Lay Religious Life in Late Medieval Durham

LAY RELIGIOUS LIFE IN LATE MEDIEVAL DURHAM Margaret Harvey Regions and Regionalism in History LAY RELIGIOUS LIFE IN ...

Author: Margaret Harvey

157 downloads 1755 Views 1MB Size Report

This content was uploaded by our users and we assume good faith they have the permission to share this book. If you own the copyright to this book and it is wrongfully on our website, we offer a simple DMCA procedure to remove your content from our site. Start by pressing the button below!
Report copyright / DMCA form

DOWNLOAD PDF

LAY RELIGIOUS LIFE

IN LATE MEDIEVAL DURHAM Margaret Harvey

Regions and Regionalism in History

LAY RELIGIOUS LIFE IN LATE MEDIEVAL DURHAM

Regions and Regionalism in History ISSN 1742–8254 This series, published in association with the AHRB Centre for North-East England History (NEEHI), aims to reflect and encourage the increasing academic and popular interest in regions and regionalism in historical perspective. It also seeks to explore the complex historical antecedents of regionalism as it appears in a wide range of international contexts. Series Editor Bill Lancaster, University of Northumbria Editorial Board Dr Richard C. Allen, University of Newcastle Dr Barry Doyle, University of Teesside Bill Lancaster, University of Northumbria Bill Purdue, Open University Professor David Rollason, University of Durham Dr Peter Rushton, University of Sunderland Proposals for future volumes may be sent to the following address: AHRB Centre for North-East England History 5th Floor Bolbec Hall Westgate Road Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 1SE Already Published: Volume I: The Durham Liber Vitae and its Context, edited by David Rollason, A. J. Piper, Margaret Harvey and Lynda Rollason, 2004 Volume II: Captain Cook: Explorations and Reassessments, edited by Glyndwr Williams, 2004 Volume III: North-East England in the Later Middle Ages, edited by Christian D. Liddy and R. H. Britnell, 2005 Volume IV: North East England, 1850–1914: The Dynamics of a Maritime Region, Graeme J. Milne, 2006 Volume V: North-East England, 1569–1625: Governance, Culture and Identity, Diana Newton, 2006

Lay Religious Life in Late Medieval Durham

Margaret Harvey

THE BOYDELL PRESS

© Margaret Harvey 2006 All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner The right of Margaret Harvey to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 First published 2006 The Boydell Press, Woodbridge

ISBN 1 84383 277 1 The Boydell Press is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK and of Boydell & Brewer Inc. 668 Mt Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620, USA website: www.boydellandbrewer.com A CIP catalogue record of this publication is available from the British Library

This publication is printed on acid-free paper Typeset by Keystroke, 28 High Street, Tettenhall, Wolverhampton Printed in Great Britain by Biddles Ltd, King’s Lynn

Contents

Maps Abbreviations Preface

vi–vii ix xi

1 The parishes

1

2 The year in the life of the laity

27

3 Lay parish life

41

4 The church and the laity: obligations and conflicts I

69

5 The church and the laity: obligations and conflicts II

83

6 Secular clergy careers

100

7 Education

120

8 Chantries

132

9 Associations, guilds and confraternities

157

10 Hospitals and other charities for non-monks

169

11 Durham and the wider world

179

12 The Reformation in the Durham parishes

185

13 Conclusion

198

Bibliography Index

201 215

v

Crossgate

St. Nicholas

St. Mary, North Bailey

St. Mary, South Bailey

St. Oswald

St. Giles

St. Mary Magdalen

1

2

3

4

5

6

PARISH CHURCHES

Crossgate Moor

Alvertongate

Old Borough

Framwellgate

c

CATHEDRAL

1

3

CASTLE

Silver Street

Market place

Bishop s Borough (Borough of Durham)

Framwellgate Moor

S tr e e t

S o u th

2

a

4

b

Priory Hallgarth

Old Elvet

Priory Hallgarth

Sadler Street

Claypath

(Note: The names New Elvet and Old Elvet were eventually reversed)

Barony of Elvet Old Elvet

Borough of Elvet ‘New Elvet

6

5

St. Margaret’s chapel

(After Bonney 1990)

One Kilometre

St. Andrew’s chapel

b

St. James’ chapel

c

a

CHAPELS

Borough of St. Giles Gilesgate

Gilesgate Moor

DURHAM CITY AND DISTRICT Lumley, Great Harbour House

Plawsworth Cocken

RAINTON, WEST

W

IT

TO N

Elvet

Kimblesworth

GI

o. 1

Det. N

LB

Moor House

ER T

Framwellgate

Hospital

Pittington Durham St Giles Kepier Hospital

Elvet Det. No. 2

ESH

DURHAM ST GILES

Hallgarth

Magdalen Place

Broom

PITTINGTON

ST MARGARET

Crossgate

Brandon & Byshottles

Sherburn

DURHAM ST OSWALD

Three kilometres

Sherburn House

Shincliffe village

Elvet

Whitwell House

Shincliffe Burn Hall

Cassop

Butterby CROXDALE St Bartholomew’s

Brancepeth

Quarrington Tursdale

Tudhoe Whitworth

Ferryhill Det.

Hett

h ort

Page Bank

(Cassop Det.)

rnf Co

Sunderland Bridge

Stockley

Coxhoe

The parish and township boundaries are based upon the Ordnance Survey Old Series 1:10,560 maps.

Abbreviations AND Arch. Ael. BL BRUO BRUC Capitula CCR CPL CPP CPR CYS DAJ DCRO DCL DCM DEC Depositions Deputy Keeper DHGE DUJ DUL EHR EEA FD Feodarium Hatfield Survey JEH LP NA NS Rites

Rollason et al., eds, Anglo Norman Durham Archaeologia Aeliana British Library Emden, A.B., A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford to AD 1500 Emden, A.B., Biographical Register of the University of Cambridge DCM, Capitula Generalia Calendar of Close Rolls Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers . . . Papal Letters Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers . . . Petitions Calendar of Patent Rolls Canterbury and York Society Durham Archaeological Journal Durham County Record Office Durham Cathedral Library Durham Cathedral Muniments Offler, H.S., ed., Durham Episcopal Charters Depositions and Other Ecclesiastical Proceedings followed by a number, Deputy Keeper Annual Report Dictionaire d’Histoire et de Géographie Ecclesiastique Durham University Journal Durham University Library English Historical Review with volume number, Smith, D., or Snape, M.G., ed., vols of English Episcopal Acta Fasti Dunelmensis. A Record of the beneficed Clergy of the Diocese of Durham down to the Dissolution Feodarium Prioratus Dunelmensis Bishop Hatfield’s Survey Journal of Ecclesiastical History Letters and Papers Foreign and Domestic National Archives New Series The Rites of Durham ix

ABBREVIATIONS

RPD SCH Scriptores Tres SS Symeon, De Exordio RS TAASDN VCH X

YAS

Registrum Palatinum Dunelmense Studies in Church History Historia Dunelmensis Scriptores Tres Surtees Society Symeon of Durham, Libellus de Exordio . . . ed. and trans. D. Rollason Rolls Series Transactions of the Architectural and Archaeological Society of Durham and Northumberland Victoria County History modern form of citation of Decretales of Gregory IX; see A Brundage, Medieval Canon Law, London and New York, 1995, appendix I Yorkshire Archaeological Society

x

Preface

This book is a study of the parishes and their religious life in a medium-sized city in the middle ages. When I embarked on it I thought that the majority of the work would have been done by others, since the Durham archives are so incomparably good, but I was almost completely wrong. There is no history of the life of the medieval lay Christians in the city and their parishes. The history provided by Margaret Bonney in her Lordship and the Urban Community is immensely useful for understanding the secular organisation of the city and its secular life. I have relied on it very heavily and have used the thesis on which it was based, especially the maps of the tenements and the lists of their successive holders.1 But it almost ignored the religious side of lay life and did not use many of the sources which would have explored it. Barrie Dobson’s excellent Durham Priory was intended to be a history of the monastic community and its concerns.2 Though it succeeds in being much more, it was never intended to consider the life of the city parishes, several of which in any case were not owned and managed by the monks. So instead of being a synthesiser I found myself often being a pioneer. In discussing the Christian life and organisation of the laity and secular clergy of Durham city, not including the monastery, one is talking of life in the parishes of St Oswald, St Nicholas, St Margaret, which up to 1431 was part of St Oswald’s, St Giles, St Mary Magdalen, St Mary le Bow and St Mary the Less, with dependent chapels for several of these in the country around. Most parishes also had chantry chapels and there were two separate chantry chapels on Elvet Bridge, dedicated to St Andrew and St James, which were joined in the later middle ages. There were in addition several hermitages in the area with some local shrines. There were also notable hospitals: two monastery hospitals for non-monks, as well as Sherburn, Kepier and Witton [Gilbert] in particular, with another called St Leonard’s and one in South Street, with one planned at the moatside of the castle which may not have got under way by the end of the period. There were also religious guilds. We have even a little evidence of private household chapels, including the castle chapel.

1

M. Bonney, Lordship and the Urban Community, Durham and its Overlords, 1250–1540, Cambridge 1990; M. Camsell, ‘The development of a northern town: Durham c 1250–1540’, 3 vols, DPhil thesis, University of York, 1985. I have used the copy in 5, The College, Durham. 2 R.B. Dobson, Durham Priory, 1400–1450, Cambridge 1973. xi

PREFACE

The diocese of Durham is unfortunate because it has so few medieval bishops’ registers,3 but the remaining monastic archive somewhat compensates by keeping copies of a great many episcopal documents. These include some stray copies of judgments in the consistory court but there is only one volume of pre-Reformation consistory acta, covering merely the period 1531–8.4 This gives one some insights into the religious life of the parishioners of the Bailey churches and Sts Nicholas and Giles, as well as revealing a very little about the merchant guilds. Some of the post-Reformation acta have proved useful as recording memories of earlier practice.5 Below the bishop’s consistory court was the archidiaconal court. Durham was peculiar because the prior was archdeacon in all the churches appropriated to the monastery and therefore claimed and held an archidiaconal court for, among others, his city churches, St Oswald’s, St Margaret’s and including Witton Gilbert and St Bartholomew’s, Croxdale. There are scattered records about this jurisdiction from before the fifteenth century but there are also two court books, one for 1435–56, now called Capitula Generalia, and the other for 1487–98, now called Court Book of the Prior’s Official.6 To a small extent all these can be completed by recourse to the church court records of the metropolitan court of York, since appeal went from the Durham consistory to that court.7 The parish financial records are good but are not of the same kind as can be found in many other areas. There are no churchwardens’ accounts for any of the parishes but the monastic records help to fill gaps. The monks divided their estates between the monastic offices (the monks in charge were known as obedientiaries). For St Oswald’s and St Margaret’s the accounts of the hostillar or (roughly) guestmaster of the priory can be used because the churches formed part of his estate, and furthermore there are, from the midfourteenth century, procurators’ accounts for both these churches (St Oswald’s from 1332 and St Margaret’s separately from 1447), since the priory administered them through non-monk, clerical subordinates.8 These accounts can be supplemented from the bursar’s rolls of the priory which, since the bursar oversaw the whole estate, are the fullest financial records which remain. The accounts of the other monastic officers (obedientiaries) also sometimes contain information worth having for my purposes.9 Durham city’s government in the middle ages was singular because the bishop was not just spiritual father of all the inhabitants but direct secular

3

See D. Smith, A Guide to Bishops’ Registers of England and Wales, Frome and London 1981, under Durham. 4 DUL, DDR/EJ/CCA/1/1 (formerly DDR/vols III/1). 5 See p. 13. 6 Both now in 5, The College, Durham. 7 R.L. Storey, Diocesan Administration in Fifteenth Century England, Borthwick Papers 16, 2nd ed., York 1972, for the whole structure of the diocese. 8 Now in 5, The College, Durham. 9 Now in 5, The College, Durham; see below for the Feretrar. xii

PREFACE

overlord of part of the city, as well as representing the king for all royal prerogatives throughout the area. Hence he could hold the assize courts with his palatinate justices as well as holding his consistory court for church matters. In his own borough (the Bishop’s Borough, roughly in what is now St Nicholas’s parish), he could administer justice over his tenants; he had his halmote court rendering justice in the Framwellgate area.10 In Crossgate or Old Borough, Elvet and Gilesgate small borough courts were also held. The prior could likewise administer justice over his own tenants throughout the town.11 In addition of course there are the secular records which detail a great many matters touching the life of the parishes and their clergy. Many chancery rolls from the bishop’s palatinate court remain.12 The Crossgate, Elvet and Gilesgate borough courts have left a certain amount of material, Crossgate with scattered fourteenth-century records and two full court books covering 1498–c.1529,13 Elvet and its courts being covered in the miscellaneous records in the priory muniments now called Locellus IV, which run from the mid-fourteenth century,14 and Gilesgate having some records in print and some, very disorganised, still unpublished in the National Archives, covering roughly 1494–1539.15 The remaining general financial records are also of great help, since they often record payments for clergy and for church repairs and the like. The bishop’s receiver general’s accounts exist from 1416 to 1547, though not in a complete run and some in a very damaged state.16 In addition the priory registers and cartularies and the prior’s letter books are a mine of useful information for the way the priory oversaw the city churches.17 Apart from that, I have used one collection of sermons by a monk and a few other sermons elsewhere, because it is clear that monks preached regularly to the townspeople.18 For the Reformation period there remain very full Durham records scattered among the documents of the court of augmentations, including rentals for most of the remaining chantries and details (not found anywhere else) of the obits in some of the churches.19 There are some details of the reception of the Reformation in the city, though not as good as elsewhere, because shortly after the dissolution of the monastery most of the detailed accounts of the city

10

NA, DURH 3/12–23,135. Bonney, Lordship, pp. 41–2 for this organisation, and p. 284 for diagram. 12 NA, DURH 3/29–80. 13 DCM, Loc. IV: 95, 120, 127, 201, 229; the Crossgate Court Books 1 and 2 are also DCM. 14 DCM, Loc. IV. 15 Memorials of St Giles, Durham, ed. J. Barmby, SS 95 (1896); NA, SC2/171/6. 16 Durham University Library, Archives and Special Collections, CCB B/1/1 and following in sequence. They can probably be supplemented from NA, DURH, 20/114 and others. 17 DCM, Registrum, I–V. Registrum Parvum, I is now BL Cotton Faust A VI, but II–V are DCM. 18 See pp. 59, 125–6. 19 See pp. 150, 154. 11

xiii

PREFACE

churches temporarily ceased and churchwardens’ accounts have not been preserved. A little can be found about the reaction of the Durham inhabitants to the Pilgrimage of Grace and there are tantalising glimpses from consistory Acta (which improve from then onwards) of some activities during the Rising of the North in 1569, when some city people were heavily involved in bringing back Catholic liturgy, but the details are patchy.20 Of the material outlined here Bonney did not use at all the prior’s archidiaconal court books nor the consistorial acta and did not see the documents from the York archives which I have used to follow up some of the church court cases.21 In writing this book I have been uncomfortably aware of needing to be a specialist in many areas where I am not, including aspects of canon law, economic history and architecture. Some of the lacunae in my knowledge have been supplied by others who have been generously willing to share their research and information. The staff at 5, The College in Durham, in charge of the Cathedral muniments, have been continuously friendly, kind and helpful. Mr Alan Piper has also supplied me frequently with the fruits of his own incomparable knowledge, and a series of younger staff fetched and carried for me over many months. I must also thank the staff in the University Library, especially Miss Margaret McCollum who, among other kindnesses, helped me to make sense of the later records of the Durham Consistory, and all who assisted my struggles with the microfilm reader in the search room. Many others provided all sorts of help and encouragement, including Dr Ian Doyle, Dr Ben Dodds, Dr Matt Holford and Dr Andy King. Professor Peter Rushton read the whole and made useful suggestions. Professor Brian Roberts provided the maps. Dr Anne Orde supplied meals, coffee, wine and a friendly though discerning reader for the whole in draft. I have tried to acknowledge others in the footnotes. But my greatest debt is to Professor Richard Britnell for his friendship and support over many years. He read the whole book in a first draft and from his very specialist knowledge of towns made excellent suggestions (at a time when he had many more important matters to consider), from which I hope I have profited. I offer this to him and to his wife Jennifer ad multos annos.

20 21

See pp. 185–7, 194–7. See for instance pp. 50, 52, 54. xiv

1

The parishes

The people who are studied in these pages lived in six parishes, some with subordinate country chapels: St Oswald’s with its three chapels at St Margaret’s in the city, Croxdale (St Bartholomew) and Witton Gilbert, St Giles, St Nicholas, Sts Mary the Less and the Bow and St Mary Magdalen. The size of the population of later medieval Durham is of course unknown to us but some estimate of it in 1548 comes from the returns of the parishes made to the royal surveyors of chantries and such institutions. 1 These were of ‘houseling people’ or those over the age of about 12 years who would be required by church law to go to confession and receive communion at Easter time. One would therefore have to add a multiplier to achieve a total population figure from these, allowing for under-age children. The numbers are St Margaret, 547, St Oswald, 680, St Nicholas, 720, the North Bailey, 240, and St Giles, 420. These figures may have been based on the number of communion hosts which the churches accounted for at Easter, which were often found enumerated in the procurators’ accounts for St Oswald’s and St Margaret’s.2 The numbers were probably rising by 1548. In 1447–8, 800 hosts were bought for the parishioners of St Oswald’s and Croxdale for the Easter communion.3 In 1467–8 the numbers for St Oswald’s were 500, rising to 600 in 1479–80.4 This does not necessarily mean rising population, of course; they could have been incomers. The lists of city churches given in 1548 do not include St Mary Magdalen and the South Bailey church, which were very small. So the total of adults in 1548 must have been about 2600, and if we add a few more for the omissions the numbers are not likely to have exceeded 3000. It is not clear whether the counters in 1548 included the whole of St Oswald’s parish or only its city limits. As we shall see, the country parts were extensive and might have pushed up its numbers. If these numbers are to be multiplied to include the whole population a suggested multiplier is that about one-quarter of the population

1 NA, E 101/17, mm. 1–2 printed in: R. Barnes, Injunctions and Other Ecclesiastical Proceedings of Richard Barnes, Bishop of Durham from 1575–1587, ed. J. Raine, SS 22 (1850), Appendix VI, pp. lvii–lxii. 2 See p. 31. 3 DCM, St Oswald’s accounts, 1447–8. 4 St Oswald’s accounts, 1467–8.

1


were non-communicant children, which would take the total to about 4000 in 1548.5 One can, to an extent, trace the formation of the later medieval parish system in the city, which offers a possible testing ground for some of the theories about parish origins which have been argued over now for several years.6 There are broadly two hypotheses. One is that parishes began as ‘minster’ centres, where a central, collegiate type of church, perhaps a monastery, was in charge of pastoral care and formed the parish by sending out clergy to man outlying churches in its area of jurisdiction. A further theory stresses the role of the nobility in turning their private chapels into parishes or having their private chapels taken over by episcopal authority. Probably a mixture of these developments occurred in many places. The ecclesiastical authorities set their faces against private churches from the eleventh century onwards. In either case the crucial time for parish formation would be from the tenth century onwards, with the canonical organisation of all this occurring only later, in the twelfth century when church councils reformed the system. In Durham city there is only one parish where the hypothesis can be thoroughly tested: St Oswald’s. All the other city parishes (with the possible exception of St Mary in South Bailey) seem to have been new in the twelfth century, the result of Norman intervention and the building up of the city. As we shall see, however, the pattern of parishes did not follow very logically the density of population; to an extent it was based upon competing lordships. Durham city owed its medieval importance to the existence of its monastery shrine. The clerks of St Cuthbert arrived with the body of their saint about 995 (for our purposes the exact date does not matter) and probably found some earlier settlement on the peninsula.7 The presence of the body of the saint must have stimulated pilgrimage and trade; both within and outside the peninsula the community grew. By the end of the eleventh century the castle with its chapel was in place.8 The castle chapel, however, was never a parish church and from 1083 the monks were housed in their own buildings, enclosed and not available for parochial pastoral care. Where did the growing lay population go to church? There are two possible early sites for parishes: St Oswald’s and St Mary in South Bailey. 5 E.A. Wrigley and R.S. Schofield, The Population History of England, 1541–1871: A Reconstruction, 2nd ed., Cambridge 1989, pp. 565–6. 6 J. Blair, ed., Minsters and Parish Churches. The Local Church in Transition, 950–1200, Oxford University Committee for Archaeology Monograph 17, Oxford 1988, esp. J. Blair, ‘Introduction: from minster to parish church’, pp. 1–19; J. Blair and R. Sharpe, eds, Pastoral Care Before the Parish, Leicester 1992; T.R. Slater and G. Rosser, eds, The Church in the Medieval Town, Aldershot 1998, esp. N. Baker and R. Holt, ‘The origins of urban parish boundaries’, pp. 209–35; J. Blair, The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society, Oxford 2005 pp. 4–5 and index: parishes. 7 Bonney, Lordship, ch. 1 for all that follows on origins. 8 Symeon, De Exordio, pp. 185–6 notes, p. 276 notes; AND, pp. 407–24, esp. p. 414, fig. 25.

2

THE PARISHES

The oldest religious site outside the monastery, apart from the castle chapel, was probably around St Oswald’s. The existing church is a re-building of 1834 by Ignatius Bonomi, but its oldest section, the east end four bays, is twelfthcentury.9 This, however, may represent a re-building after the Conquest. St Oswald’s was the centre of the area of Durham called Elvet. Apart from a reference to Bishop Pehtwine of Whithorn being consecrated at Elvet in 762 which almost certainly cannot be referred to this site,10 the earliest evidence for a religious site there is St Oswald’s cross, of disputed date but not before the ninth century and perhaps from the late tenth.11 It was discovered during repairs of St Oswald’s before 1867, built into the west wall of the fifteenthcentury church tower.12 In 1895 other cross fragments from the eleventh century were also found associated with the church.13 Whether or not this shows that St Oswald’s had an Anglo-Saxon church must be conjectural but the enormous area covered by the medieval parish may indicate an early date. One possible hint of an even larger area at an even earlier date than we can now discover is that up until 1189 St Oswald’s received tithes from the area called Clifton, east of Kepier hospital. In 1189 it exchanged these with Kepier hospital for a money payment.14 Within the known parish area there were several smaller, dependent chapels which seem to owe their existence to a variety of initiatives, some certainly from secular lords. St Oswald’s therefore may have been a ‘minster’. The dedication of the parish to St Oswald may also show the pre-Conquest date,15 though it would appear that the earliest church was called ‘the church of Elvet’ rather than St Oswald’s.16 The earliest certain reference to the dedication to Oswald is in 1189 when the tithes of Clifton were exchanged.17 The post-Conquest community of St Cuthbert fostered the cult of Oswald after the finding of his head in 1104.18

9 N. Pevsner, rev. E. Williamson, County Durham, The Buildings of England, 2nd ed., Harmondsworth 1983, pp. 223–4. 10 English Historical Documents, I, ed. D. Whitelock, London 1955, p. 164. 11 R. Cramp, ‘The preconquest sculptural tradition in Durham’, in Medieval Art and Architecture at Durham Cathedral, pp. 1–10, esp. pp. 5–6; E. Cambridge, ‘Archaeology and the cult of St Oswald in pre-Conquest Northumbria’, in C. Stancliffe and E. Cambridge, eds, Oswald, Northumbrian King to European Saint, Stamford 1993, pp. 128–63, esp. pp. 148–54. 12 R. Cramp, Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture in England, I/1, Oxford 1984, pp. 66–8, esp. pp. 66–7 with illustrations I/2, plates 37–8. 13 When the new road into the churchyard was made, built into the wall between the church and Church Street; Cramp, Corpus, p. 67. 14 EEA, 24, nos 52, 55 and notes. 15 A. Binns, ‘ Pre-Reformation dedications to St Oswald in England and Scotland: a gazetteer’, in Stancliffe and Cambridge, pp. 241–7, esp. p. 249. 16 In the early forgeries it is called the church of Elvet, for instance DEC, p. 26. 17 Binns, ‘Pre-Reformation dedications’, p. 249; Memorials of St Giles, p. 213; Roger of Howden, Chronica Magistri Rogeri de Hoveden, ed. W. Stubbs, 4 vols. RS 51 (1871), IV, p. 69. 18 D. Rollason, ‘St Oswald in post-Conquest England’, in Stancliffe and Cambridge, pp. 164–77, esp. pp. 176–7.

3


The settlement of merchants, known as Old Elvet and belonging to the monks, is attested from about 1107, and the post-Conquest church building at St Oswald’s probably dated to about then at latest.19 It is not certain that the monks built the church, however; very probably they did not. In the earliest (forged) charter there is no mention of the church of Elvet as monastic property but only of Elvet itself as belonging to the monks, granted by the bishop.20 The church began to be claimed by the monks in charters purporting to come from about 1084, but which are actually of the 1170s, which suggests that the forger considered that the church came after the grant of the territory of Elvet to the monastery.21 By the time the priory applied to pope Eugenius III for a bull confirming its possessions in 1146, however, the church of Elvet was claimed as part of these.22 It was appropriated to the priory, by Bishop Hugh du Puiset, probably between 1188 and 1195, though the date could be as early as 1174.23 The bishop allowed the monks to take over the church when the present incumbent died. This meant that the priory would become the rector, would take the tithes and would be able to appoint a vicar, remunerated at less than the total revenue, with the priory keeping any surplus. It is probable that the bishop’s grant of appropriation was in fact a confirmation to the monks of disputed rights. Two bulls from Alexander III reveal the problem. In 1164 the monks obtained the confirmation of their right freely to dispose of, and institute to, their churches when incumbents died.24 Between 1160 and 1176 a further grant allowed them to choose clergy for any parish churches which they owned, without impediment. This privilege also said that in the churches which they owned (Elvet is named) they could make provision for the poor and for hospitality ‘by common assent and with reasonable provision with the authority of the diocesan bishop’.25 This may suggest that they were hoping to be able to appropriate all the parish churches of which they were already patrons and certainly that before 1176 they claimed to own Elvet church. It seems evident also that for most of the twelfth century the monks and the bishop had by no means made clear distinctions between the bishop’s mensa (lands and revenues which belonged to him for his own household and expenses) and the lands of the monks; the monks were claiming more than the bishop was usually willing

19

DEC, pp. 6–15, esp. p. 8; Bonney, Lordship, p. 28. DEC, pp. 8, 18. 21 DEC, no*4, p. 27. 22 W. Holtzmann, Papsturkunden in England, II, Berlin 1935, no. 51. 23 EEA, 24, no. 41; G.V. Scammell, Hugh du Puiset, Bishop of Durham, Cambridge 1956, appendix II, no. 5, pp. 254–6; Binns, ‘Pre-Reformation dedications’, p. 249. 24 Holtzmann, Papsturkunden, II, no. 119. 25 Holtzmann, Papsturkunden, II, no. 149: communi assensu et rationabili providentia cum auctoritate diocesani episcope . . . 20

4

THE PARISHES

to concede.26 Appropriations were thus likely to be blocked both by the bishop and by his archdeacon on his behalf. The position of archdeacon, however, was also contentious. The first Norman bishop, William of St Calais, had made prior Turgot his archdeacon and apparently had given the position ex officio to the priors, but Bishop Flambard (1099–1128) had not continued this and appointed a secular priest.27 Philip of Poitou, bishop between 1195 and 1208, was evidently determined not to allow the monks power over parishes which undermined his rights as their titular abbot and as bishop. His archdeacon, his nephew Aimeric de Tailboys, was equally determined to act as archdeacon over all vacant churches. By the time St Oswald’s church became vacant in 1198 simple appropriations of churches were becoming out of date in any case.28 This ensured that the monks’ attempt to take over the parish, claiming by Puiset’s grant, became a power struggle. When granting St Oswald’s to the monks Puiset had said that the priory could take over the church when the present incumbent, Richard of Coldingham, died. He did so about 1198. Coldingham had been both a leading member of the bishop’s household and very active for the priory. He was perhaps a relative of prior German.29 By the time Coldingham died, however, Puiset was also dead and the new bishop was Philip of Poitou. In the same year Philip obtained from the pope an inhibition to prevent the prior assigning churches without his permission as abbot.30 At once Aimeric de Tailboys, archdeacon of Durham, who was regarded by the monks as a demon figure, claimed that appointment of a new incumbent of St Oswald’s fell to him. The chronicler Roger of Howden, who was writing as a contemporary, claimed that the bishop asserted that, as he was both abbot and bishop, his was the right (and presumably his archdeacon would act for him). The prior, however, claimed the right as lord of the estate (dominus fundi), as well as from right by long use and from his almost abbatial power. 31 The claim from lordship of territory is itself of great interest. On Coldingham’s death the monks occupied the church (possession was nine points of the law) but, according to Howden, Aimeric set fire to part of it and literally smoked them out.32 By one means or another the monks were expelled and Bishop Philip certainly connived at the expulsion if he did not

26

E.H. Crosby, Bishop and Chapter in Twelfth Century England, Cambridge 1994, for the whole question, with pp. 132–51 for Durham. 27 H.S. Offler, ‘The early archdeacons in the diocese of Durham’, in North of the Tees. Studies in Medieval British History, ed. A.J. Piper and A.I. Doyle, Variorum 1996, no. III, p. 197. 28 F. Barlow, Durham Jurisdictional Peculiars, Oxford 1950, pp. 25–6. 29 EEA, 24, p. xlii; Barlow, Durham Jurisdictional Peculiars, p. 25. 30 CPL, I, p. 4. 31 Howden, IV, p. 69 and see also pp. 39–40; for the date, A. Gransden, Historical Writing in England, c.550–c.1307, London 1974, pp. 225–30. 32 Howden, IV, p. 69: fecit ignem apponi ostio ecclesie ut sic per fumum et vaporem ignis monachos ejiceret. 5


actually order it. There is a very lively account from an investigation taken about thirty years later (about 1223)33 when the then bishop and the prior were finally sorting out a series of matters in dispute between them, including the mensa.34 Germanus de Causebey, a chaplain who was also the bishop’s chief forester, described coming to the church with some of Bishop Philip’s clerks and finding the monks obstinately in possession. Despite threats, they refused to leave, though he heard that the bishop later coerced them into doing so. He had also heard that they later got the church for their own use. Master William de Lisewis, who clearly belonged to the bishop’s household, was better informed. He said that the bishop was near Durham when he heard that the monks had taken St Oswald’s, so he came in person and ordered them to leave, which they refused to do. The bishop therefore appointed about thirty men to guard the doors and windows of the church to deny them food, and after three or four days two monks emerged and then two more and the bishop’s servants took possession. Howden says that for this and for other attacks on their rights the monks issued a sentence of major excommunication aimed at Aimeric, against those who had wronged them with their advisers and supporters, with, as he puts it, ‘the candles snuffed out and the sounding of the great bells of the church’.35 The later recollection was that once the bishop had regained possession of the church the monks treated with him for three or four days and he then granted them the church for their own use.36 Certainly after this St Oswald’s belonged to the priory and Philip of Poitou confirmed it to them in a formal act.37 This was in effect an appropriation, by which the monks took all the tithes and paid a salary to a vicar. According to the rulings of the Lateran Council of 1215, a vicarage should have been properly arranged, with an agreed stipend.38 Richard le Poore, who became bishop of Durham in 1228, had been at the council and had much to do with the introduction of its decrees into England.39 Nicholas Farnham, Poore’s successor, likewise specifically ordered in his statutes the arrangement of vicarages.40 Yet a properly constituted vicarage for St Oswald’s was first made only by Bishop Hatfield in April 1359 and even this was later replaced. In 1359 the hostillar of the priory, in whose estate

33

Feodarium, p. vii. Feodarium, pp. 220–301. 35 Howden, IV, pp. 39–40. 36 Feodarium, pp. 239, 248–9, 249, 250. 37 EEA, 25, no. 202, dated 1199x1202. 38 Lateran Council, 1215, clause 32. 39 The decrees are in Councils and Synods With Other Documents Relating to the English Church, ed. F.M. Powicke and C.R. Cheney, 2 vols, Oxford 1964, II/1 A.D.1205–65, pp. 59–96, 210, esp. p. 95 on stipends; see also M. Gibbs and J. Lang, Bishops and Reform, 1215–1272 With Special Reference to the Lateran Council of 1215, Oxford 1934, p. 108. 40 Councils and Synods, p. 426, no. 16. 34

6

THE PARISHES

the church was, spent money on trips to see the bishop at Bishop Auckland and Stockton and paid fees to the chancellor and registrar of the diocese.41 The result was an agreement that the vicar would have the house next to the cemetery where the current vicar and his predecessors had lived.42 The annual stipend was to be 16 silver marks and two loads of hay with the herbage (haycutting) of the cemetery. The vicar took the baptismal offerings, and levies which were called ‘nightwakes’, though not from the townships of Croxdale, Sunderland Bridge and Beautrove (Butterby). The priory continued to appoint chaplains in dependent churches. The priory’s records note that this arrangement did not last. On 22 March 1373 Bishop Hatfield noted that William of Langchester, the current vicar, had complained that the portion was too small. The bishop heard the plea in person and annulled the previous arrangement. In future the stipend was to be the house next to the cemetery, the herbage and 24 marks and the priory was to finance the hospitality that went with the post.43 The hostillar’s accounts show that the stipend was indeed £16 per annum after this.44 St Oswald’s parish was enormous. At the beginning it included Shincliffe, Croxdale (with a chapel of ease, St Bartholomew), Witton Gilbert, with St Michael’s chapel,45 and soon St Margaret’s, Durham, just over the river in the area of the city called Crossgate. The origins of the chapel of St Margaret of Antioch were certainly obscure to the parishioners in the sixteenth century. The church building as it now exists is of varying dates, restored between 1865 and 1880, but containing stonework and a Frosterley marble font of the twelfth century.46 During an enquiry into their rights and duties in the sixteenth century (about 1575) one parishioner aged 57 (and thus born about the time the priory was dissolved) had heard from an old priest, Sir Richard Bennet, who was a neighbour of his in St Oswald’s parish, and from his former master when he was an apprentice who had been a churchwarden of St Oswald’s, ‘that the inhabitors of Framwelgate maid suit and obteyned license of the prior then of Durham abbay and the head men of St Oswald parish to buyld the said chappell’ on a hill beyond the old (Framwellgate) bridge, but that St Oswald’s was the head church.47 Bennet was a chantry priest of St Oswald’s from 152648 and his account may have had truth. The chapel was probably built in the later twelfth century. It is not mentioned as a dependent chapel in the appropriation of St Oswald’s by Puiset to the monks.49 It is, however, mentioned in Philip of 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49

DCM, Hostillar’s accounts, 1358–9. DCM, Cart. II, f. 170, with marginal note to say vacat quia postea in anno domini 1372. DCM, Cart. II, f. 280. Hostillar’s accounts, 1374–5, and thereafter under pensions. Dobson, Durham Priory, pp. 148–9 is incorrect about Witton. Pevsner, Durham; VCH, Durham III, p. 181. Depositions, p. 280, with no source found as yet. DCM, Reg. V, f. 211. EEA, 24, no. 41 and see p. 4. 7


Poitou’s confirmation, dated after 1199.50 The ‘old’ or Framwellgate bridge was built about 1120, and may have helped the people living on the north side of the river to get to St Oswald’s more easily, but its building may also show that already there was a large enough community to warrant another church.51 If, as is possible, Puiset’s grant of St Oswald’s is from its earlier rather than its latest possible date (in other words 1174 onwards),52 then St Margaret’s may have been begun in the 1170s. Because St Oswald’s was appropriated to the priory the prior had the appointment of the parochial chaplains to St Margaret’s. As the priory was at pains to keep emphasising until the fifteenth century, this was a dependent chapel of St Oswald’s parish and as such had no recognised independent boundaries until 1431.53 The prior was the rector and the chapel was served by paid priests who may not even have been regularly employed. In a series of quarrels very typical of the later medieval church the priory regularly sued parishioners in the church courts in the fourteenth century for trying to assert that they had the right to go to St Margaret’s, whereas church law was clear that to receive the sacraments there the ‘parishioners’ had to have licence from the prior.54 Finally in 1431, in a struggle characteristic of the fifteenth century,55 the parishioners of St Oswald living in the areas of Sidegate, Framwellgate, Milburngate, Crossgate, Allergate, South Street, Harbourhouse and the vill of Newton, or the sanior pars of them, (in other words representatives of the area served by St Margaret’s chapel) constituted as their proctors a list of their fellows who made an agreement with the prior to form St Margaret’s into a separate parish, with right of burial in its consecrated cemetery and to administer all sacraments and sacramentals.56 The agreement was by no means wholly favourable to the inhabitants, however, nor did it give St Margaret’s complete freedom from St Oswald’s. The priory remained responsible for appointing the priest, with no vicarage ordained, and for providing the bread, wine and wax for the mass, but the parishioners were to give their offerings, mortuaries and blessed bread to St Oswald’s, as well as being responsible for both the nave and the choir (tam in choro quam in navi), as well as the cemetery, and for

50

EEA, 25, no, 202. Bonney, Lordship, pp. 30–1. 52 EEA, 24, no. 41. 53 See note 56 below. 54 Hostillar’s accounts, 1364–5: cuidam notario fac’ instrumentum de licencia petit’ et obtent’ parochianis Sancti Oswaldi ultra pontem veterem communicandum die Pasch in capella Sancte Margarete 3s 4d; R.N. Swanson, ‘Parochialism and particularism. The dispute over the status of Ditchford Frary, Warwickshire, in the early fifteenth century’, in D. Owen, Medieval Ecclesiastical Studies in Honour of Dorothy Owen, ed. M.J. Franklin and C. Harper-Bill, Woodbridge 1995, pp. 240–57, esp. 241–3. 55 Swanson, ‘Ditchford Frary’, pp. 241–3. 56 DCM, Reg. III, f. 143r/v. 51

8

THE PARISHES

providing vestments, ornaments, books, chalice and luminaria (which must mean the candles, including those at the various shrines for which there were endowments, as we shall see). One would more normally have expected the priory to be responsible for the choir. After this the inhabitants of the area could count St Margaret’s as a parish church and receive all sacraments there as of right, but the church was still not wholly independent; after the Reformation there was scope for further argument about exact rights and duties.57 When Hugh du Puiset gave the church of St Oswald to the monks he stipulated that they should also supply parochial priests to Croxdale and Witton Gilbert.58 The medieval chapel of St Bartholomew, Croxdale, still exists, recently restored in the grounds of Croxdale Hall. It appears to be mainly a twelfth-century building, with later medieval alterations.59 It served Croxdale, Butterby and Sunderland Bridge.60 Almost certainly the church was built by the Daudre family, since there is a charter in Cartuarium Vetus of Durham Priory by which Roger Daudre confirms to St Cuthbert and St Bartholomew all the lands belonging to the church to hold in free alms. Roger Daudre and his heirs also agreed to pay 2s yearly to the chapel at Croxdale on the feast of St Bartholomew.61 Roger was a witness of charters for bishops du Puiset, Philip of Poitou and Richard Marsh and clearly an important local man.62 The family was among the earliest French settlers after the Conquest and belonged to the elite group who became known as knights of St Cuthbert.63 In 1166 they held two knights’ fees at Croxdale and Burnighill. In Butterby also, according to Cartuarium Vetus, Roger Daudre had permission from the prior and convent ‘that we may have a chantry in the oratory which I have constructed’, meaning a chapel in his own house.64 Daudre was to supply all that was necessary for divine service in this private chapel. The chaplain was to sing mass and the canonical hours and make blessed bread and holy water. However he could not hear confessions or perform any other sacraments. The chaplain was to owe fidelity to the chaplain of Croxdale and had no share in the offerings in the oratory, which were all to go to St Bartholomew’s. If St Bartholomew’s suffered any loss, the chapel at Butterby would lose the right to hold services. On the feasts of Easter, Pentecost and St Bartholomew Daudre agreed to come

57

See pp. 46–7. EEA, 24, no. 41. 59 Pevsner, Durham, p. 136. 60 R. Surtees, The History and Antiquities of the Palatinate of Durham, 4 vols, London 1816–40, IV, pp. 113–22. 61 DCM, Cartuarium Vetus, f. 87v; see also DCM, 4.16.Spec.124; for similar arrangements elsewhere in the diocese see Scammell, Puiset, p. 120. 62 See EEA, 24, 25, in index under Audre. 63 W. Aird, St Cuthbert and the Normans: The Church of Durham 1071–1153, Woodbridge 1998, pp. 200–1. 64 Surtees, Durham, IV, p. 109, note; Cartuarium Vetus, ff. 87v–8; 2.14.Spec.16. 58

9


to Croxdale. This may be a quid pro quo for Daudre giving up greater rights over Croxdale church. The chapel of St Michael, Witton Gilbert, was also part of St Oswald’s, though the hospital there was administered by the priory almoner (whose office oversaw all monastic charity) and he was responsible for the finances of the chapel of St Michael. Puiset had bought the royal estate of Witton to give to his son Henry.65 In Puiset’s grant concerning St Oswald’s he says that he built a chapel at Witton because it was remote and that he also blessed a cemetery.66 This encroachment on St Oswald’s parish was within the terms of a privilege which he had from the pope between 1171 and 1181 allowing him to build within his bishopric churches and chapels with cemeteries where distance suggested it.67 So the first church at Witton probably dates from between 1171 and 1195. The present building is nineteenth-century but contains Norman parts.68 The status of Witton must always have been contentious but it never became a separate parish in the middle ages.69 The parishioners certainly claimed that it was independent and tried to pay their tithes to it rather than to the prior.70 But in November 1484 the proctors for the parishioners came to an agreement with the prior after a long dispute about the responsibility for repairs to the chapel. They acknowledged that Witton was a dependent chapel of St Oswald’s, with the inhabitants responsible for its repair. The inhabitants acknowledged this but claimed they were too poor to undertake what was needed and asked the prior for alms, which he gave.71 Thereafter there is no reference to this church in the almoner’s accounts. There were several other small chapels within the parish. Harbourhouse was in St Oswald’s parish but administered from St Margaret’s. It may have had a shrine of the Virgin or more probably it was simply a private chapel. The Harbourhouse estate, with its centre at what is now Harbourhouse farm, but then called a waste, was granted in 1311 by Bishop Kellaw to his brother Patrick Kellaw.72 His descendant William Kellaw was holding it at the time of Hatfield’s Survey, about 1382.73 William Kellaw’s daughter Joanna married John Fossour before 1417 and the Fossour family in the person of John Fossour, their son, took over the estate in 1433.74 Before that, however, in 1410, Bishop 65

Howden, II, p. 133. EEA, 24, no. 41, p. 36. 67 Holtzmann, Papsturkunden, III, no. 330. 68 Pevsner, Durham, under Witton Gilbert. 69 Despite a story that it did so in 1423: Dobson, Durham Priory, p. 148, quoting Surtees, Durham, II, p. 370. 70 DCM, Cart. IV, f. 99v; the parishioners were represented by John Aukland, John Dod and John Sheperdon, perhaps churchwardens. 71 DCM, Cart. IV, f. 99, which was a copy of 2.6.Spec.65, now lost. DCM, Almoner’s accounts, 1483–4 payment 2s to John Batmanson the notary. 72 Surtees, Durham, IV, pp. 147–8; RPD, II, pp. 1127–30. 73 Hatfield Survey, pp. vii, 77. 74 Surtees, Durham, IV, p. 148. 66

10

THE PARISHES

Thomas Langley gave William Kellaw’s widow Agnes licence during pleasure to celebrate divine service in her chapel at Harbourhouse.75 In 1432 he gave Robert Dalton and Joanna his wife (second husband of Joanna?) a similar licence.76 According to Surtees this was a little domestic chapel a few yards to the east of the house. All that is left of it now is a few ruined pieces, dated to the thirteenth century.77 The procurator’s accounts of St Margaret’s chapel from 1447, when they begin, note offerings ‘from the offertory box of St Mary of Harberhouse’.78 In 1467–8, however, the accounts say that nothing was received from this source because it was included in the tithes of the parishioners.79 The last account giving a receipt from this source was 1523–4;80 in 1528–9 nothing was recorded.81 There seems also to have been a chapel at Burn Hall which was a manor owned in the fourteenth century by the Brackenbury family, vassals of the Nevilles of Raby, and later by the Claxtons (after 1381).82 We know about it largely because of references to a hermit there. This was one of the chapels which contributed its offerings to St Oswald’s, probably a private chapel like the one at Butterby.83 In 1430 there is a reference to a hermitage next to the quarry at Burn.84 In 1448–9 the entry in St Oswald’s accounts reads ‘from offerings at Saint Mary in the chapel of Burne’, so there must have been a statue or image of the Virgin there.85 All of these chapels with their disparate origins were part of St Oswald’s parish for the period covered by most of this book, despite the desire of some of the parishioners to have separate parishes. For some purposes, however, the priory did treat some of these subdivisions as separate. For example, at the regular meetings of clergy with the archdeacon or his representative, which one can trace for the fifteenth century in the court books of the prior as archdeacon, St Margaret’s, Croxdale and Witton Gilbert were supposed to be represented by their chaplain and a parish clerk (clericus) each.86 The number of clergy involved in St Oswald’s parish was very large. One thirteenth-century Durham will talks about Patrick the vicar of St Oswald’s, Richard the procurator (the cleric responsible to the prior as rector and the hostillar of the monastery as his subordinate for this parish’s finances) and eight

75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86

Langley, Register, I, no. 152. Langley, Register, IV, no. 1033. Pevsner, Durham, under Chester-le-Street. DCM, St Margaret’s accounts. St Margaret’s accounts. St Margaret’s accounts. DCM, Misc. Ch. 5707. Surtees, Durham, IV, pp. 94–5; VCH, Durham, III, p. 159. St Oswald’s accounts, though not every year. DCM, 1.1.Sac.3. St Oswald’s accounts. DCM, Court Book of Prior’s Official, f. 29v for instance has a list. 11


parochial chaplains as recipients of largesse.87 Robert called cocus talks in his will, which is from the second half of the thirteenth century, of the vicar and five chaplains of St Oswald’s.88 The first of these wills, if not both, must have included the priests in charge of the outlying chapels. The task of managing these rather different areas was not always easy, since the interests of the parishioners and of the priory were not identical. Parishioners of course wanted to be able to fulfil their obligations (such as Sunday and feast day observance, Easter confession and communion, baptism, marriage and burial) in their local chapel but the priory did not wish to allow a custom to grow up which could be cited as a precedent. The priory’s problem was probably that if an area had become an independent parish a properly paid vicar ought to have been established in place of the parish chaplains appointed on short-term contracts. In the fourteenth century this tension caused endless trouble in St Margaret’s chapel. The earliest known case concerned Bona, wife of Ranulph, a clerk, in 1345, where the case went to the bishop’s consistory court. Bona had refused to attend St Oswald’s or to pay personal tithes there, and as the indictment says: ‘Leaving her parochial chaplain she has presumed to wander astray.’89 The court pronounced that St Margaret’s was wholly dependent on St Oswald’s and without any parochial rights. In 1358 the hostillar granted named parishioners licence to hear matins, mass and vespers at Christmas elsewhere than in St Oswald’s, after receiving from them an acknowledgement that they were its parishioners.90 The licence granted in 1365 for a further named group to receive Easter communion in St Margaret’s remains in the priory records.91 Again they had to acknowledge that they were St Oswald’s parishioners and that St Margaret’s was dependent. Permissions like these were probably much more routine than appears from extant records but were apparently never allowed to be taken for granted. In 1345 Bona was also obliged to provide blessed bread according to agreed custom.92 Durham is unusual in that one can find out what agreed custom was, because St Margaret’s and St Oswald’s quarrelled after the Reformation (about 1575) about the rights of each and there were still a few older inhabitants who remembered what had happened in the early sixteenth century. The parishioners of St Margaret’s paid their ‘holy bread silver’ to St Oswald’s even after St Margaret’s had become a parish in its own right. Holy bread silver was the payment for the loaf of bread which was baked each week and blessed and distributed to the laity at the end of mass, since they would not normally

87 88 89 90 91 92

Will of Gilbert de Ponte, Misc. Ch. 2305. Misc. Ch. 2438. DCM, 4.16.Spec.39. DCM, 4.16.Spec.37. DCM, 4.16.Spec.36. DCM, 4.16.Spec.39. 12

THE PARISHES

receive communion.93 Various older parishioners remembered how it had been provided, though by 1575 it had long been abolished. The most vivid account comes from Bertram Hoorde, then of Witton Gilbert, who, however, had lived a very long time in Framwellgate which was part of St Margaret’s chapelry.94 He said that every seven years the inhabitants of St Margaret’s parish paid the ‘holy bread silver’ for one year at 3d a time. The system was that every quarter thirteen households paid 3d apiece. Others remembered that the payment consisted of 11⁄2d in money and the rest in bread.95 William Farreless gave further details. He said that ‘according as their course fell’, which I take to mean when their turn came, every Sunday the parishioners of St Margaret’s took to St Oswald’s ‘ther hallybread caike in a towel open on ther brest, and laid it down upon the end of the hye alter of St Oswald’s and one penny halfpenny in money also’ and the (parish) clerk took the cake and the proctor the silver. After the cake had been blessed the clerk cut off a piece, called the ‘hally breid cantle’ to give to their nearest neighbour whose turn was the next Sunday following. This, said Farreless, was the order followed as long as the custom of giving holy bread silver remained, ‘referring him to the Queen’s boke’.96 The money was then used to produce bread and wine for the mass in St Oswald’s. The rota for providing holy bread was abolished by the prayer book of 1549 in the first place.97 These were not the only rights and duties of the dependent chapels. Already in the fourteenth century there is mention of a cemetery of St Margaret’s but the parishioners could not use it without permission until St Margaret’s became an independent parish.98 Even after that the parishioners of St Margaret’s claimed rights in St Oswald’s. They insisted after the Reformation that they had the right to be buried in the churchyard of St Oswald’s, ‘in the Northwest corner to the well bancks, viz from the corner of the Ankeridge close to St Oswald’s well’.99 This could be useful to them in time of plague. The parishioners of St Oswald’s, however, argued that as a witness of their semi-dependent status the parishioners of the chapel had to maintain the south aisle of St Oswald’s church, and this may indicate the part of the church reserved for them.100

93 See St Margaret’s accounts 1447–8: De pane bendicto nichil hic quia parochiani solvent ad matricem ecclesiam Sancti Oswaldi. 94 Depositions, p. 278 incomplete; DUL, DDR/EJ/CCD/1/4, f. 4v. 95 Depositions, pp. 280, 281. 96 E. Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars. Traditional Religion in England, 1400–1580, New Haven and London 1992, p. 125 for holy loaf, and p. 464 for abolition of the rotas in 1549. 97 J. Kettley, ed., The Two Liturgies [.] Set Forth by Authority in the Reign of Edward VI, Parker Society, Cambridge 1844, p. 283. 98 DCRO, EP/Du.SM, 577, a property between the cemetery and another tenement mentioned in 1341. 99 Depositions, p. 277. 100 Depositions, pp. 277, 279; DDR/EJ/CCD/1/4, ff. 3, 4v.

13


Other dependent chapels and areas also tried to claim particular rights. In 1436 the proctors for the fabric of St Oswald’s church sued the villani parishioners of Croxdale in the prior’s archidiaconal court, saying that they must be forced to pay towards the fabric of the mother church. The Croxdale parishioners claimed that they owed less than those living in the city. They were told to consult the older people of the parish and report back.101 We hear no more, so probably the matter was resolved. The provincial statutes of York in the fifteenth century certainly ordered that parishioners of dependent chapels had to pay also towards the fabric of the mother church.102 The inhabitants of Framwellgate maintained, eventually with success, that they had particular rights in the payment of mortuaries.103 Compared with the detail which is available about the origins and history of St Oswald’s and its dependants the information about the rest of the churches of the city is poor. Apart from St Oswald’s church the only other which had any claim to pre-Conquest date was somewhere in the Bailey, but the two parishes now in the Bailey are very difficult to date. The settlement within the city walls, along the Bailey, had two tiny parishes, both dedicated to St Mary. These two churches are often indistinguishable in the records, both appearing as the church of St Mary in the Bailey. One church of St Mary was in existence in the time of the famous twelfth-century hermit Godric of Finchale (d. 21 May 1170), because his life by Reginald of Durham tells us that when he decided to acquire an education he attended the school run by the priest of this church, where grammar and other arts useful for clerics were taught.104 The origins of both these churches are obscure. A local legend suggests that the South Bailey church is the successor to the church made of branches which was built to house the coffin of St Cuthbert before the first cathedral was built, but this remains entirely unproven.105 It is probable, however, that the South Bailey church is the older. There is a ruling from the time of the papal legate, Cardinal Otto, in 1241, resulting from a complaint by Thomas, rector of the church of St Mary in the Bailey, saying that the prior and convent had built a chapel within the limits of his parish and were refusing to allow their servants who lived in his parish to be his parishioners, defrauding him of his tithes and offerings.106 This suggests that Thomas was rector of the South Bailey church and was complaining about the North Bailey. The latter seems to have been carved out rather awkwardly and always to have had through its ground a right of way to the city walls, presumably where the

101

Capitula, f. 7. R.M. Woolley, ed., The York Provinciale put forth by Thomas Wolsey Archbishop of York in the year 1518, London 1931, p. 44, for a ruling by George Neville, 1465x76. 103 See pp. 90–95. 104 Reginald of Durham, Libellus de vita et miraculis S Godrici, heremitae de Finchale, ed. J. Stevenson, SS 20 (1845), p. 59. 105 Symeon, De Exordio, pp. 146–7. 106 DCM, 2.16.Spec.15, 16 for the whole case. 102

14

THE PARISHES

present Bow Lane still is.107 According to a document of 1453 there was a right of way by the steeple of the North Bailey church on the west which went from the church to its cemetery, to the monastery and to the outer walls of the city, from the gate called Kingsgate on the east.108 The parishioners had right of way to take corpses to the cemetery and processions could go along it from the monastery. In December 1450, Richard Danyell, who was described as a bookbinder and a yeoman, saying he was acting on the prior’s orders, blocked up the passage and prevented its use. Although this matter was settled in the end (August 1453) between the prior and the bishop, with the right of way remaining, its very existence suggests that it was older than the church. What Thomas, the rector of St Mary’s, had to say about his own parish in 1241 is important here. He claimed that hitherto his parishioners who were servants of the priory had been wont to receive the sacraments from him but the priory was not allowing them to do so, so that, he asserted, they were going unpunished for enormous sins. He added that on solemnities and feast days he had been accustomed to enter the aula of the prior and convent as if he were almost ‘provost’ (prepositus) and there, according to the custom of the country, offer prayers for peace and for the clergy, read the gospel on Sundays and sprinkle holy water on the brew-house, the bakery and the kitchen, and receive there bread, beer, meat or fish. All this the prior was refusing and also refusing him his tithes. This would suggest that the areas which Thomas was allowed to enter (or claimed) had once been in his parish but were now built over by the priory. A later charter of Thomas shows that he gave up these claims ‘led by better counsel’ but that the prior and convent agreed that he had full parochial rights over their servants with their wives and households within his parish and over any others who died there, as well as those passing through (pilgrims for instance, one supposes), and had the right of tithe over the small gardens.109 It is easy to see how another small chapel could have intruded into the tiny parish. The reasons behind the compromise are impossible to discover. By the end of the fourteenth century the rectors of St Mary in the South Bailey certainly claimed the right to eat with the prior three times a week. This appears from a document copied into the priory Register III, which claims to be a notarised copy of an inquisition taken at the request of Robert de Herseley, rector of the church in 1386.110 The inquisitors for the bishop, who consulted parishioners, found that two of the previous rectors, Reginald de Coventry and William Gawnt, had exercised this right.111 The priory must have contested

107

VCH, Durham, III, pp. 137–8; South Bailey, ibid., pp. 138–9. DCM, 2.16.Spec.37. 109 See note 106 above. 110 R. Donaldson, ‘Patronage and the church: a study in the social structure of the secular clergy in the diocese of Durham (1311–1540)’, unpublished PhD thesis, Cambridge, 1955, pp. 99, 101; DCM, Reg. III, f. 234v, lower margin. 111 DCM, Reg. III, ff. 234v–5v. 108

15


it, however, because there is a note in the register to say that no record of this inquest can be found in the register (lost) of Bishop John (Fordham) and the priory suggested it was forged. In 1434, however, the priory acknowledged that it owed to the rector 13s 4d yearly with a gown to recompense for the lost meals.112 The different origins of the two churches are also seen in that the Nevilles of Raby were the patrons of the South Bailey church whereas the priory was the patron of the North Bailey.113 This could also show the early origin of the South Bailey because the Nevilles were the descendants of Meldred who was one of the few Anglo-Saxon supporters of the Norman bishop William of St Calais (1080–96).114 Robert FitzMeldred in the twelfth century was a vassal of Puiset and is found giving to the priory land next to land in South Bailey held by the chaplain of the South Bailey church.115 It is, however, very clear that the priory guarded its own rights against the two small parishes very jealously. A quarrel with St Mary in the North Bailey concerning legacies from members of the priory hospital who had been parishioners makes this very clear.116 The church of St Nicholas in the market-place of Durham city was built by Ranulph Flambard, bishop between 1099 and 1128, to accommodate his new settlement in the area.117 The first recorded incumbent was Master William (probably of Caumont), followed by Averdus the clerk to whom Bishop Geoffrey Rufus gave the church between 1133 and 1141.118 These earliest recorded rectors were of the household of the bishop and must seldom have been resident. St Nicholas’s former burial ground stretched into the present market-place and its parish reached as far as Old Durham, which was the glebe-land for its rector. It was at first a rectory but was appropriated to the hospital at Kepier by Bishop Neville in 1443, when John Lound was master of Kepier.119 The terms were that the burden of keeping the church as a parish would fall on Kepier. It was in the bishop’s patronage until that point, after which it was served by secular parish chaplains. The church was very much the city church, where for instance the bishop held gatherings for visitations,120

112 Lower margin of Reg. III, ff. 234v–5. Both men appear as rectors of St Mary, though Gauwnt is given for North Bailey: Donaldson, ‘Patronage and the church’, p. 97, from FD. 113 VCH, Durham, III, p. 141. 114 Offler, North of the Tees, no. XIII, ‘FitzMeldred, Neville and Hansard’, p. 2. 115 FD, pp. 196, 197, notes. 116 See p. 173. 117 N. Emery, J. Langston and M. Leyland, ‘St Nicholas Church and cemetery, Durham City’, DAJ, 13 (1997), pp. 67–86. 118 DEC, no. 31 and notes, with EEA, 24, appendix I, pp. 157–8. 119 Copy in Memorials of St Giles, app. pp. 208–12; DCM, Reg. III, ff. 291v–2v. 120 For instance in 1439, Documents relating to Diocesan and Episcopal Visitations, ed. A. Hamilton Thompson, SS 127 (1916), p. 231.

16

THE PARISHES

and it seems to have been the centre for such corporate spiritual life as Durham city had.121 The origins of St Giles parish probably go back to 1112 with the foundation by Bishop Flambard that year of a hospital in honour of St Giles.122 The story of this hospital is not relevant here; suffice to say that the hospital had a church and this was in existence at least by 1143 because Roger de Conyers, who supported William of Ste Barbe in his struggle to obtain the see of Durham from William Cumin, was able to use the church as his headquarters.123 In the course of those struggles the church and hospital were burned down so that they had to be rebuilt. The originals of the early muniments no longer exist; they were destroyed in 1306 and with them no doubt went much detail about the early history.124 The hospital was re-founded by Bishop Hugh du Puiset in about 1180 at Kepier; it was separated from the church and the latter may have been added to then.125 The parish was certainly in existence by 1180. In the tithe map of 1849 its boundaries show Pelaw wood dividing it from Elvet on the south and the Wear as its boundary on the north.126 The parish comprised the Durham land belonging to Kepier hospital with land at Ravensflatt and Belmont belonging to the priory. The church was frequented by Godric the later hermit, who seems to have acted as parish clerk there, praying in the church at night, acting as doorkeeper and ringing the bells.127 It was served from the hospital of Kepier by chaplains but was a parish in its own right for the settlement of Gilesgate. The church had a sub-chapel, dedicated to St Thomas (Becket) the Martyr (thus evidently not before 1173 when he was killed). There are references from about 1280 to the cemetery of St Thomas in Clayport.128 In 1340 a tenement was mentioned which lay next to the street which ran towards Kepier hospital and the chapel of blessed Thomas the Martyr.129 It is evident from the priory’s historians that the monks were not anxious to encourage the cult of Becket and this may explain why by the end of the period of this book the chapel had vanished.130

121

See p. 160. D. Meade, ‘The Hospital of St Giles at Kepier, near Durham’, TAASDN, NS I (1968), pp. 45–52. 123 Symeon, De Exordio, p. 297; VCH, Durham, III, pp. 156–7. 124 Memorials of St Giles, p. xv. 125 Memorials of St Giles, p. xviii. 126 D.M. Meade, ‘The medieval parish of St Giles’, TAASDN, NS 2 (1970), pp. 63–9; map fig. 1, p. 64. 127 Reginald, Libellus de Vita et Miraculis S Godrici, p. 59. 128 DCRO, D/Sa/D 364. 129 DCRO, D/Sa/D/392. 130 Reginald of Durham, Libellus de admirandis beati Cuthberti virtutibus, ed. J. Raine, SS 1 (1834), pp. 251–2, 256, 261–2. 122

17


Although this is not usually stated in accounts of Durham, St Mary Magdalen was a parish church as well as a hospital. The remains of the church still exist as a ruin on the roadside just after the roundabout half-way up Claypath on the road to Sunderland. The parish was tiny, about 23 acres in extent.131 This church was administered by the almoner, as was the hospital of the same name. The chaplain of the hospital gave pastoral care to the parishioners. So how did this tiny parish originate? This is very uncertain. It appears that there was a hospital here before the middle of the twelfth century, at least if one accepts as genuine a charter from the almoner’s cartulary.132 This assigns to St Mary Magdalen church land which certainly later belonged to the Magdalen hospital.133 In the time of prior Ralph Kerneth (1218–1234) the farm of the lands of Amerston and Hurworth was handed over to Durham priory by Kepier hospital.134 In return the prior agreed to maintain a chaplain to pray for the souls of the Hansard family and pay 30s per annum to Kepier.135 There exists in the priory archives a document which has always been taken as the origins of the hospital, dating to the middle of the thirteenth century and which explains what was going on in the previous transactions.136 According to this document, Gilbert Hansard gave to Kepier hospital land in Amerston and Hurworth, to sustain a chaplain to say mass for souls, in exchange for half the vill of Chirton in Northumberland which was once of John de Hameldun and which John had given to the priory with other property to sustain three priests for the same intention. The condition was that John de Hameldun’s brothers Henry and Walter, the heirs of the land, would be the farmers and would render 9 marks yearly for the service. The prior and convent refused to accept this, so the territories in Amerston and Hurworth returned to Kepier. A new arrangement was therefore made by which Kepier gave the priory 3 marks annual revenue for the almoner to use for the soul of John de Hameldun and all the departed ‘in a certain place’ and land in Hurworth rendering £1 4s annually and 12 acres in their south croft for 16s, saving the farm to the burgesses. It appears, therefore, that the parish church began as a hospital chapel and was continued partly as a chantry. It is seldom possible to disentangle the workings of the hospital from the parish but on occasion one can see the difference. The details about it are almost all in the almoner’s accounts. On the feast day of St Mary Magdalen (22 July), for instance, the accounts always state that there were offerings and

131

F. Thompson, ‘St Mary Magdalen, Durham’, TAASDN, 2 (1869–79), pp. 140–6, esp. p. 141. 132 DEC, no. 43. 133 DEC, p. 172. 134 Memorials of St Giles, pp. 234–5. 135 Memorials of St Giles, p. 275; printed in The Priory of Finchale, ed. J. Raine, SS 6 (1837), pp. 126, 127. 136 Printed: Memorials of St Giles, appendix B, I, pp. 233–4, from DCM, 6.4. Elimosin, 12. 18

THE PARISHES

these were distinguished from the offerings and tithes of the parishioners.137 There were also mortuaries which were distinguished from those from the hospital.138 In most parts of England where there are churchwardens’ accounts one can find out about the care and upkeep of local churches from them, though they have limitations because they view the church and its fabric from a particular lay viewpoint and do not include all expenditure.139 In Durham, which has no churchwardens’ accounts, we have only the returns of the procurators of the appropriated parishes of St Margaret’s and St Oswald’s with the central accounts of the hostillar, almoner and bursar to add to them. The upkeep is accounted for in the central accounts and not completely in the procurator’s accounts. In consequence one can find out a great deal about the upkeep of St Oswald’s parish but only from the priory’s point of view, so there is little about chantries and not much about the nave. Except for St Mary Magdalen’s, which was also the responsibility of the monks but so small that the parishioners do not seem to have been able to afford much, no other parish church in Durham can be studied in great detail. According to William Lyndwood, an English canon lawyer writing between 1422 and 1430, the responsibility for the upkeep of the choir of a parish church belonged to its rector. In the case of the appropriated churches in Durham, therefore, it fell to the priory obedientiary to whose ‘estate’ a church was assigned, via his procurator. The nave, the supply of books and vestments and the cemetery were the responsibility of the lay people.140 The archdeacon oversaw these duties and ordered their fulfilment if necessary. The remaining evidence shows that the priory was a conscientious rector; details of repairs can be found regularly in its accounts. Though we have none of the archidiaconal visitation returns for the city we know that the prior was a conscientious visitor; there are a few oblique references to visitations of the local churches under the prior’s care.141 For the city one may begin with St Oswald’s. The evidence about the appearance and decoration of the pre-Reformation church is scanty and it would be foolish to draw any conclusions from it. A perpendicular clerestory with a hammer-beam roof with carved angels and some grotesques was altered by Bonomi, though some of the carvings have been preserved. It had an inscription Orate p. W.Catten, vicr, which indicates the vicar of 1412–14.142 The present tower is fifteenth-century and there remain fifteenth-century choir

137

Almoner, 1368–9. Almoner, 1369–70; some of the accounts are translated by Thompson in his article. 139 C. Burgess, ‘Pre-Reformation church wardens’ accounts and parish: lessons from London and Bristol’, EHR, 117 (2002), pp. 306–32. 140 W. Lyndwood, Provinciale, Oxford 1679 (Gregg photo reprint 1968), III, tit. 27, ut parochiani, p. 251. 141 Capitula, f. 12v, April 1437, refers to in ultima visitacione about Witton chapel. 142 Surtees, Durham, IV, p. 74. 138

19


stalls, scorched after a fire in 1984 but still there. In Surtees’s time there were still some fragments of stained glass with Neville and Lumley arms which suggests that these families paid for some of the adornment of the church.143 In addition to the attempt of 1436 to force the parishioners of Croxdale to pay in full for St Oswald’s there is a little other evidence of work on the church.144 In November 1454, John Thomson, webster, who had failed to produce enough of his fellow parishioners to swear to his good character when accused in the church court (know as purgation), was ordered to spend two days working ‘on the work of St Oswald’s church before Easter’.145 Both these suggest building work in progress. Some of this is apparent in the accounts. The existing accounts go back only to the fourteenth century and there is very little evidence of the building before that. From then on, however, many details can be found. Work on the choir occurs regularly. In 1347–8 it was being enlarged, the cost to the hostillar being over £20.146 Then in 1355–6 it is clear that the church had been burned along with four houses.147 Repairs were being paid for in 1357–8.148 In 1363–4 a bell tower was being built and a window mended.149 In 1364–5 payments were made for wainscot and wood for the stalls in the church.150 The next year records more payments for stalls and the repair of the choir.151 Then in 1382–3 the accounts record payment for covering the choir with lead, and repairing windows and doors at a cost of over £12.152 A tiler was paid £3 5s 10d for repair of the choir in 1429–30.153 A repair of a new window was paid for in 1430–1, costing £2 10s 10d.154 In 1449–50 John the plumber was paid 10d for working on the chancel of the church and two stones of lead were bought, which one might have thought was the parishioners’ responsibility.155 Glass windows were mended in 1462–3,156 and again in the choir of the church in 1466–7, where other work was being done requiring two men working for three days using solder.157 More work on repair of the choir requiring a plumber was recorded in 1471–2158

143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158

Surtees, Durham, IV, p. 74. Capitula, f. 7. Capitula, ff. 134, 135. Hostillar’s accounts, 1347–8. Hostillar’s accounts, 1355–5. Hostillar’s accounts, 1357–8. Hostillar’s accounts, 1363–4. Hostillar’s accounts, 1364–5. Hostillar’s accounts, 1365–6. Hostillar’s accounts, 1382–3. Hostillar’s accounts, 1429–30. Hostillar’s accounts, 1430–1. Hostillar’s accounts, 1449–50. Hostillar’s accounts, 1462–3. Hostillar’s accounts, 1466–7A. Hostillar’s accounts, 1471–2. 20

THE PARISHES

and in 1495–6.159 Plastering was paid for in the chancel in 1472–3160 and in 1510–11 stonework and glass were recorded for the great window of the chancel.161 In theory the parishioners were obliged not only to look after the nave but also to supply the requisite books, vestments, ornaments and images for the church, including banners and processional crosses.162 The nature of our accounts does not allow us to see how conscientious they were. In practice the priory supplied some books and vestments and helped towards other things in all its churches. In 1347–8 the hostillar bought and gave a portable breviary and a missal to St Oswald’s.163 Further missals were bought in 1357/8 and 1361/2.164 In 1360–1 the accounts show linen being bought (11 ells) for the making of a surplice.165 The next year a chasuble, tunic, dalmatic and cope were made and bought for the church and two graduals were purchased.166 A chest was bought to keep books and vestments in 1364–5.167 A chrismal was also bought. In 1366–7 the giving of a psalter to the church is recorded.168 In 1374–5 two pairs of hangings(?) and bedding were bought for the vicar.169 A cope was bought for the church in 1380–1.170 Two new albs were bought in 1390–1.171 An alb and towels were bought for the high altar in 1391–2, with decorations (parures).172 A portable service book was repaired in 1381–2.173 A carpenter was paid for a tabula in 1388–9.174 In 1391 another chest was bought to keep the vestments.175 A linen vestment was paid for in 1396–7.176 It is possible that what we see here is merely an accounting device by which the hostillar bought the materials and charged the parish, but whatever was happening the provision appears to be careful. There is also evidence that the hostillar was willing to come to the rescue of the parish with money. In 1406–7 he records gifts of 6s 8d to the parishioners

159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176

Hostillar’s accounts, 1495–6. Hostillar’s accounts, 1472–3B. Hostillar’s accounts, 1510–11. Lyndwood, III, tit. 27, ut parochiani, p. 251. Hostillar’s accounts, 1347–8. Hostillar’s accounts, 1357/8, 1361–2. Hostillar’s accounts, 1360–1. Hostillar’s accounts, 1361–2. Hostillar’s accounts, 1364–5. Hostillar’s accounts, 1366–7. Hostillar’s accounts, 1374–5. Hostillar’s accounts, 1380–1. Hostillar’s accounts, 1390–1A. Hostillar’s accounts, 1391–2. Hostillar’s accounts, 1381–2. Hostillar’s accounts, 1388–9. Hostillar’s accounts, 1391. Hostillar’s accounts, 1396–7. 21


to help them buy a tabula for the church.177 In 1426–7 a gift of 3s 4d was recorded for the belfry.178 In 1454–5 £1 was given as a gift to the parishioners for repair of the church at the order of the prior.179 In 1463–4 the hostillar gave a gift of 16s 8d to the parishioners for the organ they had newly bought, which may be one of the first examples locally.180 Compared with this there is very scant evidence for St Margaret’s, though there is a little.181 The present church was restored in the nineteenth century and the north aisle is entirely modern. But there are some twelfth-century remains and evidence of fifteenth-century rebuilding.182 The only remaining written evidence is that in 1343 Bishop Richard de Bury offered an indulgence for all those who contributed to help the parishioners pay for a new south aisle and an altar in honour of Thomas Becket.183 The parishioners had not the means to do all the work themselves and were sending round collectors to ask for help. We do not know the outcome. St Mary Magdalen’s church is very well documented, largely because the parish was so small that the priory seems to have undertaken almost all repairs. The ‘rector’ in this case was the almoner. There are frequent mentions of the upkeep of the original church, which was built on such boggy ground that its foundations were unstable. In 1391 the bishop offered an indulgence for those who visited the church on its feast day and gave alms; it was clearly in need of money.184 In 1369–70 there is reference to buying timber and carrying slates for the church.185 The following year major repairs were done. There are references to lime, sawing of timber, making the walls, carpentering, slates, wainscot, covering the church, daubing it, glazing a window and also the painting of a picture of St Mary Magdalen.186 This account makes it clear that there was a room for the chaplain there. In 1431–2 William Lonysdale was paid for a new roof over the choir of what was now called the parish church.187 But by 1433 the church was partly in ruins and an attempt was made to stabilise it.188

177

Hostillar’s accounts, 1406–7. Hostillar’s accounts, 1426–7. 179 Hostillar’s accounts, 1454–5. 180 Hostillar’s accounts, 1463–4 181 B. Colgrave, St Margaret’s Church, Crossgate, Durham reprinted 1991, is a scholarly account. 182 Pevsner, Durham, pp. 220–1. 183 Richard D’Aungerville of Bury, Fragments of his Register and Other Documents, ed. G.W. Kitchin, SS 119 (1910), pp. 27–8; mentioned in a deed (undated), W.H.D. Longstaffe, ‘Local muniments. From the Collection of the late J. Brough Taylor Esq. FSA’, Arch. Ael., 2nd series, 1 (1857), p. 61. 184 DCM, 6.4.Elem.15. 185 Almoner, 1369–70. 186 Almoner, 1370–1A. 187 Almoner, 1431–2A/B. 188 Almoner, 1432–3: pro stabilimento fundi ecclesie beate Marie Magdalene in parte nunc prostrate. 178

22

THE PARISHES

The boggy foundations and poor building methods meant that the priests, the poor and pilgrims who wished to visit it could not do so in safety and services could scarcely be conducted.189 By 1449–50 it had clearly been decided that the only answer was to move the old church and rebuild. The faithful gave 9s 8d, so perhaps there was an appeal.190 Certainly in 1450 an offertory box bound in iron was bought.191 The accounts give interesting details.192 Scaffolding was erected and a great stone was bought for the altar. Richard Billingham was paid for one stone for this (perhaps the same),193 with four stones ‘for the pointed end to the spandrel’ (pro le Bekett ad ostium). William Brown was paid for painting an image of Mary Magdalen. The new church was buttressed. Wood was brought from Bearpark. The roof was stone and payment was made for pargetting (le pargenyng). Finally the old building was demolished. In 1450 also stalls had been put in and there was a bell whose stokkynge was paid.194 The font had a marble stone at its foot for which Nicholas Chaunceller was paid 8d.195 A copper tabernacle was bought.196 William Hedloe made the wall round the cemetery.197 Permission had to be obtained to move the church and to re-dedicate it, so that in 1450 William Poplay had been paid 6s 8d for licence under the bishop’s seal ad causas to move it,198 and £5 was paid to the bishop for the licence itself.199 Finally the church was re-dedicated on 16 May 1451 by the suffragan bishop (of Holar in Iceland) with Master John Lound and others present.200 The accounts continue to show that repairs were done. By 1471–2 the church had to be re-roofed and some work was paid for in 1477–8.201 More roofing was paid for in 1480–1.202 Rails in the cemetery, usually the responsibility of the parishioners, were paid for in 1492–3.203 In 1515–16 pointing was being done, the windows were mended and a large bell rope was purchased.204 Further work, unspecified, was done in 1516–17 and another bell rope bought in 1520–1.205 189

Memorials of St Giles, pp. 239–40, from Misc. Ch. 2265. Almoner, 1449–50. 191 Almoner, 1450: in 1 pixide ferro legato empto pro conservacione oblacionum ecclesie parochialis beate Marie Magdalene. 192 Almoner, 1449–50; Thompson translates this. 193 Almoner, 1450–1. 194 Almoner, 1450. 195 Almoner, 1450–1. 196 Almoner, 1453–4. 197 Almoner, 1450–1. 198 Almoner, 1450. 199 Almoner, 1450–1. 200 Almoner, 1450–1; VCH, Durham, II pp. 119–20; Misc. Ch. 2265, 2266. 201 Almoner, 1471–2, 1477–8. 202 Almoner, 1480–1. 203 Almoner, 1492–3A. 204 Almoner, 1515–16. 205 Almoner, 1516–17A/B, 1520–1. 190

23


As in the case of St Oswald’s, but on a much smaller scale, the almoner can be seen paying for items which we would not expect. In 1375–6 a bell was hung there.206 In 1397–8 a new alb was bought for the church.207 In 1411–12 dominus John Fishburn was paid 6s 8d for a small cupboard or aumbry (almariolus) next to the altar of St Mary Magdalen.208 In 1413–14 eleven yards of linen were bought for altar clothes at the infirmary chapel and Mary Magdalen’s.209 Vestments were bought in 1415–16.210 Repairs (unspecified) were done to the chapel in 1418–19 and perhaps in 1421–2 and in 1428–9.211 In 1421–2 the bishop (it is not clear if he was the local bishop) is noted as celebrating at the altar of St Mary Magdalen.212 A new missal in parchment was bound for the chapel in 1434–5.213 One of the most interesting items among all this is the evidence about the windows. John Chambre of York was paid in the 1450s for making windows in the church. This man was a member of a very distinguished family of glasspainters from York and his employment by the priory was part of a long tradition in Durham of making use of glass-makers from there.214 It is remarkable that he was used for what appears to be a relatively poor and unimportant church. The value of these benefices is difficult to judge. In the valuation made by the papacy for taxation purposes in 1291 St Oswald’s rectory was said to be worth £20 but in 1318 it was £12 13s 4d.215 Its exact value either to the convent or to the vicar is of course very difficult to compute and no doubt varied over time. The priory lost about 50 per cent of its tenants during the Black Death and the population of the area continued to be low until late in the fifteenth century.216 Evidence given below shows the continuous attacks of plague and

206

Almoner, 1375–6B. Almoner, 1397–8A. 208 Almoner, 1411–12A/B (was this in the cathedral?). 209 Almoner, 1413–14. 210 Almoner, 1415–16B. 211 Almoner, 1418–19A, 1421–2A, 1428–9A. 212 Almoner, 1421–2A. 213 Almoner, 1434–5. 214 S. Brown, Stained Glass at York Minster, London 1999, for the Durham connection, esp. p. 64; T.W. French, ‘The Great East Window’, Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi, Great Britain. Summary Catalogue, 2, Oxford 1995, pp. 5–6, appendix 3, pp. 153–4; H. Swanson, Building Craftsmen in Late Medieval York, Borthwick Papers 63 (1983), pp. 22–3; J.A. Knowles, Essays in the History of the York School of Glass-painting, London 1936, pp. 10, 29, 233–4, 246; J. Haselock and D.E. O’Connor, ‘The medieval stained glass of Durham Cathedral’, Medieval Art and Architecture at Durham Cathedral, The British Archaeological Association Conference for 1977, pp. 105–29, esp. pp. 108, 113. 215 Donaldson, ‘Patronage and the church’, p. 107 (for sources for this, p. iv). 216 R. Lomas, ‘The Black Death in County Durham’, Journal of Medieval History, 15 (1989), pp. 127–140, esp. pp. 129, 134; R.H. Britnell, ‘Feudal reaction after the Black Death in the Palatinate of Durham’, Past and Present, 128 (August 1990), pp. 28–47, esp. pp. 30–2. 207

24

THE PARISHES

the drastic re-ordering of many benefices which Hatfield organised.217 The consequence was that the priory’s income from all agricultural sources fell. It recovered again somewhat but there was a further crisis between about 1396 and 1401, and again in the mid-fifteenth century.218 Incomes remained below pre-plague levels in the period up to 1460. The ways of calculating parish income, however, are easy to see in Durham, at least for the parishes which were appropriated, because the procurator’s accounts listed the items of income and expenditure in detail and the way of setting them out remained very much the same even after the Dissolution. A typical year for its contents, even if its figures may have been lower than before the plague, would be 1447–8 in St Oswald’s.219 Income was calculated from blessed bread, bringing in 6s 1d; sponsalia (offerings at marriage), £1 0s 9d; purificaciones (offerings at churchings of women), 10s 5d; burials, 15s 11d; wax left in church, 6s 9d; principal offerings, which were from the guild of the Trinity, offerings on St Oswald’s day, Christmas, Candlemas, including candles, offerings at the adoration of the cross, and during the Easter Triduum (from Holy Thursday to Easter Sunday), offerings at St Oswald and at other saints, offerings at John Warton’s tomb (to be discussed later), from the grange of Kepier and from the chapel at Burn Hall, from Croxdale on St Bartholomew’s feast, and at Christmas and Easter. Then the tithes were listed: hay, flax, hemp, pigs and onions, piglets, geese and hens, producing in all £3 7s 7d. These were followed by mortuaries, animals first and then clothes. Then follow Lenten offerings of personal tithes (sessiones quadragesimales), bringing in £6 4s 4d, then tithes of lambs, calves and wool, in all £4 4s 5d, and then something always listed as ‘various receipts’ which include receipts from images sold at John Warton’s tomb, which will be explained later. Legacies follow, if any. In Witton Gilbert tithes of coal were included.220 Outgoings include for hosts and wine and wax bought for services, including for the Easter candle and money spent three times yearly for strewing the church with straw, gratuities for the chaplains and clerks at Christmas and Easter and for beer and bread on Holy Thursday. All references to repairs for which the procurator accounted appeared here. It is now possible to sum up the parochial history of Durham city. Originally there seems to have been one enormous parish based on Elvet with perhaps a parish within the city walls. The developments within the Elvet parish were probably largely during the twelfth century, the earliest probably the Daudre chapel at Croxdale and Puiset’s chapel at Witton. The building of St Margaret’s chapel made sense and the resistance of the monks to its independence, as well

217

See p. 140. B. Dodds, ‘Tithe and agrarian output between Tyne and Tees, 1350–1450’, PhD thesis, University of Durham, 2002, esp. chapters 6 and 7. See his appendix for St Oswald’s figures. 219 St Oswald’s accounts. 220 I hope to work further on this. See p. 79. 218

25


as the very late ordination of a proper vicarage for St Oswald’s itself, shows that financial considerations were always part of the provision of spiritual services. It seems highly likely that St Bartholomew’s in Croxdale was once a semi-independent chapel built by a local magnate who was bought off in the twelfth century once the church had set its face against private ownership of parish chapels. But there were several house chapels in the parish apart from Butterby; the Billinghams in Crookhall evidently had such a chapel in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries,221 the difference being that they had no right to have Sunday mass there whereas the Daudres and Burn Hall apparently had. In line with evidence from elsewhere, Flambard emerges as the most important developer of parishes in the city area. St Nicholas and St Giles were his creation. There is no evidence that Flambard was a reformer; in fact everything that we know points the other way. He had several sons and looked after them very carefully. ‘Modern’ ideas about celibacy of the clergy were not of interest.222 The twelfth-century church councils were full of legislation about parish churches and the evidence suggests that in Durham the period was equally crucial, though there is no evidence that Flambard acted because church councils ordered him to do so. But after about 1107, when he concentrated on his diocese, he did overhaul its administration and the development of parishes was part of that. He was interested in the city and its growth. Not all the divisions made good pastoral sense. The priory itself probably helped to ensure that St Oswald’s was subdivided in a fairly rational way, though it would have been much more pastorally sensible, though more expensive, to have made several new parishes. The building of two Bailey churches, however, was parochially odd, suggesting an agreement to divide influence over the area between the Nevilles and the priory. Developing St Mary Magdalen as a parish is equally odd. It seems clear from the later quarrels and arguments, however, that different parts of the area felt very different and had different rights and customs, so that uniformity was never going to be possible in any case.

