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[Illustration: ABBOT COLCHESTER.]
WILLIAM DE COLCHESTER
ABBOT OF WESTMINSTER
BY E. H. PEARCE
CANON OF WESTMINSTER
SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE
LONDON: Northumberland Avenue, W.C.
New York: E. S. GORHAM
1915
TO J. D. AND H. R. D. WITH AFFECTION
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. A Window in the Nave 9
II. A Novice from Essex 14
III. A Man of Affairs 21
IV. A Proctor at Rome 30
V. An Archdeacon 41
VI. Abbot of Westminster 52
VII. The Abbot at Home 60
VIII. The Abbot Abroad 73
NOTE
Having had the honour of an invitation to deliver in May last a "Friday
Evening Discourse" at the Royal Institution on the Archives of Westminster
Abbey, I thought it best to confine what I could say within an hour to
the career of a single man, preferably one whose record had not hitherto
been written. I have here expanded the lecture to some extent, and have
added references. I am indebted to Mr. David Weller, the Dean's Virger,
for some excellent pictures.
E. H. P.
3, Little Cloisters,
_September, 1915._
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
TO FACE PAGE
Abbot Colchester _Frontispiece_
The Kitchener's Account for Pancakes 28
Chambers in Little Cloisters 48
The Personal Effects of Abbot Litlington 54
Abbot Colchester's Seal 74
Coronation of Henry V. 80
WILLIAM DE COLCHESTER
I
A WINDOW IN THE NAVE
When the body of the late Lord Kelvin was laid to rest, by a right
which there was none to dispute, in the Abbey Church of Westminster, it
was placed, by the same kind of right, close to the grave of Sir Isaac
Newton. In the same corner there are the graves, or the memorials, of
Darwin and Herschel, of Joule and Gabriel Stokes and John Couch Adams,
to be joined shortly by tablets in memory of Alfred Russel Wallace,
of Sir Joseph Hooker, and of another Joseph, who died Lord Lister. It
was not likely that Kelvin would long lack some memorial more impressive
than the slab which covers his remains, and it was a happy and appropriate
impulse which caused the representatives of engineering science on both
sides of the Atlantic to undertake the task of providing one. But what
form could it best take? The walls of the church have been overcrowded,
to the grievous destruction of some precious features. The floor-space, as
the centuries following the Reformation were apt to forget, is intended
to serve the purposes of public worship. But the large windows of the
Nave offer to those who would honour and foster the memory of the great
dead a means of fulfilling their desire, and of adorning the fabric at
the same time. In this case the chance was welcomed, and Kelvin has his
Abbey memorial in stained glass. The window is one of a series projected
in 1907 by Dr. Armitage Robinson, now Dean of Wells, and loyally accepted
by his successor in the Deanery of Westminster--a series in which there
are placed side by side a King of England who contributed either to the
greatness of the foundation or to the majesty of the building, and the
Abbot through whom the King worked his pious will. The King in this case
is Harry of Monmouth, and we are thinking with somewhat mingled feelings
that October 25, 1915, brings us to the 500th anniversary of the battle
of Agincourt. But it is Henry V.'s Abbot who concerns us now; for in such
a scheme of windows the Abbots are more difficult to justify to the
ordinary visitor than the monarchs, not because of unworthiness,
but because there has been but little effort made to appraise their
worth as heads of our ancient house, or as conspicuous figures in their
generation.[1]
In this case the Abbot is William of Colchester. As we shall see, his
character is depicted by Shakespeare, but he has no article to his credit
in the _Dictionary of National Biography_. If he is to be brought back
from obscurity, it can only be accomplished by repeated visits to the
Abbey Muniment Room. I shall therefore ask the reader to climb with me
the turret staircase which is approached from a door in the East Cloister,
and to enter a noble apartment of which that cloister is the origin. For
when Henry III.'s builders came to the planning of the South Transept,
known as Poets' Corner, the lines of the Great Cloister had already
been long established, and must not be minished or altered by the new
work. Therefore, whereas the North Transept has aisles on its east side
and on its west, the South Transept is aisled only on the east side.
The East Cloister occupies the space of what would otherwise be the
western aisle, and thus upholds the floor of the apartment which we
enter. We look into the distant recesses of the Abbey eastward, through
three of Henry III.'s bays, across a low wall split up by the bases of
dwarf pillars. There are signs of royalty in the room, such as the crowned
heads at the capitals of the pillars of the colonnade by which we enter,
and on the wooden wall which shuts off the southern section is the outline
of a white hart crowned, the emblem of Richard II. Professor Lethaby has
suggested to me that such a point of vantage from which to see what stones
and what buildings are here, and from which to observe some procession
of State as it arrives from the Palace by Poets' Corner door and makes
its solemn circuit of the church, would naturally be appropriated as a
royal pew. Be that as it may, the room was set apart in very early times
for the storing of muniments; it contains a cupboard which probably dates
from Richard II.'s reign and now stands under Richard II.'s hart; and at
least one of its archive chests, if not more, belongs to the fourteenth
century. We may assume, then, that here, from that century onwards, the
Convent kept its official archives--charters, leases, acquittances, and
the annual account-rolls of its officers. Here, for the last twenty years,
the Dean and Chapter have had the constant service of Dr. Edward Scott,
formerly of the British Museum, as the Keeper of their muniments. He
has written with his own hand over 110,000 descriptions of documents,
and has compiled, and is still steadily compiling, an index of persons and
things. I am merely attempting to construct a life of Abbot Colchester out
of documents which I have spelt out with Dr. Scott's assistance. Any one
who finds the story uninteresting must console himself with the thought
that it has not been told before.
