. 878); and of the similar visit, ten
years after, of Anlaff the Danish king to the camp of Saxon Athelstane.
But the earliest anecdote of the kind we shall have hereafter to refer to,
and may therefore here detail at length. It is told us by Geoffrey of
Monmouth, that Colgrin, the son of Ella, who succeeded Hengist in the
leadership of the invading Saxons, was shut up in York, and closely
besieged by King Arthur and his Britons. Baldulf, the brother of Colgrin,
wanted to gain access to him, to apprise him of a reinforcement which was
coming from Germany. In order to accomplish this design, he assumed the
character of a minstrel. He shaved his head and beard; and dressing
himself in the habit of that profession, took his harp in his hand. In
this disguise he walked up and down the trenches without suspicion,
playing all the while upon his instrument as a harper. By little and
little he approached the walls of the city; and, making himself known to
the sentinels, was in the night drawn up by a rope.
The harper continued throughout the Middle Ages to be the most dignified
of the minstrel craft, the reciter, and often the composer, of heroic
legend and historical tale, of wild romance and amorous song. Frequently,
and perhaps especially in the case of the higher class of harpers, he
travelled alone, as in the cases which we have already seen of Baldulf,
and Alfred, and Anlaff. But he also often associated himself with a band
of minstrels, who filled up the intervals of his recitations and songs
with their music, much as vocal and instrumental pieces are alternated in
our modern concerts. With a band of minstrels there was also very usually
associated a mime, who amused the audience with his feats of agility and
leger-de-main. The association appears at first sight somewhat
undignified--the heroic harper and the tumbler--but the incongruity was
not peculiar to the Middle Ages; the author of the "Iliad" wrote the
"Battle of the Frogs,"--the Greeks were not satisfied without a satiric
drama after their grand heroic tragedy; and in these days we have a farce
or a pantomime after Shakspeare. We are not all Heraclituses, to see only
the tragic side of life, or Democrituses, to laugh at everything; the
majority of men have faculties to appreciate both classes of emotion; and
it would seem, from universal experience, that, as the Russian finds a
physical delight in leaping from a vapour-bath into the frozen Neva, so
there is some mental delight in the sudden alternate excitation of the
opposite emotions of tragedy and farce. If we had time to philosophise, we
might find the source of the delight deeply seated in our
nature:--alternate tears and laughter--it is an epitome of human life!
In the accompanying woodcut from a Late Saxon MS. in the British Museum
(Cott. Tiberius C. vi.) we have a curious evidence of the way in which
custom blinded men to any incongruity there may be in the association of
the harper and the juggler, for here we have David singing his Psalms and
accompanying himself on the harp, the dove reminding us that he sang and
harped under the influence of inspiration. He is accompanied by performers
who must be Levites; and yet the Saxon illuminator was so used to see a
mime form one of a minstrel band, that he has introduced one playing the
common feat of tossing three knives and three balls.
[Illustration: _Saxon Band of Minstrels._]
The Saxons were a musical people. We learn from Bede's anecdote of the
poet Cædmon, that it was usual at their feasts to pass the harp round from
hand to hand, and every man was supposed to be able to sing in his turn,
and accompany himself on the instrument. They had a considerable number
of musical instruments. In a MS. in the British Museum, Tiberius C. vi.,
folios 16 v., 17 v., 18, are a few leaves of a formal treatise on the
subject, which give us very carefully drawn pictures of different
instruments, with their names and descriptions. There are also
illustrations of them in the Add. 11,695, folios 86, 86 v., 164, 170 v.,
229, and in Cleopatra E. viii. Among them are the Psaltery of various
shapes, the Sambuca or sackbut, the single and double Chorus, &c. Other
instruments we find in Saxon MSS. are the lyre, viol, flute, cymbals,
organ, &c. A set of hand-bells (carillons) which the player struck with
two hammers, was a favourite instrument. We often find different
instruments played together. At folio 93 v. of the MS. Claudius B iv.
there is a group of twelve female harpists playing together; one has a
small instrument, probably a kind of lyre, the rest have great harps of
the same pattern. They probably represent Miriam and the women of Israel
joining in the triumphal song of Moses over the destruction of the
Egyptians in the Red Sea.
[Illustration: _Saxon Organ._]
The organ, already introduced into divine service, became, under the hands
of St. Dunstan, a large and important instrument. William of Malmesbury
says that Dunstan gave many to churches which had pipes of brass and were
inflated with bellows. In a MS. psalter in Trinity College, Cambridge, is
a picture of one of considerable size, which has no less than four bellows
played by four men. It is represented in the accompanying wood-cut.
The Northmen who invaded and gave their name to Normandy, took their
minstrels with them; and the learned assert that it was from them that the
troubadours of Provence learned their art, which ripened in their sunny
clime into _la joyeuse science_, and thence was carried into Italy,
France, and Spain. It is quite certain that minstrelsy was in high repute
among the Normans at the period of the Conquest. Every one will remember
how Taillefer, the minstrel-knight, commenced the great battle of
Hastings. Advancing in front of the Norman host, he animated himself and
them to a chivalric daring by chanting the heroic tale of Charlemagne and
his Paladins, at the same time showing feats of skill in tossing his sword
into the air; and then rushed into the Saxon ranks, like a divinely-mad
hero of old, giving in his own self-sacrifice an augury of victory to his
people.
From the period of the Conquest, authorities on the subject of which we
are treating, though still not so numerous as could be desired, become too
numerous to be all included within the limits to which our space restricts
us. The reader may refer to Wharton's "History of English Poetry," to
Bishop Percy's introductory essay to the "Reliques of Early English
Poetry," and to the introductory essay to Ellis's "Early English Metrical
Romances," for the principal published authorities. For a series of
learned essays on mediæval musical instruments he may consult M. Didron's
"Annales Archæologiques," vol. iii. pp. 76, 142, 260; vol. iv. pp. 25, 94;
vol. vi. p. 315; vol. vii. pp. 92, 157, 244, 325; vol. viii. p. 242; vol.
ix. pp. 289, 329.[327] We propose only from these and other published and
unpublished materials to give a popular sketch of the subject.
Throughout this period minstrelsy was in high estimation with all classes
of society. The king himself, like his Saxon[328] predecessors, had a
king's minstrel, or king of the minstrels, who probably from the first was
at the head of a band of royal minstrels.[329]
This fashion of the royal court, doubtless, like all its other fashions,
obtained also in the courts of the great nobility (several instances will
be observed in the sequel), and in their measure in the households of the
lesser nobility. Every gentleman of estate had probably his one, two, or
more minstrels as a regular part of his household. It is not difficult to
discover their duties. In the representations of dinners, which occur
plentifully in the mediæval MSS., we constantly find musicians introduced;
sometimes we see them preceding the servants, who are bearing the dishes
to table--a custom of classic usage, and which still lingers to this day
at Queen's College, Oxford, in the song with which the choristers usher in
the boar's head on Christmas-day, and at our modern public dinners, when
the band strikes up "Oh the Roast Beef of Old England," as that national
dish is brought to table.
We give here an illustration of such a scene from a very fine MS. of the
early part of the fourteenth century, in the British Museum (marked Royal
2 B vii., f. 184 v. and 185). A very fine representation of a similar
scene occurs at the foot of the large Flemish Brass of Robert Braunche and
his two wives in St. Margaret's Church, Lynn; the scene is intended as a
delineation of a feast given by the corporation of Lynn to King Edward
III. Servants from both sides of the picture are bringing in that famous
dish of chivalry, the peacock with his tail displayed; and two bands of
minstrels are ushering in the banquet with their strains: the date of the
brass is about 1364 A.D. In the fourteenth-century romance of "Richard
Coeur de Lion," we read of some knights who have arrived in presence of
the romance king whom they are in quest of; dinner is immediately prepared
for them; "trestles," says Ellis in his abstract of it, "were immediately
set; a table covered with a silken cloth was laid; a rich repast, ushered
in by the sound of trumpets and shalms, was served up."[330]
[Illustration: _A Royal Dinner._]
Having introduced the feast, the minstrels continued to play during its
progress. We find numerous representations of dinners in the
illuminations, in which one or two minstrels are standing beside the
table, playing their instruments during the progress of the meal. In a MS.
volume of romances of the early part of the fourteenth century in the
British Museum (Royal 14 E iii.), the title-page of the romance of the
"Quête du St. Graal" (at folio 89 of the MS.) is adorned with an
illumination of a royal banquet; a squire on his knee (as in the
illustration given on opposite page) is carving, and a minstrel stands
beside the table playing the violin; he is dressed in a parti-coloured
tunic of red and blue, and wears his hat. In the Royal MS. 2 B vii., at
folio 168, is a similar representation of a dinner, in which a minstrel
stands playing the violin; he is habited in a red tunic, and is
bareheaded. At folio 203 of the same MS. (Royal 2 B vii.), is another
representation of a dinner, in which two minstrels are introduced; one
(wearing his hood) is playing a cittern, the other (bareheaded) is playing
a violin: and these references might be multiplied.