221

DCM, Hatfield, Register, f. 178v. Offler, ‘Rannulf Flambard as bishop of Durham’, in: North of the Tees, no VII, esp. p. 16. 222

26

2

The year in the life of the laity The object of all the institutions which have hitherto been described was to help the salvation of souls. Essential to that, of course, was that Christians should regularly worship God and live holy lives. The laity were reminded in many a sermon of their Christian duties, both those which were regular and regarded as an essential minimum and those which were needed for continuing a truly holy life, which was the church’s aim for everyone but the aspiration probably of only a few. The difference between what would be said to modern Christians and to medieval ones lies partly in the fact that in the middle ages some aspects of the Christian life were compulsory; one could not opt out from membership of the church and this brought with it inescapable duties. Also many more of the obligations of Christianity were performed very publicly. The ideals were presented to Christians in the pulpit, and Durham is fortunate to have a sermon cycle giving samples of the preaching of one of the early fifteenth-century monks, Robert Ripon, to show what was offered.1 Ripon’s sermons show what he thought ought to be happening at parish level. The Christian year begins with Advent, the four weeks intended as a preparation for the Christmas festival. Ripon’s sermon cycle began very properly with two Advent sermons of which one was aimed at the laity.2 This was a general exhortation to holiness and the doing of penance. His hearers were reminded of their baptismal vows by which they became Christians and got their name. They were reminded what it meant to call themselves Christians. There is nothing to tell us how many of his hearers took any notice of this since we do not have any means of checking Advent observance at the parish level. There is very little evidence about the religious celebration of Christmas in the parishes and there are no sermons for it. St Margaret’s and St Oswald’s accounts show regular offerings by lay people at Christmas and the priory marked the feast by giving customary payments to its servants; these can be seen also in its manors, such as Elvet Hall.3 The end of the Christmas season came with Epiphany on 6 January. This was a Holyday with compulsory attendance at church. The laity would have had little chance to backslide

1

For more details see p. 125. The most recent account is S. Wenzel, Latin Sermon Collections from Later Medieval England. Orthodox Preaching in the Age of Wyclif, Cambridge 2005. Ripon is discussed on pp. 66–73. 2 BL, MS Harley 4894, ff. 4–6v. 3 DCM, Houghall and Elvet Hall accounts passim. 27


because, as with other Holydays, the Durham church courts were quick to punish disregard ex officio. On 11 January 1448, for instance, John Robynson, a fuller of Elvet, was warned not to exercise his art on festival days, in this case the recent Epiphany.4 In all the Durham churches Candlemas (2 February) was an important feast.5 It celebrated the Purification of the Virgin in the Temple at Jerusalem and was marked by a mass during which candles were blessed and used.6 Candles also played an important part in rituals of healing. The parishioners were obliged to pay for the candles which they used during the ceremonies and this could cause considerable dispute, though its exact grounds are not clear. The objection may have been that the practice of payment was based on custom and not on a canon law which specified the exact nature of the obligation. Ripon talked of this type of obligation in a Lent sermon, pointing out that giving was an antidote to cupidity, and referring to the obligation to pay to the church ‘tithes and offerings and other things which are owed by law and custom’.7 On 10 February 1423 when William Doncaster was vicar of St Oswald’s church, the prior appealed to the bishop because some of the parishioners were refusing to make offerings of candles.8 At the recent Candlemas ceremonies there had clearly been a scene, with parishioners not only refusing to offer candles themselves (which they bought to use) but seizing candles from the hands of others and keeping them. The tone of the injunction is severe. The sons of iniquity concerned, ‘With premeditated evil and at the instigation of the devil entered into conspiracies, sworn plots and conventicles among themselves, both publicly and secretly.’ As perceived by the accusers they were refusing to make the offerings that were customary at weddings, churchings, and funerals. This was against the constitution (Cum omnis pontifex9) of the Durham diocesan synod (of 1312) which forbade withholding customary offerings under pain of excommunication. The parochial chaplain of St Oswald’s was ordered to threaten greater excommunication if they did not desist within twelve days.10 Objections of this sort were associated with the heresy of John Wyclif’s followers, known as Lollards. The language about conspiracies and conventicles and secrecy also suggests that heresy was being considered,11 and it may

4

Capitula, f. 71v. R. Hutton, The Rise and Fall of Merry England: The Ritual Year 1400–1700, Oxford 1994, repr. 1996, pp. 139–45. 6 Hutton, Rise, pp. 17–18. 7 Harley 4894, f. 109v. 8 DCM, Reg. III, f. 99r/v. 9 H. Spelman, Concilia, Decreta, Leges, London 1664, p. 475, section on oblationes, p. 478. 10 DCM, Reg. III, f. 120. 11 I. Forrest, The Detection of Heresy in Late Medieval England, Oxford Historical Monographs, Oxford 2005, pp. 45, 48, 162–3, 181–2, 189–90. 5

28

THE YEAR IN THE LIFE OF THE LAITY

be no coincidence that in the prior’s Register there is a justification from canon law of the custom of offering candles on the feast of the Purification opposite extracts from John Wyclif’s Trialogus, one of his more heretical and contentious late works.12 The copying of these extracts reveals that members of the monastic community were concerned with Wyclif’s ideas, as is clear from elsewhere.13 The legal justification is headed: ‘Allegations of law for the offering of candles on the Feast of the Purification.’ It continues: ‘Note against those who say that parishioners of any church are not bound to offer candles in their parish churches on the day of the Purification.’ The essence of the argument is that it is a laudable custom throughout the whole country that a large candle with a penny should be offered. Further customs were that a bed was given for the dead, or that the priest had the dead person’s clothes, and that something should be offered at a wedding. These laudable customs were to be observed according to Pope Innocent (IV) and various other famous canon lawyers. Canon law opinion said that if parishioners were accustomed to make offerings on certain feasts they could be compelled by the bishop to observe a pious custom. Custom was defined as acts which are repeated and when they are repeated suggest that they are willed and agreed. Custom thus had the force of law. The transgressor of custom was to be punished equally as the transgressor of written law. So the priory had threatened excommunication for the parishioners and it must have won, or at least no more is heard. The next season of the church year was Lent, a time of very strict fasting and preparation for Easter, leading up to the point when the laity were obliged to confess their sins to their own parish priest and to receive their Easter communion. Lent was the subject of thirty-one sermons by Ripon, many of which were aimed either at a mixed group of the clergy and laity or at the laity alone, which shows how important it must have seemed to the church authorities. The priory sacrist, who was responsible for the Galilee chapel in the cathedral, regularly paid for preachers there during Lent, both monks and seculars, and they were entertained.14 In Ripon’s sermons the messages are quite clear. To Ripon the standard expected by God from lay people was lower than that expected from clergy. It sufficed for the laity to obey the ten commandments, the way of the Lord, though clearly Ripon thought that, to be really safe on the way to heaven, clergy had a better vocation: Some lay people walk in one path and some in another but whatever a man does it suffices for him to achieve the kingdom of heaven if he fulfils the commandments with an upright heart.15 12

DCM, Reg. III, f. 119v; for Lollardy in general, R. Rex, The Lollards, Basingstoke 2002. A. Hudson, ‘Wyclif and the North: the evidence from Durham’, in D. Wood, ed., Life and Thought in the Northern Church, SCH Subsidia, 12 (1999), pp. 87–103, for the latest discussion. 14 Sacrist’s accounts, passim; 1356–7 says pro expensis fratrum et secularium predicantum tempore quadragesimale. 15 Harley 4894, f. 92. 13

29


The emphasis here on the reasons for obedience was important to the preacher. Ripon felt he needed to explain to lay people why Lent existed at all and why one needed to fast, willingly.16 Fasting was an antidote to greed and should be penitential; Ripon supported this with a long quotation from Robert Grosseteste’s dictum 146.17 He considered that during Lent fasting should provide time for prayer and listening to sermons.18 Some of the particular Sundays of Lent were marked by special ceremonies and Ripon was anxious that his hearers should consider Lent as a whole as a time of spiritual progress. A sermon for mid-Lent Sunday, known as Laetare Sunday from the opening words of the Introit of its mass, points out that only those free from sin are fit to celebrate. The text from Galatians 4:22 (Abraham had two sons) prompted a comparison of Abraham’s journey with the soul’s journey through life.19 Ripon also noted that the fifth Sunday was specially called Passion Sunday, when the passion of Christ was particularly remembered, with the whole gospel account read aloud. His sermon emphasised the cleansing properties of blood and of Christ’s blood in particular.20 Then on Palm Sunday there would be a procession with branches, and Ripon called attention to its importance, mentioning the hymn Gloria, Laus et Honor which would have been sung during it.21 He again drew a parallel with walking in this procession and the journey of the soul through life, warning against taking part insincerely. He took his audience through the story of the raising of Lazarus and urged them to rise and journey with Christ. We can assume that, since they used the Sarum rite, all Durham churches had a Palm Sunday procession, but it has left little mark in our records. One of the few references comes after the Reformation from the recollections of a parishioner of St Margaret’s, Henry Richardson, who remembered that ‘in tyme of latten service’ one of the churchwardens of St Margaret’s ‘used upon Palm Sunday to beir one of the 4 pools [poles] over the sacrament’ in St Oswald’s church.22 The Blessed Sacrament must have been carried with a canopy over it supported by poles at the corners. The recollection was used to uphold the residual rights which St Margaret’s parishioners still thought they had in St Oswald’s.23 Most of the Lent sermons urged the audience to consider their sins and to make their confession. According to Ripon, sins could be regarded as a series of illnesses, with ‘Christ as your doctor and the priest in place of Christ’24 and 16

Harley 4894, f. 63; see also p. 128. S.H. Thomson, The Writings of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, Cambridge 1940, p. 232; Harley 4894, ff. 48v–9. 18 Harley 4894, ff. 48v–9. 19 Harley 4894, ff. 106v–10v; note Hutton on the modern development of this into ‘Mothering Sunday’ of which there is no hint here: Rise, pp. 174–5. 20 Harley 4894, ff. 119v–24. 21 Harley 4894, ff. 124–9, esp. f. 126. 22 Depositions, p. 278. 23 Duffy, Stripping, pp. 23–4, for the ceremonies of the day. 24 Harley 4894, f. 37. 17

30


penance as the medicine.25 He reminded people that the confessional was entirely secret, telling a story about how the devil could not remember sins that had been confessed.26 Many of the Lenten sermons were concerned with discussing particular sins fitting the particular station in life of the hearer (ad statum) and making sure that lay people understood how to confess, emphasising the need to be repentant and to do their penance.27 Ripon was emphatic about the need to persevere after one had confessed.28 It is also interesting to see that he found it necessary in one sermon to remind his hearers that they needed a special licence to confess to anyone other than their own priest.29 Though a few persons probably had a licence to choose their own confessor, such as that obtained by the Elvet family, mentioned below, most would have had to confess to their own parish clergy.30 The hostillar’s accounts always show a pittance, which was a refreshment, given to the chaplains hearing the confessions of the parishioners of St Oswald’s in Lent.31 The business of hearing all those confessions must have been very onerous in all the local churches. In the middle ages everyone over the age of about 12 was obliged, under pain of excommunication and public penance, not only to confess their sins to their parish priest but also to receive holy communion at least once a year at Easter time in their parish church. In the account for 1447–8 the procurator recorded 800 hosts bought for the parishioners of St Oswald’s and Croxdale for the Easter communion.32 The St Oswald’s total was probably usually about 500, the number paid for in the account for 1467–8, rising to 600 in 1479–80.33 Ripon always emphasised that all the fasting and penance of Lent was to lead up to the great event of receiving communion at Easter. There are, however, only two sermons for Easter in the Durham collection.34 They both seem to be for mixed clerical and lay audiences and stress the orthodox understanding of the Eucharist, and that Christ has come to them in the sacrament this day as a friend. In the second sermon Ripon likens the Eucharist to a great man having a meal in his house and inviting his friends. In fact we can find out only a little about how Holy Week and Easter were celebrated in the parishes of Durham. The procurators of St Margaret’s and St Oswald’s ordered and paid for an Easter candle, which would have been lit during ceremonies on Easter Eve and left in the church for the rest of the

25

Harley 4894, ff. 24v–5. Harley 4894, f. 60. 27 Harley 4894, f. 37. 28 Harley 4894, f. 85v. 29 Harley 4894, f. 106. 30 See p. 121. 31 Hostillar’s accounts, 1333–5, 13s 4d: in pittanc’ facta capellanis audientibus confessionibus; Hostillar’s accounts, 1344–5, 1348–9. 32 St Oswald’s accounts, 1447–8. 33 St Oswald’s accounts, 1467–8. 34 Harley 4894, ff. 133v–43v. 26

31


year. The name of the Durham chandler who made the candles is usually given but there is no mention of any other parish ceremonial being paid for.35 There seems also to have been an offering of bread and ale to priests and people in both St Margaret’s and St Oswald’s churches on Holy Thursday, when the ceremonies recalled the Last Supper and Christ’s washing of the disciples’ feet, emphasising Christian charity.36 No doubt the Easter ceremonies in the parishes followed the lines given by Duffy in The Stripping of the Altars.37 The presence of the monks in the city, however, provided much grander Easter ceremonies than would have been possible otherwise. On Holy Thursday, for instance, the monks processed out of the north door of the cathedral, through the churchyard, down what is now Dun Cow Lane to St Mary le Bow and then along the South Bailey, going in again at the abbey gates, watched, according to the Rites of Durham (written after the Reformation), by many men, women and children.38 The men then followed the procession into the abbey for a service. The procession was remembered by the author of the Rites as involving the prior with two crosses borne before him, one of gold and the other, his crozier, of silver gilt, led by St Cuthbert’s banner. All the monks wore rich copes, the prior’s being of such heavy gold brocade that it had to be held up to allow him to move at all. He wore a costly mitre. In the procession went the shrine with St Bede’s relics carried by four monks, with the cross of St Margaret and a picture of St Oswald which contained his rib. It does not do to over-idealize these ceremonies. One needs to remember that attendance at the parish church was compulsory and that in the city at least absence was noticed. There is no evidence for heresy in the city of Durham in this period (though there were a few Lollards, including clergy, in Newcastle in the early part of the fifteenth century), but parishioners did sometimes fail to attend church and the parish clergy and archidiaconal visitors were assiduous in accusing them.39 Easter Day in 1492 was on 22 April. On 4 May Joanna Peirson and Agnes Johnson of St Margaret’s were cited before the prior’s archidiaconal court because, without licence of their curate, they had not received communion in the church. Both appeared. Joanna said that she had received communion in St Nicholas’s church, Newcastle, and was given a day to return with proof.40 Agnes, however, said that she had received

35

St Oswald’s accounts, 1467–8, 1472–3, 1479–80. St Margaret’s accounts, for example 1448–9: in pane et cervisia empt’ et dat’ presbiteris et parochianis in die cena domini. In St Oswald’s accounts the payments can still be seen in DCM, Receiver’s Book 2 for 1541–2: pro pane et potu in cena domini dat’ clericis et parochianis. And similarly for 1542; for 1543–4 Misc. Ch. 5907b shows the same. 37 Duffy, Stripping, pp. 28–37. 38 Rites, p. 105. 39 M.G. Snape, ‘Some evidence of Lollard activity in the diocese of Durham in the early fifteenth century’, Arch. Ael., 4th series, 39 (1961), pp. 355–61. 40 Court Book of Prior’s Official, f. 35v. 36

32


communion at St Oswald’s, though by then, of course, St Margaret’s was a parish in its own right. She was required to prove it but was also given a penance of three floggings round the chapel for withdrawal from her parish church without permission.41 When at her next appearance Agnes failed to prove her claim that she had actually attended St Oswald’s, she was given three floggings round St Margaret’s and three round St Oswald’s. According to the Rites, the Monday before Ascension Thursday (itself forty days after Easter), the first of the so-called Rogation Days, was celebrated with great pomp in Durham. Rogations were essentially days of special prayer, for crops and for divine aid in troubles. The monks came in procession to St Oswald’s on the Monday for a solemn service with a sermon by a monk before an audience of townspeople.42 They came to St Margaret’s on the Tuesday and to St Nicholas’s on the Wednesday, with the same procedure. Some of Ripon’s sermons for these occasions have again been preserved and he mentions in one that ‘we have come here in procession’.43 In some of these sermons he explained what the days were for: essentially prayer for God’s help. The sermons which remain may be from about 1403 when the Northern March area was very disturbed; in these sermons the need for prayer in the disturbed state of the kingdom was emphasised. The story Ripon told about the institution of the Rogation Days was that a bishop had started them because wild beasts attacked a place. In one sermon Ripon explained the beasts as local people. The lion was A lord powerful in the neighbourhood who thirsts after the goods of others. His tail is the circuit of the neighbourhood which he lives in or it is the small group which follows him like a tail. The body is the small following and their strength and power which with him are drunk on the goods of others, not caring what or how, rightly or wrongly, they can pillage the possessions of ecclesiastics. They pay little or nothing and late and they unjustly claim their possession. There are, alas, too many of these lions in the kingdom.44

According to the Ripon sermons Whit Sunday (Pentecost) and its season was also a time of great celebration for Durham. Whit fell on the seventh Sunday after Easter and celebrated the coming of the Holy Spirit to the Apostles. In a sermon to a synod Ripon castigated the priests of the diocese for their sins, pointing out that: There is indeed an ancient synodal constitution that all rectors and vicars of this diocese should come personally or at least send in their place an honest priest and clerk to this centre at least once a year, that is in Pentecost week with banners and

41 42 43 44

Court Book of Prior’s Official, f. 36v. Rites, p. 104. Harley 4894, ff. 144–57, esp. f. 157v for quotation. Harley 4894, f. 158. 33


crosses erect to approach in procession the Lord, Blessed Mary, St Oswald and St Cuthbert, the patrons of this church, to pray for the peace and tranquillity of this kingdom and especially for this area.

But, according to Ripon, the custom had fallen into disuse and the parishes sent lesser lay people, which was no doubt why the area was suffering from wars, pestilence and other disasters and why the saints had withdrawn their aid so that it was commonly said that St Cuthbert was asleep.45 The priory was still having trouble with the procession in 1461 when the prior sent a letter to the bishop’s apparitor (the official who summoned persons to the court) telling him to fine a named list of rectors and vicars of the diocese who had not come to the procession nor sent a suitable chaplain properly clad in cape or surplice with the parish clerk bearing the parish banner.46 We can find out a little about this procession, which must have been quite impressive when it was fully in being. It may have been a Norman innovation but by the time we meet it in Durham it had been well established.47 The priory official responsible was the feretrar, whose duties included the care of the shrine of St Cuthbert. The feretrar’s accounts show the procession from the end of the fourteenth century, because it was an occasion when offerings at the shrine of St Cuthbert were made by the clergy.48 From about 1398 an item also regularly appears in the same source concerning the summoning and fining of people who had not come to the procession.49 The bishop’s apparitor was always paid a small fee for summoning the clerics and fining the absent, and every year a priest was paid for carrying the banner of St Cuthbert. In 1446 it becomes clear that there were two occasions in the year when the banner was routinely carried and the fee was 6d a time.50 In some years payment was only given for one carrying and one cannot be sure which procession was at issue, but the 1480–1 account shows that the carrying was on the day after Whit Sunday and on Corpus Christi.51 The sacrist’s accounts regularly show how

45

Harley 4894, f. 194v; Wenzel, Latin Sermon Collections, p. 72 and translated p. 263, and referring to G.R. Owst, Preaching in Medieval England: An Introduction to Sermon manuscripts of the Period c. 1350–1450, Cambridge 1926, p. 216. 46 Reg. Parv. III, ff. 106v–7, 18 October 1461. 47 M. Brett, The English Church under Henry I, Oxford 1975, pp. 162–4, esp. 164; C.N.L. Brooke ‘English Episcopal Acta of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries’, in Owen, Medieval Ecclesiastical Studies, pp. 41–56, esp. p. 143. 48 Feretrar’s accounts, 1376, de oblatis cum vexillis ecclesiarum dioceses Dunelm in ebdomada Pent.; 1428–9A, de oblacionibus curatorum tocius diocesis Dunelm in processioninibus infra edomada Pent’. 49 Feretrar’s accounts, for example 1406–7A, 8s10d de multis absent’ a processione in festo Pent’; item apparatoribus consistorii et causidicis pro causa absentiae a processione, 3s 6d. 50 Feretrar’s accounts, 1446–7, portanti vexillum Sancti Cuthberti unica vice. 51 Feretrar’s accounts, 1480–1, portanti vexillum S Cuthberti in crastino Pentecosti et in festo Corporis Christi. 34


much was collected on the Monday after Pentecost.52 When the priests who carried the banner are named, which they are not always, they turn out to be chantry chaplains, such as John Bynchester in 1447–8, who was chaplain of the chantry of St Helen, or Robert Whitehead in 1525–6, chaplain of the chantry of St Mary in St Oswald’s, or one of the many capellani who are found working for the priory, such as John Hagirston whose name occurs between 1449–50 and 1480–1.53 The Rites says that the procession on Whit Sunday (by which it may perhaps mean Whit Monday, unless there were two processions) followed the route of the Ascension Day procession, with the same relics carried, including the banner.54 Corpus Christi, celebrated on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, was a great day in the Durham church calendar, just as in the rest of England. It celebrated the institution of the Eucharist, which could not be celebrated with a true feast and day of enjoyment on Holy Thursday because that fell during the fasting season. The feast was observed by the priory from at least 1336, with a payment that year recorded for wine for the feast.55 It was one of the few feasts celebrated by the whole city together and not by the individual parishes. There is, in consequence, nothing about it in the accounts of the individual parishes and the little that can be known comes from the Rites, the abbey accounts and fragments about the Corpus Christi guild. There are no sermons for the day; probably none was included in the celebrations. According to the Rites, the bailiff of Durham used to stand at the Tollbooth in the market-place on the day and assemble all the banners of the trades, each with attendant torches, which processed up to Palace Green.56 They stood in a row from the door of the abbey to the entrance now called Windy Gap. In St Nicholas’s church in the market-place there was kept a shrine to carry the Blessed Sacrament. It was gilded with a crystal square box at its top in which the Host was enclosed. This went up to Palace Green accompanied by four priests. All the churches of the town processed before it and when it reached Windy Gap the banner of St Cuthbert was brought out of the cathedral to meet the procession, accompanied by two crosses, and the whole choir of the monastery in their best copes knelt there. The prior censed the shrine and then it was carried into the church. It was set in the choir and a service was held with the singing of the Te Deum. During the service the banners of the trades were taken in procession round the shrine of St Cuthbert accompanied by their lighted torches. At the end of the service the Sacrament was carried in its shrine back to St Nicholas’s church and the shrine was left in the vestry there until next year. 52

Sacrist’s accounts, 1377 for instance. Feretrar’s accounts, passim. 54 Rites, p. 106. 55 Bursar’s accounts, 1335–6B; for the history of the feast in England, M. Rubin, Corpus Christi: The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture, Cambridge 1991, pp. 299–304. 56 Rites, pp. 107–8. 53

35


The financing of the town’s share of this was the responsibility of the trade guilds, whose ordinances were partly aimed to make sure that the procession was provided ‘for the sustentation of the procession and the play of Corpus servisse day in the city of Durham’, as the Butchers’ Ordinary put it in 1403.57 We can see a brief glimpse of this in August 1503 when Thomas Wilkinson in the Crossgate borough court sued John Potts junior for a debt of 2s 4d for three ‘tops’ and one for 1s 8d which he had made for the procession on Corpus Christi day. Tops were the holders for the torches which were carried. Potts got off because he got eight neighbours to swear that he had not detained the money unjustly.58 From the guild ordinances and from the bursar’s accounts recording from 1338 gifts to histriones, we know that there were plays on Corpus Christi day but we know nothing about their content.59 Every church in Durham would have had a patronal feast, though we only know in any detail about St Oswald’s and St Margaret’s. The St Oswald’s accounts note also that the chapel of Croxdale celebrated the feast of St Bartholomew (24 August), when offerings were made.60 St Margaret’s shows offerings on the feast of their saint (20 July). St Oswald’s day (5 August) was certainly celebrated as a ‘Holy Day of Obligation’, that is, parishioners were obliged to come to church and to refrain from work, as one can gather from the citation of parishioners Beatrix Atkinson and Margarita Honyll, accused before the prior’s archdeacon’s court in 1445 that each: ‘reaped on the feast of the dedication of the church of St Oswald, whose parishioner she is’.61 It is also clear from the procurator’s accounts that on these days parishioners made customary payments to the parish church. The parishioners of St Margaret’s also gave money and his dinner to the parish clerk of St Oswald’s on the patronal feast day of St Margaret’s, symbolic again of their dependent status.62 There are three sermons for the feast of St Oswald by Robert Ripon, all apparently delivered to mixed audiences of clergy and lay people.63 In the second the text was from Luke 14:28–30: ‘A man began to build’ (Hic homo cepit edificare).64 First, Ripon pointed out that ‘doctors’ regarded this as referring to the building of a holy life and that two things were needed: the necessary means and help. The audience needed to have a firm foundation in their hearts

57

DUL, Archives and Special Collections, Mickleton and Spearman MS 49, f. 178v; F.J.W. Harding ‘The Company of Butchers and Fleshers of Durham’, TAASDN, 11 (1958), pp. 93–100, prints it but not always accurately. 58 DCM, Crossgate Court Book, f. 49r/v. 59 J. McKinnell, ‘Drama and ceremony in the last years of Durham Cathedral Priory’, Medieval English Theatre, 10(2) (1988), pp. 91–111, esp. pp. 95–6. 60 St Oswald’s accounts, e.g. 1447–8, under oblaciones principales. 61 Capitula, f. 48. 62 Depositions, p. 277 (from DUL, Archives and Special Collections, DDR/EJ/CCD/1/4, f. 3r/v); p. 278 (from ibid., f. 4). 63 Harley 4894, ff. 183–92v. 64 Harley 4894, ff. 186–90. 36


to hear the preacher and also needed the grace of God to build the spiritual house which was required, without which no good could be done. Anyone who thought that all that was necessary was merely keeping the ten commandments was like the king who went to war without proper preparations, in the section of Luke just after the theme passage (14:31–3). Clearly Ripon intended to convey to his audience that they needed to pray and do good works also. He then went on to point out that the differences of status among men were not the result of nature but of sin. Had men not sinned, goods of fortune at least would have been held in common: But after sin possession began not only in temporal goods but in status and grades of men.

He then outlined the grades of men and pointed out that all were necessary to the city. A city, he said, was strictly a community of artificers and merchants and they were necessary in this world. He then talked of the defensores of the people, who were the knights. The prelates and curates were the pastors, and the people the sheep who should be led by the pastors to their own pasture. At that point, rather than launching on a discussion of the duties of pastors, he simply said that he hoped ‘our ecclesiastics present here’ were fulfilling their necessary task of illuminating their flock ‘and so I will not speak further about their office’, and went on to address the knights on their duty to defend the area. As befitted a sermon about a great warrior king he exhorted them to defend the church and state instead of, as he said was all too common nowadays, giving themselves to lechery and luxuria. They were not to despoil the holy church. On farmers and citizens he said that they prayed by working hard and paying their tithes and otherwise doing their duty according to their station. The two most interesting points about this sermon in the present context are that it assumes that his audience knew the story of St Oswald already and that the contents suggest an audience that was perhaps upper-class. The sermon could have been delivered in the cathedral rather than in the parish church. The third sermon, on the text ‘A spotless life is old age’ (Etas senectutis vita immaculate), from Wisdom 4:9, equally assumed that the story of Oswald was known. In this sermon, talking about the way to come to a holy old age, referring again to luxuria, which he said was rife in England among youths of 14 to 18, he appealed to ‘you fathers’ to look to their sons.65 These feasts were the main ones celebrated in the parishes. The priory also provided further spectacles with processions outside its gates as far as the church of St Mary le Bow on St Mark’s feast day (25 April) when a monk preached there.66 Processions of monks following the same route as on Holy

65 66

Harley 4894, ff. 190–2. Rites, p. 104. 37


Thursday with the same relics also occurred on Trinity Sunday, the Sunday after Whit. Evidently also St Cuthbert’s feast, on 20 March, and his Translation on 4 September were celebrated by the laity with holidays and local enjoyment, but we know very little about the religious side of these festivities as the laity experienced them.67 One feature of Durham lay church-going about which we also know very little is the activities of the various craft guilds. They certainly existed in the city since they were responsible for the Corpus Christi plays and we have a few of their ordinances, but little can be found about their religious activities. In 1413–14 the sacrist’s accounts, which show offerings at various boxes in the cathedral before the shrines and at processions, have offerings from the smiths and the carpenters, at 1s 8d and 1s 5d. These then became standard entries, with offerings from minstrels added for 1414–16 only. The 1423–4 sacrist’s account shows that the offerings were made by the smiths on 1 December, the feast of St Eloi, who was the patron saint of all metal workers, and by the carpenters on Whitsunday.68 These offerings were still recorded in 1535–6.69 The smiths and carpenters may have been only those who worked in the cathedral but it seems more likely that they were the tradesmen of the town. It is possible that St Nicholas’s church was the centre for the smiths. St Nicholas’s was in any case at the heart of the commercial part of the town and it probably had an altar dedicated to St Eloi, which at least for a time in the fourteenth century had a chantry attached.70 A further aspect of the year about which we know very little is the round of celebrations attached to the agricultural cycle, some of which had religious overtones (like the Rogations). Only glimpses can be seen in the remaining archives. Soon after Epiphany the agricultural year truly began. It appears that Durham parishioners celebrated Ploughday, by dragging a plough through the streets to collect funds and to signal the start of ploughing. For one single account in 1412–13 the almoner recorded for St Oswald’s parish 4d ‘given on the day after the Epiphany in Old Elvet to those dragging the plough’.71 In the Houghall manor accounts one payment is recorded in 1405–6 for le ploughday and there are references in the accounts for Witton manor and St Mary Magdalen manor.72 In many parts of England this Ploughday was celebrated on the Monday after Epiphany but the 1413 day would have been

67

See p. 40. Sacrist’s accounts, 1423–4, 1424–5; for Eloi, DHGE, XV, cols 260–3. 69 Sacrist’s accounts, 1535–6. 70 Hatfield, Register, f. 119v, allowing William Benet, priest, to hold it with another chantry. 71 Almoner’s accounts, 1412–13B: dat’ in crastino Epiphanie in veteri Elvet trahentibus aratrum. 72 J. McKinnell, ‘Folk drama and ceremony in medieval Durham’, Atti Accademia Perloritana dei Pericolanti, 68 (1992), pp. 97–121, esp. pp. 106–8. 68

38


a Saturday.73 In Elvet Hall manor, however, the servants of the manor were regularly given a payment ‘for supper on the day of ploughs’, which is included in the autumnal expenses, not in the spring.74 This may be a meal at the end of the harvest rather than at the beginning of the year. There is no way to be sure. In Durham every year, from 1355 at least, the children of the abbey almonry school elected one of their number as a ‘boy bishop’. He received contributions from all the obedientiaries of the abbey and was called the almonry bishop.75 This custom also existed in the parishes. The accounts for Finchale priory mention in 1423–4 an offering ‘as a gratuity’ of 1s 8d ‘to the bishop of Elvet’,76 and for just two years, 1435–6 and 1440–1, the hostillar’s accounts record payments episcopo de Elvet.77 In the context these seem to be, not payments to the bishop of Durham, but to a boy bishop from St Oswald’s parish.78 This is proved by the accounts of the manor of Elvet Hall which show that the manor allowed two bushel of wheat each year, at least from 1430–1, for the ‘Boy Bishop of S Oswald’.79 Records of this payment continue in the manorial accounts until 1473–4, are not contained in the accounts for 1474–5, occur in 1479–80 but never thereafter. The custom may have been discontinued after that, but if the payment was a gratuity, the payments would not have had to be made even if the entertainment continued. The boy bishop from the almonry school continued to receive payments but it is clear that from about 1476 they were paid to the feretrar and there may no longer have been a ceremony. The caveat applies here, however, just as for the Elvet case.80 In other institutions where this boy bishop ceremony occurred it was a celebration in which choir boys elected one of their number bishop for a day and were allowed to reverse the roles of children and masters. In other parts of England the boy bishop ceremonies took place around Christmas or the days just after it. In Durham, however, this does not seem to have been the case. A few of the Durham accounts in which the payment to the almoner bishop occurs are for part of a year only and the ceremony clearly took place in spring. For example it is accounted for between 11 April and 14 May in 1355, which was from the Sunday after Easter until Ascension

73 R. Hutton, The Stations of the Sun. A History of the Ritual Year in Britain, Oxford 1996, pb. 1997, p. 125. 74 Hostillar; Elvet Hall accounts: ad jantaculum in die carucarum. 75 Almoner’s accounts, passim. 76 The Priory of Finchale, p. clxxxvi. 77 Hostillar’s accounts, ibid. 78 For the ceremonies, Hutton, Rise, pp. 10–12, 54. 79 Elvet Hall accounts, for 1430–1: Episcopo puerili S Oswaldi. Thereafter he is often called episcopus puerilis de Elvet. 80 The Priory of Finchale, p. cccxliii; the Feretrar’s accounts begin to state: de pensione solvi consueta episcopo puerili.

39


Day, and between 10 and 20 May in 1358, between Ascension and Pentecost;81 or in the period 7 March (Sts Felicity and Perpetua) to 5 June, which was Trinity Sunday in 1463.82 There is no reference to payment in the 1391 account which goes from Pentecost to Michaelmas.83 In 1414 the priory chamberlain (camerarius) accounted for a payment in the period from the Monday after Ascension (21 May) until 4 September,84 though one must add that in the account for 1442 which runs from the Monday after Ascension (14 May) until November there is no mention of this payment. Absence of a payment does not mean that the payment was never made or that no ceremony occurred, but when payments were recorded they seem to have been made during the period of the account unless stated otherwise. All the evidence strongly supports the idea that in Durham the ceremony of the ‘Boy Bishop’ in the cathedral took place some time around Ascension Day,85 and one can therefore assume that the parochial celebration was also a spring or early summer rather than a winter entertainment. What we know of the celebration of the feast of St Cuthbert’s translation appears to be equally secular. There was a fair in the city and a fragmentary account, from a song recorded from the reign of Elizabeth, shows a rowdy crowd of villagers from the nearby settlements flocking into the city and up the Bailey, singing, playing music and perhaps performing plays.86 How far this reflects the medieval practice in the city is difficult to know. By then the religious element of a feast celebrating a saint would have been played down. Most probably, however, such celebrations were noisy, combining plenty of secular and popular participation with the religious in the middle ages also.

81

Hostillar’s accounts for 1355 and 1358. Bursar’s accounts, 1363A. 83 Bursar’s accounts, 1391. 84 DCM, Camerarius accounts, 1414. 85 J. McKinnell, The Sequence of the Sacrament at Durham, Papers in North Eastern History, 8 (1998), p. 22. 86 McKinnell, ‘Folk drama,’ pp. 114–17; J. Milsom, ‘Cries of Durham’, Early Music, May 1989, pp. 147–60; B. Colgrave and C.E. Wright, ‘An Elizabethan poem about Durham’, DUJ, 33 NS 1/3 (1940), pp. 161–8. 82

40

3

Lay parish life Because Durham parishes have left no churchwardens’ accounts it is more difficult to reconstruct some aspects of the activities of lay people in its parishes than it is in some other parts of the country. To try to reconstruct lay concerns from churchwardens’ accounts alone, however, may lead to serious misjudgements and wrong emphases.1 The laity were not responsible for the whole church. What is left in churchwardens’ accounts is an edited version of what was presented; there were other officials apart from the churchwardens; and many gifts, for instance, may never have come into the accounts at all. In Durham one has the opposite problem. The parishes belonging to the priory accounted through a procurator to the obedientiary who ‘owned’ them. The procurator only included items for which he had to answer to the rector (the obedientiary and ultimately the prior). Thus lay concerns, for the nave of the church or for many gifts for instance, were not included, nor, usually, were parish festivities which would have been financed by the laity. These can sometimes be discerned, usually when the prior authorised an unusual payment for them.2 Nonetheless it is possible to say something about the role and activities of the laity in the ordinary church life of the city. The parishes had churchwardens and sometimes, though rarely, we can give names. We can take it that they oversaw the parts of the church for which the laity were responsible according to church law, including the nave. They kept accounts separate from those of the procurators of the churches, and seem to have been elected each year in summer. We only know about elections because on 20 July 1497 the outgoing wardens of St Oswald’s were summoned to the prior’s archidiaconal court by those newly elected because the outgoing men were withholding the goods of the church and refusing to render their account.3 The court ordered the former wardens to render account by the next Sunday and to hand over the goods, telling the incoming wardens to take over according to custom. The outgoing men were Edward Fletcher, Edward Willy, Robert Bat of Shincliffe and Robert Wrake. Incoming were Edward Willy again, Robert Smyrke, Alexander Rogerson and Christopher Waryner. Very probably four men were involved because of the size of the parish area and its varied customs. Where identifiable they turn out to be ordinary citizens of the area. Fletcher had the lease of a tenement in New Elvet from a widow named Agnes

1 2 3

Burgess, ‘Pre-Reformation church wardens’ accounts’, passim. See p. 38. Court Book of Prior’s Official, f. 110v. 41


Fletcher in October 1473.4 Waryner held a tenement in New Elvet in 1495.5 He can be seen acting in the church courts from time to time and was probably a builder.6 Rogerson was probably a relative of Thomas Rogerson who also held a New Elvet tenement in 1487.7 Smyrke was a common Durham name; there were Smyrkes in Crossgate for instance.8 The churchwardens figure fairly often in the court books, though often only by office, not by name. Their duties included ensuring that the cemetery was properly looked after. In 1495 the parishioners took the wardens of St Oswald’s to the prior’s archidiaconal court to try to force them to repair the cemetery within the next week and, if they refused, to invoke the prior as archdeacon.9 Again in December 1497 the wardens noted above as outgoing were summoned by the prior as archdeacon for not looking after the cemetery properly.10 In January 1515 the secular Crossgate court ordered the churchwardens of St Margaret’s to make good the walls on the east side of the cemetery before the feast of St Cuthbert (20 March) or face a fine of 1s.11 In March they had still not obeyed.12 This secular court from time to time had to stop local people from pasturing their beasts in the cemetery of St Margaret’s.13 The wardens also oversaw some legacies which came to the church. In October 1497 the wardens of St Oswald’s took Thomas Forster and Robert Sparew before the prior’s archidiaconal court for breach of faith or lesio fidei in impeding the last will of dominus (implying a priest) John Sedgefield, who had left money for a lamp in the choir of St Oswald’s, on the grounds that money was being withheld.14 There are also glimpses of the churchwardens managing properties belonging to the churches, particularly St Margaret’s. In 1480 an indenture in English between Robert Wharram and John Pottes and John Tedcaster (sic, but he was probably Tadcaster), called ‘kirkmastres and proctours’ of St Margaret’s chapel, recorded a deed of gift from Wharram of a tenement in Crossgate.15 The proctors had granted ‘be the consent of all the parisheyng’ that Wharram ‘Eftur his deeth schall with god grace and leve schall be bered in the for sayd chapel of saynt Margaret and his childer of his body ladefullygatyn.’

4

Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, p. 706. Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, p. 640. 6 See him involved in buying lime, Court Book of Prior’s Official, f. 102. 7 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, p. 636. 8 W.H. Longstaffe, ‘Local muniments from the vestry of St Margaret’s Durham’, Arch. Ael., NS 2 (1858), p. 29: Richard in 1498. 9 Court Book of Prior’s Official, f. 83. 10 Court Book of Prior’s Official, f. 100v. 11 Crossgate Court Book, f. 144v. 12 Crossgate Court Book, f. 146. 13 Crossgate Court Book, ff. 5v and 29, for instance. 14 Court Book of Prior’s Official, f. 112r/v. 15 DCRO, EP/Du.SM. 584. 5

42

LAY PARISH LIFE

Wharram was described as from the manor of Langley beyond East Brandon. In September 1489 Wharram quitclaimed to John Pottes and John Tadcaster as churchwardens or proctors all rights in this tenement in Crossgate.16 In July 1493, however, Robert Wharram quitclaims four named churchwardens and proctors of the same parish for two burgages.17 Two are John Pottes and John Lonesddale and the others Richard Lewyn and Robert Cokyn. These may represent the incoming and outgoing wardens. In January 1501, John Pottes and John Lonesdale, called proctors or guardians of St Margaret’s, did fealty in the borough court for a property left by John Preston to St Margaret’s. Preston’s wife had lived in it from his death in 1485 until her own and they now claimed it.18 It appears that churchwarden (yconomus), guardian and kirkmaster were synonymous. The churchwardens of St Margaret’s appear in yet other documents. In 1488 Thomas Riop took them before the prior’s archidiaconal court for reasons not specified, but they are called W[illiam?] Baret and Robert Denand.19 In May 1509 they were Ralph German, John Colson and Richard Tailyour when granting a house to John Wodemouse.20 Thus it may be that there was no fixed number of wardens. It seems from the evidence about Wharram’s gift that some transactions needed the specific permission of the parish. This is also seen in another St Margaret’s deed, an indenture in 1477 between John Blenkharn and John Lonesdale, described as proctors or churchwardens (yconomi), and John Hoton, chaplain of the chapel of (?)Hareron, allowing Hoton to keep for his life an antiphoner he had given which was to come to St Margaret’s on his death.21 The indenture specifies that the wardens are acting ‘by the consent and will of all the parishioners’. The witnesses here are interesting, including William Rakett, justice of the peace for the bishop, and Cuthbert Billingham, described as ‘gentleman’, the leading parishioner of St Margaret’s, of Crook Hall in the parish. We will see later how the endowment of a light might be supported by a guild run by lay people, as seems to have been the case in St Margaret’s, or run by the parish priest with the consent of the parish in the South Bailey.22 In St Margaret’s case the lay leaders of the guild of Blessed Mary can be seen acting for the guild. Thomas Fairhare was alderman in 1485 when he received the quitclaim of Thomas Smyth of Durham concerning a burgage in Crossgate.23 He was again or still alderman in 1498 and received the grant of two burgages

16

DCRO, EP/Du.SM. 585. DCRO, EP/Du.SM. 586. 18 Crossgate Court Book, f. 33v. 19 Court Book of Prior’s Official, f. 5v. 20 Crossgate Court Book, f. 116v. 21 DCRO, EP/Du.SM. 632. 22 See note 31 below and pp. 153–4. 23 DCRO, EP/Du.SM. 582, dated 15 November 3 Richard III, impossible (Richard died in August) but understandable. 17

43


from Richard Smyrke.24 With him to receive and to grant them out again at farm were William Betson, John Priour, Ralph German and Laurence Toller, called proctors of the guild.25 In 1513 Cuthbert Billingham, Ralph German and Thomas Trotter, called alderman and proctors of the guild, granted a messuage in Waldridge to Richard Punshon.26 In the Gilesgate court book the lay proctors or procurators of the guild of St Giles can be seen claiming debts in 1520 when John Grenewell was the proctor,27 and arrears of rent in 1483, when John Carter, Robert Haddart, Clement Dixkenson and Richard Wilkinson, proctors of the guild, sought the arrears from a series of tenants.28 In March the same year, Robert Hudspeth and Ingram Taylour, designated as ‘guardians’ of the guild of Blessed Mary in the church of St Giles, sought arrears.29 In St Margaret’s there were also keepers of lights, at least in the fourteenth century. In 1328 John de Hert, keeper of the light, confirmed to Robert Jakes and his wife Isabella a burgage which owed to the light in the chapel and to its keepers ‘for the time being’ 4s per annum.30 In 1333 John, son of Alan Goldsmith, and Adam Russell, keepers, explaining that they had been ‘elected by the parishioner and specially deputed for this’, remitted to a man holding a waste property which owed 5s for the light 2s annually for twenty years to allow him to rebuild.31 The complexities of the local arrangements in the parishes and between churches were understood by the parishioners as their ‘liberties and privileges’, or so they said in their depositions to the York court in 1367–9 when arguing about mortuaries.32 Perhaps it is not surprising that the argument about the exact status of St Margaret’s was not wholly solved by these cases nor by the arrangement in 1431 separating the church. In 1431 the parishioners of St Oswald’s living in the areas of Sidegate, Framwellgate, Milburngate, Crossgate, Allergate, South Street, Harbourhouse and the vill of Newton, or what the document recording this calls the ‘better part’ (sanior pars, a phrase from the law about elections of church dignitaries) of them, constituted as their proctors a list of their fellows to make an agreement with the prior to make St Margaret’s a separate parish, and settle its status at last.33 The list of the proctors acting for the parishioners is illuminating. Leading the list is Thomas Billingham, who was no doubt the gentleman of Sidegate manor

24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

DCRO, EP/Du.SM. 587. DCRO, EP/Du.SM. 588. DCRO, EP/Du.SM. 630. NA, SC2/171/6, f. 1v. NA, SC/2/171/6, ff. 42v–43. NA, SC/2/171/6, ff. 45v, 46, 47. DCRO, EP/Du.SM. 613. DCRO, EP/Du.SM.573, 574, 575. See p. 93. DCM, Reg. III, f. 143r/v. 44

LAY PARISH LIFE

(Crook Hall) in Durham, who had a large private estate in the city as well as land in Billingham and had conducted a feud with the prior in 1419.34 Next was John Fossour, a gentleman married to Joan Kellaw, heiress of Harbourhouse.35 John Pertrik, described as chaplain of St Mary’s chantry, is often found acting as trustee for transfers of land.36 John Dawtry, also a gentleman, probably from the Elvet family of that name,37 had holdings in South Street in the 1420s and 1430s, with his wife Mary,38 and also in Milburngate.39 William Rakett, from the well-attested Durham clerical family living in Elvet, granted land in Crossgate in 1440, with the intention of its coming to the priory.40 A William Rakett was living in Crossgate in 1470.41 William Steel, barker, was clearly a man of some importance locally. In 1440 Sir Thomas Neville used him as his attorney in Durham for a land transaction.42 He had tenements in Framwellgate.43 Steel and Wharram seem sometimes to have acted together.44 Wharram had land in Framwellgate.45 John Bell in 1451 was doing business concerning tenements in South Street,46 and owned a tenement in Clayport.47 Coken is another well-known local name. Thomas held land in Framwellgate in the 1420s and 1430s, as the heir of Hugh Coken.48 John Pertrik, the chaplain, did business for him in 1437, acting as his attorney in the transfer of land.49 Richard Cowhird was the priory’s forester in Bearpark and was associated in 1399 with John Fossour in running a coal mine at Broom,50 where he was mining still in 1418–19.51 These no doubt were the leading parishioners, though it is not clear what kind of meeting elected them and constituted them the representatives of the rest.

34

Bonney, Lordship, pp. 212–13; Dobson, Durham Priory, pp. 50, 194; R.L. Storey, Thomas Langley and the Bishopric of Durham, 1406–1437, London 1961, pp. 112–13, 120. 35 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, p. 18; Surtees, Durham, IV, pp. 147–8. 36 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, pp. 139, 171, 172, 236, 237, 255, 258, 266, 272. 37 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, p. 65; Dobson, Durham Priory, p. 58. 38 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, pp. 193, 194, 195. 39 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, p. 127. 40 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, pp. 87, 88; see S. Raban, Mortmain Legislation and the English Church, 1279–1500, Cambridge 1982, esp. pp. 114–23. 41 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, p. 124; and see also pp. 393, 413. 42 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, pp. 139, 140, 214. 43 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, p. 249. 44 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, p. 250. 45 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, p. 272, if this is he. 46 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, p. 176. 47 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, p. 379. 48 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, pp. 235, 237. 49 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, pp. 236, 237, 255, 272. 50 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, p. 360. 51 Dobson, Durham Priory, p. 279; DCM, Cart. IV, ff. 100–4; 2.6.Spec.78a–g for a case about coal tithes concerning him. 45


In fact St Margaret’s retained residual rights and duties in St Oswald’s, which the parishioners understood well. After the Reformation, probably about 1575, a problem arose again which has left traces in the Deposition books of the Durham consistory court, though the corresponding Acta seem to be missing.52 The churchwardens of St Margaret’s brought a case against the churchwardens of St Oswald’s, led by William Wright. Several elderly parishioners therefore deposed about the pre-Reformation situation as they recalled it, as one put it, ‘in latten service tyme’.53 All the witnesses agreed that St Oswald’s remained the ‘head kirk’ but that St Margaret’s was able to administer all sacraments and that its parishioners could be buried in its own churchyard. There must have been some reference to an agreement about this (probably the 1431 agreement was in question) because, though some parishioners – John Watson of Elvet, a 70-year-old yeoman, for instance – denied it,54 several agreed that it existed. Bartram Hoorde of Witton Gilbert, a 67-year-old, thought the agreement was kept in St Margaret’s steeple.55 What all agreed, however, was that in time of need parishioners of St Margaret’s had been buried in St Oswald’s churchyard, and several witnesses named individuals to whom this had happened and said that they could indicate the graves. ‘Time of need’ as they remembered it was during outbreaks of plague. This was vividly remembered by several parishioners. William Farreless of Elvet, a weaver, aged 47, referred to it as ‘the great dead tyme about 37 or 38 yeres ago’, and remembered it because he was apprenticed to Anthony Patenson, churchwarden of St Oswald’s, who had died in the plague and whose grave he had helped to make.56 Hoorde referred to ‘the plague time, within this forty years, when sick folks had lodges maid upon the more and at Bellasis head . . .’. There had thus been a serious epidemic about 1537 or 1538 and Hoorde thought that St Margaret’s parishioners ‘would not smatter ther own church yarde with thois that then died in the plague’. The witnesses also agreed that in return for these rights in the mother church the parishioners of St Margaret’s had duties. These consisted of maintaining the south aisle of St Oswald’s and the western corner of the churchyard, next to the bank of St Oswald’s well. So said John Watson and Henry Richardson of Elvet, a weaver aged 60,57 who remembered that a St Margaret’s churchwarden in his own time, called Robert Harvye, had put a painted piece of timber for a wall plate which was still there. He described the churchyard area in question as ‘from the north-west corner to the well-banks, that is from

52 DUL, Archives and Special Collections, DDR/EJ/CCD/1/4 ff. 3–5v; these are depositions and are printed very incompletely in Depositions, pp. 276–80. The reference for Depositions, pp. 280–1 is wrong and the original has not been found. The corresponding Acta do not seem to exist now. 53 Depositions, p. 278. 54 DDR, fol. 3v, omitted at Depositions, p. 277. 55 Depositions, p. 278, from DDR, f. 4v. 56 Depositions, pp.280–1, no source found. 57 DDR, ff. 3v–4, Depositions, p. 277.

46

LAY PARISH LIFE

the corner of the Anchorage close to St Oswald’s well’. Thomas Wayman, of Warrelhill near Durham, a 60-year-old yeoman, agreed.58 His father, William Wayman, had been a St Margaret’s churchwarden about fifty years before, around 1525. Some witnesses also said that the parishioners of St Margaret’s had a duty to supply some of the bread and wine for the communion and to pay the parish clerk of St Oswald’s either 6d or 4d and his dinner on St Margaret’s day. John Watson believed this and said that the parishioners of Croxdale did it also.59 As we saw, Henry Richardson, however, made a distinction, saying that ‘in latin mass time’ the payment was 11⁄2d in money and 1d in bread, whereas ‘within these sixteen yeres’ it had been money only to provide bread and wine for communion. He thought that the 4d to the clerk was from before the Reformation and since then it had been 6d, ‘and so hath received William Rawe of St Margaret’s this year’. The payment was also to pay ‘hilly’ or ‘holly bred silver’. The latter refers to the supplying of the holy bread which was distributed on most Sundays. Its details have already been outlined.60 According to some of these witnesses there were other symbolic ways in which St Margaret’s dependence was revealed. As we saw, Henry Richardson remembered that one of the churchwardens of St Margaret’s held one of the poles supporting the canopy above the sacrament carried in the procession on Palm Sunday.61 It thus appears that St Margaret’s parishioners joined in the procession at St Oswald’s, perhaps because they had not enough clergy to elaborate it alone.62 Thomas Wayman said that his father, a churchwarden of St Margaret’s, had one of the keys for the chest in St Oswald’s where the church jewels were kept. He thought that the enmity between the two groups was because on one occasion the St Oswald’s parishioners broke open the lock when they could not wait for the St Margaret’s key.63 In 1600 apparently the argument still continued about what the duties of St Margaret’s parishioners in St Oswald’s were.64 Thus in Durham the laity can be shown to have played a significant part in running the affairs of their parishes, even though there is less evidence than for some other areas. There remains, however, a great deal of information about lay religious practice, and some of it throws abundant light on lay attitudes to religious duty and religious authority. Parishes of course ministered to the laity in all the major turning points of their lives. Childbirth was particularly hazardous and was supposed to be followed very quickly by the baptism of the child and then the churching

58 59 60 61 62 63 64

DDR, f. 5, Depositions, p. 279. DDR, ff. 2–3v, not printed. See pp. 12–13. Depositions, p. 278; see above. Duffy, Stripping, pp. 23–4, for the ceremonies of the day. Depositions, pp. 279–80. DUL, Mickleton MS 47, f. 120. 47


(blessing in church) of the mother. Children were frail and might easily die. In 1543–4, for example, where eighteen baptisms and churchings were noted by name for St Oswald’s, the mortuary of one of the baptised children is also given.65 The necessity of speedy baptism of children was emphasised in several of Ripon’s sermons and he was anxious that parents should be instructed in the administration of emergency baptism.66 The church tried to enforce proper care of children. The archidiaconal court of the prior can be seen in November 1497 giving a penance to grieving parents from Northallerton whose child burned to death through negligence.67 They were also ordered to come to the grave and pray there. In May 1492 John Mosedale sued Johanna Sharpe in the same court because he said that she was not nourishing the (bastard) child they had had. They agreed to compromise.68 At the churching of women offerings were customarily made and appear in all the parish accounts. Thus the fact that a dependent chapel might not have a font which it could freely use must have been a source of annoyance and inconvenience. The original arrangement of St Margaret’s chapelry seems to have been that the parish was allowed to administer baptism by permission from the prior. It was probably a dim remembrance of this which after the Reformation was related by Henry Richardson, a weaver of Elvet, who said that he ‘haith hard ytt redd out of the church boke of St Oswald that the inhabitors of St Oswald might take the font out of the said chapel’.69 The fact that St Margaret’s had at first no right to its font, therefore, had caused continuous irritation which bubbled into the overt quarrel in the fourteenth century discussed later.70 Marriage of course was a matter which very much interested the church, though it seems clear that many lay people had their own ideas about it. The chief source of information for historians comes from court records. Durham has surprisingly good information, even including a few cause papers, and there are a very few documents from appeals to the archbishop’s court in York. On the one hand the church was anxious that people should marry and do so in public in church (in facie ecclesie), but on the other hand the laity seem to have been well aware that what mattered most was not a church ceremony but ‘words of present consent’, exchanged between the parties and making them married. Many of those who came before both the prior’s archidiaconal court and the consistory court arrived there because they were accused of fornication or adultery. These accusations are so commonplace that they are scarcely worth discussing except that they illustrate not only the attitude of the church officials

65 66 67 68 69 70

Misc. Ch. 5907d. Harley 4984, ff. 41v–5v, for instance. Court Book of Prior’s Official, f. 119v. Court Book of Prior’s Official, f. 32v, no evidence of parish. Depositions, p. 277, from DDR/EJ/CCD/1/4, f. 4. See p. 84. 48

LAY PARISH LIFE

but also the values of the ordinary parishioners. They seem to have come partly from the evidence of fellow parishioners at archidiaconal visitations. There are no visitation records from the city itself, though there are records which show that the prior’s representative did visit, and records remain for some of the appropriated churches elsewhere.71 But some accusations seem to have come from neighbours directly, some of which may have been malicious.72 The secular by-laws forbade keeping women ‘not of good governance as to her body’73 or indicted people who kept women ‘of ill governance in the night’.74 The unfree tenants of the priory were regularly fined for leyrwhit – living together without being married.75 Thus everyone knew what was expected and what degree of respectability was required of good citizens and good Christians. Very probably the respectable were very judgemental. Ripon was moved to remind people that they should be prepared to help sinners; at the final judgment, he warned, people would not be condemned because they had committed adultery but because ‘I was hungry and you never gave me food.’76 The fact that marriages could be made in very informal ways in this period was fertile ground for arguments afterwards and several of the accusations of fornication were countered by one or other party saying that they were married. Examples are Robert Preston of Elvet and Margaret Butler, in August 1441, where the woman pleaded matrimony after an accusation of fornication but the court did not believe her and both parties were condemned.77 In December 1455 Thomas Hunter and Agnes, ‘the woman he keeps’, from St Oswald’s parish, alleged marriage when they were summoned for fornication and the case was postponed until the woman’s churching.78 So probably what sparked the accusation was a pregnancy. The earliest detailed example of a Durham marriage case being heard in York on appeal involves just such a problem. It comes from 1355.79 The case concerned Richard de Kirby, a tailor, and Agnes Waller, known as de Kirby. It began in Durham consistory court on 4 May. This was a breach of promise to marry, where Agnes said that she had only agreed to sleep with Richard after he said that he would marry her. They had then had a child and she relied on

71 M. Harvey, ‘Church discipline in the later middle ages: the priors of Durham as archdeacons’, SCH, 40 (2004), pp. 95–105, esp. 97–8. 72 See pp. 72, 81. 73 Crossgate Court Book, f. 1v; NA, SC2/171/6 (Gilesgate Court Book), f. 3v, no one receptat, custodiat neque hospitat aliquam mulierem non bone gubernacionis sue corporis, on pain of 6s 8d. 74 Crossgate Court Book, f. 5, the wife of John Watson tenet et hospitat quemdam Scotum et quamdam mulierem male gubernacionis in nocte. 75 DCM, Loc. IV: 121, for instance (1406–9). 76 Harley 4894, f. 72v; Matt 25, v. 42. 77 Capitula, f. 38v. 78 Capitula, f. 149v. 79 York, Borthwick Institute, CP E 263, nos. 1, 2, 5, 6, 7.

49


the plea of sponsalia by carnal copulation.80 He denied this. Agnes’s witness, Juliana Webster, wife of Robert Bayard, aged 20, said she had been present in the room which Agnes rented from Richard of Barnardcastle beyond the old bridge of Durham (Framwellgate Bridge) after sunrise two years before, on the Tuesday before the feast of St Margaret (16 July 1353). She had heard Richard asking Agnes to let him sleep with her and Agnes refusing unless he would marry her. He gave an equivocal answer but promised to swear to do so at Michaelmas next. On the same night she saw them naked and alone in bed. The other witness, Christiana, wife of Alexander the tailor, said she had heard Richard make this contract in the presence of the chaplain, Richard of Barnardcastle, with Agnes present. In this case the man’s witnesses did not appear and judgment was given for Agnes. The rest of the dossier for this case, preserved in York, shows that Agnes won her suit.81 Richard tried to say that the date of the promise was wrong because Agnes had not been in Durham then, but this failed. Straightforward adultery would show up at any visitation and can be seen being denounced by the priory’s parishioners in Northumberland.82 This was probably how most of the cases came before the church courts, even before the Durham consistory which seems to have acted in the city like an archidiaconal court. For example, in October 1531 the official of the Durham consistory denounced William Fareallers for fornication with Margaret Hunter of St Nicholas’s parish and said that they had had a child. The man denied it and then failed in his purgation and was subsequently given as a penance one whipping on the next Saturday in Durham market place, clad in linen clothes, and on the next two Sundays before the solemn procession into St Nicholas’s with a candle in his hand. The woman, who confessed, had to precede the procession on one Sunday with a candle in her hand.83 In January 1532 John Robinson of St Giles’s parish was accused of fornication and multiple adultery especially with Johanna Smyth, a married woman. Both denied it but failed to purge themselves and were given similar penances to those just mentioned, the man in his parish of St Giles on the Sunday and the woman in Pittington church which must have been her parish. The court noted that they must certify in three weeks that they had done this.84 This is commonplace and the only point of interest is that the consistory seems to have been used by the bishop’s officials as the local court for those who did not come under the prior’s jurisdiction as archdeacon. Church courts also punished attempted bigamy. In December 1435, for instance, in the prior’s archidiaconal court William Fishar of St Margaret’s

80 81 82 83 84

R.H. Helmholz, Marriage Litigation in Medieval England, Cambridge 1974, p. 35. York, Borthwick Institute, CP E 263, no. 7. Harvey, ‘Church discipline’, pp. 97–8. DDR/EJ/CCA/1/1, ff. 6, 8v. DDR/EJ/CCA/1/1, f. 15. 50

LAY PARISH LIFE

parish, ‘having a wife in London, so it is said’, was accused of adultery with Johanna Matthewson ‘whom he keeps’85 and in consequence was warned to have no dealings with Johanna.86 Johanna was excommunicated for contumacy (she must have failed to appear) and when she finally did appear was given three public whippings for her contumacy and obstinacy and told to refrain from William’s company.87 The court could be used by the parties in their own interest, as seems to have happened in 1440 in the case of Joan Hansell, of St Margaret’s parish, and John Porter, servant and probably janitor of the abbey; perhaps the same man who held a tenement in North Bailey in 1454.88 On 27 October 1440, when summoned for fornication, Joan confessed to sleeping with John but claimed they were married. John was said to live outside the jurisdiction of the court (if he lived in North Bailey he came under the jurisdiction of the bishop’s archdeacon). It appears that at issue was a conditional marriage ratified by the parties then sleeping together.89 In November when both parties appeared, Joan claimed that they had contracted marriage on 24 June a year before. She alleged that John had said that if she would wait a year he wished to marry her. John said that if Joan remained of good character and he could have her father’s consent he wished to have her. On that understanding they had slept together.90 The judge warned Porter that until the case was settled he must abstain from Joan and from suspect places ‘on penalty of matrimony’ (sub pena nubendi). In other words if he did sleep with her again the marriage would be automatic.91 A witness, Elizabeth Carr, certified that this warning had been heeded. It appears from this that John probably did wish to marry Joan but not yet. Joan produced witnesses and a letter as her evidence. Joan Cuthbert testified that on a Saturday a year ago, about 24 June, she had heard John in bed with Joan say that he wanted Joan as his wife more than any woman in the world and Joan said the same. He lay the following two nights with her, which Joan Cuthbert knew because she was in bed nearby. She said that it had long been thought in Durham that they were married. Another witness, William Lascy, said that this year, in summer, near 24 June, Porter told him that he had already contracted marriage with Joan. In William’s presence Joan confessed the same. Joan also produced testimony of her good character. John Gervase, who is probably John Gervaux, an important mercer and spicer

85

Capitula, f. 3. Capitula, f. 3v. 87 Capitula, f. 4v. 88 Capitula, ff. 28v–29, 31v, 32, 33; Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, p. 542; an account is in M. Harvey, ‘Church discipline in late medieval Durham City: the prior as archdeacon’, in C.D. Liddy and R.H. Britnell, North East England in the Later Middle Ages, Woodbridge 2005, pp. 119–26, esp. pp. 124–5. 89 Helmholz, Marriage Litigation, p. 47. 90 Helmholz, Marriage Litigation, pp. 50–7, for this type of condition. 91 For the concept, Helmholz, Marriage Litigation, pp. 172–4. 86

51


of Durham who for years supplied the priory,92 testified in a three-page letter with a sign, produced in evidence in court, that he had been asked by John Porter if Joan had been ‘of good life’ when she was in Hull. He replied in the affirmative and when he enquired why Porter wished to know, Porter replied that she was his wife. John Haldwell testified that when he told Porter a year ago that he knew Joan, Porter asked him about her conversacio and he said it was good. When asked why he wished to know, Porter said she was his wife and her father was against the marriage but he wished to have her whether her father wished it or not. There is no evidence in the court papers to suggest that Porter was denying any of this evidence, just that he was delaying setting up house. Sentence in favour of the validity of the marriage was pronounced on 12 January 1441 in St Oswald’s church; the couple were declared married but they were warned that they must solemnise the marriage within three weeks, on pain of excommunication. This would involve a public marriage ceremony in church. Whilst it is possible here that Porter was reluctant, the probability is that the parties wished to marry and used the court to circumvent continued parental objections. The court must have known Porter and must have agreed with this procedure, which seems to fulfil all the canonical requirements of a conditional marriage, ratified by subsequent actions. Such stratagems did not always work because families had ways to overcome the desires of young people. Family pressure seems to have been behind another case which went from the Durham consistory to York by appeal in 1527. The case was between Robert Hall and Margaret Huchinson, both of St Nicholas parish, Durham, who were apparently both in service. The case seems to have come up when banns were read for Margaret and Roger Taylor of Durham.93 Robert Hall’s case was that he had married Margaret by words of present consent in the presence of several people and that they had exchanged gifts, which he alleged was notorious. Margaret was sequestered to the house of Robert Adthe and his wife Elizabeth in Durham during the case. This unusual procedure occurs in a very few cases which came from Durham to York. It can also be found in the archidiaconal court of the prior and so must have been a feature of the Durham courts.94 Its use here suggests that the family thought the girl likely to do something reckless. Hall’s witnesses were John Walker and Margaret Glenny, a married woman. Walker was a goldsmith, as was Thomas Blaikden, stepfather of Margaret. These would be among the elite of the city. Walker had known Hall and Margaret for sixteen and fourteen years respectively and Margaret had told him that she had had ‘tokens’ from Robert, for instance one silver clasp. Margaret’s mother had beaten her for

92

Dobson, Durham Priory, p. 58, n. 4. York, Borthwick Institute, Trans. CP 1527/1. 94 For this see Helmholz, Marriage Litigation, pp. 170–2; for an example from the prior’s court see Capitula, f. 128v, where sequestration was requested. 93

52

LAY PARISH LIFE

receiving this without her consent and knowledge. Walker said he had been in Margaret Glenny’s house ‘within the burgh of the city’ ‘in a certain small workshop next the chimney’ about Martinmas two years ago at night (Margaret Glenny remembered it as about seven or eight o’clock in winter), when the pair had exchanged words of present consent. The words were given to the court: ‘I Robert tayke the Margaret to mye wedded wife from this day forwarde and therto plight I mye treuothe.’ And Margaret said the same, but Robert added ‘Yfe my fader be not content I shall serve a nodere mane seven yere too bringe this about’, and Margaret said ‘I shall serve a nodre wife seven yere yf my moder be not content.’ Walker said that Thomas Blaikden, Margaret’s stepfather (husband of Margaret’s mother is how he is described), had asked him about the relationship around the feast of St Cuthbert in September (Translation, 4 September) and he told him this tale. Walker had acted as go-between with gifts between the two: two pairs of sleeves, and two pairs of stockings. One of the garments was of ‘scarlet’ cloth, which was expensive stuff. Margaret Glenny said Walker called her to hear the words of the contract and she heard Margaret say her part. She then went out to the pant (the piped water which came out in the market-place) and when she returned Walker said to her ‘I have handefest theyme they be one trowthe plight’ and Hall asserted ‘That we bee’. She had heard Margaret say that she never wished to marry another. When Margaret returned from Newcastle about 4 September she showed Glenny tokens given her by Hall, ‘wrapped in a paper’, that is ‘two harts of silver and one crucifix of silver and gilt’, saying ‘I pray you beer thies too Robert Hall and desire hyme taike noo thought fore noo thinge [th]at he here are [or] that shalbe done, fore that al ys betwixt us shalbe kept one my parte.’ Hall, however, refused to accept them and Glenny therefore returned them to Margaret who refused to take them back. She also had in her keeping for them two bedcovers and a bolster. The story becomes very different, however, in the eyes of Margaret’s mother and a local chaplain, William Powter. Margaret’s mother had known Hall since he was a boy and knew that Margaret had received tokens from him but knew of no contract between them. She knew that common talk in Durham said that they were married. Powter knew of no contract either, though Margaret said she had received tokens. He denied that the story of the marriage was common but said it was current merely among the relatives of Robert Hall. Then on 5 October Roger Taylor, a glover of Durham, and Margaret appeared and agreed before the judge that they were married. To prove this Taylor produced John Greveson and John Eland, both merchants, and Thomas Forster, a butcher, all of Durham city. All professed to have known Margaret and Roger all their lives and all agreed that on Thursday about 24 June last they were in Blaikden’s house (Greveson notes also the presence of Thomas Fairhaire, Blaikden and Christopher Morland) and they heard the pair exchange words of present consent which were, mutatis mutandis, ‘I Roger taike the Margaret too mye handfest wife in sekness and in helthe al other too forsake’, and that they held hands. 53


On 29 October the judge gave sentence against Hall and absolved Margaret Huchinson from any former contract. It was from this that Hall appealed to York and it was this sentence which Wolsey’s vicar general, William Clifton, upheld.95 This strikes one as a marriage brought about very quickly by the girl’s family to stop her from marrying a man whom they did not accept. Powter’s testimony suggests that Hall’s family wanted the match. Was Margaret’s family better off? One final well-documented case shows the full workings of the courts in marriage cases, with the ploys that litigants used to get their own way. It seems certainly to have been prompted by a desire for the wealth of the lady in question. It concerned John Dicson of St Nicholas parish, Durham, and Agnes Wilkinson, a widow of Heselden, and appears first in the Durham consistory court in November 1532, from whence it went on to York.96 It is very rare for the papers of both courts to have been preserved; in this case we have the witness statements. The case was extremely complicated and it is easy to see why it went to appeal. It began in the Galilee chapel in Durham on 9 November 1532. John Dicson claimed that he had married Agnes Wilkinson at her house by words of present consent about Martinmas last. He said he had given her two ‘angels’ or gold pieces and that she had accepted these, but afterwards she asked him not to live with her until the year’s anniversary of the death of her husband because of gossip. After that, however, she would marry him ‘solemnly before the church’. He had frequently asked her to publish the banns and solemnise the marriage but she, ‘forgetful of her salvation’, refused. Agnes’s case denied most of this. She said she had returned the two coins and in person on 18 January said that she had never contracted matrimony with John. The complications begin when one reads the witness statements. To prove his marriage John Dicson produced Thomas Wheatley of Kelloe, who had known him twenty years, and John Kyrkeman, a shoemaker of St Nicholas’s parish, Durham, who had known him from boyhood. Their evidence was presented on 25 January. Wheatley said he had been present when Dicson affidavit Agnes with the words: ‘I John take the Agnes to my wedded wife to hold and to have for better for worse for poer and for ryche and therto I plight the my treuthe.’ And Agnes replied: ‘Here I Agnes take the John to my wedded husband to holde and to have for better for worse for richer for poerer and therto I plight you my treuthe.’ And then they kissed each other. All this happened before midday in the stable of Agnes’s house in Heselden on a Thursday about 21 November the year before (presumably 1531). Wheatley had seen Dicson give her the two angels. Kyrkeman agreed. Agnes’s

95

For Clifton, BRUO, I, p. 443. DDR/EJ/CCA/1/1, ff. 34v, 40v, 43v, 44v, 45v, 46v, 47, 48v, 51, 52; York, Borthwick Institute, Trans. CP 1533/1.