II
A NOVICE FROM ESSEX
In Shakespeare's _Tragedy of King Richard II._, there is an Abbot of
Westminster who flits craftily across the scene, generally shadowing a
Bishop of Carlisle, whom we shall meet again. When Bolingbroke announces
that he is about to be crowned King in Richard's stead, this Abbot bids
his friends--
"Come home with me to supper; and I'll lay
A plot shall show us all a merry day."[2]
In the next act[3] it is stated that he is dead--
"The grand conspirator, Abbot of Westminster,
With clog of conscience and sour melancholy
Hath yielded up his body to the grave."
As to which it must be sufficient to say that the poet who could not give
the Abbot's name was equally unconscious of the fact that he outlived
his alleged conspiracy by twenty years.
But his name was William Colchester, and we may begin by assuming that,
as his name implies, he was a Colchester man. In and before his time,
and for a considerable space afterwards, the customary designation of
a Brother was his Christian name and a place name, with or without the
copula _de_; in earlier years he called himself William de Colchester,
but the documents which concern him as Abbot mostly speak of William
Colchester, or William Abbot of Westminster. Nor are we left to
guess-work as to the place of his origin. In later life, according to
the habit of his time, he busied himself with the endowment of obits,
or anniversaries, for the good of his soul. Here is a document,[4]
dated May 20, 1406, in which he bargained with the Prior of St. Botolph,
Colchester, having paid 40_s._ to Henry IV.'s Clerk of the Hanaper to
seal the bargain, that one of the canon-chaplains of that Priory should
say Mass every week, at sixpence a week, for his soul and for the
souls of his parents; that the Prior and his Brethren should observe
his anniversary, again with a memorial of his parents, in the parish
church of St. Nicholas, Colchester; that a set sum should be distributed
yearly to the vicar of St. Nicholas, to the poor of the parish, and to
the prisoners in Colchester Castle; and that the tomb of his parents
in the parish churchyard should be kept in proper repair.
We may conclude, then, that this was his native parish, and that in
his great position as Abbot of Westminster he wished the connexion
to be had in remembrance. But he knew to a mile the distance between
his Abbey and Colchester, and how easy it might be for the Prior of St.
Botolph to accept his bequest and to neglect to fulfil its conditions.
So in 1407 (December 3), when he was completing the arrangements[5] for
maintaining an anniversary at the Abbey out of the revenues of the church
of Aldenham,[6] in Hertfordshire, he inserted an instruction that the
Monk-Bailiff of Westminster, at the time of his annual visit to the
Essex manors, should either proceed or send to Colchester and make
careful inquiry as to the due observance of the covenants, as who should
say, "It is as well not to trust these provincial Priors further than
you can see them."
We get to know also from the grant[7] of another anniversary at the
Abbey's daughter Priory of Hurley, in Berkshire, that his father's name
was Reginald, and his mother's Alice. He had a sister who in 1389-90
was living in Cambridge, for in that year his Receiver entered a gift
of 12_d._ to a man who came from my lord's sister at that town; and we
shall find that he had other connexions, some poor enough to bring him
a basket of poultry, some rich enough to receive from him a present of
jewelry. Evidently he sprang from a burgher stock of no great eminence,
for whom the Church seemed the sphere in which the career was opened to
the talents.
How he came to enter our Monastery we shall never know, for with all the
wealth of our materials there survives not a trace of his or of any other
postulant's testimonials. He came, he was seen, he was admitted. We know
what the requisites were--that he must have examined his conscience as
to the motives which led him to apply, that he must be sound in body,
free in civil status, unburdened by debt or other obligations, and as a
rule not less than eighteen years of age.[8] What steps the Fathers of
the Convent took to secure outside evidence of a candidate's fitness
in these respects must be left to the imagination. He passed muster and
joined their number.
Our first trace of William Colchester's name on the books of the House
is in connexion with his ordination as priest. I cannot tell what
Bishop admitted him to the ministry, nor where it took place, but it
can be ascertained that he said Mass for the first time during 1361-2
(the conventual year was reckoned for administrative purposes, as it
is still, from Michaelmas to Michaelmas), and we are able to discover
this, not because it was felt to be an event worth chronicling for its
own sake, but because in that year three of the officers note that they
severally expended 1s. 7-1/2_d._ in bread and wine as "exennia"--_i.e._
a complimentary gift[9]--made to him in honour of the event. We may
suppose that he was then twenty-three years of age; he may have entered
the Convent in or about 1356; and we may take 1338 as the probable year
of his birth. If, as we have assumed, he entered the Convent some
years before his ordination, then he did so during the reign of Simon
Langham, the most eminent of all our Abbots, but it is not possible to
say whether he received priest's orders before or after the election
of Nicholas Litlington to the Abbacy in April, 1362. The Monastery was
still suffering in numbers from the ravages of the Great Pestilence in
1349, and consisted in 1356-7 of only thirty-five monks and two novices.