[Illustration: _Royal Dinner of the time of Edward IV._]
We reproduce here, in further illustration of the subject, engravings of a
royal dinner of about the time of our Edward IV., "taken from an
illumination of the romance of the Compte d'Artois, in the possession of
M. Barrois, a distinguished and well-known collector in Paris."[331] The
other is an exceedingly interesting representation of a grand imperial
banquet, from one of the plates of Hans Burgmair, in the volume dedicated
to the exploits of the Emperor Maximilian, contemporary with our Henry
VIII. It represents the entrance of a masque, one of those strange
entertainments, of which our ancestors, in the time of Henry and
Elizabeth, were so fond, and of which Mr. C. Kean some years ago gave the
play-going world of London so accurate a representation in his _mise en
scene_ of Henry VIII. at the Princess's Theatre. The band of minstrels who
have been performing during the banquet, are seen in the left corner of
the picture.
[Illustration: _Imperial Banquet._]
So in "The Squier's Tale" of Chaucer, where Cambuscan is "holding his
feste so solempne and so riche."
"It so befel, that after the thridde cours,
While that this king sat thus in his nobley,[332]
Harking his ministralles her[333] thinges play,
Beforne him at his bord deliciously," &c.
The custom of having instrumental music as an accompaniment of dinner is
still retained by her Majesty and by some of the greater nobility, by
military messes, and at great public dinners. But the musical
accompaniment of a mediæval dinner was not confined to instrumental
performances. We frequently find a harper introduced, who is doubtless
reciting some romance or history, or singing chansons of a lighter
character. He is often represented as sitting upon the floor, as in the
accompanying illustration, from the Royal MS., 2 B vii., folio 71 b.
Another similar representation occurs at folio 203 b of the same MS. In
the following very charming picture, from a MS. volume of romances of
early fourteenth century date in the British Museum (Additional MS.,
10,292, folio 200), the harper is sitting upon the table.
[Illustration: _Harper._]
Gower, in his "Confessio Amantis," gives us a description of a scene of
the kind. Appolinus is dining in the hall of King Pentapolin, with the
king and queen and their fair daughter, and all his "lordes in estate."
Appolinus was reminded by the scene of the royal estate from which he is
fallen, and sorrowed and took no meat; therefore the king bade his
daughter take her harp and do all that she can to enliven that "sorry
man."
"And she to dou her fader's hest,
Her harpe fette, and in the feste
Upon a chaire which thei fette,
Her selve next to this man she sette."
[Illustration: _Royal Harper._]
Appolinus in turn takes the harp, and proves himself a wonderful
proficient, and
"When he hath harped all his fille,
The kingis hest to fulfille,
A waie goth dishe, a waie goth cup,
Doun goth the borde, the cloth was up,
Thei risen and gone out of the halle."
In the sequel, the interesting stranger was made tutor to the princess,
and among other teachings,
"He taught hir till she was certeyne
Of harpe, citole, and of riote,
With many a tewne and many a note,
Upon musike, upon measure,
And of her harpe the temprure,
He taught her eke, as he well couth."
Another occasion on which their services would be required would be for
the dance. Thus we read in the sequel of "The Squire's Tale," how the king
and his "nobley," when dinner was ended, rose from table, and, preceded by
the minstrels, went to the great chamber for the dance:--
"Wan that this Tartar king, this Cambuscán,
Rose from his bord ther as he sat ful hie;
Beforne him goth the loudé minstralcie,
Til he come to his chambre of parements,[334]
Theras they sounden divers instruments,
That it is like an Heaven for to here.
Now dauncen lusty Venus children dere," &c.
In the tale of Dido and Æneas, in the legend of "Good Women," he calls it
especially the dancing chamber:--
"To dauncing chambers full of paraments,
Of riché bedés[335] and of pavements,
This Eneas is ledde after the meat."
[Illustration: _Mediæval Dance._]
But the dance was not always in the great chamber. Very commonly it took
place in the hall. The tables were only movable boards laid upon trestles,
and at the signal from the master of the house, "A hall! a hall!" they
were quickly put aside; while the minstrels tuned their instruments anew,
and the merry folly at once commenced. In the illustration, of early
fourteenth-century date, which we give on the preceding page, from folio
174 of the Royal MS., 2 B vii., the scene of the dance is not indicated;
the minstrels themselves appear to be joining in the saltitation which
they inspire.
In the next illustration, reproduced from Mr. Wright's "Domestic Manners
of the English," we have a curious picture of a dance, possibly in the
gallery, which occupied the whole length of the roof of most
fifteenth-century houses; it is from M. Barrois's MS. of the "Compte
D'Artois," of fifteenth-century date. In all these instances the minstrels
are on the floor with the dancers, but in the latter part of the Middle
Ages they were probably--especially on festal occasions--placed in the
music gallery over the screens, or entrance-passage, of the hall.
[Illustration: _A Dance in the Gallery._]
Marriage processions were, beyond doubt, attended by minstrels. An
illustration of a band consisting of tabor, bagpipes, regal, and violin,
heading a marriage procession, may be seen in the Roman d'Alexandre
(Bodleian Library) at folio 173; and at folios 173 and 174 the wedding
feast is enlivened by a more numerous band of harp, gittern, violin,
regal, tabor, bagpipes, hand-bells, cymbals, and kettle-drums--which are
carried on a boy's back.[336]
CHAPTER II.
SACRED MUSIC.
Every nobleman and gentleman in the Middle Ages, we have seen, had one or
more minstrels as part of his household, and among their other duties they
were required to assist at the celebration of divine worship. Allusions
occur perpetually in the old romances, showing that it was the universal
custom to hear mass before dinner, and even-song before supper, _e.g._:
"And so they went home and unarmed them, and so to even-song and
supper.... And on the morrow they heard mass, and after went to dinner,
and to their counsel, and made many arguments what were best to do."[337]
"The Young Children's Book," a kind of mediæval "Chesterfield's Letters to
his Son," published by the Early English Text Society, from a MS. of
about 1500 A.D., in the Bodleian Library, bids its pupils--
"Aryse be tyme oute of thi bedde,
And blysse[338] thi brest and thi forhede,
Then wasche thi handes and thi face,
Keme thi hede and ask God grace
The to helpe in all thi workes;
Thou schalt spede better what so thou carpes.
Then go to the chyrche and here a massé,
There aske mersy for thi trespasse.
When thou hast done go breke thy faste
With mete and drynk a gode repast."
In great houses the service was performed by the chaplain in the chapel of
the hall or castle, and it seems probable that the lord's minstrels
assisted in the musical part of the service.
The organ doubtless continued to be, as we have seen it in Saxon times,
the most usual church instrument. Thus the King of Hungary in "The Squire
of Low Degree," tells his daughter:--
"Then shal ye go to your even song,
With tenours and trebles among;
* * * *
Your quere nor organ song shal want
With countre note and dyscant;
The other half on organs playing,
With young children ful fayn synging."
And in inventories of church furniture in the Middle Ages we find organs
enumerated:[339] Not only the organ, but all instruments in common use,
were probably also used in the celebration of divine worship. We meet with
repeated instances in which David singing the psalms is accompanied by a
band of musicians, as in the Saxon illumination on p. 272, and again in
the initial letter of this chapter, which is taken from a psalter of
early thirteenth-century date in the British Museum (Harl. 5,102). The men
of those days were in some respects much more real and practical, less
sentimental and transcendental, than we in religious matters. We must have
everything relating to divine worship of different form and fashion from
ordinary domestic appliances, and think it irreverent to use things of
ordinary domestic fashion for religious uses, or to have domestic things
in the shapes of what we call religious art. They had only one art, the
best they knew, for all purposes; and they were content to apply the best
of that to the service of God. Thus to their minds it would not appear at
all unseemly that the minstrels who had accompanied the divine service in
chapel should walk straight out of chapel into the hall, and tune their
instruments anew to play symphonies, or accompany chansons during dinner,
or enliven the dance in the great chamber in the evening--no more unseemly
than that their master and his family should dine and dance as well as
pray. The chapel royal establishment of Edward IV. consisted of trumpets,
shalms, and pipes, as well as voices; and we may be quite sure that the
custom of the royal chapel was imitated by noblemen and gentlemen of
estate. A good fifteenth-century picture of the interior of a church,
showing the organ in a gallery, is engraved in the "Annales
Archæologiques," vol. xii., p. 349. A very good representation of an organ
of the latter part of the sixteenth century (1582) is in the fine MS.
Plut. 3,469, folio 27.[340] An organ of about this date is still preserved
in that most interesting old Manor House, Igtham Mote, in Kent. They were
sometimes placed at the side of the chancel, sometimes in the rood-loft,
which occupied the same relative position in the choir which the music
gallery did in the hall.
In the MSS. we not unfrequently find the ordinary musical instruments
placed in the hands of the angels; _e.g._, in the early fourteenth-century
MS. Royal 2 B. vii., in a representation of the creation, with the morning
stars singing together, and all the sons of God shouting for joy, an
angelic choir are making melody on the trumpet, violin, cittern, shalm (or
psaltery), and harp. There is another choir of angels at p. 168 of the
same MS., two citterns and two shalms, a violin and trumpet. Similar
representations occur very significantly in churches. On the arch of the
Porta Della Gloria of Saragossa Cathedral, of the eleventh century, from
which there is a cast at the entrance to the South Kensington Museum, are
a set of angel minstrels with musical instruments. In the bosses of the
ceiling of Tewkesbury Abbey Church we find angels playing the cittern
(with a plectrum), the harp (with its cover seen enveloping the lower half
of the instrument)[341] and the cymbals. A set of angel musicians is
sculptured on the rood loft of York Minster. In the triforum of the nave
of Exeter Cathedral is a projecting gallery for the minstrels, with
sculptures of them on the front playing instruments.[342] In the choir of
Lincoln Cathedral, some of the noble series of angels which fill the
spandrels of its arcades, and which have given to it the name of the Angel
Choir, are playing instruments, viz., the trumpet, double pipe, pipe and
tabret, dulcimer, viol and harp. They represent the heavenly choir
attuning their praises in harmony with the human choir below: "Therefore
with angels and archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we laud
and magnify thy glorious name." There is a band of musicians sculptured on
the grand portal of the Cathedral at Rheims; a sculptured capital from the
church of St. Georges de Bocherville, now in the Museum at Rouen,
represents eleven crowned figures playing different instruments.[343] On
the chasse of St. Ursula at Bruges are angels playing instruments
beautifully painted by Hemling.[344] We cannot resist the temptation to
introduce here another charming little drawing of an angelic minstrel,
playing a psaltery, from the Royal MS. 14 E iii.; others occur at folio 1
of the same MS. The band of village musicians with flute, violin,
clarinet, and bass-viol, whom most of us have seen occupying the
singing-gallery of some country church, are the representatives of the
band of minstrels who occupied the rood-lofts in mediæval times.