96

54

LAY PARISH LIFE

proctor attacked both of these. Wheatley, he said, was a perjurer with a bad reputation in Kelloe, was far too partial to Dicson and was in fact the broker of the contract. Kyrkeman was related to Dicson in the third degree and wanted the marriage because ‘The said Agnes is much richer and more well-provided than the said John since he is poor, a pauper and almost abject.’ Robert Maynefourth, of St Oswald’s parish, Durham, agreed with the unfavourable verdict on Wheatley, saying that ‘The same Wheatley did take from hym eleven stowkes of wheat without leave and further that the same Wheatley is a crafty manne.’ He knew this because ‘that the same Wheatley took this deponents corne away by night’ and he had never trusted him since. Robert Huchenson of Durham likewise said that Wheatley was ‘of shallow views’, ‘full of light language’. He too had had corn stolen by Wheatley and did not love the man. But witnesses from Kelloe did not agree. Adam Blaxton of Kelloe, ‘gentleman’, who, not surprisingly, was astonished that Agnes had asked him to testify, said that Wheatley’s reputation was good; he was not known as a perjurer. Christopher Hall of Kelloe agreed. John Mason of Durham, a weaver, of the parish of St Nicholas, testified against Dicson, saying that he was a pauper and that Agnes was much richer. Brian a Vavray, also of St Nicholas, a cutter of cloth or tailor, agreed that Agnes’s neighbours thought that she was much richer: ‘the said woman holds fertile farm land and has many cattle’. He had bought thirty measures of wheat from her. In any case Agnes claimed that she was precontracted to William Wilkinson of Heselden. He appeared on 22 February to make this claim in person. He said that this contract was made on the feast of St Peter ad Vincula last year (1 August 1531) and that they had slept together frequently since then. In public at the tribunal Agnes agreed that Wilkinson was her husband. However there was another claimant to William Wilkinson’s hand; Margaret Wilkinson came before the court on 23 March and claimed that she was Wilkinson’s wife. She produced William Todde, and William Watson of Monk Heselden, both peasants. They described how they had been sent for by Wilkinson a fortnight before and that he had said to them: ‘I and this woman were long ago secretly betrothed without witnesses but now I wish freely and I desire you to be witnesses of the new contract of marriage between us.’ And the two had then exchanged words of present consent: ‘Here I Margaret, etc.’ In the afternoon of the same day he had asked for them again and repeated the procedure. This had all happened in the hall within the house of the woman in Heselden. Watson was an old man (80 years old) and remembered Wilkinson saying ‘Maistres I do see that ye will hanfast us therefore we will hand fast our selffe’, and, taking Margaret by the hand, they exchanged the words. Watson said that all this had happened on Monday of the week before Lent last past after midday (probably 24 February). Not surprisingly the result of all this was that on 5 April Margaret presented inhibitory letters calling the whole case to York. We do not know the outcome but some aspects are very enlightening. When Agnes first named her witnesses they had not appeared and at Dicson’s request she was sequestered to the house 55


of Ralph Bowman of Durham at Dicson’s expense, to keep her safe.97 But on 15 March Agnes’s proctor asserted that Ralph Bowman was too favourable to Dicson and so the judge sequestered her to the house of a certain Thomas Blaikden of Durham, who must be the stepfather in the case just discussed. In the course of the arguments the judge, at Dicson’s request, also inhibited Wilkinson from approaching Agnes except in public, ‘not just because of the complaints of the parishioners of Heselden but also because Agnes had confessed to having had carnal relations’ with Wilkinson, but he later allowed her to enter her house in Heselden again for two days to look after it and her household and then return to sequestration again. Once marriages were acknowledged to have occurred the parties were expected to live together, preferably in peace. It is interesting to find no sermons by Ripon about the married state and to realise that the ideals can largely be discerned only when the parties failed to live up to them. Some cases came before the archidiaconal court where husbands tried to force wives to live with them.98 The cases could of course be complicated. Margaret Ashburn of St Margaret’s parish in Durham was accused of ‘not adhering to her husband’ in November 1436 and William Tebot and his wife were accused of harbouring her.99 In December Tebot and his wife were allowed purgation, which they produced in January, but were warned about their behaviour. In the same December session the former vicar of Chillingham (Chevelingham) appeared in person to be accused of adultery with Margaret in the house of the Tebots. He denied it and said that Margaret was his relative, which he was told to prove next time. In the January session he and Margaret were said to have fled. Since good name in these matters was so important it is clear why defamation cases about accusations of sexual misconduct were very frequent and some were very colourful but must have been correspondingly damaging. In October 1532 Elizabeth Liddell and Robert Liddell were accused of adultery before the consistory court.100 The witnesses produced were Roger Liddell and Edward Liddell. Elizabeth Liddell was married to their father, presumably as her second husband, since they are not referred to as her sons. Roger said that some time between Easter (31 March) and the feast of St John last, near Sunderland Bridge, Robert had said to him in English ‘hath your father none other woman but my harlot’. Edward Liddell said that at the foot of the bank coming from the chapel of Croxdale one Sunday in summer when he was coming from church Robert had said to him ‘Could thye father marie none other woman but my harlot.’ In November 1534 Hugh Atkinson, who was probably a parishioner of St Oswald’s, justified calling Agnes Horn a prostitute

97 98 99 100

For the concept see Helmholz, Marriage Litigation, pp. 170–2. Capitula, ff. 130v, 131v, for a Holy Island example. Capitula, ff. 9, 10, 10v. DDR/EJ/CCA/1/1, ff. 32, 33v. 56

LAY PARISH LIFE

and confessed to the consistory court that he had committed adultery with her.101 He was condemned to a beating before the procession into St Oswald’s next Sunday but Agnes produced oath-helpers and was let off. This then must have been a punishment for slander rather than sexual sin. All these cases show that the laity were well aware of the church’s rules about marriage and many seem to have been able to manipulate canon law to suit their own ends. This agrees with findings elsewhere.102 Durham was unusual in using sequestration. It was also old-fashioned in using sub pena nubendi as in the Porter/Hansell case.103 This had been adopted in England from the thirteenth century but Helmholz thinks it was very rare in the later fifteenth century. His last example, however, is from York, in 1489, so to find it in Durham in 1440 may not be so strange. It would not be true to say that these examples represent ‘freedom’ in marriage in the modern sense but certainly the couples or their families seem to have known their rights and were able to assert them. The parish of course also presided over all the offices for the dead. The records of Durham are eloquent of the frequent visitations of epidemics with large numbers of deaths. In the course of arguments in the 1360s and 1370s about mortuaries, some of the parishioners or former parishioners of St Margaret’s reminisced about the Black Death.104 They were able to list from their own memories, or from the testimony of their neighbours, persons who had died ‘in the great pestilence’ in 1349: seventeen in vico de Framwelgate alone.105 One witness thought that five of these had died before the pestilence but since others did not agree one can presume that there may have been problems in remembering exactly when it began.106 One witness remembered that one had died within about two years after it.107 It seems clear, however, that the remembered mortality from around that time was very great indeed in the small area in question. There were clearly several further periods of high mortality. In September 1417 Thomas Langley postponed all assizes in Durham and the neighbourhood: ‘On account of the great pestilence which exists in the city of Durham and the neighbouring parts and alas, has done for a long time.’108 He did it again in 1424.109 Neville did

101

DDR/EJ/CCA/1/1, ff. 65, 66. Most recently, F. Pedersen, Marriage Disputes in Medieval England, London and Rio Grande 2000, esp. p. 211. 103 Helmholz, Marriage Litigation, pp. 172–81. 104 York, Borthwick Institute, CP. E 101. 105 York, Borthwick Institute, CP. E 101, m. 1v testimony of a 50-year-old from Framwellgate; mm. 1v–2 from testimony of Margaret Dyssere. 106 York, Borthwick Institute, CP. E 101, f. 2, testimony of Richard de Seaforth; contrast John de Plicton who does not agree. 107 York, Borthwick Institute, CP. E 101, f. 1v, testimony of John son of Cuthbert. 108 NA, Dur 3/35 m. 10. 109 NA, Dur 3/38, m. 19. 102

57


the same in December and January in his first year, 1438/9.110 When in about 1442 there was complaint that the priory no longer had an infirmary chaplain, the reply was that there had been one until the pestilence and indeed there had been none since 1439.111 In 1486–7 the number of mortuaries received in St Oswald’s parish soared: 100 deaths were recorded and money from legacies rose to 10s 4d, unusually high.112 Several members died from some families: George Milne, his wife and his daughter Elizabeth; John Littilfelde and his three daughters, Agnes, Margaret and Joan; William Cathe and his wife; John Bedell and his wife, are all listed. In 1498 Crossgate court book records that citizens were forbidden to lodge anyone from Bishop Auckland ‘because pestilence is reigning there’,113 and in September that year the bishop issued a general admonition to all rectors and vicars in his diocese to stick to their posts in time of plague.114 Probably in 1518 the tenants of Gilesgate were ordered not to receive or lodge anyone from Elvet or Crossgate and certainly not those of the households of those infected by plague.115 After the Reformation, when again there was an argument about the exact rights and duties of St Margaret’s parish, some of the parishioners looked back to another outbreak of plague about forty years before, which probably means in the later 1530s.116 One witness, Bartram Hoord, remembered that ‘sick folks had lodges maid upon the more and at Bellasis head’.117 Another referred to it as ‘the great dead tyme’.118 The chantry rentals of 1548/9 show several holdings empty because the occupants are dead of plague.119 Something of the terrible fear that epidemics produced is seen in evidence given in a mortuary case from 1497 where at issue was the true owner of part of the clothing of a woman dead of plague. A witness described going to see the woman to hear her last will: they called her outside into the street before the door of the house of the widow of Robert Cokyn and they stood far from her for fear of illness and of the plague which was reigning then.120

The witnesses in these cases referred to the plague as a visitation of God. The witness above asked the woman ‘how she wished to dispose of her goods

110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120

NA, Dur 3/46, m. 2. DCM, 1.8.Pont 2, item 34. St Oswald’s accounts, 1486–7. Crossgate Court Book, f. 1v. Reg. V, ff. 53v–54. NA, SC2/171/6, f. 1. DDR/EJ/CCD/1/4, dated 1575–7. Depositions, p. 278, MS as previous note ff. 4v–5. Depositions, p. 280, MS as note 116, ff. 5v–6. See p. 150. Court Book of Prior’s Official, f. 106v. 58

LAY PARISH LIFE

if God perhaps should visit her’.121 Robert Ripon refers to plague in the same way. In a Rogation Day sermon probably from about 1402 he referred to plague and tumult as God’s punishment for sins, including Lollardy.122 This idea was repeated in a long sermon for Trinity Sunday in which he blames the plague now reigning on the sins of the upper classes.123 We have no sermon on death by Ripon. There is one Durham sermon on the subject, written by the monk William Todde in 1528 and preserved in a manuscript from the monastic library.124 This was intended for both clergy and laity and was in English. The emphasis was on the need to trust God and not to be anxious about one’s sins at the end. Todde insisted that once one had confessed one’s sins with a true heart they were forgiven; not that one should trust in good deeds, because without the grace of God one would have sinned. He counselled people to make a will whilst well and thus to be rid of one source of anxiety. He told those caring for the sick to be honest with them and not pretend that they would recover, which was ‘vayne comfort’. The sick should be urged by those caring for them to receive the sacraments and then not to fear. The sick were to forgive those who had injured them and make restitution if they had injured others. Finally he exhorted his hearers that at the end they should think on the passion of Christ and pray to the Virgin ‘mother of mercy’ and to the angels and saints, especially any to whom they had a special devotion. All this is very traditional. The need to make a will can be seen in the evidence of witnesses in the prior’s archidiaconal court in the 1497 case mentioned above. Neighbours had gone to the house in which the dying woman was lodged to hear her nuncupative will.125 There are very few medieval wills from Durham city, so no meaningful statistical work can be done. It is clear from the remaining court records and other evidence, however, that just as in other places, persons far down the social scale left money or goods for their souls, though there is no evidence of their wills. The Hyne case, discussed in detail below, shows a woman with very little to leave none the less wishing the priest William Fabian to have a garment so that she would be prayed for. Wills could of course cause tremendous tensions and problems which may have been exacerbated during plague. The sad case just mentioned, from April 1497, concerned a case of lesio fidei where Alice, wife of William Dawson, a butcher, sued Joan, wife of Richard Barne, for the goods of Alice Hyne, which Alice Dawson said Hyne had left to her. Alice Hyne had died of plague. Alice Dawson produced witnesses and a list said to represent Alice Hyne’s last will,

121

Court Book of Prior’s Official, f. 106v. Harley 4894, f. 149. 123 Harley 4894, f. 165. 124 Harley 4843 ff. 260–2; A.B. Emden, Biographical Register of the University of Oxford, A.D. 1501–1540, Oxford 1974, for the man. 125 See note 120 above. 122

59


but the parish chaplain of St Margaret’s, William Fabian, alleged, with witnesses, a later will.126 Both wills were clearly oral. Stephen Thomas said that, when Alice Hyne was in service with the widow of Robert Cokyn, Alice Dawson specially asked him to accompany her so that they could hear Alice Hyne’s wishes, and they called her outside, as described earlier, to hear these.127 She said that she wished to give what she was wearing to the wife of William Johnson. The clothes were described as a chemise, a white kirtle, a green kirtle, a cap, a cornchaffe, a neckcornchaffe, and a pair of shoes and stockings. Thomas heard her saying that she gave one kirtle to have masses said for her soul.128 The rest of her goods she gave to Alice Dawson: one cover with all her other goods. This happened on a Saturday before she left the service of Cokyn’s widow. Michael Preston and William Tadcaster visited Hyne together later when she was lying sick in the house of Richard Barne, in which she afterwards died. Preston there heard Barne’s wife ask how she wished to dispose of her goods ‘if God perhaps should visit her and take her from this light’. In answer to a specific question she replied that if Fabian agreed she wanted to give him a kirtle and other things. She then said that she did not wish to give goods to any other friends and especially nothing to Alice Dawson, because of her ingratitude, explaining that she had given one new kerchief (kirchaffe) bought when she was well to her friend for hemming (le hemyng) and surfelyng and Alice Dawson had kept it. This conversation happened about seven weeks after she left the service of the widow. William Tadcaster129 confirmed that he had gone with Preston to Barne’s house and heard Preston ask her whether he had any goods of hers in his keeping and she said clearly no; before she was ill she had had all her goods from him. When they were standing in the house he heard Barne’s wife asking her who was to have her goods after her death. Hyne said that she wished those looking after her in her sickness to have them, on condition that a kirtle went to William Fabian. Tadcaster had not heard her make any other arrangements.130 Almost certainly, therefore, Alice Dawson lost her claim to the pathetically small legacy. The case also reveals how carefully some people followed church prescriptions to settle their affairs before death. If death by plague so filled the people with fear, it becomes clearer why mortuaries seem to have caused special problems in plague time. Not only would more of them have been demanded but all the problems connected with the custom must have been made worse.

126 Court Book of Prior’s Official, f. 105, and witnesses f. 106v, continued f. 132; account of this in Harvey, ‘Prior as archdeacon’, pp. 122–3. 127 Si Deus eam forte visitaret. 128 Document unclear. 129 MS Tadcastell, but almost certainly wrong. 130 The end is torn.

60

LAY PARISH LIFE

The full details of the contentions about mortuaries are given elsewhere but here it needs to be noticed that in them we also find remembrance of circumstances of death and of funerals. It was apparently the custom, before St Margaret’s became a parish in its own right, for the funeral mass to be said in St Margaret’s before the burial took place in St Oswald’s churchyard. At these funeral masses offerings were made, as Thomas Swanne of Framwellgate remembered in 1369, talking about the death and burial of Eda, wife of Adam Wither, who died in Millburngate during the Black Death.131 He had also seen the body of the chaplain John Jakes taken to St Margaret’s where one mass was celebrated before the body was taken for burial to St Oswald’s.132 Burial would normally have been in the churchyard of the parish church, though, as we have seen, St Margaret’s church could bury freely in its own cemetery only by permission as long as it was not a completely independent parish.133 Even in the sixteenth century apparently the parishioners of St Margaret’s claimed a corner of St Oswald’s churchyard as their own.134 It appears that even in the seventeenth century the city’s Roman Catholics regarded St Oswald’s churchyard as belonging to them; there is a case of men accused of attending a recusant burial there in 1635.135 Someone from outside a parish, however, had to pay for burial in its churchyard, as Robert Wharram did in 1480 in St Margaret’s parish.136 Likewise it seems that one paid to be buried within a church. That at least appears from one very small piece of evidence. In 1531 in the Crossgate borough court Agnes Blount sued George Comyn because she had given him 1s 8d to be used in the free chapel of Esh for the larestale of her late husband John and he had not spent it as he should.137 He denied deception. Lair is the local word for burial and a lairstall was a burial place. In their day-to-day dealings lay people were governed, we may suppose, by the morality they had absorbed and, if they transgressed too blatantly, by both the local church and the secular courts. It will already be clear that the boundaries between morality, which interested the church, and legal dealings, which interested secular law, overlapped and were blurred. In Ripon’s sermons the lay people were often instructed about fair dealing in business and at work. In a Lent sermon he talked, for instance, of persons who kept back their corn to sell it dear.138 This sermon may have been delivered in a time of dearth.

131

York Borthwick Institute, CP. E 101. York Borthwick Institute, CP. E 101. 133 See p. 8. 134 See p. 13. 135 J. Bossy, The English Catholic Community, 1570–1850, London 1975, reprinted 1979, p. 142. 136 DCRO, EP/Du/SM/584. 137 Crossgate Court Book, f. 12. 138 Harley 4894, f. 36. 132

61


Ripon often exhorted the laity to avoid avarice.139 Honesty in one’s dealings was a theme in another sermon,140 and he referred to those who in their buying and selling deceive their neighbours as needing to confess and to amend.141 Ripon reminded a Lenten congregation that usury was sinful because, he said, it was an attempt to buy time, which is common to all.142 The sermons were not original in any way on these matters but it is clear that Ripon addressed lay moral concerns, especially in Lent. The local secular courts of course set the price of ale and prosecuted people for holding back goods unfairly or for forestalling – for example, someone was accused of forestalling skins in 1500 in Crossgate court.143 The secular courts also prosecuted for small debts and distrained on those who ought to pay. The reasons for choosing one or other court are not always clear. In about 1520 the Gilesgate court declared that Richard Cornfurthe owed John Grenewell and his colleagues, the proctors of the guild of St Giles, 2s 6d, but that Richard Thomason owed nothing.144 The guardians of the guild of St Mary in the church of St Giles prosecuted in the secular court of Gilesgate for their rents in 1538 and 1539.145 In the Crossgate court the proctors of the guild of St Mary in St Margaret’s church likewise sought their rent in 1509 and 1530.146 These were the correct pleadings; rents of property were secular cases. In October 1532 the guardians of the art or mystery of cutters of Durham city had their plea of lesio fidei in the Durham consistory court against Roger Henrison struck out because the case was a secular plea, because by then the secular courts were defining this boundary more clearly.147 But in the archidiaconal court of the prior rents and debts might equally be sought, under pleas of lesio fidei or breach of promise. It is not perhaps surprising to find the priory obedientiaries doing this. In December 1447, for example, Thomas Ward, a monk, in fact the hostillar, sought one quarter of barley from Richard Maynforth of Elvet, who denied it.148 The almoner summoned Isabel Bower in January 1452 for the arrears of rent (15s) owed by her husband, now dead.149 When in April 1451 the communar accused William Henrison of Elvet of owing him 6d, he confessed and was warned to pay.150 It is worth noting, however, that the prior also sued for his rents in the secular court. In 1499, for instance, the

139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150

Harley 4894, f. 43v, for instance. Harley 4894, f. 64v. Harley 4894, f. 99. Harley 4894, f. 69. Crossgate Court Book, f. 29. NA, SC2/171/6, f. 1v. NA, SC2/171/6, ff. 45v, 46. Crossgate Court Book, ff. 10, 111v. DDR/EJ/CCA/1/1, f. 31v, and see pp. 73–4. Capitula, f. 70v. Capitula, f. 101. Capitula, f. 93v. 62

LAY PARISH LIFE

prior and his communar via their attorney sought 2s from John Tomson, a tinker, in the Crossgate court.151 He confessed the debt. But lay people summoned one another to the church courts for debts of all kinds, equally with the lay courts. Lesio fidei could involve all sorts of promises to perform. In June 1493 Edward Glenton, probably a dyer, pleaded against Robert Jacson for 3s 4d for linen sold where Jacson alleged that he had already paid 1s 8d.152 Witnesses gave very important evidence of the whole transaction. John Richardson, from Elvet, alleged that he had seen Jacson’s wife buy two lez boundez lini from Glenton and paying 1s 8d for one. William Rogerson had been present in Glenton’s house when Jacson’s wife bought lez boundez and when she paid for one before she left. He had had part of the money for carriage of woad from Sunderland. Cuthbert Tailfer agreed; he helped the woman with four pennies from his own purse. Other examples show how thoroughly ‘secular’ some of these pleas were. In March 1497 John Fery took Christopher Warner before the prior’s court because Warner had not paid for the lime which belonged to Fery’s master, Thomas Bee.153 Christopher, however, alleged that the lime was not properly burned and Fery appealed to those who did that kind of work to say if it was good or not. The case was adjourned in the hope of agreement and was eventually settled. There are other cases about Bee and his lime in the court book.154 Further examples of very ‘secular’ pleas were Elena Pertus of St Margaret’s parish suing Thomas Rogerson and his wife for her wages in 1494. They denied the debt but eventually agreed to arbitration.155 It is more surprising to find in 1498 fullers (parish not given) bringing a case of breaking faith against others for fulling pilia (?felt) ‘against the ordinance of their fullers’ art’.156 Their opponents denied that they had made any promise. In February 1498 John Wardon sued John Fermour (the parish is not given) because he unjustly claimed years of service from him beyond his apprenticeship.157 The church and lay courts of Durham thus served to enforce morality and were also used somewhat indiscriminately by the locals to obtain their rights. It also looks as if the bishop used his consistory court for small cases in the city which elsewhere might have required a special archidiaconal court of which I have found no trace in the city.158 Lay people who wished to go further than the minimal requirements of the Christian life in the middle ages had various options open to them. Durham

151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158

Crossgate Court Book, f. 19. Court Book of Prior’s Official, ff. 52v, 53v. Court Book of Prior’s Official, f. 102. Court Book of Prior’s Official, ff. 104v, 109, 110. Court Book of Prior’s Official, f. 76v. Court Book of Prior’s Official, f. 128v. Court Book of Prior’s Official, f. 118. See p. 70. 63


does not give much insight into the personal piety of the individuals whom we encounter. Just a few times there is a glimpse of practices which were not enjoined by the church with penalties attached. For instance, rosary beads turn up among valuables claimed in the Crossgate court in 1514.159 There are, however, several indications that people opted for the life of hermit and that such individuals were revered. There were several hermits in this period throughout the Durham region, including in the city itself. The evidence suggests that the tradition, supported no doubt by the story of Godric of Finchale, continued until the Reformation to have an effect on the city and region.160 It is possible to know what ideals were offered to those who chose the hermit life because the priory records have kept details of the liturgy involved. To become a hermit one had to be licensed, generally by the bishop. But the prior was able to license men during a vacancy and this probably explains why the priory archives include directions about how a hermit was inducted. Under the heading ‘To make a hermit’, the prior’s first small register has the procedure.161 The opening prayer reminded hearers about the wanderings of the Israelites in the desert and about Christ’s forty-day-and-night fast, begging God to be kind to the candidate who had chosen to change his way of life to become a hermit, to fit him for the task and give him the grace to persevere to attain perfection and thus to reach eternal joys. His habit was then blessed with a prayer asking Christ, who had put on the yoke of mortality, to bless the garment sanctioned by the example of the Fathers as a garment of innocence and humility, to allow its wearer to merit to put on Christ. Finally the candidate was addressed and told to live from now on chastely, soberly and in holiness, with vigils, fasting, labour, prayer and works of mercy so that he would have eternal life and live for ever. The hermit would reply: ‘I receive it in the name of the Lord, promising to do this as far as I can with the help of the Lord’s grace and the prayers of the saints.’ He was then clothed with the habit and blessed with the words: ‘May the Lord bless you and give you grace to live well and lead you to eternal life. Amen.’ Probably during the vacancy of the see in 1483, John Man was made a hermit by the prior.162 In this case Man’s licence compares his desire to be a hermit with entering a war but also says that he desires with Mary to sit at the feet of Christ in contemplation.163 The prior who knows his upright life and firmness of purpose, which will cause him not to frivol away his time but to stick firmly to his choice, therefore clothes him with the hermit’s habit.

159

Crossgate Court Book, f. 133v: a set precularum cum les gawdys de argento. For Godric, see especially V. Tudor, ‘Durham Priory and its hermits in the twelfth century’, AND, pp. 67–78. 161 BL, Cotton MS, Faust. A VI, f. 102. 162 Reg. Parv. IV, f. 140r/v. 163 See another example probably from the late fourteenth century, for a hermit named GM, Reg. II, f. 191v. 160

64

LAY PARISH LIFE

There were hermitages which seem to have been overseen by the priory. One was attached to the hospital of St Mary Magdalen and the incumbent must have lived within its small parish because his mortuary was owed to the almoner and his funeral occurred in the hospital church. In 1516–17 the almoner’s accounts noted reception of the mortuary gown of William Borell, ‘hermit of the hospital of St Mary Magdalen’, with 1d from offerings at his funeral.164 In 1520–1 again a mortuary gown from the hermit of the hospital was recorded, but without a name. In 1526–7 the hermit was Cuthbert Mawer. Another hermit was attached to the chapel at Burn Hall. In 1430 there is a reference in the priory archives to a hermitage next to the quarry at Burn.165 This was in St Oswald’s parish and was one of the chapels which contributed its offerings to that church.166 In 1509–10 the procurator of St Oswald’s accounted among his mortuaries for 4s received from a mare of the hermit of Burn, John Nevell.167 Some of these hermits were appointed by the priory. A note in the small register of letters of the priory says that Hugo Parker was given the hermitage next to the cemetery of the church of Aycliffe in May 1405.168 In February 1395 letters patent proclaimed that John de Stanes had been made a hermit.169 This is accompanied by the series of directions for the ceremony.170 The priory also contributed to local hermits The bursar gave gifts to hermits from time to time, sometimes named, sometimes not, for instance in 1368–9171 or in 1370–1.172 In 1371–3 money was given to the hermits of Aycliffe and Wolviston.173 In 1384–5 Nicholas the hermit had a robe at Christmas.174 Some of those supported were bridge hermits, a recognised category who helped maintain bridges. The payment in 1421–2 from the almoner to Thomas Welles ‘at Sunderland Bridge’ in St Oswald’s parish, as alms, may indicate one such. 175 In 1414–15 a hermit there received 10s from the prior for making the pavement.176 In 1406–7 the bursar records 6d as a gift to a certain hermit apud Nortonbrygge.177 In 1380–1 the bursar paid a hermit at Bearpark ‘for the work of a bridge’.178 In 1414–15 John the hermit received a gown from the prior

164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178

Almoner’s accounts in each case. DCM, 1.1.Sac 3. St Oswald’s accounts, though not every year. St Oswald’s accounts, 1509–10. Faust. A VI, f. 111v, in right-hand base (alternative notation is f. 108v). Faust. A VI, f. 102v. Faust. A VI, f. 102. Bursar’s accounts, 1368–9, gifts. Bursar’s accounts, 1370–1, gifts. Bursar’s accounts, 1371–3. Bursar’s accounts, 1384–5. Almoner’s accounts, 1421–2A. Bursar’s accounts, 1414–15. Bursar’s accounts, 1406–7, gifts. Bursar’s accounts, 1380–1, gifts. 65


for 6s 9d and he received 10s 9d for mending the ales at Bearpark.179 In 1418–19 it appears that the same man, or at least someone called John the hermit, was drowned at the ford of Shincliffe (the coroner Robert Jackson had held an inquest on the body of John ‘drowned at Shincliffe ford by misfortune’).180 After this there are no mentions of these payments but they were probably subsumed under the general heading of alms. In 1508 the prior issued a general testimonial for Robert Lumley, a hermit, and Cuthbert Billingham, doubtless from Crookhall, who were going on pilgrimage to shrines of the saints, vouching for their good character and asking for their good treatment.181 So hermits seem to have continued to be part of the local parish scene. There were also women living ascetic lives but they are even less visible. In 1462 Alice Swelyngton, a widow, took vows of continence, with a ring and a veil, received from the prior in the Galilee chapel.182 She would not have been an anchorite but a vowess, living secluded in her own home. The bishop’s vicar general had delegated the task to the prior, and the lady may have been from the city. In the almoner’s rentals between 1533 and 1536 there is record of a widow anchoress called Margaret Esche, living in the priory infirmary with her daughter Alice Walker.183 She had probably been an anchoress in Chester le Street.184 Hermits performed services in parishes, apart from their possible work on roads and bridges. The presence of one in the centre of the city may indicate that he was praying for the parishioners and perhaps even acting as a source of spiritual counsel. There was apparently a famous hermit in St Oswald’s parish, living beside the churchyard, perhaps where the house called the Anchorage now is. It is very probable that one of the hermits listed above is to be identified with this man, who was called John Warton and came to be considered a saint, though never formally canonised. From 1447, the year the St Oswald’s accounts start effectively, the accounts of the proctor show offerings at the tomb of a man called John Warton and payments for images sold to pilgrims coming to visit it. In 1447–8 these are recorded as 1s 4d,185 for 1448–9, 9d.186 By 1467–8 the accounts record images sold to pilgrims coming to the tomb as well as offerings (1s 3d for offerings and 5d for images).187 The accounts for 1472–3 say that the offerings are now assigned to the feretrar of the abbey,188 but evidently images were still sold at the church, because in 1473–4 4d had

179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188

Bursar’s accounts, 1414–15. Bursar’s accounts 1418–19, gifts. Reg. Parv. IV, f. 170v. Scriptores Tres, no. cclx, pp. cccxlvi–vii, from Reg. Parv. III, f. 111v. Almoner’s rentals, 1533 onwards, ff. 12v, 29v, 50, 73. Almoner’s rentals, f. 50v de Custria. St Oswald’s accounts, 1447–8. St Oswald’s accounts (formerly Misc. Ch. 5906). St Oswald’s accounts, 1467–8 (formerly Misc. Ch. 5906). St Oswald’s accounts, 1472–3. 66

LAY PARISH LIFE

been received for them there189 and 7d in 1479–80.190 Small sums for images continued until 1508. Up until 1451 the offerings at the tomb seem to have come to the hostillar, who was the ‘rector’ of the church, but in 1452–3 a note in his accounts asks for allowance to be made for £8 because the offerings are now assigned to the feretrar and the money had been lent to William Seton. The sums for the years 1453–6 were quite large: over £6 in 1453–4 and over £7 in 1455–6.191 In 1468–9 the sum given to the feretrar was £1 3s 7d.192 One can cross-check with the feretrar’s accounts and see that from 1456 onwards sums were indeed arriving with the feretrary, if sometimes in arrears, specifically stated to be by special arrangement made by the prior.193 By 1513–14 these receipts were said to be from the offertory box of Saint (sic) John Warton194 and this appellation continued until the very last account in 1537–8 when 1s was received from his offertory box.195 This is a sign both of popular devotion and also of the priory’s desire not to allow a cult to flourish unsupervised (and to take the proceeds, of course). The cult probably was flourishing. There exists also a fragment of what may be a sermon by Warton in a Durham Cathedral Library manuscript headed Parabola Johannis de Warton, added in a neat fifteenth-century hand and concerning how people hear the word of God.196 It is worth noting too that at the dissolution of chantries, belonging to the chantry of St John the Baptist and John the Evangelist, in St Oswald’s church (the Elvet chantry), there was a book called A Life of John Wharton.197 This all suggests that someone was hoping to start a cause in the Roman curia to have him made a saint. The manuscript with the sermon fragment may also have come from St Oswald’s; it contains a letter from Richard Ayre who was vicar there in 1549 and the book has some other indications that it may have belonged to St Oswald’s. The book contains writings about mysticism and asceticism.198 The chantry in question also owned other books of mystical writings by Richard Rolle, an anchorite whose writings were popular in the later middle ages. We have no way of knowing who John Warton was. Someone of this name was tonsured by Langley in April 1430 but we do not know if this is the same

189

St Oswald’s accounts, 1473–4. St Oswald’s accounts, 1479–80. 191 Hostillar’s accounts, 1453–4, 1455–6. 192 Hostillar’s accounts, 1468–9. 193 Feretrar’s accounts, 1457–8A, 1458–9, 1469–70B. 194 Feretrar’s accounts, 1513–14. 195 Feretrar’s accounts, 1536–7. 196 All of this information from Dr Doyle. The manuscript is Durham Cathedral Library, B IV 35, f. 32v. 197 The inventories of Church Goods for the Counties of York, Durham and Northumberland, ed. E. Page, SS 97 (1897), p. 125. 198 Contents of B IV 35 can be seen in T. Rud, Codicum Manuscriptorum Ecclesiae Cathedralis Dunelmensis, Catalogus Classicus, Durham 1825, pp. 239–41. 190

67


man.199 There certainly was an anchorage next to St Oswald’s church, since it is clearly attested after the Reformation. The best evidence is from a series of consistory court records about a contentious suit involving a brawl in St Oswald’s churchyard in the 1570s (the date is unclear and the record is incomplete).200 The details are irrelevant here but the quarrel involved Henry Kent, gentleman, of Durham city and Gilbert Spence, a local notary and proctor in the consistory court of Durham. Kent came, by report to tak possession of the ancaridge house.201 It appears that Gilbert was actually living next to the former anchorage, which stood next to the churchyard, with a close attached to it and next to the lane (loning)202 running beside the churchyard. Participants are said to have stood: in the said church yarde betwixt the ancaridge house and the church yard toward the loning.203 If John Warton was an anchorite this is probably where he had lived. The evidence presented here suggests that there was a lively lay presence in all the Durham parishes and that the existence of both bishop and priory so close at hand did not inhibit the laity from participating in all aspects of church life which were open to them. It is also clear that on occasion they were prepared to challenge the church authorities about their rights. To this we will now turn.

199

Langley, Register, III, no. 858. Depositions, p. 296, but much more fully in DUL, DDR/EJ/CCD/1/4, ff. 97, 115–17 (I owe this reference to Dr Margaret McCollum). 201 DDR/EJ/CCD/1/4, f. 116. 202 DDR, f. 116v. 203 DDR, f. 116v, evidence of Sibilla Richardson. 200

68

4

The church and the laity: obligations and conflicts I The parishes of Durham city were of course part of the universal church and it does not do to think of them as closed worlds uninfluenced by the wider church and the state. The discipline which governed the church institutions which I have described was administered by a series of ecclesiastical authorities putting into practice the canon law of the church. At its heart was the Roman curia with its courts and legal system and its power to grant graces and favours. In theory, appeal to this was possible even by the most humble parishioner. The hierarchical church with its canon law, however, placed many authorities between the ordinary parishioner and the pope. Very probably the clergy who impinged most upon the lives of the laity were the parochial priests serving under the vicar or rector.1 But they were in theory subject to their rectors and to the bishop of the diocese, who administered his authority over his clergy and laity largely through his archdeacons who visited and held courts to discipline both lay and clergy. The bishop of course could visit parishes but seldom did so in person. The bishop’s consistory was the diocesan court for all laity and clergy who were not exempt. Appeal from it was possible either to the provincial court (the metropolitan or archdiocesan court), or even, if litigants could afford it and were sufficiently tenacious, to Rome itself, sometimes bypassing the local altogether. In theory this was a uniform system, the same in all parts of the Western Christian world. In practice it recognised local customs and anomalies which are among the more interesting facets of local parish life.2 From the point of view of ecclesiastical law Durham city had several peculiar features. The prior claimed to be archdeacon over all the churches appropriated to the monastery and was successfully exercising this jurisdiction at least from the fourteenth century.3 In the city this meant that he had the right to hold an ecclesiastical court which was the prime agent of discipline over the laity and clergy of St Oswald’s and all its dependent churches, as well as over St Mary Magdalen. The jurisdiction did not cover any other city churches, and when one of the accused came from these, the records state the fact. For instance in 1435 next to the name of John Preston, accused of fornication with

1

See p. 119. R.H. Helmholz, The Canon Law and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction from 597 to the 1640s, The Oxford History of the Laws of England, I, Oxford 2004, index under: custom, esp pp. 170–4. 3 For the whole system see Barlow, Durham Jurisdictional Peculiars, passim. 2

69


Alice de Wod ‘whom he keeps’, is a note that he is of St Nicholas parish in Durham and thus outside the jurisdiction (extra. de parochia beati Nicholai in dunelm).4 As diocesan the bishop usually held his ecclesiastical court (by deputy of course) in Durham itself, usually in the Galilee chapel in the cathedral. In theory he exercised his discipline over the city clergy not subject to the prior through his own archdeacon of Durham. This archdeacon had the right to hold his own court, but the remaining evidence from the consistory Acta suggests that for the city the consistory acted also rather like an archidiaconal court. For instance there are several examples of ex officio prosecution of fornication and adultery from the city, which one might have expected to come to an archidiaconal court.5 In both the prior’s court and that of the bishop an added complication was that some aspects of ecclesiastical jurisdiction in England were always subject to interference from the crown. In theory, secular and ecclesiastical law were entirely separate. In practice, there were many grey areas. In Durham a further modification arose from the circumstance that the bishop was the royal authority in the area as well as sharing with the prior the position of landlord of many city litigants. The major evidence that remains from the metropolitan court in its dealings with the Durham parishes in the middle ages is a series of cause papers, which I have used in this book.6 Continuous evidence about the bishop’s consistory court can be had only from one set of Acta, for the period 1531–8,7 but there are some further cause papers in the priory archives. In the period for which we have documents the consistory court met almost every week in the Galilee chapel of the cathedral, usually on Saturday, but sometimes on Friday. The range of cases was what one would expect, adding proof of testaments to the kind of things which appear in the lower courts. 8 The small change of this court on the eve of the Reformation was breach of faith (lesio fidei), matrimonial cases and defamation. A sample of the first ten folios shows thirty-three cases of breach of faith, sixteen of defamation, nine sexual and twelve tithe cases, which is the usual range. There are also some episcopal visitation returns, showing that the bishops did sometimes visit the city churches. Under Hatfield this certainly occurred, as is revealed by a case discussed later.9 The evidence about the prior’s court is much better than this. There are two court books, one for 1435–56, known as Capitula Generalia, and the other for 1487–98, known as Court Book of the Prior’s Official.10 From these and some

4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Capitula, f. 2. DDR/EJ/CCA/1/1, ff. 6, 15, 18, 20. See pp. 49, 52–6, 90–93. DUL, DDR/EJ/CCA/1/1. See pp. 72, 73. See p. 85. Both in 5, The College among DCM. 70

THE CHURCH AND THE LAITY I

allied material in the priory archives one can see that the prior’s exercise of his jurisdiction as archdeacon conformed to the account given by William Lyndwood in his Provinciale, finished about 1430.11 The prior visited all appropriated churches regularly, usually by deputy, paying attention to good order, lay and clergy instruction, discipline, care of the fabric of the churches and tithe-paying. The archdeacon could also enquire into notorious matters relating to church law needing correction among clergy or laity. Though there are no records of the prior’s archidiaconal visitations of his Durham city parishes there is mention of a visitation having happened at Witton.12 As archdeacon the prior made the centre of his operation Durham city and usually held his court in St Oswald’s church. Twice a year, usually in April and October, all the clergy of the prior’s archdeaconry were summoned to what came to be called a general chapter with a synod. Those who did not come were fined, and illness, absence for good reason, or appearance by proctor were noted in the record.13 It is probable that at these meetings the payments called synodals were made, ostensibly to allow the archdeacon to do his visits. Some of the sermons by Robert Ripon, said to have been delivered at synods, were probably delivered at these gatherings. Certainly they are aimed at the local clergy and often stress clergy education.14 At these synods the vicar of St Oswald’s and the parochial chaplains of St Margaret’s, Witton Gilbert and Croxdale were expected to be present, with clerici (parish or holy water clerks) also from Witton Gilbert and St Margaret’s.15 The regular ‘chapters’ of the prior’s archdeaconry court were held every three weeks from 1435, usually in St Oswald’s church, and every week in the later period. Intervening follow-up meetings were often called sessions and were more likely than the chapters to be in other venues. Thursday was the regular court day but follow-up could occur on other days. The cases covered by the court are what one would expect from Lyndwood’s account, though some other types of case occur which one would not expect, concerning marriage, for instance, and many have served as the evidence in this book. The evidence suggests that sexual misdemeanour was the most frequently punished offence in the earlier period. In 1436–7, for instance, sexual and marriage cases outnumber other named offences (about thirty-nine cases compared with eight for working on feast days, three defamation, one tithe and three debt cases). In the later book, however, there is an increase in cases of breach of faith, often concerning debts. In 1487–9, for instance, there were eighteen sexual cases and twenty-five breach of faith. The earlier book contains cases of sorcery or slander about sorcery, whereas there are none in the later book.

11 12 13 14 15

Lyndwood, Provenciale, Lib. 1. tit. 10. Capitula, f. 12v. Fuller details in Harvey, ‘Church discipline’, pp. 96–7. See pp. 126–7. Full list in Harvey, ‘Church discipline’, p. 97. 71


Some of the cases came ex officio, brought by the officials of the court, though often the origin is not clear. But there are plenty which came from other sources: the churchwardens of St Oswald’s,16 the representatives of the guild of St Mary in the South Bailey for a debt (which almost certainly should not have come to this court),17 and numerous cases brought by lay people against other lay people. A telling example is Katarina Baxter who appeared in July 1453 and ‘demanded very earnestly a letter of excommunication against those who were defaming her, as she asserted she had asked several times already,’ importuning the judge.18 The prior protected his jurisdiction. A man suspected of summoning the holy water clerk of the church of Dalton, which was in the prior’s jurisdiction, before the bishop’s archdeacon of Durham was summoned in 1453 to show what he had done and by what power.19 But the prior’s court was quite willing to send some cases to the consistory court. In July 1452, for instance, the case of Robert Weddale, litster, of St Oswald’s, was sent straight to the consistory.20 In 1498 the judge agreed to a request for this because he did not have and could not get counsel.21 In 1489 the churchwardens of St Oswald’s brought a case against the villani of Witton Gilbert, probably part of the continuing argument about the status of this dependent chapel. It was sent straight to the consistory also.22 Parties might be summoned and plead that they had already done the penance imposed by the court (often to precede the Sunday procession into the parish church holding a candle or being whipped in their shirt or chemise). They were then required to produce proof.23 For instance, Christina Baxter, summoned in July 1450 for adultery, produced a letter of correction from February (showing she had done her penance then) and was allowed to prove her innocence since that time with one oath helper. She was also warned to avoid suspect company.24 It was of course easy enough for an accused to flee and there are plenty of examples where a named person ‘took flight’ after their entry.25 It seems likely that some notorious sinners were summoned both by the bishop and by the prior. This seems the most probable explanation for accused who pleaded that they had already done their penance before an

16

Court Book of Prior’s Official, ff. 8v, 83; see p. 41. Court Book of Prior’s Official, f. 20r/v. 18 Capitula, f. 114v: peciit instantissime literam excommunicacionis contra diffamatores sicut ut asserit pluries petierat. 19 Capitula, f. 122. 20 Capitula, f. 105v. 21 Court Book of Prior’s Official, f. 128v. 22 Court Book of Prior’s Official, f. 8v. 23 For instance, Capitula, ff. 128, 128v. 24 Capitula, f. 86v. 25 For instance, Capitula, f. 120. 17

72


episcopal officer26 or even, in the case of a priest, before the bishop.27 The overlapping and competing jurisdictions must have allowed some slippery sinners to try to cheat the court. The representative of Katerina, servant of William Chauwmbre, in March 1453 produced what the court called a fictive letter of correction of the consistory of Durham with a date ten days after she was cited to the prior’s court.28 In the consistory court in 1534 one defendant, probably in a breach of promise case, asserted in English that: His counsal shewed hym that if it were a promys made as it is not, yet for al that my lorde of duresme nor his officers hath no jurisdiction in this mater forasmoche as it appiereth that the convention was made in Hexham which is fourth of my lorde of duresm jurisdiction.29

Hexham, of course, was in the jurisdiction of the archbishop of York, but the court did not believe the man and he was condemned. In theory the laws of church and state were two separate systems which did not overlap. The secular courts recognised their limitations. In 1393 the Crossgate borough court declared that an accusation of defamation did not belong to it and adjourned it sine die.30 In practice the state interfered with the working of church law. So, for instance, in Durham the bishop as royal representative used writs of prohibition to stop cases which were considered secular in English common law from continuing in the prior’s court. In December 1454, for instance, in a testamentary case one side stopped the case by presenting a writ of prohibition to the judge in the prior’s court, which he accepted, though protesting that he did not thereby curtail the prior’s jurisdiction.31 The priory’s registers show that cases about debt coming up in the archidiaconal court were subject to such writs in the fourteenth century, when they were supposed only to concern cases of matrimony or wills, though no such inhibition seems to have applied later, provided there was a proven breach of faith.32 The sums of money involved in the debt cases in the prior’s court ranged from £1s 0s 4d in 145433 to £7 13s 4d in 1493.34 Equally the bishop applied the law about criminous clerks in his secular court. A person in clerical

26

Capitula, f. 131v: alleg’ purgacionem coram officiali curie consistorii Dunelm; or Court Book of Prior’s Official, f. 24v: per apparatorem domini epsicopi; similarly f. 37v. 27 Court Book of Prior’s Official, f. 6v. 28 Capitula, f. 110v; see further f. 142. 29 DDR/EJ/CCA/1/1, f. 62. 30 DCM, Loc. IV: 229, m. 5. For the whole question see R.H. Helmholz, ed., Select Cases on Defamation to 1600, Selden Society 101 (1985), esp. pp. xiv–xlvii. 31 Capitula, f. 136. 32 DCM, Reg. II, f. 255. 33 Capitula, f. 137v. 34 Court Book of Prior’s Official, f. 61v. 73


orders who was convicted of felony could not be punished in the secular court.35 So, for example, at the gaol delivery session in the royal court under Bishop Christopher Bainbridge, in October 1508, Giles Whitfield, late of the city, was found guilty of theft from William Richardson.36 The whole case was of the kind where the man only pleaded clergy after he had been found guilty.37 He pleaded that he was a clerk and William Smyth, who was the representative of the prior as vicar general of the bishop, sought custody of him. The right to claim criminous clerks was highly valued by the church.38 A ruling dated 17 October 1503 was quoted to the court, saying that the vicar general was the correct person to act in this case. So the court presented Giles with a book and asked William Smyth to say if he read ‘as a clerk’, which William certified. Therefore Giles was branded on the hand with a T for thief ‘according to the form of the statute lately edited about this’ and released to the vicar general.39 This referred to the statute of 1489.40 In November 1531 a woman in a case of defamation was accused of adultery and theft. She admitted the theft but denied the adultery for which she was ordered to produce compurgators.41 The theft was dismissed because the case was secular. The woman may have been well-advised to plead in this way. There had been a change in the interpretation of the law in the royal courts. This had begun to prevent double prosecution where people tried to fend off accusations of secular crimes by pleading defamation in the church court.42 The secular courts began to insist that defamation in church courts could only cover spiritual causes. Durham was slow to make this change, which had begun to be implemented earlier (from at least 1513) in other places.43 The bishop’s court in Durham became much more aware of the secular/ecclesiastical distinction after this. The consistory twice dismissed cases in 1532 ‘because they were secular’.44 One concerned a case of breach of faith involving a merchant guild, and the second seems to have involved theft of church goods, brought by churchwardens. Either of these might have been heard before the church court in Durham in an earlier period.

35

A. McHardy, ‘Church courts and criminous clerks in the later middle ages’, in Owen, Medieval Ecclesiastical Studies, pp. 165–83, for the whole process. 36 NA, Dur 13/1. 37 McHardy, ‘Church courts’, p. 167. 38 McHardy, ‘Church courts’, pp. 167–9 and appendix, for examples. 39 R.N. Swanson, Church and Society in late Medieval England, 2nd ed., Oxford 1993, p. 153. 40 Iuxta formam statute inde nuper editi: see S.B. Chrimes, Henry VII, London 1972, repr. 1984, p. 243. 41 DUL, Archives and Special Collections, DDR/EJ/CCA/1/1, f. 10v. 42 Helmholz, Defamation, pp. xli–xlv. 43 Helmholz, Defamation, p. xliv. 44 DUL, Archives and Special Collections, DDR/EJ/CCA/1/1, ff. 31v, 43: propter civilitatem. 74


None the less, as secular law allowed, the prior used the bishop’s royal jurisdiction to round up people who remained excommunicated for more than forty days.45 The best example is that of Margaret Bryan of St Oswald’s parish who in 1435 fled after she was accused of fornication in the prior’s court and was first suspended (kept out of the church) and then, when she returned in May the next year, she confessed and was given a public penance, which she then refused to perform. In November 1436 the prior’s official applied to the bishop in his secular capacity to order the sheriff of Durham to have Margaret arrested for contempt and contumacy. On 20 December she surrendered and was given two days’ penance and a fine.46 From the point of view of the laity the situation in Durham, with the bishop combining in his person so much power both secular and ecclesiastical, could appear very threatening and they articulated their fears. For instance, the parishioners of St Oswald’s, taking the bishop before a court of papal judgesdelegate in 1360–1, expressed themselves (or were represented by their proctors as expressing themselves) thus: Within the waters of Tees and Tyne in the diocese of Durham, that is in the archdeaconry of Durham, the bishop of Durham, whoever he is, exercises over his subjects, both personally and by his officers, the power of both swords, the spiritual and temporal. . . . And there the bishop also has at present and has had the exercise in temporals of the liberty of the king and he has temporal sheriffs and bailiffs there with prisons and power to imprison and hold in prison persons in these areas.47

They may not have been as frightened as they professed, indeed it is unlikely that they were, since they had taken on the case in the first place, but the statement expresses very well the actual power of the bishop. Likewise in the case concerning mortuaries the members of St Margaret’s chapel were quite correct to state that the priory was likely to be able to pressurise witnesses who were not only of lowly status but were also in its employ.48 The account of ecclesiastical jurisdiction at work in Durham is not clearcut. Some cases suggest considerable blurring of boundaries both by the church authorities and by the laity. A man was prosecuted in the prior’s archidiaconal

45

The whole question is thoroughly treated in F.D. Logan, Excommunication and the Secular Arm in Medieval England, Toronto 1968, pp. 42–53. 46 References in Harvey, ‘Church discipline’, pp. 103–4. 47 DCM, Loc. XXVII: 26 (17): Infra aquas de Tese et Tyne diocesis Dunolm videlicet in archidiaconatu Dunolm episcopus Dunolm qui pro tempore fuerit in subditis inibi exercuit et per se et suos exercere consuevit utriusque gladii quam spritualis quam temporalis potestaem. Et quod in locis predictis . . . eidem domino Dunolm episcopo in temporalibus exercicium libetatis regie competebat et competit in presenti ac vicecomites et ballivos ibidem habuerunt et habent temporales et carcares et potestatem incarcerandi et in carcere detinendo quascumque personas in dictis locis degentes. 48 See p. 92. 75


court for poaching in Bearpark, though he had also used contumelious words against the prior’s officers, so perhaps he added contempt of holy persons to his invading of ecclesiastical property.49 But lay people could blur the boundaries also. Lesio fidei cases are very frequent indeed in the consistory and in the archidiaconal court and seem to have been a preferred way of debt recovery for lay people. In March 1493 Thomas Bittleston, a Durham tanner, brought a case of lesio fidei in the prior’s court against Richard Tadcaster, where part of the debt was the expenses already spent in the secular court and the proof was the record of his successful plea ‘in the Old Borough of Durham before William Bichburn once seneschal, as appears in the rolls of the same court’.50 This was the Crossgate borough court where Bittleston appears as a regular litigant.51 The law of the church applied in Durham just as in any other part of the Western world. It applied, however, with modifications from local custom and the cases which I will outline, concerning mortuaries and marriage law, show that the diocese had its own way of doing things which sometimes differed from the norms found elsewhere.52 The lay people were perfectly willing to use these courts for their own purposes and either knew, or were able to discover, how the ecclesiastical law could be made to work for them. Some of the matrimonial cases also make this quite plain.53 If Durham city in the later middle ages was spiritually different from many other places because the monastery was landlord and spiritual overlord for half its parishes and for the rest the bishop was the same, one must ask how good were relationships between city and priory. There are certainly some well-known local feuds between the local laity and the prior, but one of the most unruly, Thomas Billingham of Crook Hall, who conducted ‘a reign of terror’ against the monks in 1419, lived on the outskirts of the city.54 He could hardly be thought of as just an ordinary lay man, since he was the most important parishioner of St Margaret’s. He headed the list of parishioners in the agreement with the prior about St Margaret’s in 1431.55 It is also worth remembering that the Billinghams had their own private chapel with licence from Bishop Hatfield,56 and that the family must have passed for benefactors of the town since Thomas was also responsible for facilitating provision of the water-supply to the market-place of Durham,57 ‘for

49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57

Capitula, f. 141v. Court Book of Prior’s Official, ff. 48v, 50. Harvey, ‘Church discipline’, p. 104. See pp. 91, 93. See pp. 52–4. Dobson, Durham Priory, pp. 50–1, 194. DCM, 4.16.Spec. 49. See p. 26. Bonney, Lordship, p. 51. 76


the honour of God, St Cuthbert and St Nicholas’, though the benefaction did not come free.58 The ordinary citizens came across the inmates of the abbey in all sorts of ways. First of all, of course, many local people probably had relatives in the monastery. John Gervais, the Durham spicer in the marriage case previously discussed, was probably related to the monk William Gervace.59 There were monks called Rakett, probably related to the family of notaries from Elvet. Certainly many local people must have known the families of monks. The implication of a slander case concerning the monk John Oll whose fellow monk Henry Helay accused him of being unfree was that the Oll family and its history were well-known to the neighbours in Brancepeth.60 The most likely way for local people to encounter the monks, however, was either as an employer or as a landlord and usually they would meet either a monastery office-holder or obedientiary or his deputy. I have shown elsewhere that the priory sought its rents and dues through both the local secular and church courts.61 The other ecclesiastics with whom lay people were most frequently in contact would have been the lower clergy and in particular the procurators of their parishes and the many parish chantry chaplains. It is not surprising that it is the names of these clerics which appear in the court records most frequently as at odds with the laity. Of course in many cases the instances I will discuss implied that the lay people concerned were dealing with the priory at one remove, but to the person concerned the relationship may have seemed to be with the individual cleric. It is not possible to know. An example concerns dominus Robert Sedgefield and Oliver Younger, in June 1492.62 At this time Sedgefield was procurator of St Oswald’s, though the record of the case does not say that.63 Sedgefield said that Younger had not paid his tithes at Easter time. Robert Nailer gave evidence asserting that he had heard dominus Geoffrey Forest ordering Younger to pay Robert without delay. They had been ‘before the step of the door and the hall of the lord prior’, and Sedgefield had told Nailer there and then that he was a witness to this transaction, presumably preparing him to give evidence later. There is some evidence about the feelings of the lay people in the city about the numerous offerings they had to make, in particular tithes. Tithes were the basic church tax.64 Based upon the duty of all Christians to support their pastors, they were divided into praedial (fruits of the earth), from which a tenth was to be paid to the parish church where the land was, and personal, a tenth

58 59 60 61 62 63 64

Chancery rolls, NA, Durham 3/44, m. 9. Dobson, Durham Priory, pp. 58–60. Dobson, Durham Priory, p. 74, note 1 and references there. See pp. 62–3. Court Book of Prior’s Official, ff. 37v, 38. St Oswald’s accounts. For the whole question: Helmholz, Canon Law and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction, pp. 433–65. 77


from an individual’s earnings, owed to the church where he received the sacraments. Not surprisingly, custom played an important part in this matter, as we shall see, and it was much more usual for parishioners to dispute what the custom actually was than to deny the duty to pay at all. There certainly were tithe cases in the other parts of Durham diocese, between the priory and its appropriated chapels; for instance some of the Northumberland cases appear in the prior’s archidiaconal court.65 There were some tithe cases, but only a few, in the archidiaconal courts concerning city people. Some we have already noticed.66 A few others are worth noting. In June 1453, for example, the procurator of St Margaret’s accused William Taillour of owing 1s 4d for personal tithes for three years.67 At issue was what was said in the ‘procurator’s book’. In December the same year the same procurator sued William Wodde for one hen as tithe.68 A few city cases occur in the later archidiaconal court book: from 1497 for instance, concerning St Margaret’s.69 In July 1492 two parishioners of St Margaret’s were suspended, at the instance of dominus William (for ?Thomas) Williamson, for keeping back 3d from Lent (personal) tithes.70 An important feature of these cases is that they were pursued by the procurator, who was responsible for handing over the parish income to the prior. Parishioners would therefore encounter this minor cleric rather than the prior or hostillar if they defaulted. Lay people would have had difficulty in confronting the priory on tithes because it had formidable resources of law and good archives to prove that custom was of long standing. The priory kept records of its victories in tithe cases and could consult its account rolls to show that the contentious payments were customary. It appears from the remaining records that the obedientiaries had considerable problems when they claimed tithes of coal. There was a series of cases in the fourteenth century involving tithes of coal from various country places in the area around Durham. These were all cited anew in 1436 when Richard Cowhird was taken to the consistory court because he owed several years of tithes of coal for Broomhall which he seems to have leased from the priory.71 In its dossier of evidence the priory claimed that it had law, custom and sentences in the church courts on its side up to the year 1400 for its peaceful possession of the tithes of coal for Broomhall, Broom and Aldingrange, which were all in St Oswald’s parish. The case must have looked very strong. The canon law it cited proved that tithes were owed by quoting first a piece from Gregory the Great to show that Lent was to be observed (when personal

65 66 67 68 69 70 71

Court Book of Prior’s Official, f. 127. See p. 12. Capitula, f. 114. Capitula, f. 121v. Court Book of Prior’s Official, f. 105v. Court Book of Prior’s Official, f. 38v, William Tadcastell and William Johnson. DCM, Cart. IV, ff. 100–4. 78


tithes were paid).72 Then followed quotations from Augustine and Jerome (on Malachy) about the spiritual benefits of giving tithes and the evils of refusing them.73 The decretals were cited to show the range of things from which tithes were paid.74 The law showed that they must be paid from all fruits of the earth.75 In the end the case was referred to arbitrators and Cowhird lost. One source of revenue from the Witton Gilbert chapel area was coal and there seems to have been a long-running quarrel between the priory and the local miners who tried to say that tithes of coal were not owed. When challenged, the priory produced a long list of rulings concerning tithes paid from mines of Broomhall, Merrington (1343), Bowburn (1365), Brancepeth (1374) and Witton. The account of these disputes was preserved in one of the cartularies of the priory accompanied by canon law rulings and the abovementioned local rulings in the court Christian, with a note to say where some of them were kept: ‘pertinent to the custom of the area is a decree of the official of Durham kept in the missal on the high altar of the church of Brancepeth’.76 The sentence against Witton parishioners given in 1365 was said to be in the care of the almoner. A further ruling by the bishop’s official was again preserved in priory records against Robert Alanson of Durham and Robert Natrass of Witton, who were made to agree that tithes of coal had always been paid until they refused.77 In 1435–6 there was another case in the court Christian about the tithes of coal of Fulforth in Witton parish against John Dawtre, which Dawtre lost.78 But it is worth noting that the mines there must have been very poor because they were often unoccupied. The priory seems to have preserved its right to take the tithes without ever obtaining very much money. One particular example of a procurator at work can be given. Dominus Thomas Williamson was for many years procurator of St Margaret’s chapel. His name appears in numerous cases in the Court Book of the Prior’s Official, apart from the cases concerning tithes.79 In October 1497 Williamson sued Christopher Heryson for lesio fidei for keeping 1s 1d in wool and other ecclesiastical goods, specified as two(?) spoons, zelepenys, 11⁄2d for lambs and 6d for court expenses and another 6d. The parochial chaplain and Williamson wanted Christopher punished also for slander, in publicly saying that they were the cause of the death of his mother.80 The quarrel behind all this is now lost to us. It was Williamson who sued John Farwell for a collar and for the gown

72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80

Gratian, Decretum, D 5 de Cons. c.16. Gratian, Decretum, C 16 q. 1 cc. 65, 66. X 3.30.22. X 3.30.26. DCM, Cart. IV, ff. 100–3. DCM, Cart. IV, f. 99v, from 2.6.Spec.67, now missing. Almoner’s accounts, 1434–5, 1436–7A. Court Book of Prior’s Official, f. 38v. Court Book of Prior’s Official, f. 112. 79


of the young girl who died of plague in Northumberland in the mortuary cases discussed elsewhere.81 He may well have incurred some hostility from his neighbours. In October 1509 the jurors of Crossgate borough court said that he had his horse in St Margaret’s cemetery.82 They may have been very pleased to find him at fault. Clergy just called capellanus in the records were often chantry priests. Such a one is Christopher Asklaby, who was priest of the chantry of St John in St Oswald’s from at least 1501 and perhaps before.83 He figures frequently in court cases and his willingness to pursue small claims may show his lack of money. Asklaby was one of the oath helpers who aided Robert Sedgefield to clear himself when defamed when the latter was chantry chaplain of the chantry of St Mary in St Oswald’s.84 He was a frequent litigator in the prior’s ecclesiastical court. In March 1495 he and John Maynforth were involved in a claim about carriage of goods, where it is clear that repair of property was at issue.85 Maynforth claimed for two wagon loads of bitumen and one fother of dalbyngstrawe from Ratonrawe in Old Elvet to the house of Richard Fawsed and for one fother of haldtembre to Ratonrawe, and for sand and grain, as well as for bringing one beam and for the horse supplied. Asklaby, however, counterpleaded that Maynforth had cheated him and he needed to clear his name. We do not know what happened but this looks like a quarrel with considerable ill-feeling behind it. In another case Asklaby sued Agnes Smyth or Maxwell for lesio fidei for 3s for rent which she said he had pardoned her.86 Agnes’s witnesses were John Bechem and John Prowde, who gave evidence on 6 February 1495. Bechem recounted that before the recent feast of St John (27 December 1494) Christopher had called him when Prowde was with him outside the town in a certain field called Smythhalgh next to the east end of Elvet. 87 This was meadow and grazing on the edge of Elvet. In Prowde’s hearing Asklaby asked him if he would work to get Agnes to leave her house, saying that if she was willing to leave he would pardon her rent. Asked whether it was the rent before or after Pentecost now gone he could not say, but a note in the court book inserted above the text here says that it seemed to them that it was the rent for the period before. He said Christopher wanted him to work to get her to move soon, if possible that very night. If she had no place or person to take her goods they could stay in the house under safe custody and free until she could take them. Under these conditions Agnes got out and gave the key to dominus William Mortimer. Prowde agreed but added the interesting fact the

81 82 83 84 85 86 87

See p. 96, 97. Court Book of Prior’s Official, f. 114v. Barnes, Injunctions, appendix, p. xiii. Court Book of Prior’s Official, f. 59v. Court Book of Prior’s Official, ff. 80v, 81. Court Book of Prior’s Official, ff. 89v, 90, 90v. Court Book of Prior’s Official, f. 90. For the place, see Bonney, Lordship, p. 218. 80


Asklaby had offered to rent a close to Bechem if he would get the woman out and he did so for 1s 8d on condition that she was removed quickly. Asklaby also brought a case against Robert Hawman in early 1495 where again the depositions of some witnesses are preserved, though imperfectly.88 Asklaby accused Hawman of defaming him by saying that he had asked the curates of various parishes to ask their parishioner about three sheep, two wetherhogs and one gymyrhog of his which had strayed and three goats. The exact defamation is not clear but Henry Thomson alleged that Hawman had said that Christopher had falsely asked the curates to enquire about the goats. He had heard Hawman say this himself before the door of his own house and Thomson thought that this was a grave defamation which was ‘publicly known and talked of everywhere in the neighbourhood’. John Rogerson said that Hawman had talked to a crowd about this in Shincliffe in his presence and that of many other trustworthy persons. John Lawson of St Oswald’s parish said that at the end of Shincliffe village he had come upon Robert with Asklaby’s boy (a servant is implied) and heard Robert say the same thing: that Christopher caused all the curates from the sea-shore to the monastery of Blanchland to ask about the animals. Robert Sedgefield and Robert the chaplain also gave evidence but we have lost it. Clerics like Asklaby were clearly very close to the people and were therefore likely to encounter (and no doubt provoke) hostility. We shall see that in the Crossgate secular court the jurors several times presented chaplains for affray or insult.89 It must have been easy to destroy a priest’s reputation by maliciously accusing him of incontinence. Accusations did occur, though some authorities consider that they were less frequent in the North.90 Of course some of these accusations were justified,91 but some apparently were not. In 1450 Robert Sedgefield purged himself from an accusation of incontinence with the oaths of a list of fellow priests.92 However, he went on to commit a further offence of the same kind, was found guilty and enjoined severe public penance.93 In August 1450 Alice, the wife of John Hall, was accused of adultery with dominus Thomas Ryall, one of the priests found saying mass for the half-year 1432–3 at Witton Gilbert.94 Alice Hall cleared herself with oath helpers but in the November Margaret Donald, who must have been her accuser, was before the prior’s archidiaconal court to clear herself for defaming Ryall.95 In August 1452 Joanna Smythson accused Agnes Thomson of defaming her; her

88

Court Book of Prior’s Official, ff. 81v, 67v, 68v. Crossgate Court Book, ff. 153, 184, 132v–4. 90 R.L. Storey, ‘Malicious indictments of the clergy in the fifteenth century’, in Owen, Medieval Ecclesiastical Studies, pp. 221–40, esp. p. 237. 91 See pp. 112–13. 92 Capitula, f. 92. 93 Capitula, f. 139. 94 Almoner’s accounts. 95 Capitula, ff. 87, 88v. 89

81


witnesses said that they had heard Agnes saying that Joanna used sorcery and that dominus John Smyth, parochial chaplain of St Margaret’s, so lusted after her that he was put in prison for the gifts he had given her.96 Chaplains may have been prone to arouse hostility but equally they are found receiving legacies and offerings for their services, and since there were so many recipients to choose from, one may assume that such offerings show at least tolerance of the recipient. For example, we hear, quite incidentally, that even someone as poor as Alice Hyne, in the case about a legacy mentioned earlier in more detail, was thought by some of her neighbours to have left some of her clothing to the church, in this case to William Fabian, the parish chaplain of St Margaret’s, evidently not as a mortuary but for masses to be said for her.97 In John de Sadbery’s case his counter-pleas mentioned that Alice de Slade left a cow for an obit to be celebrated every year in the church of St Oswald.98 There remain no written wills for these people (they probably did not leave any) and in Durham their offerings are seldom found recorded other than by accident. Likewise the lower clergy seem to have acted as trustworthy persons and pledges for loans but we only hear about this when something went wrong. In June 1497 Richard Weddelt sued dominus Thomas Williamson for lesio fidei in the prior’s archidiaconal court because Weddelt said that Williamson had been the guarantor (fideiussor) for the goods of his marriage (pro bonis maritagii sui) to the value of £1. Williamson confessed that he had been a guarantor; the parties were arguing about what had happened to the goods and about their value.99 In all of this it is difficult to talk of anti-clericalism as if that constituted something one could measure. By and large the relations between clergy and laity in Durham seem to have been fairly good; there were no riots against the monastery or the bishop, for instance, and if the laity were willing to take the clergy to court, as they evidently were, the evidence suggests that they won their cases as often as not. The ecclesiastical powers in Durham by no means had it all their own way.

96 97 98 99

Capitula, f. 105. See p. 60, and Court Book of Prior’s Official, f. 132. DCM, 4.16.Spec.56e. Court Book of Prior’s Official, ff. 108, 108v. 82

5

The church and the laity: obligations and conflicts II If lay people were most likely to encounter the lower clergy they did nevertheless come up against the higher clergy on occasion. The classic study of the secular rule of the city refers to Durham’s ‘all-powerful ecclesiastical overlords’ and considers that because the bishop and the priory between them ran all the courts the laity were never able to assert their independence of either.1 In discussing the reasons for the failure of the townsmen to rebel against the bishop or the priory Bonney notes that the priory was more interested in recording its quarrels against the bishop than against the townsmen.2 Her explanation of the absence of rebellion was that most of the natural leaders of the town worked for the priory, but also that usually the overlords were neither oppressive nor unjust. She also asserts that it was not possible for the townsmen to play off one lord against another because the agreement between bishop and priory, called the Convenit (of 1229), had ensured parity between the boroughs.3 These questions need to be discussed again. The views just rehearsed cannot be wholly accepted either in the secular or in the ecclesiastical sphere. It is not true that most of the employment of the area was wholly dependent on the priory or the bishop; though some of the most respectable citizens, for instance in Elvet, were always married clerks who did a great deal of work for the prior. Apart from an elite group of skilled workers who were regularly employed, paid employment from the priory was irregular and scarcely structured.4 It is not surprising that the defendants in St Margaret’s parish, whose case is discussed below, spoke with contempt of the personas mediocres who worked for the abbey and were thus able to be pressurised into doing its bidding.5 But many parishioners would not have been so heavily reliant on wages from the priory and may therefore have been more independent. Furthermore, in provisioning itself the priory was not dependent on a tiny group of local people.6 It spread

1

Bonney, Lordship, p. 227. Bonney, Lordship, pp. 232. 3 Bonney, Lordship, pp. 232–3. 4 C.M. Newman, ‘Work and ages at Durham Priory and its estates, 1494–1519’, Continuity and Change, 16(3) (2001), pp. 357–78. 5 See p. 92. 6 M. Threlfall-Holmes, Monks and Markets. Durham Cathedral Priory 1460–1520, Oxford 2005, pp. 160–1, 193–5. 2

83


its custom widely; no local tradesman was wholly dependent on the monks. In practice, not surprisingly, we find that the laity did resist the bishop and the prior and sometimes even won, despite the overlordship of both. A case which seems to illustrate precisely the view that lordship was overwhelming concerns the font of St Margaret’s chapel. The right of a church to administer baptism in its own font without special permission was symbolic of its status as a mother or parish church.7 St Margaret’s in the fourteenth century was of course not a parish church but a dependent chapel of St Oswald’s parish, though the parishioners aspired to more, and they had a font. In 1343 there was a spectacular quarrel over this font and its use.8 The parishioners must have annoyed the prior, who removed the font, which was then, surreptitiously, replaced, probably by the parishioners, though the bishop professed not to know which ‘lovers of peace’ unknown to himself and the prior had done this. The parishioners appealed to the bishop about what they considered its unauthorised removal. The outcome appears in a notarised document which shows that the bishop first summoned the prior and listened to his reasons for taking the font away and then gave his judgment in the presence of the prior and some lay people representing the parish, firmly telling the parishioners that the quarrel had arisen in the first place because of their unseemly attitude to the prior. The return of the font which had now occurred did not mean that they had a right to have it in place. He ordered them to adopt a better, more humble attitude whilst the case was heard legally.9 On 16 February 1343, at high mass in St Margaret’s ‘in a great crowd of people’, Master Hamo Belers, on behalf of the bishop, reminded the laity that the presence of the font did not give them any rights and that they must behave better towards both bishop and prior. This statement was attested by Ralph of Durham and William de Cokyn, who were probably the churchwardens. Ralph occurs in 1311,10 and William had property in Framwellgate between 1338 and 1345.11 On 11 March the final result was accepted by the parishioners and dominus John Jakes, their chaplain,12 in a room in the abbey, in the presence of the prior.13 They agreed that the chapel had always been a dependent of St Oswald’s and that marriages could not be solemnised, and neither churchings nor baptisms performed, without the licence of the prior. They therefore asked the prior to grant his licence for these, which he graciously did but only ‘at his pleasure’. This looks like an unequivocal submission of the parishioners and the language used by the bishop is sharp and very much de haut en bas.