Colchester was the last of five new members of whom we hear first
in 1361-2.
Five years later, in 1366-7, he was chosen by the Convent as one of two
of their number whom they thought specially apt to learning, and whom
it was therefore their duty to send up to Oxford to join the other
Benedictine students at Gloucester Hall, an institution established
by the Order in its General Chapter held at Abingdon in 1290.[10] Our
custom was that the Convent Treasurer paid L10 yearly to each Westminster
student for his maintenance,[11] besides the cost of his journeys to
and fro; so that it is possible to compile from the Treasurers' rolls a
fairly complete list of our Oxford scholars from 1356, when I came upon
the first signs of a definite system, until the Dissolution. The plan
tended to the great advantage of the monasteries; it meant that the
likely young men were taken at an impressionable time in their lives
out of the narrow rut of cloistral life, and were associated with the
world of scholarship and of affairs; and it will be found that a large
proportion of those who were sent to Oxford rose quickly to positions
of trust in the Convent. William Colchester remained at Oxford, save for
periodical visits to the Abbey, from 1366 to 1370. It cannot be said that
the Latin prose of which he was capable does credit to his University,
and even monkish Latinity was seldom worse than that in which his few
surviving letters are couched. But it is fair to assume that he learnt how
to deal with men, and we can now go on to see that the Convent which had
supported him at Oxford was satisfied with the product of its expenditure.
III
A MAN OF AFFAIRS
Soon after his return from the University two things happened, as if to
signify that his competence was recognized. In October, 1371, he was
promoted, as the Westminster phrase went, to sit by the bell--sedere
ad skillam; that is to say, he moved up to the seniors' table in the
Refectory, where was the bell or skyllet which gave the signal for grace
to be said, or for the reader of the week to begin the lection. Like the
day of his first Mass, this promotion, coming as a rule not less than ten
years later, was reckoned to be an occasion for a little addition to the
usually frugal fare, and we can state the date of it because the Sacrist
and the Infirmarer and the Treasurer each sent him bread and wine to the
value of 2_s._ 3-1/2_d._, so that he might make merry with his friends.
Secondly, he begins to be recognized as an experienced person who can
safely be sent upon missions involving prudence and the management of
men. In the same year, 1371-2, a payment of twenty shillings was made
by the Steward of the Abbot's Household for the expenses of William
Colchester and two valets who were sent to Northampton for the meeting of
the General Chapter of the English Benedictines, probably in attendance
on the Abbot of Westminster, who was frequently one of the Presidents
of the Chapter.
But the next year, 1372-3, as we learn from the Sacrist, saw Colchester
entrusted with a still more delicate duty. It was on this wise. Among
the precious relics given to the Abbey by Edward the Confessor[12]
was the girdle of the Virgin Mary--zona beate Marie--which she had
made with her own hands and had herself worn.[13] It was regarded as
having especial value in securing a safe delivery to expectant mothers,
and when the Westminster Book of Customs was compiled by Abbot Richard
de Ware about a century before Colchester's admission, it was the rule
that the Sacrist or, as he was sometimes called, the Secretary, should
carry the girdle of the blessed Mother of God to any destination which
it was appointed to reach, or should be at charges with the bearer
of it in his place.[14] So here is our Sacrist paying the expenses of
William Colchester, namely, 13_s._ 4_d._, and the more considerable
price of two horses for the journey, L6 16_s._ 8_d._ But the Sacrist
has something to enter on the other side, an offering of L2 from the
Countess of March, the lady who craved the aid of the girdle. If any
one is churlish enough to say that the bargain seems but a poor one
for the Convent--150_s._ spent on the journey, and only 40_s._ received
from the beneficiary--the answer is that the horses would be sold at the
end of the return journey for almost as much as they cost. If, again,
it is objected that in any case the lady's gift was money thrown away,
it is not so easy to convince the gainsayer. For while it is on record
that on February 12, 1371 (_i.e._ in the year previous to that of the
Sacrist's account), the lady Philippa, granddaughter of Edward III.,
did present her husband, the 3rd Earl of March, with a daughter who in
process of time became the wife of Harry Hotspur, yet it does not appear
that she was equally blessed during the year 1372-3.
Such duties sensibly performed, William Colchester was not long in
attaining to administrative office. To begin with, Abbot Litlington
chose him as his Custos Hospicii; _i.e._ Seneschal or steward of his
household. We have the roll on which the young monk gave an account of
his stewardship for the year Michaelmas to Michaelmas, 1373-4, and as
the doings it records represent his early experience of that conventual
business in which he was to be immersed for nearly half a century,
we may stay by it for a short space in order to get our impressions.