[Illustration: _The Morning Stars singing together._]
[Illustration: _An Angel Minstrel._]
Clerical censors of manners during the Middle Ages frequently denounce the
dissoluteness of minstrels, and the minstrels take their revenge by
lampooning the vices of the clergy. Like all sweeping censures of whole
classes of men, the accusations on both sides must be received cautiously.
However, it is certain that the minstrels were patronised by the clergy.
We shall presently find a record of the minstrels of the Bishop of
Winchester in the fourteenth century; and the Ordinance of Edward II.,
quoted at p. 296, tells us that minstrels flocked to the houses of
prelates as well as of nobles and gentlemen. In the thirteenth century,
that fine sample of an English bishop, Grostête of Lincoln, was a great
patron of minstrel science: he himself composed an allegorical romance,
the Chasteau d'Amour. Robert de Brunne, in his English paraphrase of
Grostête's Manuel de Peches (begun in 1303), gives us a charming anecdote
of the Bishop's love of minstrelsy.
"Y shall yow telle as y have herde,
Of the bysshope seyut Robérde,
Hys to-name ys Grostet.
Of Lynkolne, so seyth the gest
He loved moche to here the harpe,
For mannys witte hyt makyth sharpe.
Next hys chaumber, besyde his stody,
Hys harpers chaumbre was fast therby.
Many tymes be nyght and dayys,
He had solace of notes and layys.
One askede hym onys resun why
He hadde delyte in mynstralsy?
He answered hym on thys manere
Why he helde the harper so dere.
The vertu of the harpe, thurghe skylle and ryght,
Wyl destroy the fendes myght;
And to the croys by gode skylle
Ys the harpe lykened weyle.
Tharfor gode men, ye shul lere
Whan ye any gleman here,
To wurschep Gode al youre powére,
As Dauyde seyth yn the sautére."
We know that the abbots lived in many respects as other great people did;
they exercised hospitality to guests of gentle birth in their own halls,
treated them to the diversions of hunting and hawking over their manors
and in their forests, and did not scruple themselves to partake in those
amusements; possibly they may have retained minstrels wherewith to solace
their guests and themselves. It is quite certain at least that the
wandering minstrels were welcome guests at the religious houses; and
Warton records many instances of the rewards given to them on those
occasions. We may record two or three examples.
The monasteries had great annual feasts, on the ecclesiastical festivals,
and often also in commemoration of some saint or founder; there was a
grand service in church, and a grand dinner afterwards in the refectory.
The convent of St. Swithin, in Winchester, used thus to keep the
anniversary of Alwyne the Bishop; and in the year A.D. 1374 we find that
six minstrels, accompanied by four harpers, performed their minstrelsies
at dinner, in the hall of the convent, and during supper sang the same
gest in the great arched chamber of the prior, on which occasion the
chamber was adorned, according to custom on great occasions, with the
prior's great dorsal (a hanging for the wall behind the table), having on
it a picture of the three kings of Cologne. These minstrels and harpers
belonged partly to the Royal household in Winchester Castle, partly to the
Bishop of Winchester. Similarly at the priory of Bicester, in Oxfordshire,
in the year A.D. 1432, the treasurer of the monastery gave four shillings
to six minstrels from Buckingham, for singing in the refectory, on the
Feast of the Epiphany, a legend of the Seven Sleepers. In A.D. 1430 the
brethren of the Holie Crosse at Abingdon celebrated their annual feast;
twelve priests were hired for the occasion to help to sing the dirge with
becoming solemnity, for which they received four pence each; and twelve
minstrels, some of whom came from the neighbouring town of Maidenhead,
were rewarded with two shillings and four pence each, besides their share
of the feast and food for their horses. At Mantoke Priory, near Coventry,
there was a yearly obit; and in the year A.D. 1441, we find that eight
priests were hired from Coventry to assist in the service, and the six
minstrels of their neighbour, Lord Clinton, of Mantoke Castle, were
engaged to sing, harp, and play, in the hall of the monastery, at the
grand refection allowed to the monks on the occasion of that anniversary.
The minstrels amused the monks and their guests during dinner, and then
dined themselves in the painted chamber (_camera picta_) of the monastery
with the sub-prior, on which occasion the chamberlain furnished eight
massy tapers of wax to light their table.
These are instances of minstrels formally invited by abbots and convents
to take part in certain great festivities; but there are proofs that the
wandering minstrel, who, like all other classes of society, would find
hospitality in the guest-house of the monastery, was also welcomed for his
minstrel skill, and rewarded for it with guerdon of money, besides his
food and lodging. Warton gives instances of entries in monastic accounts
for disbursements on such occasions; and there is an anecdote quoted by
Percy of some dissolute monks who one evening admitted two poor priests
whom they took to be minstrels, and ill-treated and turned them out again
when they were disappointed of their anticipated gratification.
On the next page is a curious illumination from the Royal MS. 2 B vii.,
representing a friar and a nun themselves making minstrelsy.
[Illustration: _Nun and Friar with Musical Instruments._]
At tournaments the scene was enlivened by the strains of minstrels, and
horses and men inspirited to the charge by the loud fanfare of their
instruments. Thus in "The Knight's Tale," at the tournament of Palamon and
Arcite, as the king and his company rode to the lists:--
"Up gon the trumpets and the melodie,
And to the listés ride the companie."
And again:--
"Then were the gates shut, and cried was loude
Now do your devoir youngé knightés proud.
The heralds left their pricking up and down,
Now ringen trumpets loud and clarioun.
There is no more to say, but East and West
In go the spearés sadly in the rest;
In goeth the sharpé spur into the side;
There see men who can just and who can ride.
Men shiveren shaftés upon shieldés thick,
He feeleth thro the hearte-spoon the prick."
In actual war only the trumpet and horn and tabor seem to have been used.
In "The Romance of Merlin" we read of
"Trumpés beting, tambours classing"
in the midst of a battle; and again, in Chaucer's "Knight's Tale"--
"Pipes, trumpets, nakeres,[345] and clariouns
That in the battle blowen bloody sounds;"
and again, on another occasion--
"The trumping and the tabouring,
Did together the knights fling."
There are several instances in the Royal MS., 2 B vii., in which
trumpeters are sounding their instruments in the rear of a company of
charging chevaliers.
Again, when a country knight and his neighbour wished to keep their spears
in practice against the next tournament, or when a couple of errant
knights happened to meet at a manor-house, the lists were rudely staked
out in the base-court of the castle, or in the meadow under the
castle-walls; and, while the ladies looked on and waved their scarfs from
the windows or the battlements, and the vassals flocked round the ropes,
the minstrels gave animation to the scene. In the illustration on p. 414
from the title-page of the Royal MS., 14 E iii., a fine volume of romances
of early fourteenth-century date, we are made spectators of a scene of the
kind; the herald is arranging the preliminaries between the two knights
who are about to joust, while a band of minstrels inspire them with their
strains.
Not only at these stated periods, but at all times, the minstrels were
liable to be called upon to enliven the tedium of their lord or lady with
music and song; the King of Hungary (in "The Squire of Low Degree"),
trying to comfort his daughter for the loss of her lowly lover by the
promise of all kinds of pleasures, says that in the morning--
"Ye shall have harpe, sautry, and songe,
And other myrthes you among."
And again a little further on, after dinner--
"When you come home your menie amonge,
Ye shall have revell, daunces, and songe;
Lytle children, great and smale,
Shall syng as doth the nightingale."
And yet again, when she is gone to bed--
"And yf ye no rest can take,
All night mynstrels for you shall wake."
Doubtless many of the long winter evenings, when the whole household was
assembled round the blazing wood fire in the middle of the hall, would be
passed in listening to those interminable tales of chivalry which my
lord's chief harper would chant to his harp, while his fellows would play
a symphony between the "fyttes." Of other occasions on which the minstrels
would have appropriate services to render, an entry in the Household Book
of the Percy family in A.D. 1512 gives us an indication: There were three
of them at their castle in the north, a tabret, a lute, and a rebec; and
we find that they had a new-year's gift, "xx_s._ for playing at my lordes
chamber doure on new yeares day in the mornynge; and for playing at my
lordes sone and heire's chamber doure, the lord Percy, ii_s._; and for
playing at the chamber dours of my lord's yonger sonnes, my yonge masters,
after viii. the piece for every of them."