7

C.E. Boyd, Tithes and Parishes in Medieval Italy: The Historical Roots of a Modern Problem, Ithaca, NY, 1952, pp. 50–1, 81, 155–8. 8 Details in Bury, Fragments of his Register, pp. 161–7. 9 DCM, 4.16.Spec.50 (copy in Cart. II, ff. 252v–3v). 10 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, p. 420. 11 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, p. 235. 12 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, pp. 26, 168, and see also p. 63. 13 DCM, 4.16.Spec.51; Cart. II, ff. 253v–4. 84

THE CHURCH AND THE LAITY II

But such submissiveness was by no means always to be seen. The classic study of the secular lordship in Durham did not include an examination of the ecclesiastical evidence for the town in any detail and thus missed some, which somewhat undermines the picture of harmony and enlightened selfinterest, working together for peace. The townsmen did take issue with both the priory and the bishop in the fourteenth century and even won some of their battles, though not all. Between 1359 and 1364 some members of St Oswald’s parish successfully challenged Bishop Hatfield’s right to excommunicate them for refusing to take an oath before him when he came on visitation.14 It is possible to piece together some of what had happened, though the full story cannot now be discovered. On 9 December 1359 Robert Litster, Robert de Elyngeham, Henry Litster, Simon Alman, William de Shaldford and Adam Yrenbrenner came before the bishop’s clerks in St Oswald’s church, of which they were all parishioners, and were there required to give evidence on oath for the bishop’s visitation. This would have obliged them to answer questions about the notorious sins of their neighbours. They refused and were ordered to appear before the bishop himself, which they did on the Friday afterwards, 13 December. In St Nicholas’s church they duly appeared and Robert Litster spoke for all of them. They were again required to take the oath and again said that, though they wished to speak the truth, such an oath was not customary and they could by no means take it. The bishop argued with them and threatened major excommunication but they continued to refuse. There and then in the church the bishop had Master John Gray draw up a sentence of major excommunication against them and the bishop read it aloud. One of the witnesses, William de Munketon, said that on the Sunday after (15 December), he went with Robert Litster to Bishop Auckland to meet the bishop and ‘get his good will’. Munketon first talked alone with the bishop and then Litster entered. At once the bishop said: ‘What are you doing here? You are excommunicated because I excommunicated you in St Nicholas’s in Durham on Friday last.’ The bishop counselled him to swear the oath and ‘I will remit all you have done.’ Robert, however, was adamant: ‘I will never swear for you in the way you tried to force from me.’ After this the bishop ordered the excommunication to be published. On 5 January 1360 the group watched from the city walls south of the infirmary whilst Master John Gray went round the cemetery and church of St Oswald, as their notary expressed it, ‘with four archers and other armed men’, and heard how a little later the bells of St Oswald’s were rung and Robert and the rest were denounced. Robert protested that force was involved and that, if he could not safely come to St Oswald’s because of this, he would obtain an inhibition against Gray.15 The parishioners therefore made a tuitorial appeal

14

The following paragraph is based on DCM, Loc. XXVII: 26 (17), evidence of three witnesses. 15 DCM, Loc. XXVII: 26 (8). 85


to Rome (which meant asking for protection of the metropolitan court of York and suspending the actions in England for a year) on grounds that the oaths required were contrary to custom and that the excommunication had seriously damaged hitherto unblemished reputations.16 Each said that ‘were it not for this I would have been and would be of good reputation, unblemished standing and unharmed in (public) opinion’.17 On 7 January the group made Litster their representative.18 On 8 January the court of York inhibited the bishop from acting further whilst the appeal was heard.19 The case then wound its way through a court held in York from 1 October 1360, under judges-delegate appointed by the papal curia.20 The two main judges were the prior of Holy Trinity, York and Simon de Bekyngham, chancellor of York. Master Thomas Neville, senior, canon of York, said he could not take part because he was too busy.21 The prior of Holy Trinity, York was probably chosen because his house was an alien priory with its mother house in Marmoutier and it was thus exempt from the jurisdiction of the archbishop.22 The proceedings continued over many months and even included detailed discussions of the size of the diocese, because the bishop tried to claim that it was too far for him to come to York.23 A stream of witnesses, including several merchants, discussed how long it took to travel from Durham or Bishop Auckland to York.24 We lack such detailed accounts of the witnesses on other aspects of the case, but one can see that the position of the citizens was that the bishop combined such royal and ecclesiastical power in his own person that the oath he asked for would have been extorted by force and fear.25 Hatfield is known to have been autocratic as a landlord. In 1357 there was a crisis in the Palatinate because of his assertion of his lordship after the Black Death, but mostly economic necessity forced compromise.26 The bishop insisted that in asking for the oath he had made plain to them that they would be required to reveal only public sins:

16 For tuitorial appeals, see Helmholz, Canon Law and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction, pp. 349, 351–3. 17 DCM, Loc. XXVII: 26 (5, 11). 18 DCM, Loc. XXVII: 26 (10). 19 DCM, Loc. XXVII: 26 (11). 20 DCM, Misc. Ch. 7231 contains much of the information from these hearings: ff. 2v–3 is the bull (of 1 July 1360) and ff. 2r/v begins the case. 21 DCM, 4.16.Spec.25, for the names. 22 J. Solloway, The Alien Benedictines of York, Leeds 1910, pp. 219–20; the prior was Peter. 23 DCM, Loc. XXVII: 26 (18). 24 DCM, Misc. Ch. 5527a, b, c; and Misc. Chs 7231, 2616, 2617 in particular. M. Harvey, ‘Travel from Durham to York (and back) in the fourteenth century’, Northern History, 42/1 (2005), pp. 119–30. 25 DCM, Loc. XXVII: 26 (34); vi et metu incarceracionis et excommunicationis in eos si non parjurissent injuste de facto proferendo. 26 Britnell, ‘Feudal reaction’, pp. 32–3, 4.

86


It was not his intention nor did he intend to compel them to denounce or reveal by his invitation in virtue of these oaths any secret crimes or private sins but only those about which there was public scandal in those places.27

His case was that the oath was customary and that he had requested it without force or fear of imprisonment and excommunication or any power of the sword.28 The frustration felt by the great man was expressed by his proctors. He justified the excommunication because he said that the citizens showed manifest pertinacity in their refusal. The citizens were acting ‘in contempt of the bishop because they were puffed up with pride’.29 As was usual in these cases, he impugned their witnesses, accusing them of being notoriously hostile to him. Richard de Fulwell, for instance, was a serf (servus nativus) of the prior, the chaplains Thomas de Esyngton, John de Wyrksale and William Heswell were concubinaries and notorious fornicators. Walter, son of Stephen, and Gilbert de Hedlay were notorious usurers, publicly defamed in Durham; others were ‘humble, low, abject persons of shallow opinion and ill fame’.30 From most of these we have no statements. Even though the bishop’s plea that York was far too far for him conveniently to come was clearly a delaying tactic, his presentation of his case shows again the attitude of a great magnate who could not be expected to travel like lesser persons. He said he had been summoned to ‘a place too far away considering the person of the aforesaid reverend father, the difficulties of the journey and the weather, which was much more than a day’s journey’.31 One of his points was that York was further from the Tees than Canterbury is from Rochester ‘which was commonly considered in England as a day’s journey’. He also considered that after Martinmas the roads were far too muddy.32 Thus in his eyes the summons was contrary to canon law. Lyndwood pointed out that someone cited to appear must be given enough time and that what counted as enough must depend on the type of case, the distance and the quality of the people concerned.33 A day, he said, was to be considered a natural day and would vary according to the area.34 The result of these pleas was a lengthy interrogation of witnesses for both sides discussing whether the bishop could or could not get from the boundaries of the bishopric to York in one day.

27

DCM, Loc. XXVII: 26 (38). DCM, Loc. XXVII: 26 (36); vi et metu incarceracionis et excommunicacionis et cuiuscumque gladii potestate. 29 DCM, Loc. XXVII: 26 (36). 30 DCM, Loc. XXVII: 26 (41). 31 DCM, Loc. XXVII: 26 (18). 32 DCM, Loc. XXVII: 26 (20). 33 Provinciale, Book 2, tit 1, c. 2, at sufficienter inducias. 34 Provinciale, Book 3, tit 7, c. 4, at dieta. 28

87


The bishop’s witnesses, not surprisingly, showed awareness that a bishop was not like any ordinary traveller, a merchant perhaps. Walter de Wynethorp, a chaplain, said that in winter such a journey in one day would be difficult ‘for the bishop of Durham and other like important person and prelates’.35 Some of the citizens’ witnesses tried to say that the bishop could travel just like other people. For instance, dominus Richard Talbot, who was a chaplain in Durham with Master William Farnham, said that he knew that the bishop was well able to make much longer day’s journeys.36 ‘The bishop is quite young and fit to work, and this witness has seen him, so he says, often riding steadily and fast.’ Other lay witnesses were more cautious. William de Socburn from Bishopton, called a householder, now cultivating the land but formerly a cloth-merchant, said he did not know what might count as a day’s journey for a bishop ‘because he did not travel much in the company of bishops’.37 The laity countered the bishop’s case that he had not intimidated them. Their own witnesses alleged that they had said that they were very willing to speak the truth when requested, as had happened in previous visitations, in peril of their souls without taking any oath.38 For them it was a question of freedom, or so they said. Their rehearsal of their perception of the bishop’s power, which of course must have owed much to their lawyers, has been quoted above and was very telling.39 One need not believe that the citizens were truly terrified but the statement is of course a true account of the power which the bishop had. It was therefore all the more remarkable that they were prepared to defy him. Remarkably the court agreed with the laity and in the end on 30 November 1364 the judgment went against the bishop. The sentence of excommunication was annulled and the bishop was ordered to pay 200 marks and costs of £100.40 Not surprisingly he refused to accept this and appealed to Rome in his turn.41 This might have transferred the whole case back to Rome had he not thought better of it, but apparently he did, since an indenture transcribed in Hatfield’s Register shows that on 17 February 1365, as a result of arbitration by mutual well-wishers, Litster and the bishop agreed to compromise and give up all litigation and sentences.42 On 6 April in Bishop Auckland the terms were finally agreed between all the remaining parties; by this time at least one of the parishioners had died.

35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42

DCM, Misc. Ch. 2611. DCM, Misc. Ch. 2616. DCM, Misc. Ch. 5527a. DCM, Loc. XXVII: 26 (17). See p. 75. DCM, 4.16.Spec.25; Cart. II, ff. 278–80. DCM, Loc. XXXVII: 86. Hatfield, Register, f. 45. 88


The parishioners concerned can almost all be identified. Robert Litster of Elvet, the spokesman for the group, can be seen dealing in property in Elvet and may be the same as Robert Littest who rented the Elvet Bakehouse with Simon Alman.43 Alman had a finger in other pies; he held a kiln in Elvet,44 and a shop on Elvet Bridge.45 He was one of the endowers of the chantry of St Mary in St Oswald’s.46 Robert de Ellingham was a skinner, with a house in Ratonrawe.47 William de Shaldford, with a wife Alice, a son John and a daughter Joan, again had land in Old Elvet.48 Henry Litster likewise was very much involved in property dealings in Elvet.49 The only member of the group whom I have been unable to find so far is Adam Yrenbrenner, who sounds like a craftsman. The truth was that the parishioners won their case, even though this was not of course made clear in the bishop’s register. They had been willing to take on the bishop and appeal to Rome. They hired skilled proctors. It must have cost them a great deal of money. They were thus far from easily intimidated and the whole case is an antidote to the view that the bishop was always bound to get his own way. A similar conclusion can be reached in cases between the priory and the parishioners of St Margaret’s parish over mortuaries. The result there was a compromise but the priory did not by any means win its whole case. The mortuary was a customary payment in kind due at death. Its customary nature is discussed in all the literature; exactness and generalisation are very difficult.50 The points of contention about it concern what was owed and why. There was clearly ignorance about its origins and contention about the justification for it, even in the later middle ages. The official point of view was given by William Lyndwood, a nearly contemporary canon lawyer who had certainly read all the best authorities, although he was most well-acquainted with custom in the southern province. He contended that mortuaries were decreed by Archbishop Winchelsea (1293–1313) to ensure that people paid forgotten tithes.51 It has been argued (and Lyndwood made the same connection52) that mortuaries were in fact more akin to a heriot, the customary payment on death made by unfree tenants, but with mortuaries recognising

43

Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, pp. 689 (1359), 693. Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, pp. 686–7. 45 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, p. 635. 46 See p. 00 for further details of this family. 47 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, p. 680. 48 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, pp. 597–8, 600–1, 699–700. 49 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, pp. 643, 672, 712. 50 R.H. Helmholz, The Ius Commune in England. Four studies, Oxford 2001, chapter 3, ‘Mortuaries and the law of custom’. 51 Provinciale, Book 1, tit 3, De consuetudine, pp. 19–22, on which see Helmholz, Ius Commune, pp. 150–6, 167–70. 52 Provinciale, pp. 21–2, note q, minime coerceatur. 44

89


spiritual lordship.53 Lyndwood refers to a synodal constitution of Langham in 1366 according to the custom of Canterbury, but he emphasised that this was not applicable to the whole of England and even said that he thought it was ‘in some points against the fundamentals of law and right’.54 Certainly Durham did not conform to Lyndwood’s principles. The Durham laity do not seem to have thought of mortuaries as Lyndwood did. They did not consider them as a recognition of spiritual lordship. In cases of contention they very often discussed where and of whom the deceased held land and beasts, as if obligation to pay certain mortuaries (those known as ‘living’ mortuaries) depended on that fact. As a witness in one case put it: ‘[The dead man] was a tenant of the bishop of Durham in Framwellgate at the time of his death and he (the witness) says that he did not hold nor cultivate any tenement or lands within the parish of St Oswald’, except in Framwellgate and he died ‘in the house which he held of the same bishop in that place’.55 John, son of Cuthbert de Newton, a witness in 1369, listed all those whom he had known who had not paid a mortuary beast (a living mortuary) and explained it by the fact that they were all tenants of the bishop.56 The language always suggests that mortuaries were payments for holdings ‘for lands and tenements in Allertongate’,57 or ‘it was because of his holding and cultivation which he had outside the city and within the parish of St Oswald’.58 The secular way in which the laity (and the prior) regarded mortuaries may explain why in June 1522 the prior, through Thomas Williamson his attorney, brought William Lytyll before the Crossgate secular court for detenue (withholding), for one gown worth 5s, which was the mortuary of Edward Lytyll’s wife.59 We do not know if the case was sustained. The connection between mortuaries and tithes may have been closer in earlier times. In thirteenth-century Durham mortuaries do seem to have been linked in wills to forgotten tithes, but this may represent what the clerk drawing up the will considered proper.60 In later medieval Durham, however, the laity (or the clerks who drew up their wills) do not seem to have equated them with forgotten tithes any more than considering them as akin to heriots. Wills frequently mention payment of ‘accustomed mortuaries’ but many also mention in addition payment for forgotten tithes as if these were separate items. For instance the will of John Coltman of St Giles parish, dated February 1502, refers to payments ‘with my mortuaries accustomed by law’ and at once also adds ‘I give and bequeath for forgotten tithes’.61 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61

Swanson, Church and Society, p. 216. Provinciale, p. 19, note k, synodali. York, Borthwick Institute, CP E 101, pro parte Agnes Yeland, f 1v. York, Borthwick Institute, CP E 101, ibid. DCM, 4.16.Spec.56a, testimony of Thomas de Kokyn. DCM, 4.16.Spec.56d. Crossgate Court Book, f. 186v. DCM, Misc. Chs 2305, 2438. Barnes, Injunctions, appendix, p. xxxix. 90


Information in great detail comes from a series of cases which the parishioners of St Margaret’s chapel took to the archbishop of York’s court in the fourteenth century. The series of court cases in essence hammered out the status of St Margaret’s as a dependent chapel of St Oswald’s but also the rights of members of St Margaret’s who kept animals in Framwellgate and were tenants of the bishop whilst belonging to the prior’s church of St Margaret in the parish of St Oswald. Furthermore, they refined the status of various parishioners who seem to have been pleading that if some members of the city did not have to pay mortuary beasts because of custom, none should have to pay these. In theory, of course, the Convenit of 1229 had equalised the boroughs. In practice this was not quite true and naturally the parishioners wanted custom to conform to what was most favourable to them. These cases went back to at least 1362 but involved the collective memory of some parishioners going back to before the Black Death.62 One important case was brought in 1369 by Agnes Yeland of Framwellgate who refused to pay the mortuary animal, a horse worth 13s 4d, for her dead husband John Yeland. This case has been understood to be about Agnes’s insistence that she had a choice about whether to pay a cloth or an animal, but this interpretation has arisen, I suspect, because it is not generally understood that in the diocese of Durham many people owed both.63 At issue was not mortuaries as such, since the witnesses agreed that the best cloth was indeed due. The question was whether the people of Framwellgate owed more than this. Alice had offered her best cloth but that was not accepted as enough.64 The prior and convent insisted that it was a custom in the archdiocese of York and in Durham diocese that the best animal (as well as a cloth) should be given and that Agnes had therefore despoiled the monks. The prior and monks produced a list of people who had recently paid a living mortuary. Alice’s case was that this custom did not apply in the Framwellgate area. We have the depositions of Agnes’s witnesses. They were all agreed that the undermining of what they saw as their rights had begun with the exaction in about 1366 by the convent of a cow from the priory cook John Bacon as a mortuary for his wife. The monks had threatened that if he refused they would expel him from their service. The priory’s list of persons who had paid seems to have included Adam Wither and Eda his wife, John Jakes the chaplain and Christiana Swanne. But all of these, according to Agnes Yeland’s witnesses, lived, or had at least died, not in Framwellgate but elsewhere. Wither and his wife had died during the Black Death in Milburngate, within three weeks of each other, and one witness helpfully added ‘next the stream called Milburn which stream divides, this witness says, Milneburngate from Framwelgate’. Jakes had died in Crossgate, next to St Margaret’s chapel in the corner at the

62 63 64

On Yeland case, esp. witnesses: York, Borthwick Institute, CP E 101. Helmholz, Ius Commune, pp. 175–6, for the misunderstanding. Borthwick Institute, CP E 101, f. 1v. 91


north and west of the chapel. Christiana Swanne had died in Sidegate ‘in the north part of that area’, according to Thomas Swanne, presumably a relative. Alice’s witnesses also produced a list of those whom they knew to have died in Framwellgate who had paid only a cloth despite having animals. The lists vary somewhat but they include Geoffrey de Aldewode who died before the Black Death, fifteen persons who died during it, William Kocum who died about 1351, Alan de Staynesby who died in 1362, and John de Rome and Agnes his wife who died about 1367. John Cronan mentioned also Constantia, his own wife. Margaret Dyssere, a 70-year-old who was living in Middleham when she gave her evidence, had lived in Framwellgate before that, and mentioned her own husband John de Holden. John Yeland, Agnes’s dead husband, was probably a member of the Yeland family of North Biddick, who had held North Biddick from the bishop for one sixth of a knight’s fee.65 At the time of Hatfield’s Survey (1377×80) the holding was in the hands of William de Hilton and had probably come to him in right of his wife.66 Up to 1346 William de Yeland, knight, also held land and a house in the North Bailey.67 All the witnesses said that John de Yeland was a tenant of the bishop with land only in Framwellgate, who did not own nor cultivate land anywhere else in St Oswald’s parish.68 Alice’s case included arguing that the only people from whom the priory had exacted living mortuaries were ‘middling people, servants of the prior and his domestics’. Adam Wither or Wether had indeed been the holder of the Clock mill in Milburngate between 1338 and 1345, though he is attested as holding tenements also in South Street between 1313 and 1345.69 John Jakes was the chaplain mentioned above in the case over the font, who was probably parish chaplain of St Margaret’s.70 Agnes’s case came to York on her appeal and it is striking that one of her grounds was that she could not obtain justice in Durham. She claimed in December 1367 that the bishop’s judge William de Farnham was partial: ‘he was a familiar domestic counselor of the prior taking his robes’. This was indeed true but it required a certain status to have the courage to say it or to hire someone to say it on one’s behalf. Farnham gave judgment against Agnes in May 1375, from which she appealed.71 Thereafter her case was taken up with others, also about mortuaries in the city. At the time that it was arguing Agnes’s case, the convent noted that it was also litigating against another parishioner in the consistory of Durham, John de Sadbery. Sadbery was a married clerk who lived in ‘a beautiful house’

65 66 67 68 69 70 71

Hatfield Survey, p. 82. Surtees, Durham, II, p. 30, note 14. Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, pp. 558, 538. Borthwick Institute, CP E 101, f. 1v, for instance. Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, pp. 128, 202, 221, 222. See p. 84. DCM, 4.16.Spec.55. 92


in New Elvet.72 The case concerned Sadbery’s refusal to pay the animal mortuary for his wife Joan, a pig worth 10s. He agreed that everyone owed a gown but argued largely from local custom that that was all. He asserted that before the part of Durham now called Marketgate in St Nicholas’s parish was walled, New Elvet, Crossgate, South Street and Framwellgate were all part of the city of Durham and that therefore the inhabitants ought to enjoy the same privileges and immunities.73 He compared the rights they had with those of York, Bishop Auckland, Newcastle and Gateshead. His plea was in fact about liberties and was based on the secular situation as he saw it. He claimed that all of the inhabitants were equally citizens of Durham. He claimed also that the burgesses of York, Durham, Auckland, Newcastle on Tyne and Gateshead had the long-standing custom of owing only a cloth as a mortuary. One witness argued from the fact that the different boroughs had their own courts with inhabitants paying the same dues to prove that the areas had equal liberties.74 Some modern authorities assume that English mortuaries were always either the best beast or the best chattel.75 A survey of custom in England shows that either a beast in the country or a gown in the town was indeed most usual, but with remarkable variations for the latter.76 Even if the survey is generally correct, however, Durham city was different. In the city many people certainly owed both a robe and a beast, though nobody owed any other non-living possession beyond those. None of the witnesses in the Durham cases refused the gown; it was the beast that caused problems. Part of the problem must have been the very different dues owed by persons in the same parish. In the accounts of the procurator of St Oswald’s for 1448–9, for instance, the list of living mortuaries (animals) is much shorter than for mortuary cloths but those owing the former also appear in the list of those owing cloths.77 The same applies to the accounts for 1473–4. How far this was true of the wider area and the diocese is not so clear. One witness, from Brandon, said that in Brandon the inhabitants owed one beast and one cloth and he recognised that this was different from the custom in Framwellgate.78 But this custom did not apply to the whole of the diocese. One of the oldest witnesses in the Sadbery case was Adam de Ulkeston, aged 79, who had been chaplain of St Margaret’s for two years and then chantry chaplain of St Mary’s and proctor of St Oswald’s.79 He said that in Newcastle where he now dwelled (1374) the living mortuary was not given but elsewhere in Northumberland and in the bishopric of Durham it was owed. He

72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79

DCM, 4.16.Spec.56c. DCM, 4.16.Spec.56d, point 3. DCM, 4.16.Spec.56c. Helmholz, Ius Commune, p. 137. Swanson, Church and Society, p. 216. St Oswald’s accounts. Borthwick Institute, CP E 101, m. 1v. DCM, 4.16.Spec.56a. 93


remembered, for instance, taking a horse from the executors of Adam Wither and a cow from the executors of Adam’s wife in St Margaret’s parish, Durham. It is worth noticing, however, that Sadbery’s case included the statement that Ulkeston was not compos mentis and his memory may have been faulty.80 It is also clear from the priory records of the parish of Norham-on-Tweed that there some parishioners owed a beast and more.81 Northallerton and Darlington certainly seem to have required both a beast and a cloth.82 In the city itself the custom seems to have been to pay live mortuaries from quadrupeds: the parishioners of St Margaret’s referred to horses and cows when insisting that those from Framwellgate did not have to pay them.83 No household chattels were ever mentioned, only clothes. In the parish accounts for St Oswald’s only quadrupeds and gowns appear. Items include gowns and a jakk. Sadbery’s evidence called this ‘the best taxed garment’.84 Sadbery was thus arguing that he and all his fellow parishioners should enjoy the same privileges as those of Framwellgate and that they should be treated as if they were townsmen and not as if they had agricultural land. Elvet had the same liberties ‘as had the market stead’, as some witnesses put it.85 Sadbery said that if there was a custom of paying living mortuaries it did not apply to the likes of him but only to those who, although they had their house within the city and lived there within the city and parish of St Oswald’s, had all their animals, lands and meadows outside the city.86 He also argued, like Agnes Yeland, that if the priory had obtained living mortuaries it was either because the person had holdings and agriculture outside the city (he quoted Adam Wither as an example) or in some cases because those who paid were priory servants and were coerced by force and fear; he listed the jobs they had done (and had witnesses to prove this).87 John failed in his suit in the Durham consistory in July 1368.88 He shared his defeat in Durham with others: in March 1365 William de Corbrig, another clerk, was ordered to pay a pig worth 8s.89 Likewise in May 1365 Agnes, widow of John Goldsmyth, who lived in Crossgate, lost in her refusal to pay the living mortuary of her husband.90

80

DCM, 4.16.Spec.56d. DCM, Norham procurator’s accounts, for instance. 82 Wills and Inventories from the registry of Durham Illustrative of the History of the Northern Counties of England, I, ed. J. Raine, SS 2 (1835), pp. 23, 89, 100 for examples. 83 See p. 98. 84 DCM, 4.16.Spec.48: meliorem vestem talliatum. 85 DCM, 4.16.Spec.56c. 86 DCM, 4.16.Spec.56d. 87 DCM, 4.16.Spec.56a, b, c, d, e. 88 DCM, 4.16.Spec.48. 89 DCM, 4.16 Spec.38 90 DCM, 4.16.Spec.57. 81

94


These cases lost by parishioners in the Durham consistory court did not end the matter. John Legge, a parishioner of St Oswald’s, contested the obligation to give a living mortuary (apparently a horse) for his dead wife, whose executor he was. In consequence he and the other parishioners appealed from the consistory court of Durham, to the court of York.91 In June 1384 an agreement by arbitration was eventually reached, which was given in full in one of the convent’s registers, listing the names of the main parishioners whose cases were agreed at the same time. They include those whose cases we have just examined: John Legge, John de Sadbery, as executor for Joan his late wife, Agnes, widow and executrix of John Goldsmyth, and William de Corbryg, executor of Joan his late wife.92 Agnes Yeland’s contentions must also have been included here, though she is not mentioned. Some of these parishioners can be identified from other sources. John Legge was probably a man holding burgages in Crossgate between 1374 and 1391.93 He can be seen litigating in the Crossgate borough court.94 He lived in South Street near St Margaret’s chapel in 1380.95 John Goldsmyth, as his name suggests, was a goldsmith. His father Alan had had his principal house in Sadlergate but the family owned considerable property in St Margaret’s parish, or Old Borough, and John lived in Crossgate.96 As early as December 1344 John Goldsmith seems to have been quarrelling about the boundaries of St Margaret’s parish, asserting that it was not a dependent chapel. He lost; the jury of the court said it had no boundaries because it was dependent.97 Agnes, wife of John, appears holding property in Crossgate jointly with John between 1357 and 1364. After that the property was held by John Schort,98 who may be Agnes’s second husband since his wife was also called Agnes. The arbitration agreed was as follows: All deceased parishioner of the said parish having living animals at the time of their death, whether from New Elvet or from other places are bound to pay their best animal if they are a man or unmarried woman and the second best if a married woman with their best cloth to the said church of St Oswald.99

The only exception was for animals held in Framwellgate. The inhabitants of Framwellgate were exempted for animals held in Framwellgate, unless they

91

Reg. II, f. 208v; the appeal is 4.16.Spec.42, January 1383/4. Reg. III, ff. 177–8; Cart. II, ff. 296v–8; 209v is the priory’s proxy. 93 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, pp. 84–5. 94 DCM, Loc. IV: 229, m. 6 dorse, dated 1391. 95 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, p. 164. 96 Bonney, Lordship, p. 164; Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, pp. 12, 20, 42, 50, 54, 78, 81, 82, 83, 115; 2:2, 114–15; DCM, 4.16.Spec.53. 97 DCM, 4.16.Spec.40 and 53. 98 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, pp. 53, 54, 78, 81. 99 DCM, 4.16.Spec.56c, evidence of Petrus de Brune. 92

95


left a beast by will or had animals elsewhere in the parish. The parishioners gave up all appeals and the prior and convent allowed the inhabitants of what later became St Margaret’s parish to receive all sacraments, and have burials and marriages in the chapel of St Margaret. A copy of this agreement was made in 1431, at the time when St Margaret’s finally severed most of its dependence on St Oswald’s.100 It is clear here that in the end the priory lost its plea that inhabitants of Framwellgate owed the same as those in the rest of Durham but that the pleas of the defendants about equality between the boroughs were lost. The parishioners only won their pleas about Framwellgate’s particular customs. The pleadings and the arbitration agreement show how extremely complicated the mortuary system must have been, and also how rural Durham city was at this period. There were further complications about mortuaries. In Durham apparently the parish church (which had the right to the mortuary) was defined as the place where the sacraments were received, not the parish in which the person died, even though, according to Lyndwood, some customs allowed the parish to take a mortuary where a person died in it, with another owed to the true parish. A case about a parishioner of St Margaret’s who died in Northumberland probably turned on whether she had changed her parish or was merely staying for a while elsewhere.101 In 1496 dominus Thomas Williamson, procurator for St Margaret’s church, brought a case against William Hogson of Earl’s House for lesio fidei about keeping back one gown as a mortuary for a young girl dead in Northumberland.102 The claim was that the young woman, Joan, whose relation to Hogson is not stated, had gone off into Northumberland and was not hired by anyone at the time, so Hogson must have been claiming that she was a parishioner in Northumberland where she had died and not, as Williamson alleged, in Durham. At the first appearance both parties agreed to stand by the decision of Richard Smyrke, a most respected figure, often called on to adjudicate in such arguments and in this case very central since Joan had been his servant. Smyrke duly gave his evidence which is recorded in detail.103 He was 54 years old and Joan had been his servant when she sought his permission to go to Rothbury. This had been just before Pentecost last. He had been unwilling to let her go because he had no one else to prepare and serve his meals but she had said that her sister would serve him in her absence and so it happened. There was no arrangement for the length of Joan’s absence; she promised to return but died of plague at Pentecost. One may assume therefore that she still counted as a St Margaret’s parishioner when she died and so her gown would come to the parish as a mortuary.

100 101 102 103

See p. 8. Lyndwood, Provinciale, p. 20. Court Book of Prior’s Official, f. 90. Court Book of Prior’s Official, ff. 91, 92v. 96


Mortuaries could also be disputed where a person had different domiciles, and was able to receive the sacraments in several parishes. In that case Lyndwood thought that the mortuary should be divided between the churches (and therefore, one supposes, sold). He also considered the situation where a parishioner heard mass in one church but received the sacraments in another, as would have been the case in the chapels of St Oswald’s parish. In that case the sacramental church was to be preferred, ‘unless the custom of the area demands something else’.104 This seems to have been what happened in Durham, where St Oswald’s received the mortuaries from St Margaret’s. Lyndwood noted that fraud could occur when a dying person carefully alienated their animals, but also considered the problem of a person so poor that all they had left was alienated before death, in which case nothing was owed.105 There certainly seems to have been such fraud in Durham in one case. Thomas Williamson prosecuted (under lesio fidei) Thomas Armestrong, beginning on 1 December 1497, for a mortuary for Isabella Dixson. Armestrong denied the debt and pleaded that Isabella had sold her ornamenta before she died ‘to support herself’.106 At the second hearing Armestrong, who should have brought his witnesses, did not appear, whereas on 15 December Williamson came with Thomas Colman, Thomas Burdale and John Hall and seems to have won his case. In the 1490s (the date is unclear) Master John Walker (in what capacity it is not clear) brought Richard Kay before the prior’s archidiaconal court for keeping back a mortuary, a mare worth 10s. The parties agreed to go to the arbitration of Robert Walle of Chibton, William Maltby, Thomas Robynson and William Richardson, under pain of 13s to the prior’s alms.107 The determination of the priory and the parishioners to pursue their rights over mortuaries emphasises that these were often valuable commodities.108 They could be bought and sold and parishioners could compound for the obligation by a money payment equivalent to the value of the animal or commodity offered. In April 1497 Thomas Williamson, clearly acting for St Margaret’s again, brought a case against John Farwell, of St Margaret’s, for a mortuary. Farwell declared that the collar attached to the robe in question was not his wife’s but his daughter’s.109 On 13 April he produced two witnesses, John Hall and John Babyngton, whose testimony is recorded.110 For present purposes the interesting point about this case is the evidence it gives of the custom of giving a mortuary gown and then buying it back. John Hall, the 28year-old witness, said that

104 105 106 107 108 109 110

Provinciale, p. 20, note f, sacramenta recepit. Provinciale, p. 20, note g, sine dolo; p. 21, note h, post obitum. Court Book of Prior’s Official, ff. 115–16 for whole case. Court Book of Prior’s Official, f. 100v. Court Book of Prior’s Official, f. 100v for further examples. Court Book of Prior’s Official, ff. 104v, 105. Court Book of Prior’s Official, f. 105v. 97


The gown now offered as a mortuary was first the mortuary of the mother of his wife and she bought it back and the gown was re-made newly about the time of their marriage.111

The proctors’ accounts of both St Margaret’s and St Oswald’s show that there was a brisk trade in the sale of mortuaries, both animals and clothes. In the accounts of St Oswald’s the price of the cloths and animals with the buyer is often given. Sometimes the buyers were family members and sometimes they seem to be other parishioners (some names of buyers recur). The most striking example of the value of mortuaries to the church is the testimony of Thomas Grome, a servant of the hostillar,112 who gave evidence for the convent in the Sadbery case:113 That in the first pestilence this witness as servant of the prior and convent led one hundred living animals to Muggleswick [the main priory cattle farm] which they had received from dead parishioners on behalf of the said church.

Witnesses in the Sadbery case corroborated their testimony by describing what happened to these mortuaries. The proctor of the churches of St Oswald’s or St Margaret’s received them at the time of the funeral. Thus Thomas de Caleys said that John Alman had pigs, sows and other beasts but he thought no living mortuary had been paid because he did not ‘see [it?]’ when the body was brought to the church.114 They remembered what kinds of horses were given. John Hert, a man of 50 giving evidence for the priory in June 1374, had been an executor for his father John who had died in Milburngate thirtyfive years before and he had paid one grey mare.115 Thomas de Kokyn, a 59year-old, said he did not know what the custom was in Framwellgate because he was of the ‘Bishop’s Borough’ but he had seen his mother as executor of his father pay ‘one grey horse with a new saddle and reins’.116 William Grey, a chaplain who said he had known St Oswald’s parish for twenty-five years and had lived there for twenty, had seen the proctor of St Oswald’s receiving animals.117 He specified a cow given by Adam Baty of New Elvet, ‘which cow the wife of the said Adam bought from the proctor’ when Adam died in the first pestilence in New Elvet. He asserted that Alice de Gillyng who had been responsible for the goods of the dead chaplain, Walter Jakes, had satisfied the proctor of St Oswald’s with the price of a horse which the same proctor re-sold back to her. In the manuscript someone inserted the price: 8s.118 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118

Court Book of Prior’s Official, f. 106v. DCM, 4.16.Spec.56e. DCM, 4.16.Spec.56a. DCM, 4.16.Spec.56c. DCM, 4.16.Spec.56a. DCM, 4.16.Spec.56a. DCM, 4.16.Spec.56a. DCM, 4.16.Spec.56a. 98


Stephen Palman knew that an ox had been given because he had handled it.119 The prices given show that some of the items were valuable. If the custom followed in the cathedral was the same as that of the parishes the mortuary animal was brought to church and offered for the offertory of the funeral mass. The priory records note in February 1418 that Robert Newton, a relative of Oswald, bishop of Whithorn and suffragan of Durham, had offered the mortuary when Oswald died in the rectory house of North Bailey. The mass had been in the cathedral celebrated by the prior, and ‘[Newton] brought in a certain bay palfrey to the offering of the mass for the mortuary of Lord Oswald publicly in the sight of the clergy and people.’120 Newton then gave it to William de Graystanes, the sacrist, who received it by long observed custom. One need not suppose that the horse was brought into the church. At Hatfield’s and Langley’s funerals the horses offered to the priory were brought to the door of the cathedral.121 The notorious Hunne case in London under Henry VIII has made mortuaries a test for the revelation of both anti-clericalism and the insensitivity of the church courts.122 In the Durham courts in the late medieval period the several cases, and the fact that the depositions of witnesses have been preserved in some of these, suggest that they were indeed sensitive and contentious. But the local custom was heavy; to have to pay both a beast and a cloth was onerous and one can suppose that it was the more galling because only some parishioners in the city owed that much. It is no wonder that the parishioners tried to avoid paying or to have the least onerous custom spread throughout the city. All the cases surveyed show parishioners who were by no means cowed by the overwhelming lordship of prior and bishop. They also show, interestingly, that neither the bishop nor the prior could count on winning a case where custom or law were against them. Compromise was by far the most sensible way to end quarrels, since the capacity for medieval litigants to prolong cases (as Hatfield showed) was almost infinite.

119

DCM, 4.16.Spec.56a. DCM, Cart. I, f. 112. 121 Scriptores Tres, pp. 139, appendix, cxlviii–ix. 122 S. Brigden, London and the Reformation, Oxford 1989, pp. 98–101; Helmholz, Ius Commune, pp. 145–8. 120

99

6

Secular clergy careers A survey of the city and its ecclesiastical institutions reveals an enormous number of secular clergy who were attached in some way to the monastery, the diocese and the churches in the city, not to mention a further but more hidden army of married clerks, who were sometimes notaries and sometimes served the bishop and the priory from father to son. Many of these are only names but some can be traced for some of their career, so that we can see what kinds of living they could earn and even, sometimes, know a little about their relationships. In the early stages of the story of the Durham parishes many of the clergy must have been married.1 Although there was legislation in 1076 insisting on celibacy for newly ordained priests, existing clergy were allowed to keep their wives. In 1102, however, Archbishop Anselm of Canterbury said that clergy should abandon their wives and in 1108 there begins to be evidence for the enforcement of this in England.2 Clearly it was not easy to enforce, especially because the king allowed priests to ignore it for a fee.3 There continued to be complaints throughout the century about the failure to ensure compliance.4 The shadowy history of the ‘clerks of St Cuthbert’, who guarded the body of the saint in its wanderings, and their final ousting by monks in Durham in 1083 therefore occurred in a world where the majority of clergy at all levels expected their heirs to inherit at least some of their ecclesiastical property. Aldhun, the bishop before the see of Durham was transferred from Chesterle-Street (995), was married and had a daughter Ecfrida.5 The chequered history of some of the lands her father gave her as dower when she married Earl Uhtred of Northumberland has been traced.6 Probably even in 1109 the monks were finding some of their lands still contested with secular lords as a result of these transactions. Bishop Ranulf Flambard (1099–1128), however, also had a wife (though by this time she was regarded by reform-minded clerics as a mistress).7 He worked very hard to place his sons in important positions, both secular and ecclesiastical, in the bishopric. Radulf the clerk, Flambard’s

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Brett, English Church, passim for this issue. Brett, English Church, pp. 79–82, 150. Brett, English Church, pp. 81–2. Brett, English Church, pp. 219–20. DEC, p. 2. DEC, pp. 10–11. DEC, p. 105. 100

SECULAR CLERGY CAREERS

son, was put into Bishop Middleham church by his father’s nephew, Osbert the sheriff, another potent man in the bishopric.8 It is notable that in 1146 Radulf refers to himself, in his charter agreeing to the grant of Middleham church to the monks, as Ralph the clerk, ‘son of Ranulph the bishop’.9 The estate of Witton, for which the church of St Michael was built by Du Puiset, had been bought by him to give to his son Henry by his ‘wife’ Alice de Percy.10 If bishops’ sons were so very open even in the mid-twelfth century it would not be surprising if parish clergy and others also had children. The story of the clerks themselves is well known.11 Most were married. Symeon of Durham, the monk-chronicler of the abbey, knew their descendants.12 The prevalence of married parochial clergy in the eleventh century in the area is clearly seen in Symeon’s De Exordio. In the account of Durham monastery Symeon gives the vision of Boso who saw in hell an enormous crowd of women whom he understood were the wives of priests.13 There is also the edifying story of the priest who said mass after sleeping with a woman and had a vision to convince him of his sin.14 Symeon heard this story from the priest’s son, who had also become a priest; the father’s church was near to Durham city. Hemming and Wulfkill, who were descendants of a bearer of the body of the saint, were perhaps priests of Sedgefield and Brancepeth in the early twelfth century.15 It seems very likely that, when the monks replaced the clerks, the latter were paid off with churches and church lands as part of an hereditary estate.16 It was a sign that the old order was coming to an end in the time of Bishop Geoffrey Rufus that the bishop (some time between 1138 and 1141) gave to the monks the vill of Coken which the priest Eilaf (II) had held in hereditary right from the bishop.17 He had also held Hexham church, likewise by inheritance.18 The church in the city most likely to have been affected by these changes was St Oswald’s but there is almost no evidence about its clergy in the twelfth century before the appropriation. It is just possible that the evidently AngloSaxon Dolphin the priest of Elvet, attesting a charter of 1154×8, was the father of Walter the priest, son of Dolphin who attests Du Puiset’s charter giving Elvet

8

DEC, nos. 15, 35. DEC, no. 35b. 10 Howden, II, p. 133. 11 D. Rollason, ‘Symeon of Durham and the community of Durham in the eleventh century’, in England in the Eleventh Century, Proceedings of the 1990 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. C. Hicks, Stamford 1992, pp. 183–98; M. Foster, ‘Custodians of St Cuthbert: the Durham monks’ view of their predecessors, 1083–c.1200’, AND, pp. 53–65. 12 Symeon, De Exordio, pp. 103–4, 147–9. 13 Symeon, De Exordio, p. 251. 14 Symeon, De Exordio, pp. 173–5. 15 Symeon, De Exordio, p. 148; DEC, no. 5, esp. p. 43. 16 Rollason, ‘Symeon and community’, p. 191. 17 DEC, no. 28. 18 Rollason, ‘Symeon and community’, p. 189. 9

101


church to the monastery.19 Apart from this, the evidence we have about clergy habits is later and concerns the enforcement of the canon law about celibacy, not about clergy inheritance of benefices. By the end of the twelfth century the church had won the inheritance battle if not the one about celibacy.20 In the later middle ages the route to clerical promotion in the city and the diocese was service, first of course to the bishop but also to the priory. The incumbents of both St Nicholas’s and St Oswald’s churches were frequently diocesan officials and also did work for the prior. They were often holders of several benefices, though canonically illegal pluralism (holding two cures of souls without permission) was not common. The major patrons of the livings in the city were of course the bishop and the prior, though the Nevilles (and presumably their predecessors the FitzMeldreds) had St Mary in the South Bailey and some of the chantries were in private gift. In the city itself papal provisions never seem to have played an important role. In 1342 Nicholas de Bishopton had been ordained deacon by Bishop Kellaw with his only title a provision, but this was unusual. 21 He obtained the vicarage of St Oswald’s by this provision in 1345.22 An examination of the appointments to St Nicholas’s shows that they almost always went to leading officers of the bishop or the prior; frequently the incumbent worked for both. Several of the earliest holders were from the bishop’s familia: William de Caumont, Averdus the clerk, who was given the church by Geoffrey Rufus, and William of Blois, the most learned member of Hugh du Puiset’s household.23 In 1222 the holder was John Saracenus, of an important Roman family, whose father Peter was the most important agent for England in Rome.24 The grant to the son must have been a reward to the father. The rector from 1313 was Richard de Eryum, a local man who came from Eryholme near Darlington.25 He was already among the familiars of the bishop – by 1311 his official – but from at least February 1303 had been serving the priory.26 Bernard de Kirkeby, rector from 1335, was the bishop’s

19

DEC, nos. 27, 41. A.L. Barstow, Married Priests and the Reforming Papacy. The Eleventh Century Debates. Texts and Studies in Religion, 12, New York and Toronto 1982, for the whole question. 21 RPD, III, p. 127. 22 DCM, 4.16.Spec.46. 23 DEC, no. 31 and EEA, 24, p. xlii; article by D.M. Smith, in EEA, 4, pp. xxiii, xxvii–xxviii. 24 G. Bicchieri, The Letters and Charters of Cardinal Guala Bicchieri, Papal Legate in England 1216–1218, ed. N. Vincent, CYS, 83 (1996), no. 84. 25 For further on him see C.R. Cheney, ‘Law and letters in fourteenth century Durham: a study of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge MS 450’, Bulletin of the John Ryland’s Library, 55/I (1972), reprinted with important additions in The English Church and its Laws, Twelfth to Thirteenth Century, London 1982, no. XIV, esp. pp. 74, 84 and additional note; DCRO, D/Sa/D, 1420–2, dated 1316, 1328. 26 RPD, I, pp. 9, 100; DCM, Misc. Ch. 4937. 20

102


almoner.27 John de Appleby, senior, became rector about 1349.28 In so far as he can be disentangled from other John de Applebys, this must have been a reward for his legal expertise, though it was also the result of a provision.29 In 1352 he was official of Durham30 but by 1358 he had left for the Roman curia, where he became an advocate.31 William Bowland, rector in 1378, was registrar, official and sequestrator of the bishop.32 A typical career of a rector of St Nicholas (before its appropriation) would be that of Richard Buckley whom we will encounter later as one of the refounders of the Corpus Christi guild in 1437. He had been made rector of St Nicholas in December 1407.33 He held the living until October 1437 when he resigned in favour of a man called Thomas Buckley, perhaps a relative.34 Already he held canonries and prebends in Bishop Auckland and in Chesterle-Street and had become master of Kepier hospital by September 1436.35 Kepier was not a cure of souls and none of these benefices was incompatible with St Nicholas.36 Buckley held the crucial post of receiver-general of the bishop from 1422 until the end of Langley’s pontificate, making him what has been called the ‘resident manager of the bishop’s financial organisation’.37 The tally for St Oswald’s is similar in the fifteenth century, though not apparently before. William Caton became vicar in 1412, having previously been master of the hospital of St Bartholomew, Tweedmouth, a chantry chaplain in Norham and vicar of Woodhorn.38 These livings were rewards for his work as Langley’s receiver in Norham and Islandshire from 1406 onwards.39 William Newton, his successor, became vicar twice, or there were two men of this name. A William Newton exchanged St Oswald’s with William Bristow after holding it briefly in 1419–20, and then held it again in 1445–6. He was active until 1473.40 In between Newton held the priory living of Bywell St Peter. He was a lawyer, with a bachelor’s degree in both laws by 1453.41 He

27

Donaldson, ‘Patronage and the church’, p. 104. BRUO, I, pp. 40–1. 29 CPP, p. 172; CPL, III, p. 323. 30 Hatfield, Register, f. 7 (f. 29 earlier notation). 31 CCR, 1354–60, p. 508. 32 Donaldson, ‘Patronage and the church’, p. 105, and add Hatfield, Register, ff. 85, 131v. 33 Langley, Register, I, no. 37. 34 Langley, Register, V, no. 1322. 35 Langley, Register, III, nos. 559, 675; IV, no. 1225. 36 Langley, Register, V, no. 1308. 37 Storey, Langley, pp. 74–5. 38 Donaldson, ‘Patronage and the church’, p. 108; DCM, Reg. III, f. 36v; Langley, Register, I, no. 178; II, no. 244; DCM, 1. 2.Arch. Dunelm. 39. 39 Storey, Langley, p. 82. 40 BRUO, II, p. 1359; Donaldson, ‘Patronage and the church’, p. 108; Langley, Register, V, nos. 1439, 1456; DCM, Reg. III, f. 67v; Reg. IV, f. 27. 41 BRUO. 28

103


can be seen presiding at the consistory court in 1450.42 In 1454 letters of correction certifying penance performed before him were accepted in the prior’s archidiaconal court in a case of adultery.43 William Doncaster was vicar of St Oswald’s from August 1420 until he resigned in 1435, but this was only one of seven benefices in the northern diocese which he held either together or successively, five from the priory.44 He held the position of official of the prior as archdeacon between 1431 and about 1435, but this was merely one of many legal roles he fulfilled. In fact it was probably one of the least important. He was also successively the official of the bishop’s archdeacon of Northumberland and of Durham, sequestrator general of the archdeaconry of Durham, and finally official of the bishop from 1431. In other words, Doncaster was probably the leading lawyer in the diocese under Langley, a career which began as an advocate in the consistory court.45 He was, however, also the most important legal adviser of the prior. After Doncaster’s tenure the priory seems to have experimented with combining the job of prior’s official with the vicarage of St Oswald’s. John Lethom, another bachelor of both laws, was admitted to St Oswald’s on 2 July 1435.46 He was sequestrator for the bishop already then.47 In 1437 he can be found acting as official for the prior in the archidiaconal court and was appointed formally in March 1441, holding the position until January 1444.48 The experiment was not continued. John Pickering, successor of William Newton after the latter’s second tenure, was also a bachelor of both laws. He was vicar from 1472 to 1485, holding also between 1478 and 1488 the rectory of Kimblesworth. He was official for the (bishop’s) archdeacon of Durham in 1474.49 He can, however, be found acting for the priory in negotiating licences for mortmain grants, like so many other clerics.50 At the end of the period of this book the vicars of St Oswald’s continued to be distinguished men, active either for the bishop or the prior or both. Hugh Snell was vicar from 1486 onwards.51 He was a doctor of both laws and had been vicar general to Bishop Neville from 1477.52 His successor, Thomas Farne, a bachelor of civil law, became vicar in 1498 and held the post until 1519.53

42

DCM, Reg. Parv. III, f. 41. Capitula, f. 128r/v. 44 BRUO, I, p. 385; Dobson, Durham Priory, p. 134. 45 BRUO and Storey, Langley, pp. 167–8, 173. 46 Donaldson, ‘Patronage and the church’, p. 108; DCM, Reg. III, f. 190. 47 Langley, Register, I, p. xxxxix, n. 6. 48 Capitula, ff. 18, 35v–52; Reg. Parv. II, ff. 135v–6. 49 Donaldson, ‘Patronage and the church’, p. 59; DCM, Reg. IV, f. 213. 50 NA, Dur 3/54, m. 18; 3/61, m. 24. 51 BRUC, p. 538; DCM, Reg. IV, f. 227r/v, 52 DCM, Reg. Parv. III, ff. 177v–8, 182, 184v. 53 BRUO, II, p. 668; DCM, Reg. V, ff. 46r/v, 182, Donaldson, ‘Patronage and the church’, p. 109. 43

104


In 1501 he was appointed penancer in the city and diocese.54 The final holder before the Reformation period, Christopher Wardale, was also a lawyer though it is not clear what, if any, diocesan or priory office he held.55 Men like these can never have been much involved in the pastoral care of a parish. Doncaster and Lethom, for example, were almost certainly appointed to St Oswald’s in order that they might more conveniently discharge legal duties. The prior’s archidiaconal court met in St Oswald’s and for the official of the prior to be also vicar was thus very convenient. One sign of the subordination of pastoral care to other considerations is the frequency with which some of those holding St Oswald’s church exchanged the benefice.56 Robert Asshburn, who became vicar in 1405, exchanged with Walter Bosun, dean of Chester-le-Street in 1408; Bosun exchanged with Thomas Robert in 1410; Robert with Caton in 1412; and John Holdernesse with Caton in 1414. William Newton, who became vicar in 1419, exchanged with William Bristow in the same year. A further sign of the subordination of pastoral considerations is that several of the men mentioned in these paragraphs had to be ordained in order to hold the benefice on offer. Eryum must have used St Nicholas to finance his further education in the schools, as the bishop in 1313 gave him licence under the papal regulation provided by the canon law Cum ex eo.57 This allowed clerks to use some of the revenues of their benefice to provide for their further education, provided they made provision for the services; it also permitted them to postpone taking the necessary orders for a limited period.58 Eryum also had licence not to be promoted further for four years.59 He acquired degrees in both laws and had a career as bishop’s commissary and official but also as an arbitrator.60 Buckley on appointment was unordained and hastily acquired ordination at Langley’s hands with St Nicholas as his title.61 Evidently Bishopton only sought ordination when he already had a provision.62 Lower down the social scale it is clear that John Runcorn, whose career is sketched below, only obtained ordination to higher orders when a benefice was on offer. Before that he had been pursuing a career in Durham in varied employment from the priory.63

54

Barnes, Injunctions, appendix, p. ii (from BRUO). BRUO, though incomplete. 56 Details from Donaldson, ‘Patronage and the church’, p. 108. 57 RPD, I, p. 475. 58 L.E. Boyle, ‘The constitution “Cum ex eo” of Boniface VIII’, Medieval Studies, 24 (1962), pp. 263–302. 59 RPD, I, p. 476. 60 Donaldson, ‘Patronage and the church’, p. 104, without the DCRO refs; RPD, II, p. 753. 61 Langley, Register, I, nos. 82, 102. 62 See p. 179. 63 See pp. 110–11. 55

105


It was, however, possible for a man in diocesan administration to choose not to be ordained and thus to be disqualified from holding a benefice. The most likely example of this phenomenon was Master John Hagthorpe, an early member of the Corpus Christi guild. He was from a family of married clerks. He was called son and heir of John Hagthorpe, who was iuris peritus, a notary public and sequestrator general of Bishop Hatfield in the 1360s to at least 1380.64 The younger John seems to have been a married clerk like his father, perhaps also a notary, though so far I have found no mention of that. In 1404, acting for the prior, he read out a bull of Boniface IX in the consistory court.65 In September 1407, called Master John Hagthorpe, clerk, he was appointed by the priory to the chantry of St Helen over the abbey gate, provided he was ordained within the year.66 This was the sort of appointment which the priory gave to a clerk whose expertise it wished to keep, or to someone it wished to encourage, but in his successor’s appointment there is no mention of the need for ordination: he was a priest. It would appear that Hagthorpe did not fulfil the conditions. There is no record of his ordination and by 1418 he, or someone called John Hagthorpe junior, had a son and heir, William.67 Furthermore, Hagthorpe did not hold the chantry position for very long; a successor was appointed in December 1409.68 The priory seems to have actively encouraged promising clerks by giving them a ‘title’ for ordination, which was a way of guaranteeing that they would not remain penniless to fall on the charity of the diocese. The exact meaning of a ‘title’ in this period is the subject of learned discussion, but in Durham monastic titles sometimes seem to have been more than a fiction.69 The typical letter simply presented the young man to the bishop and asked for ordination. So for instance the prior in 1418 wrote to Langley and asked him to ordain Thomas Bishopton of Durham, acolyte and BA, to all orders.70 This is called a title in the register where it is recorded. It must have implied that the priory guaranteed the man’s qualifications and presumably his means. Hatfield allowed John de Rosse in 1355 to hold for life both the chantry of Our Lady and that of St James in St Nicholas’s church because each was so small.71 Rosse had been ordained deacon and then priest in 1345 on presentation by the sub-prior of Durham ‘according to custom’, says the register.72 In March 1378 Hatfield

64

Hatfield, Register, ff. 45, 80v, 175v; DCM, Reg. II, ff. 261r/v, 269r/v. DCM, Reg. II, f. 254v. 66 DCM, Reg. III, f. 26. 67 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, p. 334. 68 John Bynchester was given the post on 3 December 1409: DCM, Reg. III, ff 132v–3. 69 R.N. Swanson, ‘Titles to orders in English medieval Episcopal registers’, Studies presented to R.H.C. Davies, ed. H. Mayr-Harting and R.I. Moore, London 1985, pp. 233–45, esp. p. 234. 70 DCM, Reg. III, f. 63r/v. 71 DCM, Hatfield, Register, f. 38v. 72 DCM, Hatfield, Register, ff. 92v, 93v. 65

106


allowed Thomas of Hexham, holding the chantry of Our Lady in St Oswald’s, to augment his income by saying extra masses for souls, because he believed the man’s plea that the revenues of his chantry were not enough.73 This was a man from York diocese (no doubt Hexham) who had been ordained by Hatfield, again with a title from the sub-prior of Durham.74 Clerks in the higher echelons of the diocesan administration invariably achieved good livings and must have been the clerical elite of the city. A typical example from the later middle ages was the career of John Lound, alderman of the Corpus Christi guild in 1450. Lound was of the entourage of Bishop Robert Neville, almost certainly of the family of Lound from South Cave in Yorkshire. He was probably the illegitimate son of Henry Lound, in whose will of 1426 a son John, clericus, is left a legacy and is an executor but whose brother Peter is the main heir.75 Though nothing is said there about his legitimacy, John Lound, clerk and scholar, of York diocese, was granted a dispensation by Martin V in August 1420 to be ordained and to hold up to four benefices, and Archbishop Bowet, after examining him, allowed this.76 The dispensation described him as of noble birth and the son of an unmarried man. He went on to read law at Oxford, ending as Principal of Little White Hall in 1436.77 Meanwhile he had been ordained acolyte in May 1428 by Archbishop Kemp.78 He was then described as bachelor of both laws. In September 1429 he was ordained deacon, again by Kemp, and described as rector of the church of Dacre, Carlisle diocese, whose church was his title. The patrons there were the Dacre family, very much allies of the Nevilles.79 He acquired a dispensation to hold further graces (ad ubiores), dated November 1428, with additionally the privilege to have a portable altar,80 and then acquired the benefice of Burghfield in Salisbury diocese in February 1429. Finally, in December he was ordained priest by Robert Neville in Salisbury diocese, by letters dimissory (giving him permission to be ordained outside his home diocese), to the title of this Salisbury benefice.81 In 1438 Neville gave him a canonry and prebend in Salisbury.82 He must have come to Durham in 1438 when Neville became bishop. Lound was made master of Kepier hospital in 1439,83 and was one of 73

DCM, Hatfield, Register, f. 141v. DCM, Hatfield, Register, ff. 109v, 110, for acolyte and deacon. 75 North Country Wills, ed. J.W. Clay, SS 116 (1908), pp. 34–5. 76 York, Borthwick Institute, Bowet, Register 18, f. 330Ar/v. 77 Details in BRUO, II, pp. 1164–5. 78 York, Borthwick Institute, Kemp, Register 19, ff. 232v, 235 (not subdeacon as BRUO). 79 W. Hutchinson, History of the County of Cumberland, Carlisle 1794–7, repr. 1974, pp. 468–9. 80 CPL, VIII, pp. 35, 66; for ad ubiores: L. Schmugge, Kirche, Kinder Karrieren. Päpstlichen Dispense von der unehelichen Geburt im Spätmittlelalter, Zurich 1995, esp. pp. 106–11. 81 Wiltshire RO, Neville, Register, Salisbury, I, ff. 21, 120 (called of Carlisle diocese) (Emden uses old notation). 82 Neville, Register, Salisbury, I, f. 78v. 83 DCM, Reg. III, f. 241; Memorials of St Giles, pp. 229–31. 74

107


the leading lawyers in the bishopric, with a mansio in South Bailey.84 He can be seen presiding at the prior’s archidiaconal courts in 1441 and in the consistory from 1447, and was chancellor from 1457.85 Neville made him one of the executors of his will.86 Lound was the kind of man who must always have been introduced by an incoming bishop, unusual only because of his illegitimacy. But at the lower end of the clerical hierarchy some clergy must have been very poor indeed, if they had a living at all. The value of the actual livings was very varied. The chaplains of Langley’s school got £2 each with a house to live in.87 But of course many of the clerics were unbeneficed.88 The priory knew the poverty of these lesser clerics. In Durham the most frequent jobs undertaken by the unbeneficed were as mass priests in the country chapels and in conveying property. There must have been some dispute in Witton Gilbert in 1445–6, because the priory accounts note £3 7s 8d from the chapel unjustly received by John Hexham, the chaplain celebrating there temporarily, which could not be recovered from him because he was notoriously poor.89 In 1420–1 Thomas Preston, chaplain of Croxdale, was paid £3, ‘by the agreement inserted in the indentures between the hostillar and him’.90 There thus appears to have been an ad hoc arrangement for the employment of such a man. He is named as celebrating there in 1423–4 also, for a quarter year, whilst others did so for two other quarters.91 The chaplain (unnamed but possibly Preston) was paid an additional £1 13s 4d in 1422–3, ‘because of the poverty of the chapel there’.92 Sometimes some of the revenue in the outlying chapels was farmed out. The Croxdale chaplain, for instance, seems to have been the farmer very often.93 In 1351–2 the hostillar’s accounts record nothing from the altarage (the revenue for the spiritual services) there, ‘because the chaplain serving takes it as part of his salary’.94 In 1356–7 the land at Croxdale was farmed to the chaplain ‘with the altarage’, though later the land was rented to a layman.95

84

Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, p. 567. Capitula, ff. 34, 36v, 38, 60v. 86 Scriptores Tres, appendix no. cclv, p. cccxliii. 87 DUL, Archives and Special Collections, CCB B/1/1 and following (Receiver General’s accounts), passim. 88 A.K. McHardy, ‘Careers and disappointments in the late-medieval church: some English evidence’, SCH, 26 (1989), pp. 111–30. 89 Almoner’s accounts, 1445–6A. 90 Hostillar’s accounts, 1420–1. 91 Hostillar’s accounts, 1423–4. 92 Hostillar’s accounts, 1422–3. 93 Hostillar’s accounts, 1344–5. 94 Hostillar’s accounts, 1351–2 and also 1356–7, 1357–8, 1358–9, 1404–5. 95 Hostillar’s accounts, 1386–7, 1423–4. 85

108


Most of these lower clergy, however, did not rely upon their income from a chantry or chaplaincy alone but added other tasks. John Artays held the position of schoolmaster in Langley’s chantry from December 1416.96 He was a priest of Durham diocese, perhaps from the village of Bolam near St Helen’s Auckland, in whose church of St Leonard he wished masses to be said for himself and his parents after his death, unless he came from Bolam in Northumberland.97 The church in the latter is now called St Andrew’s but might have been St Leonard’s in earlier times. Artays features in Langley’s register fulfilling tasks other than his teaching, for instance as commissary for the bishop to claim criminous clerks in 1433.98 Although he was called ‘master’ he was never credited with a degree.99 The almonry schoolmasters acted as proctors in the prior’s archidiaconal court on occasion.100 Robert Grene, who was appointed during the year 1453–4 as a schoolmaster of Langley’s chantry with Robert Sotheron, appears regularly thereafter as the man before whom penance had been performed.101 For example, in 1454 the record says: ‘John Henryson alleges purgation before Robert Grene and he swore this and Robert attested the assertion and he is let go.’102 Once there are records for the bishop’s consistory court (only from 1531) one finds that Langley’s chantry schoolmasters, who by then always had degrees, regularly acted as proctors in the court and frequently were commissaries for its official. Ralph Todd had been admitted BCL of Oxford in 1519, the year he was ordained. 103 He is found as a proctor regularly from 1531 and was commissary.104 He became schoolmaster in 1528–9105 and must have held the living until he was made vicar of Hart in 1537.106 The patron of Hart was Anthony Bellasis, LLD, for this term because the prior of Guisborough, not yet dissolved, had granted it to him.107 Todd was allowed in 1547 to hold another benefice with Hart.108 Todd’s

96

Langley, Register, II, no. 444; CC B/1/1 (CC189809) for payment. DCM, Cart. IV, f. 18r/v; Bole was dedicated to St Andrew. 98 Langley, Register, IV, no. 1050. 99 Langley, Register, IV, nos. 1161, 1171. 100 Court Book of Prior’s Official, f. 75v, in 1494, magister scolarum abbatie as a proctor. 101 Capitula, f. 108v, correctus per dominum Robertum Grene; f. 128, prevencionem per dominum Robertum Grene et habent ad exhibendum literam correctionis. 102 Capitula, f. 125. 103 BRUO, 1510–40, p. 569. 104 DDR/EJ/CCA/1/1, ff. 1, 4v, 11v, 12, 15, 18v, 28v, 62v; ff. 7v, 21v as commissary. 105 CC B6/63, 65, 66 (189843, 189557, 189845). 106 L.M. Stevens-Benham, ‘The Durham clergy 1494–1540: a study of continuity and mediocrity among the unbeneficed’, in The Last Principality: Politics, Religion and Society in the Bishopric of Durham 1494–1660, ed. D. Marcombe, Loughborough 1987, pp. 6–28, esp. p. 2; C. Tunstal and J. Pilkington, The Registers of Cuthbert Tubstall, Bishop of Durham 1530–1559 and James Pilkington, Bishop of Durham 1561–76, ed. G. Hinde, SS 161 (1952), no. 142 in Tunstal’s register. 107 Surtees, Durham, III, p. 96. 108 D.S. Chambers, ed., Faculty Office Registers 1534–49, Oxford 1966, p. 300. 97

109


companion as schoolmaster was William Cockey who held the living from 1523–4109 and continued in position until the reign of Edward VI,110 with a whole series of colleagues. Cockey was a BA of Oxford by 1516.111 He too was active in the consistory court from 1531 and was commissary on occasion.112 If schoolmasters seem to have found it possible to add to their income, so did other chantry chaplains. Few chantries allowed their holders to say masses additional to the ones to which they were obliged, though some did. As we saw, Hatfield sometimes allowed this. The most common way in which these priests must have earned extra money, however, was by acting as trustees for land grants which eventually the prior would amortise for a fee to the bishop. There are very many examples of this, of which just one must suffice. Alan de Hayden was for many years (from at least May 1387 until 1419) chaplain of the chantry of St Mary in St Oswald’s.113 During that time the few glimpses of his activities are because his name appears in land transactions of this kind, for which he must either have received a small fee or have taken a proportion of the rents while the lands were held in trust for the priory.114 The lowly procurators of St Oswald’s and St Margaret’s were always clergy but rarely obtained more than precarious livings. The chaplain of Croxdale, Thomas Williamson, recorded as lately dead in 1529, was probably luckier than some of his fellows to have even that fragile and certainly hand-to-mouth employment.115 He had been procurator of St Margaret’s from 1488116 and of St Oswald’s for 1523–4.117 The unbeneficed are the hardest to trace, though they have been called ‘the work horses of the medieval church’ and must have been responsible for most of the day-to-day pastoral duties.118 In the nature of the case it is only possible to follow the careers of a few of the lesser priests. The best Durham example is John Runcorn, who was appointed by the priory to the combined chantries of St James and St Andrew on Elvet Bridge in April 1413.119 He was probably from Runcorn in the diocese of Coventry and Lichfield because he came to Durham with letters dimissory, allowing him to be ordained outside his diocese, from his home bishop John Burghill, ‘by reason of his origin’.120 This permission was dated 27 October

109

CC B5/50 (189839). NA, E 101/76/13, f 17. 111 BRUO, 1510–40, p. 125. 112 DDR/EJ/CCA/1/1, ff. 7v, 9, 13, 14Av, 66v, 68v, 69; f. 65v, commissary. 113 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, p. 622 for earliest, and 2, pp. 275, 329 for latest date. 114 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, pp. 16–17, 33, 37, 81, 173. 115 Surtees, Durham, IV, pp. 122–3; St Margaret’s accounts, 1528–9. 116 St Margaret’s accounts, every year from 1488. 117 St Oswald’s accounts. 118 McHardy, ‘Careers and disappointments’, p. 130 for quotation. 119 DCM, Reg. III, f. 40v. 120 Langley, Register, II, no. 287. 110

110


1405 when Runcorn was already an acolyte.121 Langley and the priory together furthered his promotion. By 1407 he was in Durham employed by the priory, travelling to London and Nottingham that year, and later as a butler, buying wine for instance.122 The priory continued to use his services in various ways until 1413.123 On 23 March 1412 he was appointed rector of West Rounton in the North Riding of Yorkshire, a living in the gift of the priory, and on 17 December he was ordained subdeacon by Langley, with Rounton as his title.124 On 18 March 1413 he was ordained deacon and then on 8 April priest by Langley.125 He then exchanged benefices with the holder of the Elvet Bridge chantries.126 By 1432 Runcorn was described as a notary public by apostolic authority in an act completed in the private chapel of Sir William Eure.127 He is found on occasion in the prior’s archidiaconal court as a witness.128 He pursued his career as a notary in Durham. He was paid for his services in signing documents for the priory in 1440–1 and 1442–3 for instance.129 Astonishingly he did not die until 1459 when he was still holding his small benefice.130 It appears in this case that Runcorn thought it worth exchanging the living of Rounton, which was taxed in 1292 at £4,131 for what looks like a lesser benefice because Durham was a better place to work. Though Runcorn did not obtain any further living, some of the chantry chaplains did. Sometimes this occurred because the priory used the chantries to give a small benefice to a valuable servant. John Walker, LLD, held the chantries on Elvet Bridge from January 1487 until April 1494 when he resigned to become vicar of West Merrington.132 These were apparently trivial benefices for a locally most important cleric, whose major function was to be the prior’s legal expert, and who frequently acted as official between June 1490 until his death in 1505. Another example of the same process at work was the appointment of John Bynchester to St Helen’s chantry over the abbey gate in 1409.133 He had given land to the priory and also was very active as a conveyancer and witness for it.134

121

Lichfield Record office, B/A/1/7, John Burghill, Register, f. 157. Bursar’s accounts, 1406–7A, under dona; 1408–9, under necessary expenses, described as butler. 123 Bursar’s accounts, passim. 124 Langley, Register, II, no. 287; York, Borthwick Institute, Bowet, Register 18, f. 276v. 125 Langley, Register, II, nos. 296, 297. 126 Bowet, Register, f. 277. 127 Langley, Register, IV, no. 1028. 128 Capitula, f. 99, 1451. 129 Bursar’s accounts, under necessary expenses. 130 DCM, Reg. IV, f. 218v. 131 Taxatio ecclesiastica Angliae et Walliae, auctoritate P. Nicolai IV, circa A.D. 1291, London 1802, p. 302. 132 DCM, Reg. V, ff. 2, 29r/v; BRUO, III, pp. 1963–4. 133 DCM, Reg. III, ff. 132v–3. 134 Scriptores Tres, appendix, pp. ccxxxv, cclxxxiv, cclxxxv, cccvii. 122

111


The level of education of these clerics must have varied greatly. It is marked that in the later middle ages the holders of St Oswald’s frequently had degrees in law, as we have seen. This was an almost essential qualification for an ecclesiastical administrator in the fifteenth century. Not surprisingly, Langley’s schoolmaster chaplains mostly had degrees by the end of the period. Even one who apparently did not, John Artays, owned books and was left them as legacies. He was executor in 1435 of Thomas Hebden, dean of Auckland, who left him a work of Guido de Colonna.135 His own will is more interesting. It was made on 22 August 1442 and proved on 8 September.136 He left his portifer and an abstract of the Catholicon (a dictionary), which as he helpfully tells us began ‘A, alma, which is interpreted as virgin’, to dominus John Artays, chaplain, his relative, and a book called Troy to his colleague in Langley’s school, Robert Sotheron.137 His complete Catholicon he left to the house of the chantry of Blessed Mary and St Cuthbert, in other words the house belonging to Langley’s chantry where presumably he and Sotheron lived and taught. It is not surprising to find that both William Doncaster and Thomas Farne, vicars of St Oswald’s and servants of both prior and bishop, left notable gifts of books to the priory, Farne’s being printed works.138 The clerical group in Durham probably felt some cohesion among themselves and must have known most of the members of their estate. The court records show that the lower clergy acted with and for one another frequently. We have seen how they often acted in a group of attorneys for the priory when it was collecting property to make a claim in mortmain. But the occasions for acting together were more frequent than that. There is evidence of these clergy lending each other small sums. Dominus William Fabian alleged in 1492 that he had lent 3s 4d to the parochial chaplain of St Margaret’s.139 Clergy of course used other clergy as oath helpers when they needed to clear their names of charges of unchastity. So in 1450 Robert Sedgefield purged the charge of incontinence with Elizabeth Chaloner with a list of priests including Richard Prentisse who was chantry chaplain of St Mary in St Oswald’s.140 But in 1493 Sedgefield’s namesake, chantry priest of St Mary’s in St Oswald, also purged himself with the priests Christopher Asklaby, Robert Sayer, Robert Maynforth, Thomas Salter and John Swan, the last specified as parochial chaplain of St Nicholas.141 Of these Asklaby was cantarist of St John’s chantry in St Oswald’s; Thomas Salter, if it is he, had been accused of adultery in his youth (1455),

135

Langley, Register, IV, no. 1161, p. 161. DCM, 4.18.Spec.88; Cart. IV, f. 18r/v. 137 For him see p. 123. 138 BRUO, II, p. 668; A.G. Watson, Supplement to the Second Edition of Medieval Libraries of Great Britain, London 1987, p. 89. 139 Court Book of Prior’s Official, f. 34. 140 Capitula, f. 92; see p. 81. 141 Court Book of Prior’s Official, f. 59v. 136

112


though someone of this name became rector of St Mary le Bow in 1490.142 It is even more telling to find Thomas Fyssher, a chaplain, accused of unchastity with various women in April 1455, using as his oath helpers Salter, Thomas Morland, Robert Sedgefield, and Robert Hawthorne, rector of St Mary le Bow,143 and being restored to his previous good name. So the lesser clergy probably stood by each other and gave support. When dominus William Fabian, parochial chaplain of St Margaret’s chapel,144 sued Robert Clerk in 1491 for allegedly keeping back a portifer left to Fabian by dominus Robert Pencher, who had been chaplain of the chantries on Elvet Bridge, they agreed to abide by the arbitration of dominus Robert Chaloner, chaplain of St Mary in St Margaret’s church, and dominus Thomas Gray.145 The secular clergy at this lowly level appear frequently in the church courts as litigants both with lay people, as we have seen, but also among themselves. In the secular court books persons called ‘chaplain’ found in trouble often turn out to be clergy from this level. One of the most troublesome seems to have been Thomas Marmaduke. In 1510 he was presented by the Crossgate jurors for making an affray with Richard Merley, and in January 1513 presented again by the same for an affray with William Walker, another chaplain.146 In 1515 he was accused in Crossgate court of insulting Robert Claxton, which he denied.147 Marmaduke was chantry priest of St Mary’s chantry in St Margaret’s chapel, from July 1507.148 Claxton was a leading inhabitant of Crossgate borough.149 The chaplain of St Mary’s chantry was also responsible for the domus pauperum (which will be considered when we come to the provision of hospitals and charities), and this may also explain why the jurors of Crossgate called upon the priest of St Mary’s chantry, not named but it must have been Marmaduke, to get rid of vagabonds in his house in April 1513;150 they also called upon Marmaduke by name in January 1518 to remove a certain person called Le Brydok and her daughter before Lent on pain of 3s fine.151 But on 14 April they said that Le Brydok and the daughter had been of good governance, so they did not need to be removed.152 William Marshall, chaplain, accused 142

Capitula, f. 141; FD under Salter. Capitula, f. 142; FD under Hawthorne. 144 Court Book of Prior’s Official, f. 132 for this role. 145 Court Book of Prior’s Official, f. 20; for Pencher, DCM, Reg. IV, f. 218; for Chaloner, Reg. IV, ff. 213v–14. 146 DCM, Crossgate Court Book, ff. 120v, 132v–3; see also f. 110v (I owe these references to Professor R. Britnell). 147 Crossgate Court Book, f. 153. 148 DCM, Reg. V, f. 83v. 149 R. Fox, The Register of Richard Fox, Lord Bishop of Durham, 1494–1501, ed. M.P. Howden, SS 147 (1932), pp. 84, 85, 88. 150 Crossgate Court Book, f. 134v. 151 Crossgate Court Book, f. 167. 152 Crossgate Court Book, f. 168. 143

113


several times in 1524–5, again by Crossgate court, of not expelling a suspect woman, but pardoned by the prior, may have been in the same position as Marmaduke.153 The lower clergy seem to have been those most likely to be accused of breaking their vows of celibacy, though known examples are infrequent. The chaplain of Croxdale, dominus John (who may be John Bolton, the priest there in 1436154), was accused in December and November 1439 of adultery with Matilda, wife of John Whyte Smyth, and both were ordered to produce purgation.155 The next year he was accused of the same with Elizabeth, servant of Robert Yudey, and this time the record says ‘failed at pugation’, in other words, he could not produce enough priests to swear to his good character.156 The priest serving Croxdale must always have been isolated. The case of Robert Sedgefield is discussed elsewhere.157 Durham was home to a large number of married men in minor orders. They belonged to a group of clerics who would have received at least the first tonsure but who would not have received orders beyond acolyte, which would have involved celibacy.158 In Durham, as elsewhere, such men were often notaries and many of them lived in Elvet. There were in fact several clerical dynasties: the Elvets, the Berehalghs, the Tangs and the Rakets, for instance, whose livelihood depended on the priory and/or the bishopric. The Elvet family eventually founded the chantry of Sts John the Baptist and John the Evangelist in St Oswald’s and their story is given when this chantry is discussed.159 Among the members of the guild of St Cuthbert were several married clerks. William and Richard Raket were re-founders of this guild in 1450. Both William and Richard were married clerks. William was made clerk of the chancery and keeper of the rolls for life by Langley in 1437.160 Richard, probably William’s father, was clerk of the crown, of assize, of the peace, of the halmote and notary, as well as keeper of Frankleyn park, all in Neville’s pontificate (1433–57).161 John was an attorney in Durham court of pleas in 1498, coroner of Chester Ward that year and in 1504, and justice of assize in Durham in 1508. The Tangs were another similar Elvet family. Thomas Tang or Clerk who was involved in the re-founding of the guild of St Cuthbert in 1450 was a

153

Crossgate Court Book, 2, ff. 1, 3, 4v, 7v, 9. Capitula, f. 6v. 155 Capitula, ff. 24v, 25. 156 Capitula, f. 30. 157 See p. 81. 158 E.F. Jacob, Essays in Later Medieval History, Manchester 1968, p. 60 for the status; Lyndwood, Provinciale, p. 128, si qui clerici, at infra subdiaconum for the minor orders. 159 See pp. 145–7. 160 C. Fraser, ed., Durham Quarter Sessions Rolls, 1471–1625, SS 199 (1987–8), pp. 20–1 and appendix p. 346 for the family; appendix with biographies of JPs, including many Rakets, with very full references; for his wife, Feodarium, p. 18. 161 See Fraser, Quarter Session Rolls, p. 346. 154

114


member of this large clerical group, a married clerk and a notary, members of whose family served the priory and the bishop from the late thirteenth century into the late fifteenth.162 The earliest recorded notary in Durham is Andrew de Tang, who was awarded a pension from the priory from 1292, which is very early for a notary to be found in a provincial post.163 He was a married clericus said to be of York diocese.164 He was receiving a pension from Durham up to 1315.165 Described in 1319 as lately taken by the Scots, he is not heard of again.166 His career did not imply residence in the city, though he was certainly there in 1302 when he drew up instruments for the priory against Bishop Bek.167 In 1296 or perhaps 1298–9 he was also employed by the crown and from October 1314 he was probably employed on a great deal of royal business, including copying documents and in diplomacy.168 As well as working for the priory he worked for Bishop Kellaw from 1311, called by the bishop ‘our clerk and notary’.169 Tang was married to Alice170 and they had at least three sons and perhaps a daughter. The known sons were Richard, who received his father’s royal pension at York between 1316 and 1318,171 Robert who received it once,172 and Adam, whom the dean of York asked Kellaw to ordain deacon in early 1315 since the archbishopric was vacant.173 One of Andrew’s grants from the king allowed him to present a nun to the Cluniac convent of Arthington.174 The nun Margaret de Tong, who caused considerable problems there, may be his daughter.175 There is no proof that Robert de Tang who, in compliance with a request from King Edward, received a pension of 40s a year from the

162

Langley, Register, II, nos. 485, 543; III, no. 589; North Country Wills, p. 19, for will of John Hovingham, which mentions his wife; Dobson, Durham Priory, pp. 42, 141; DCM, Reg. III, f. 96; Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, pp. 543, 645, 716. Langley, Register, IV, nos. 980, 1111, must refer to a son. 163 DCM, Misc. Ch. 4136g, 3456, printed by C.R Cheney, Notaries Public in England in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, Oxford 1972, p. 184. 164 E.L.G. Stones and G.S. Simpson, Edward I and the Throne of Scotland 1290–96. An Edition of the Record Sources of the Great Cause, 2 vols, Oxford 1978, I, pp. 45–6, 80–2 for his career. 165 Bursar’s accounts, 1302–3, 1306–7A. 166 Stones and Simpson, Edward I, p. 381. 167 DCM, Loc. VII: 85, Loc. XXVII: 27, Reg. III, ff. 86–91. but cf. Cheney, Notaries, p. 58, in 1305 in garderobe domini regis, and p. 171, in 1307 in Carlisle. 168 Stones and Simpson, Edward I, p. 82 for references. 169 W. Greenfield, The Register of Wiliam Greenfield Lord Archbishop of York, ed. W. Brown and A.H. Thompson, 5 vols, V, SS 153 (1938), nos. 2542, 2546; RPD, I, pp. 110, 111, 208, 247, 248, 474, 693. 170 Greenfield, Register, I, SS 145 (1931), no. 545. 171 Stones and Simpson, Edward I, p. 379. 172 Stones and Simpson, Edward I, p. 379, but he queries whether this is a mistake. 173 RPD, II, p. 767. 174 VCH, Yorkshire, ed. W. Page, III, London 1913, p. 187. 175 VCH, Yorkshire, III, p. 188. 115


priory in 1321 until they found him a benefice, was the son of Andrew, but it is highly probable.176 The pension was paid until 1333. Nothing further about the family in Durham is known until from 1397 until 1432 Thomas Tang alias Clerk is found holding part of a tenement in Elvet.177 In 1419–20 Thomas Tang of Elvet was paid for hay sold to the priory.178 From 1420 Thomas Tang, clerk, was receiving a pension.179 In 1425–6 he was receiving this as proctor in the consistory court.180 In 1433–4 he was being called ‘master’.181 Apart from this he can be seen acting as attorney for conveying property in Durham.182 His son John continued to act in the same way.183 John Tonge (an alternative spelling of the name, almost certainly) was alderman of the Trinity guild in St Oswald’s church in 1472.184 A similar family were the Berehalghs. They were not so distinguished as the Tangs or Elvets but can be found living in Durham and serving the priory and the bishop from 1397 until about 1458.185 Robert Berehalgh is the earliest I have found in Durham, attested as a warrantor in Crossgate court in 1393 and with a house in Durham in 1397.186 He was registrar of the Durham consistory court under Langley.187 He also worked for the priory.188 Robert was a married man with a wife called Agnes and probably two sons, John and William. William was finally ordained priest, though he may have intended to be a married clerk since there is a gap between his first tonsure in 1412 and ordination in 1426.189 The gap probably covered his education; in 1425 he was described as a bachelor of laws.190 In 1431 Langley made him sequestrator in Northumberland.191 The younger brother, John, is found as a notary from 1432.192 He acted for both the bishop and the prior, for whom he was registrar

176

DCM, Reg. II, ff. 77v–8. Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, p. 645. 178 Bursar’s accounts. 179 Bursar’s accounts. 180 Bursar’s accounts. 181 Bursar’s accounts. 182 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, pp. 652, 668, 695, 705. etc. 183 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, p. 668. 184 Bonney, Lordship, p. 96. 185 Dobson, Durham Priory, p. 141. 186 DCM, Loc. IV: 229, m. 5, for court; house: Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, p. 590; see also ibid., pp. 592, 602; DCM, Misc. Ch. 1701. 187 Dobson, Durham Priory, p. 141; Storey, Langley, p. 173; Langley, Register, I, pp. xvii–xviii; no. 63 for appointment; other references, II, no. 452, III, nos. 589, 635. DCM, Reg. III, f. 68v, for ref., in October 1419; Bursar’s accounts 1415–16A under minute expenses; Bursar’s accounts, 1422–3, under dona; DCM, Reg. III, f. 174, he is curie Dunelm’ scriba. 188 DCM, Reg. III, f. 96; Sacrist’s accounts 1419–20, under necessary expenses. 189 Langley, Register, II, no. 287; V, 1535, 1536, 1537. 190 Langley, Register, III, no. 635. 191 Langley, Register, IV, nos. 936, 941, 985, 987. 192 Langley, Register, IV, nos. 987, 1149. 177

116


in the archidiaconal court.193 In 1453 he is found as a proctor in the same court and he litigated there even against other court officials.194 In 1454–5 and again the next year, still registrar, he was farming Scaltok mill on the Wear from the priory, and between 1422 and 1456, first Robert and then John bought the tithes of a large close next to Houghall, one of the priory manors just outside the city.195 We do not know if John was married but other members of the family also occur. In 1438–9 Ademar Berehalgh received a small priory pension (13s 4d).196 He was ordained deacon, by letters dimissory, in Salisbury diocese, on 23 December 1441, with a title from Rewley abbey, Oxford, probably indicating that he was studying at Oxford.197 Walter and Aimeric Berehalgh, literati, are also mentioned as witnesses.198 There was still a Robert Berehalgh in 1498, when he appeared in the archidiaconal court of Durham as proctor for Richard Berehalgh of Berwick, his father, in a case brought by the prior about fish and boat tithes of the parish church of Berwick.199 The Durham family may have come originally from the northern parts of the bishopric. There is evidence of Berehalghs in Northumberland in 1419 when a Richard Berhalgh (or Barhalgh) bought the fish tithes of Twisell (Norham parish) from the priory.200 This Richard belonged to that parish and must have been a fairly substantial man. When he died in Norham parish in 1420 his grey mortuary horse was sold along with his mortuary armour for over £6 10 in total.201 In the 1430s, 1440s and early 1450s a Thomas Berhalgh regularly bought the tithes in Norham parish or its subchapel of Ellingham.202 He was said to be of Berwick.203 In 1457–8 and 1460–1 Elizabeth Berehalgh of Berwick bought the tithes of Tilmouth previously held by Thomas.204 In the 1470s Richard Berehalgh was similarly buying tithes in the same area.205 193 Dobson, Durham Priory, p. 141 with many references. See DCM, Misc. Ch. 2637, 2639. Registrar: Bursar’s accounts 1442–3, where he receives a pension; other refs: Bursar’s accounts 1440–1A, 1441–2, 1442–3, 1443–4A, under necessary expenses; 1446–7A, under expenses of the prior and condonations. 194 Capitula, ff. 121, 123v, 124. 195 Bursar’s accounts, 1454–5; for the mill, Bonney, Lordship, pp. 57–8. The information on tithes comes largely from Dr Ben Dodds; see also Scriptores Tres, pp. ccciii, cccv. 196 Bursar’s accounts, 1438–9A. 197 BRUO, I, p. 173, Wiltshire RO, Aiscough, Register, Salisbury, part II (unfoliated ordination lists). 198 Dobson, Durham Priory, p. 141. 199 Court Book of Prior’s Official, f. 127. 200 Information from Dr Ben Dodds, spelled Barhalgh. 201 J. Raine, The History and Antiquities of North Durham, London 1852, p. 279, from the Norham procurator’s accounts. 202 DCM, Norham procurator’s accounts. 203 Norham procurator’s accounts, 1449–50. 204 Raine, North Durham, p. 279, from the procurator’s accounts. 205 Norham procurator’s accounts 1471–, 1472–3, 1478–9.