He found his master in possession of a considerable rent-roll in
various parts of the country, the manors being situate in the counties
of Worcester, Gloucester, Oxford, Surrey, Buckingham, and Middlesex. The
rentals amounted to L696 13_s._ 6_d._, and the sale of stock, including
an ox sold for 18_s._ 4_d._, and a cow--timore pestilencie--for 13_s._,
brought the total to L719 8_s._ 8_d._ Large as this sum sounds,
especially when multiplied to correspond with present values, it was
none too large for the needs of the position. Household expenses,
which are not entered in detail, came to L151 1_s._ 4-1/2_d._ The
purchase of live-stock--grey palfreys, bullocks, cows, steers, sheep,
pigs, swans, poultry, and no less than 966 pigeons at about 1/2_d._
each--required L63 2_s._ 10_d._, and the outlay on dead stock such as
bacon, salt-fish, five barrels of white herring, fourteen casks of red
herring, and three casks of Scottish red herring, amounted to L31 8_s._
4_d._ Lest it should be claimed that the Scottish variety was a special
delicacy, we must add that the latter cost only 4_s._ a barrel as against
5_s._ 6_d._ for the other. Nor, if the quantities seem large, must it
be lightly concluded that there was carelessness in the dispensation;
indeed, it was the Seneschal's duty to enter on the back of his roll
a stock-keeping account, from which it may be gleaned that all the
herrings were consumed and eighty pigs; but there was a residue of five
salt-fish and of two out of sixteen bullocks. Altogether in corn and
wine and clothing and gifts to visitors and in other ways there was an
expenditure of L684 to set against a revenue of L719.
But what we want is an idea of the duties and experiences that came to
the young Seneschal, and this can be obtained from various items. He
gets a pair of my lord's boots mended for twopence, and small sums go in
stringing the great sportman's bows or in buying bags in which to carry
his arrow-heads. That which cost more, and was probably more interesting
to Colchester himself, was the coming and going of personages or their
servants--the squire of the Earl of Cambridge (Edmund Langley, fifth
son of Edward III.), who receives 20_s._ for bringing a letter to the
Abbot from his lord; the Earl of Warwick's steward, who comes to sell
a black palfrey; a monk of his own year, Richard Excestr', who is just
starting on his career at Oxford, and to whom the Abbot gives a fatherly
present of 20_s._; the Bishop of Durham's[15] man, whose master we know
as the builder of Bishop Hatfield Hall, and who is sent with a gift of
two greyhounds to the Abbot. Several messengers arrive from the Prince,
_i.e._ the Black Prince, who is now at Wycombe and now at Kensington, and
Abbot Litlington makes several journeys by boat to call on the Bishop of
Winchester, no less a personage than William of Wykeham, who was in some
disgrace at the time.
Having in this way served the Abbot efficiently, Colchester received
his next responsibility from the whole Chapter, who chose him as Convent
Treasurer, and "Coquinarius" or Kitchener, for the year 1375-6. Happily
we still possess his compotus as such. I must not describe it at length,
but one feature of it, an entry under the head of "pitancie et flacones,"
is of too great interest to be passed by. Pittances were additional
meals on special occasions by way of varying the dreary round of dry
bread and sour wine, which alone could be provided in the Refectory. But
"flacones" seem to be pancakes, and pancakes are a recognized Westminster
institution, though it is no longer the duty of the Convent Treasurer to
provide them for his brethren. I first translate the item as Colchester
entered it:
"Paid in milk, 'creym,' butter, cheese and eggs bought for the
pancakes in Easter week, on Rogation days and at Pentecost,
64_s._ 8_d._"
And now for some further light upon it. In 1389, when Colchester had
occupied the Abbot's chair for three years, the Kitchener was Brother
William Clehungre or Clayhanger, who has left us his bill[16] for
materials, and from this it will appear how the pancake-custom has
developed in the interval. It sets forth his
"expenses laid out in respect of the pancakes prescribed for the
brethren and delivered to the monastery according to custom during
56 days each year, namely from Easter Day to Trinity Sunday,
in the 12th year of the reign of King Richard II., as appears
by all the parcels:--
L _s._ _d._
Milk. First 126 gallons of milk
@ 1_d._ the gallon 10 6
Butter. Also 3 gallons 3 qrts of butter
@ 2_s._ 4_d._ the gallon 9 4-1/2
Eggs. Also 5816 eggs
@ 10_d._ the hundred 2 8 5-1/4
Salt. Also one peck of salt @ 3_d._ 3
--------------
Total L3 8 11-3/4"
Our Kitchener makes some trifling assumptions in his multiplication as
to the butter and the eggs, and he robs the Convent of fivepence when
he adds up the total. The number of eggs sounds large, but it means
only 103 and a fraction daily, and when it is considered that in 1389
the Prior and his Brethren numbered forty-nine persons, this works out
at the by no means excessive rate of 2-1/2 eggs daily to each brother.
[Illustration: THE KITCHENER'S ACCOUNT FOR PANCAKES.]
But there is a local reason for dwelling on this custom. Westminster
School is admittedly a Tudor foundation, but at the Abbey we cherish
the conviction that its roots penetrate deep down into the monastic
soil. Every Shrove Tuesday the school--in modern times by means of
selected gladiators--makes a furious onset upon a single pancake.