* * * * *
But besides the official minstrels of kings, nobles, and gentlemen,
bishops, and abbots, and corporate towns, there were a great number of
"minstrels unattached," and of various grades of society, who roamed
abroad singly or in company, from town to town, from court to camp, from
castle to monastery, flocking in great numbers to tournaments and
festivals and fairs, and welcomed everywhere.
The summer-time was especially the season for the wanderings of these
children of song,[346] as it was of the knight-errant[347] and of the
pilgrim[348] also. No wonder that the works of the minstrels abound as
they do with charming outbursts of song on the return of the spring and
summer, and the delights which they bring. All winter long the minstrel
had lain in some town, chafing at its miry and unsavoury streets, and its
churlish, money-getting citizens; or in some hospitable castle or
manor-house, perhaps, listening to the wind roaring through the broad
forests, and howling among the turrets overhead, until he pined for
freedom and green fields; his host, perchance, grown tired of his ditties,
and his only occupation to con new ones; this, from the "Percy Reliques,"
sounds like a verse composed at such a time:--
"In time of winter alange[349] it is!
The foules lesen[350] her bliss!
The leves fallen off the tree;
Rain alangeth[351] the countree."
No wonder they welcomed the return of the bright, warm days, when they
could resume their gay, adventurous, open-air life, in the fresh, flowery
meadows, and the wide, green forest glades; roaming to town and village,
castle and monastery, feast and tournament; alone, or in company with a
band of brother minstrels; meeting by the way with gay knights
adventurous, or pilgrims not less gay--if they were like those of
Chaucer's company; welcomed everywhere by priest and abbot, lord and loon.
These are the sort of strains which they carolled as they rested under the
white hawthorn, and carelessly tinkled an accompaniment on their harps:--
"Merry is th' enté of May;
The fowles maketh merry play;
The time is hot, and long the day.
The joyful nightingale singeth,
In the grene mede flowers springeth.
* * * *
"Merry it is in somer's tide;
Fowles sing in forest wide;
Swaines gin on justing ride,
Maidens liffen hem in pride."
The minstrels were often men of position and wealth. Rayer, or Raherus,
the first of the king's minstrels whom we meet with after the Conquest,
founded the Priory and Hospital of St. Bartholomew, in Smithfield, London,
in the third year of Henry I., A.D. 1102, and became the first prior of
his own foundation. He was not the only minstrel who turned religious.
Foulquet de Marseille, first a merchant, then a minstrel of note--some of
his songs have descended to these days--at length turned monk, and was
made abbot of Tournet, and at length Archbishop of Toulouse, and is known
in history as the persecutor of the Albigenses: he died in 1231 A.D. It
seems to have been no unusual thing for men of family to take up the
wandering, adventurous life of the minstrel, much as others of the same
class took up the part of knight adventurous; they frequently travelled on
horseback, with a servant to carry their harp; flocking to courts and
tournaments, where the graceful and accomplished singer of chivalrous
deeds was perhaps more caressed than the large-limbed warrior who achieved
them; and obtained large rewards, instead of huge blows, for his guerdon.
There are some curious anecdotes showing the kind of people who became
minstrels, their wandering habits, their facility of access to all
companies and places, and the uses which were sometimes made of their
privileges. All our readers will remember how Blondel de Nesle, the
minstrel of Richard Coeur de Lion, wandered over Europe in search of his
master. There is a less known instance of a similar kind and of the same
period. Ela, the heiress of D'Evereux, Earl of Salisbury, had been carried
abroad and secreted by her French relations in Normandy. To discover the
place of her concealment, a knight of the Talbot family spent two years in
exploring that province; at first under the disguise of a pilgrim; then,
having found where she was confined, in order to gain admittance, he
assumed the dress and character of a harper; and being a jocose person,
exceedingly skilled in the Gests of the ancients, he was gladly received
into the family. He succeeded in carrying off the lady, whom he restored
to her liege lord the king, who bestowed her in marriage, not upon the
adventurous knight-minstrel, as ought to have been the ending of so pretty
a novelet, but upon his own natural brother, William Longespée, to whom
she brought her earldom of Salisbury in dower.
Many similar instances, not less valuable evidences of the manners of the
times because they are fiction, might be selected from the romances of the
Middle Ages; proving that it was not unusual for men of birth and
station[352] to assume, for a longer or shorter time, the character and
life of the wandering minstrel.
But besides these gentle minstrels, there were a multitude of others of
the lower classes of society, professors of the joyous science; descending
through all grades of musical skill, and of respectability of character.
We find regulations from time to time intended to check their
irregularities. In 1315 King Edward II. issued an ordinance addressed to
sheriffs, &c., as follows: "Forasmuch as ... many idle persons under
colour of mynstrelsie, and going in messages[353] and other faigned
busines, have been and yet be receaved in other men's houses to meate and
drynke, and be not therwith contented yf they be not largely considered
with gyftes of the Lordes of the Houses, &c.... We wyllyng to restrayne
such outrageous enterprises and idlenes, &c., have ordeyned ... that to
the houses of Prelates, Earls, and Barons, none resort to meate and drynke
unless he be a mynstrell, and of these mynstrels that there come none
except it be three or four mynstrels of honour at most in one day unless
he be desired of the Lorde of the House. And to the houses of meaner men,
that none come unlesse he be desired; and that such as shall come so holde
themselves contented with meate and drynke, and with such curtesie as the
Master of the House wyl shewe unto them of his owne good wyll, without
their askyng of any thyng. And yf any one do against this ordinaunce at
the first tyme he to lose his minstrelsie, and at the second tyme to
forsweare his craft, and never to be received for a minstrell in any
house." This curious ordinance gives additional proof of several facts
which we have before noted, viz., that minstrels were well received
everywhere, and had even become exacting in their expectations; that they
used to wander about in bands; and the penalties seem to indicate that the
minstrels were already incorporated in a guild. The first positive
evidence of such a guild is in the charter (already alluded to) of 9th
King Edward IV., A.D. 1469, in which he grants to Walter Haliday,
_Marshall_, and seven others, his own minstrels, a charter by which he
restores a Fraternity or perpetual Guild (such as he understands the
brothers and sisters of the Fraternity of Minstrels had in times past), to
be governed by a marshall, appointed for life, and by two wardens, to be
chosen annually, who are empowered to admit brothers and sisters into the
guild, and are authorised to examine the pretensions of all such as affect
to exercise the minstrel profession; and to regulate, govern, and punish
them throughout the realm--those of Chester excepted. It seems probable
that the King's Minstrel, or the King of the Minstrels, had long
previously possessed an authority of this kind over all the members of the
profession, and that the organization very much resembled that of the
heralds. The two are mentioned together in the Statute of Arms for
Tournaments, passed in the reign of Edward I., A.D. 1295. "E qe nul Roy de
Harraunz ne Menestrals[354] portent privez armez:" that no King of the
Heralds or of the Minstrels shall carry secret weapons. That the minstrels
attended all tournaments we have already mentioned. The heralds and
minstrels are often coupled in the same sentence; thus Froissart tells us
that at a Christmas entertainment given by the Earl of Foix, there were
many minstrels, as well his own as strangers, "and the Earl gave to
Heraulds and Minstrelles the sum of fyve hundred frankes; and gave to the
Duke of Tourayne's mynstreles gowns of cloth of gold furred with ermine,
valued at 200 frankes."[355]
CHAPTER III.
GUILDS OF MINSTRELS.
It is not unlikely that the principal minstrel of every great noble
exercised some kind of authority over all minstrels within his lord's
jurisdiction. There are several famous instances of something of this kind
on record. The earliest is that of the authority granted by Ranulph, Earl
of Chester, to the Duttons over all minstrels of his jurisdiction; for the
romantic origin of the grant the curious reader may see the Introductory
Essay to Percy's "Reliques," or the original authorities in Dugdale's
"Monasticon," and D. Powel's "History of Cambria." The ceremonies
attending the exercise of this authority are thus described by Dugdale, as
handed down to his time:--viz., "That at Midsummer fair there, all the
minstrels of that countrey resorting to Chester, do attend the heir of
Dutton from his lodging to St. John's Church (he being then accompanied
by many gentlemen of the countrey), one of the minstrels walking before
him in a surcoat of his arms, depicted on taffeta; the rest of his fellows
proceeding two and two, and playing on their several sorts of musical
instruments. And after divine service ended, gave the like attendance on
him back to his lodging; where a court being kept by his (Mr. Dutton's)
steward, and all the minstrels formally called, certain orders and laws
are usually made for the better government of that society, with penalties
on those that transgress." This court, we have seen, was exempted from the
jurisdiction of the King of the Minstrels by Edward IV., as it was also
from the operation of all Acts of Parliament on the subject down to so
late a period as the seventeenth year of George II., the last of them. In
the fourth year of King Richard II., John[356] of Gaunt created a court of
minstrels at Tutbury, in Staffordshire, similar to that at Chester; in the
charter (which is quoted in Dr. Plott's "History of Staffordshire," p.
436) he gives them a King of the Minstrels and four officers, with a legal
authority over the men of their craft in the five adjoining counties of
Stafford, Derby, Notts, Leicester, and Warwick. The form of election, as
it existed at a comparatively late period, is fully detailed by Dr. Plott.
[Illustration: _The Beverley Minstrels._]
Another of these guilds was the ancient company or fraternity of minstrels
in Beverley, of which an account is given in Poulson's "Beverlac" (p.
302). When the fraternity originated we do not know; but they were of some
consideration and wealth in the reign of Henry VI., when the Church of St.