117


Clearly some of the clergy identified more with the city than others, the lower clergy more than the upper. In the case of the former some of their attachments can be seen in their wills, which, however, are sadly very rare. Thomas Ryhale, a notary working for the priory throughout Langley’s pontificate, died in 1427.206 He was from Lincoln diocese, but he had a namesake who was a relative from Durham diocese, who held a prebend in Chesterle-Street and then the church of Kimblesworth by gift of the prior.207 In the elder Thomas’s will he wanted to be buried in the precincts of the monastery but recognised that he was a parishioner of St Mary in the North Bailey, which would receive his mortuary.208 The major personal benefactions of his will were his relative Thomas, chaplain, John Runcorn and one other. His executors were Thomas and then two Berehalghs, Robert and William, fellow notaries. John Artays also wished to be buried in the cathedral, ‘between the two columns standing directly between the door of the church and the door of the Galilee’,209 though the will makes it clear that he was a parishioner of the North Bailey church. He asked for his bowl with its cover and his mazer to be sold for masses to be said for himself, his parents and all the faithful departed there. He seems to have been a member of the guild of St Cuthbert, which was very much for employees of the priory; he left 2s to the light of St Cuthbert or his guild. There were yet more occupants of the clerical ladder, right at the bottom, including men called aquebavuli or holy water clerks, who after the Reformation would be known as parish clerks. Their job was to assist the parish clergy by making sure that the requirements for the liturgy were adequately set out. One catches brief glimpses of them in Durham. They were supposed to accompany the parochial clergy to the Pentecost week procession with the parish banners.210 They had to be present in the parish church every Sunday to collect the holy bread at the high altar and to cut off the piece to give to the parishioner whose family had to supply the bread next time.211 In the later middle ages, on the patronal feast of St Margaret the parishioners of St Margaret’s gave money and his dinner to the parish clerk of Oswald’s, as we have seen.212 This was a salaried post. In 1453 and 1493 parish clerks were found claiming their salary in the prior’s archidiaconal court.213 The fragmentary information that one can glean about the lives of the lesser priests suggests that none was wholly reliant for his living on the saying of mass,

206 Langley, Register, II, nos. 432, 442, 443, for the notary. Dobson is wrong to call him of a Durham family, Durham Priory, p. 141. 207 Langley, Register, II, no. 546; V, nos. 1310, 1457, 1518; VI, no. 1587. 208 DCM, 1.16.Spec.69, proved 14 June 1427. 209 DCM, 4.18.Spec.88. 210 See above, pp. 33–4. 211 See above, p. 13. 212 Depositions, p. 277, from DDR/EJ/CCD/1/4, ff. 3–4; p. 278, from ibid., f. 4. 213 Capitula, f. 114v; Court Book of Prior’s Official, f. 60v.

118


either as a chantry priest or as a parish chaplain employed from year to year. All seem to have had other sources of income, be it as procurators, trustees or even carriers of banners. Their true earnings are impossible to estimate but it seems certain that the procurator of St Margaret’s never relied wholly on the tiny stipend. Very few can be traced in further livings. These seem to have been the clergy closest to the laity, for good and ill, as witness their many appearances in the church court. Some, like Thomas Williamson, served in the same lowly post for many years. It must have been worthwhile staying in Durham city where there was always the possibility of picking up some employment. Similarly there were always a number of married notaries and their family histories suggest prosperity. The Elvets and the Rakets in the fifteenth century were the most successful of all; the Elvets founded a valuable chantry in St Oswald’s church and the Rakets served the priory and bishop with distinction for many years. But the Berehalghs, in their more modest way, seem to have been prosperous also. At all levels of society Durham did well out of its church! What did the laity think of the clergy? Anti-clericalism as an ingredient of the Reformation is a popular topos of modern history writing and there is some evidence in Durham of dislike of individual clerics, for instance Thomas Marmaduke, mentioned above. One can find in the church courts examples of ‘disobedience’ to church authority, such as failure to attend on Holydays and rude words said to priory or court officials, such as a man prosecuted for breaking the apparitor’s staff in 1453.214 The apparitor was the man who summoned those indicted. But evidence for concerted hostility towards the personnel of the church is rarely found; the most striking examples concern mortuaries and the case of the oaths which Hatfield tried to exact, which suggest not so much hostility towards clergy as a robust understanding by elite laity of their rights in church matters. What would perhaps have produced hostility was the frequency with which ecclesiastical obligations in the middle ages were enforced by church courts and legal restraint. The use of the word ‘penance’ to mean a penalty imposed by a church court as well as repentance, and to include the performance of an act enjoined in the confessional, cannot but have blurred the distinction between a change of heart and a penalty. But whether the citizens of Durham saw this is not clear. They certainly do not seem to have distinguished the secular from the church court very rigidly and presumably felt the same about ecclesiastical and secular penalties. In any case, the church courts continued this kind of imposition into the post-Reformation period and there is very little evidence in Durham to show sustained resentment on the part of the laity, and some evidence to show support for and appreciation of the clergy.

214

Capitula, f. 114. 119

7

Education There was a great deal of opportunity to receive a good Christian education in the city, both formally, for the few, and in all sorts of informal ways in the parishes. The main provider was the monastery and this must have been one of the ways in which the monks influenced the local clergy and laity. In the first place the priory had its grammar or almonry school, which educated both future monks and the sons of local gentry. By the fifteenth century this school probably recruited largely from the kin of monks.1 It dated to at least the mid-fourteenth century and educated boys, about thirty poor boys being maintained at the priory’s expense.2 An unknown further number would have been paying pupils.3 The priory had trouble financing this from time to time. In the fourteenth century the master briefly doubled the job with being incumbent of Mercator’s chantry in St Nicholas’s church.4 In the fifteenth century the master was also chaplain of the infirmary and of the Magdalen hospital, and then briefly the priory tried to combine the teaching under the priests of Langley’s chantry, only to revert to the arrangement of combining the infirmary and the Magdalen.5 The list of masters can be traced until the dissolution of the monastery. In the midst of a financial crisis in the fifteenth century the monks asked the prior to give the relatives of monks priority in offering places in this school, though admitting that the prior must sometimes listen to the pleas of magnates ‘whom we cannot offend’.6 The monks also wanted numbers to be kept down. There was also a small song school, probably as a specialist segment within the grammar school, recruited from the boys more apt to sing well, with a master teaching about eight boys after Wessington reorganised the school in 1430. The almonry boys already would have served mass regularly, but this type of school was probably organised to teach some of them to sing the more elaborate church music of the fifteenth century.7 The list of cantors can be

1

Dobson, Durham Priory, pp. 60–1. R. Bowers, ‘The almonry schools of the English monasteries, c1250–1540’, in Monasteries and Society in Medieval Britain, ed. B. Thompson, Harlaxton Medieval Studies, NS 6, Stamford 1999, pp. 177–222, for the whole question, esp. pp. 192, 197; Dobson, Durham Priory, p. 169. 3 Bowers, ‘Almonry schools’, p. 201. 4 Almoner’s accounts, 1368 onwards. 5 Almoner’s accounts, 1432–4. 6 DCM, Loc. XXVII: 15. m. 3; Bowers, ‘Almonry schools’, p. 197. 7 Bowers, ‘Almonry schools’, p. 209. 2

120

EDUCATION

drawn up from Wessington’s reorganisation onwards, teaching ‘playnesange, prikenot, faburdon and dischaunte’.8 Then Thomas Langley endowed his own school. Thomas Langley founded in the cathedral a chantry which was also a school. The details are abundantly clear in the Palatinate chancery rolls which also list the endowments. It was to be called the chantry of Blessed Mary and St Cuthbert and it was for the good estate and the souls of Henry V, Henry IV, John of Gaunt and Bishop Walter Skirlaw, for the souls of Langley’s father and mother William and Alice, and for all the faithful departed. It was to be a perpetual chantry at the altar of the Virgin in the cathedral until another suitable altar was found or a chapel of the Virgin next to the cathedral was specially built for the purpose (which never happened). There were to be two chaplains who were to be ‘one body’, able to receive revenues and lands. The setting up of this was entrusted to John Newton and John Thoralby who were empowered to give in mortmain a list of specified lands to the new chantry in a grant dated 13 June 1414.9 This was ratified by an Inspeximus of Bishop Neville in 1457. Each chaplain was to have £2 per year and Langley hoped that other faithful Christians would augment the sum. The chaplains were to say mass daily, the office of the day and of Our Lady, and the office of the dead according to the Sarum rite and the observances of the diocese. The chaplains were to hold no other cure or benefice. They had to be in priest’s orders. One of them was to keep a school of grammar and the other a song school in Durham for local boys, poor scholars being taught free. Those who could pay or whose friends could do so were to be charged a moderate fee. The chaplain who ran the song school was to sing the mass of the Virgin daily in the church with the scholars. The grammar teacher was only obliged to be present at the sung mass on Sundays and feasts. The chaplains were to live together in one house within the city, given by Langley or his executors, and they could only be absent with permission from the bishop or the vicar general and for not more than forty days a year. There were to be no women overnight in the house and the chaplains were not to frequent taverns or play secular games forbidden to clergy. The bishop had the oversight of their behaviour. Future chaplains had to have these rules expounded to them and have a copy to keep. When admitted they had to take an oath to obey the bishop and his officers. If ill they did not lose their stipend but a substitute was to be provided by them. The bishop (or the chapter if the see were vacant) appointed the priests. The rolls give the documents: the foundation document of 1414, with Henry V’s certificate of 8 July.10 In 1440 William Alnwick and Richard, earl of Salisbury, with Nicholas Hulme,

8 Dobson, Durham Priory, pp. 169–70; see also B. Crosby, ‘The Song School at Durham’, DUJ, NS 29/60 (1968), pp. 63–72. 9 NA, Dur 3/34, m. 11. 10 NA, Dur 3/45, mm. 4–5.

121


clerk, and Thomas Holden, squire, having obtained royal letters patent on 1 May, entrusted to the two chaplains of the chantry an annual revenue of £16 13s 4d from land in Lancashire (the manor of Keverdeley) to pray for the souls of Langley and his parents and to distribute 4d each to forty poor people, to be supervised by the prior.11 Clearly the money that Langley left did not run to the building of an entirely new chapel and so an agreement was reached with the priory in 1437 that the chantry would be housed in the Galilee chapel, at the principal altar next to Langley’s tomb. There were two new provisos to this agreement: that the chaplains did not interfere with the mass of Our Lady already being said there and, more importantly, that they should educate the thirty boys of the almonry school whom the prior would present.12 The priory was finding the almonry school difficult to staff at the time and so for a few years (from 1439 to 1442) there was no master.13 The master of Langley’s chantry at the time was John Artays who must have been doing both jobs.14 Then in 1442 at the visitation by Bishop Robert Neville there was a complaint that there was no chaplain for the infirmary (a job hitherto performed by the master of the almonry school). Though the priory explained that this was because of its poverty after the recent pestilence, it agreed to appoint a priest anew who would serve the infirmary and the Magdalen hospital as well as being master of the almonry school.15 After this the appointment of almonry schoolmasters begins again, linking the posts listed, and Langley’s school went on separately.16 The return to two separate schools did not happen without tensions. Robert Grene became one of the masters of Langley’s chantry in 1453 and remained until 1461. In the same year (1453) the almonry school replaced John Partrick, who had come into the position in 1442, with Nicholas Sayncler.17 Grene seems to have brought a complaint before the bishop that the monks had stolen some of his pupils from the grammar school.18 The priory’s defence was that a few pupils from the almonry school had been in Grene’s school, with their presence tolerated by the monks, though they had been warned that they must return to the almonry school. There were even a few scholars whom the previous master of the almonry school (Partrick) had given over to Langley’s school. This must mean that in 1442 some of the pupils stayed in Langley’s school.

11

DCM, Reg. IV, f. 72v; Deputy Keeper, 34th Report, p. 172; DCM, 4.2.Pont.15. DCM, 3.3.Pont.9. 13 Almoner’s accounts, 1439–40, 1440–1, 1441–2. 14 See p. 112. 15 J.J. Vickerstaffe, ‘Thomas Langley and the nature of public education in Durham City 1400–1450’, DUJ, NS 51 (82), 1990, pp. 1–7, esp. p. 2; DCM, 1.8.Pont.2, item 34, see also item 15. 16 Almoner’s accounts, under pensions. 17 Almoner’s accounts, 1453–4. 18 DCM, Loc. II: 7. 12

122

EDUCATION

The details of the appointments of masters of Langley’s school can be followed in the receiver general’s accounts of the bishopric up to the Reformation. Several of the holders were very well-educated men.19 The founding pair were Master William Broune and dominus John Clayton.20 Clayton is found acting as a proctor in 1419.21 Broune was probably a little over-qualified for this post. He was a bachelor of canon law and is found acting as a witness of the bishop’s legal business between 1413 and 1416.22 In 1417 he was one of the penitentiaries in the diocese.23 On 1 May 1416 he was made dean of Lanchester and duly, according to the statutes, resigned the chantry in favour of John Artays, priest of Durham, some details of whom appear elsewhere.24 It seems very probable that when Clayton ceased to be cantarist (at an unknown date) Artays continued to serve this chantry alone. In the three remaining accounts for 1424–5, 1427–8 and 1434–5 Artays alone was paid and the salary was £6 13s 4d. No other cantarist is given for these years.25 Probably, therefore, already the revenues of the chantry were not sufficient for what it was supposed to sustain and this no doubt explains the new endowments just after Langley’s death.26 In the accounts for 1453–4 Robert Sotheron, incumbent of the chantry since 1438–9, had been joined by Robert Grene, and the chantry’s endowments were listed as having been augmented by the present bishop and worth £8 from land in Ryton, Whickham, Whitburn, Boldon, Cassop and Herdwick by Stockton.27 Sotheron, a priest, is one of the ubiquitous chaplains found acting as trustees and conveyors of property between 1447 and 1478, when he must have died.28 He is listed in every receiver general’s account which survives for those years, except for 1470–1 when he was only paid for half the year and was perhaps in Rome.29 Writing to the king’s proctor in Rome in 1478 the prior mentions ‘Our good and trusty friend Sir Robert Sotheron of Durham, priest’, delivering money for the priory to Hugh Spalding, for many years warden of the English hospice of St Thomas, to provide a strong box to keep the priory

19

See p. 112. NA, Dur 3/45, m. 4. 21 Langley, Register, II, no. 526. 22 Langley, Register, I, no. 220; II, nos. 325, 326, 352. 23 Langley, Register, II, no. 483. 24 Langley, Register, II, nos. 410, 444; DUL, Archives and Special Collections, CCB B/1/1 (CC189809), Clayton and Artays paid. 25 CCB B/1/3, 4, 5 (CC189810, 90184, 188686, 189811). 26 See p. 121. 27 CCB B1/7 (CC189812). 28 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, pp. 13–14, 76, 251–2, 294, 298, 299–300, 392–3, 407; 3, pp. 595, 599, 605, 674, 717. 29 CCB B1/7, as note 27; CCB B1/8, 9, 10 (CC198812, 189814, 189815, 189816); CCB B2/11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24 (CC189821, 189822, 189823, 189818, 189819, 189820, 1898224, 189825, 189826, 189828, 189829, 189830, 189831). 20

123


records about Coldingham.30 Many of the later schoolmasters augmented their livings by acting for the priory, for instance in the consistory court. It is also notable how many in the very latest stages are known to have had degrees.31 Above school level the monastery provided Durham College, Oxford, which had places for eight seculars (after 1381) as well as eight monks a year.32 Durham had sent monks to Oxford before its college was founded but from 1286 it had a college which became Durham College in 1381.33 The seculars were to include four boys from the city and diocese of Durham, chosen by a panel of senior Durham monks. One can see their gentry relatives and patrons lobbying for boys.34 An example of a scholar is William Smyrke, son of Richard Smyrke of Durham, made a scholar of the college on 12 September 1486.35 This is probably the son of a fuller who lived in Crossgate.36 Poor boys could be admitted as servitors, who obtained their education whilst serving the scholars.37 These places also must have been coveted. There are letters in the priory collection asking for young men to be admitted to the Oxford college ‘as an almoner’, as Ralph Neville earl of Westmorland and Sir Thomas Neville asked for Thomas Marley in 1445,38 or from Ralph Babethorp asking for Thomas Person from Howdenshire ‘as a discipul and servitor’. Person was described as ‘competently instruct in grammar’ but with friends who could not pay, so ‘gret almouse it were to helpe him’.39 Thus, compared with many parts of the country, Durham provided good opportunities for bright boys to obtain schooling at least to the level of grammar school, with some able to reach university paid for by the priory. This must have meant in many cases that the pupils ended up as clerics, even if only in minor orders. If the size of the city population for this period is correctly estimated to be about 3000 adults, the proportion of educated men must have been high, though not all the schoolboys came from the city itself of course.

30 Scriptores Tres, p. ccclxvii. See also Guild of St Cuthbert, p. 163. For Spalding, see The English Hospice in Rome, Venerabile 21 (1961), pp. 266–7 (custos from 1477 to 1496, with a break in 1491). 31 See p. 112. 32 Dobson, Durham Priory, pp. 346–8. 33 J. Catto and R. Evans, The History of the University of Oxford, II, Late Medieval Oxford, Oxford 1992, p. 446; M. Foster, ‘Durham monks at Oxford c. 1286–1381: a house of study and its inmates’, Oxonensia, 55 (1990), pp. 99–114. 34 Dobson, Durham Priory, pp. 170–1; E.M. Halcrow, ‘The social position and influence of the priors of Durham, as illustrated by their correspondence’, Arch. Ael., 4th series, 33 (1955), pp. 70–86, esp. pp. 79–80. 35 DCM, Reg. Parv. IV, f. 1r/v. 36 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, pp. 129–30. 37 See J. Catto, The History of the University of Oxford, I, The Early Oxford Schools, Oxford 1984, pp. 169, 183. 38 DCM, Loc. XXV: 128, printed in Halcrow, ‘Social position’, pp. 79–80. 39 DCM, Loc. XXV: 168, printed in Halcrow, ‘Social position’, pp. 79–80.

124

EDUCATION

But these were only the more formal methods of schooling. The monks of Durham also preached regularly and the laity of the city were encouraged to come to their sermons. Various bishops granted indulgences for listening to the sermons which were preached in the Galilee chapel.40 One very famous Durham preacher commented on this: ‘I say what you have heard from myself and my confreres frequently before this time: how you ought to walk spiritually.’41 This introduces again the remarkable evidence for Durham preaching, some of which we have already encountered. The speaker here was Robert Ripon, whose collection of sermons is still preserved in the British Library as Harley Manuscript 4894. A partially erased inscription on its flyleaf shows that it was once in the common library of the monks of Durham. Although it appears in the printed catalogue under the date 1395 it actually entered the library later, since some of the sermons are of a later date and this entry is in a later hand, though the printed version does not indicate as much.42 Someone has grouped the sermons under the days they were delivered and added a useful index of themes, keyed in to the margins of the manuscript so that the book could be used as a quarry for future preachers. According to the Rites of Durham there was a sermon by a monk every Sunday and Holyday afternoon from one o’clock until three in the Galilee chapel, which had a pulpit in the west end under the great window.43 In addition the monks processed to St Mary le Bow church on St Mark’s day when a monk preached. On the three Rogation Days before Ascension Thursday, which the Rites calls Cross Days, the monks likewise processed to the churches of the city, going to St Oswald’s on the Monday, St Margaret’s on the Tuesday and St Nicholas’s on the Wednesday, when a sermon was preached at each by a monk to the parishioners and townspeople. Some of Ripon’s sermons undoubtedly come from these occasions. It has been pointed out that the Ripon sermons show how carefully the preacher instructed the laity in the basics of the faith which they were expected to know.44 It is also clear that Ripon

40 RPD, I, p. 250, for 1312; there is a list of all the existing, and known to have existed, indulgences, in the search room at 5, The College. They range between 1277 and 1410. 41 BL, Harley MS 4894, f. 70, for second Sunday of Lent, dico ego quod a me et confratribus meis accepetis frequenter ante hec tempora quomodo vos oporteret spiritualiter ambulare. 42 Personal communication by Mr Alan Piper. Catalogi veteres librorum ecclesiae Dunelm, ed. B. Botfield, SS 8 (1841), p. 76. The manuscript also bears the name of Sir Thomas Tempest, showing that it was one of the former monastic library books which came into the possession of the Tempests of Stella, probably from Stephen Marley, one of the last monks. See A.I. Doyle, ‘The library of Sir Thomas Tempest: its origins and dispersal’, Studies in Seventeenth Century Literature, History and Bibliography, ed. G.A.M. Jannsens and F.G.A.M. Aarts, Amsterdam 1984, pp. 83–93; see further in Wenzel, Latin Sermon Collections, ch. 10. 43 Rites, pp. 39, 46. 44 P.J. Horner, ‘The Benedictines and preaching the pastoralia in late medieval England: a preliminary enquiry’, Medieval Monastic Preaching, ed. C. Muessig, Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History, 10, Leiden 1998, pp. 279–92, esp. 283–90 for Ripon.

125


preached regularly at synods, which may have been not the diocesan synods but the gatherings of clergy from the appropriated churches which the priory organised twice a year.45 It is clear from at least one of the synod sermons that it was delivered in Durham.46 Many of these synod sermons are concerned with the education of the clergy. Ripon was extremely well-qualified to perform these tasks and in this was typical of his type among the late-medieval senior monks of Durham.47 After entering the monastery about 1368 he had been sent to Durham College where there is evidence for his residence between 1381 and 1387. He had obtained his doctorate in theology some time during 1393/4 and then had a typical monastic career as an obedientiary in various offices. In addition, however, on several occasions he had been one of the prior’s representatives on archidiaconal visitation tours of the Northumberland and Durham churches appropriated to the priory, where his task was usually to preach the sermon at each parish visited. These tours began in 1382 and can be traced at intervals until ten years later.48 We do not have the sermons from his visitation tours but we have the themes. Furthermore he was commissary or keeper of spirituality of the see of Durham whilst the sees of York and Durham were vacant in 1406 and was one of Langley’s penitentiaries from 1412. He commented in his sermons on his experience in the confessional.49 All together his pastoral experience must have been very extensive, though not untypical for a Durham monk of his education and length of service. The Ripon sermons show an abiding interest in clergy education. There are eight sermons for synods in the collection and some others which seem to have been delivered to a primarily clerical audience.50 There are also some which seem to have been delivered to a mixed lay and clerical audience. The synodal sermons continuously emphasised the need for clergy to be educated. In several sermons Ripon insisted that anyone with cure of souls must be able to preach and for this he emphasised that they must have knowledge of scripture and must read. In three sermons he quoted the thirteenth-century bishop Robert Grosseteste’s dictum 90 on ‘the key of knowledge’, which lists the duties of priests. Durham owned a manuscript of Grosseteste’s Sayings or Dicta, with a useful index, by alphabet and topic, with plenty of evidence of use.51 Ripon

45

See p. 71. Quoted Wenzel, Latin Sermon Collections, p. 72. 47 I owe most of the evidence about Ripon’s career to personal communications from Mr Alan Piper. 48 DCM, Misc. Ch. 5643; Bursar’s accounts, 1388–9, 1389–90; Loc. XII: 17; 1.1.Archid.Northumb.12. 49 Harley 4894, f. 42: Egomet expertus sum in auditu confessionum (and so he knows that demons attack people). 50 Harley 4894, ff. 1–4 (Advent), 6v–9 (Sunday in Epiphany octave), 38–41v (I Lent). 51 Harley 3858. The tabula is ff. 155–161v; dicta are 161v–258. Quotations from it are, for example, Harley 4894, ff. 2–5, 208, 214. 46

126

EDUCATION

also quoted dictum 10 on curates and dictum 35 on the need for curates to preach.52 Clearly Ripon found that Grossesteste’s pastoral aims were also his.53 Basic to these was the need for good, holy men who gave example to the laity.54 Grosseteste’s views on the required moral character for both bishops and priests were summarised (because they were very long) from his sermon Beatus Paulus.55 But holiness was not enough; clergy needed to be educated. Ripon would have examined acolytes very carefully before they were tonsured, saying ‘If this were done strictly there would not be so many ignorant priests in the church.’56 He stressed that superior prelates needed higher learning to be able to solve difficult questions and that members of religious orders and priests with no cure need only be learned enough to perform the sacraments. Those with cure, however, must know the scriptures and preach from them.57 There was a level of learning suitable to each level of the church hierarchy and he thought that: ‘If every ecclesiastic had the learning suitable for his level there would not be so many errors in the church as there are flourishing these days.’58 Ripon was clear that it was wicked of curates not to punish unbelievers and heretics, saying that the example of Christ showed this. In John 8:15, 24, ‘[Christ] reproved those who did not believe as attackers of truth and orthodox faith, that is heretics and schismatics and modern Lollards.’59 It is important to notice here that Ripon thought clergy learning was more important than lay heresy. He clearly did not envisage a learned laity, though his Durham audience must surely have included literate laymen. The Berehalghs, Elvets, Rakets and Tangs were clerkly families living in St Oswald’s parish, and St Nicholas’s parish probably produced similar people. In several of the sermons Ripon rules out the investigation of some questions by lay people. In the fourth sermon of the collection, on the text ‘Lest you receive the grace of God in vain’ (2 Cor. 6:1), preaching almost certainly to a university audience, he discussed predestination and envisaged a lay person asking why God allowed this, to which the reply was: ‘This is a vain question because it asks the cause of the divine will.’ In an Easter sermon he omitted an explanation of the pains of hell with authorities and reasons and told a story instead ‘for the sake of the simple’.60 Discussing giving he says that Bede proves a point ‘by a subtle process which is too difficult for lay people and therefore I omit it’.61

52

Harley 4894, f. 200v for 10; ff. 6v, 200v, 205v on the need for them to preach. R.W. Southern, Robert Grossesteste. The Growth of an English Mind in Medieval Europe, Oxford 1986, esp. pp. 265–70. 54 Harley 4894, f. 206. 55 Harley 4894, f. 211; Thomson, Writings of Grosseteste, p. 164, no. 13 for this. 56 Harley 4894, f. 210. 57 Harley 4894, f. 197. 58 Harley 4894, f. 197. 59 Harley 4894, f. 216. 60 Harley 4894, f. 135v. 61 Harley 4894, f. 16v. 53

127


In a sermon for Lent Ripon quoted Nicholas Gorran, the famous Dominican writer of model sermons and aids to preaching,62 exhorting all those with families to instruct their children and servants in the articles of faith (that is, the Apostles’ creed), the ten commandments, the seven deadly sins and the fourteen works of mercy (seven spiritual and seven corporal). These matters, however, he stressed, were not for public preaching by lay people. Public preaching was solely for clerics.63 In one Lent sermon he goes through these basics so that people might understand them.64 He was particularly anxious that lay people and particularly the relatives and friends of infants should make sure that baptism was speedily performed and that they should learn how to baptise infants in case of need.65 In a Rogation Day sermon he stressed that different prayers were suitable for lay and clergy. If you are a lay person the most suitable prayer for you is your Lord’s Prayer, your angelic salutation [the Hail Mary] and your creed, for these prayers are ordained by Christ and the church and therefore are more meritorious for you than other special prayers.66

The sermons where the laity were addressed specifically covered the basics of a Christian life as envisaged by Ripon, including listing sins suited to their station in life. In Advent he stressed penance (penitentiam agite, quoting Matthew 3:2, seen both as doing penance by fasting etc. and by repenting). In Lent he explained the origins of the forty-day fast, and discussed in several sermons the value of fasting.67 He urged confession and explained the meaning of contrition and satisfaction for sin. Elsewhere he discussed how to confess, with a list of sins to consider and thoughts about a firm purpose of amendment.68 He urged his hearers to stick to their good intentions after their Easter confession.69 Ripon’s sermons are the largest collection that remains from Durham but there are a few other individual sermons to show that he was not alone – for example, the sermon on death mentioned elsewhere, which was certainly for a mixed lay and clerical congregation.70 62

T. Kaeppeli, Scriptores Ordinis Predicatorum Medii Aevi, 4 vols, Rome 1970–93, III, pp. 165–8. 63 Harley 4894, ff. 53v–4. 64 Harley 4894, ff. 71v–4. 65 Harley 4894, ff. 42, 46v. 66 Harley 4894, f. 145. 67 Harley 4894, ff. 20v–1, and another explanation at ff. 24, 30. For further references, f. 117v, for instance on reason for fasting. 68 Harley 4894, ff. 24–5v; 85–5v; ff. 97v, 106 also. 69 Harley 4894, ff. 133v–8v, 178. 70 MS Harley 48, ff. 260–2, an English sermon by the monk William Todde, dated 1528 and aimed at lay and clergy, men and women. For the preacher, see Emden, BRUO, 1501–40, p. 570. 128

EDUCATION

The people of Durham had other opportunities for learning about doctrine and morality from the official church. There were numerous public performances of penance for the more public and scandalous sins both of clergy and laity. I have noted how publicly a priest might have to do penance for incontinence.71 Lay people guilty of fornication might have to precede the procession into High Mass, in their shift or shirt and carrying a candle, or they might be publicly whipped before the procession and/or round the marketplace, as was the punishment of Hugh Atkinson of St Oswald’s parish in October 1534, who had not only called Agnes Horn a whore but justified it because he had committed adultery with her.72 Those who defamed others might find that they had to retract their lies publicly and ask for forgiveness at a church service, as did John Watson in 1535 who seems to have shared with his wife the guilt of calling another woman a thief. He had to go to the parish church on the next Sunday and at the time of the aspersions (when the congregation was sprinkled with holy water) he was to ask pardon of the lady and then hold a candle until the offertory of the mass, when he was to hand the candle to the priest, ‘as a penitent, in a penitential manner’.73 The Durham evidence does not suggest that public penance was becoming notably more ‘spiritual’ in the city in the early sixteenth century. Both the type of penance which involved a public whipping, sometimes in the market-place but more often round the parish church or chapel, and that which involved some less ‘physical’ humiliation, such as holding a candle as described above, continued to be used until our records run out before the Reformation.74 Deviant beliefs and superstitions were denounced in sermons. Ripon considered sorcery, temptation by the devil, and trust in God, in several different contexts. In a Lent sermon aimed at the laity he pointed out that people might not hear what preachers were saying because the words became like incantations.75 He then took the opportunity to discuss why incantations and sorcery were forbidden to both clergy and laity. Most of the contents of this were taken directly, without acknowledgement, from John Bromyard’s Summa Predicantium, the Dominican dictionary for preachers written between 1330 and 1348, under its heading Servire.76 This material was repeated in a

71

See p. 93. DDR/EJ/CCA/1/1, f. 65. There are numerous other examples. 73 See DDR/EJ/CCA/1/1, f. 75v. 74 D. Postles, ‘Penance and the market place: a Reformation dialogue with the medieval church (c1200–c1600)’, JEH, 54(3) (2003), pp. 441–68, esp. pp. 441–9. 75 Harley 4894, ff. 17–22. 76 For Bromyard, Kaeppeli, Scriptores, II, p. 392, item 2236, and IV, p. 146; G.K. Owst, ‘Sortilegium in English homiletic literature of the fourteenth century’, in Studies Presented to Sir Hilary Jenkinson, ed. J. Conway Davies, London 1957, pp. 272–303, esp. pp. 297–301 for Ripon. 72

129


1410 sermon discussing who was a servant of God.77 Ripon quoted the canon Admoneant from Gratian’s Decretum, which was an excerpt from Augustine, saying that people were to be told that the magic arts and enchantments did not heal men or animals; clergy who used them were to be unfrocked and lay people excommunicated.78 He then quoted the next canon, Non observetis, again from Augustine, forbidding the observance of special propitious days, together with a compendious prohibition of many sorts of magic. Persons who practised these things were to be denounced as pagan and apostate. In another Lent sermon for the laity79 he discussed sortilegium, which is most nearly translated as sorcery, and other sins which involved lack of trust in God. Here almost the whole section came from Bromyard, under Somnia.80 Ripon was always striving to explain to clergy and laity the right Christian use of blessings. In another Lent sermon probably intended for a mixed clergy and lay audience he reminded his audience that they would know that lately someone in the suburbs had committed suicide at the suggestion of the devil.81 He urged the use of exorcism and conditional baptism for those possibly possessed by the devil, probably in case they had not been properly baptised, when they would have renounced Satan.82 He also stressed that there were right and wrong ways to use blessings. Ex officio blessings were for the clergy only but any lay person could use the kind of blessing which was used to expel evil spirits from a house in the evening, or could make the sign of the cross, which was very powerful.83 Deviant belief in, or use of, these things might lead to public humiliation. A fortune teller called Katherine Murra, who may have been a former Jew since she had apparently not been baptised, accepted baptism in St Nicholas’s church in April 1503, only to continue her fortune telling a few days later.84 For this she was forced to read aloud a recantation in Durham market-place on 6 May. The whole episode suggests that she had been listened to eagerly by the ordinary citizens. In the mid-fifteenth century those who had accused others of witchcraft but turned out to be liars likewise might have public penances to perform. There is as yet no comprehensive study of medieval witch belief in England but the kinds of accusations made in Durham reveal something of what was then believed to be possible. On 1 February 1436 Margaret Lyndyssay was accused in the prior’s archidiaconal court as an enchantress on the grounds that she,

77 Harley 4894, ff. 52v–6. The date is established from the statement (f. 55) that the Schism has lasted thirty-two years (1378 + 32 = 1410). 78 Gratian, C 26. q 7 c 15. 79 Harley 4894, ff. 31–5. 80 Harley 4894, f. 30. 81 Harley 4894, ff. 46–50, esp. ff. 46v–7v; quoted in full in Wenzel, Latin Sermon Collections, p. 72. 82 Harley 4894, f. 42. 83 Harley 4894, ff. 46v–7v. 84 DCM, Reg. Parv. IV, f. 140r/v.

130

EDUCATION

with another woman, had used a stake to bind the penises (membra virilia) of several men so that they could not have intercourse.85 She purged herself of the defamation with the oaths of neighbours and the men were ordered not to repeat it. Mariot de Belitam and Isabelle Broune were accused in 1446 of saying to unmarried women that they could get them (by sorcery) the men they wanted.86 These kinds of accusations were the small change of local life in the middle ages and later. There is no direct evidence that anyone practised sorcery in the city but clearly some of its citizens believed that magic practices were going on, and the line between the acceptable and the forbidden might be very thin. In March 1452 Alice Davison was accused of sorcery. She denied it but said that she had twice practised medicine with lead, a comb and iron. The court merely ordered her to desist.87 Everything that one can learn about Durham city in the later middle ages, therefore, suggests that parishioners had ample opportunity to learn the outlines of Christianity and its duties for their state in life. The city was probably somewhat old-fashioned if its continued use of very public and humiliating penances is anything to go by. The evidence of its law-courts, however, suggests that the moral values which the monks were putting over in their sermons in the early fifteenth century were also shared by the respectable citizens. It is in the area of education and preaching, in fact, that the spiritual influence of the priory on the town can be most readily seen. Between them the bishop and the monks were the most important providers of education at a time when the laity were demanding more and more of this benefit.

85 86 87

Capitula, f. 4. Capitula, f. 62. Capitula, f. 102. 131

8

Chantries Once the parishes were in place in Durham city and the arguments about them were settled, from about 1200 onwards, the merchants and clergy of the city below the highest ranks devoted themselves to their parish and very soon began to found chantries. There is no evidence that any below the upper ranks of society ever looked to the monks for specific prayers for individuals, or if they did, the requests were not recorded.1 The monastery certainly prayed for its founders and benefactors and made provision for some to have confraternity and even, in very special cases, burial and a chantry in the cathedral, but most of those involved with these monastic endowments were not Durham city residents. Ordinary citizens seem always to have looked to their parishes for prayers after their deaths, probably from the bede (bidding prayer) rolls at the mass, where deceased benefactors would have been prayed for (we know nothing about this in Durham),2 and sometimes from specific provision for masses, particularly by founding chantries and other forms of special prayer for their souls. The origin and development of chantries have roused great interest, and from Durham’s history much can be gathered, because for some of the chantries there is the rare phenomenon of a continuous history from foundation to dissolution.3 As with parishes, so with chantries: Durham’s history may give some further insight into why chantries began to be founded. Chantries were foundations to provide masses to be said, for a particular period or for ever, for the souls of specified persons. Attempts have been made to classify them into types.4 The first was the simple chantry where a benefactor gave a legacy to a corporation or a parish to provide a priest to say the mass, with the corporation or the parish to pay the priest out of the funds provided, which became the property of the corporation, not of the chantry priest. The second type was the chantry proper, where the founder provided a benefice, with an endowment for the priest and with patronage like any other. The third type was the ‘service’ or perpetuity, where a stipend was created without a

1

For this, see especially L. Rollason, ‘The late medieval non-monastic entries in the Durham Liber Vitae’, in D. Rollason et al., eds, The Durham Liber Vitae and its Context, Woodbridge 2004, pp. 127–37. 2 Duffy, Stripping, pp.139–41. 3 H. Colvin, ‘The origins of chantries’, Journal of Medieval History, 26/2 (2000), pp. 163–73, most recently. The classic work on Britain is K.L. Wood-Legh, Perpetual Chantries in Britain, Cambridge 1965. 4 Wood-Legh, Chantries, ch. 2, passim. 132

CHANTRIES

benefice, whereby the funds were managed by trustees, on condition that they paid a priest. In fact the Durham chantries fit uneasily into these patterns; they are more interestingly to be classified according to founders and patrons, partly because patronage appears to correspond to the founders’ perceptions of the competing lordships of the city. Chantry foundation assumes belief in purgatory, but this belief is very old in Christianity and what needs to be explained is why chantries specifically seem to have proliferated only from about 1200. Some writers have stressed the development by then of a belief in purgatory as a sort of lesser hell, a place with fires, but this confuses fully-fledged doctrine with general belief, which is much older.5 I would hesitatingly suggest that in Durham city their foundation depended, after the foundation of the priory, first on establishing the parish system and its dependent chapels, and after that various hospitals, which are described later. Foundations such as these seem to have absorbed the charitable instincts and the desire for prayers of the earliest Norman magnates, both lay and ecclesiastical. Only when these foundations were in place did chantries begin to be founded, and this was in the thirteenth century. The reason may also be that this period coincided with a much more hopeful theology of salvation, which by the later twelfth century had, for example, decided that ‘second penance’ was certainly possible, leading in the end to universal oral confession of sin to one’s parish priest, enjoined on all in 1215.6 Though this is often seen as a disciplinary measure, it must also have emphasised to all Christians that as well as true repentance they needed penance and prayers. That was also part of the doctrine of purgatory. The previous penances, such as requiring so many days’ fasting, mostly undertaken only by monks and ascetics, would now be routinely enjoined on lay people as disciplinary acts. It was emphasised that if they did not do these things on earth they would have to undergo the equivalent in suffering later in purgatory. It appears that before about 1100 many clerics would have believed that the average non-monk had little chance of being saved, especially as he seldom confessed his sins and never ‘did penance’.7 The twelfth-century theologians, however, developed much more hopeful ways of looking at the fate of the ordinary Christian and must have passed this on to lay people. Indulgences were developed precisely to express this more hopeful outlook. A chantry was another hopeful institution. Chantries stressed not only the efficacy of prayer for dead sinners but also the communion of saints, so that all the saved were envisaged as praying for and supporting those still alive. This is not how

5

The classic statement is J. Le Goff, La naissance du Purgatoire, Paris 1981, using here the English edition The Birth of Purgatory, London 1984, which however shows that belief in a state where the dead could be prayed for was much earlier than discussions of purgatory. 6 Le Goff talks of this development, Birth, pp. 213–18. 7 R.W. Southern, St Anselm and His Biographer: A Study of Monastic Life and Thought, 1059–c.1130, Cambridge 1963, pp. 101, 109–10. 133


chantries have usually been viewed, of course. They have often been seen as ‘death-obsessed’. Yet they need not have been so. The earliest Durham chantry was founded in the oldest parish, St Oswald’s, not long after the parish’s situation had been settled as an appropriated church belonging to the monks. The chantry was founded about 1208, early by any standard. The founder was the parish priest. The foundation document shows that R (perhaps Ralph), vicar of St Oswald’s, founded it for the souls of Philip of Poitou, late bishop of Durham (died 1208), for the prior and convent and for the souls of the founder’s father and mother.8 In the enquiry made in February 1546 the parishioners seem to have reported that the founder was Ralph Watson but they had no deed of foundation for the chantry.9 It was at the altar of St Mary in St Oswald’s church. Among the properties were two bovates in the vill of Mainsforth which the founder’s father, Drogo of Middleham, and Thomas his heir had given the founder on his ordination as deacon. This places the vicar as the son of a man who witnessed a few of Puiset’s charters between 1180 and 119510 and one under Philip.11 Drogo had been granted the vill of Mainsforth under Puiset.12 The duties of the chantry chaplain were spelled out clearly. He was to say the mass of the Virgin Mary on one day and a mass for the souls to be remembered on another, with placebo and dirige (the office for the dead) every day.13 He was to say only one mass daily and to accept no triennials (three years of masses for souls) or any other public masses. After the founder’s death the prior and convent were to provide the chaplain. The first chaplain was to be William de Fysshb[urn]. The intention thus was to provide for one chaplain who was to say mass for the founder and his intentions; no provision was made for others to be associated with the institution. The early date means that there was no need to ask for royal, nor apparently episcopal, permission, though the offering of prayers for the late bishop may imply that permission had already been given. It is not clear how this foundation should be rated in the standard classification of chantries but the priest was certainly part of the complement of chaplains of St Oswald’s, with no stipend specified at this early date. The foundation says that the chaplain owed fidelity to the prior within St Oswald’s church.14 Almost as early was the chantry of St Mary in St Margaret’s chapel. The origin was about 1218, when Rannulph, chaplain of St Margaret’s church (and to be distinguished from the vicar of St Oswald’s), granted to St Mary’s altar

8

BL, MS, Cotton, Vitell. A IX, f. 5; DCM, 4.16.Spec.24, 27. AN, E 101/18 m.1 no. 52. For the enquiry see A. Kreider, English Chantries: The Road to Dissolution, Cambridge, Mass., and London 1979, p. 179; Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, p. 571, also calls him Ralph. 10 EEA, 24, pp. 65, 87. 11 EEA, 25, p. 228. 12 EEA, 24, appendix V, no. 63. 13 DCM, 4.16.Spec.24; for terms see Duffy, Stripping, p. 210. 14 DCM, 4.16.Spec.24. 9

134

CHANTRIES

in St Margaret’s chapel, land and houses, including one in South Street, where the founder was to provide a house for the poor.15 The prior and convent appointed and could remove the chaplain of the chantry whose duty was to celebrate masses for the souls of the prior and convent, and of Rannulph, his parents and benefactors, and all the faithful departed, every day except Saturday, Sunday and double feasts, with the psalms for the dead daily, and he was to perform no other chantry duties which might interfere with these. The chaplain of St Mary’s chantry was also the keeper of the domus pauperum, the house for the poor discussed elsewhere.16 This domus pauperum and the chantry which went with it existed until the Dissolution. These two chantries, the earliest in the city, were entirely controlled by the priory which owned the two churches in question. Each of these had only a single founder, as far as we can tell. St Margaret’s chaplain certainly was always a salaried employee of the priory, which makes this a chantry of the first type described above, though it is not a clear example of this since the charity was part of it and was the responsibility of the incumbent, funded apparently separately from the priest. In the early fourteenth century we have acknowledgement from the incumbent that he ‘celebrates at the altar’ for a yearly fee.17 Later at least one of these chaplains seems to have contested the right of the prior or sub-prior to remove him, so that he must have been claiming that the chantry was a full benefice, though the claimant said that he had not obtained a copy of the full ordinacio of his chantry.18 These were not the only early examples of chantries in the city. Chantries could be shared by several people. The most telling example is the earliest on Elvet Bridge: the chapel of St Andrew. The bridge had been built by Bishop Puiset.19 The chapel must have been founded before 1230 because a document about its foundation appears in the original part of the priory’s Cartuarium Vetus, which was compiled by then.20 The prior R. mentioned in the foundation document must therefore be Ralph Kerneth (1218–34), and not Richard Claxton as the priory seems to have thought later and whose first name was inserted in later copies.21 If the document in Cartuarium Vetus is the oldest account of the foundation, William son of Absolon erected a chapel on the new bridge (Elvet) in honour of St Andrew and endowed it with lands and rents to support one chaplain to celebrate mass daily for his soul, the souls of his parents and that of Arnold, the former prior of Coldingham whom he calls

15 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, pp. 56, 217, from DCM, Reg. III, ff. 133v–4, exemplification. 16 See p. 175. 17 DCM, Misc. Ch. 6768. 18 DCM, Misc. Ch. 6070. 19 Bonney, Lordship, p. 28; Scriptores Tres, p. 12. 20 A.J. Piper, ‘Thirteenth century cartularies’, 1975 typescript in the search room at 5, The College. 21 DCM, Loc. X: 22.

135


his lord, and for the prior and convent of Durham.22 There were no witnesses recorded in the cartulary but the names in the later versions agree with a date of the early thirteenth century. Arnold ceased to be prior of Coldingham in about 1212, so the date of foundation must be 1212×30.23 This foundation of a chantry with its own chapel, as opposed to one founded at an already existing altar, is a very early example of its kind. The earliest in England have been thought to date to the second half of the century.24 There were, however, three later versions of the foundation document which incorporate further transactions, some of which can be traced in the priory records. These throw considerable light on the way in which the chantry gained endowments and the priory developed its archives. Miscellaneous Charter 2307 in the priory archives, dating from about 1300, is a version of the Cartuarium Vetus document but includes a clause about land with buildings which William of Coldingham bought from Roger of London (referred to as ‘my brother’), south of the bridge between the land of Luke de Cestre and that of Absolon, father of William, which William of Redding was holding for 13s 4d, half payable at Rogationtide and half at Martinmas. Charter 2307 also says that a pound of pepper for one property, owed to John Laxinton in the Cartuarium version, was owed to Walter Albus. These statements probably describe changes in, and additions to, the endowments after the original charter was made. In the priory archives there are two charters which refer to these dealings. The first is a document by which William son of Roger of London sells to William of Coldingham (here called ‘my brother’) the land he had in Elvet between the land of Luke de Cestre and the land of the late Aspolon (sic) father of William of Coldingham, for 12 marks in his great necessity.25 The seals for this deal belonged to William son of Herbert, William of Ripon and William Cnoit, who are also witnesses to Miscellaneous Charter 2307. This suggests that Miscellaneous Charter 2307 added this transaction into a document copied from Cartuarium Vetus but did it rather badly. The third document is a transaction in Elvet borough court by which for half a mark of gold Adhoc, widow of Walter Albus, baker, quitclaimed to William of Coldingham all rights in the messuage which Albus sold to William.26 We may take it, therefore, that Walter Albus replaced John de Laxinton as the recipient of the pound of pepper and that his widow was acknowledging the giving up of this rent. In a version which is later still there is no mention of either Laxinton or Albus, so this must post-date the previous document.27 In this document also the payment dates are Pentecost and Martinmas, representing probably a change in accounting. 22 DCM, Cart. Vetus, ff. 88–9 and Misc. Ch. 2307; Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, p. 415; 3, p. 709; copies in Vitel. A IX, f. 3v; DCM, Cart. IV, f. 214v. 23 Information from Alan Piper. 24 Colvin, ‘Origins of chantries’, p. 2. 25 DCM, Misc. Ch. 2310. 26 DCM, Misc. Ch. 2306. 27 DCM, 2.11.Spec.28.

136

CHANTRIES

It seems clear, therefore, that William son of Absolon of Coldingham built the chapel and endowed it but that his endowments were not completed at once and were added to over the years. There is no evidence about William’s trade, though he appears from the various deeds to have rented ovens. Other early grants to this chapel also say they are to sustain a chaplain to celebrate for the souls of named donors and their parents, so that it appears that others apart from William associated themselves with this chantry.28 The appointment to this chantry was by the prior and convent, though there is nothing in the foundation deeds to say this. The chapel appears to have been treated as a chapel of St Oswald’s parish from an early date. At the other end of Elvet Bridge there was another chantry, in St Nicholas’s parish, dedicated to St James and founded in the late thirteenth century by a Durham butcher, Thomas son of Lewyn, with his wife Emma and son William, and endowed with land and rents worth £2 10s per year.29 Thomas himself built the chapel which went with the chantry. Thomas endowed the benefice for one chaplain who was to say mass daily for the souls of the faithful except on double feasts, Sundays and feasts of Our Lady. He was to celebrate the anniversaries of the founders and say daily placebo and dirige for them. He was not to take on other prayers for other souls. He would be attached to the parish of St Nicholas, where he would attend the canonical hours and obey the rector there. One might therefore have supposed that the bishop or the parish would have been given the patronage of this chantry but Thomas decided otherwise. The prior would have the appointment after the death of Thomas and could remove incumbents who proved unsuitable. One of the witnesses here was Geoffrey de Elme, rector of St Nicholas’s church, who occurs in 1260 and 1273.30 Thomas had allowed for anyone wishing to augment the endowment to be added to the prayers and there were some further endowments.31 There is no evidence of consultation with the bishop about this foundation and the later history of the benefice suggests that it was contentious. By 1312 at latest the bishop was intervening. St James on Elvet Bridge was confirmed in 1312 by Bishop Richard Kellaw, with the proviso, however, that he reserved to himself the right to remove unsuitable chaplains, thus removing this right from the priory.32 On 6 August 1312 Richard of St Giles appeared as chaplain in a mandate from the bishop forbidding his official to molest this man who is said to be of good life and properly appointed by the prior and

28

DCM, Misc. Ch. 2439, Walter Brodee; 2435, John Brouncostine; 2304, Tunnock de Ponte, widow of Gilbert, mercer. 29 Bonney, Lordship, p. 176; DCM, 2.11.Spec.27a, b; 31; Cart. II, ff. 276v–8; Cart. IV, ff. 213v–14, with quitclaim ff. 215–16; Cart. II, ff. 276v–8. 30 Galfridus, FD, p. 58, under Helme, but without source; RPD, 2, p. 1176 (1312, confirmation); Feodarium, p. 184. 31 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, pp. 289, 336. 32 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, pp. 334, 416; RPD, 2, pp. 1173–6; DCM, 2.11.Spec.49. 137


convent who have the right.33 Probably the bishop had just asserted his right to remove unsuitable chaplains from St James and one of his officials had just exerted this in an over-zealous way. The Elvet Bridge chantries were full benefices; the chaplain of St Andrew called himself a ‘perpetual chaplain’ in the mid-fourteenth century,34 but not all founders favoured these. In 1271 Reginald Mercator (Merchant) granted the almoner of the priory land and rents to endow a chantry at the altar of St Mary in the church of St Nicholas.35 This endowment, well attested througout until the Dissolution, included rent from Mercator’s large stone house in the market-place which after the death of his wife, Billa, was let to the guild of St Nicholas in the church for £1 a year.36 The terms of the chantry were that the almoner maintained from the endowment a chaplain and an acolyte to celebrate daily for the founder and Billa and all the faithful departed, chosen with the consent of the rector of the church and four worthy men of the parish. This was known as the almoner’s chantry (or Mercator’s) and was somewhat like the first type described in the classic account.37 Not all founders in thirteenth-century Durham, however, vested their foundation in the priory. In February 1299 Hugh de Querrington, a burgess of Durham, granted his son and heir Gilbert land and rents to maintain a chantry chaplain at St Mary’s altar in St Nicholas’s church to celebrate for his soul and that of his late wife Mariota, for his heirs and all the faithful departed. The chaplain was to be chosen by four faithful men of the parish and the rector and he could be removed by them if reprehensible.38 This chantry was different from Mercator’s and may have been at an altar of Our Lady under a different title; certainly there were two chantries of the Virgin in this church and both lasted until the Reformation. It is nearer to the third type of chantry in the classic account, with a group of trustees to maintain it.39 The evidence thus shows that in the city several strategies were used to found chantries in the thirteenth century. The final method was to make a foundation housed in the priory, though manned by secular clergy. This seems to have been allowed on one occasion in the thirteenth century by the priory because the founder was a relative of a prior. The example I have found is the only one of this type before the fifteenth century, when Langley used it to found his school. Other chantries in the cathedral were served by monks. The chantry was located at the altar of St Helen over the abbey gate and linked by the priory

33

RPD, 2, pp. 871–2. DCM, Misc. Ch. 2319; 2.11.Spec.43 (1353); for the term, Wood-Legh, Chantries, p. 11. 35 DCM, 6.1.Elem.6; Cart. I, f. 107. 36 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, pp. 327, 328, 357, 358, 359, 391; and many others; 3, p. 63; Bonney, Lordship, p. 95; DCM, Almoner’s small cartulary, p. 22. 37 Wood-Legh, Chantries, p. 8. 38 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, pp. 361, 394; DCM, Almoner’s small cartulary, pp. 1–3; Misc. Ch. 2365 (formerly 6.1.Elem.13). 39 Wood-Legh, Chantries, pp. 19–20. 34

138

CHANTRIES

with the hospital chapels of St Leonard and St Bartholomew near Durham from an early date. The origin was the endowment of a chantry, of St Cross, over the abbey gate founded by Henry de Melsonby, with other benefactions by him and Alan Melsonby, relatives, perhaps half-brother and father, of the prior of Durham, Thomas de Melsonby. Thomas was the man who briefly and abortively held the see of Durham until he was forced to resign (1237–40).40 The Melsonbys were a large and powerful clerical clan. Among the propaganda against Thomas at the time of his ousting from the bishopric was that he was the illegitimate son of the rector of Melsonby and a woman from the village. If this story was true Thomas’s father was perhaps Alan de Melsonby. Alan was at one time parson of Melsonby in the North Riding and in 1230 St Agatha’s abbey, in north Yorkshire, agreed to maintain a priest and a clerk in the churchyard of Melsonby for his soul and that of Henry.41 This chantry of the Trinity was still in existence at the dissolution of chantries.42 But there were other Melsonbys who might have been Thomas’s father. Roger de Melsonby was a canon of Beverley about 1220 and is almost certainly to be identified with Master Roger de Richmond, official of the archdeacon of Richmond about 1196 and canon of Beverley by 1217, where he held St Mary’s altar until 1234.43 It is striking that he did a great deal for Coldingham, where he set up a chantry for his soul. He also endowed a pittance for the monks of Durham and for feeding 200 poor people in the priory, with land bought in Renington from funds he provided. The land was bought from Simon, brother of Thomas, prior of Coldingham, that is, Simon de Melsonby.44 Thomas had been prior of Coldingham from 1217 until 1233 when he became prior of Durham. Henry de Melsonby, the Durham chantry founder, was considerably helped by Prior Thomas. After being appointed to Kirby Siggeston church, on 13 December 1225, he was then made parson of Normanton church in 1236, and the next year appointed to the church of Brantingham, the two last under the patronage of the prior.45 Yet another of the family was Adam de Melsonby, canon of Ripon between 1225 and 1235.46 He was a witness when Henry was appointed to Kirby Siggeston. Both Alan and Henry gave gifts of books to Durham library.47

40

Some references from Alan Piper; Scriptores Tres, app., pp. xxxviii–ix, lxxii–lxxiii; FD, p. 129n. 41 VCH, Yorkshire, North Riding, I, p. 109. 42 W. Page, ed., The Certificates of the Commissioners Appointed to Survey the Chantries, Guilds, Hospitals etc in the County of York, SS 91 (1894), p. 147. 43 R.T.W. Mcdermid, Beverley Minster Fasti, YAS, Record Series, 149 (1993), pp. 15–16, 59–60 and notes. 44 The Correspondence, Inventories, Account Rolls and Law Proceedings of the Priory of Coldingham, ed. J. Raine, SS 12 (1841), pp. 239–41. 45 W. Gray, The Register or Rolls of Walter Gray, SS 56 (1872), pp. 72–3 and notes, 75, 150. 46 Memorials of Ripon, ed. J.T. Fowler, IV, SS 115 (1908), pp. 86, 88, 98. 47 Watson, Supplement, p. 94. 139


The Melsonby chantry above the priory gate, as distinguished from other Melsonby benefactions to the priory, involved the buying of the mill of Pittington to endow one chaplain to say mass with placebo and dirige every non-festival day in the chapel of the Holy Cross, which came to be called St Helen’s.48 The chaplain was to have a corrody in the convent, in other words he was to have food and probably clothing from the convent and was to be paid by the prior. To this was added in 1252 an endowment for prior Bertram Middleton, involving feeding many poor people but also providing for one chaplain to celebrate in the chapel over the gate, for Bertram’s soul and those of all the monks. And like the other chaplain he was to eat in the hall.49 There were further refinements in the fifteenth century.50 These chaplains were never monks but were secular priests attached to the monastic establishment and paid by it. From an early period the chaplain of St Helen’s was also in charge of the hospital of St Leonard and St Bartholomew, probably because the endowment proved insufficient.51 This chantry is not mentioned in any of the Reformation documents. It was, however, an addition to the provision of clergy of the city as well as to the monastic patronage, and its chaplains can be seen in many abbey documents. Almost certainly the particular form of the chantry occurred because the Melsonbys were so important to the abbey and so nearly related to a prior. The founders of chantries in Durham in the earliest stages were thus clergy and merchants in equal numbers, with the clergy the earliest. Perhaps they were the most likely to have been influenced by the doctrines about salvation which were being preached widely to lay people in the thirteenth century. This pattern is different from what happened in York where a few clergy but many more merchants founded the parish chantries of the early fourteenth century.52 The evidence suggests that there was a crisis in Durham city in the midfourteenth century, perhaps stemming from the Black Death and probably resulting in several chantries being unable to pay their chaplains properly. In 1352 Bishop Hatfield ordered an enquiry into all the chantries in the diocese, requiring that all stipendary chaplains should produce their statutes, letters of order, etc., clearly as part of a drive to make sure that they were regular and were properly endowed.53 The result has been noticed in several chantries throughout the Durham area.54

48

Scriptores Tres, p. xxxix. Scriptores Tres, pp. xlvii–viii. 50 DCM, Reg. III, f. 132v–3, and there also for increase in 1417. 51 See also p. 170. 52 R.B. Dobson, ‘The foundation of perpetual chantries by the citizens of medieval York’, in Church and Society in the Medieval North of England, London 1996, pp. 253–65, esp. p. 257; ‘Citizens and chantries in late medieval York’, in ibid., pp. 267–84. 53 Hatfield, Register, f. 9v. 54 Wood-Legh, Chantries, pp. 23, 111–12. 49

140

CHANTRIES

The process can be seen in the chapels on Elvet Bridge. In 1351 John of Barnard Castle (de Castrobernardi) was also being called custodian of St James’s chapel, when granting out one of its burgages.55 In April 1353, he occurs as holder of St Andrew’s chapel.56 There seems to have been an attempt to amalgamate the two chapels. In April 1354 William de Syreston was appointed to both chapels on the grounds that each was too small to sustain one chaplain.57 The duties were spelled out: he was to say mass three times a week in one and four times in the other. This arrangement was ratified by the bishop in July 1357 but apparently did not work.58 In August 1368, as holder of both St Andrew’s and St James’s Syreston was appealing to the Apostolic See because someone, so he said, was withholding his revenues. A letter from papal judgesdelegate ordered that these were to be recovered for him.59 Evidently the union of the two chapels was being contested. On 14 September 1369 John de Carleton was presented to the chantry of St James vacant by Syreston’s death.60 The formal ratification of the union of the two chapels came finally in 1370. The priory said that it had decided to reunite the two benefices and informed Bishop Hatfield. On 31 October 1370, Thomas de Brakenbery was collated to both chantries, the bishop having certified that the union was legal.61 The new regulation for the chantries was that the chaplain was to say mass three times per week in one chapel and four times in the other. This may explain why, whereas in the earliest version of the charter (Cartuarium Vetus) of foundation of St Andrew’s the obligation is daily mass, all the other versions merely say mass is to be said there (ibi), and in Cartuarium Vetus ‘daily’ (cotidie) has been erased and ‘there’ (ibi) inserted. From then onwards this joint benefice was regarded as part of St Nicholas’s parish, though the patron was still the priory. The memory of an earlier arrangement seems to have lived on, however. In February 1452, John D (sic), as proctor of the inhabitants of Elvet (representing one supposes the churchwardens), came to the prior’s archidiaconal court to try to force John Runcorn, the long-standing incumbent of this benefice, to take part in the offices of the church of St Oswald. The court ordered him to produce the ordinacio of his chantry at the next session, which no doubt showed that he had no such obligation.62 At the Dissolution, certainly, the incumbent was a member of St Nicholas’s clergy.63 55

Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, p. 267; 2.11.Spec.39. Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, p. 694, wrongly dated 1343; DCM, Misc. Ch. 2319; 2.11.Spec.43. 57 DCM, Reg. II, f. 141. 58 DCM, Reg. I, part I , f. 126v. 59 DCM, 2.11.Spec.51. 60 DCM, Reg. II, f. 228. 61 DCM, Reg. II, ff. 191v, 228v; Hatfield, Register, f. 49; and see Wood-Legh, Chantries, pp. 11–12, where the text from Hatfield’s Register is recited; Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, p. 685, called custodian of the chantry of St Andrew. 62 Capitula, f. 110. 63 Inventories, p. 124. 56

141


The Elvet Bridge chantries were not alone in receiving Hatfield’s attention. St Nicholas’s had a chantry at the altar of St James, but nothing is known of its foundation. When Henry surveyed the chantries in 1546 the parishioners seem to have thought that the founder was Thomas Lewyn, but as with many chantries there was no foundation deed and this seems clearly a reference to the chantry of St James on Elvet Bridge.64 In the fourteenth century, however old it was, St James in St Nicholas’s must have been poor because in 1355 Hatfield allowed John de Rosse to hold it with the chantry of St Mary in the church (which chantry is not clear) ‘because they are poor’.65 The chantry of St Mary in St Oswald’s must have been yet another struggling in the fourteenth century since Hatfield allowed the holder to alter its statutes. In March 1377 he allowed its chaplain, Thomas de Hexham, to augment his income by saying anniversary masses, whereas, as we have seen, the foundation document did not allow this.66 Several of these older chantries were virtually re-founded in the fourteenth century, which must also indicate that they were having financial problems. From 1297, of course, endowments were subject to the Statute of Mortmain, which meant that before the new endowment could occur the crown enquired ad quod damnum to find out if any loss would occur to the crown or the capital lord if this transfer of property went ahead. This was costly and a deterrent to foundations by poor men. In 1382 the existing chantry of St James in St Nicholas’s, which we have seen struggling, received augmentation amounting to new establishment. In March 1382 Bishop Fordham gave licence in mortmain for revenue from six messuages and 6 marks revenue from the manor of Kimblesworth to be given to John Fullour, its chaplain and his successors, to celebrate daily for ever at the altar of St James in St Nicholas’s church for the souls of Thomas de Coxside, Alice his wife and Robert their son, and the souls of their ancestors and all the faithful departed.67 This no doubt was a welcome boost to whatever revenues already belonged to the chantry. Thomas de Coxside was almost certainly a butcher, since the shop he held in Fleshergate was a butcher’s.68 He owned or leased property in many parts of the city: Allertongate, South Street, Framwellgate, Sadlergate and the shop.69 By 1371 he was dead and his property had been entrusted to John Lewyn, chief mason of the abbey, to hold until his son (Robert) came of age.70 Robert is found holding these properties by 1376.71 Fullour is first found as a chaplain (if it is

64

NA, E101/18, no. 58. Hatfield, Register, f. 38v: propter eorum exilitatem. 66 Hatfield, Register, f. 141; and see above p. 134. 67 NA, Dur 3/32, m. 7; DCM, Reg. II, f. 220v and ff. 289v–90. 68 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, pp. 318–19. 69 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, pp. 10, 111, 169, 205, 257, 266, 285, 288–9, 318–19. 70 Bonney, Lordship, p. 176, from NA, Dur 3/31, m. 3. 71 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, pp. 10, 257, 288–9. 65

142

CHANTRIES

he) in 1367,72 but by 1380 he was master of the school – that is, the almonry school of the abbey – a position he still held in 1382.73 It is probable that he held both the chantry and the school together. This may not be the only acquisition of property for the chantry of St James. In 1429 Langley gave licence in mortmain for Robert Godebarne, chaplain of the chantry, to receive fourteen messuages in Durham.74 The donors in 1429 were one well-known chaplain, William Holilobe, and William Raket, who must have been acting on behalf of others to acquire the necessary licences, as was usual in these cases. It is not clear what type of chantry the Coxside chantry was or who was its patron. There was a chapel in Durham castle and certainly the priest there acted as a chantry priest at times. So far I have not found a foundation date. The patron was the bishop and it is even possible that Hatfield founded it. In 1363, appointing to it, he called it ‘organised by us’ so this is another chantry which he at least managed.75 Some priests holding the position can be found, beginning with Peter Postell, who had died by 10 March 1364.76 This is almost certainly the post held by the chaplain who said mass for the auditors when they were doing the yearly audit in the castle. Such a chaplain was paid a tip at these times, first mentioned in 1484–5, when the incumbent was William Smith.77 A further chantry with which Hatfield may have been involved was also probably in St Nicholas’s church. On 12 January 1377 he allowed William Benet, priest, to hold another chantry with the chantry in St Nicholas’s church, ‘founded at the altar of St Eligius’, because the chaplain had spent a great deal on its repair. He could hold the two benefices until he had enough for repairs.78 If this altar was in Durham and not in Newcastle, it was probably a chantry belonging to the smiths. The smiths used to come to the cathedral on the feast of St Eloi (Eligius) and may have had a guild and chantry in the town.79 If so there is no other notice of this chantry. Thus, in Durham, chantry foundation somewhat slowed in the fourteenth century and only began to pick up again as the century drew to a close. This is in contrast to York where the early fourteenth century (between 1310 and 1340) was the golden age for founding chantries in city churches.80 The later middle ages in Durham, however, saw new initiatives and more re-foundings.