Mr. Sergeaunt[17] speaks of the ceremony as "the sole survivor of the
medieval sports," and adds that "although its origin cannot be traced,
it can hardly have come into being after the date of Elizabeth's
foundation." Is it, then, beyond all likelihood that it arose out of some
ancient protest of our Benedictines against the prospect of being fed
upon pancakes every day for eight weeks? Is it inconceivable that the
successful protestant was conducted at the end of the "greese," as now,
to the Lord Abbot's presence to receive one mark from his lordship's
bounty? All we can say is that the Brethren continued to be similarly
regaled from Easter to Trinity until the Dissolution of the House.
IV
A PROCTOR AT ROME
William Colchester ceased to be Treasurer in the autumn of 1376, and
within eight months circumstances had arisen in which his capacities were
to be put to a severer and more prolonged test. We are all familiar with
the expression "St. Stephen's," as applied to Parliament House. But it
is not as readily realized that the House of Commons, after sitting for
long years in the Chapter House[18] at the Abbey, removed itself at
the Dissolution to the ancient Chapel of St. Stephen in the Palace of
Westminster. I am only concerned now with the story of that chapel[19]
as it is related to William Colchester's career. Placed where it was, it
stood within the ancient limits of our Abbot's jurisdiction, but its Dean
and his twelve Prebendaries had good grounds for regarding themselves
as a royal foundation, and they craved the kind of ecclesiastical
independence which attaches to-day to St. George's Chapel in Windsor
Castle. Our Convent resisted this claim, which, on the other hand, had
the good will of the Court. In 1377 a suit to test the rights of the
case was entered before the Roman Curia, and it was necessary to appoint
some careful and astute person to take charge in Rome of the Abbey's
interests, and to negotiate their success. I will not go further into
the merits of the case. It lasted for seventeen years, and was ultimately
settled, on the whole, in the Abbey's favour, the College of St. Stephen
agreeing to pay to the Abbey a yearly sum of five marks, and the right
of the Abbot to instal the Dean of St. Stephen's being upheld.[20]
What concerns us is that the Abbot and Convent chose William Colchester
as their proctor at Rome in this suit, and that by good fortune there
survive long statements of his personal and legal costs in carrying out
the task laid upon him. They will serve as a guide-book of his journey
and will give us considerable insight into his adventures.[21]
He left Westminster on June[22] 10, 1377, and was absent, as he is careful
to record, for two years, twenty-three weeks, and three days. His first
business was to furnish himself with official commendations, and to
this end he sought for royal letters--pro expedicione cause--from the
Keeper of the Privy Seal; he paid 3_s._ 4_d._ to the Keeper's servant to
urge his master to dictate them, and by a like payment he made things
right with the scrivener who would execute them; but the letters were
not ready when he started. Meantime we can watch him as he reckons up
the difficulties of his ordeal. It was arranged that he should go by
way of Avignon, for Master Thomas Southam,[23] Archdeacon of Oxford,
was still there, settling the affairs of Cardinal Langham's will. But
the Pope was no longer there. Gregory XI. had quitted that scene of
luxurious exile and ravenous extortion on September 13, 1376, and had
entered Rome on January 17, 1377.[24] Most Englishmen had resented
the Avignonese sojourn because it threw the Papacy into the hands of
the French, but William Colchester, as he packed his valise, saw the
matter in a different light. Because the Pope had left, there was
no great chance of finding company for the journey;[25] and company
meant so much the more security. There was nothing for it but to hire
a companion, and he found one Gerard of London, who was willing to face
the journey for 20_s._ and his expenses. Colchester is conscious that
this seems an extravagance, but he enters in his account a plea that it
was justified by the variety of language and the dangers of the roads in
foreign parts.[26] For the road to Dover he bought for himself a horse and
saddle which cost 34_s._ 8_d._; but it appears that he rather expected
the man Gerard to walk, for he extenuates a further payment of 26_s._
8_d._ for a horse, a saddle, and bridle for Gerard, by stating that
the man entirely declined to go afoot. Thus mounted, they reached Dover,
where they wasted five days in waiting for a passage, and all the time
the cost of food was mounting up at the rate of sixpence a day for each
horse, and fivepence a meal for each man. The passage, when they obtained
one, cost 3_s._ 4_d._ each for the men, and double for the horses. At
that cost they reached Calais, and within three days were at Bruges,
where again there was a long halt. For the royal letters had not come.
Edward III. was on his death-bed, and passed away eleven days after
our travellers left London. But Colchester is convinced that an enemy
had done this, and when he insists that the issue of the letters has
been frustrated "per aduersarios," we must remember that the Dean and
College of St. Stephen's were closer to the royal ear than our Abbot and
Convent. Whatever the cause, the result was the entry in his account of
the cost of nine days' commissariat at Bruges, together with a reward
of 10_d._ to the hotel servants, which he at once resents and excuses
as being the custom of the country.[27] In brief, he had already spent
nearly all the L10 which he received at his journey's start from the hands
of Brother John Lakyngheth, his rival for monastic promotion.