Mary's, Beverley, was built; for they gave a pillar to it, on the capital
of which a band of minstrels are sculptured, of whom we here re-produce a
drawing from Carter's "Ancient Painting and Sculpture," to which we shall
have presently to ask the reader's further attention. The oldest existing
document of the fraternity is a copy of laws of the time of Philip and
Mary. They are similar to those by which all trade guilds were governed:
their officers were an alderman and two stewards or sears (_i.e._ seers,
searchers); the only items in their laws which throw much additional light
upon our subject are the one already partly quoted, that they should not
take "any new brother except he be mynstrell to some man of honour or
worship (proving that men of honour and worship still had minstrels), or
waite[357] of some towne corporate or other ancient town, or else of such
honestye and conyng as shall be thought laudable and pleasant to the
hearers there." And again, "no myler, shepherd, or of other occupation, or
husbandman, or husbandman servant, playing upon pype or other instrument,
shall sue any wedding, or other thing that pertaineth to the said science,
except in his own parish." We may here digress for a moment to say that
the shepherds, throughout the Middle Ages, seem to have been as musical as
the swains of Theocritus or Virgil; in the MS. illuminations we constantly
find them represented playing upon instruments; we give a couple of
goatherds from the MS. Royal 2 B vii. folio 83, of early
fourteenth-century date.
[Illustration: _Goatherds playing Musical Instruments._]
[Illustration: _Shepherd with Bagpipes._]
Besides the pipe and horn, the bagpipe was also a rustic instrument. There
is a shepherd playing upon one in folio 112 of the same MS.; and again, in
the early fourteenth-century MS. Royal 2 B vi., on the reverse of folio 8,
is a group of shepherds, one of whom plays a small pipe, and another the
bagpipes. Chaucer (3rd Book of the "House of Fame") mentions--
"Pipes made of greené corne,
As have these little herd gromes,
That keepen beastés in the bromes."
It is curious to find that even at so late a period as the time of Queen
Mary, the shepherds still officiated at weddings and other merrymakings in
their villages, so as to excite the jealousy of the professors of the
joyous science.
The accompanying wood-cut, from a MS. in the French National library, may
represent such a rustic merry-making.
[Illustration: _Rustic Merry-making._]
One might, perhaps, have been disposed to think that the good minstrels of
Beverley were only endeavouring to revive usages which had fallen into
desuetude; but we find that in the time of Elizabeth the profession of
minstrelsy was sufficiently universal to call for the inquiry, in the
Injunctions of 1559, "Whether any minstrells, or any other persons, do use
to sing any songs or ditties that be vile or unclean."
Ben Jonson gives us numerous allusions to them: _e.g._, in the "Tale of a
Tub," old Turve talks of "old Father Rosin, the chief minstrel here--chief
minstrel, too, of Highgate; she has hired him, and all his two boys, for a
day and a half." They were to be dressed in bays, rosemary, and ribands,
to precede the bridal party across the fields to church and back, and to
play at dinner. And so in "Epicoene," act iii. sc. 1:--
"Well, there be guests to meat now; how shall we do for music?" [for
Morose's wedding.]
_Clerimont._--The smell of the venison going thro' the street will
invite one noise of fiddlers or other.
_Dauphine._--I would it would call the trumpeters hither!
_Clerimont._--Faith, there is hope: they have intelligence of all
feasts. There's a good correspondence betwixt them and the London
cooks: 'tis twenty to one but we have them.
And Dryden, so late as the time of William III., speaks of them--
"These fellows
Were once the minstrels of a country show,
Followed the prizes through each paltry town,
By trumpet cheeks and bloated faces known."
There were also female minstrels throughout the Middle Ages; but, as might
be anticipated from their irregular wandering life, they bore an
indifferent reputation. The romance of "Richard Coeur de Lion" says that
it was a female minstrel, and, still worse, an Englishwoman, who
recognised and betrayed the knight-errant king and his companions, on
their return from the Holy Land, to his enemy, the "King of Almain." The
passage is worth quoting, as it illustrates several of the traits of
minstrel habits which we have already recorded. After Richard and his
companions had dined on a goose, which they cooked for themselves at a
tavern--
"When they had drunken well afin,
A minstralle com therin,
And said 'Gentlemen, wittily,
Will ye have any minstrelsey?'
Richard bade that she should go.
That turned him to mickle woe!
The minstralle took in mind,[358]
And saith, 'Ye are men unkind;
And if I may, ye shall for-think[359]
Ye gave neither meat nor drink.
For gentlemen should bede[360]
To minstrels that abouten yede[361]
Of their meat, wine, and ale;
For los[362] rises of minstrale.'
She was English, and well true
By speech, and sight, and hide, and hue."
Stow tells that in 1316, while Edward II. was solemnizing his Feast of
Pentecost in his hall at Westminster, sitting royally at table, with his
peers about him, there entered a woman adorned like a minstrel, sitting on
a great horse, trapped as minstrels then used, who rode round about the
tables showing her pastime. The reader will remember the use which Sir E.
B. Lytton has made of a troop of tymbesteres in "The Last of the Barons,"
bringing them in at the epochs of his tale with all the dramatic effect of
the Greek chorus: the description which he gives of their habits is too
sadly truthful. The daughter of Herodias dancing before Herod is
scornfully represented by the mediæval artists as a female minstrel
performing the tumbling tricks which were part of their craft. We give a
representation of a female minstrel playing the tambourine from the MS.
Royal, 2 B vii. folio 182.
[Illustration: _Female Minstrel._]
A question of considerable interest to artists, no less than to
antiquaries, is whether the minstrels were or not distinguished by any
peculiar costume or habit. Bishop Percy[363] and his followers say that
they were, and the assertion is grounded on the following evidences:
Baldulph, the Saxon, in the anecdote already related, when assuming the
disguise of a minstrel, is described as shaving his head and beard, and
dressing himself in the habit of that profession. Alfred and Aulaff were
known at once to be minstrels. The two poor priests who were turned out of
the monastery by the dissolute monks were at first mistaken for minstrels.
The woman who entered Westminster Hall at King Edward the Second's
Pentecost feast was adorned like a minstrel, sitting on a great horse,
trapped as minstrels then used.
The Knight of La Tour-Landry (chap. xvii) tells a story which shows that
the costume of minstrels was often conspicuous for richness and fashion:
"As y have herde telle, Sir Piere de Luge was atte the feste where as were
gret foyson of lordes, ladies, knightes, and squieres, and gentilwomen,
and so there came in a yonge squier before hem that was sette atte dyner
and salued the companie, and he was clothed in a cote-hardy[364] upon the
guyse of Almayne, and in this wise he come further before the lordes and
ladies, and made hem goodly reverence. And so the said Sir Piere called
this yonge squier with his voys before alle the statis, and saide unto hym
and axed hym, where was his fedylle or hys ribible, or suche an instrument
as longethe unto a mynstralle. 'Syr,' saide the squier, 'I canne not
medille me of such thinge, it is not my craft nor science.' 'Sir,' saide
the knight, 'I canne not trowe that ye saye, for ye be counterfait in
youre araye and lyke unto a mynstralle; for I have knowe herebefore alle
youre aunsetours, and the knightes and squiers of youre kin, which were
alle worthie men; but I sawe never none of hem that were [wore]
counterfait, nor that clothed hem in such array.' And thanne the yonge
squier answered the knight and saide, 'Sir, by as moche as it mislykithe
you it shalle be amended,' and cleped a pursevant and gave him the
cote-hardy. And he abled hym selff in an other gowne, and come agen into
the halle, and thanne the anncyen knight saide openly, 'This yonge squier
shalle have worshipe for he hath trowed and do bi the counsaile of the
elder withoute ani contraryenge.'"
In the time of Henry VII. we read of nine ells of _tawny_ cloth for three
minstrels; and in the "History of Jack of Newbury," of "a noise [_i.e._
band] of musicians in _townie_ coats, who, putting off their caps, asked
if they would have music." And lastly, there is a description of the
person who personated "an ancient mynstrell" in one of the pageants which
were played before Queen Elizabeth at her famous visit to Kenilworth,
which is curious enough to be quoted. "A person, very meet seemed he for
the purpose, of a forty-five years old, apparalled partly as he would
himself. His cap off; his head seemly rounded tonsterwise;[365] fair
kembed, that with a sponge daintily dipped in a little capon's grease was
finely smoothen, to make it shine like a mallard's wing. His beard smugly
shaven; and yet his shirt after the new trick, with ruffs fair starched,
sleeked and glistering like a paire of new shoes, marshalled in good order
with a setting stick and strut, that every ruff stood up like a wafer. A
side (_i.e._ long) gown of Kendal Green, after the freshness of the year
now, gathered at the neck with a narrow gorget, fastened afore with white
clasp and keeper close up to the chin; but easily, for heat to undo when
he list. Seemly begirt in a red caddis girdle: from that a pair of capped
Sheffield knives hanging a' two sides. Out of his bosom drawn forth a
lappel of his napkin (_i.e._ handkerchief) edged with a blue lace, and
marked with a true love, a heart, and a D. for Damian, for he was but a
batchelor yet. His gown had side (_i.e._ long) sleeves down to midleg,
slit from the shoulder to the hand, and lined with white cotton. His
doublet sleeves of black worsted: upon them a pair of paynets (perhaps
points) of tawny chamlet laced along the wrist with blue threaden points,
a weall towards the hand of fustian-a-napes. A pair of red neather socks.