72

Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, p. 456. Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, pp. 318, 288. 74NA, Dur 3/38, m. 18. 75 Hatfield, Register, f. 58. 76 Hatfield, Register, f. 58. 77 DUL, Archives and Special Collections, CCB B3/29 (CC190288). 78 Hatfield, Register, f. 119v. 79 See p. 166. 80 Dobson, ‘Foundation’, p. 258. 73

143


One further chantry was founded in St Nicholas’s church in the early fifteenth century. In 1408 Langley gave permission for Master John Cokyn, his official, dean of Lanchester,81 to acquire land to found in St Nicholas’s, at the altar of St John the Baptist and St John the Evangelist, a perpetual chantry. Cokyn’s properties in Durham, Gilesgate, the North and South Bailey and in Cocken were given for this.82 The chantry was said in the licence to be for the good estate of the bishop and of John whilst they lived and for their souls when they died, as well as for John’s father, mother and kin and all the faithful departed, to celebrate daily according to John’s ordinance. But the chancery licence adds the note ‘void because nothing was done’. It appears that Cokyn died before he could act on the permission. Thomas Kirkeby, parson of Whitburn, Cokyn’s executor, had trouble making good the will because he could not round up Cokyn’s debts.83 He then paid a further £20 for licence to found the chantry with all the Cokyn lands, with his name added to the founder’s.84 However, before this took effect and before the Cokyn will was properly proved, Kirkeby also died, intestate, and Langley entrusted the administration of Cokyn’s will to a member of his household, Thomas Newton, in September 1410.85 We therefore do not know when the chantry got under way. It was undoubtedly there at the Dissolution, however, because it had an incumbent and property.86 It was reported to have been founded by Kirkeby. What type of chantry this was is unknown. The chantry of St Mary in St Oswald’s, another which we noticed struggling in the fourteenth century, received two large injections of property in the later middle ages, amounting almost to a new foundation, from the Alman and Raper families of Elvet. The endowment reveals how methods had changed since the thirteenth century. John Alman, the ancestor of the family, was established in Elvet, with his wife Rose, by 1317, and is recorded as having a house and shop on Elvet Bridge by 1335.87 It seems very likely that John died in the Black Death.88 He had two sons, Simon, who had married Alice by 1357 and had one daughter,89 and William, a married clerk, who by 1350 had a wife, Margaret.90 Margaret did not live and by 1372 William was married to Matilda.91 Matilda outlived William with no children and by 1387 had granted her property to a group of trustees, executors of her husband’s will, allowing

81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91

For him, see BRUO, I, p. 458; Scriptores Tres, app., p. clxviii. NA, Dur. 3/34, m. 2. Langley, Register, I, p. 46, no. 61. NA, Dur 3/34, m. 3; in 1433 the priory examined this: DCM, Reg. III, f. 150r/v. Langley, Register, I, p. 122, no. 155. NA, E101/18, no. 60. Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, pp. 686, 635–6. Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, pp. 671, 635. Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, p. 584. Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, p. 712. Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, p. 713. 144

CHANTRIES

her to live in the properties for life.92 By 1393 Matilda had married again, to John de Elmeden, and arranged for the properties to come to the chantry of Our Lady in the church of St Oswald’s, which must have been in accordance with her first husband’s will.93 One of the chaplains who had acted throughout the process was Alan de Hayden, chaplain of the chantry in question. By 1378 Simon and his wife Alice had done much the same for their various Durham properties, which were to come to the prior of Durham when they died, presumably because their daughter had died and there was no other heir.94 The Rapers likewise lived in Elvet. In 1382 John Raper, with a daughter Agnes, married to Robert Preston, had houses next to Elvet Bridge.95 These had come to the chantry by 1424, presumably because Agnes died without children.96 By 1404 John Raper had a burgage in New Elvet and in 1407 he granted this to his son Thomas, with reversion to the chantry if his son died without heirs; he included this in his will of 4 August 1408.97 By March 1419, Emma, widow of John, acting with Alan Hayden (as we have seen, he was the chantry chaplain), had granted the property to the son Thomas, and he in his turn left it in 1426 to his daughter Margaret, married to Robert Forster. Only in 1482, when the Forsters died without heirs did the property come to the chantry.98 This was a typical transaction of the late middle ages, mixing piety and pragmatism.99 A typical fifteenth-century new foundation was the Elvet chantry in St Oswald’s church at the altar of Sts John the Baptist and John the Evangelist. There probably had been a much earlier charitable foundation attached to this altar. Before 1230 the priest serving it also cared for the sick in St Oswald’s hospital, as we shall see, but the hospital is not heard of in the fourteenth century and probably went out of business with the decline of leprosy.100 In June 1404 the bishop gave permission for Richard de Elvet, clerk, John de Elvet, clerk, and Gilbert de Elvet to set up a chantry at the altar of Sts John the Baptist and John the Evangelist in St Oswald’s, for the souls and good estate of diverse persons and their ancestors and heirs for ever, with permission to acquire land in mortmain up to 10 marks. An inquisition by the escheator in August showed that no loss would be incurred if they acquired for this the manor of Edderacres in Easington parish, whose sale is registered

92

Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, pp. 714–15; NA, Dur 3/33, m. 7. Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, pp. 586–7, 715. 94 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, p. 667. 95 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, pp. 637–8. 96 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, p. 638. 97 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, p. 703; DCM, 4.17.Spec.30. 98 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, p. 703. 99 See for instance Lady Margaret Beaufort buying property cheaply from attainted persons to endow Christ’s College: M.K. Jones and M.G. Underwood, The King’s Mother. Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby, Cambridge 1992, pp. 220–1. 100 See p. 169. 93

145


on 20 October, and a messuage in Fleshergate, two in Old Elvet and one beside the cemetery of St Oswald’s church held of the prior. All this was worth £6 10s 0d per annum. The first chaplain was to be William de Fishburn.101 The patronage of this chantry was to continue in the family of Gilbert de Elvet, with the ordinacio carefully specifying that males took precedence over females and that if all else failed the patronage went to the monastery. The inheritance in fact continued in the heirs of Gilbert de Elvet until it was dissolved.102 This foundation introduces a remarkable group of lay clerks, who must have been the leading family in the Elvet area from the fourteenth century. Before the Black Death there was a Robert de Elvet, clerk, who did business in Elvet, and we also find in 1323 William, a clerk.103 The father of the three who founded the Elvet chantry in St Oswald’s was probably John, attorney of the priory from 1349–50.104 In 1353 he was holding property in Elvet barony.105 He held other tenements also.106 In 1357–8 he was being called clerk of the priory treasury as well.107 In May 1359 he had paid to be coroner of the priory for life.108 He was called literatus in 1361 when acting as a priory witness, and clericus in January when involved in the bishop’s chancery about money owed.109 If it is the same man, in 1382 he was seneschal for the hostillar of the priory and acted as the prior’s attorney in the Elvethall court on occasion.110 One can see him acting as attorney of the prior before the bishop’s court about a tenant’s failure to perform service to the prior.111 He was frequently responsible for procuring writs for the priory against individuals.112 This is the John Elvet who probably asked Uhtred of Boldon, monk of Durham, to acquire in Avignon a plenary indulgence at the hour of death for himself and his wife Diota (probably Dionisia), who appear in the Avignon registers as citizens of Durham, with the date 16 December 1373, the same date that Uhtred obtained his own privileges.113 Dionisia continued to live in Elvet until about 1387, probably as a widow.114 Gilbert who founded the chantry was probably the

101

NA, Dur 3/33, mm. 33, 34; DCM, Reg. III, ff. 15, 17, 59v; Cart. II, ff. 280v–2. Tunstal, Register, no. 163. 103 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, for Robert, pp. 650, 672, 684; for William, p. 675; for Peter, p. 688. 104 DCM, Bursar’s accounts, 1349–50A and later, under pensions. 105 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, p. 598. 106 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, pp. 563, 695. 107 Bursar’s accounts, 1357–8, pensions. 108 Bursar’s accounts, 1358–9A, receipts. 109 DCM, Reg. II, ff. 159r/v, 147v; NA, Dur 3/30, m. 13. 110 Bonney, Lordship, p. 221; DCM, Loc. IV: 198. 111 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, p. 566. 112 Bursar’s accounts, 1371–3, for instance. 113 Vatican archives, Reg. Av. 188, ff. 307v, 328. For the mission to Avignon, E. Perroy, L’Angleterre et le Grand Schisme d’Occident, Paris 1933, p. 32; G. Holmes, The Good Parliament, Oxford 1975, p. 14; BRUO, I, pp. 212–13. 114 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, p. 714. 102

146

CHANTRIES

son of this John, though there was more than one Gilbert just as there was more than one John.115 John, senior, certainly had a son Gilbert with a mother called Dionisia.116 Gilbert, if it is he, was 23 in 1382 when his father died and he came into his property.117 He was last heard of in 1405.118 He began to receive a pension from the priory in 1384–5, when John Elvet’s name vanished.119 He had a wife, Matilda, who had died by 17 December 1417.120 They showed the devotion of the family by being in a Durham group which obtained the Jubilee indulgence in 1390, which Boniface IX allowed because they were unable to come in person on the Jubilee pilgrimage because of the perils of the way.121 John Elvet, another of the founders, was a clerk and almost certainly the son of John senior. John senior’s son John was given a gift by the prior in 1379–80 when on his way to London.122 He was said to have lent the priory £20 in 1399–1400.123 The ordination for the Elvet chantry of 12 September 1404 is still extant in an elaborate triple charter.124 It was intended to pray for John de Elvet and Dionisia his wife, the father and mother of the founders, and Matilda Elvet, consort of Gilbert, and of course for the founders, as well as for John Duke of Lancaster and Constance his wife, with Walter of Edderacres, lord of the manor of Edderacres, where the chantry had one of its richest endowments.125 The chaplain was to celebrate mass at the altar, specified as in the nave on the north side of the church. He was to take part in the other services in St Oswald’s in his surplice and to say the psalms for the dead for the souls named. He was to say a yearly obit on the night of St Cecilia with placebo and dirige, and on the day of St Cecilia (22 November) a sung mass when a donation was to be given to the vicar of St Oswald’s and to every chaplain present and the parish clerk who rang the bells, the total not to exceed 3s 4d. The chaplain was to live in one of the messuages given, either in Old or New Elvet. This was a much grander provision than some we have noticed; the Elvets were important people in their small world.

115

Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, p. 133, for a John in 1318, clerk; for the other Gilbert, Bursar’s accounts, 1379–80 for instance. Gilbert de Elvet, clerk, with a widow Isolda, had a holding in North Bailey but he had died by 1382 with his heir a relative called John Smith, son of Alan: Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, p. 536. 116 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, p. 563, for Gilbert son of John; pp. 695, 714, for Dionisia. 117 See Inquisition post mortem, Deputy Keeper of the Public Records, 45th Report, 1884, pp. 188–9, lands in Stockton, Old and New Elvet, Shincliffe and Durham. 118 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, p. 669, 20April 1405. 119 Bursar’s accounts, 1384–5. 120 NA, Dur 3/35, m. 13, for Inquisition post mortem. 121 BL, MS Arundel 507, f. 93r/v. 122 Bursar’s accounts, 1378–9, gifts. 123 Bursar’s accounts, 1399–1400. 124 DCM, 4.16 Spec.34a, b. 125 Hatfield Survey, p. 127 for him. 147


The North Bailey church also received one well-endowed chantry in the fifteenth century. The founders were John Bellasis, junior, and Sybil his wife and perhaps a second wife.126 The origin of the chantry was a permission on 27 June 1418 by Thomas Langley to John Holdernesse and Alan Hayden, chaplains and in fact executors of the will of the founder, to alienate land in mortmain for a perpetual chantry for one chaplain to say mass daily at the altar of St Catherine in the church for the souls of John Bellasis, Sybil his wife and for all the faithful departed.127 The bishop’s escheator had inspected the proposed grant in December 1417 and the prior had granted his permission on 16 May 1418 for the chantry to be given land in Allergate and Crossgate.128 The prior’s permission gives a long list of the properties: seven messuages on the south side of Allergate and a messuage on the north side, three in Crossgate, one in South Street, a messuage and an acre of land on Bellasis, six acres of meadow next to Allergate, and rent from a messuage in the Old Borough and from 18 acres upon Bellasis. The foundation ordinatio still exists among the priory muniments in a beautifully decorated document dated 22 April 1419, which is said to be the statutes to be read out to the incumbents. The organisers were Hayden and Holdernesse who founded the chantry at the altar of St Catherine in St Mary’s in the North Bailey, in the nave of the church on the north side, for the souls of John and Alice (sic) Bellasis and William Chalker and his wife Emma, and all the faithful departed.129 The executors must therefore have found other backers to support the foundation. William Chalker held a tenement in Souter Peth.130 The chaplain was to say mass and to be present in his surplice at all the other services especially when they were sung. He was to say placebo and dirige when the Sarum rite prescribed these. He was to live in one of the two messuages in the North Bailey belonging to the chantry and was not to be absent for more than one month without reasonable cause. He was not to be notoriously unchaste, might not frequent taverns nor be habitually drunk. Appointment was to be by Hayden and Holdernesse, and their successors as vicar of St Oswald’s (Holdernesse) and chaplain of the chantry of St Mary in that church (Hayden at that time). If they could not agree, the vicar had precedence and the prior of Durham could oversee the chantry if both were negligent. It was explicitly stated, however, that this did not give the prior the patronage. The licence for the endowment of this chantry was one of the points made against Langley when an enquiry was made into his franchise in

126 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, p. 681, shows John Bellasis senior still alive in 1404. 127 NA, Dur 3/35, m. 15; Storey, Langley, p. 187; DCM, Cart. III, ff. 294v–5. 128 DCM, Reg. III, ff. 60–1v. 129 DCM, 2.16.Spec.44. 130 DCM, Misc. Ch. 1701.

148

CHANTRIES

1433.131 In that account the dates differ slightly and the name of the first chaplain is given as John Stillington, who was said to be still holding the chantry, but the account is tendentious and need not be believed. According to the priory records the first chaplain was to be John Palman, a priest who witnessed a document in St Oswald’s, Durham, in 1412.132 The ordinances for this chantry show how attitudes had changed over the years. Much that had been left unstated was now clearly spelled out. The priory was the ultimate arbiter but the organisers very carefully arranged that it was not to be the patron. The regulations for the chaplain were careful and strict, particularly the rules about residence and the specification that the liturgy was to be Sarum rite. One is reminded of Langley’s arrangements for his schoolmaster chantry priests, whose rules of residence were very strict indeed.133 Changing perceptions may also account for a small incident in the history of Mercator’s chantry in the fifteenth century. As we have seen, this was an early type, whereby the almoner’s estate took the revenues and paid the chaplain. From 1393–4 the almoner was paying the chaplain from the rents of the chantry property, as he was obliged to do.134 The almoner must have hoped to make a profit. In 1429–30 and later the priory accounts note that £6 10s 4d has been received for rent belonging to the chantry, with 14s due from three tenements in Souterpeth (at the north end of Elvet Bridge). Two of these were in the hands of the almoner by an agreement according to which the chaplain of the chantry in future had the tenement with the vault at the end of the chapel with the three tenements there and the almoner had the other two because he had spent £40 on the construction of the three in Souterpeth. The almoner was thus paying himself back from the rents of the tenements of the chantry. The records suggest that this rebuilding had occurred after a fire. In 1447–8 the accounts explained that the chaplain now received the 14s from Souterpeth because the parishioners and the chaplain had complained to the bishop on visitation in 1442 and he had ordered the change.135 Presumably the almoner had continued to pay himself too long after the £40 was paid up and the parishioners and the chaplain would not accept this, though there seems nothing in the evidence to show that they were legally justified, even if morally they probably were. They evidently thought that all the revenues should go to the incumbent, making this a benefice proper. The value of these chantries varied greatly and probably of course varied over the centuries, hence Hatfield’s reorganisations. One needs to remember also that the estimates of the values in the sixteenth century were made for

131

Storey, Langley, pp. 123, 254 (c. 13). Langley, Register, II, no. 452. 133 See p. 121. 134 Almoner’s accounts, 1393–4A: 116s 10d: capellanus cantarie ecclesie beati Nicolai adquietum est per rentale ejusdem cantarie. 135 Almoner’s accounts, 1447–8, 1448–9; the ruling is DCM, Cart. III, f. 311. 132

149


the crown and there was every incentive for the locals to fudge and conceal. We have the surveys of these properties at the time of the Dissolution.136 By February 1548 some of the properties surveyed were already beginning to decay. One of the Elvet Bridge chapels, St Andrew’s, was already said to have been stripped of its lead by persons unknown.137 Furthermore there is evidence here that plague had reduced the tenants. In several cases the rentals note that the tenants are dead of plague and the rent has not been paid for half a year. St Margaret’s chantry of St Mary had one tenement in the West Row in South Street and one chamber in the cemetery where this was stated, as well as another where the tenant was said to have ‘flede for poverty’.138 St Oswald’s chantry of St Mary had one such tenement.139 The Trinity chantry in St Nicholas’s recorded of one tenement in Claypath that the whole ‘was in ruin’ and that the woman tenant ‘is poore and has nothing to destrene’.140 One of its burgages in the market-place, called ‘Le Crome’ (perhaps The Crown), was in decay, though previously worth £1, and one in Sadlergate was empty.141 Not surprisingly there is considerable evidence in these returns of disputes about and corrections of total values.142 It appears, however, that by 1548 a combination of plague, apparently within the last half-year, and urban decay had lowered the value of many of these properties. There is, however, no reason to suppose that the chantries of Durham were struggling to survive in the sixteenth century, as seems to have been the case with those of York.143 Thanks to modern research on the history of city property, one can trace the position of many of the Durham chantry properties within the city and see that most chantries had properties in every part.144 It is much more difficult, however, because no scholarly work has been done on this, to track properties of chantries outside the city boundaries. Here the Reformation rentals are invaluable because they not only show properties and their holders in 1548 but also reveal which chantries (and guilds) had property outside the city. For most of these there are no deeds so we do not usually know the donors, nor if the donations were recent. It would be tedious simply to give the lists but it is worth noting that St Mary in St Oswald’s was still getting the annual revenue from the two bovates in Mainsforth given by its founder, for which it still owed the bishop one pound of pepper.145 St Mary in St Margaret’s owned a messuage 136

NA, SC 12/7/26. NA, SC 12/7/26, f. ix. 138 NA, SC 12/7/26, f. ii. 139 NA, SC 12/7/26, f. iii. 140 NA, SC 12/7/26, f. vi. 141 NA, SC 12/7/26, ff. vi recto and verso. 142 For instance SC 12/7/26, f. i verso, where the holder was arguing, or f. xvii where the priest of St Katherine’s chantry denied the rent and the total was heavily erased and corrected. 143 Dobson, ‘Foundation’, p. 260. 144 Especially the work of Margaret Camsell. 145 NA, SC 12/7/26, f. iiii. 137

150

CHANTRIES

called Cope Hide House within the domain of Brancepeth, which was by far its most valuable possession, worth £1 10s 0d per annum.146 The Elvet chantry, the most valuable of all, still owned Edderacres and drew the bulk of its revenue from that property (£10 13s).147 The Elvet Bridge chantries had a tenement in Stokeley, county Durham (probably near Brancepeth), worth £1 in rent. Mercator’s chantry had rent from one tenement in Brafferton (on the Skerne in Aycliffe parish),148 and the chantry of the Trinity in St Nicholas’s had £4 annual revenue from the manor of Kenlesswerthe in county Durham, which added greatly to the chantry’s value.149 Even if one must distrust the values offered by the rentals and surveys of the Reformation period as likely to be lower than the amounts from earlier periods, it is still worth looking at the comparative figures, which may give one some idea of the incomes of the chantry priests. According to the Augmentation returns in 1548 the values ranged from the most valuable Elvet chantry, worth net £9 8s, and the Trinity chantry in St Nicholas’s, worth £7 1s 4d, through some worth over £5 (St Margaret’s, St Mary in St Oswald’s, St James and St John in St Nicholas’s, and the guild of St Giles), with the rest worth under £5, the poorest being the rood priest in St Oswald’s (£3 7s 8d) and the chantries on Elvet Bridge (£3 18s 6d).150 Under Henry V chaplains were supposed to receive £4 13 4d, which would be just enough to live on, so that most of the chantry holders in Durham would not have been the poorest priests.151 In fact a few of them after the dissolution of the monastery may have been better off than their earlier brethren, since they were in receipt also of a pension as ex-religious, which they kept when the chantry was dissolved and added to it a pension as a former chantry priest.152 We know, moreover, that most of the chantry priests earned money in other ways, by doing conveyancing and acting as trustees for the priory, for instance, as we saw in another chapter.153 The foundation of parish chantries in Durham does not follow the pattern of its much larger neighbour, York.154 Of the known chantries in Durham five were of thirteenth-century foundation, or six if the Melsonby chantry is included. Possibly only three new ones were founded in the fourteenth century though others were virtually re-founded and three more were begun in the early fifteenth century. Several of these received fresh endowment after foundation but no new chantries in the city were founded after 1419 as far as we know. In the rest of the North new foundations continued later than this.155 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155

NA, SC 12/7/26, f. 1. NA, SC 12/7/26, f. iiij verso. NA, SC 12/7/26, f. x verso. NA, SC 12/7/26, f. xii. Figures from Barnes, Injunctions, appendix, pp. lviii–lxiii, from NA, E 101/17, mm. 1–2. Swanson, Church and Society, pp. 47–8. See p. 191. See p. 109–10. Dobson, ‘Foundation’, p. 261, for the figures for York. Some figures in Dobson, ‘Foundation’, p. 261, notes 36, 37, 38. 151


By the end of our period there is a small amount of evidence that the preferred methods of endowing a charitable trust were altering, perhaps to reflect the cost of licences in mortmain and also the desire of lay people to keep control of patronage for themselves. In August 1518 John Gamyll set up a trust as a feoffment to use, concerning one tenement in Framwellgate, with a named group of trustees who were almost certainly leading members of the guild of St Margaret.156 The use was that the guild of St Margaret in Durham was to appoint a priest to sing and pray for the souls of its brethren and sisters. On 1 December yearly a requiem mass was to be said with dirige in St Margaret’s with four priests and the parish clerk present, every priest to be paid 4d and with 5d for ringing the bell, with 1d as an offering and 1d for wax, for the souls of master John Rudde and his father, mother and all Christian souls. This appears to be the provision of a mass priest to be controlled by the guild, but to include an annual mass for one beneficiary and his family. Gamyll may be the executor of a will. In April 1521 the executors of Richard Moderby, a glover of Durham, who were Robert Hode of Great Busby in Cleveland and Joanna his wife, Richard’s granddaughter and heir, gave to the churchwardens of St Nicholas’s a tenement in Smalleys near Wolsingham, and the churchwardens set up with it a feoffment to use.157 The document says in English that the intention was that the trustees were seized of the tenement for the use ‘of the church warke and ornamentes’ of St Nicholas’s church. The churchwardens were to replace the trustees as necessary. The trustees were all merchants of Durham. This was not a chantry, of course, but the intention was certainly that Moderby’s soul would be remembered by it. In the 1546 survey there is said to be a ‘perpetuity’ or perpetual salary in St Oswald’s founded by Christopher Asklaby, clerk, to pray for his soul and all Christian souls.158 The foundation was so recent that the survey notes that it had never been assessed for the king’s tenths or first fruits and it is not in the Valor Ecclesiasticus of 1535. Asklaby was already being called ‘chaplain’ in 1494 in a defamation case in the prior’s archidiaconal court.159 By 1501 he was certainly chantry chaplain of St Oswald’s chantry of St John.160 He may well have died after the Valor and before the survey. His successor in his chantry is not known before 1546. The ‘perpetuity’ was not strictly a benefice chantry; presumably the mass could have been said by any of the existing parochial priests at any of the parish altars. A cheaper way to ensure remembrance was to endow a light or even to join with a group of parishioners to keep a light before a particular altar.161 An

156

DUL, Mickleton MS 47, f. 23r/v. NA, Dur 3/ 71, mm. 6dorse–7dorse. 158 NA, E101/18, no. 54. 159 Court Book of Prior’s Official, ff. 67v, 68v, 70v, 71v. 160 Barnes, Injunctions, appendix, p. xiii. 161 B. Hanawalt, ‘Keepers of the lights: late medieval English parish gilds’, Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 14 (1984), pp. 21–37. 157

152

CHANTRIES

early will, of William de Ponte, a parishioner of St Oswald’s, gave money to the light in St Andrew’s chapel and to the light of the altar of St Mary in St Oswald’s.162 These payments for lights often appear only as a charge on a particular property and sometimes one cannot discover the origins. In the late 1480s (the documents are difficult to date) John Brantingham and John Carr, wardens (iconomi) of the guild of St Mary in the South Bailey, brought John Gray and Henry Thomson before the court of the prior as archdeacon for breach of faith, asserting that Gray owed a debt of £1 6s 8d.163 Their guild may have had the task of keeping a light before the altar of the Virgin in the church, an obligation going back to the thirteenth century which is mentioned in several early documents. In perhaps 1280 Ralph the chaplain, rector of this church, granted out land which owed 2s 6d to keep this light.164 One of the documents concerned said that the rector was the warden of this light with the consent of his parishioners.165 Mentions of money owing to the light from properties occur in documents dated 1304, with Ralph the chaplain mentioned as the incumbent.166 In 1344 Nicholas Molendarius, who lived in the South Bailey, left in his will 1s to the guild of Blessed Mary.167 None of this features in the Reformation documents. There were endowments for prayers and lights in St Margaret’s chapel also, associated with the guild of St Margaret.168 There is a deed by which the executors of John Gerum gave to trustees for St Margaret’s rent to keep a light before the cross in St Margaret’s chapel.169 One can see this duty being questioned in 1335 before the official of the bishop and the holder of the property being obliged to pay.170 A 1328 deed explained that a property being rented out by the keeper of the light owed 4s 0d twice yearly, a payment from the alms of William de Ponte, chaplain, to keep a light before the picture of St Margaret in the chancel of the chapel.171 At least one of the houses which Rannulph the chaplain left for his chantry of St Mary rendered wax yearly to the altar of St Mary and in 1333 one finds the keepers of the lights in the chapel (not the cantarist) arranging to receive the rent and remitting some of it whilst the tenant rebuilds.172 In 1328 an Allergate property was similarly rented out,

162

DCM, Misc. Ch. 2305. Court Book of Prior’s Official, ff. 20, 20v, dated Thursday after Sts Felicity and Perpetua (7 March) and 16 March. 164 DCM, 2.16.Spec.3, 4, 5, date pencilled on documents. 165 DCM, 2.16.Spec.5. 166 DCM, 2.16.Spec.31, 35, 40, 41. 167 DCM, 2.16.Spec.20. 168 DCM, Receiver’s Book 2, f. 23. 169 DCRO, EP/Du. SM. 591. 170 DCRO, EP/Du. SM. 576; Longstaffe, ‘Local muniments: St Margaret’s’, p. 27. 171 DCRO EP/Du. SM. 613; Longstaffe, ‘Local muniments: St Margaret’s’, p. 27. 172 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, p. 114; Longstaffe, ‘Local muniments: St Margaret’s’, pp. 27–8; DCRO, EP/Du. SM. 573. 163

153


by two lay keepers of the lights and with the consent of seven parishioners.173 In 1405 three keepers, again all laymen, arranged, with the consent of the ‘good and lawful men of the parish’, the grant of one burgage to William Pome, called ‘keeper of the light in the chapel’ but probably also cantarist of St Mary’s altar.174 In the Reformation documents for St Margaret’s chapel none of these payments occurs, though the guild of St Margaret is mentioned.175 Apart from the institutions discussed here in detail most parishes would have had obits, that is, funds donated by individuals for masses to be said at intervals after death for their souls.176 Parishioners had many ways of ensuring that their souls were prayed for: named gifts, endowments of prayers, or merely entry into the parish bede-roll to ensure weekly and annual remembrance as a fellow parishioner now dead. The Durham records allow very few glimpses of these in the parishes. Between 1538 and 1540 William Maltby, chaplain, was celebrating mass in St Oswald’s church for the soul of Richard Boyth, paid by the priory bursar.177 At the Reformation St Giles’s had an obit fund for John Smith worth 4s 10d, from the tenement next to douckepoole;178 and St Nicholas’s and St Margaret’s had obit funds.179 The list for St Nicholas’s in the rental of Edward VI is the only one which is long and detailed.180 Revenue of 5s came from the field and territory of Houghton given for John and Robert Farne, one burgage in Clayport was for the obit of Richard Hedworth, another for Marion Smythe, one burgage in the market-place was for the annual obit of John Graunge, another in Smedigate or Silver Street was for the obit of John Smythe, one further in Silver Street for an obit, not specified. It is clear that the churchwardens had been questioned about all these. In 1546 the royal surveyors noted money given to St Nicholas’s by Maude Bailes and Thomas Dixson.181 St Oswald’s was still saying masses for Margaret Wrightson, financed from a meadow in Bellasis.182 The very few extant wills naturally sometimes show individuals endowing trentals (thirty masses after death), and legacies very often have the proviso that the recipient shall pray for the donor’s soul. Robert Cocus, a parishioner of St Oswald’s, for instance left 10 marks for a priest to celebrate for two years.183 These are commonplace in the medieval church. 173

Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, p. 19; Longstaffe, ‘Local muniments: St Margaret’s’, p. 26. 174 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, p. 224; Longstaffe, ‘Local muniments. From the collection of the late J. Brough Taylor’, pp. 61–6, esp. p. 62. 175 DCM, Receiver’s Book 2, f. 23. 176 Duffy, Stripping, pp. 328–37, 461–2. 177 DCM, Bursar’s Book, I, f. 154v, and M, f. 154v. 178 Barnes, Injunctions, pp. lxiii, xcvi; NA, SC 12/7/26, f. xix. 179 Barnes, Injunctions, pp. lxii, xcv (St Nicholas), xciv (St Margaret). 180 NA, SC 12/7/26, f. xiii verso. 181 Barnes, Injunctions, p. lxii; NA, E 101/17, m. 1v. 182 Barnes, Injunctions, pp. lx, xcv; NA, SC 12/7/26, f. iii. 183 DCM, Misc. Ch. 2438. 154

CHANTRIES

Durham was unusual in that it contained in its midst the monastery, which might well be thought to have been a power-house of prayer for the whole church. It had always prayed for its own benefactors, of course, but there is some evidence in the later middle ages that this practice became more specific and that non-monks found new ways of enlisting the spiritual suffrage of the community. From the fourteenth century, when Ralph de Neville arranged for burial in the cathedral for himself and his wife, with a large endowment, several notable persons endowed chantries in the cathedral.184 In addition to Neville, the list includes Bishops Hatfield, Skirlaw and Langley, Thomas de Neville, Richard of Barnard Castle, Agnes and Robert Rodes from Newcastle, Isabella Lawson from Cramlington, and Master John Rudde, dean of Lanchester. But of these only Richard of Barnard Castle and Rodes at times were parishioners in Durham and for neither was the city their principal residence.185 More ordinary parishioners relied on their parish churches and probably also on their occasional attendance at great celebrations in the cathedral for their share in the monastic prayers. Some of them had their names entered into the monastery’s Liber Vitae, perhaps for a small fee for attendance on specific occasions, but for most of them the parish rather than the monastery must have been the most significant spiritual institution. This is in line with research elsewhere in England.186 Durham may be compared in size with medieval Colchester, with its estimated population of between 3000 and 4000 in 1301, rising around 1400 and then sinking to about 5200 in the 1520s.187 Yet Colchester has left very little evidence of chantry foundations, though it is possible that this is lack of sources rather than fact.188 More telling, perhaps, is comparison with Norwich, one of the most flourishing towns in the land, with twenty-six chantries founded between 1240 and 1370 and only fifteen founded after that, which certainly survived to the Reformation, though there is evidence of attempts to found about thirty-eight between 1370 and 1532.189 In comparison Durham had about seventeen chantries which survived to the Reformation. In estimating numbers in Durham, of course, I do not include those in the cathedral staffed by monks. Durham kept up most of its chantries to the end and there are few known examples of failure to get one under way, though sometimes it took time, as with Langley’s or Cokyn’s. It would appear, therefore, that

184

Information from Alan Piper; Scriptores Tres, p. 134, for Neville. See, for some of these, Rollason ‘Late medieval non-monastic entries’, pp. 128, 131 135. 186 B. Thompson, ‘Habendum et Tenendum: lay and ecclesiastical attitudes to property within the church’, in Religious Belief and Ecclesiastical Careers in Late Medieval England, ed. C. Harper-Bill, Woodbridge 1991, pp. 197–238; Colvin ‘Origins of chantries’, pp. 163–73. 187 R.H. Britnell, Growth and Decline in Colchester, 1300–1525, Cambridge 1986, pp. 15–16, and ch. 13, pp. 192–205. 188 Britnell, Colchester, pp. 25, 197, 209. 189 N.P. Tanner, The Church in Late Medieval Norwich, 1370–1532, Toronto 1984, pp. 92–3, and appendix 10, pp. 212–19. 185

155


the inhabitants of Durham continued to support their chantries to the end, which must imply that they continued to support the ideas and beliefs for which these institutions were founded.

156

9

Associations, guilds and confraternities Those who wished to go beyond the prescribed religious duties which were compulsory in the late medieval church often joined a confraternity or guild which comprised a group who joined together to perform a particular devotion or task, which could include supporting a chaplain to pray for the souls of deceased members. The usual method of finance was from endowments but there was often a subscription for members.1 Durham apparently had very few religious guilds which were more than parish-based. The only one which we can be certain was city-wide was the very important Corpus Christi guild, and one which was more than city-wide was the guild of St Cuthbert. The feast of Corpus Christi was certainly celebrated in Durham from at least 1338, which is twenty years after its first known arrival in England.2 It was probably celebrated in the city earlier but at that point for the first time the bursar of the priory spent 4s for the players connected with the feast. By 1403, if the record is correct, plays were performed, organised by the craft companies of the city. The oldest known information about this, the butchers and fleshers’ ordinance of 1403, specifically mentions their duty to perform their play and to take part in the Corpus Christi procession, referring to this as a long-standing duty.3 The Corpus Christi guild seems to have been the coordinating body for this celebration, as well as being a chantry for its members. The earliest mention of the guild is 1397, when Master John Hagthorp granted a room in his house, Herthall in Fleshergate at the top of Souterpeth (which ran down to Elvet Bridge from the present Saddler Street), to a group of clerics, with the intention that it be given ‘to a suitable chaplain for the brothers and sisters of the guild of Corpus Christi’ and that the trustees would be allowed within twenty years to appropriate the room and the waste land which gave access to the property.4 If this condition was not fulfilled the property would revert to Hagthorp or his heirs. Presumably this was the usual trust which was

1 The latest English study is K. Farnhill, Guilds and the Parish Community in Late Medieval East Anglia c. 1470–1550, York 2001. The introduction and chapter I provide details and definition. 2 Rubin, Corpus Christi, p. 199; McKinnell ‘Drama and ceremony in the last years of Durham Cathedral Priory’, pp. 95–6. 3 DUL, Archives and Special Collections, Mickleton and Spearman MS 49, ff. 178v–9v, a copy, original does not survive; Harding, ‘The Company of Butchers and Fleshers’, pp. 93–100. 4 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, pp. 309, 333.

157


intended to seek licence to appropriate in mortmain. It looks like the beginning of this guild, which perhaps had as yet no chaplain and must have just begun to be organised and to acquire land. The group which acted for Hagthorp were all well-established clerical members of the bishop’s or the prior’s administration. Master John Hagthorp himself is called son and heir of John Hagthorp, who was a lawyer, a notary public and sequestrator general of Bishop Hatfield in the 1360s to at least 1380.5 The younger John seems to have been a married clerk like his father, perhaps also a notary, whose career is discussed elsewhere.6 The trustees whom he used in 1397 were headed by John Cokyn or Cocken who was chancellor of the diocese under both Skirlaw and Langley, until his death in 1408, when he attempted to found a chantry.7 The others included Master Thomas Hexham, much more obscure but possibly the chaplain of the chantry of St Mary in St Oswald’s church whose living Hatfield augmented in 1377.8 Perhaps the same man, who frequently, like many others of his kind, acted as a trustee, is the person said to have died on the way to the Roman curia by 28 September 1408.9 He was not mentioned as one of the executors of this deed and one wonders if he may have been the designated chaplain. John Fullour, chaplain, was master or rector of the (almonry) school in Durham in 1380 and 1382 and by December 1383 was chantry priest of the Coxside chantry at the altar of St James in St Nicholas’s church.10 John de Egglesclyffe, chaplain, is found between 1377 and 1397 acting as a trustee, for example for land which eventually came to the priory.11 The Corpus Christi guild next appears in the chancery enrolments of the time of Langley, in 1437.12 On 3 April 1437 it was recorded that Langley had granted licence to William Chancellor, constable of Durham, and a group of others, who desired to do a good work, so that they could found anew in the church of St Nicholas, Durham, a guild or fraternity of Corpus Christi, to consist of men and women. Each year they were to choose a custos or warden, who was to supervise any property and could act on their behalf. They would meet as often as was convenient. On 15 April the bishop granted them licence to receive property in mortmain after due inquisition. This apparent refounding may be explained by the fact that it had taken the group a great deal of time to accumulate the money to buy the necessary property (Hagthorp’s

5

Hatfield, Register, ff. 45, 80v, 175v; DCM, Reg. II, ff. 261r/v, 269r/v; Reg. III, ff. 108–9v. See p. 106. 7 Langley, Register, I, p. xii; nos. 15, 19, 23, 30, 49, 57, 58, 61, 74, 155; Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, pp. 395, 403, 320, 348. 8 Hatfield, Register, f. 141. 9 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, p. 348. 10 NA, Dur 3/32 m. 18; DCM, Reg. II, f. 220v; Hatfield Survey, p. 163; for the school, VCH, Durham, I, pp. 369–70. 11 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, p. 563; 2:1, pp. 16, 17, 319. 12 NA, Dur 3/36, m. 11. 6

158

ASSOCIATIONS, GUILDS AND CONFRATERNITES

trust talked about twenty years). It may also have been prompted by the legislation of the 1437 Parliament, where the commons complained about the unreasonable and disloyal rules of some guilds and fraternities and required all of them to register their charters or patents before the local civic authorities.13 It is also worth remembering that the council of Basel had in 1434 sent out a copy of a bull by Eugenius IV renewing earlier papal bulls giving indulgences for the observance of Corpus Christi, including taking part in processions, and adding more. Though this bull was probably part of the council’s campaign against the pope (it was confirming his bull), Durham priory reacted by copying the bull into its register with a note to say that the original was not in the chancery of Durham but that there was a like bull to prior Wessington; someone in the priory added up the days of indulgence offered.14 This may have meant that the priory was encouraging the development of the devotion. In effect the registration of the guild with the bishop meant that the association was being given acknowledged corporate status, but the document tells one almost nothing about its organisation or function. The Corpus Christi guild in York was similarly well-established when in 1458 Henry VI granted it incorporation.15 The representatives in Durham who acted for the guild in 1437 can be traced further. William Chancellor, a layman, was, as the document says, the constable of the city, but also chancellor of the Palatinate throughout Langley’s episcopate; thus he was the bishop’s chief secular representative.16 Richard Buckley, clerk, was one of Langley’s most trusted clerks. In December 1407 he had been collated to St Nicholas’s church which he was still holding in April 143717 and on the strength of this had been ordained by Langley.18 He also became master of Kepier hospital in 1436, as well as holding a canonry and prebend in Auckland and in Chester-le-Street.19 He was Langley’s receiver general from 1422 until the end of the pontificate.20 Thomas Tang or Clerk was a member of the large clerkly clan we have already noticed.21 William Raket, a married clerk, again belonged to an established family already noticed.

13 Rotuli Parliamentorum ut et Placita et Petitiones in Parliamento, 6 vols, London 1767–77, IV, p. 507. 14 DCM, Reg. III, ff. 191–2. 15 The Register of the Guild of Corpus Christi in the City of York, ed. R.H. Skaife, SS 57 (1872), pp. 255–6. 16 Storey, Langley, p. 59. 17 Langley, Register, I, no. 37; V, no. 1322. 18 Langley, Register, I, nos. 82, 102. 19 Langley, Register, III, nos. 559, 675, 676; IV, no. 1225; V, no. 1308. 20 Storey, Langley, pp. 74, 179. 21 Langley, Register, II, nos. 485, 543; III, no. 589; North Country Wills, ed. J.W Clay, SS 116 (1908), p. 19, for will of John Hovingham, which mentions his wife; Dobson, Durham Priory, pp. 42, 141; DCM, Reg. III, f. 96; Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, pp. 543, 645, 716. Langley, Register, IV, nos. 980, 1111, must refer to a son.

159


He was made clerk of the chancery and keeper of the rolls for life by Langley in 1437.22 Robert Jackson was the coroner of Easington Ward under Langley, a gentleman of Faringdon Hall, Sunderland, who often acted on bishopric and priory business.23 Thus the so-called ‘founders’ of the guild were leading members of the administrative class working for the bishop and prior in the city and area. This was certainly not a guild representing local trades; it may more realistically be thought to represent city and local government. This view is strengthened by the evidence that when a body representing the whole city was needed, the alderman of this guild was used. In 1450 Thomas Billingham arranged for water to be brought by aqueduct from his manor of Sidegate to the marketplace of Durham, for the honour of God, St Cuthbert and St Nicholas and because of his affection for the men of the city, as he put it. The charter was given to the alderman of the Corpus Christi guild, who for that year was Master John Lound, and the burgesses of the city. Lound put the common seal of the city on their document.24 This suggests that there was no body which so thoroughly represented all the city interests as this guild.25 Lound’s election to the post of alderman is also important, since he was from exactly the same class as the other leading members of the guild whom we have looked at. His career is discussed elsewhere.26 His election as alderman represents the choice of one of the leading lawyers on the episcopal staff. The history of the guild is obscure after 1450 until about 1500, by which time it seems to have had substantial property in the city.27 There clearly was a chantry attached, however, since there is mention from time to time of the chaplain of the guild or even of the chaplain of the chantry of the guild.28 The names of a few of these chaplains can be found.29 In 1524 and still at the time of the Valor in 1535 John Peryson or Pearson held the post.30 He had a

22 Fraser, Durham Quarter Sessions Rolls, pp. 20–1, for the family, and appendix at the end with biographies of JPs, including many Rakets, with very full references; for his wife, Feodarium, p. 18. 23 Langley, Register, I. nos. 128, 181; IV, nos. 1002, 1013, 1122; Feodarium, p. 21n; Surtees, Durham, I, pp. 246–7, for a pedigree. 24 NA, Dur 3/44, m. 9, dated 31 March 1450, with Bishop Neville’s approval 20 July 13th year (=1451). 25 P.J.P. Goldberg, ‘Performing the Word of God: Corpus Christi drama in the northern province’, SCH Subsidia 12 (1999), pp. 145–70, esp. pp. 149–50, for the link between plays, guilds and town government, though the dates for Durham are somewhat inaccurate. 26 See pp. 107–8. 27 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, pp. 11, 13–15, 23–5, 36, 71–2, 123–4, 165, 204, 212, 333; 3, p. 579. 28 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, p. 579; 2, p. 123. 29 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, pp. 13–14; DCM, 1.2.Sac.7. 30 DCM, Crossgate Court Book, ff. 198, 200v; Valor Ecclesiasticus tempus Henr. VIII institutus, ed. J. Caley and J. Hunter, 6 vols, London 1810–34, V, pp. 302, 323; NA, SC 2/171/6, f. 24,

160


house and the property was thought to be worth £3 15s 6d.31 This is the man who was reported to Thomas Cromwell after the Pilgrimage of Grace for uttering probably subversive words in July 1537, who may then have lost his job.32 The guild can also be glimpsed in the dealings of the Crossgate borough court. When Robert Gollen was its chaplain in 1513/14 the court ordered him to clear his water course in his close at the end of the town.33 The question of this water course arose again in 1515,34 and in 1521 the chaplain was forbidden to put a door in his close into the venell in Allertongate.35 In February 1524 John Pereson, no doubt the man mentioned above, was accused of not keeping his fences in repair.36 In July Pereson was suing Thomas Trotter for rent for two and a half years for one house and John Hall for another, though he did not pursue the case and both parties admitted the debt.37 The only other information on this organisation is a brief glimpse in 1502 when Thomas Wylkynson, almost certainly a man who held a tenement in Framwellgate in 1500, brought a plea of detenue in the Crossgate court against John Potter, ‘for three tops of parts (of lights) belonging to the said Thomas which he made for the procession on Corpus Christi Day’, which Potter denied.38 Potter or Potts may be one of the churchwardens of St Margaret’s.39 Tops were covers for processional candles and the suit must be the aftermath of the Corpus Christi procession. By the time of the Dissolution the raison d’être of the guild was said to be ‘for the maintenance of God’s service and to find a priest to pray for the souls of the founders [who were described as the inhabitants of the city] and for all Christian souls’.40 No mention was made of processions and the institution therefore looks more like a chantry. The revenues were estimated to bring in £6 per annum in 1549 (£5 net).41 The only other widely based fraternity was the guild of St Cuthbert, which probably at first and perhaps to the end covered the bishopric of Durham,

ref. in January 1533/4. The almoner’s rental is probably wrong to give John Spark in 1534, f. 33. 31 For the chaplain being ordered to do things to this house see DCM, Crossgate Court Book, ff. 136, 144v, 182v. 32 H.F. Westlake, The Parish Guilds of Medieval England, London 1919, p. 131; LP, XII/2, no. 353. 33 DCM, Crossgate Court Book, 1, ff. 136, 140. 34 Crossgate Court Book, 1, f. 144v. 35 Crossgate Court Book, 1, f. 182v. 36 Crossgate Court Book, 1, f. 198. 37 Crossgate Court Book, 1, f. 200r/v. 38 Crossgate Court Book, 1, f. 49r/v; Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, p. 248. 39 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, pp. 57, 68, 77, 129, 176. 40 NA, E101/18, no. 56. 41 NA, SC 12/7/26, ff. vii–viiv. 161


Northumberland and perhaps even further west. The evidence for its range of membership comes from the accounts of the sacrist of the priory, which from 1338–40 recorded offerings ‘from the confraternity of St Cuthbert’ for most years. The amounts varied; for the year 1348–9 they were £1 but for 1361–2 they were £2 13s 4d. In 1390–1 and 1393–4 there was nothing and then for 1395–6 and 1396–8 £2 is recorded each year. The next extant account, however, records nothing again, and similarly until 1404–5, when 15s is recorded. In 1408–9 nothing is again given. Next year the accounts say that 12s was received from the fraria within Northumberland and Hexhamshire but nothing from the bishopric of Durham; 1411–12 records offerings ‘on the two feasts of St Cuthbert by his brothers’, included in a lump sum of various offerings; 1412–13 records £1 6s 8d from the fraternity in Northumberland, Fournays (?Furness), somewhere illegible and Hexhamshire, but nothing from the bishopric. The accounts for 1413–14 and 1414–15 likewise record offerings from Northumberland and Hexhamshire but nothing from the bishopric. In 1415–16 and 1416–17 the accounts show both money from the fraternity and offerings by the brothers of the guild. From 1423–5 there is no mention of the fraternity in the extant accounts, though they are by no means complete. Then in 1483–4 the ‘brothers of the guild of St Cuthbert’ are again recorded among the general small offerings and they occur in all the extant accounts after that, which are very incomplete but include one for 1535–6. This was probably the oldest of the Durham guilds, but its history is very obscure. The earliest mention of it is in charters probably of the early thirteenth century when a group – Richard de Sireburne, William de Witewelle,42 William the priest, Richard Decanus, William de Redinges and Robert, son of Hervicus – with the consent of the guild of St Cuthbert in Clayport (Claypath), granted John, son of Hugh Tiwe or Tywe and his heirs and assigns, the house of ‘our’ guild in Clayport, with its adjacent toft; rent was owed to Sireburne and to the alderman of the guild.43 Tywe later granted 6s from the rent of the hall to the fund for the new fabric of the cathedral.44 Thus the guild was attached to the monastery and it clearly had aldermen to manage its affairs, with a guild house at an early date. Of the men mentioned only three can be traced further. Tywe is found holding tenements in Durham probably in the later thirteenth century, including land in Clayport,45 and William de Redinges was probably the father of John de Redinges found in 1291 quitclaiming land in Elvet.46 William de Witewell, a layman, was a frequent witness of charters conveying property to the priory in the time of Puiset and Philip of Poitou and was one of the lay witnesses about the claim of the prior to jurisdiction in its quarrel

42 43 44 45 46

These two appear together in Feodarium, p. 175n. DCM, 4.2.Sac.1; Bonney, Lordship, p. 95. DCM, 4.2.Sac.2. Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, pp. 296, 402, 411. Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, p. 649. 162


with the bishop in 1228.47 This suggests an early thirteenth-century foundation date for the guild. The evidence from the sacrist’s accounts suggests that the organisation languished in the later fourteenth century and that it may have gone altogether by the mid-fifteenth. This may explain why the guild was registered by letters patent from Bishop Neville on 19 April 1451, with licence on 23 July from him to acquire land in mortmain up to £10 per year as if starting afresh.48 It was ‘founded’ by a named group but they could recruit more members and could include men and women, choosing a warden yearly, with a common seal and the right of the warden to oversee the revenues. It was based in the chapel of the Virgin Mary in the Galilee in the cathedral.49 This was probably a re-founding, as with the Corpus Christi guild, for the purpose of collecting more property. The named ‘founders’ were John Lound, William Raket, Robert Rodes, Richard Raket, with Robert Sotheron and John Bynchester, the last two chaplains. Lound and William Raket are already known from the Corpus Christi guild. Richard Raket, probably William’s father, was clerk of the crown, of assize, of the peace, of the halmote and notary, keeper of Frankleyn park, as we have seen.50 Robert Rodes was a merchant of Newcastle, with a house in Durham and extensive property elsewhere.51 Apart from holding various administrative posts – controller of the customs of Durham in 1441, seneschal of the prior in 1445, one of the bishop’s council at law, for instance – it is clear that he lent the prior a great deal of money in the 1440s.52 He was MP for Newcastle more frequently than any other Newcastle burgess in the fifteenth century: in 1427–8, 1429–30, 1431, 1432, 1433, 1435, 1437, 1439–40 and 1442.53 He was made a confrater by the monks in 1444 and must have been the most important secular adviser to the priory in his day.54 The two chaplains Bynchester and Sotheron were typical of their kind in late medieval Durham. They both appear regularly in the documents as witnesses, and as attorneys, particularly when the priory was collecting property prior to a claim for licence to alienate in mortmain. Bynchester was probably the older. References to him

47

EEA, 25, no. 235, for him as a witness to a document of 1197[x]1205; Feodarium, pp. 128–30 notes, 133 note, 136 note, 173 note, 175 note, and especially p. 253. 48 NA, Dur 3/44, m. 1. 49 Rites, p. 44, with notes p. 233, but Dr Doyle and Dr Snape (pers. com.) consider that the chapel of Our Lady of Pity is wrongly identified here. The whole Galilee was dedicated to Our Lady (ibid., p. 42). 50 See Dr Fraser’s notes, above p. 114. 51 For this and the next sentence: NA, Dur 3/44, mm. 1, 7; Scriptores Tres, pp. ccxcii, cccvii; DCM, Reg. I, f. vi verso; Reg. III, ff. 222v, 271v. 52 DCM, Reg. III, ff. 227, 229, 243; IV, f. 59. 53 J. Wedgewood, History of Parliament. Register of Ministers and of the Members of Both Houses, 1439–1509, London 1938, p. 667. 54 DCM, Reg. III, f. 306v. 163


acting in land transactions go back to 1411 and continue until 1452.55 He was also a witness to the election of prior Ebchester in 1446.56 Sotheron, who was a Durham man, appears frequently in the records, often of course acting with other chaplains.57 He was chaplain of the Langley chantry from 1438 to 1478.58 He was more than just a local agent of the prior. As we have seen, he may have visited Rome on priory business.59 Sotheron was only paid for half the year in 1470–1 which may be the year in question.60 This was a time when the priory renewed its attempts to recover Coldingham through action in the Roman curia.61 The guild of St Cuthbert had substantial property by the time of the Dissolution. The rental of Edward VI’s time listed the properties (including ‘le Guildhall’ rented out to Robert Warke for 10s).62 They were the revenues from a burgage in Gilesgate, a close of an acre, six burgages and two tenements in Clayport, one burgage in Sadlergate, one tenement in Elvet, one garden in Ratten Row, now waste, the hall, another tenement with a close of about an acre in Framwellgate, a garden in Sidegate, two tenements in Crossgate and a payment of free farm from the Dean and Chapter to the chaplain. Three of these tenements (one in Clayport, and two in Crossgate) had brewing equipment (a ‘brewleade’) and one had a meadow. There was also the rent of two further tenements, one in the territory of Medomesly. In the Valor Ecclesiasticus the guild of St Cuthbert is not separately accounted for but the priory agreed that it owed payment to its chaplain.63 The net value in 1548 was said to be £6 13s 3d. The guild can be seen intermittently administering the Crossgate properties. On 13 October 1501, for instance, the goods of one of its tenants, John Tomson, were distrained by the chaplain of the guild, Richard Stevynson, and valued by Crossgate court to pay for a year and a half’s rent owed at Pentecost.64 In 1517 (probably) the court assessed the rent owed by ‘Newton wyffe’ for a house in Crossgate belonging to the guild as 5s 8d and her possessions.65

55 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, has many references, but for this: 2, pp. 87–8, 405. 56 Scriptores Tres, p. cclxxxv. 57 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, has many references, but for this: 2, p. 392. 58 See p. 125. 59 Scriptores Tres, p. ccclxvii; see The English Hospice in Rome, Venerabile, 21 (1962), pp. 151, 266–7. 60 DUL, Archives and Special Collections, CCB B2/17 (189824). 61 B. Dobson, ‘The last English monks on Scottish soil: the severance of Coldingham priory from the monastery of Durham, 1461–78’, reprinted in Church and Society in the Medieval North of England, London 1996, pp. 109–33, esp. pp. 128–30. 62 NA, SC 12/7/26, ff. xv–xvi verso, copy in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Dodsworth MS 61, p. 82, but without the last page with summa. 63 Valor Ecclesiasticus, V, p. 302. 64 DCM, Crossgate Court Book, 1, f. 42. 65 Crossgate Court Book, 1, f. 169.

164


If the conjecture that the guild was based on the altar of Our Lady of Pity is correct, the Rites says that the chantry priest said mass there on feast days.66 The author distinguishes this chantry from that of Langley, also based in the Galilee at the altar of Our Lady, rebuilt for the purpose. The sacrist’s accounts suggest that the brethren gave their yearly offerings on the two feasts of St Cuthbert, 20 March and 4 September. There were also trade guilds in Durham city. Once a year in the Corpus Christi procession these guilds assembled and put on plays. Copies still remain of the ordinance of the butchers’ and the goldsmiths’ companies, the former dated 14 June 1403,67 the latter confirmed by Bishop Cuthbert Tunstal in May 1532.68 A very similar exemplification of the ordinance of the weavers’ company is dated 1 August 1450, approved by the bishop on 20 September.69 The glovers or cordwainers (sutors) drew up and registered very much the same ordinance in 1463/4, and the barbers and waxmakers in 1468.70 These all have in common that they are said to be drawn up for the honour of God and for the sustaining of the Corpus Christi play, laying down the duties of members of the crafts on the day of the play. The butchers for instance agreed to meet once a year and to elect two men to be wardens and searchers. The members were to assemble on Corpus Christi day in their best clothes with their servants and apprentices and with their banner and lights. Failure to assemble for the play meant a 6d fine to be collected by the serjeants of the city and 6d for the light of the butchers. Each ordinance then listed the rules governing the particular craft, their apprentices and their buying, preparing and selling of their goods. Transgressors were fined, the fines being shared between the bishop and ‘the light(s) of the said craft’. The reference to ‘lights’ may mean that the candles and torches carried on Corpus Christi day were paid for out of fines, though it probably implies that each guild had a light in St Nicholas’s church, as the plumbers almost certainly had.71 The cordwainers, however, coming into the chancery court of the bishop in November of Bishop Neville’s tenth year (1448), enrolled their acknowledgement of their acceptance that a £1 fine would be owed to both bishop and ‘light’ for harbouring any Scot.72 The fullers registered the same rule in February the next year.73 In each of these

66

Rites, pp. 44, 233. DUL, Mickleton and Spearman MS 49, ff. 178–9; printed, though with some error, in Harding, ‘The Company of Butchers and Fleshers’, pp. 93–100. 68 A.H. Thompson, ‘On a minute book and paper formerly belonging to the Mercers’ Company; and “Ordinary of the Goldsmiths’ Company”; both of Durham City’, Arch. Ael., 3rd series, 19 (1922), pp. 210–53, with the ordinance pp. 249–53. 69 NA, Dur 3/44, mm. 10–11. 70 NA, Dur 3/50, m. 6; C.E. Whiting, ‘Durham trade guilds’, TAASDN, 9, part 2 (1941), pp. 143–262; part 3 (1943), pp. 265–415, with barbers given pp. 408–10. 71 See p. 38. 72 NA, Dur 3/46, item 70, final membrane. 73 NA, Dur 3/46, item 71, final membrane. 67

165


cases the ‘light’ is said to be the light known as ‘of Corpus Christi’, so it must refer to lights before the altar housing the shrine of Corpus Christi in St Nicholas’s church. Some guilds seem to have been accustomed to make offerings in the cathedral. From 1413 onwards the sacrist’s accounts show the carpenters and smiths making offerings there.74 According to the accounts for 1424–4 the smiths made their offering on the feast of St Eligius (their patron, 25 June) and the carpenters on the feast of Pentecost.75 The smiths may have had a chantry of St Eligius in St Nicholas’s church.76 Very little apart from this can be found out about these organisations. It is perhaps not surprising, in view of the religious background, that a few cases involving crafts arrived in the ecclesiastical court. In August 1498 some fullers summoned Richard Smalwod and John Hugheson in the prior’s archidiaconal court for breach of faith in that they had been fulling contrary to the ‘ordinance of the art of the fullers’.77 The two defended themselves by saying that they had given no promise. The outcome is not apparent but very likely the case was sent to the secular court. The cordwainers or sutors brought a suit in the consistory court in 1535, this time for perjury.78 But several references also occur, as one would expect, in the secular court books. The butchers’ guild, for instance, can be seen bringing cases in Crossgate court for broken agreements.79 There are fleeting glimpses of a few other religious associations or guilds which appear to be city-wide but centred on the Galilee chapel of the cathedral. According to accounts of the almoner’s estate after the Dissolution there was a guild of the Holy Saviour (S. Salvator), which held property.80 This is attested from the Receiver’s Books, dating to 1541–2 and 1551–2, for instance.81 Almost certainly it was based on a devotion in the Galilee. The collecting box of St Salvator at the entrance to the Galilee was attested in the sacrist’s accounts from 1483 when it received £1 15s 6d, and this continued in the remaining sacrist’s accounts, including the last one 1535–6.82 The altar of the Saviour in the Galilee before the Reformation was said by the Rites of Durham to be on the right-hand side as one turned in to the north door.83

74

Sacrist’s accounts, 1413–14. Sacrist’s accounts, 1423–4; see also 1424–5A. 76 See p. 76. 77 Court Book of Prior’s Official, f. 128v. 78 DUL, Archives and Special Collections, DDR/EJ/CCA/1/1, f. 79: gardiani sive Senli [=senescali?] artis sive occupacionis sutorum calcearum. 79 DCM, Crossgate Court Book, 1, f. 60r/v. 80 DCM, Misc. Ch. 7283, f. 14v. 81 DCM, Receiver’s Book 2, 1541–2, ff. 12, 13r/v, 14v, 15; 4, 1551–2, ff. 23, 25, 26, 29. 82 Sacrist’s accounts, 1483–4, 1535–6. 83 Rites, p. 38. 75

166


I have found only two chaplains for this guild, William Welles in 153484 and Thomas Hochynson in 1534–6.85 There was also a guild of the Holy Cross, which was centred on the altar of the Holy Cross in the Galilee. There was also an indulgenced altar of the Holy Cross in the cathedral, with its indulgences dating to the early fourteenth century, when it was newly built,86 but the sacrist’s accounts from at least 1356 talk of an altar of the Holy Cross in the Galilee.87 In 1367 its offertory box received £9 12s 8d.88 From 1414–15, however, offerings were also noted from the brethren of the guild of the Holy Cross separately from the box.89 In 1422–3 and 1424–5 the accountant specified that these offerings had been made on the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (14 September) ‘by the guild’.90 This devotion may not have lasted, however. There is no mention of this guild in 1483–4 and onwards, though the offertory box remained and collected a little. There certainly was a guild of the Crucifix in St Oswald’s which had property.91 In the Edwardian rentals the ‘Roode’ priest in St Oswald’s was credited with the income from one tenement in New Elvet called The Great Place and three other tenements in New Elvet, one tenement in the ‘marketsted’, Durham, two tenements in Clayport, one close in Ratton Row and one other tenement. The net value was £3 7s 8d.92 Several parishes had guilds, some of which were also chantries. The chantry of the Trinity with a guild in St Nicholas’s can be seen from at least 1404 when a property in Souterpeth is recorded for it.93 Its rental was one of the most valuable (worth net £7 1s 4d) and it is the more remarkable that we know so little about it.94 The chantry and guild of St Nicholas’s existed from the late thirteenth century (1271 at least) when Mercator’s chantry let its large house to the guild. In 1338 a messuage in Claypath owed it 3s 4d a year.95 It may have been wider than the city itself, since Lady Maud Bowes of Streatlam is found leaving it a legacy in 1421.96 It was one of the poorest in 1548, without an incumbent and worth only net £1 5s 8d, with many vacant lots and with lead and other things sold from one of its breweries by the surveyor.97

84

DCM, Almoner’s rentals, f. 33. Almoner’s rentals, ff. 46, 69. 86 Rites, pp. 155, 156. 87 Sacrist’s accounts, 1356–7, 1416–17. 88 Sacrist’s accounts, 1367. 89 Sacrist’s accounts, 1414–15. 90 Sacrist’s accounts, 1422–3A, 1424–5A. 91 DCM, Hostillar’s rentals, 1525–7, ff. 21, 22v, 23v, 42; 1530–1, f. 81v; Almoner’s rentals, 1534, f. 33r/v. 92 NA, SC 12/7/26. f. v verso. 93 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, pp. 335, 337. 94 NA, SC 12/7/26, f. xii recto and verso. 95 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, p. 399. 96 Will of Lady Maud Bowes of Streatlam, Langley, Register, II, no. 553. 97 NA, SC 12/7/26, f. xiii. 85

167


There was another Trinity guild in St Oswald’s church. Little is known of it but it is found from 1447–8 in the accounts of St Oswald’s church when its brethren and sisters offered 1s 7d in the church.98 From then on more or less the same amount was offered until the 1470s when the amount shown in the procurator’s accounts begins to drop. This was probably because by then the guild was building itself a house. By 1505–6 the amount paid to the church was only 1d with nothing in 1528–9, the last account.99 That this represents a change of accounting practice can be seen from the bursar’s accounts at the end of the monastic period where the guild was found paying directly to the bursar for its guild house at 1s 0d per annum from its alderman and members.100 Behind this there was a transaction with the priory. On 20 October 1472 the prior leased to the alderman and brethren three waste burgages on the west side of Elvet Bridge on which the guild agreed to build a guild house in which the prior also would be allowed to hold the court for the borough of Elvet. The lease was for seventy-nine years in the first instance with two renewals for a slightly higher yearly rent (1s 0d yearly in the first term).101 The guild was certainly in existence in 1542.102 But there is no mention of this guild in the Valor or in the chantry returns. St Oswald’s Trinity guild was not alone in owning a hall. 103 The guild of St Cuthbert had a hall called the Guild Hall in 1548, held by Robert Warke.104 There is no evidence, however, that the Corpus Christi guild continued to use Hagthorp’s house.105 The big house in the market-place, called Le Crowne, belonged to the guild of St Nicholas and had the wherewithal for brewing. It was valuable, once worth £3, though bringing in nothing in 1548.106 Thus extra-parochial corporate religious activity was well catered for in the city even though the nature of our sources prevents us from finding out much about its religious practice. There was equally a flourishing number of other religious foundations, including hospitals upon which the laity likewise expended their money and their energy.

98

St Oswald’s accounts, 1447–8. St Oswald’s accounts, 1505–6, 1528–9. 100 For instance, DCM, Bursar’s Book H (1507–10), f. 57v; Book J (1516–17), f. 68; Receiver’s Book 2, 1542, f. 14. 101 DCM, Reg. IV, ff. 210v–11; Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, p. 96; DCM, 4.17.Spec.35; the alderman was Thomas Tonge (Tange) and two confratres, Thomas Wade and Thomas Watson. 102 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, p. 676; DCM, Receiver’s Book 2, 1542, f. 14. 103 Bonney, Lordship, pp. 94–7. 104 NA, SC 12/7/26, f. xv verso. 105 See p. 000. 106 NA, SC 12/7/26, f. xiii. 99

168

10

Hospitals and other charities for non-monks Most urban centres in the middle ages had hospitals and the founding of these was often the result of lay action. It was one of the ‘works of mercy’ to visit and care for the sick, but also to harbour the homeless, so that some institutions were to house wayfarers, and in Durham of course there were always pilgrims. Durham had several hospitals but the most important in the city itself were run from the monastery. Hospitals proper, as opposed to hospices, were usually founded in the first place to house lepers, suffering from what we would now call Hansen’s disease, though it may not have been so readily diagnosed in the high middle ages. In Durham, as in the rest of England, the founding of hospitals seems to have been connected with an epidemic of leprosy which spread from China to Europe from the eleventh century.1 The disease was greatly feared and hospitals were often founded outside the walls of settlements so that their inmates could be segregated.2 By the later middle ages lepers in Durham, as elsewhere, were fewer (or were not so often housed in hospitals) and the institutions founded for them had either closed or were given over to the care of the poor or the old. There still were people called ‘lepers’, as one can see from a litigant in the prior’s archidiaconal court in 1436 called John Croxton lazarus,3 but there is little evidence that they were in hospital (Langley clearly thought lepers might be difficult to find4) and certainly they were not segregated. Lepers have been thought by some historians to have been treated very harshly. However, some of the more draconian legislation thought to have applied to them in England, such as the reading of the burial service over them, has recently been queried and discounted. The liturgy of the burial service for a living leper was included in Sarum rite Manuales but not before 1526 (earlier ones do not include it), and the evidence suggests that it was an exotic import from France which by then had no relevance to England anyway.5 The

1

For the history of leprosy, see most recently N. Orme and M. Webster, The English Hospital 1070–1570, London and New Haven 1995. 2 For the hostility and possible explanations: R.I. Moore, The Formation of a Persecuting Society. Power and Deviance in Western Europe 950–1250, Oxford 1987, pp. 45 onwards, esp. p. 50 seq. 3 Capitula, f. 4v. 4 See note 77. 5 Orme, Hospital, p. 31; A. Jeffries Collins, ed., Manuale, Henry Bradshaw Society 91 (1958), 169


evidence from Durham supports this. The hospitals founded in the twelfth century were indeed remote but they seem also to have been open. Sherburn hospital for instance, founded in 1181 by Puiset but regulated also by Bishop Marsh or Poore in the thirteenth century, allowed the relatives of inmates open access ‘to comfort them’, and even to stay the night if they came from far away.6 Some of the hospitals in Durham from the earlier epidemic vanished early but left traces. A very early one existed in connection with St Oswald’s church. This has left almost no trace, certainly none on the ground, but it is mentioned in the almoner’s small cartulary and so it existed before 1212.7 The document is a grant by John de Hambledon for his own soul and the souls of Gilbert Hansard and his son Gilbert and John de Amundesville and his son Robert, of land in Chirton to support three priests, including one at the altar of St John the Baptist in St Oswald’s church, serving the sick and the dead in St Oswald’s hospital. At the Reformation a remnant of this earlier charitable activity may be seen in the report to the crown surveyors that the parish owed £1 5s a year to the poor, paid by the churchwardens.8 St Nicholas’s was the only other parish to report a fund like this, saying that it was owed to twelve poor people.9 Another early hospital which had vanished as an active institution, though not as a source of revenue, by the time of the Dissolution, was that of St Leonard and St Bartholomew. It seems that from an early period the chaplain saying mass over the abbey gate was also priest in charge of the hospital of St Leonard and St Bartholomew, near Durham. The hospital must have been well established before 1292, since it is mentioned in a grant confirmed by the king that year, describing land as ‘near’ it, though its location is unknown.10 The abbey documents included a renunciation by the master and brethren of Kepier of any right in St Bartholomew’s chapel which might have accrued because Walter the chaplain dwelt there, by concession of the prior of Durham.11 It had a cemetery.12 The chapel probably remained or at least produced some revenue, since later chantry priests of St Helen said mass with this title.13

pp. xx, 185 note 2; P. Richards, The Medieval Leper and His Northern Heirs, Cambridge 1977, quotes in an appendix a version of it from R.M. Clay, The Medieval Hospitals of England, London 1909, as genuinely applying in the earlier period. 6 EEA, 24, no. 145, and appendix VI, p. 183. 7 DCM, Almoner’s small cartulary, ff. 139–41. 8 NA, SC/12/7/26, f. iiij. 9 NA, SC/12/7/26, f. xiii verso. 10 VCH, Durham, II, p. 123; A. Bek, Records of Anthony Bek, Bishop of Durham and Patriarch, 1283–1311, ed. C.M. Fraser, SS 162 (1947), pp. 24–5, referring to CPR 1281–92, p. 504. For ref. in 1293: DCM, Reg. I, part II, ff. 30v–1. 11 BL, Cotton Vitel A IX, f. 19. 12 BL, Cotton Vitel A IX, f. 19v. 13 DCM, Reg. III, ff. 132v–3. 170

HOSPITALS AND OTHER CHARITIES

St Mary Magdalen, the hospital attached to the tiny parish, was founded as a leper hospital. Nearly all the accounts date it to the mid-thirteenth century but it perhaps dates to at least the episcopate of William of St Barbe (1143– 52).14 In the almoner’s cartulary there is a grant by him giving to Saint Mary Magdalen and the sick land in Sherburn which coincides with land later claimed by this hospital. By the fourteenth century it was a hospital for the poor and seems to have held among others four poor widows, known as the widows of St Mary. It was administered by the almoner of the priory who accounted yearly for distributions to the poor of St Mary Magdalen. In 1353–4 a fraternity of St Mary Magdalen is mentioned in the almoner’s accounts as let to farm.15 In 1367–8, when the accounts are much fuller, a stipend is given for one servant and six brothers and sisters receiving a weekly allowance of money (2d a week according to the 1368–9 account) and food with a garment at Christmas.16 In 1376–7 there were five brothers and sisters of the hospital, and in 1390–1 only three living in, with two others probably living out.17 By 1392–3 this was the pattern; two brothers lived in and four lived out with an allowance for each.18 People seem to have exchanged places in the hospital with others by paying the almoner to be allowed to do so.19 They paid also for licence to live out and this must have involved a small yearly payment in return for food and clothing.20 William Hawkyn, for example, paid 3s 4d for years in the early fifteenth century for this permission. In 1415–16 he also paid 15s for permission to marry whilst still a brother.21 By 1418–19 he was dead.22 The hospital, or rather the parish, of St Mary Magdalen received payments on the death of brethren, whose goods seem to have been sold for the benefit of the hospital.23 By the middle of the fifteenth century the places in this hospital were being treated by the priory as corrodies and were evidently given or in effect sometimes sold with licence to be non-resident.24 Certainly not all the recipients look poor. In April 1439 John Holm armiger and his wife were given by the prior a corrody in the hospital ‘for their good and laudable service to our

14 For the most recent account, see D.M. Meade, Kepier Hospital, Durham 1995, pp. 13–4; DEC, no. 43, esp. pp. 171–2. 15 Almoner’s accounts, 1353–4. 16 Almoner’s accounts, 1367–8, 1368–9. 17 Almoner’s accounts, 1376–7B, 1390–1B: Ricardo Tesdale extra commoranti and John Walleworth also. 18 Almoner’s accounts, 1392–3B, with names. 19 Almoner’s accounts, 1393–4A, 100s de Willelmo Hanky et Ricardo Porter pro licencia commutandi ad invicem liberacionem suam de Maudelyn. 20 Almoner’s accounts, 1400–1A. 21 Almoner’s accounts, 1415–16A. 22 Almoner’s accounts, 1418–19A. 23 For example, Almoner’s accounts, 1451–2, 1466–7. 24 DCM, Reg. Parv. II, f. 84v, to Emma Palfrayman, 12 February 1434/5, replacing John Walworth. She can be seen receiving this, Almoner’s accounts, 1434–5.

171


predecessor and us’ for life with licence to be non-resident.25 This would be John Holme generosus who was the prior’s chamberlain from 1418 to 1444.26 Another incumbent was Helen Steel, the widow of John Steel and mother of the abbey cantor John Steel junior, who was allowed to hold a corrody and be non-resident as long as her son the cantor lived.27 Some of the recipients were abbey servants: John Dale domesticus noster, for instance, in April 1447.28 Chaplains held some of these positions: John Bynchester, for instance, who was never anything except cantarist of St Helen’s chantry, was a confrater from 1418–19 until 1452.29 He was certainly still active for the priory whilst he held this corrody.30 By the mid-century also some people were being allowed to be pluralists, John Schort for example.31 The hospital was a sufficiently desirable place for Henry Bowet, archbishop of York, to write to the prior asking him to grant a place in the Magdalen to Elias Harpour, a long-time servant of the abbey, more especially as Harpour’s wife Marjory had been a long-time servant of Bowet’s mother, who was a kinswoman of the Nevilles.32 The abbey infirmary or hospital for non-monks was in the South Bailey opposite the abbey gate. It seems to have been an ordinary hospice for the poor, not a leper hospital. Its existence was attested by the same grant which showed that St Oswald’s had a hospital; in this case the document pays for a priest ministering in the abbey hospital of St John the Evangelist before the abbey gate.33 This infirmary had been allowed by Innocent III to have a chapel with a chaplain, provided the parish church (St Mary in the North Bailey) was not injured.34 Its exact location is not certain but in January 1360 a notary for some parishioners of St Oswald’s parish described himself as able to look over at St Oswald’s church (it was winter and there would be no trees to obscure the view): ‘standing on the walls of the city of Durham on the south part of the infirmary in the Bailey’.35 The infirmary seems to have had places for about twenty-eight poor people.36 By the end of the fifteenth century the bulk of these lived out and the places were used as corrodies.