So now he converts his balance of 16_s._ 8_d._ from sterling into florins,
reckoning a florin at 3_s._ 2_d._ To this he adds seven florins by the
sale of his own horse--a creditable bargain, for, having paid 34_s._
8_d._ for the beast in London, he has ridden it to Bruges, and there
parted with it for 22_s._ 2_d._ On the other hand, Gerard's horse has
turned out badly; the journey has nearly killed it;[28] and it goes for
three florins, or 9_s._ 6_d._ Colchester negotiated a loan of twenty-three
florins, and on they went towards the south, sometimes hiring mounts,
sometimes begging a ride in a cart, often in terror of the Frenchmen,
who laid an ambush for them as they entered Dauphine, so that our
travellers hired a guide and went through byways. On the 27th day after
leaving Bruges they entered Avignon, and next day they found Master
Southam at his lodgings by the church of Our Lady of Miracles.
For a moment I lay aside Colchester's ledger and turn to a separate
document; for Southam had with him at Avignon another Westminster monk,
John Farnago, who became Colchester's paymaster and in due course
presented to the Abbey an account[29] of what he had laid out on his
behalf. We are thus furnished with the date of the arrival of Colchester
and Gerard--July 24--and learn that they required bed and board at
Avignon till August 19. Farnago purchased for his Brother a fresh
outfit--cape, tunic, and hood of black Benedictine cloth, a scapular
and cowl, and a plain colobium (or sleeveless tunic), buying the last,
as he says, from Hagyuus, a Jew, whose real name was probably Hayyim. He
also provided a horse for the journey to Marseilles, where Colchester
was to take ship, and put some money in his scrip. So our Proctor turned
his back on Avignon, perhaps not fully realizing that when on August 14,
five days before his departure, he and Farnago witnessed the probate of
Cardinal Langham's will,[30] he had been concerned with a document which
was to have a vast effect on the church and the conventual buildings
of St. Peter, Westminster.
We turn back to Colchester's own ledger, and note that he does not enter
the actual date of his arrival in Rome; but we can fix it fairly closely.
He says that, having got thus far, he was obliged to move on to Anagni,
some forty miles southward from Rome on the road to Naples; and we know
that Gregory XI., who had spent the summer of 1377 there, returned to
Rome on November 17.[31] Colchester must have found the Papal Court busy
at the packing of its trunks and must have returned with it forthwith
to Rome; for the first date that he mentions is November 20. It would
be wearisome to pursue the details of his activity in engaging counsel,
English and Italian, and in paying their fees; but it is worth while
to notice that there has been no great change since his day in legal
expressions--retinuit duos aduocatos--and perhaps not a complete reform
of illegal practice; for instance, he explains that he gave six florins
to the valet--cubicularius--of the Cardinal of Milan, who was concerned in
the decision of the case, with a view to the man's stirring up his master
to sign a certain document; the object of the gift, says Colchester,
was greater security, because at the moment there was a fierce altercation
between the parties to the suit.
His expenses, already large, received a sudden addition through the death,
on March 27, 1378, of Gregory XI. Seldom can an observant traveller have
had a more exciting experience than to be in Rome during the session of
the Consistory[32] which set Bartolommeo Prignano, Archbishop of Bari,
upon what Colchester calls "the apex of the chief Apostolate." On personal
grounds our monk must have been pleased at the choice of the electors,
for the new Pope was the special _protege_ of the French Cardinal of
Pampeluna, Simon Langham's friend and executor. But financially the
effect was provoking. We know that Urban VI. proved himself a man "full
of Neapolitan fire and savagery," who thought "that the Cardinals could
be reduced to absolute obedience by mere rudeness,"[33] and we are quite
prepared for Colchester's statement that between the Pope and the Sacred
College there arose a great dissension. Cardinals and curials fled
secretly, he says, in some numbers, and among the latter the two advocates
whom he had briefed and paid. That money at any rate was a dead loss, but
there was this advantage in Urban's case, that, knowing the preference of
the Cardinals for Anagni as a summer residence, he decided for Tivoli in
their despite, and Colchester could get there in a few hours for a couple
of florins. Six weeks had to be spent within sound of Horace's waterfall
before his business was finished. His return journey led him through Nice,
where he was robbed of his cloak and other property. Then to Avignon
once more, and thence in due course--at least, so he hoped--to the Abbey.
But he was fated, nevertheless, to turn again and revisit the Roman
Court; for while he tarried in Master Southam's lodgings at Avignon,
in September, 1378, there came news of a notable murder committed in the
church of Westminster while the Gospel was being read at High Mass,[34]
on August, 11. The victim was one Robert Hawle, who had escaped from
the Tower and had taken sanctuary at Westminster. The incident had its
political aspects; it raised various perilous questions; and Southam
advised that Colchester should return to Rome in order to counteract any
plots that might be mooted in behalf of the authors of "that horrible
deed." So again the expenses began to roll up--the journey overland
to Marseilles; a passage by galley to Ostia; a sojourn in Rome for the
greater part of December, 1378; gratuities on several occasions to the
Papal janitors for free entrance to the Chamber and the Consistory, and to
the valets for access to the Pope himself; an expensive struggle by each
faction to extract from the Curia the kind of Bull that each side wanted,
in which our Proctor was apparently successful; and a journey from Rome
to Bruges lasting forty-one days. Colchester waited for three weeks at
Sluis to secure a passage across the Channel, in the belief that the
enemy was watching Calais with the intention of doing him violence;[35]
and when he reached his native shore, he rode up to London by ways that
were devious for the same reason, arriving there in November, 1379. It
was neither easy nor without peril to be the chosen representative of
Westminster at the Roman Court.