A pair of pumps on his feet, with a cross cut at the toes for corns: not
new, indeed, yet cleanly blackt with soot, and shining as a shoeing horn.
About his neck a red ribband suitable to his girdle. His harp in good
grace dependant before him. His wrest tyed to a green lace, and hanging
by; under the gorget of his gown a fair flaggon chain (pewter for)
silver, as a squire-minstrel[366] of Middlesex that travelled the country
this summer season, unto fairs and worshipful men's houses. From this
chain hung a scutcheon, with metal and colour resplendant upon his breast,
of the ancient arms of Islington," to which place he is represented as
belonging.
From these authorities Percy would deduce that the minstrels were tonsured
and apparelled very much after the same fashion as priests. The pictorial
authorities do not bear out any such conclusion. There are abundant
authorities for the belief that the dress of the minstrels was remarkable
for a very unclerical sumptuousness; but in looking through the numerous
ancient representations of minstrels we find no trace of the tonsure, and
no peculiarity of dress; they are represented in the ordinary costume of
their time; in colours blue, red, grey, particoloured, like other
civilians; with hoods, or hats, or without either; frequently the
different members of the same band of minstrels present all these
differences of costume, as in the instance here given, from the
title-page of the fourteenth century MS. Add., 10,293; proving that the
minstrels did not affect any uniformity of costume whatever.
[Illustration: _A Band of Minstrels._]
The household minstrels probably wore their master's badge[367] (liveries
were not usual until a late period); others the badge of their guild. Thus
in the Morte Arthur, Sir Dinadan makes a reproachful lay against King
Arthur, and teaches it an harper, that hight Elyot, and sends him to sing
it before King Mark and his nobles at a great feast. The king asked, "Thou
harper, how durst thou be so bold to sing this song before me?" "Sir,"
said Elyot, "wit you well I am a minstrell, and I must doe as I am
commanded of these lords that _I bear the armes of_;" and in proof of the
privileged character of the minstrel we find the outraged king replying,
"Thou saiest well, I charge thee that thou hie thee fast out of my sight."
So the squire-minstrel of Middlesex, who belonged to Islington, had a
chain round his neck, with a scutcheon upon it, upon which were blazoned
the arms of Islington. And in the effigies of the Beverley minstrels,
which we have given on page 298, we find that their costume is the
ordinary costume of the period, and is not alike in all; but that each of
them has a chain round his neck, to which is suspended what is probably a
scutcheon, like that of the Islington minstrel. In short, a careful
examination of a number of illustrations in illuminated MSS. of various
dates, from Saxon downwards, leaves the impression that minstrels wore the
ordinary costume of their period, more or less rich in material, or
fashionable in cut, according to their means and taste; and that the only
distinctive mark of their profession was the instrument which each bore,
or, as in the case of the Kenilworth minstrel, the tuning wrest hung by a
riband to his girdle; and in the case of a household minstrel the badge of
the lord whom he served.
[Illustration: _Cymbals and Trumpets._]
[Illustration: _Regals and Double Pipe_ (Royal 2 B vii).]
[Illustration: _Regals or Organ_ (Royal, 14 E iii).]
The forms of the most usual musical instruments of various periods may be
gathered from the illustrations which have already been given. The most
common are the harp, fiddle, cittern or lute, hand-organ, the shalm or
psaltery, the pipe and tabor, pipes of various sizes played like
clarionets, but called flutes, the double pipe, hand-bells, trumpets and
horns, bagpipes, tambourine, tabret, drum, and cymbals. Of the greater
number of these we have already incidentally given illustrations; we add,
on the last page, other illustrations, from the Royal MS., 2 B vii., and
Royal MS. 14 E iii. In the fourteenth century new instruments were
invented. Guillaume de Marhault in his poem of "Le Temps Pastour," gives
us an idea of the multitude of instruments which composed a grand concert
of the fifteenth century; he says[368]--
"Là je vis tout en un cerne
Viole, rubebe, guiterne,
L'enmorache, le micamon,
Citole et Psalterion,
Harpes, tabours, trompes, nacaires,
Orgues, cornes plus de dix paires,
Cornemuse, flajos et chevrettes
Douceines, simbales, clochettes,
Tymbre, la flauste lorehaigne,
Et le grand cornet d'Allemayne,
Flacos de sans, fistule, pipe,
Muse d'Aussay, trompe petite,
Buisine, eles, monochorde,
Ou il n'y a qu'une corde;
Et muse de blet tout ensemble.
Et certainment il me semble
Qu' oncques mais tèle mélodie
Ne feust oncques vene ne oye;
Car chascun d'eux, selon l'accort
De son instrument sans descort,
Vitole, guiterne, citole,
Harpe, trompe, corne, flajole,
Pipe, souffle, muse, naquaire,
Taboure et qu cunque ou put faire
De dois, de peune et à l'archet,
Ois et vis en ce porchet."
In conclusion we give a group of musical instruments from one of the
illustrations of "Der Weise König," a work of the close of the fifteenth
century.
[Illustration: _Musical Instruments of the 15th Century._]
THE KNIGHTS OF THE MIDDLE AGES.
CHAPTER I.
SAXON ARMS AND ARMOUR.
We proceed, in this division of our work, to select out of the
inexhaustible series of pictures of mediæval life and manners contained in
illuminated MSS., a gallery of subjects which will illustrate the armour
and costume, the military life and chivalric adventures, of the Knights of
the Middle Ages; and to append to the pictures such explanations as they
may seem to need, and such discursive remarks as the subjects may suggest.
For the military costume of the Anglo-Saxon period we have the authority
of the descriptions in their literature, illustrated by drawings in their
illuminated MSS.; and if these leave anything wanting in definiteness, the
minutest details of form and ornamentation may often be recovered from the
rusted and broken relics of armour and weapons which have been recovered
from their graves, and are now preserved in our museums.
Saxon freemen seem to have universally borne arms. Tacitus tells us of
their German ancestors, that swords were rare among them, and the majority
did not use lances, but that spears, with a narrow, sharp and short head,
were the common and universal weapon, used either in distant or close
fight; and that even the cavalry were satisfied with a shield and one of
these spears.
The law in later times seems to have required freemen to bear arms for
the common defence; the laws of Gula, which are said to have been
originally established by Hacon the Good in the middle of the eighth
century, required every man who possessed six marks besides his clothes to
furnish himself with a red shield and a spear, an axe or a sword; he who
was worth twelve marks was to have a steel cap also; and he who was worth
eighteen marks a byrnie, or shirt of mail, in addition. Accordingly, in
the exploration of Saxon graves we find in those of men "spears and
javelins are extremely numerous," says Mr. C. Roach Smith, "and of a
variety of shapes and sizes."... "So constantly do we find them in the
Saxon graves, that it would appear no man above the condition of a serf
was buried without one. Some are of large size, but the majority come
under the term of javelin or dart." The rusty spear-head lies beside the
skull, and the iron boss of the shield on his breast; the long, broad,
heavy, rusted sword is comparatively seldom found beside the skeleton;
sometimes, but rarely, the iron frame of a skull-cap or helmet is found
about the head.
[Illustration: _Saxon Soldiers._]
An examination of the pictures in the Saxon illuminated MSS. confirms the
conclusion that the shield and spear were the common weapons. Their
bearers are generally in the usual civil costume, and not infrequently are
bare-headed. The spear-shaft is almost always spoken of as being of
ash-wood; indeed, the word _æsc_ (ash) is used by metonymy for a spear;
and the common poetic name for a soldier is _æsc-berend_, or _æsc-born_, a
spear-bearer; just as, in later times, we speak of him as a swordsman.
We learn from the poets that the shield--"the broad war disk"--was made of
linden-wood, as in Beowulf:--
"He could not then refrain,
but grasped his shield
the yellow linden,
drew his ancient sword."
From the actual remains of shields, we find that the central boss was of
iron, of conical shape, and that a handle was fixed across its concavity
by which it was held in the hand.
The helmet is of various shapes; the commonest are the three represented
in our first four wood-cuts. The most common is the conical shape seen in
the large wood-cut on p. 316.
[Illustration: _Saxon Horse Soldiers._]
The Phrygian-shaped helmet, seen in the single figure on p. 314 is also a
very common form; and the curious crested helmet worn by all the warriors
in our first two wood-cuts of Saxon soldiers is also common. In some cases
the conical helmet was of iron, but perhaps more frequently it was of
leather, strengthened with a frame of iron.
In the group of four foot soldiers in our first wood-cut, it will be
observed that the men wear tunics, hose, and shoes; the multiplicity of
folds and fluttering ends in the drapery is a characteristic of Saxon art,
but the spirit and elegance of the heads is very unusual and very
admirable.
Our first three illustrations are taken from a beautiful little MS. of
Prudentius in the Cottonian Library, known under the press mark, Cleopatra
C. IV. The illuminations in this MS. are very clearly and skilfully drawn
with the pen; indeed, many of them are designed with so much spirit and
skill and grace, as to make them not only of antiquarian interest, but
also of high artistic merit. The subjects are chiefly illustrations of
Scripture history or of allegorical fable; but, thanks to the custom which
prevailed throughout the Middle Ages of representing all such subjects in
contemporary costume, and according to contemporary manners and customs,
the Jewish patriarchs and their servants afford us perfectly correct
representations of Saxon thanes and their _cheorls_; Goliath, a perfect
picture of a Saxon warrior, armed _cap-à-pied_; and Pharaoh and his nobles
of a Saxon Basileus and his witan. Thus, our second wood-cut is an
illustration of the incident of Lot and his family being carried away
captives by the Canaanitish kings after their successful raid against the
cities of the plain; but it puts before our eyes a group of the armed
retainers of a Saxon king on a military expedition. It will be seen that
they wear the ordinary Saxon civil costume, a tunic and cloak; that they
are all armed with the spear, all wear crested helmets; and the last of
the group carries a round shield suspended at his back. The variety of
attitude, the spirit and life of the figures, and the skill and
gracefulness of the drawing, are admirable.