25

Reg. Parv. II, f. 123r/v. Dobson, Durham Priory, p. 122. 27 Reg. Parv. III, f. 50v. 28 Reg. Parv. III, f. 14v. 29 Almoner’s accounts, 1418–19; Reg. Parv. III, f. 51, dead by 19 February 1451/2. 30 Feodarium, pp. 69, 185–6. 31 Reg. Parv. III, ff. 28v, 29. 32 DCM, Loc. XXV: 51, 3 November with no year. For the family of Bowet, see A. Hamilton Thompson, under Bowet, in DHGE, X, cols 304–6, esp. 305. 33 See above, note 7. 34 DCM, Almoner’s rental and cartulary, f. 162v, with date 1 June; Innocent III, Letters of Pope Innocent III (1198–1216) Concerning England and Wales. A Calendar, ed. C.R. and M.G. Cheney, Oxford 1967, no. 1101, printed p. 271. 35 DCM, Loc. 27: 26 (8). 36 Dobson, Durham Priory, p. 168. 26

172


We can learn about some of the rules which governed the holders of places in the abbey infirmary because there were potential conflicts of interest between the priory and the parish priest, and the inevitable cases arose and were recorded by the priory. In December 1365 the almoner John Hemingburgh, before all the brethren and sisters of the infirmary, spelled out the custom that once an inmate was ill ‘whether living in the infirmary or not’ he or she could not leave goods nor make a will without licence of the bishop and the almoner’s permission. Thomas de Qwham, rector of the North Bailey, who was present, asserted that he had some goods given him for the fabric of his church by Johanna de Stobele, sister of the infirmary while she lived. The articles in question were a green supertunic and a set of rosary beads. Thomas said that the almoner had given them to him as a gift but the almoner said he had not the power to make such a gift. Present also was John Cutelare who said he also had some jewels as a gift from Johanna: a pair of amber beads and a silver ring, which he handed to the almoner on the spot.37 In 1456 Matilda Benett, a sister of the infirmary who lived in a house next to the church of North Bailey, agreed to the customs of the infirmary as outlined in the previous document and therefore repudiated a will which, as she says, she had made in ignorance.38 She had included in this will gifts for the rector of the church, 1s 8d for making its bell tower and £1 5s 0d to William Wall, chaplain, to celebrate for her soul for a quarter year, as well as personal gifts. It is not surprising that the almoner did not like this. The infirmary was not the only hospital accommodation which the abbey provided. There was also a Maison Dieu or Domus Dei. It was always accounted for in the almoner’s rentals and accounts as a separate institution, though it evidently came to be considered just one of the ways in which the priory could provide a pension for deserving persons. It was further along the North Bailey from the infirmary. It may also have acted as a hospice for pilgrims. There was a further hospital at Witton Gilbert. It was begun for five lepers, founded by a grant by Gilbert de la Ley, with sixty acres and £1 10s 0d rent. Hugh du Puiset confirmed this between 1183 and 1195.39 Early in the thirteenth century it received another large grant to maintain a chaplain there.40 It was administered by the almoner of the priory. By the time the almoner has left us clear accounts, in the mid-fourteenth century,41 it had become a hospital for the poor and its history was very like that of St Mary Magdalen. By 1367–8 the five inhabitants were receiving garments and money for their food, with coal for their firing.42 By 1397, just as in the other hospitals, one could pay to

37

Almoner’s rental and cartulary, ff. 162v–4 = 4.4.Elemos.16. Almoner’s rental and cartulary, ff. 166r–7v. 39 EEA, 24, no. 40; G.V. Scammell, ‘Seven charters of Bishop Hugh de Puiset’, Arch. Ael., 4th series, 34 (1956), pp. 77–90, esp. p. 80 for Gilbert; cf. EEA, 24, no. 94, notes. 40 EEA, 24, no. 230, note with ref. DCM, 5.3.Elem.4. 41 Almoner’s accounts, from c. 1339. 42 Almoner’s accounts 1367–8, expenses. 38

173


live out.43 Whatever happened in 1399–1400 the accounts explain that 12s was received from the brethren for rebuilding the hospital ‘burned by them’ and the priory was re-roofing the chapel and the house of the chaplain and remaking doors.44 By 1413 at latest all five brethren lived out.45 It appears that from 1430 the administration of the hospital was farmed with the church of Witton.46 By 1448–9 there were four brothers and sisters receiving subventions from Witton and this remained the situation until the hospital was dissolved.47 By 1501 the almoner was accounting for four people under the heading of St Peter, Witton Gilbert (three men and one woman), five under St Mary Magdalen (two women and three men), eight women within the infirmary, and outside the infirmary ten women and nineteen men.48 In 1502 the Domus Dei, whose names and numbers do not exist for 1501, had fifteen members of whom six were women. However, William Pawling was listed for both the Domus and St Mary Magdalen, as John Bee was for both Witton and St Mary in 1501. This probably implies a reception of two doles. In the 1533 rental the servant of the infirmary is also noted as receiving an allowance.49 The holders of these places can often be identified, since the small registers for the priory list corrodies offered, and for the period after 1500 there are a few almoner’s rentals with notes sometimes saying who is responsible for receiving the grant. So for instance the anchoress Margaret Esche received her dole through her daughter, the wife of Gilbert Walker.50 There were several relatives of monks in the infirmary from 1533, as there had always been. The almoner noted Johanna Talzor or Trotter, mother of dominus Richard; John Jacson, brother of the sub-prior, identified elsewhere as dominus William Hertilpoll (monk from 1499); Johanna Wilkinson or Manerer, sister of dominus John Manerer; Johanna Blunt, sister of dominus Ralph Blakeson (monk between 1501 and 1550); Mariona Blythe, mother of dominus John Blythe; Cristabell Duket, mother of dominus John Duket (monk from 1502); and Robert Robson, brother of dominus Cuthbert Heighington (monk from 1509).51 In St Mary Magdalen was the mother of dominus Robert Benet (monk between 1513 and 1538).52 In the Domus Dei was Agnes Robinson de Wingatt (Wingates), who was later identified as the sister of dominus J. Holywell, an as

43

Almoner’s accounts, 1397–8A, 10s received from Alice de Wolfhill for licence to live out. 44 Almoner’s accounts, 1399–1400B. 45 Almoner’s accounts, 1413–14B. 46 Almoner’s accounts, 1430–1A. 47 Almoner’s accounts, 1448–9A. 48 Almoner’s rentals, 1501–3, f. 14. 49 Almoner’s rentals, 1533, f. 12. 50 Almoner’s rentals, 1501–3, f. 51. 51 Almoner’s rentals, 1533–7, ff. 12r/v, 29r/v. 52 Almoner’s rentals, 1533–7, f. 13. 174


yet unidentified monk.53 In 1534 John Brown of Emildon (Embledon) was in St Mary Magdalen but his allowance was paid via his son, the monk John Brown (monk from 1504). In 1536–7 Thomas Hochonson was in the infirmary and the doles were received by his wife who was the sister of the third prior, whose name is not known at this period.54 So far the hospitals noticed were founded and run by the priory but there were also initiatives not connected with it. The earliest was the Domus Dei founded in about 1218 as part of the chantry of St Mary in St Margaret’s chapel by Rannulph the chaplain, with a house in South Street to shelter the poor.55 The history of this is so shadowy that it almost vanishes, yet in 1546 the chantry still acknowledged its duty to ‘lodge all maner of poor people thider resorting and to fynde theym fyer and also a laundresse to washe there gere’.56 The laundress and the charges were valued at £1 13s 4d at that time. The chantry was dissolved in 1548 and the last incumbent, John Ducket, an ex-monk, was receiving a pension of £5 per annum as a former chantry priest thereafter.57 But this does not seem to have been the end of hospital foundations for St Margaret’s parish. In 1464 Ralph Bowes esquire gave John Yowdale of Durham, a tanner (barker), a waste ground (fundum) next to the moat of Durham castle to have ‘a house or hospice on the said ground . . . for the relief and hospitality of poor people and pilgrims coming to the town of Durham’. This he did ‘prompted by charity’. Yowdale had to build at his own expense and was to render to Bowes yearly 1s.58 Bowes also gave Yowdale licence to build, with free entry for himself and his workmen. Evidently Yowdale did build; at least that is what his successors thought.59 The property was on the moatside of Durham castle with Silver Street on one side and a waste property once belonging to William Hagthorpe on the east, with the venell which ran down to Silver Street on the west.60 Yowdale was a tanner and brewer.61 Many of Yowdale’s properties were bought up by the priory and held in trust for the life of his wife, but one, in Framwellgate, was reserved for the upkeep of his almshouse.62 When he died in 1493, on 19 October his widow Maude or Matilda entrusted to Cuthbert Billingham of Crookhall near Durham, esquire, a burgage in Framwellgate and the tenement called le Almehouse, using as her attorney Thomas Rihopp

53

Almoner’s rentals, 1533–7, ff. 13v, 30. Almoner’s rentals, 1533–7, f. 92. 55 See pp. 134–5. 56 NA, E101/18, no. 51. 57 NA, E101/75/11, m. 1; his pension as an ex-monk is noted E101/76/13, p. 4. 58 DUL, Archives and Special Collections, MS Mickleton, 47, f. 19. 59 Mickleton, 47, ff. 32v–3v. 60 This appears to be the property noted as no. 16 Silver Street: Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, p. 363, no. 16. 61 Bonney, Lordship, pp. 88, 165. 62 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, pp. 248, 250, 251, 252, 253. 54

175


of Durham, carpenter. Her tripartite document went to Billingham, and to Richard Lewyn, alderman of the guild of St Margaret in Durham, with Thomas Fairhaire, Robert Coken, Nicholas Blaxton, Richard Empson, Robert Solby, Richard Smyrke, John Lone[s]dale, John Potter, Thomas Forest, John Tadcastre and John Blount as his co-trustees. The third part went to John Raket of Durham, esquire, and his heirs and assigns. On 23 October Billingham enfeoffed the same group to use and annexed a schedule giving his intention, with Raket keeping one copy of this.63 His intention was that the group of men should maintain an almshouse and undertake all the repairs etc. for thirteen beds ‘for all poore folk and travelling people to be logid and herbered’. ‘All poore travelling people there herbery or logyng asking for the love of God shall be herbered and logide for oone day and oone night’, except at Christmas, Easter and Ascension when they could stay two days and nights. Each year the trustees were to see that three dozen horseloads of coal were given for their fire, and there was to be a brass pot two gallons in size so that they could have their ‘meite seethed’. There was to be one woman to live there to make the fire, wash and wring the sheets and to ‘dight the meite of the poore’. The trustees were to pay all the expenses and to cause the chaplain or priest for the time being who said daily mass for the brethren and sisters of the guild of St Margaret, daily to pray for the soul of John Yowdale, his wife Malde, the founders and the souls of their children and of their ancestors. The trustees could renew their members when only two or three were left, and if they were negligent John Raket had to see that this was fulfilled.64 The group involved here were all important citizens of St Margaret’s parish. Cuthbert Billingham was the most important of the inhabitants of the parish living in the city, at Crookhall. Richard Lewyn, Robert Cokyn, John Lonesdale and John Pottes were described in 1493 as churchwardens and proctors of St Margaret’s.65 Thomas Fairhaire was alderman of the guild of St Mary in 1485 and again in 1498.66 John Tadcaster was a churchwarden of St Margaret’s in 1489.67 Forest was one of the persons who acted as attorney for the priory when it was acquiring the Yowdale properties.68 This then appears to be another almshouse built or to be built at the initiative of the parishioners of St Margaret’s, but explicitly for the housing of pilgrims, the only Durham institutions of which this can be said with certainty.

63

Mickleton, 47, ff. 19v, 20. Mickleton, 47, f . 20v. 65 DCRO, EP/Du/SM/586; H.D. Longstaffe, ‘Local muniments’, Arch. Ael., 2nd series, 2 (1858), p. 26. 66 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, pp. 89, 129; Longstaffe, ‘Local muniments’, pp. 29, 30. 67 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, p. 6; DCRO, EP/Du/SM/585; Longstaffe, ‘Local muniments’, p. 25. 68 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, p. 251. 64

176


What happened to this almshouse at the Reformation is unclear, but under Philip and Mary, on 20 January 1558, Ralph Bowes generosus of South Cowton and Anna his wife entrusted the tenement called le Massone Dewe or le Spittell, apparently the same institution, to Robert Buttrye, a butcher, Robert Fowster, a saddler, and Henry Dawson, a tailor, and they in turn entrusted it to Anthony Harryson of Durham.69 In 1561 the churchwardens of St Margaret’s church, Durham, gave the same tenement to Harryson, as he had held it in time past, for a twenty-one-year lease.70 It is not clear what survived. In May 1566 William Walton of Durham, draper, left clothes to the poor ‘if the sayd spital house be rered upp’.71 By 9 January 1567 Anthony Harryson was dead and his son Anthony, Elizabeth his widow and Isabella his daughter conveyed the property according to his will to Thomas Hall of Durham.72 In 1578, however, probably because Anthony Harryson, junior, was now dead, Ralph Billingham recited nearly the whole of the original foundation deed when setting up a new group of trustees. The hospital was for eight beds, all for poor travelling people (there were now, of course, no pilgrims). Billingham explained that he was the relative and heir of the original Cuthbert Billingham, being the son and heir of John Billingham who was the son of Ralph Billingham, brother and heir of John, son of Cuthbert.73 The trustees were Anthony Middleton, John Forcer, William Parkinson, Christopher Maire, all generosi, Robert Skipper, Nicholas Turpin, Cuthbert Hutchinson, Anthony Bailes, John Richenson, John Richmonde, William Raw and Edward Hall. The gentlemen heading this list were all from notable Durham families: Billingham himself, still of Crookhall, Anthony Middleton, the last holder of Kepier hospital, under the crown in 1547, steward of the manor of Gilesgate from 1555 and the owner of the manor of Newton Hall,74 John Forcer, probably of Harbourhouse, and Christopher Maire of Hardwick. Their replacement trustees were to be from St Margaret’s parish. In place of the mass in the original charter the inmates themselves were to say openly, publicly and reverently the Lord’s Prayer in the English tongue which was to be displayed in print or writing and set up in the almshouse.75 In 1610 a deed altered the terms of the foundation, to explain that as people were no longer allowed to wander, and provision had been made to stop the need, the hospital was now to cater for the poor of St Margaret’s parish.76 The other two hospitals which need to be noticed are Sherburn and Kepier, the former already mentioned as founded by Puiset in 1181. It was dedicated

69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76

Mickleton, 47, f. 24r/v. Mickleton, 47, f. 25. Wills and Inventories, I, pp. 253–5, esp. p. 255. Mickleton, 47, f. 26. See his will, proved in June 1597, Wills and Inventories, II, SS 38 (1860), p. 277. Meade, Kepier Hospital, p. 35; see will, Wills and Inventories, II, SS 38 (1860), pp. 35–7. Mickleton, 47, ff. 27–9. Mickleton, 47, ff. 32v–3v. 177


to Christ, the Virgin Mary, St Lazarus and Sts Martha and Mary, for sixty-five lepers of both sexes with a master and three priests. The regime outlined for their life was similar to that of most hospitals, resembling that of a religious house, but as we have seen, open to the world. Very little is known of it after the foundation, but Langley reformed it with papal backing in 1429, as he did several other hospitals in his diocese, to house thirteen poor men with two lepers ‘if so many can be found’, with a priest and four chaplains and provision for a choir. The poor were to be fed and clothed and to attend mass daily, with a sober woman as their servant.77 This was the regime which survived the Reformation. St Giles hospital at Kepier was founded by Flambard as a hospital for the poor in 1112, for his soul and the souls of William the Conqueror, Matilda his queen, William II and Henry I and the benefactors of the cathedral.78 He endowed it to have a clerk to live in it with the poor. The muniments of all its early transactions were destroyed in 1306 but the history can be traced from copies made in the fourteenth century. The original hospital was next to the present church of St Giles, but after it was burned down by the rebel Cumin in 1144, Flambard’s successor, Puiset, moved it to where its present ruins are, beside the river Wear, on the right bank, and remodelled it completely. It had an elaborate collegiate organisation with extensive buildings, staffed by a master and thirteen conversi, of whom six were priests and six lay under vows. It amounted to a hospital chantry taking men only. The list of its endowments shows that even in the twelfth century it had widespread possessions and privileges well outside the city. It became an extremely wealthy institution, worth in 1535 over £186, the richest hospital in the diocese, with among its masters some of the most important servants of the bishop.79 By the end it had no lay brothers and the inmates were paid in cash as in the other hospitals, but it still dispensed doles at its door. Possibly by then it simply housed poor members of St Giles’s parish.80 It was finally surrendered in 1545.81 A remarkable feature of the Durham scene is how few institutions catered specifically for pilgrims, whether by inns or hospices. Only the new foundation by St Margaret’s parishioners was dedicated especially to them and we can only guess that some of the others did so also. Compared with Rome, for instance, where a flourishing hotel trade sprang up, Durham also seems to have been lacking in provision for the tourist trade, though this may simply be because the records have not survived. Otherwise it had a great deal of provision for the poor and the old, even if, by the early sixteenth century, some of it was being used to reward well-wishers of the abbey or relatives of its inmates, rather than the really poor or sick as the founders had intended. 77 78 79 80 81

Langley, Register, V, no. 1287; CPL, VIII, pp. 44–5; VCH, Durham, II, pp. 115–16. For all this, Meade, Kepier Hospital, passim, and Memorials of St Giles, pp. xix–xxv. List in Memorials of St Giles, appendix D, and Meade, Kepier Hospital. Meade, Kepier Hospital, pp. 32–3. Meade, Kepier Hospital, p. 34. 178

11

Durham and the wider world Observance of canon law must have made court officials and even litigants aware of the papacy and its rules, and we have seen ordinary parishioners actually appealing to Rome in the fourteenth century.1 There were, however, many other ways in which the papacy made itself felt in late medieval Durham. The upper echelons of the local church would have been aware of the pope not only as a law-giver but also as a demander of money. How far this was felt by the parishioners unless they were made aware of it is hard to tell. The church in Durham was of course subject to taxation from the papacy; the accounts of all the monastic obedientiaries show regular payments for the churches in their charge. These include papal taxation as well as payments for papal legates and nuncios. In the fourteenth century, for instance, there were payments for the procurations (maintenance payments) of cardinals coming as legates.2 For instance in 1344–5 the hostillar’s accounts show 8d paid for this, out of £2 owed, and in 1357–8 procurations to cardinals were recorded. In 1374–5 two payments went ‘to the messengers of the cardinals’ and further payment in 1375–6.3 It does not, of course, follow that any of the ordinary parishioners in Durham knew anything about any of this, though those who worked for the bishop and the priory would know of it. The papacy also had the potential to affect the local church by the appointment to benefices known as papal provisions, but in the city itself these were always very few. Nicholas Bishopton, vicar of St Oswald’s, held his post by provision in 1345.4 Walter Jakes was a Durham city priest whose career included serving Croxdale in 1356–7, 1357–8 and 1358–9,5 but in that year he was involved in an appeal by the parishioners of St Oswald’s, and hostillar’s accounts give payment to a chaplain, unnamed, ‘from the time of the withdrawal of dominus Walter Jakes’, so perhaps he lost his job. He obtained a papal provision for the church of Norham in June 1363, whilst also litigating

1

See pp. 85–6. W.E. Lunt, Financial Relations of the Papacy with England, 1327–1534, Studies in AngloPapal Relations During the Middle Ages, 2, Cambridge, Mass., 1962, ch. 13 passim for the system. 3 Hostillar’s accounts, 1344–5, 1357–8, 1374–6, for necessary expenses; Lunt, Financial Relations, pp. 639, 651–4, 668–81, for the occasions. 4 DCM, 4.16.Spec.46. 5 Hostillar’s accounts. 2

179


to obtain by provision one of the churches in the Bailey in Durham.6 He never held the city church. The laity were much less likely than the clergy to be interested in papal provisions, provided of course that the local cure of souls was well looked after. They seem to have looked to the papacy for privileges, favours and blessings. It is clear that Durham lay people made the most of Holy Years (special times of pilgrimage and indulgences) and of other opportunities to gain papal indulgences. In 1348–9 the hostillar recorded small payments to a relative of dominus Robert Hexiltesame, to Richard (?)Horne, chaplain, and Thomas Fery going to Rome.7 The bursar’s accounts record 10s ‘for several ministers going to Rome on pilgrimage for the year of grace’.8 The year 1350 of course was a Holy Year when special indulgences could be obtained by making the pilgrimage to Rome. The next Holy Year was 1390–1, so declared by Urban VI during the Great Schism. That year the bursar recorded gifts to Richard Eden and W. Massham, a clerk, going to the curia.9 These could have been persons going on priory business but the coincidence of the Holy Year is probably important. A similar response can be found among Durham people, both monks and secular priests, for the Jubilee of 1450.10 There is a little other evidence of pilgrimage to places other than Rome. For example, in 1363–4 the bursar gave half a mark to John Kay going to the shrine of St James in Compostella.11 It is clear that lay people in Durham obtained and made use of the Jubilee indulgence without going to Rome. In a miscellaneous notebook containing devotional matter, now British Library MS Arundel 507, once belonging to Richard de Segbrok, a monk of Durham, there is a bull from Boniface IX to Segbrok, to Gilbert de Elvet and Matilda his wife, John Ayre, a layman, Emma de Chester and Alice, widow of Robert Couper of Durham. This is a standard bull allowing this group to have the Jubilee indulgence even though they could not come to Rome to obtain it. They could choose a confessor who would work out what they would have spent so that they could spend that on other pious works and send the offerings which they would have made to the basilicas of Rome. They also had to visit four local churches named by their confessor of choice within the year or at least by the following Easter.12 The date was 7 November 1390. The bull is followed in the manuscript by the form of absolution to be administered to those with the bull.13 It is made clear in this

6

Urbain V, Lettres Communes, ed. M.-H. Laurent, Ecoles Françaises d’Athènes et de Rome, Rome 1954, seq. no. 2443. The document merely says ‘St Mary in the Bailey’. 7 Hostillar’s accounts, 1349–50. 8 Bursar’s accounts, 1350–1A. 9 Bursar’s accounts, 1390–1. 10 M. Harvey, England, Rome and the Papacy. The Study of a Relationship, Manchester 1993, p. 60. 11 Bursar’s accounts, 1363–4. 12 BL, MS Arundel 507, f. 93r/v. 13 Arundel 507, ff. 80, 93v–4. 180

DURHAM AND THE WIDER WORLD

ritual that the confessor, by the authority of God and our Lord Jesus Christ and of blessed Peter and Paul and Boniface IX, absolved the person ‘from all the sins which you have confessed with contrite heart and which you would have confessed if you could have remembered them and from any canonical irregularity’ which the recipient might have incurred. The absolution was specifically to include penalties which were covered by the pope’s power, in other words it included ‘reserved’ sins. The lay recipients here included one faithful servant of the priory, Gilbert Elvet,14 but the others are unknown. In sermons in the early part of the fifteenth century Robert Ripon was extremely critical of some ways of understanding indulgences. In a Lent sermon he says that there are people who foolishly believe that having obtained a bull commonly called a pena et a culpa (the one outlined above is an example) and having chosen the priest and confessed, both the penalty and the guilt are totally removed. ‘Frivolous vain hope’, says the preacher.15 He points out that the wording of the letter of indulgence says that sin needs not only to be confessed but also repented and this is wholly necessary. If true repentance precedes the confession then confession to a priest with the proper jurisdiction from the pope turns what would be an eternal penalty into a temporal one. If the repentance is truly deep it could even remit the temporal penalty due for sin which, at the discretion of the priest, might be modified to something slight. This is because of the merits of the whole church militant.16 This admirable account of the doctrine concerned should have ensured that the laity understood indulgences, but very probably many did not. It was not only in Holy Years, of course, that lay people sought favours in Rome. The priory kept a proctor in the curia throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, though by the end of the fifteenth century he was not English; for many years a Catalan called Juan of Gerona received a pension.17 Gerona acted for other English clients but clearly the priory did not know him at all well, since no one seems to have noticed his death.18 Lay people in the city made use of these proctors. Uhtred of Bolton, a senior monk, had gone to Avignon in July 1373 with a group to argue about papal finances in a continuing quarrel between Gregory XI and the government of Edward III.19 The negotiations do not concern us here but it is clear that lay people in Durham used the opportunity of having a friend at court to obtain favours. In

14

See p. 147. BL, MS Harley 4894, f. 102v: O spes frivola atque vana. 16 Harley 4894, f. 102v. 17 For aspects of this, Dobson, Durham Priory, pp. 205–14; M. Harvey, The English in Rome, 1362–1420: Portrait of an Expatriate Community, Cambridge 1999, pp.155–60; for Gerona, see Bursar’s accounts, from at least 1479 paid a pension; still named in 1519–20 but he was long dead. 18 P. Partner, The Pope’s Men, Oxford 1990, p. 234 for his life. 19 Perroy, L’Angleterre, pp. 32–4; Holmes, Good Parliament, ch. 1 for the whole background, esp. pp. 14–16 for the occasion. 15

181


December 1373, when the members were about to return home, the papal registers show several grants. John Elvet and his wife Diota (probably Dionysia) were granted a plenary indulgence to choose their own confessor at the hour of death.20 John Elvet was the member of the Elvet family already encountered.21 Uhtred collected several privileges for himself also.22 Already before this, in October 1371, William Alman and his wife Margaret, also of Elvet, had obtained the same privilege.23 Alman was another lay clericus, living in Elvet, and like John Elvet belonged to a family which later helped to endow a chantry in St Oswald’s church.24 People like these would know of the priory’s curial arrangements; they probably knew Uhtred personally. The monks were certainly aware of some of the stirring events happening in the wider church, for example the Great Western Schism. Anyone attempting to do business in Rome after 1378 had good reason to notice this last in any case. But lay people probably were aware of it also. Ripon drew attention to it in a Lent sermon to a mixed audience delivered about 1410, when the council of Pisa had worsened the situation by producing three popes. According to Ripon, the anti-pope (whoever he might be) could be called servant of the servants of the devil, along with his cardinals and other adherents.25 He explained that the schism had now lasted thirty-two years and that some thought that the anti-pope was the Anti-Christ. Durham monks had reason to know about attempts to heal the schism because not only did they pay for the various attempts to solve the problem, but one of their number, Thomas Rome, actually attended the first attempt, at the council of Pisa in 1408–9.26 For the councils of Constance and Basel the priory paid its contributions,27 but it also clearly followed some of the business because someone copied into the priory’s cartularies a bull of the council of Basel relating to the feast of Corpus Christi.28 Similarly Durham people were made aware of the actions of the council of Florence (1438–9) which seemed for a time to have united the Eastern and Western churches. Attention was drawn to this because the pope issued an indulgence to pay for the help he had promised the Greeks. In the priory archives we find that the bull Exultare in domino was issued in Durham by

20

Vatican Archives, Reg. Av. 188, f. 307v. See p. 146. 22 Reg. Av. 188, f. 328 (to say mass before daybreak); Reg. Av. 191, f. 27v (to have a portable altar). 23 Gregory XI, Lettres Communes, ed. A.M. Hayez, Ecoles Françaises d’Athènes et de Rome, 3rd series, 1992, no. 3035. 24 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 3, pp. 597, 699–700, 712. 25 Harley 4894, f. 55 r/v. 26 M. Harvey, Solutions to the Schism. A Study of Some English Attitudes 1378–1409, St Ottilion 1983, pp. 159–60. 27 Bursar’s accounts, 1415–16, 1416–17A, 1432–3, under contributions. 28 DCM, Cart. III, ff. 192–3. 21

182

DURHAM AND THE WIDER WORLD

Bartholomew and Urban de Roma of the Order of the Holy Spirit, who were the collectors in the diocese.29 The money collected was kept in the cathedral and handed over in June 1440, consisting of £26 6s in the first instance and followed by £3 12s 11d and a silver belt, with £2s 0s 3d and £3 6s 4d on two further occasions.30 The witnesses to the first handing-over, on 7 June, were the prior (John Wessington), Master John Norton, William Raket, Master John Paynell and the rector of St Mary’s church in the North Bailey, John Belmarez. These were all officials of the diocese or the priory. Norton was the bishop’s chancellor;31 Raket was one of a family of clerks living in Elvet noticed earlier;32 and the rector of the North Bailey church often acted for the prior. There is a little evidence that some in Durham looked for papal indulgences from other parts of the wider church. The monastery had some contact with the English hospice of St Thomas in Rome. It is clear, for instance, that Richard Billingham, a monk sent to the curia about the affairs of Coldingham in 1465, joined the hospice of St Edmund as a confrater as well as visiting St Thomas’s.33 Membership of the latter confraternity provided the holder with certain confessional privileges. The record of pilgrims at the English hospice mentions very few from Durham in the period 1479–84 and 1504–7 when we have records, and in any case the records usually give only the county or diocese of origin.34 But lay people could obtain membership by paying the hospice representative in England and obtaining letters to prove it. Thus in 1476 Gerard Salvayn and Alinore, his wife, bought in London letters from the hospice receiving them into the hospice fraternity and allowing them to choose their own confessor, with, on the dorse, the full form of the prayer which the confessor should say, which is a plenary indulgence very similar to that of the Jubilee, explaining that the scope of the indulgence was granted by Sixtus IV to the hospice in a bull dated 27 June 1474.35 The recipient was a member of

29 M. Harvey, ‘England, the Council of Florence and the end of the Council of Basel’, in Christian Unity. The Council of Ferrara-Florence, 1438/39–1989, Leuven 1991, pp. 203–25, esp. pp. 213–14 for what follows on the indulgence. For later publicity after the fall of Constantinople, see J. Harris, ‘Publicising the crusade: English Bishops and the Jubilee indulgence of 1455,’ JEH, 50 (1999), pp. 23–37. 30 DCM, Loc. I: 21; Loc. XIX: 75. 31 BRUO, II, pp. 1373–4. 32 See p. 114. 33 The English Hospice, Venerabile, 21 (1962), p. 97; Dobson, ‘The last English monks’, pp. 120–1, 124–30 passim. 34 The English Hospice, Venerabile, 21, p. 111 (Henry Peerson, on 14 September 1479); p. 112 (James Andrewson on 21 April 1480), p. 115 (2 March 1481, John Crosbyde?); p. 119 (dominus John Carliel, 6 June 1482); p. 134 (John Leger, 23 April 1506); p. 134 (D. John Chambre, doctor of arts and medicine, 24 September 1506, for whom BRUO, I, p. 385); p. 135 (D. Thomas Astley, priest of Durham diocese, 30 March 1507); p. 143 (W. Nubi, 3 September 1514). 35 DCRO, D/Sa/F4. I thank Dr Ian Doyle for drawing my attention to this.

183


the Salvin family of Croxdale who by this date had replaced the Dautre family as the lords there. Evidently other confraternities from further afield than Durham itself peddled their benefits from Durham and doubtless also within the city, though one hears little of them. On 11 February 1505/6, in Crossgate borough court, Thomas Gyffurth, wright, accused Nicholas Blakehaa, saying that Nicholas had given him the task of acting as collector for the confraternity of the chapel of Our Lady on the Sea (in East Anglia) in eight Northumberland parishes and that Nicholas had broken the agreement by preventing him from collecting. Nicholas counter-pleaded that he had exonerated Thomas from the agreement. Thomas said that he had paid 7d for this and had lost 10s by the breaking of the agreement. The jury gave a verdict for Thomas; Nicholas was fined.36 The evidence therefore shows that lay people in Durham city were aware of, and some participated in, the wider church. The possibility of doing this arose through the presence of the priory and the bishop as well as because the church drew attention to its wider aspects both in its liturgy and through its jurisdiction. The medieval church was an international organisation and the laity were frequently made conscious of this.

36

DCM, Crossgate Court Book, 1, ff. 79v, 80, 83. 184

12

The Reformation in the Durham parishes The ecclesiastical system and ways of life we have been describing came to an end with the Reformation. When did the Reformation come to Durham? The only way to consider this question is over a very long period. Much that has been revealed in what has gone before suggests that the authorities in the city of Durham in the pre-Reformation period were conservative. Some of the secular encroachments on ecclesiastical jurisdiction, for instance, which begin to be seen in the South under Henry VII, did not appear in the Durham church courts until 1531.1 The Durham and York courts also seem to have interpreted marriage law very conservatively.2 To ascertain how quickly the Reformation statutes were implemented we would need more information than we have for the city. There is a little. Though the act declaring Henry VIII supreme head of the church was dated 1534, the Gilesgate court book did not inscribe this title until 20 January 1539: Anno Regis Henrici Octavi Dei gratia Anglie et Francie Regis fidei Defensor et in terra supremum capitis [sic] Anglicane ecclesie.3 By then much had happened to show the inhabitants that change could not be avoided. Though most accounts of the Reformation would begin well before the Reformation parliament from 1529 onwards, for most of the Durham parishes the crucial dates must have been 1536, with the Pilgrimage of Grace, and 1539, when the priory was dissolved. The first of these was very important.4 It was a serious rebellion against the king and his policies, including his religious policies. Modern accounts are agreed that locally the subjects objected to moves such as the abolition of ecclesiastical holidays and were extremely influenced by rumours that the crown was going to go further in religion, even confiscating parish wealth. The rising was ‘from below’ but several of the important local notables were involved, since the local participants recruited the gentry and it was the gentry who suffered most when the rebellion got out of hand. The course of the rebellion does not concern us here but it is important

1

Storey, Diocesan Administration, pp. 29–32. See pp. 51, 57. 3 NA, SC2/171/6, f. 45. 4 Among the latest work is M. Bush, Durham and the Pilgrimage of Grace, Durham 2000. For the whole, R.W. Hoyle, The Pilgrimage of Grace and the Politics of the 1530s, Oxford 2001; G.W. Bernard, The King’s Reformation. Henry VIII and the Remaking of the English Church, New Haven and London 2005, pp. 319–404, with very different interpretations. 2

185


to realise that after the first rising, in October 1536, the rebels very nearly succeeded, so that the king bargained with them and offered pardon and redress on 8 December to all those who disbanded. At the time Bishop Tunstal had fled to his castle in Norham, probably to prevent himself from being coerced by the rebels into giving them open support, but thus depriving the area of royal leadership.5 Unfortunately some of the rebels rose again, thus allowing the king an excuse to renege on his part of the bargain. The political consequence was the execution of some of the leaders. The religious consequence for the North was the dissolution of some very important monasteries which had taken part in, or even encouraged, the rising.6 These included Hexham, though not as yet Durham. The pardon proclaimed by the king was announced by a herald in the city in December, but as the herald went through Durham on his way home on 29 December he was man-handled.7 The rebel leaders among the city commons included Henry Coke, a shoemaker of Durham, explicitly exempt from the pardon,8 and there were probably many sympathisers in the city who did not trust the king. The consequence of the treatment of the herald was the execution of several Durham men in the city itself.9 Exactly who these were is not wholly certain. On 18 February 1537 the duke of Norfolk wrote to Thomas Cromwell to say that the following were imprisoned at Durham: John Hawle (Hall) and Thomas Blount or Blunt (two of the priory cooks), William Smorethwayt (Smurthwaite), porter of the abbey, Nicholas Pickering, Christopher Newton, James Hunter, Rolland Stobbes, John Conyers, Christopher Soreby, Martyn Oliver, Denyse Hedley, Henry Hyndemershe and Leonard Atkinson.10 Also he said that imprisoned in his house were Henry Brasse, John Follsonby, John Worme and Henry Souley, these last ‘Mr Bigod’s servants’, and someone called Rose. Of these Thomas Blunt was a substantial burger with property in Crossgate which he had held since October 1529, when he had been admitted as a burgess.11 His property was of course forfeit and the bishop granted it to Thomas Sparke, his suffragan.12 Smurthwaite is probably the parishioner of St Mary’s in South Bailey who was involved in the consistory court in 1531 in a lesio fidei case with John Huntley, which the parties dropped after going to arbitration.13 5 C. Sturge, Cuthbert Tunstal. Churchman, Scholar, Statesman, Administrator, London 1938, pp. 153–4. 6 Bernard, King’s Reformation, pp. 433–42. 7 Bush, Pilgrimage, p. 42. 8 Bush, Pilgrimage, p. 5 (ref. LP, XI, no. 955). 9 Bush, Pilgrimage, pp. 43, 53. 10 M. Bush and D. Bownes, The Defeat of the Pilgrimage of Grace. A Study of the Post–pardon Revolts of December 1536–March 1537 and their Effect, Hull 1999, pp. 121, 223, 226–7; LP, XII/1, p. 478(2), no. 918, no. 609 also. 11 Camsell, ‘Development of a northern town’, 2, p. 15. 12 NA, Dur 3/77, m. 32; Deputy Keeper’s Report, 44, p. 334. 13 DUL, Archives and Special Collections, DDR/EJ/CCA/1/1, f. 8.

186

THE REFORMATION

Of the rest Follsonby, designated a gentleman by Norfolk, Henry Brasse and Thomas Hutton of Snape were among the leaders of the attack on the herald. They were tried, found guilty and executed on 11 April in Durham city.14 Hutton had taken part in an assembly at Richmond after the pardon in any case.15 The rest were tried next day and found guilty. Norfolk wrote to the king on 12 April, giving substantially this list but with some different names. Michael Swayne is included and Martyn Oliver is not. Norfolk said that thirteen persons were to be ‘hanged in chains near their dwellings. Not one aquit.’16 The symbolic importance of all this is enhanced when one realises that the local Durham men among the rebels had taken St Cuthbert’s banner with them; the cost of its repair appears in the prior feretrar’s accounts for 1536–7: ‘for the repair of the banner of St Cuthbert broken by the Durham commons’.17 No wonder Norfolk added, ‘I think no-one now alive shall live to see like attempts, the people being in such fear.’18 The nervous atmosphere can be seen in the report from Cuthbert Richardson of Durham (always a staunch supporter of the crown19), that on 27 July John Pearson, the priest of the Corpus Christi guild, came to the stall of Richard Dawson, a butcher of Durham, and in the presence of Cuthbert and Richard told them that the king was going to fine heavily all those (including commons) who took part or helped in the journey to Doncaster, despite the pardon.20 It is not possible to know much of what the locals thought about the dissolution of the monastery, though there is a little evidence that is was resented. In December 1539, just after Durham priory was dissolved, Christopher Chaytor, Tunstal’s registrar, met one of Cromwell’s agents, who questioned him among other matters about the attitudes in the North to the removal of the monasteries and the destruction of relics. Chaytor reported himself as saying that if there were any who grudged the dissolution of the monasteries they were not saying so, ‘for there hath been so sore punishment’, so it looks as if Norfolk’s lesson had been learned.21 Chaytor thought that by then only one shrine, at Tynemouth, was still left. Cray, the spy, reported to Cromwell that Chaytor had refused to take some of the silver from the reliquaries, but had himself kept some relics since he believed in their use.22 It is almost impossible to trace the compliance of Durham city with the royal orders about Reformation, though these reports show some of it. There

14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

Bush and Bownes, Defeat, pp. 221–2. Hoyle, Pilgrimage, pp. 375, note 35, 397, 396. LP, XII/1, no. 918. Feretrar’s accounts, 1536–7. LP, XII/1, no. 918. LP, XII/1, no. 148. LP, XII/2, no. 353. Sturge, Tunstal, p. 371. Sturge, Tunstal, p. 370. 187


are no churchwardens’ accounts of the kind found elsewhere and the procurators’ accounts for St Oswald’s and St Margaret’s are intermittent after 1529. The few accounts surviving, however, throw some light on what was happening. The earliest is for 1541–2. By then, of course, the monastery was gone (dissolved in 1539) and the new cathedral chapter was constituted, but these churches remained appropriated to the cathedral and continued to be administered by procurators. From the point of view of parish life the important pieces of legislation were that in the Ten Articles in 1536 superstition in the cult of the saints and offerings at images were strongly condemned.23 Likewise in the same year it was ordered that the patronal feast day was to be kept in all churches on the first Sunday in October and not as a festival holiday. Most of the feasts which happened in harvest time between 1 July and 29 September as well as those which fell in the Westminster law terms were abolished as holidays.24 This should have ended the celebration of St Oswald’s feast as a holiday in Elvet on 5 August and, though St Bartholomew’s feast at Croxdale, on 24 August, as that of an apostle, was exempted, it presumably would no longer be a holiday. In the Receiver’s Book for 1541–2 the procurator’s accounts are given for St Oswald’s and St Margaret’s, in exactly the format which had become traditional in the later middle ages. Here under oblaciones in St Oswald’s, for instance, where there would have been offerings at St Oswald’s feast day there is nothing.25 The offerings recorded are for Easter, Christmas, St John the Baptist and Michaelmas (but this records that nothing was received), and of wax on the Purification of the Virgin, a feast which was retained. St Margaret’s accounts record adoration of the cross during the Easter Triduum and similarly offerings for candles on the feast of the Purification of the Virgin26 but there is nothing in either list about offerings at the shrines of the saints in the churches. This suggests that both churches had complied with royal orders about celebration of the patronal feast and forbidding superstitious offerings at shrines. There is no mention of John Warton’s shrine in St Oswald’s. There are two further procurator’s accounts for St Oswald’s for 1543–4 and 1547–8.27 These give detailed lists of the offerings at baptisms, purifications of women, funerals, anniversaries, marriages and mortuaries. In 1546–7 there was one obit, the Purification was still being celebrated with candles and the pax bread paid for. That year also there is a list of the procurator’s expenses, which shows that Easter still included an offering of bread and drink on Holy Thursday (presumably to the local clergy hearing confessions), with the people making their communion only at Easter in large numbers. Incense was still

23 24 25 26 27

Duffy, Stripping, pp. 392–3. Duffy, Stripping, pp. 394–5. DCM, Receiver’s Book 2, f. 84v. Receiver’s Book 2, ff. 83v–4. DCM, Misc. Ch. 5907 a and b. 188

THE REFORMATION

paid for and so was a great deal of wax, though in summer 1547 royal injunctions forbade any but two main candles on the high altar in churches, so that all lights before the crucifix in the rood loft were now banned. St Margaret’s, which was owed some rent from local property for lights, should have lost it.28 These injunctions also forbade the Sunday procession before the main mass, which was also often the time when public penances had been performed.29 On the dissolution of the monastery the ex-religious both of Durham and other monasteries had to be accommodated. It is often said that the Durham monks became the Dean and Chapter, but this is not completely true.30 As we shall see, some of the ex-monks were incorporated into the chantry system and then, when that was removed, into the parish system. The next important parochial change concerned the chantries and guilds. There were stirrings about these already before their dissolution and by the mid-1540s rumours had been circulating for years that they would be dissolved.31 The survey of chantries which Henry ordered in 1545 was probably not intended to be the prelude for a wholesale suppression but it was an ominous sign that the government had its eye on chantry wealth, and many interpreted it accordingly. In Durham an inventory of chantries and guilds was taken and signed in May 1546, listing the goods of various institutions to be held in trust by the incumbent of the chantry ‘until his Majesties pleasure in this behalf be further knawen’.32 The inventories for all the Durham chantries except St Helen’s and Durham castle, have been preserved. The king also requested a list of the names and purposes of the institutions, with the names of the founders and the yearly value both of the lands and goods.33 These also have been preserved for all the Durham chantries except St Helen’s and Durham castle, and include some interesting details not kept elsewhere, which have never been printed.34 The evidence of these lists suggests, however, that the survey was hastily done. Most frequently the reports on foundations say ‘the dede of foundation is lost’ or ‘there is no dede of foundacion to be shewed’, when the deed is either in the monastery cartularies or among its charters.35 This confirms the judgement that the whole thing was done confusedly and

28

Duffy, Stripping, pp. 450–1. See p. 129. 30 D. Marcombe, ‘The Durham Dean and Chapter: old abbey writ large?’, in R. O’Day and F. Heal, eds, Continuity and Change. Personnel and Administration of the Church of England 1500–1642, Leicester 1976, pp. 125–44. 31 Kreider, English Chantries, ch. 7, esp. pp. 165, 179. 32 Barnes, Injunctions, appendix III, has printed all of NA, E117/2/22; further chantry details for Durham are NA, E117/2, 18, 19, 20, 23, printed in Inventories, pp. 123–9, 141–2, 167. 33 NA, E101/18. 34 NA, E101/18, nos. 51–65 for Durham city. 35 NA, E101/18, nos. 51, 52, 53, 57, 58, 65 say this, whereas there are extant deeds of all but St Giles’s and the Trinity guild in St Nicholas’s. 29

189


for financial motives.36 Some of the details are certainly wrong, such as attributing the chantry of St James in St Nicholas’s to Thomas Lewyn or St Catherine’s chantry to the executors of the will which set it up.37 The financial character of the whole is made clear when one reads of the Rood priest in St Oswald’s a note to say that ‘it was never charged to the payment of the first fruits or tenths’.38 The actual dissolution of chantries along with obits, lights and prayers for the dead, and thus de facto denial of the doctrine of purgatory which justified these institutions, came only in 1548. The Durham certificates were signed by Thomas Hilton and Robert Brandling, knights, Robert Mennell, serjeant at law, and Henry Whitreson, esquire, in pursuit of their commission of 14 February.39 Again the lists have been preserved for the whole city. Something of the manner in which this was done can be seen. In St Nicholas’s the churchwardens were questioned about the many obits which they reported (more than for any other church) and it is evident from the erasures that there was disagreement about what was owed, presumably because these payments were to be taken by the king whereas the wardens wanted them for church funds.40 We can be certain that patronage of the Mercator chantry and St James on Elvet Bridge along with Our Lady’s chantries in St Oswald’s and St Margaret’s had been granted by the king in 1541 to the newly established Dean and Chapter.41 These would have been lost in 1548. It seems clear that at first the monks had been using their patronage to settle into positions in the town some of their number who lost their jobs in the monastery. Early lists from the court of Augmentations help one to trace at least some of the monks and then the former chantry priests. By a royal commission dated 20 June 1548 the list of chantry priests with their pensions was given. The pensions were based on the value of the chantry. John Ducket, of St Mary’s chantry in St Margaret’s, Richard Benet of ‘Watson’s’ chantry (Our Lady in St Oswald’s), Richard Melmerby of the Corpus Christi guild, James Gybson of Sts John the Baptist and John the Evangelist in St Nicholas’s, John Marshall of the Trinity chantry and William Mason of St James chantry there, with Richard Myddleton for the guild of St Giles, got £5 a year for life.42 Edward Popeley of the chantry of Sts John in St Oswald’s got 10 marks, Christopher Riseley, the Rood priest of St Oswald’s, got £3 7s 8d, Ludovicus Bell of the chantries on Elvet Bridge

36

Kreider, English Chantries, p. 174; see Dobson, ‘Foundations’, p. 254, for similar errors in York. 37 NA, E101/18, nos. 58 and 64. 38 NA, E101/18, no. 54. 39 Barnes, Injunctions, appendix VI, from NA, E101/117. 40 NA, SC12/7/26, f. xiii verso. 41 Information from Alan Piper, from The Statutes of the Cathedral Church of Durham and Other Documents Relating to its Foundation and Endowments by King Henry VIII and Queen Mary, ed. A.H. Hamilton Thompson and J.M. Falkner, SS 143 (1929), p. 30. 42 NA, E101/75/11, m. 1. 190

THE REFORMATION

got £3, John Dawson of the chantry of St Mary in St Nicholas’s and George Barclay of the chantry of St Catherine in the North Bailey £4, and Edward Adthey of the guild of St Cuthbert £6. Some of the local incumbents were ex-monks who must have owed their positions to the new chapter and to local patrons. John Ducket in St Margaret’s was already recipient of a pension of £5 6s 8d from the court of Augmentations in 1548, which indicates that he was an ex-religious.43 He appears in the Durham lists with other ex-monks receiving just this amount and then in September 1552 as also receiving his pension for his chantry.44 William Woodmouse, if he is the same as Alexander Woodmouse, curate in charge of St Margaret’s in 1552 until his death in 1568, was another ex-monk of Durham.45 Christopher Riseley, the Rood mass priest in St Oswald’s in 1548, in receipt of the same size of pension as Ducket, was a former monk of Monkwearmouth.46 He was also receiving the two pensions in 1552.47 Roger Wright, in 1544 of the chantry of St John the Baptist in St Oswald’s, was the last cellarer of the monastery, but must have died before the dissolution of chantries, since Edward Popeley was incumbent in 1546.48 William Watson or Wylom, subprior and shrine keeper of Cuthbert, in 1541 held the twelfth stall in the cathedral. He had been chaplain to the prior and was presented in 17 July 1541 to St Helen over the abbey gate but it is not clear what happened to this at the dissolution of chantries.49 He died as vicar of Bedlington, a living he had been given by Christopher and Thomas Whitehead, doubtless relatives of the last prior and first dean.50 The future of the ex-chantry priests who had not been monks is more difficult to track. On 28 November 1550 John Marshall of the Trinity chantry in St Nicholas’s died at Witton (Gilbert), and Richard Bennet of the chantry of Our Lady in St Oswald’s died on 27 March 1549.51 Edward Adthe[y], the chantry priest of the guild of St Cuthbert, was 36 years old in 154852 and is one of the few whose career can be traced. He had been ordained by Bishop Tunstal, receiving first tonsure in 1532, acolyte in 1533, subdeacon, deacon

43

Barnes, Injunctions, p. lx. NA, E101/76/13, p. 4. 45 S.L. Greenslade, ‘The last monks of Durham Cathedral Priory’, DUJ, 41(1948–9), pp. 107–13, esp. p. 110; see his will in Wills and Inventories, I, SS 2 (1835), p. 283. 46 Barnes, Injunctions, p. lx, Greenslade, ‘Last monks’, p. 111; NA, E101/76/13, pp. 4, 17. 47 NA, E101/76/13, pp. 4, 17. 48 DCM, Dean and Chapter, Reg. I, ff. 23–4. 49 Emden, BRUO, 1500–40, p. 646; B.N. Wilson, ‘The changes of the Reformation period in Durham and Northumberland’, PhD thesis, University of Durham, 1939, pp. 192–3, DCM, Dean and Chapter, Reg. I, f. 14; Greenslade,’ Last monks’, p. 110. Raine, North Durham, p. 368, for his will. 50 Raine, North Durham, p. 368. 51 NA, E101/76/13, p. 17. 52 NA, E101/17, m. 2; Barnes, Injunctions, appendix VI, p. lxii. 44

191


and priest with a title from the prior and convent of Alnwick later the same year.53 He survived the Reformation to obtain a living under Mary. In 1556 he was instituted to Lesbury church, whose patron was Christopher Adthe, clerk, who had been granted patronage of the living by the abbot and convent of Alnwick before the Reformation.54 Though there were several Edward Adthes, the most likely one seems to be a man who died in 1565.55 He had possibly been displaced in Lesbury by 1560 by William Herrison, the last abbot of Alnwick, so that the whole arrangement appears as a local bargain. His will is dated 1 February 1565.56 The family seems to have come from Long Houghton in Northumberland.57 It is not surprising that Durham city was religiously conservative considering how very conservative its bishop remained. Tunstal was bishop of Durham from 1530 until 28 September 1559. He spent only a little time in the diocese under Henry VIII, but his known views betray very conservative attitudes to key questions of the Reformation, though he was a man deeply devoted to the crown and serious in his obedience to it.58 This almost certainly explains why he acquiesced in every Reformation statute, though he clearly disagreed with several, including Henry’s royal supremacy, which however he subsequently defended strenuously.59 Henry certainly applied pressure to intimidate the bishop,60 but Tunstal probably genuinely came to doubt papal claims. In a Palm Sunday sermon made before the king in 1539 and printed for him, Tunstal delivered a wide-ranging (and very traditional) attack on the papacy on grounds of history and tradition, essentially in support of the power of bishops over against the claims of Rome. He was thus nearer in belief to many Gallicans than to Protestants.61 He assured Cromwell that even before the royal orders to proclaim the royal supremacy he had himself done so and had ordered others to do the same. He added that, on receipt of the orders to do so, he came to Durham personally to preach about it ‘in great presence as well in setting furthe the kinges title as in declaring the usurpyd auctority of the bishop of Rome

53

Tunstal, Register, nos. 34, 68, 95, 106. Tunstal, Register, no. 316. 55 Stevens Benham, ‘The Durham clergy’, p. 10. 56 A. Forster, ‘Bishop Tunstal’s priests’, Recusant History, 9 (1967–8), p. 189; Wills and Inventories, I, p. 241; History of Northumberland, II, Newcastle 1895, p. 441. 57 History of Northumberland, II, p. 373. 58 Sturge, Tunstal, ch. XVIII, is by far the best account; see also M. Thomas, ‘Tunstal, trimmer or martyr’, JEH, 24 (1973), pp. 337–55; Bernard, King’s Reformation, pp. 180–5, explains his conduct as caused chiefly by fear. 59 Sturge, Tunstal, pp. 179–80. 60 Sturge, Tunstal, pp. 186–7; Records of Northern Convocation, SS 113 (1907), pp. 218–20, and 220–32 for Tunstal’s address and Henry’s reply. 61 A sermon of Cuthbert Tunstall Bishop of Durham preached on Palm Sunday 1539 before King Henry VIII, London 1823, from the edition of T. Berthelet, 1539. 54

192

THE REFORMATION

hertofor used in this Realme’.62 It is striking, however, that in his 1539 sermon he attacks justification by faith as well. He was certainly no Lutheran. Under Edward he opposed the government on the chantry act.63 When Tunstal finally took courage to express his other views publicly (when in prison briefly under Edward at the age of 77 in 1551), he chose to write on the Eucharist, expressing complete belief in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, though not necessarily in Transubstantiation as later defined by the Council of Trent, and he learnedly defended masses for the dead which had been abolished with the chantries in 1548.64 By then, as he explained, he had decided that it was now imperative for ecclesiastics to speak publicly of their beliefs.65 In fact all the evidence suggests that Tunstal’s officials did not heresy-hunt too assiduously in the diocese of Durham and that apart from the cathedral canons (many of whom were ex-monks) little was done to discover how far the lower clergy conformed to the royal views. Under the minority of Edward we know that, though he had opposed the dissolution of chantries, Tunstal at first enjoyed favour, and only began to have real difficulties when Warwick seized power.66 For instance, Tunstal tried to curb John Knox’s preaching in his diocese.67 Eventually Tunstal was accused of conspiracy to rebel and put under house arrest and later kept in the Tower and elsewhere.68 In total he was imprisoned for three years, during which he wrote his book defending the catholic doctrine of the Eucharist.69 Whilst he was out of the way Robert Horne had (in November 1551) succeeded the last prior of Durham as dean of the cathedral. Horne was a thorough-going Protestant but, despite inducements, he refused the see when the government offered for him to replace Tunstal.70 Meanwhile the government laid plans for dividing the see of Durham and providing for a bishopric at Newcastle, plans which foundered on Edward’s death.71 We know from the story of Horne a little of what had happened in the city whilst Edward was on the throne, because at the beginning of Mary’s reign the dean fled from Durham and made his way secretly to the continent from where he issued an ‘Apology’ to explain to friends and well-wishers why he had not stayed to suffer martyrdom. It became the preface to his translation

62

BL, MS Cotton Cleop E VI, vol. I, ff. 152v. Thomas, ‘Tunstal’, p. 343. 64 De veritate corporis et sanguinis domini nostri Jesu Christi in Eucharistia, 2nd ed., Paris 1554; Thomas, ‘Tunstal’, p. 346 and note. 65 De veritate, p. 4. 66 Thomas, ‘Tunstal’, p. 344. 67 Sturge, Tunstal, pp. 284–5. 68 Sturge, Tunstal, pp. 286–90; Thomas, ‘Tunstal’, pp. 344–5. 69 Sturge, Tunstal, p. 293. 70 Sturge, Tunstal, p. 294. 71 Sturge, Tunstal pp. 295–7. 63

193


of two sermons of Calvin.72 Horne’s account describes how he saw ‘godes booke conteining the worde of lyf taken forth of the churches in the byshoprick of Duresme’ and that ‘the common praier commanded by public autoritie . . . [was] banished’, revealing therefore that the bible in English must have been introduced and the Common Prayer Book also, as it was obliged to be by law from Whit Sunday 1549.73 Horne particularly objected to what happened to altars. In November 1550 these had been officially abolished.74 He noted that at the beginning of Mary’s reign in the bishopric, ‘I sawe the lordes table wheron was ministered the holy supper of the lorde . . . was carried away, the communion abhorred as heresye’,75 which suggests that this also had been obeyed. Horne was a particular opponent of the Roman mass, as further comments in his Apology make clear. According to the Rites of Durham he went with the commissioners to St Nicholas ‘s church in the first year of Edward’s reign and was responsible for breaking with his feet the famous shrine of the Corpus Christi guild which was housed there, along with many other ornaments.76 This is all we know about the actual defacement of the local churches. At the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign Tunstal refused to accept the renewed defacement of altars and the denial of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, though he was still not a supporter of the pope.77 He refused to take part in the consecration of Matthew Parker as archbishop of Canterbury and died in custody in November 1559.78 His death probably began the true dismantling of the old ways in Durham. Some information about continuing attitudes to the Reformation in Durham can be discovered because, as a result of the failure of the Rising of the North in 1569, the church courts dealt with cases while the state was holding treason trials. The rising seems to have been an affair of the elite, probably as much political as religious, and it failed. But there is a great deal of evidence for participation of the lower orders, though it is not always easy to tell if they did so because they were ordered by their betters (which of course is what they almost all pleaded) or whether they were willing. The bulk of the evidence, especially about the lower classes, comes from the church courts, which indicates in most of the cases where there is a great deal of evidence that the guilty were not considered by the crown to have committed treason so much as to have committed religious offences. We have detailed evidence about some of the canons of the cathedral, several of the clergy of the town, and a host of

72

Certain homilies of M. J. Calvin . . . imprinted at Rome before the castell of S Angel at the sign of St Peter, 1553. The Apology is Aii–Ciii verso. 73 A.G. Dickens, The English Reformation, 2nd ed., London 1989, p. 243. 74 Duffy, Stripping, p. 472. 75 Horne, Certain homilies, Aii, verso. 76 Rites, p. 69. 77 Thomas, ‘Tunstal’, pp. 350–1. 78 Thomas, ‘Tunstal’, p. 353. 194

THE REFORMATION

ordinary citizens, several of them churchwardens of the main parish churches, as well as about at least one of the chaplains from the surrounding country.79 It is very enlightening to hear what they said. One needs to remember that they were answering specific questions about their attitude to the pope, the mass in Latin, the use of holy water and blessings, rosary beads, altar stones enclosing relics of saints, and the Elizabethan religious settlement. Questions concerned the array of books which all churches were expected to have and which the churchwardens were obliged to provide.80 They were asked about these things because the rebels had preached about the need to be reconciled to Rome and had come with powers from the pope for absolution from schism. They had proclaimed these things on Palace Green in front of the cathedral and had also administered to a very large crowd during a Latin sung mass in the cathedral itself.81 All the parish churches had again set up their altars, which had been pulled down and replaced by tables before that, and all had replaced their holy water stoups; the clergy had sprinkled the people with holy water.82 In every parish church mass had been said again in Latin. Worse still, there had been a bonfire on Elvet Bridge to which churchwardens had brought English bibles, books of Common Prayer, Jewel’s Apology, and the Book of Homilies. It is revealing also that some of the things now brought out had been hidden, presumably since Mary’s reign. One of the parishioners of St Oswald’s, for instance, admitted that he had helped to set up the holy water stoup, which had been hidden in a corner of the church, covered with earth; others said they had found the altar stones where they had been hidden in the area near the church. By the time they gave evidence they knew the things they ought to have believed and several of them dutifully recited them and asked pardon of ‘God and the Queen’s Majesty’.83 Altars ought to be destroyed as ‘monuments of idolatry and superstition in all places’, said one churchwarden.84 ‘All latin service, the bishop of Rome’s authority, books, beads, altars and the ornaments of the church ought to be abolished and defaced as superstitious things, tending to idolatry’,85 was the way the wretched William Wright of Elvet, a churchwarden of St Oswald’s, put it. But the truth was that they had set these things up; in some cases evidently a good crowd had helped and even if most of them now said that they only acted

79 The evidence is from the Acta of the consistory court, some of which have been printed but unsatisfactorily in Depositions. I have referred to the originals in all cases and quote them where they add to the printed version. 80 DUL, Archives and Special Collections, DDR/EJ/CCA/1/2A, f. 193v, for the articles about making altars; for the altar in the cathedral, see DDR/EJ/CCD/1/2, f. 172; Depositions, pp. 127–9, 129, 130–2, 132. 81 Depositions, pp. 128, 136. 82 Depositions, pp. 163, 167, 170, 173, for altars. 83 Depositions, p. 143. 84 Depositions, p. 166. 85 Depositions, p. 170.

195


because ordered by Cuthbert Neville, one of the aristocratic leaders and a local man of importance, their actions suggest that they were not unwilling. Also people knew what to do and where to find the necessary articles. If we look at the role of the clergy in all this we can see that the leaders were almost certainly the prebendaries and the minor canons, though the singing men of the choir joined in (they had to be rehearsed to sing the Latin services but someone had copies).86 Not surprisingly the church courts questioned the clergy very closely and several were deprived, but the questioning suggests that this was the first serious attempt to find out the real, conscientious stance of the lower clergy. The cathedral clergy had already been leaned on heavily. In 1559 royal visitors had questioned the canons and made them take the oath of supremacy. At least some of them got into trouble then by refusing to accept the articles offered them and were deprived, though others acquiesced after hesitation.87 The most spectacular example among the clergy of a man having second thoughts during the 1569 rebellion was John Brown, who had become a minor canon but refused at first to subscribe in 1559.88 He must eventually have taken the oath because by 1569 he was curate in Witton Gilbert. When the guilty were rounded up he was absent and his parishioners stated that he had got up into the pulpit and declared, ‘I have these eleven years [since the end of Mary’s reign] taught you the wrong way, in such learning as is against my own soul’s and yours both; and I am sorry and ask God’s mercy therefore and yours, my parishioners’, resigning his living on the spot.89 John Pereson, another accused, had been ordained under Mary, and was one of the masters of the cathedral school. He had trouble admitting the queen’s supremacy in 1559 but did so.90 In 1569 he lodged William Holmes, the clerical leader of the rebellion, in his own chamber and persuaded others to come to him to be reconciled to Rome, acts undoubtedly treasonous, which landed him in Durham jail where he died early in 1581.91 Among those he persuaded to be reconciled were five of the minor canons.92 Oliver Esh, the curate of St Giles’s in Durham, got into trouble also, though he said that it was largely because his parishioners insisted that he administered communion to them in their mouths and not in their hands.93 William Headlam, curate in charge of St Nicholas’s church, accepted Holmes’s reconciliation, though he had taken the oath and accepted the queen’s supremacy, as he confessed.94

86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94

Depositions, pp. 149, 154. The Royal Visitation of 1559, ed. C.J. Kitching, SS 187 (1975), pp. 22–7, 28. Royal Visitation, p. 27. Depositions, p. 174. Royal Visitation, pp. 27, 60. Depositions, pp. 128, 138, 144, 148. Depositions, p. 144. Depositions, p. 138. Depositions, pp. 162–3; not in Royal Visitation. 196

THE REFORMATION

He had to do public penance. It is worth noting here that one of the points which seems to have swayed those who accepted absolution from Holmes was to be told firmly that unless they were absolved they could not share in the performance of the liturgy because they were excommunicated. Several professed also that they were intimidated into accepting. What is important is that some of these lesser clergy never seem to have been really examined before, or else had accepted what was required of them but now had serious doubts. If the local clergy were so numerous among the supporters of the mass, it is no surprise that the crowd in the cathedral was said to be so large that most of the lay people said they could neither see nor hear (very conveniently). None of the laity who appeared in the church courts were punished with more than a public penance, but from our point of view it is worth underlining that they confessed to acts such as accepting pax bread, using rosary beads during mass (meaning that they still owned these), taking holy water on entering the church, and kneeling on their knees during the blessing, ‘using such gestures as men commonly use to do at mass’.95 They knew what to do, in other words, and remembered it even after eleven years of Elizabeth’s government. Several of those questioned were too young to have had much indoctrination personally during earlier years, and one wonders what had been going on in their families for them to be so well able to understand what was happening. Among all these statements it is evident that only the clergy had ever been closely questioned on their ideas about the papacy. Several in 1559 admitted that they believed in the jurisdiction of the pope and this led to their deprivation.96 But for ordinary lay people in 1569 it was their actions at the mass and their apparent attachment to ‘superstitious’ religious trappings which were regarded as dangerous and ungodly. These events, traumatic as they must have been, were followed by the first serious attempts to educate the Durham laity in Protestantism. These do not concern us in this book. Here it suffices to underline how very slow the new regime seems to have been in the task of winning hearts and minds; Durham, in this as in much else, was ‘conservative’.

95 96

Depositions, p. 164, for instance. Royal Visitation, pp. 22, 24, 25. 197

Conclusion As far as the evidence will allow, we must acknowledge that the religious institutions of Durham city were flourishing on the eve of the Reformation. Institutions of course are by no means everything in religious matters but there is no evidence that the people of Durham were finding them out of date or unhelpful. The voluntary aspects of religion, such as founding of masses for the dead, seem to have continued right to the end. The chantries show remarkable health, many of those still in existence at the Dissolution dating from the thirteenth century, even though new ones were not founded after about 1420. It is probable that the citizens realised that strengthening an existing chantry was more sensible than founding a new one, as well as being cheaper. The crisis for the local chantries had come in the fourteenth century rather than in the sixteenth and was apparently dealt with by Hatfield. This probably reflects the economic effects of the plague and does not seem to have inhibited the founding of further chantries. The records show lay people making use of the church courts when they could probably have used secular ones. Quarrels over tithes seem neither frequent nor fierce. There is very little evidence of heresy nor of widespread non-attendance at (compulsory) services. The account that we can give of the clergy suggests that there was a good supply of resident lower clergy to satisfy the needs of the laity and there is not much evidence that they were conspicuously either negligent or immoral. The level of lay education is difficult to discover, of course, but in a very small city there was a good supply of schools and there must have been reasonable opportunities for bright boys even to reach the university. The monks probably did their fair share of education by sermons, though only Ripon’s collection is left to us. The features which may be unexpected are that the church courts were administering marriage law in a rather old-fashioned way, using sub poena nubendi and sequestration when we might have expected these to have been given up. The hearing of marriage cases in the archidiaconal court is in itself unusual. But the marriage cases I have looked at show lay people using the church courts to carry out their own wishes about marriage just as much as the church did. The cases also show that the notion that the exchange of words of present consent made a marriage was firmly embedded in lay consciousness. In the case of mortuaries also it seems that the laity had their own ideas, which did not entirely coincide with those of the church’s lawyers. They considered that living mortuaries were owed because one held land in certain 198

CONCLUSION

places and not for spiritual reasons nor for forgotten tithes. But one begins to see here how extraordinarily complex mortuaries were. Where Lyndwood said that mortuaries varied according to local custom, in Durham one can see what this was thought to be. This evidence is probably at its most interesting when it tells one about local differences of practice and about what the lay people thought were their rights. In this respect the information about the way the dependence of St Margaret’s church was symbolised is of great importance. The lay people knew what rights they had in the local churches and could defend these. There is much evidence here as elsewhere to show that the prior and the bishop were not overwhelmingly powerful, to the extent of ruling a cowed laity. The information about the way the ‘Holy Bread’ was produced is of particular significance. It is seldom that one can see this sort of custom at work and even less frequent to hear what happened to it after the Reformation.1 One can see that the bread’s production and distribution not only symbolised the dependence of a chapel but also emphasised the neighbourly duties of the parishioners, who all had to take their fair share and were reminded of this by their fellows actually sharing bread with them. After the Reformation this became a purely monetary obligation and the symbolism was lost. Durham may have been old-fashioned in some ways but the presence of John Warton and then his cult in the centre of the city suggests an openness to a different level of lay religion: hermits and the ascetical life outside of monasteries. A remarkable number seem to have existed in the parishes and countryside around Durham. The one thing strikingly missing from the evidence is what the laity thought about St Cuthbert. Clearly pilgrims continued to come to the shrine; the feretrar’s accounts show this. Occasionally someone would have to come to do penance there, or at least in the cathedral itself, which was tantamount to the same thing. We have also noticed that the laity participated in some of the great processions by the monks and also in Corpus Christi day. But one might have expected to find large numbers making a living out of the saint by selling mementoes, for instance. Strangely, so far none have been found for this shrine. The first mention of a hospice specifically to cater for pilgrims is very late, in the 1480s. Perhaps the priory did not encourage this kind of enterprise. The priory, however, did make an enormous difference to parish life. The monks seem to have been good rectors, going beyond their legal obligations and ensuring well-run, competently staffed parishes. They did not allow the lay people exactly what they wanted, hence the slowness to grant St Margaret’s its independence, but relationships were certainly not too difficult most of

1

For instance, E. Duffy, The Voices of Morebath. Reformation and Rebellion in an English Village, New Haven and London 2001, p. 65, shows that in Morebath one cannot find this out. 199


the time. Probably the most important contribution of the monks, however, was their sermons and their additions to the outward liturgy of the town, as well as their subsidising of charity, both educational and in hospitals. Durham would not have existed without the monastery, and a town of its size and comparative wealth could not have supported its array of institutions without the monastic wealth. The bishop of course also made a difference, not least in ensuring that there were always members of his entourage to staff churches and supply learning. For a comparatively small place with no other sources of wealth Durham did well out of the church, both spiritually and materially, and it appears to have recognised this and to have been a comparatively contented place.