V
AN ARCHDEACON
It is not doubtful that the Abbot and Chapter were well pleased with
Colchester's fulfilment of the duties entrusted to him and that the
large bill of costs was paid, if not with delight, at any rate with
resignation. Of this we have several conclusive indications. First,
within a brief space the Convent again despatched him to Rome, in 1382-3,
doubtless to continue his management of the same suit. This time there
is no record of his payments, nor should we be aware of his journey if
it were not for two documents. One is the Chamberlain's compotus-roll
of 1382-3. These accounts presented a balance of money on the one side,
and a balance of materials on the other side; it was necessary for the
Chamberlain to show, not merely that he had purchased so many outfits, but
that he had distributed these outfits to such and such Brethren. So when
he makes his statement about the habits--panni nigri--he notes that he
did not give these to Brother William Colchester nor to Brother William
Halle, because they were at Rome. No doubt, Colchester had represented
to the Chapter the wisdom of providing him with a companion from the
monastery instead of his hiring a courier as before. The other is a legal
document, whose purport is of some personal interest. When Colchester
left Westminster in 1382-3, Richard Excestr' was about to resign the
Priorship, which he had held only since 1377. Attempts seem to have
been made, perhaps by some of Colchester's Roman friends during his
stay at the Curia, to secure a "provision" of the vacant office for him
from the Pope, and the efforts succeeded. The document in question[36]
bears date January 2, 1384, and is of the nature of a pardon to Colchester
for the prejudice or contempt caused by such efforts to the Crown and
its prerogatives. He denied that he was party to the attempt, and paid
the necessary fee to the Hanaper for his pardon. The Priorship another
took;[37] not, perhaps, because the Brethren thought Colchester unworthy
of promotion or too young for it, but because the interests of the
House required that he should go to Rome, whither he was sent, as the
Treasurers' rolls inform us, both in 1384-5 and 1385-6. The suit against
St. Stephen's Chapel still dragged on, and he alone had the knowledge
and the experience for hastening its delays.
As a second proof of the confidence reposed in him we may note that in
1382[38] he was Archdeacon of the Convent; it is possible that he held
the post earlier; certainly he held it in 1386; and probably he owed it to
the Abbot personally. The office of Archdeacon is proverbially puzzling
to the lay mind, and it may be that the Archdeaconry of Westminster
creates some wonder in the minds even of other Archdeacons. The fact is
that the Abbot in the exercise of jurisdiction over his Westminster area
required the services of an ecclesiastical jurist in matters of divorce
and of excommunication and the like; he needed also some one who would
serve as his pastoral representative to those denizens of the area who
were not on the foundation of the Convent. For this reason, even in
Abbot Ware's time,[39] the Archdeacon was permitted to walk abroad
to the Palace or elsewhere in the discharge of his duties, which,
indeed, might take him much further afield; for when Abbot Colchester
drew up an indenture[40] appropriating to certain memorial purposes the
revenues of Aldenham church, he inserted a provision that the Archdeacon
of Westminster for the time being should be in charge of the parish,
receiving 40_s._ yearly for his labour therein. We have seen that
Colchester's experience marked him out for juridical duties, and we
must assume that he was not without pastoral zeal and aptitude.
A letter in Norman French addressed by "William, Conte de Salisbury"
to Abbot Litlington will help us to see that his duties were of a
varied character. The writer of the letter[41] was William de Montacute,
2nd Earl, who fought at Poitiers and in most of the French wars of his
time. Addressing the Abbot as his dear and faithful friend, he thus
unfolds his story. His servant, Nicholas Symcok, of London, has been
robbed in the middle of June by highwaymen, one of whom, Richard Surrey,
is popularly known as Richard atte Belle. The knight of the road has made
off with some silver plate and L40 in coin, and has taken sanctuary at
Westminster, being hotly pursued by his victim, who finds on Surrey's
person all his lost property, less L5 of the stolen money. Symcok has
deposited his recovered goods in the hands of Dan William Colchester,
one of the lord Abbot's monks, who has laid them aside and placed his
seal upon the package. Therefore, my good Lord--asks the Earl--I pray
you have these chattels delivered up to my servant. This letter bears no
date, and there is no proof that the Archdeacon as such was concerned
with the affairs of sanctuary; nor does any title of office accompany
the introduction of his name. But the incident was one which bore a
legal character and Colchester's part in it may possibly be brought
within the vague limits of archidiaconal functions.[42]
We are fortunate in possessing one unquestionable intimation as to
his personal circumstances while holding this office. It bears date
November 9, 1386, shortly before his promotion to the highest room,
and is an indenture of lease of sheep.[43] It sets forth that Thomas
Charlton, the valet, and Henry Norton, the servant of William Colchester,
Archdeacon of Westminster, leased to John Waryn, butcher, of Westminster,
132 muttons--multones--3 rams, and 168 ewes, of the average value of
20_d._ each, to be fed and kept sound till Ash Wednesday next ensuing; and
there follows a statement of the terms upon which the tenant may acquire
any or all of them. The bargain was apparently made by the Archdeacon's
servants, and the actual document leaves it in doubt whether the sheep
were his or theirs, but the endorsement[44] places the ownership beyond
question and proves the sheep to have been the Archdeacon's.