Another very valuable series of illustrations of Saxon military costume
will be found in a MS. of Ælfric's Paraphrase of the Pentateuch and
Joshua, in the British Museum (Cleopatra B. IV.); at folio 25, for
example, we have a representation of Abraham pursuing the five kings in
order to rescue Lot: in the version of the Saxon artist the patriarch and
his Arab servants are translated into a Saxon thane and his house carles,
who are represented marching in a long array which takes up two bands of
drawing across the vellum page.
[Illustration: _Saxon Soldier, in Leather Armour._]
The Anglo-Saxon poets let us know that chieftains and warriors wore a body
defence, which they call a byrnie or a battle-sark. In the illuminations
we find this sometimes of leather, as in the wood-cut here given from the
Prudentius which has already supplied us with two illustrations. It is
very usually Vandyked at the edges, as here represented. But the
epithets, "iron byrnie," and "ringed byrnie," and "twisted battle-sark,"
show that the hauberk was often made of iron mail. In some of the
illuminations it is represented as if detached rings of iron were sewn
flat upon it: this may be really a representation of a kind of jazerant
work, such as was frequently used in later times, or it may be only an
unskilful way of representing the ordinary linked mail.
A document of the early part of the eighth century, given in Mr. Thorpe's
Anglo-Saxon Laws, seems to indicate that at that period the mail hauberk
was usually worn only by the higher ranks. In distinguishing between the
eorl and the cheorl it says, if the latter thrive so well that he have a
helmet and byrnie and sword ornamented with gold, yet if he have not five
hydes of land, he is only a cheorl. By the time of the end of the Saxon
era, however, it would seem that the men-at-arms were usually furnished
with a coat of fence, for the warriors in the battle of Hastings are
nearly all so represented in the Bayeux tapestry.
In Ælfric's Paraphrase, already mentioned (Cleopatra B. IV.), at folio 64,
there is a representation of a king clothed in such a mail shirt, armed
with sword and shield, attended by an armour-bearer, who carries a second
shield but no offensive weapon, his business being to ward off the blows
aimed at his lord. We should have given a wood-cut of this interesting
group, but that it has already been engraved in the "Pictorial History of
England" (vol. i.) and in Hewitt's "Ancient Armour" (vol. i. p. 60). This
king with his shield-bearer does not occur in an illustration of Goliath
and the man bearing a shield who went before him, nor of Saul and his
armour-bearer, where it would be suggested by the text; but is one of the
three kings engaged in battle against the cities of the plain; it seems
therefore to indicate a Saxon usage. Another of the kings in the same
picture has no hauberk, but only the same costume as the warrior in the
wood-cut on the next page.
In the Additional MS. 11,695, in the British Museum, a work of the
eleventh century, there are several representations of warriors thus fully
armed, very rude and coarse in drawing, but valuable for the clearness
with which they represent the military equipment of the time. At folio 194
there is a large figure of a warrior in a mail shirt, a conical helmet,
strengthened with iron ribs converging to the apex, the front rib
extending downwards, into what is called a nasal, _i.e._, a piece of iron
extending downwards over the nose, so as to protect the face from a
sword-cut across the upper part of it. At folio 233 of the same MS. is a
group of six warriors, two on horseback and four on foot. We find them all
with hauberk, iron helmets, round shields, and various kinds of leg
defences; they have spears, swords, and one of the horsemen bears a banner
of characteristic shape, _i.e._, it is a right-angled triangle, with the
shortest side applied to the spear-shaft, so that the right angle is at
the bottom.
[Illustration: No. 4.]
A few extracts from the poem of Beowulf, a curious Saxon fragment, which
the best scholars concur in assigning to the end of the eighth century,
will help still further to bring these ancient warriors before our mind's
eye.
Here is a scene in King Hrothgar's hall:
"After evening came
and Hrothgar had departed
to his court,
guarded the mansion
countless warriors,
as they oft ere had done,
they bared the bench-floor
it was overspread
with beds and bolsters,
they set at their heads
their disks of war,
their shield-wood bright;
there on the bench was
over the noble,
easy to be seen,
his high martial helm,
his ringed byrnie
and war-wood stout."
Beowulf's funeral pole is said to be--
"with helmets, war brands,
and bright byrnies behung."
And in this oldest of Scandinavian romances we have the natural
reflections--
"the hard helm shall
adorned with gold
from the fated fall;
mortally wounded sleep
those who war to rage
by trumpet should announce;
in like manner the war shirt
which in battle stood
over the crash of shields
the bite of swords
shall moulder after the warrior;
the byrnie's ring may not
after the martial leader
go far on the side of heroes;
there is no joy of harp
no glee-wood's mirth,
no good hawk
swings through the hall,
nor the swift steed
tramps the city place.
Baleful death
has many living kinds
sent forth."
Reflections which Coleridge summed up in the brief lines--
"Their swords are rust,
Their bones are dust,
Their souls are with the saints, we trust."
The wood-cut on page 316 is taken from a collection of various Saxon
pictures in the British Museum, bound together in the volume marked
Tiberius C. VI., at folio 9. Our wood-cut is a reduced copy. In the
original the warrior is seven or eight inches high, and there is,
therefore, ample room for the delineation of every part of his costume.
From the embroidery of the tunic, and the ornamentation of the shield and
helmet, we conclude that we have before us a person of consideration, and
he is represented as in the act of combat; but we see his armour and arms
are only those to which we have already affirmed that the usual equipment
was limited. The helmet seems to be strengthened with an iron rim and
converging ribs, and is furnished with a short nasal.
The figure is without the usual cloak, and therefore the better shows the
fashion of the tunic. The banding of the legs was not for defence, it is
common in civil costume. The quasi-banding of the forearm is also
sometimes found in civil costume; it seems not to be an actual banding,
still less a spiral armlet, but merely a fashion of wearing the tunic
sleeve. We see how the sword is, rather inartificially, slung by a belt
over the shoulder; how the shield is held by the iron handle across its
hollow spiked umbo; and how the barbed javelin is cast.
On the preceding page of this MS. is a similar figure, but without the
sword.
There were some other weapons frequently used by the Saxons which we have
not yet had occasion to mention. The most important of these is the axe.
It is not often represented in illuminations, and is very rarely found in
graves, but it certainly was extensively in use in the latter part of the
Anglo-Saxon period, and was perhaps introduced by the Danes. The house
carles of Canute, we are expressly told, were armed with axes, halberds,
and swords, ornamented with gold. In the ship which Godwin presented to
Hardicanute, William of Malmesbury tells us the soldiers wore two
bracelets of gold on each arm, each bracelet weighing sixteen ounces; they
had gilt helmets; in the right hand they carried a spear of iron, and in
the left a Danish axe, and they wore swords hilted with gold. The axe was
also in common use by the Saxons at the battle of Hastings. There are
pictorial examples of the single axe in the Cottonian MS., Cleopatra C.
VIII.; of the double axe--the bipennis--in the Harleian MS., 603; and of
various forms of the weapon, including the pole-axe, in the Bayeux
tapestry.
The knife or dagger was also a Saxon weapon. There is a picture in the
Anglo-Saxon MS. in the Paris Library, called the Duke de Berri's Psalter,
in which a combatant is armed with what appears to be a large double-edged
knife and a shield, and actual examples of it occur in Saxon graves. The
_seax_, which is popularly believed to have been a dagger and a
characteristic Saxon weapon, seems to have been a short single-edged
slightly curved weapon, and is rarely found in England. It is mentioned in
Beowulf:--he--
"drew his deadly seax,
bitter and battle sharp,
that he on his byrnie bore."
The sword was usually about three feet long, two-edged and heavy in the
blade. Sometimes, especially in earlier examples, it is without a guard.
Its hilt was sometimes of the ivory of the walrus, occasionally of gold,
the blade was sometimes inlaid with gold ornaments and runic verses. Thus
in Beowulf--
"So was on the surface
of the bright gold
with runic letters
rightly marked,
set and said, for whom that sword,
costliest of irons,
was first made,
with twisted hilt and
serpent shaped."
The Saxons indulged in many romantic fancies about their swords. Some
swordsmiths chanted magical verses as they welded them, and tempered them
with mystical ingredients. Beowulf's sword was a--
"tempered falchion
that had before been one
of the old treasures;
its edge was iron
tainted with poisonous things
hardened with warrior blood;
never had it deceived any man
of those who brandished it with hands."
Favourite swords had names given them, and were handed down from father to
son, or passed from champion to champion, and became famous. Thus, again,
in Beowulf, we read--
"He could not then refrain,
but grasped his shield,
the yellow linden,
drew his ancient sword
that among men was
a relic of Eanmund,
Ohthere's son,
of whom in conflict was,
when a friendless exile,
Weohstan the slayer
with falchions edges,
and from his kinsmen bore away
the brown-hued helm,
the ringed byrnie,
the old Eotenish[369] sword
which him Onela had given."
There is a fine and very perfect example of a Saxon sword in the British
Museum, which was found in the bed of the river Witham, at Lincoln. The
sheath was usually of wood, covered with leather, and tipped, and
sometimes otherwise ornamented with metal.
The spear was used javelin-wise, and the warrior going into battle
sometimes carried several of them. They are long-bladed, often barbed, as
represented in the woodcut on p. 316, and very generally have one or two
little cross-bars below the head, as in cuts on pp. 313 and 314. The Saxon
artillery, besides the javelin, was the bow and arrows. The bow is usually
a small one, of the old classical shape, not the long bow for which the
English yeomen afterwards became so famous, and which seems to have been
introduced by the Normans.
In the latest period of the Saxon monarchy, the armour and weapons were
almost identical with those used on the Continent. We have abundant
illustrations of them in the Bayeux tapestry. In that invaluable
historical monument, the minutest differences between the Saxon and Norman
knights and men-at-arms seem to be carefully observed, even to the
national fashions of cutting the hair; and we are therefore justified in
assuming that there were no material differences in the military
equipment, since we find none indicated, except that the Normans used the
long bow and the Saxons did not. We have abstained from taking any
illustrations from the tapestry, because the whole series has been several
times engraved, and is well known, or, at least, is easily accessible, to
those who are interested in the subject. We have preferred to take an
illustration from a MS. in the British Museum, marked Harleian 2,895, from
folio 82 v. The warrior, who is no less a person than Goliath of Gath, has
a hooded hauberk, with sleeves down to the elbow, over a green tunic. The
legs are tinted blue in the drawing, but seem to be unarmed, except for
the green boots, which reach half way to the knee. He wears an iron helmet
with a nasal, and the hood appears to be fastened to the nasal, so as to
protect the lower part of the face. The large shield is red, with a yellow
border, and is hung from the neck by a chain. The belt round his waist is
red. The well-armed giant leans upon his spear, looking down
contemptuously on David, whom it has not been thought necessary to include
in our copy of the picture. The group forms a very appropriate filling-in
of the great initial letter B of the Psalm _Benedictus Dns. Ds. Ms. qui
docet manus meas ad prælium et digitos meos ad bellum_ (Blessed be the
Lord my God, who teacheth my hands to war and my fingers to fight). In the
same MS., at folio 70, there are two men armed with helmet and sword, and
at folio 81 v. a group of armed men on horseback, in sword, shield, and
spurs.
It may be convenient to some of our readers, if we indicate here where a
few other examples of Saxon military costume may be found which we have
noted down, but have not had occasion to refer to in the above remarks.
[Illustration]
In the MS. of Prudentius (Cleopatra C. VIII.), from which we have taken
our first three woodcuts, are many other pictures well worth study. On the
same page (folio 1 v.) as that which contains our wood-cut p. 312, there
is another very similar group on the lower part of the page; on folio 2 is
still another group, in which some of the faces are most charming in
drawing and expression. At folio 15 v. there is a spirited combat of two
footmen, armed with sword and round shield, and clad in short leather
coats of fence, vandyked at the edges. At folio 24 v. is an allegorical
female figure in a short leather tunic, with shading on it which seems to
indicate that the hair of the leather has been left on, and is worn
outside, which we know from other sources was one of the fashions of the
time. In the MS. of Ælfric's Paraphrase (Claud. B. iv.) already quoted,
there are, besides the battle scene at folio 24 v., in which occurs the
king and his armour-bearer, at folio 25 two long lines of Saxon horsemen
marching across the page, behind Abraham, who wears a crested Phrygian
helm. On the reverse of folio 25 there is another group, and also on
folios 62 and 64. On folio 52 is another troop, of Esau's horsemen,
marching across the page in ranks of four abreast, all bareheaded and
armed with spears. At folio 96 v. is another example of a warrior, with a
shield-bearer. The pictures in the latter part of this MS. are not nearly
so clearly delineated as in the former part, owing to their having been
tinted with colour; the colour, however, enables us still more completely
to fill in to the mind's eye the distinct forms which we have gathered
from the former part of the book. The large troops of soldiers are
valuable, as showing us the style of equipment which was common in the
Saxon militia.
There is another MS. of Prudentius in the British Museum of about the same
date, and of the same school of art, though not quite so finely executed,
which is well worth the study of the artist in search of authorities for
Saxon military (and other) costume, and full of interest for the amateur
of art and archæology. Its press mark is Cottonian, Titus D. XVI. On the
reverse of folio 2 is a group of three armed horsemen, representing the
confederate kings of Canaan carrying off Lot, while Abraham, at the head
of another group of armed men, is pursuing them. On folio 3 is another
group of armed horsemen. After these Scripture histories come some
allegorical subjects, conceived and drawn with great spirit. At folio 6
v., "_Pudicitia pugnat contra Libidinem_," Pudicitia being a woman armed
with hauberk, helmet, spear, and shield. On the opposite page
Pudicitia--in a very spirited attitude--is driving her spear through the
throat of Libido. On folio 26 v., "_Discordia vulnerat occulte
Concordium_." Concord is represented as a woman armed with a loose-sleeved
hauberk, helmet, and sword. Discord is lifting up the skirt of Concord's
hauberk, and thrusting a sword into her side. In the Harleian MS. 2,803,
is a Vulgate Bible, of date about 1170 A.D.; there are no pictures, only
the initial letters of the various books are illuminated. But while the
illuminator was engaged upon the initial of the Second Book of Kings, his
eye seems to have been caught by the story of Saul's death in the last
chapter of the First Book, which happens to come close by in the parallel
column of the great folio page:--_Arripuit itaqu, gladium et erruit sup.
eum_ (Therefore Saul took a sword, and fell upon it); and he has sketched
in the scene with pen-and-ink on the margin of the page, thus affording us
another authority for the armour of a Saxon king when actually engaged in
battle. He wears a hauberk, with an ornamented border, has his crown on
his head, and spurs on his heels; has placed his sword-hilt on the ground,
and fallen upon it.
In the Additional MS. 11,695, on folio 102 v., are four armed men on
horseback, habited in hauberks without hoods. Two of them have the sleeves
extending to the wrist, two have loose sleeves to the elbow only, showing
that the two fashions were worn contemporaneously. They all have mail
hose; one of them is armed with a bow, the rest with the sword. There are
four men in similar armour on folio 136 v. of the same MS. Also at folio
143, armed with spear, sword, and round ornamented shield. At folio 222 v.
are soldiers manning a gate-tower.
When the soldiers so very generally wore the ordinary citizen costume, it
becomes necessary, in order to give a complete picture of the military
costume, to say a few words on the dress which the soldier wore in common
with the citizen. The tunic and mantle composed the national costume of
the Saxons. The tunic reached about to the knee: sometimes it was slit up
a little way at the sides, and it often had a rich ornamented border round
the hem, extending round the side slits, making the garment almost exactly
resemble the ecclesiastical tunic or Dalmatic. It had also very generally
a narrower ornamental border round the opening for the neck. The tunic was
sometimes girded round the waist.
The Saxons were famous for their skill in embroidery, and also in
metal-work; and there are sufficient proofs that the tunic was often
richly embroidered. There are indications of it in the wood-cut on p. 316;
and in the relics of costume found in the Saxon graves are often buckles
of elegant workmanship, which fastened the belt with which the tunic was
girt.
The mantle was in the form of a short cloak, and was usually fastened at
the shoulder, as in the wood-cuts on pp. 312, 313, 314, so as to leave the
right arm unencumbered by its folds. The brooch with which this cloak was
fastened formed a very conspicuous item of costume. They were of large
size, some of them of bronze gilt, others of gold, beautifully ornamented
with enamels; and there is this interesting fact about them, they seem to
corroborate the old story, that the Saxon invaders were of three different
tribes--the Jutes, Angles, and Saxons--who subdued and inhabited different
portions of Britain. For in Kent and the Isle of Wight, the settlements
of the Jutes, brooches are found of circular form, often of gold and
enamelled. In the counties of Yorkshire, Derby, Leicester, Nottingham,
Northampton, and in the eastern counties, a large gilt bronze brooch of
peculiar form is very commonly found, and seems to denote a peculiar
fashion of the Angles, who inhabited East Anglia, Mercia, and Northumbria.
Still another variety of fashion, shaped like a saucer, has been
discovered in the counties of Gloucester, Oxford, and Buckingham, on the
border between the Mercians and West Saxons. It is curious to find these
peculiar fashions thus confirming the ancient and obscure tradition about
the original Saxon settlements. The artist will bear in mind that the
Saxons seem generally to have settled in the open country, not in the
towns, and to have built timber halls and cottages after their own custom,
and to have avoided the sites of the Romano-British villas, whose
blackened ruins must have thickly dotted at least the southern and
south-eastern parts of the island. They appear to have built no
fortresses, if we except a few erected at a late period, to check the
incursions of the Danes. But they had the old Roman towns left, in many
cases with their walls and gates tolerably entire. In the Saxon MS.
Psalter, Harleian 603, are several illuminations in which walled towns and
gates are represented. But we do not gather that they were very skilful
either in the attack or defence of fortified places. Indeed, their weapons
and armour were of a very primitive kind, and their warfare seems to have
been conducted after a very unscientific fashion. Little chance had their
rude Saxon hardihood against the military genius of William the Norman and
the disciplined valour of his bands of mercenaries.