The third means adopted by the Convent for marking its sense of
Colchester's services to the House was more exceptional. I give the
statement of it as it stands in the vellum volume called _Liber Niger
Quaternus_, a fifteenth-century copy of an earlier black paper register
compiled by a very active monk called Roger Kyrton, or Cretton,[45] who
entered the Convent in 1384-5, served many offices under Abbot Colchester,
and survived him by about fourteen years:--
"On September 25, 1382, there was granted to Brother W. Colchester
Archdeacon of Westminster a chamber, together with that part of
the Garden which belongs to the Lady Chapel; also a pension of six
marks [L4] and an additional monk's allowance--corrodium--such
as is enjoyed by the seniors; but on condition that if the
said William be promoted to any prelacy elsewhere, the pension,
the allowance and the chamber are to revert to the Convent."
Two questions of topography arise here, the position of the Garden and
that of the chambers, or "camerae." It is not necessary to assume that
they were contiguous. "The part of the Garden which belongs to the Lady
Chapel" cannot be located with certainty, but the Convent Garden lay in
the acres eastward of St. Martin's Church, Charing Cross, which still
retain the name, and are now the scene of the sale of garden-produce
that is grown elsewhere. Our great chartulary called Domesday[46] shows
that the Lady Chapel was given considerable property in this district
during the reign of Henry III., under whom the chapel was built. In
view of our information that within four years the Archdeacon possessed
a flock of 400 sheep, it seems reasonable to suppose that his share of
the Garden included considerable pasturage, and that he sometimes took
his walks abroad in the direction of Charing to see if it was well with
the flocks.
There is less doubt about the position of the chambers, which are
often mentioned in connexion with the Infirmary, and which were
probably attached to Little Cloisters, then recently rebuilt by Abbot
Litlington. To this day the south side of Little Cloisters shows
an alternation of old doors and old windows that suggests a row of
almshouses. It thus becomes easy to realize that a separate residence,
instead of the usual bed in the Great Dormitory, was a privilege highly
prized and rarely conferred.
[Illustration: CHAMBERS IN LITTLE CLOISTERS.]
It is natural to ask in what conditions the tenants of these chambers
lived, and the answer can be given in some detail. We have a long
strip of frail paper,[47] 3 ft. 7 in. x 5-1/2 in., which deals with the
post-mortem distribution of the effects of a monk whom William Colchester
must have known long and well. Richard Excestr' said his first Mass,
as did Colchester himself, in 1361-2; he became Prior quite early in
life, in 1377; but, as we have seen, he resigned the office in 1382,
and we do not know why his tenure of it was so brief. That the reason was
not discreditable to himself may be inferred from the fact that on his
resignation he was given precedence next after the new Prior, receiving
a pension of four marks, a double, or Prior's, assignment of clothing,
and a double share of the pittances that marked certain anniversaries,
till his death in 1397. In this paper, then, his modest effects are
arranged according to the rooms in which they stood, like the items in
an auctioneer's catalogue when the sale is to take place, by order of
the executors, on the premises. We gather that he has a reception-room,
or "aula," where he can entertain a few friends, with a special welcome
for any Brother who can play chess (for among his possessions are a
chess-board and a set of chess-men[48]); a pantry, or "buteleria,"
for his little store of plate and crockery and napery, including
a silver cup and cover, thirteen silver spoons (was it a complete
"Apostle" set?), and a table-cloth 3-1/2 yards in length; a bedroom, or
"camera," containing his white bedstead with a tester over it, and a
"parpoynt," as well as his wardrobe; a kitchen, or "coquina," equipped
with "droppyngpannes," "dressyng-Knyues," "flesshhokys," "anndyrons,"
a "treuet," and three pans which like the trivet are honestly described
in the catalogue as being the worse for wear;[49] and a library, or
"studium," with ten books and three maps. Among these books there was of
course some scholastic theology and canon law, but there was also the
Latin version of the Book of Messer Marco Polo, as if to signify that the
latest modern literature was by no means excluded. The Provost of King's,
who was kind enough to look through the list for me, takes this to be,
as I suspected,[50] a very early instance of English interest in the
Venetian traveller's adventures; and added that he believes it to be
still more rare that a man of this monk's period should possess a map
of Scotland.
As there was nothing exceptional in the disposal of the ex-prior's
goods,[51] the incident may be fairly taken as an illustration of Convent
life as Colchester lived it, and we may therefore go on to notice that,
putting together the sum that Excestr' left in cash and that which was
realized by the sale of some of these articles, the Convent was able
to pay the cost of his illness and burial; the items ranged from 2_d._
for milk to 10_s._ for the fee of the brief-writer who wrote out the
formal announcement of his death on one shilling's worth of parchment
for the information of other Benedictine houses, and L4 13_s._ 4_d._
for a marble slab with a memorial inscription. As Excestr' died in 1397,
we may think of Abbot Colchester as saying the last words over the open
grave of his former neighbour in Little Cloisters.
VI
ABBOT OF WESTMINSTER