200

Bibliography Manuscripts BL Arundel 507 Cotton Faust A VI (Registrum Parvum I) Cotton Cleop E VI, vol. I Cotton Vitell A IX Harley 3858 Harley 4843 Harley 4894

DCL B IV 35 DCM Documents catalogued in Repertorium magum, including particularly Specialia (Spec) and Archidiaconal records. Miscellaneous Charters (Misc. Ch.) Locelli (Loc.) Account rolls of Almoner, Bursar, Camerarius, Feretrar, Hostillar and Sacrist, the Procurators of Norham, St Oswald’s and St Margaret’s churches Some estate deeds of the Almoner (Elim) and Sacrist (Sac) Almoner’s rentals Almoner’s Small Cartulary Bishop Thomas Hatfield, Register Bursar’s Books, H, I, J, M Capitula Prioris Dunelmensis Cartuarium Vetus Cartuarium I–V Court Book of the Prior’s Official Crossgate Court Book Dean and Chapter, Register I 201


Receiver’s Book 2, 1541–2 Registrum, I–V. Registrum Parvum II–V Piper, A.J., Thirteenth Century Cartularies, 1975 typescript in the search room at 5, The College, Durham

DCRO EP/Du.SM, with number of piece (St Margaret’s church, archives) D/Sa/D/ with number (Salvin archive)

DUL, Archives and Special Collections CCB B/1/1 and following, in sequence (formerly DDR/volIII/1) DDR/EJ/CCA/1/1 DDR/EJ/CCD/1/4 CCB B3/29 (CC190288) Mickleton and Spearman MSS, 47, 49 Lichfield RO John Burghill’s Register

NA DURH 3/12 and following, 135 Dur 13/1 E101/17 E101/18, nos. 51–65 E101/75/11 E101/76/13 E117/2/18, 19, 20, 22, 23 SC2/171/6 (Gilesgate Court Book) SC12/7/26

Oxford, Bodleian Library Dodsworth MS 61

Vatican Archives Reg. Av. 188

202

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Wiltshire RO Salisbury Bishops Registers: Robert Neville, Register 1; William Aiscough

York, Borthwick Institute Bishops Register 18 (Bowet); Register 19 (J. Kemp) CP E101; CP E263, nos. 1, 2, 5, 6, 7 Trans CP 1527/1

Printed primary sources Barnes, R., Injunctions and Other Ecclesiastical Proceedings of Richard Barnes, Bishop of Durham from 1575–1587, ed. J. Raine, SS 22 (1850) Bek, A., Records of Anthony Bek, Bishop of Durham and Patriarch, 1283–1311, ed. C.M. Fraser, SS 162 (1947) Bicchieri, G., The Letters and Charters of Cardinal Guala Bicchieri, Papal Legate in England 1216–1218, ed. N. Vincent, CYS 83 (1996) Bury, Richard D’Aungerville of, Fragments of his Register and Other Documents, ed. G.W. Kitchin, SS 119 (1910) Calendar of Close Rolls, London 1900 onwards Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers Relating to Great Britian and Ireland. Papal Letters, ed. W.H. Bliss and J.A. Twemlow, London 1893 onwards Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers. Petitions, ed. W.H. Bliss, London 1896 Catalogi veteres librorum ecclesiae Dunelm, ed. B. Botfield, SS 8 (1841) Chambers, D.S., ed., Faculty Office Registers 1534–49. A Calendar of the First Two Registers of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Oxford 1966 Coldingham, The Correspondence, Inventories, Account Rolls and Law Proceedings of the Priory of, ed. J. Raine, SS 12 (1841) Councils and Synods with other documents relating to the English Church, ed. F.M. Powicke and C.R. Cheney, 2 vols, Oxford 1964 Depositions and Other Ecclesiastical Proceedings from the Courts of Durham, extending from 1311 to the Reign of Elizabeth, ed. J. Raine, SS 21 (1845) Deputy Keeper, Annual Report of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records, nos. 34, 44, 45 Documents relating to Diocesan and Episcopal Visitations, ed. A. Hamilton Thompson, SS 127 (1916) English Historical Documents, I, ed. D. Whitelock, London 1955 Fasti Dunelmensis, A record of the Beneficed Clergy of the Diocese of Durham down to the Dissolution, ed. D.S. Boutflower, SS 139 (1926) Feodarium Prioratus Dunelmensis, ed. W. Greenwell, SS 58 (1872) Fox, R., The Register of Richard Fox, Lord Bishop of Durham 1494–1501, ed. M.P. Howden, SS 147 (1932) 203


Fraser, C., ed., Durham Quarter Sessions Rolls, 1471–1625, SS 199 (1987–8) Friedberg, A., Corpus iuris canonici, 2 vols, Leipzig 1879–81 Gray, W., The Register or Rolls of Walter Gray, Lord Archbishop of York, with appendices of illustrative documents, ed. J. Raine, SS 56 (1872) Greenfield, W., The Register of William Greenfield, Lord Archbishop of York, 1306–1315, ed. W. Brown and A.H. Thompson, 5 vols, SS 145, 149, 151–3 (1931–40) Gregory XI, Lettres Communes, ed. A.M. Hayez, Ecoles Françaises d’Athènes et de Rome, 3rd series, 1992 onwards Hatfield, T., Bishop Hatfield’s Survey, ed. W. Greenwell, SS 32 (1857) Helmholz, R.H., ed., Select Cases on Defamation to 1600, Selden Society 101 (1985) Historiae Dunelmensis scriptores tres, ed. J. Raine, SS 9 (1839) Holtzmann, W., ed., Papsturkunden in England, II, Berlin 1935 Horne, R., Certain homilies of M. J. Calvin [.] imprinted at Rome before the Castell of S Angel at the sign of St Peter, 1553 Howden, Roger of, Chronica Magistri Rogeri de Hoveden, ed. W. Stubbs, 4 vols, RS 51 (1871) Innocent III, Letters of Pope Innocent III (1198–1216) concerning England and Wales, ed. C.R. and M. Cheney, Oxford 1967 The Inventories of Church Goods for the Counties of York, Durham and Northumberland, ed. E. Page, SS 97 (1897) Jeffries Collins, A., ed., Manuale, Henry Bradshaw Society 91 (1958) Kettley. J., ed., The Two Liturgies [.] Set forth by Authority in the Reign of Edward VI, Parker Society, Cambridge 1844 Langley, T., The Register of Thomas Langley, Bishop of Durham, 1406–1437, ed. R.L. Storey, SS 164(I), 166(II), 169–70(III–IV), 177(V), 182(VI) (1956–70) Letters and Papers Foreign and Domestic of the Reign of Henry VIII, ed. J.S. Brewer, 21 vols in 32, London 1862–1932, with addenda in 2 vols Longstaffe, W.H.D., ‘Local Muniments. From the collection of the late J. Brough Taylor, Esq, FSA’, Arch. Ael., 2nd series 1 (1857), pp. 61–6 Longstaffe, W.H.D., ‘Local Muniments. From the vestry of St Margaret’s Durham and other sources’, Arch. Ael., 2nd series 2 (1858), pp. 24–38 Lyndwood, W., Provinciale, Oxford 1679 (Gregg photo-reprint 1968) Mcdermid, R.T.W., ed., Beverley Minster Fasti, YAS, record series, 149 (1993) Memorials of Ripon, ed. J.T. Fowler, IV, SS 115 (1908) Memorials of St Giles Durham, ed. J. Barmby, SS 95 (1896) North Country Wills, being abstracts of wills relating to the Counties of York, Nottingham [.] ed. J.W. Clay, SS 116 (1908) Offler, H.S., ed., Durham Episcopal Charters 1071–1152, SS 179 (1968) Page, W., ed., The Certificates of the Commissioners Appointed to Survey the Chantries, Guilds, Hospitals etc in the County of York, SS 91 (1894) Priory of Finchale, The Charters of Endowment, Inventories and Account Rolls of the Priory of Fimchale, ed. J. Raine, SS 6 (1837) 204

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Records of Northern Convocation, SS 113 (1907) Reginald of Durham, Libellus de admirandis beati Cuthberti virtutibus, ed. J. Raine, SS 1 (1834) Reginald of Durham, Libellus de vita et miraculis S Godrici, heremitae de Finchale, ed. J. Stevenson, SS 20 (1845) The Register of the Guild of Corpus Christi in the City of York, ed. R.H. Skaife, SS 57 (1872) Registrum Palatinum Dunelmense, ed. T.D. Hardy, 4 vols, RS 62 (1873–8) The Rites of Durham, ed. J. Fowler, SS 107 (1902) Rotuli Parliamentorum ut et Placita et Petitiones in Parliamento, 6 vols, London 1767–7 The Royal Visitation of 1559, ed. C.J. Kitching, SS 187 (1975) Smith, D.M., Lincoln 1186–1206 (English Episcopal Acta 4), Oxford 1986 Snape, M.G., ed., Durham 1153–1195 (English Episcopal Acta 24), Oxford 2002 Snape, M.G., ed., Durham 1196–1237 (English Episcopal Acta 25), Oxford 2002 Spelman, H., Concilia, Decreta, Leges, London 1664 The Statutes of the Cathedral Church of Durham: with other documents relating to its foundation by King Henry the Eighth and Queen Mary, ed. A.H. Thompson and J.M. Falkner, SS 143 (1929) Stones, E.L.G. and Simpson, G.S., eds, Edward I and the Throne of Scotland 1290–96. An Edition of the Record Sources of the Great Cause, 2 vols, Oxford 1978 Symeon of Durham, Libellus De Exordio atque Procursu istius hoc est Dunhelmensis Ecclesie, ed. and trans. D. Rollason (Oxford Medieval Texts), Oxford 2000 Taxatio ecclesiastica Angliae et Walliae, auctoritate P. Nicolai IV, circa A.D. 1291, London 1802 Tunstall, C., A sermon of Cuthbert Tunstall Bishop of Durham preached on Palm Sunday 1539 before King Henry VIII, London 1823, from the edition of T. Berthelet, 1539 Tunstall, C., De veritate corporis et sanguinis domini nostri Jesu Christi in Eucharistia, 2nd ed., Paris 1554 Tunstall, C. and Pilkington, J., The Registers of Cuthbert Tunstall, Bishop of Durham 1530–59 and James Pilkington, Bishop of Durham 1561–76, ed. G. Hynde, SS 161 (1952) The Two Liturgies [.] Set Forth by Authority in the Reign of Edward VI, ed. J. Kettley, (Parker Society), Cambridge 1844 Urban V, Urbain V, Lettres Communes, ed M-H Laurent, Ecoles Françaises d’Athènes et de Rome, Rome 1954 et seq. Valor Ecclesiasticus [.] temp. Henr. VIII [.] institutus, ed. J. Caley and J. Hunter, 6 vols, London 1810–34 Wills and Inventories from the Registry of Durham Illustrative of the History . . . of the Northern Counties of England, ed. J Raine, SS 2 (1835); ed. W. Greenwell, SS 38 (1860); ed. J.C. Hodgson, SS 112 (1906); ed. H.M. Wood, SS 142 (1929) 205


Woolley, R.M., ed., The York Provinciale put forth by Thomas Wolsey Archbishop of York in the year 1518, London 1931

Other printed works Aird, W., St Cuthbert and the Normans. The Church of Durham 1071–1153, Woodbridge 1998 Baker, N. and Holt, R., ‘The origins of urban parish boundaries’, in T.R. Slater and G. Rosser, eds, The Church in the Medieval Town, Aldershot 1998, pp. 209–35 Barlow, F., Durham Jurisdictional Peculiars, Oxford 1950 Barstow, A.L., Married Priests and the Reforming Papacy. The Eleventh Century Debates. Texts and Studies in Religion 12, New York and Toronto 1982 Bernard, G.W., The King’s Reformation. Henry VIII and the Remaking of the English Church, New Haven and London 2005 Binns, A., ‘Pre-Reformation dedications to St Oswald in England and Scotland: a gazetteer’, in C.E. Stancliffe and E. Cambridge, eds, Oswald, Northumbrian King to European Saint, Stamford 1993, pp. 241–7 Blair, J., ed., Minsters and Parish Churches. The Local Church in Transition, 950–1200. Oxford University Committee for Archaeology. Monograph 17, Oxford 1988 Blair, J., The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society, Oxford 2005 Blair, J. and Sharpe, R., Pastoral Care before the Parish, Leicester 1992 Bonney, M., Lordship and the Urban Community, Durham and its Overlords, 1250–1540, Cambridge 1990 Bossy, J., The English Catholic Community, 1570–1850, London 1975, repr. 1979 Bowers, R., ‘The almonry schools of the English monasteries, c.1250–1540’, in B. Thompson, ed., Monasteries and Society in Medieval Britain. Proceedings of the 1994 Harlaxton Symposium (Harlaxton Medieval Studies, 6), Stamford 1999, pp. 177–222 Boyd, C.E., Tithes and Parishes in Medieval Italy: The Historical Roots of a Modern Problem, Ithaca, NY, 1952 Boyle, L.E., ‘The constitution “Cum ex eo” of Boniface VIII’, Medieval Studies, 24 (1962), pp. 263–302 Brett, M., The English Church Under Henry I, Oxford 1975 Brigden, S., London and the Reformation, Oxford 1989 Britnell, R.H., Growth and Decline in Colchester, 1300–1525, Cambridge 1986 Britnell, R.H., ‘Feudal reaction after the Black Death in the Palatinate of Durham’, Past and Present, 128 (August 1990), pp. 28–47 Brooke C.N.L., ‘English Episcopal Acta of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries’, in D. Owen, Medieval Ecclesiastical Studies in Honour of Dorothy Owen, ed. M.J. Franklin and C. Harper-Bill, Woodbridge 1995, pp. 41–56 Brown, S., Stained Glass at York Minster, London 1999 206

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Brundage, J.A., Medieval Canon Law, London and New York 1995 Burgess, C., ‘Pre-Reformation church wardens’ accounts and parish: lessons from London and Bristol’, EHR, 117 (2002), pp. 306–32 Bush, M., Durham and the Pilgrimage of Grace, Durham 2000 Bush, M. and Bownes, D., The Defeat of the Pilgrimage of Grace. A Study of the Post-pardon Revolts of December 1536–March 1537 and their Effect, Hull 1999 Cambridge, E., ‘Archaeology and the cult of St Oswald in pre-Conquest Northumbria’, in C.E. Stancliffe and E. Cambridge, eds, Oswald, Northumbrian King to European Saint, Stamford 1993, pp. 128–63 Catto, J., The History of the University of Oxford, I, The Early Oxford Schools, Oxford 1984 Catto, J. and Evans, R., The History of the University of Oxford, II, Late Medieval Oxford, Oxford 1992 Cheney, C.R., Notaries Public in England in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, Oxford 1972 Cheney, C.R., ‘Law and letters in fourteenth century Durham: a study of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge MS 450’, Bulletin of the John Ryland’s Library, 55/I (1972), reprinted with important additions in The English Church and its Laws, Twelfth to Thirteenth Century, London 1982, no. XIV Chrimes, S.B., Henry VII, London 1972 Clay, R.M., The Medieval Hospitals of England, London 1909 Colgrave, B., St Margaret’s Church, Crossgate, Durham, repr. 1991 Colgrave, B. and Wright, C.E., ‘An Elizabethan poem about Durham’, DUJ, 33 NS I/3 (1940), pp. 161–8 Colvin, H., ‘The origins of chantries’, Journal of Medieval History, 26/2 (2000), pp. 163–73 Cooper, K. and Gregory J., eds, Retribution, Repentance and Reconciliation, SCH, 40 (2004) Cramp, R., ‘The pre-Conquest sculptural tradition in Durham’, in Medieval Art and Architecture at Durham Cathedral, British Archaeological Association Conference Transactions (1977), Leeds 1980, pp. 1–10 Cramp, R., Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture in England, I, in 2 vols, Oxford 1984 Crosby, B., ‘The Song School at Durham’, DUJ, NS 29/60 (1968), pp. 63–72. Crosby, E.H., Bishop and Chapter in Twelfth Century England, Cambridge 1994 Dickens, A.G., The English Reformation, 2nd ed., London 1989 Dictionaire d’histoire et de géographie ecclesiastiques, Paris 1912 in progress Dobson, R.B., Durham Priory, 1400–1450, Cambridge 1973 Dobson, R.B., ‘The last English monks on Scottish soil: the severance of Coldingham priory from the monastery of Durham, 1461–78’, reprinted in Church and Society in the Medieval North of England, London 1996, pp. 109–33 Dobson, R.B., ‘The foundation of perpetual chantries by the citizens of medieval York’, in Church and Society, pp. 253–65 207


Doyle, A.I., ‘The library of Sir Thomas Tempest: its origins and dispersal’, in G.A.M. Jannsens and F.G.A.M. Aarts, eds, Studies in Seventeenth Century English Literature, History and Bibliography: Festschrift for Professor T.A. Birrell on the Occasion of his Sixtieth Birthday, Amsterdam 1984, pp. 83–93 Duffy, E., The Stripping of the Altars. Traditional Religion in England, 1400–1580, New Haven and London 1992 Duffy, E., The Voices of Morebath. Reformation and Rebellion in an English Village, New Haven and London 2001 Emden, A.B., A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford to AD 1500, 3 vols, Oxford 1957 Emden, A.B., A Biographical Register of the University of Cambridge to 1500, Cambridge 1963 Emden, A.B., A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford 1501–1540, Oxford 1974 Emery, N., Langston, J. and Leyland, M., ‘St Nicholas Church and cemetery, Durham City’, DAJ, 13 (1997) The English Hospice in Rome, Venerabile, 21 (May 1962) Farnhill, K., Guilds and the Parish Community in Late Medieval East Anglia, c.1470–1550, York 2001 Forrest, I., The Detection of Heresy in Late Medieval England, Oxford Historical Monographs, Oxford 2005 Forster, A., ‘Bishop Tunstal’s priests’, Recusant History, 9 (1967–8), pp. 175–204 Foster, M., ‘Durham monks at Oxford c. 1286–1381: a house of study and its inmates’, Oxonensia, 55 (1990), pp. 99–114 Foster, M., ‘Custodians of St Cuthbert: the Durham monks’ view of their predecessors, 1083–c.1200’, in D. Rollason et al., eds, Anglo-Norman Durham, Bury St Edmunds 1994, pp. 53–65 French, T.W., ‘The Great East Window’, Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi, Great Britain, Summary Catalogue, 2, Oxford 1995 Gibbs, M. and Lang, J., Bishops and Reform, 1215–1272, with Special Reference to the Lateran Council of 1215, Oxford 1934 Goldberg, P.J.P., ‘Performing the Word of God: Corpus Christi drama in the northern province’, SCH Subsidia, 12 (1999), pp. 145–70 Gransden, A., Historical Writing in England, c. 550–c.1307, London 1974 Greenslade, S.L., ‘The last monks of Durham Cathedral Priory’, DUJ, 41(1948–9), pp. 107–13 Halcrow, E.M., ‘The social position and influence of the priors of Durham, as illustrated by their correspondence’, Arch. Ael., 4th series, 33 (1955), pp. 70–86 Hanawalt, B., ‘Keepers of the Lights: late medieval English parish gilds’, Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 14 (1984), pp. 21–37 Harding, F.J.W., ‘The Company of Butchers and Fleshers of Durham’, TAASDN, 11 (1958), pp. 93–100 Harris, J., ‘Publicising the crusade: English Bishops and the Jubilee indulgence of 1455’, JEH, 50 (1999), pp. 23–37 208

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Harvey, M., Solutions to the Schism. A Study of Some English Attitudes 1378–1409, St Ottilion 1983 Harvey, M., ‘England, the Council of Florence and the end of the Council of Basel’, in G. Alberigo, ed., Christian Unity: 550 Years Since the Council of Ferrara-Florence, 1438/39–1989, Leuven 1991, pp. 203–25 Harvey, M., England, Rome and the Papacy, 1417–1464. The Study of a Relationship, Manchester 1993 Harvey, M., The English in Rome, 1362–1420: Portrait of an Expatriate Community, Cambridge 1999 Harvey, M., ‘Church discipline in the later middle ages: the priors of Durham as archdeacons’, SCH, 40 (2004), pp. 95–105 Harvey, M., ‘Church discipline in late medieval Durham City: the prior as archdeacon’, in C.D. Liddy and R.H. Britnell, eds, North-East England in the Later Middle Ages, Regions and Regionalism in History, Woodbridge 2005, pp. 119–26 Harvey, M., ‘Travel from Durham to York (and back) in the fourteenth century’, Northern History, 42/1 (2005), pp. 119–30 Haselock, J. and O’Connor, D.E., ‘The medieval stained glass of Durham Cathedral’, in Medieval Art and Architecture at Durham Cathedral, The British Archaeological Association Conference for 1977, pp. 105–29 Helmholz, R.H., Marriage Litigation in Medieval England, Cambridge 1974 Helmholz, R.H., The Ius Commune in England. Four Studies, Oxford 2001 Helmholz, R.H., The Canon Law and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction from 597 to the 1640s, The Oxford History of the Laws of England, I, Oxford 2004 Holmes, G., The Good Parliament, Oxford 1975 Horner, P.J., ‘The Benedictines and preaching the pastoralia in late medieval England: a preliminary enquiry’, in C. Muessig, ed., Medieval Monastic Preaching, Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History, 10, Leiden 1998, pp. 279–92 Hoyle, R.W., The Pilgrimage of Grace and the Politics of the 1530s, Oxford 2001 Hudson, A., ‘Wyclif and the North: the evidence from Durham’, in D. Wood, ed., Life and Thought in the Northern Church c1100–c1700: Essays in Honour of Claire Cross, SCH Subsidia, 12 (1999), pp. 87–103 Hutchinson, W., History of the County of Cumberland, Carlisle 1794–7, repr. 1974 Hutton, R., The Rise and Fall of Merry England: The Ritual Year 1400–1700, Oxford 1994, repr. 1996 Hutton, R., The Stations of the Sun. A History of the Ritual Year in Britain, Oxford 1996, pb. 1997 Jones, M.K. and Underwood, M.G., The King’s Mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby, Cambridge 1992 Kaeppeli, T., Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum, 4 vols, Rome 1970–93 Ker, N.R., ed., Medieval Libraries of Great Britain. A List of Surviving Books. Supplement to the Second Edition, ed. A.G. Watson, London 1984 Knowles, J.A., Essays in the History of the York School of Glass-painting, London 1936 209


Kreider, A., English Chantries: The Road to Dissolution, Cambridge, Mass., and London 1979 Le Goff, J., La naissance du Purgatoire, Paris 1981, using here the English edition, The Birth of Purgatory, London 1984 Liddy, C.D. and Britnell, R.H., eds, North-East England in the Later Middle Ages, Regions and Regionalism in History, Woodbridge 2005 Logan, F.D., Excommunication and the Secular Arm in Medieval England, Toronto 1968 Lomas, R., ‘The Black Death in County Durham’, Journal of Medieval History, 15 (1989), pp. 127–40 Lunt, W.E., Financial Relations of the Papacy with England, 1327–1534, Studies in Anglo-Papal Relations During the Middle Ages, 2, Cambridge, Mass., 1962 McHardy, A.K., ‘Careers and disappointments in the late-medieval church: some English evidence’, SCH, 26 (1989), pp. 111–30 McHardy, A.K., ‘Church courts and criminous clerks in the later middle ages’, in D. Owen, Medieval Ecclesiastical Studies in Honour of Dorothy Owen, ed. M.J. Franklin and C. Harper-Bill, Woodbridge 1995, pp. 165–83 McKinnell, J., ‘Drama and ceremony in the last years of Durham Cathedral Priory’, Medieval English Theatre, 10(2) (1988), pp. 91–111 McKinnell, J., ‘Folk drama and ceremony in medieval Durham’, Atti Accademia dei Perloritana dei Pericolanti, 68 (1992), pp. 97–121 McKinnell, J., The Sequence of the Sacrament at Durham, Papers in North Eastern History 8, Middlesborough 1998 Marcombe, D., ‘The Durham Dean and Chapter: old abbey writ large?’, in R. O’Day and F. Heal, eds, Continuity and Change. Personnel and Administration of the Church of England 1500–1642, Leicester 1976, pp. 125–44 Meade, D.M., ‘The Hospital of St Giles at Kepier, near Durham’, TAASDN, NS 1 (1968), pp. 45–52 Meade, D.M., ‘The medieval parish of St Giles,’ TAASDN, NS 2 (1970), pp. 63–9 Meade, D.M., Kepier Hospital, Durham 1995 Medieval Art and Architecture at Durham Cathedral, British Archaeological Association Conference Transactions (1977) Milsom, J., ‘Cries of Durham’, Early Music, May 1989, pp. 147–60 Moore, R.I., The Formation of a Persecuting Society. Power and Deviance in Western Europe 950–1250, Oxford 1987 Newman, C., ‘Work and wages at Durham priory and its estates, 1494–1519’, Continuity and Change, 16(3) (2001), pp. 357–78 Northumberland County History Committee, History of Northumberland, II, Newcastle 1895 Offler, H.S., ‘The early archdeacons in the diocese of Durham’ (no. III), ‘Rannulf Flambard as bishop of Durham’ (no. VII) and ‘Fitzmeldred, Neville and Hansard’ (no. XIII), in A.J. Piper and A.I. Doyle, eds, North of the Tees. Studies in Medieval British History, Variorum 1996 210

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Orme, N. and Webster, M., The English Hospital 1070–1570, London and New Haven 1995 Owen, D., Medieval Ecclesiastical Studies in Honour of Dorothy Owen, ed. M.J. Franklin and C. Harper-Bill, Woodbridge 1995 Owst, G.K., ‘Sortilegium in English homiletic literature of the fourteenth century’, in J. Conway Davies, ed., Studies Presented to Sir Hilary Jenkinson, London 1957, pp. 272–303 Partner, P., The Pope’s Men, Oxford 1990 Pedersen, F., Marriage Disputes in Medieval England, London and Rio Grande 2000 Perroy, E., L’Angleterre et le Grand Schisme d’Occident, Paris 1933 Pevsner, N., rev. Williamson, E., County Durham (The Buildings of England), 2nd ed., Harmondsworth 1983 Postles, D., ‘Penance and the market place: a Reformation dialogue with the medieval church (c1200–c1600)’, JEH, 54(3) (2003), pp. 441–68 Raban, S., Mortmain Legislation and the English Church, 1279–1500, Cambridge 1982 Raine, J., The History and Antiquities of North Durham, London 1852 Rex, R., The Lollards, Social History in Perspective, Basingstoke 2002 Richards, P., The Medieval Leper and His Northern Heirs, Cambridge 1977 Rollason, D., ‘Symeon of Durham and the community of Durham in the eleventh century’, in C. Hicks, ed., England in the Eleventh Century, Proceedings of the 1990 Harlaxton Symposium, Stamford 1992, pp. 183–98 Rollason, D., ‘St Oswald in Pre-Conquest England’, in C.E. Stancliffe and E. Cambridge, eds, Oswald, Northumbrian King to European Saint, Stamford 1993, pp. 164–7 Rollason, D., Harvey, M. and Prestwich, M., eds, Anglo-Norman Durham, Woodbridge 1994 Rollason, L., ‘The late medieval non-monastic entries in the Durham Liber Vitae’, in D. Rollason et al., eds, The Durham Liber Vitae and its Context, Woodbridge 2004, pp. 127–37 Rubin, M., Corpus Christi: The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture, Cambridge 1991 Rud, T., Codicum Manuscriptorum Cathedralis Dunelmensis Catalogus Classicus, Durham 1825 Scammell, G.V., Hugh de Puiset, Bishop of Durham, Cambridge 1956 Scammell, G.V., ‘Seven charters relating to the familia of Bishop Hugh de Puiset’, Arch. Ael., 4th series, 34 (1956), pp. 77–90 Schmugge, L., Kirche, Kinder, Karrieren. Päpstliche Dispense von der unehelichen Geburt im Spätmittelalter, Zurich 1995 Slater, T.R. and Rosser, G., eds, The Church in the Medieval Town, Aldershot 1998 Smith, D., A Guide to Bishops’ Registers of England and Wales, Frome and London 1981 211


Snape, M.G., ‘Some evidence of Lollard activity in the diocese of Durham in the early fifteenth century’, Arch. Ael., 4th series, 39 (1961), pp. 355–61 Solloway, J., The Alien Benedictines of York, Leeds 1910 Southern, R.W., St Anselm and His Biographer: A Study of Monastic Life and Thought 1059–c. 1130, Cambridge 1963 Southern, R.W., Robert Grossesteste. The Growth of an English Mind in Medieval Europe, Oxford 1986 Stancliffe, C.E. and Cambridge, E., eds, Oswald, Northumbrian King to European Saint, Stamford 1993 Stevens-Benham, L.M., ‘The Durham clergy 1494–1540: a study of continuity and mediocrity among the unbeneficed’, in D. Marcombe, ed., The Last Principality: Politics, Religion and Society in the Bishopric of Durham 1494–1660, Loughborough 1987, pp. 6–28 Storey, R.L., Thomas Langley and the Bishopric of Durham, 1406–1437, London 1961 Storey, R.L., Diocesan Administration in Fifteenth Century England, Borthwick Papers, 16, 2nd ed., York 1972 Storey, R.L., ‘Malicious indictments of the clergy in the fifteenth century’, in D. Owen, Medieval Ecclesiastical Studies in Honour of Dorothy Owen, ed. M.J. Franklin and C. Harper-Bill, Woodbridge 1995, pp. 221–40 Sturge, C., Cuthbert Tunstal. Churchman, Scholar, Statesman, Administrator, London 1938 Surtees, R., The History and Antiquities of the Palatinate of Durham, 4 vols, London 1816–40 Swanson, H., Building Craftsmen in Late Medieval York, Borthwick Papers, 63 (1983) Swanson, R.N., ‘Titles to orders in English medieval Episcopal registers’, in H. Mayr-Harting and R.I. Moore, eds, Studies Presented to R.H.C. Davies, London 1985, pp. 233–45 Swanson, R.N., Church and Society in Late Medieval England, 2nd ed., Oxford 1993 Swanson, R.N., ‘Parochialism and particularism. The dispute over the status of Ditchford Frary, Warwickshire, in the early fifteenth century’, in D. Owen, Medieval Ecclesiastical Studies in Honour of Dorothy Owen, ed. M.J. Franklin and C. Harper-Bill, Woodbridge 1995, pp. 240–57 Tanner, N.P., The Church in late medieval Norwich, 1370–1532, Toronto 1984 Thomas, M., ‘Tunstal, trimmer or martyr’, JEH, 24 (1973), pp. 337–55 Thompson, A.H., ‘On a minute book and paper formerly belonging to the Mercers’ Company; and “Ordinary of the Goldsmiths’ Company”; both of Durham City’, Arch. Ael., 3rd series, 19 (1922), pp. 210–53 Thompson, B., ‘Habendum et Tenendum: lay and ecclesiastical attitudes to property within the church’, in Religious Belief and Ecclesiastical Careers in Late Medieval England, ed. C. Harper-Bill, Woodbridge 1991, pp. 197–238 Thompson, F., ‘St Mary Magdalen, Durham’, TAASDN, 2 (1869–79), pp. 140–6 212

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Thomson, S.H., The Writings of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, Cambridge 1940 Threlfall-Holmes, M., Monks and Markets, Durham Cathedral Priory 1460–1520, Oxford 2005 Tudor, V., ‘Durham Priory and its hermits in the twelfth century’, AND, pp. 67–78 Vickerstaffe, J.J., ‘Thomas Langley and the nature of public education in Durham City 1400–1450’, DUJ, NS 51(82), 1990, pp. 1–7 Victoria County History of Durham, 3 vols, ed. W. Page, London 1905–28 Victoria County History of Yorkshire, ed. W. Page, III, London 1913 Victoria County History of Yorkshire, North Riding, 2 vols, ed. W. Page, London 1914–25 Watson, A.G, see Ker, N.R. Wedgewood, J., History of Parliament. Register of Ministers and of the Members of Both Houses, 1439–1509, London 1938 Wenzel, S., Latin Sermon Collections from Later Medieval England, Cambridge 2005 Westlake, H.F., The Parish Guilds of Medieval England, London 1919 Whiting, C.E., ‘The Durham trade guilds’, TAASDN, 9, part 2 (1941), pp. 143–262; part 3 (1943), pp. 265–416 Wood, D., ed., Life and Thought in the Northern Church c1100–c1700: Essays in Honour of Claire Cross, SCH Subsidia, 12 (1999) Wood-Legh, K.L., Perpetual Chantries in Britain, Cambridge 1965 Wrigley, E.A. and Schofield, R.S., The Population History of England, 1541–1871: A Reconstruction, 2nd ed., Cambridge 1989

Unpublished theses Camsell, M., ‘The development of a northern town in the later middle ages. The city of Durham c 1250–1540’, 3 vols, DPhil York, 1985 Dodds, B., ‘Tithe and agrarian output between Tyne and Tees, 1350–1450’, PhD Durham, 2002 Donaldson, R., ‘Patronage and the Church: a study in the social structure of the secular clergy in the diocese of Durham (1311–1540)’, PhD Cambridge, 1955 Wilson, B.N., ‘The changes of the Reformation period in Durham and Northumberland’, PhD Durham, 1939

213

Index Persons, (selected) places and subjects Bp= bishop; dau=daughter; f.=father; m. = mother; w.=wife; s.=son; sis=sister St is treated as Saint Unless otherwise stated offices and occupations refer to Durham Abraham, 30 Absolon, f. of William, see William s. of Absolon acoloytes, 114,127 Adhoc, widow, see Albus, Walter Adthe, Christopher, clerk, 192 Adthe[y], Edward, guild priest, 191–2 Adthe, Robert, w. Elizabeth, 52 adultery, 48–9, 50, 56, 57 Advent, 27, 128 Agnes, widow, see Goldsmyth, John Alanson, Robert, 79 Albus, Walter, baker, and widow Adhoc, 136 Aldewode, Geoffrey de, 92 Aldhun, bp of Chester-le-Street and Durham (990–1018), dau. Ecfrida, 100 Alexander III, pope (1159–81), 4 Alman, family, 144–5 Almon, John, 98, 144 Alman, Matilda and second husband John de Elmeden, 145 Alman, Simon, 85, 89, 144, 145; w. Alice, and dau, 144, 145; William, clerk, s. of Simon, first w. Margaret, second Matilda above, 144, 182 Almoner, see Durham priory, obedientiaries Alnwick, William, bp of Lincoln (1438–49), 121 altarage, 108 altars/altar stones, 194, 195 Amundesville, John de, and s. Robert, 170 anchorage, St Oswald’s, 47, 66, 68; and see hermits anchoress, 66 Andrewson, James, 183 n. 34

Anselm, archbp of Canterbury (1093–1109), 100 anticlericalism, 82, 99, 119 appeal, to Rome, 69, 88, 89, 141 tuitorial, 85–6; see also Roman Curia, judges delegate to York, 52, 54 Appleby, John de, senior, 103 appropriation, 4 aquebavulus, see parish clerk arbitration/arbitrator, 63, 79, 88, 96, 97, 113, 186 archdeacon, duties, 19, 69; see visitation; prior as archdeacon Armestrong, Thomas, 97 Arnold, prior of Coldingham 135–6 Artays, John, chantry priest, schoolmaster, 109, 112, 118, 122, 123 Artays, dominus John, relative of, 112 Ascension Thursday, 35, 40 Ashburn, Margaret, 56 Asklaby, Christopher, chantry priest, 80, 80–1, 152; his ‘boy’, 81 Asshburn, Robert, vicar, 105 Astley, dominus Thomas, 183 n.34 Atkinson, Beatrix, 36 Atkinson, Hugh, 56–7, 129 Atkinson, Leonard, 186 Augmentations, court of, pensions listed, 190–1 Aukland, John, 10 n.70 A Vavray, Brian, cutter of cloth, 55 Averdus the clerk, rector, 16, 102 Ayre, John, 180 Ayre, Richard, vicar, 67 Babethorp, Ralph, 124 Babyngton, John, 97

215

INDEX Bacon, John, 91 Bailes, Maud, 154 Bailes, Anthony, 177 Bainbridge, Christopher, bp of Durham (1507–8), 74 banners, see Cuthbert, St, Corpus Christi, Pentecost baptism, 47–8, 130; and see Ripon, Robert Barclay, George, chantry priest, 191 Baret, W[illiam], churchwarden, 43 Barnard Castle, Richard of, chaplain, 50; chantry of Richard, 155 Barnardcastle, John of, chantry priest, 141 Barne, Joan, w. of Richard, 59–60 Basel, see Councils of Church Bat, Robert, churchwarden, 41 Batmanson, John, notary, 10 n.71 Baty, Adam, 98 Baxter, Christine, 72 Baxter, Katerina, 72 Bayard, Robert, see Webster, Juliana Bechem, John, 80–1 Becket, Thomas, St and martyr, 17, 22 bede rolls, 132, 154 Bede, St, 32, 127 Bedell, John, and w., 58 Bee, John, 174 Bee, Thomas, 63 Bek, Anthony, bp of Durham (1283–1311), 115 Bekyngham, Simon de, chancellor of York, 86 Belers, master Hamo, 84 Belitam, Mariot de, 131 Bell, John, 45 Bell, Ludovicus, chantry priest, 190 Bellasis, Anthony, 109 Bellasis, John, senior, 148 n.126 Bellasis, John, junior, w. Sybil, w. Alice, 148 bells, 22, 23–4 Belmarez, John, rector, 183 benefices, exchange, 105 inheritance, 101, 102 pluralism, 102, 103, 105, 109, 147 provision, 102, 103, 105, 179–80 value in city, 108 Benet, dominus Robert, monk, m. of, 174 Benet, William, chantry priest, 38 n. 70, 143 Benett, Matilda, 173 Bennet, Richard, chantry priest, 7, 190, 191 Berehalgh, family, 114, 119, 127

Berehalgh, Robert, 116, 117, 118; w. Agnes, 116; s. John, notary, 116–17; s. William, priest, 116, 118; relatives: Ademar, Aimeric (literatus), Walter (literatus), 117 Berehalgh, from Northumberland, Richard (1420s), Richard (1470s) and s. Robert, Thomas and Elizabeth of Berwick, 117 Betson, William, 44 Bible in English, 194, 195 Bigod, Mr, 186 Bichburn, William, seneschal, 76 Billingham of Crook Hall, 26, 76 Billingham, Cuthbert (esq., gentleman), 43, 44, 66, 175–6 Billingham, Ralph, s. of John s. of Ralph br and heir of Cuthbert, 177 Billingham, Thomas, 44–5, 76–7, 160 Billingham, Richard, 23 Billingham, Richard, monk, 183 Bishopton, Nicholas de, vicar, 102, 105, 179 Bishopton, Thomas, 106 Bittleston, Thomas, tanner, 76 Black Death, see plague Blaikden, Thomas, 52–3, 56, and see Huchinson, Margaret Blakehaa, Nicholas, 184 Blakeson, dominus Ralph, monk, 174, and see Blunt, Joanna Blaxton, Adam, gentleman of Kelloe, 55 Blaxton, Nicholas, 176 Blenkharn, John, churchwarden, 43 blessed bread (panis benedictus, holy bread), 12–13, 25, 47, 197, 199 ‘holy bread silver’, 47 blessings, 130, 195, 197 Blois, William of, rector, 102 Blount, Agnes, widow of John, 61 Blount, John, 176 Blunt, Johanna, sis. of dominus Ralph Blakeson, 174 Blunt (Blount), Thomas, priory cook, 186 Blythe, Mariona, m. of dominus John Blythe, monk, 174 Boldon, Uhtred of, monk, 146, 181, 182 Bolton, John, chaplain, 114 Bona, w. of Ranulph a clerk, 12 Boniface IX, pope (1389–1404), 106, 147, 180, 181 Bonney, Margaret (née Camsell), xi, xiv, 83 Bonomi, Ignatius, 3, 19 216

INDEX books for churches and in wills, antiphoner, 21, 43; Catholicon, 112; Colonna, Guido de, 112; missal, 21, portifer, 112, 113; Rolle, Richard, 67; ‘Troy’, 112; in 1569, 195; and see Warton, John Borell, William, hermit, 65 Boso, 101 Bosun, Walter, vicar, 105 Bower, Isabel, 62 Bowes, Lady Maud, of Streatlam, 167 Bowes, Ralph, esq., generosus, of South Cowton, and w. Anna, 175, 177 Bowet, Henry, archbp of York (1407–1423), servant of m., 172 Bowland, William, rector, 103 Bowman, Ralph, 56 Boy Bishop, 39–40 Boyth, Richard, 154 Brackenbury family, of Burn Hall, 11 Brakenbury, Thomas de, chantry chaplain, 141 Brandling, Sir Robert, 190 Brandon, see mortuaries Brantingham, John, guild warden, 153 Brasse, Henry, 186, 187 Bristow, William, vicar, 103,105 Brodee, Walter, 137 n. 28 Bromyard, John, OP, Summa Predicantium, 129–30 Broom, Broomhall, see tithes Brouncostine, John, 137 n. 28 Broune, Isabelle, 131 Broune, master William, schoolmaster, 123 Brown, John, of Embleton, f. of John Brown, monk, 175 Brown, John, minor canon, curate, 196 Brown, William, 23 Brune, Petrus de, 95 n. 99 Bryan, Margaret, 75 Buckley, Richard, rector, 103, 105, 159 Buckley, Thomas, rector, relative of Richard, 103 Burdale, Thomas, 97 burial within church, 61, and see Death Burn Hall, chapel, 11, 25, 26 hermit, 11 Bury, Richard de, bp of Durham (1333–45), 22 Butler, Margaret, 49 Butterby (Beautrove), chapel, 9–10, 26 Buttrye, Robert, butcher, 177

Bynchester, John, chantry chaplain, 35, 106 n. 68, 111, 163–4, 172 Caleys, Thomas de, 98 Calvin, John, 194 Candlemas (Purification of the Virgin, 2 Feb.), 28, 188 candles, offered in church, 25, 28, 36, 61, 189; and see Candlemas, Easter canon Law, canons, 28, 69, 78–9, 100, 102, 179 Cum ex eo, 105 and see Gratian, Decretum; Lyndwood, William Capellani, often chantry priests, 80, and see chaplains Capitula Generalia, xii, 70 and see Durham, prior, as archdeacon cardinals, 179 Carleton, John de, chantry chaplain, 141 Carliel, dominus John de, 183 n. 34 Carr, Elizabeth, 51 Carr, John, warden of guild, 153 Carter, John, 44 Cathe, William, 58 Caton (Catten), William, vicar, 19, 103, 105 Caumont, master William de, rector, 16, 102 Causeby, Germanus de, chaplain, 6 Cecilia, St, 147 celibacy of clergy, cases, 81–2, 112–13, 114; other refs, 26, 56, 100–101, 129 cemetery, St Margaret’s, 8, 13, 80 St Mary’s, N. Bailey, 15 St Mary Magdalen’s, 23 St Nicholas’s, 16 St Oswald’s, 68; rights of St Margaret’s in, 13, 63 Cestre, Luke de, 136 Chalker, William and w. Emma, 148 Chaloner, Elizabeth, dau. of William, 112 Chaloner, Robert, chantry chaplain, 113 Chambre, John, dr of arts and medicine, 183 n. 34 Chambre, John, of York, glazier, 24 Chancellor, William, constable, 158, 159 chantries, 110, 132–4, 136, 138 chantries, in Durham, origins, 133, 140 changes, 149, 151, 155–6, 198 chaplains of, other jobs, 35, 110; list in 1548, 190–1; fates at Dissolution, 191–2 217

INDEX Dissolution, 141, 144, 146, 189, 190, 193 Hatfield enquiry, 140, 198 properties outside city, 150–51 surveys and inventory, 150, 168, 189–90 values, 149–50, 151 chantries, in Durham, single (by church where appropriate) Castle, 143, 189; incumbents, 143 Cathedral, Blessed Mary and St Cuthbert (Langley’s), 112, 121, 132, 138, 155; chaplains, see schools, Langley’s Cathedral, other chantries within 155 Priory, St Helen /St Cross, over the gate, (Melsonby et al.), 138–9, 140, 189; chaplains, 35, 106, 111, 172, 191 St Andrew, Elvet Bridge, 135–7, 150, 153 St James, Elvet Bridge, 137–8, 142 St Andrew and St James, Elvet Bridge, 141, 151, 190; chaplains, 110, 111, 113, 141, 190–1 St Margaret, St Mary’s, 134–5, 150–1, 175, 190, 191; chaplains, 45, 113, 190; and see Domus pauperum under Hospitals St Mary, North Bailey, altar of St Catherine (Bellasis), 148–9, 190; chaplains, 149, 191 St Nicholas, 142; altar of St Eligius (Eloi), 143 altar of St James (later Coxside), 142–3, 190; chaplains, 106, 142,158, 190 altar of Sts John (Cokyn and Kirkeby), 144; chaplain, 190 altar of St Mary (Mercator’s or Almoner’s), 120, 138, 149, 151; chaplains, 190, 191 altar of St Mary (Querrington), 138 Trinity (and see guilds), 150, 151; chaplains, 190, 191 St Oswald, altar of Sts John (later Elvet), 67, 114, 145–6, 147, 151; chaplains, 80, 112, 146, 152, 190, 191 altar of St Mary (Our Lady), 134, 142, 144–5, 150, 190, 191; chaplains, 35, 80, 107, 110, 112, 134, 145, 148, 190, 191 chapels, private, xi, 2, 9–10, 26, 76 Eure, 111 in Durham Castle, xi, 2, 143 see also Burn Hall, Butterby, Crook Hall, Harbourhouse

chapels within parishes, see chantries, St Andrew, St James; Croxdale, St Bartholomew; parishes, St Margaret, before 1431; Witton Gilbert chaplains, 35, 81, 113; see also chantries and parishes Chaunceller, Nicholas, 23 Chawmbre, William, see Katerina Chaytor, Christopher, registrar, 187 Chester, Emma de, 180 Christiana, w. of Alexander the tailor, 50 Christmas, gratuities, 27; offerings by laity, 25 church attendance, 198; absence punished, 27–8, 32–3, 119 churching (purification), 25, 48, 49, 84 churchwardens, also ‘kirkmastres and proctours’, iconomi, 41, 42–43, 195 of St Margaret’s, 30, 42, 43, 177; named, 42, 43, 47, 84, 161, 176 of St Nicholas’s, 152 of St Oswald’s, 72, 141; named, 41–2, 46 churchwardens’ accounts, xii, 19, 41, 188 churchyard, see cemetery Claxton family of Burn Hall, 11 Claxton, Richard, prior of Durham, 135 Claxton, Robert, 113 Clayton, dominus John, schoolmaster, 123 clergy, 102, 108, 109, 110–13, 126–7 criminous, 73–4, 109 married (parochial), 92, 100, 101 and see celibacy clerks, married, 83, 94, 106 and see clergy; notaries of St Cuthbert, 2, 100, 101 Clerk, Robert, 113 Clerk, Thomas, see Tang, Thomas Clifton, 3 Clifton, William, vicar general, 54 Cnoit, William, 136 Co[c]ken, Thomas, heir of Hugh, 45; see also Cokyn Cockey, William, schoolmaster, 110 Cocus, Robert called, 12, 154 Coke, Henry, shoemaker, 186 Cokyn (Cocken), master John, 144, 155, 158 Cokyn (Cocken), Robert, churchwarden, 43, 176; widow of, 58, 60 Cokyn, William de, churchwarden, 84 Colchester, 155 Coldingham, dependent priory, chantry, 139; see also Billingham, Robert, monk

218

INDEX Coldingham, Richard of, rector, 5 Coldingham, William of, 136 Colman, Thomas, 97 Colonna, Guido de, 112 Colson, John, churchwarden, 43 Coltman, John, 90 Common Prayer, Book of, 194, 195 Communar, see Durham priory, obedientiaries Communion, see Eucharist Compostella, 180 Comyn, George, 61 confession, sacrament of (Penance), 12, 15, 29, 31, 59, 126, 128, 133, 188; see also indulgence confessors, 31, 182 confraternity, of Our Lady on the sea (East Anglia), 184; see also guilds; Rome, English hospices Constance, see Councils of Church Conyers, John, 186 Conyers, Roger de, 17 Convenit, 83 Corbrig, William de, clerk, and w. Joan, 94 Cornfurthe, Richard, 62 Corpus Christi, 35–6, 157, 159, 161, 165, 199 corrody, 140, 171–2 Councils of Church, Basel, 159, 182 Constance, 182 Florence, bull Exultare in Domino. 182–3 Lateran I, 1215, 6, and see celibacy Pisa, 182 Couper, Alice, widow of Robert, 180 Court Book of Prior’s Official, xii, 70; see also Durham priory, prior as archdeacon courts, ecclesiastical, 69, 73–4, 198; secular, 62, 198 Coventry, Reginald de, rector, 15 Cowhird (Cowherd), Richard, priory forester, 45, 78–9 Coxside, Robert, 142 Coxside, Thomas, butcher, w. Alice, s. Robert, 142, 158 Cray, spy, 187 Cromwell, Thomas, 186, 187 Cronan, John and w. Constantia, 92 Crook Hall, see Billingham family Crosbyde, John, 183 n. 34 Croxdale, St Bartholomew’s chapel, 9–10, 14, 25, 26, 36, 47, 108; see also

Dautre (Daudre); Salvin; chaplains, 108, 114 Croxton, John, lazarus, 169 Cumin, William, 178 Curia, see Roman Curia custom, 28-9, 36, 69, 76, 78, 85, 97, 199 Cutelare, John, 173 Cuthbert, St, 14, 34, 38, 40, 191, 199; banner of, 32, 34-5, 187; clerks of, see clerks; knights of, 9 Cuthbert, Joan, 51 D[-], John, proctor, 141 Dacre, see Neville family Dale, John, domesticus, 172 Dalton, Robert, of Harbour House, and w. Joanna, 11 Dalton, parish, 72 Danyell, Richard, bookbinder and yeoman, 15 Daudre, family, 9, 25, 26 Daudre, Roger, 9-10 and see Dawtre, Dawtry Davison, Alice, 131 Dawson, Alice, w. of William, butcher, 59-60 Dawson, Henry, tailor, 177 Dawson, John, chantry priest, 191 Dawson, Richard, butcher, 187 Dawtre, Dawtry family, 184 Dawtre, John, 79, gentleman, and w. Mary, 45 dead, office for (placebo and dirige), 121, 134, 137, 140, 147, 148, 152 prayers for, 60, 118, 132, 152, 190, 198; see also bede rolls, chantries, obits death, 25, 42, 48, 57–61; see also mortuaries, wills debts, 62, 73; see also lesio fidei Decanus, Richard, 162 defamation, 56–7, 70, 71, 73, 81–2, 129, 152 Denand, Robert, churchwarden, 43 Dicson, John, 54–6 dispensation, 107 Dissolution, see Durham priory distances, legal, 86, 87 Dixkenson, Clement, 44 Dixon, Isabella, 97 Dixson, Thomas, 154 Dobson, Barrie, xi Dod, John, 10 n. 70 Dolphin, priest of Elvet, 101 Domus pauperum, see hospitals

219

INDEX Donald, Margaret, 81 Doncaster, William, vicar, 28, 104, 112 Drogo of Middleham, and heir Thomas, 134 Du[c]ket, Christabel, m. of dominus John, monk, 174 Ducket, John, monk, then chantry priest, 174, 175, 190, 191 Duffy, Eamon, 32 Durham, bishop, household (familia), 102; mensa, 4–5, 6; power of, xii–xiii, 70, 75, 83, 86; and see under individual names Durham Cathedral, chantries, chapels and altars, 122, 132, 155, 163, 165, 166–7; consistory court, 70; choir, 196; sermons, 125 Durham Cathedral, dean and chapter, 190 Durham Cathedral Library, see Durham Priory, Library Durham Cathedral Muniments (specific mentions only),148 Accounts, passim; Almoner’s cartularies, 170, 171; Cartuarium Vetus, 9, 135, 136, 141; Loc. IV, xiii; Misc. ch. 2307 and related muniments, 135–6; Receiver’s books, 166, 188; Register III, 15–16 Durham city, boroughs and courts Bishop’s, xiii; Crossgate (Old), xiii, court, 42, 62–3 76, 81, 161; Elvet, court, xiii; Gilesgate, court, xiii, 62 Durham city, officials, bailiff, 35; constable, 158; seneschal, 76; sergeants, 165; Durham, diocese, 193 archdeacons of Durham and Northumberland, 5, 51; official 104; and see prior as archdeacon chancellor, 108, 158, 159 court, consistory, xi, xii, 50, 62, 63, 70, 72, 104,108; advocate, 104; apparitor, 34; proctor, 109–10, 116 keeper of spirituality during vacancy, 126 official of bishop, 79, 102, 103, 104, and commissary, 109–10 penitentiary, 105, 123, 126 registrar, 103, 116, 187 sequestrators, 103, 104, 106, 116, 158 synod, constitutions cum omnes pontifex (1312), 28 on Pentecost processions, 33–4 vicar general, 54, 74, 104 see also visitation

Durham, Palatinate auditors, 143 chancellor, 159; chancery rolls, xiii; keeper of, 114 escheator, 148 receiver general, xiii, 103, 123; receiver in Norham, 103 sheriff of Durham, 75 Durham Priory, dissolution, xiii, 187; fate of monks, 151, 187, 189, 191 Durham Priory, employees, 83–4, 91, 111 Durham Priory, Library, 67, 125, 126, 139, 180–1 muniments, see Cathedral Durham Priory, obedientiaries and monastic officers Almoner, 18, 19, 24, 79, 170, 171, 173 chantry in St Nicholas, 128, 149 and see chantries hospital of St Mary Magdalen, 171 and see hospitals; schools; Boy bishop Bursar, xii, 19 Cellarer, 191 Chamberlain, 40 Feretrar, 34, 66–7, 187 Hostillar, xii, 6–7, 11, 12, 19, 21–2, 31, 67, 78, 108 attorney, 146; seneschal, 146; servant, 98 Sacrist, 38, 166 Prior, as archdeacon, xii, 5, 11, 69–70, 71, 72 court, cases, passim court, officials, apparitor, 119; official, 104, 105, 108; penitentiary, 104; proctor, 117; registrar, 117 Prior, household, 92 visitation, 19, 49, 126 and see under individual names Durham, monastic community and laity,77, 124, 125, 126, 132, 163; and see clerks of St Cuthbert, hospitals, processions, sermons Durham, Ralph of, church warden, 84 Dyssere, Margaret, w. of John de Holden, 57 n. 105, 92 Easter, 12, 25, 31; see also Lent, Holy Week candle, 25, 31–2 Eucharist, 1, 12, 29, 31 Ecfrida see Aldhun Edderacres, manor of 145, 147 Edderacres, Walter of, 147

220

INDEX Eden, Richard, 180 Egglesclyffe, John de, chaplain, 158 Eilaf (II), priest, 101 Eland, John, merchant, 53 Elizabeth, servant of Robert Yudey, 114 Eligius, St, see Eloi Elme, Geoffrey de, rector, 137 Elmeden, John de, see Alman, Matilda Eloi, St, 38 and see parishes, St Nicholas Elvet, family, 31, 114, 119, 127, 146–7; and see chantries, St Oswald’s Elvet, John de (senior) literatus, clerk, 146–7, 182; and w, Dionisia, 146; sons Gilbert and John (junior), 146–7 Elvet, Gilbert, clerk, widow Isolda, 147 n. 115 Elvet, Gilbert de, w. Matilda, 144, 146–7, 180, 181 Elvet, Richard de, 145 Elvet, Robert de, clerk, 146 Elvet, William de, clerk, 146 Elyngeham (Ellingham), Robert de, skinner, 85, 89 Empson, Richard, 176 epidemics, see plague Epiphany, 27–8, 38 Eryum, Richard de, rector, 102, 105 Esche, Margaret, anchoress, and dau. Alice Walker, 66, 174 Esh, Oliver, curate, 196 Esyngton, Thomas de, 87 Eucharist, 1, 30, 31, 32–3, 47, 193, 196, and see Corpus Christi Eugenius III, pope (1145–53), 4 Eugenius IV, pope (1431–47), 159 Eure, Sir William, 111 Exaltation of the Holy Cross, 167 excommunication, 51, 72, 75, 85–8 exorcism, 130 Fabian, William, parochial chaplain, 59–60, 82, 112, 113 Fairhare, Thomas, alderman of guild, 43, 53, 176 Fareallers, William, 50 Farne, John and Robert, 154 Farne, Thomas, vicar, 104–5, 112 Farnham, Nicholas, bp of Durham (1241–49), 6 Farnham, master William, judge, 88, 92 Farreless, William, weaver, 13, 46 Farwell, John, 79, 97 fasting, see Advent; Lent Fawsed, Richard, 80

feast days, see under individual names; working on, 71; patronal, altered, 188; see individual parishes Fermour, John, 63 Fery, John, servant of Thomas Bee, 63 Fery, Thomas, 180 fideiussor, 82 Fishar, William, 50 Fishburn, William, chantry priest, 146 Fishburn, dominus John, 24 Fitzmeldred, Robert, 16, 102 and see Nevilles Flambard, Rannulph, bp of Durham (1099–1128), 5, 16, 17, 26, 178; and see hospitals nephew, Osbert the sheriff, 101; s. Radulph the clerk, 26, 100; ‘wife’, 100 Fletcher, Agnes, widow, 41–2 Fletcher, Edward, churchwarden, 41–2 Florence, see Councils of Church Follsonby, John, 186, 187 font, 48 in St Margaret’s, 48, 84; in St Mary Magdalen, 23 Forcer, John, 177 Fordham, John, bp of Durham, (1381–88), 16, 142 Forest, dominus Geoffrey, 77 Forest, Thomas, 176 fornication, 75 and passim public penance for, 50 and see penance Forster, Robert, see Raper, Margaret Forster, Thomas, 42 Forster, Thomas, butcher, 53 fortune-telling, see Murra, Katherine Fossour, family of Harbourhouse, 10 Fossour, John and s. John, 10, 45; and see Kellaw, Joan Fowster, Robert, saddler, 177 Framwellgate, see mortuaries; parishes, St Oswald’s fraria, see guild of St Cuthbert Fullour, John, chantry chaplain and schoolmaster, 142–3, 158 Fulwell, Richard de, 87 funerals, 61; and mortuaries, 98, 99 Fysshb[urn], William de, 134 Fyssher, Thomas, chaplain, 113 Gamyll, John, 152 Gaunt, John of, duke of Lancaster, 121; and w. Constance, 147 Gawnt, William, rector, 15

221

INDEX German, prior of Durham (1163–86), 5 German, Ralph, churchwarden, 43, 44 Gerona, Juan of, 181 Gerum, John, 153 Gervais (Gervase, Gervaux), mercer, spicer, 51–2, 77 Gervase, William, monk. 77 Gillyng, Alice de, 98 glass, glaziers, 20, 21, 24 Glenny, Margaret, 52–3 Glenton, Edward, dyer, 63 Godebarne, Robert, chantry chaplain, 143 Godric of Finchale, St and hermit, 14, 17, 64 Goldsmith (Goldsmyth), Agnes, widow of John, 94 Goldsmith, Alan, 95 Goldsmith, John s. of Alan, 44, 95 Gollen, Robert, guild chaplain, 161 Gorran, Nicholas, OP, 128 Gratian, Decretum of, Admoneat and Non observetis, (C.26 q. 7 cc. 15 and 16), 130 Gray, John, 153 Gray, master John, 85 Gray, dominus Thomas, 113 Graystanes, William de, monk, sacrist, 99 Gregory XI, pope (1370–78), 181 Grene, Robert, schoolmaster, 109, 122, 123 Grenewell, John, 44, 62 Greveson, John, merchant, 53 Grey, William, chaplain, 98 Grome, Thomas, servant of hostillar, 98 Grosseteste, Robert, manuscript of Dicta, 126 Dicta (10, 35, 90, 146) quoted, 30, 126, 127 Sermon Beatus Paulus, 127 and see Ripon, Robert guilds, xi, 157, 159 for a light, 43 Corpus Christi, 35, 157–9, 160–1, 190, 194 aldermen, 102, 160, 163; chaplains, 160–1, 187, 190; named members, 103, 106, 157, 158, 163 of St Cuthbert, 157, 161–5, 168; chaplains, 164, 191–2; named members, 114, 118, 162, 163 in Cathedral, Holy Saviour, 166–7; Holy Cross, 167 guilds by parish St Giles, guild of, 44, 62; chaplain, 190

St Mary, 44, 62 St Margaret, guild of, for a light, 152–4; for a requiem, 152 almshouse, 176 of St Mary, 43–4, 62; aldermen, 44, 176; members, 43–4 St Mary in S. Bailey, of St Mary, 72, 153; warden, 153 St Nicholas, of St Nicholas, 168 Corpus Christi, 35, and see Corpus Christi Guild Trinity, 167 and see guilds, trade St Oswald, of the Crucifix, 167, and see parishes, St Oswald, rood priest, Trinity, 25, 168; alderman, 116 guilds, trade, 35, 165 and Corpus Christi plays, 36, 38, 157, 165 barbers and wax-makers, 165; butchers and fleshers, 36, 165, 166; carpenters, 38, 166, cutters, 62; fullers, 63, 165, 166; glovers (sutors), 165, 166; goldsmiths, 165; minstrels, 38; smiths, 38, 143, 166; weavers, 165 Gybson, James, chantry priest, 190 Gyffurth, Thomas, wight, 184 Haddart, Robert, 44 Hagirston, John, chaplain, 35 Hagthorpe, John, junior, 106, 157, 158–9, 168; s. and heir, William, 106, 175 Hagthorpe, John, senior, jurisperitus, notary, 106 Haldwell, John, 50 Hall, Alice, w. of John, 81 Hall, Christopher, of Kelloe, 55 Hall, Edward, 177 Hall, John, 97 Hall, John, 97–8 Hall, (Hawle) John, priory cook, 186 Hall, John, 161 Hall, Robert, 52–4 Hall, Thomas, 177 Hambledon, John de, 170 Hameldun, John de, and brothers Henry and Walter, 18 Hanky, William, 171 n. 19 Hansard, family, 18 Hansard, Gilbert, 18, 170; s. Gilbert, 170 Hansell, Joan, 51–2, 57; and see Porter, John Harbourhouse, chapel and estate, 10–11; and see Forcer, John 222

INDEX Harpour, Elias, and w. Marjory, 72 Harryson, Anthony, and w. Elizabeth, s. Anthony, dau. Isabella177 Harvye, Robert, churchwarden, 46 Hatfield, Thomas, bp of Durham (1345–81), 6, 7, 25, 86, 88, 99,106–7, 155 and chantries, 110, 140, 142, 143, 149, 158, 198 quarrel with St Oswald’s parishioners, 85–8, 119 Hatfield’s survey, 92 Hawkyn, William, 171 Hawman, Robert, 81 Hawthorne, Robert, rector, 113 Hayden, Alan de, chantry chaplain, 110, 145, 148 Headlam, William, curate, 196–7 Hebden, Thomas, dean of Auckland, 112 Hedlay, Gilbert de, 87 Hedley, Denyse, 186 Hedloe, William, 23 Hedworth, Richard, 154 Heighington, dominus Cuthbert, monk, 174 Helay, Henry, monk, 77 Helmholz, R.H., 57 Hemingburgh, John, monk, almoner, 173 Hemming, priest, of Sedgefield, 101 Henrison, Roger, 62 Henrison, William, 62 Henry I, king of England (1100–35), 178 Henry IV, king of England (1399–1413), 121 Henry V, king of England (1413–1422), 121, 151 Henry VIII, king of England (1509–1547), 185, 186, 192 Henry, s. of Hugh du Puiset, 101 Henryson, John, 109 heresy/heretics, 193, 198, and see Lollards heriot, see mortuaries hermits, 64, 65–6, 199; see also anchorage; Warton, John Herrison, William, abbot of Alnwick, 192 Herseley, Robert de, rector, 15 Hert, John, s. of John, 98 Hert John de, 44 Hertilpoll, dominus William, monk, 174; see also Jacson, John Heryson, Christopher, 79 Heswell, William, 87 Hexham, 73 Hexham, John, mass priest, 108

Hexiltesham (Hexham), dominus Robert, 180 Hextildeham (Hexham), Thomas de, chantry priest, 107, 142, 158 Hilton, Sir Thomas, 190 Hilton, William de, 92 Hochonson, Thomas, widow of, sis. of third prior, 175 Hochynson, Thomas, guild chaplain, 167 Hode, Robert, of Great Busby, and w. Joanna (Modesby), 152 Hogson, William, of Earl’s House, 96 Holar (Iceland), bp of (Durham suffragan), 23 Holden, John de, see Dyssere, Margaret Holden, Thomas, esquire, 122 Holdernesse, John, vicar, 105, 148 Holilobe, William, chaplain, 143 Holme, John, generosus and armiger, and w., 171–2 Holmes, William, 196, 197 holy bread, see blessed bread holydays, 36, and see feast days holy water, 195, 197 holy water clerk, see parish clerk Holy Week, Thursday, 25, 32, 35, 188 Holywell, dominus J, monk, br. of Agnes Robinson, 174–5 Holy Years, or Jubilees (1350, 1390, 1450), 147, 180; and see indulgences Homilies, Book of, 195 Honyll, Margarita, 36 Hoord, Bartram, of Witton Gilbert, earlier Framwellgate, 13, 46, 58 Horn, Agnes, 56–7, 129 Horne, Richard, chaplain, 180 Horne, Robert, dean of Durham, 193–4 hospitals/hospices, 133, 200 and leprosy, 169, 170; see also St Mary Magdalen, St Oswald’s, Sherburn and pilgrims, 173, 175, 178 members live out and marry with license, 171, 173–4 relatives of monks in, 174–5 two doles, 174 hospitals, individual Domus pauperum (South Street), xi, 113, 135, 175 Kepier (St Giles), xi, 3, 16, 17, 18, 170, 178; masters, 16, 103, 107, 159, 177 Priory hospital of St John the Evangelist, xi, 122, 172–3, 174 Priory Maison Dieu or Domus Dei, xi, 173, 174

223

INDEX St Leonard and St Bartholomew, xi. 140, 170 St Margaret’s parish, 175–7 St Mary Magdalen, xi, 171–2; widows of, 171; see also corrodies; parishes, St Mary Magdalen St Oswald’s, 145, 170 Sherburn, xi, 170, 177–8 Witton Gilbert (St Peter), xi, 173–4 Hoton, John, chaplain of ‘Hareron’, 43 Hovingham, John, 115 n. 162, 159 n. 21 Howden, Roger of, 5 Huchenson, Robert, 55 Huchinson, Margaret, 52–4 Hudspeth, Robert, 44 Hugheson, John, fuller, 166 Hulme, Nicholas, clerk, 121–2 Hunne, Richard, 99 Hunter, James, 186 Hunter, Margaret, 50 Hunter, Thomas, and Agnes ‘whom he keeps’, 49 Huntley, John, 186 Hutchinson, Cuthbert, 177 Hutton, Thomas, of Snape, 187 hymns, Gloria Laus et Honor, 30; Te Deum, 35 Hyndemershe, Henry, 186 Hyne, Alice, 59–60, 82 illegitimacy, 107, 108, 139; and see dispensation incense, 188–9 incontinence of priests, see celibacy indulgence, from bishop, for hearing sermons, 125; for St Margaret’s, 22; for St Mary Magdalen’s, 22; in Cathedral, 167 indulgence, from pope, for Greeks, 182–3; Jubilee, 147, 180–81; plenary or a pena et a culpa, 146, 181; see also Ripon, Robert indulgences, 125 n. 40, 133 inhibition, 86 Innocent III, pope (1198–1216), 172 Innocent IV, pope (1243–54), 29 iurisperitus, 106 Jackson, Robert, of Faringdon Hall, Sunderland, 66, 160 Jacson, John, br. of subprior, 174 Jacson, Robert and w., 63 Jakes, John, parish chaplain, 61, 84, 91–2, Jakes, Robert, and w. Isabella, 44

Jakes, Walter, chaplain, 98, 179–80; see also Gillyng, Alice de Jewell, John, bp of Salisbury (1560–71), Apology, 195 John the Hermit, 65–6 John the plumber, 20 John, s. of Cuthbert (de Newton), 90 John, s. of Cuthbert, 57 n. 105 Johnson, Agnes, 32–3 Johnson, William, 60, 78 n. 70 Jubilee years, see Holy Years; indulgences jurisdiction, ecclesiastical, 73 Katerina, servant of William Chawmbre, 73 Kay, John, 180 Kay, Richard, 97 Kellaw, Joan, w. of John Fossour, 10, 44 Kellaw, Richard, bp of Durham(1311–16), 10, 102, 115, 137; br Patrick, of Harbourhouse, 10 Kellaw, William, of Harbourhouse, 10–11, widow Agnes, 11 Kellaw, Joan dau. and heiress, see Fossour, John Kent, Henry, gentleman, 68 Kepier, grange, 25 Kerneth, Ralph, prior of Durham (1218–34), 18, 135 Kirby, Agnes de (née Waller), 49–50 Kirby, Richard de, tailor, 49–50 Kirkeby, Bernard de, rector, 102–3 Kirkeby, Thomas, parson of Whitburn, 144 Knox, John, 193 Kocum, William, 92 Kokyn, Thomas de, 90, 98; see also Cocken, Cokyn Kyrkeman, John, shoemaker, 54–5 lairstall, 61 Langchester, William of, vicar, 7 Langham, Simon, archbp of Canterbury (1366–68), 90 Langley, Thomas, bp of Durham (1406–37), 11, 57, 99, 111, 121, 148–9 reforms Sherburn, 169, 178 school and chantry, 121–4, 138, 149, 155, 165 and see schools Lascy, William, 51 Lawson, Isabella, of Cramlington, 155 Lawson, John 81 Laxinton, John de, 136 224

INDEX Le Brydok and dau. 113 Leger, John, 183 n. 34 Legge, John, 95 Lent, fasting, 29, 30, 128 sermons by Ripon, 28, 29–31, 62, 128, 129, 130 Sundays, Mid Lent (Laetare), 30; Palm, 30, 47, 192; Passion, 30 lepers, leprosy (Hansen’s disease), 145, 169–70, 171, 173; see also Croxton, John lesio fidei (breach of faith), cases, 42, 59–60, 63, 96, 97, 186 for debt, in church court, 62, 79; after secular court, 76; for mortuary, 97; for rents 80–1; for wages, 63 increase of cases, 70, 71 Lethom, John, vicar, 104 Lewyn, John, mason, 142 Lewyn, Richard, guild alderman, churchwarden, 43, 176 Lewyn, Thomas, 190 Ley, Gilbert de la, 173; see also see hospitals, Witton Gilbert leyrwhit, 49 Liber Vitae, 155 Liddell, Edward, Elizabeth, Robert, and Roger, 56 lights, 42, 152–4, 190; keepers of, 44, 153–4 Lisewise, master William de, 6 Litster, Henry, 85, 89 Litster, Robert, 85–6, 89 Littilfelde, John, and daus Agnes, Margaret, Joan, 58 livings, see benefices Lollards, Lollardy, 28, 32 mentioned by Ripon, 59, 129 London, Roger of, 136; see Coldingham, William of Lonesdale, John, churchwarden, 43, 176 Lonysdale, William, 22 Lound, family, 107 Lound, John, 16, 23, 107–8, 160, 163 Lumley family, arms, 20 Lumley, Robert, hermit, 66 Lyndwood, William, Provinciale of, on archdeacons, 71; on legal distances, 87; on mortuaries, 89–90, 96, 97, 199; on responsibilities of parishioners, 19 Lyndyssay, Margaret, 130 Lytyll,William, 90 Lytyll, w. of Edward, 90

Maison Dieu, see hospitals, Domus Dei Maire, Christopher, 177 Maltby, William, 97 Maltby, William, chaplain, 154 Man, John, hermit, 64 Manerer, dominus John, monk, 174, and see Wilkinson, Johanna Manuscripts see Durham Priory Library Margaret, St, Cross of, 32 Mark, St, feast, 37 Marley, Thomas, 124 Marmaduke, Thomas, chantry priest, 113–14, 119 marriage, 48–9, 51–6, 84, 185 bigamy, 50–1; by verba de presenti, 48, 198, formula used, 53, 55; conditional, 51, 52; harbouring separated wife, 56; in facie ecclesie, 48, 52; pre-contract, 55; sequestration, 52, 55–6; sponsalia by carnal copulation, 50; sponsalia as offerings at marriage, 25; sub pena nubendi, 51, 57, 198 Marsh, Richard, bp of Durham (1217–26), 9, 170 Marshall, John, chantry priest, 190, 191 Marshall, William, chaplain, 113–14 Mason John, weaver, 55 Mason, William, chantry priest, 190 Mass, in Latin (1569), 195 Massham, W. clerk, 180 Matthewson, Johanna, 51 Mawer, Cuthbert, hermit, 65 Maynforth, John, 80 Maynforth, Richard, 62 Maynfo[u]rth, Robert, 55 Maynforth, Robert, priest, 112 medicine, 131 Meldred, 16; and see Fitzmeldred, Neville Melmerby, Richard, guild chaplain, 190 Melsonby, church of, 139 Melsonby family, Adam de, Alan de, ? f. of Thomas, Henry de, Roger de (de Richmond), Simon de, br. of Thomas, Thomas de, prior of Durham (1217–33), abortive bp of Durham (1237–40), 139–40 Mennell, Richard, serjeant at law, 190 Mercator (Merchant) Reginald, and w. Billa, 138 Merley, Ricard, 113 Middleton, Anthony, 177 Middleton, Bertram, prior of Durham (1244–58), 140

225

INDEX Milne, George, w. and dau. Elizabeth, 58 Moderby, Richard, glover, and granddaughter, w. of Robert Hode, 152 Molendarius, Nicholas, 153 monks see Durham Priory, monks of Morland, Christopher, 53 Morland, Thomas, priest, 113 Mortimer, dominus William, 80 mortmain, 152 attorneys for priory, 104, 110 licenses, 121, 142, 143, 144, 145, 148, 158, 163 Statute of, enquiry ad quod damnum, 142 mortuaries, 25, 58, 89, 90, 93–5, 97–9 and see Lyndwood case in secular court, 90 cases mentioned, 44, 61, 75, 80, 83, 91–6, 96 customs, 76; in Durham, 91, 93; in Framwellgate, 91, 95–6; in North, 93–4, 117 and forgotten tithes, 90 and heriot, 89–90 Mosedale, John, 48 Munketon, William de, 85 Murra, Katherine, 130 Myddleton, Richard, guild chaplain, 190 Nailer, Robert, 77 Natrass, Robert, of Witton Gilbert, 79 Nevell, John, hermit of Burn, 65 Neville, family, 11, 16, 26, 102, 107, 155; see also Fitzmeldred, Meldred arms of 20; kinswoman of, 172 Neville, Cuthbert, 196 Neville, George, archbp of York (1465–76), 14 n. 102 Neville, Ralph, of Raby, fourth baron, 155 Neville, Ralph, earl of Westmorland, 124 Neville, Richard, earl of Salisbury, 121 Neville, Robert, bp of Durham (1438–57), 16, 57–8, 107–8, 121, 122, 163 visitation, 122 Neville, master Thomas, senior, canon of York, 86 Neville, Sir Thomas, 45, 124, 155 Newton, Christopher, 186 Newton, John, 121 Newton, Robert, 99 Newton, Thomas, 144 Newton, William, vicar, 103–4, 105 ‘Newton Wyffe’, 164

Nicholas the hermit, 65 Norfolk, duke of, 186, 187 Norton, master John, 183 Norwich, 155 notaries, notaries public by apostolic authority, 10 n, 71, 106, 111, 119, 158 dynasties of, 114–17 Nubi, W., 183 n. 34 oath helpers, see purgation Oath of Supremacy, 196 oath, right of bishop to exact, 85–8 obit funds, 154, 190; and see individual parishes Obedientiaries, see Durham Priory Oliver, Martyn, 186, 187 Oll, John, of Brancepeth, monk, 77 ordinacio, of chantry, 135, 141, 147 ordination, by letters dimissory, 107, 110; in order to hold benefice, 105; title for, 106–7, 111 provision as title, 102 organ, 22 Osbert, nephew of Ranulf Flambard, 101 Oswald, St, 3, 32; sermons on, 36–7 well, 46 Oswald, bp of Whithorn, suffragan of Durham (c.1379–1417), 99 Otto, cardinal, legate, 14 Oxford, Durham College, 124 Palfrayman, Emma, 171 n. 24 Palm Sunday, see Lent Palman, John, chantry chaplain, 149 Palman, Stephen, 99 parish clerk (aquebavulus, holy water clerk), 11, 17, 47, 71, 72, 118, 147, 152 parish, 2, 24–6 parishes, Durham (chantries, churchwardens, guilds, hospitals and parish clerks have separate headings) Bailey, 14, 26, and see St Mary, N. and S. Bailey St Giles, xi, 17, 26, 178, 196; see also Becket, Thomas, chapel; Hospitals, Kepier St Margaret (of Antioch), 7–9, 13, 22, 33, 36, 42, 44–7, 61, 82, 153–4 dependence and cases, 8, 12, 44, 84, 199 chaplains, named, 82, 84, 93, 112, 113–4, 134, 191 226

INDEX duties to St Oswald’s, 12–13, 47–8, 58 parish clerk, 152 rights in St Oswald’s, 13, 30, 46, 58, 61 separation agreement 1431, 8–9, 44–7 see also font; mortuaries, procurator St Mary, N. Bailey (le Bow), xi, 14–15, 16, 32, 37–8, 118, 125, 172, 173 incumbents, named, 113, 173, 183 St Mary, S. Bailey (the Less), xi, 14, 15–6, 102 incumbents, 14, 15, 153 St Mary Magdalen, xi, 18–19, 20, 22–4, 171 St Michael, Witton Gilbert, see hospitals; Witton Gilbert St Nicholas, xi, 16, 26, 33, 35, 85, 154, 165–6, 170, 194 incumbents, 102; named, 16, 102–3, 105, 112, 137, 159, 196 St Oswald, xi, 2–7, 25, 170 baptisms, 48 building, fabric and fittings, 3, 13, 14, 19–22, 42, 46, 47, 153 burials, cemetery, obits 46, 61, 82, 188 celebrations, Boy Bishop, 39; patronal feast, 25, 36, 188; Rogation, 33; and see Lent, Palm Sunday incumbents, 7, 26, 102, 112, 148; named, 5, 7, 11, 19, 28, 67, 101, 103–5, 112, 134 parish chaplains, 11–12, 31 (Lent), 134 rood priest, 151, 167, 190, 191 John Warton, shrine, 25, 188 parish clerk, 47, 118 parishioners’ quarrels, 28 (candles), 14, 93 (mortuaries, and see separate heading), 85–8 (oaths) prior’s archidiaconal court, 71, 105 see also Burn Hall, Butterby, Croxdale, Harbourhouse, Witton Gilbert, procurators parishioners, rights, duties, expectations, 1, 8, 12, 19, 31, 32, 42, 43, 44, 94, 132, 155 Parker, Hugo, hermit, 65 Parker, Matthew, archbp of Canterbury (1559–75), 194 Parkinson, William, 177 Partrick, John, schoolmaster, 122 Patenson, Anthony, churchwarden 46 Patrick, vicar, 11 Pawling, William, 174 Paynell, master John, 183

Pearson (Peryson, Pereson), John, guild chaplain, 160–1, 187 Peerson, Henry, 183 n. 34 Pehtwine, bp of Whithorn (c763–77) Peirson, Joanna, 32 penance, public (canonical), 119, 129, 131 at shrine of St Cuthbert, 199; before bishop or his officer, 72–3; before another, 109 certification (letter of correction), 50, 72, 73, 104 types flogging, 33, 50, 51, 72, 129; preceding Sunday procession with candle, 50, 72, 129, 189; public retraction for defamation, 129 penance, private, see confession; Advent Pencher, Robert, chantry chaplain, 113 Pentecost (Whit Sunday), 33–5 Percy, Alice de, w. of Hugh du Puiset, 101 Pereson, John, schoolmaster, 196 Person, Thomas, of Howdenshire, 124 Pertrick, John, chantry chaplain, 45 Pertus, Elena, 63 Pickering, John, vicar, 104 Pickering, Nicholas, 189 pilgrimage, to Compostella, 180; to Rome, 183, and see Jubilee; see also Cuthbert; John Warton Pilgrimage of Grace (1536), xiv, 185–7 pilgrims, 178 and see hospitals Pisa, see Councils of Church Placebo and Dirige, see Dead, office of plague, epidemic, 46, 57–9, 122 Black Death, 57, 86, 92, 98, 140 in 1548, 150 plays, see Corpus Christi Plicton, John de, 57 n. 105 Ploughdays, 38–40 pluralism, see benefice Poitou, Philip of, bp of Durham (1195–1208), 5–6, 7–8, 9, 134, 162 Pome, William 154 Ponte, Gilbert de, 12 n. 87 Ponte, Tunnock de, widow of Gilbert, mercer, 137 n. 28 Ponte, William de, chaplain, 153 Poore, Richard le, bp of Durham (1228–37), 6, 170 pope, papacy, attitudes to, 179, 192–3, 194, 195,197 and privileges, 107, 180; and taxation, 179; provisions, see benefices 227

INDEX popes, see individual names Poplay, William, 23 Popley, Edward, chantry priest, 190 population of Durham, 1–2 Porter, John, servant of Priory, 51–2, 57 Porter, Richard, 171 n. 19 Postell, Peter, chaplain, 143 Potter, John, 161, 176 Pottes, John, churchwarden, 42–3 and see Potter, John Potts, John, junior, 36 Powter, William, chaplain, 53 Prentisse, Richard, chantry chaplain, 112 Preston, John (of St Nicholas), 69 Preston John, and w. 43 Preston, Michael, 60 Preston, Robert, 49 Preston, Thomas, mass priest, 108 Priour, John, 44 processions, 189, 199; see also Lent, Sundays, Palm Sunday; Rogation Days proctors, in prior’s archidiaconal court, 109 procurators, proctors of parishes, 77, 93, 98, 119 accounts of, from St Margaret and St Oswald, xii, 1, 19, 41, 93, 110; ‘book’, 78 names, 11, 77, 93–4, and see Williamson, Thomas provision, papal, see benefices Prowde, John, 80 Puiset, Hugh du, bp of Durham (1153–95), 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 16, 17, 25, 101, 102–3, 134, 162; s. Henry and w. Alice de Percy, 10, 101 and Elvet Bridge, 135; and hospitals, 17, 170, 177, 178; and Witton chapel, 25 Punshon, Richard, 44 purgation, 50, 112, 114 Purgatory, 133, 190 Purification of Virgin, see Candlemas purifications, see churchings Querrington, Hugh de, burgess, w. Matilda, s. Gilbert, 138 Qwham, Thomas de, rector, 173 Raket, (Rackett), family, 119, 127 Raket, John, justice etc, 114, 176 Raket, monks called, 77

Raket, Richard, 114, 163 Raket, William (I), ? s. of Richard, clerk of bishop’s chancery, 45, 114,159–60, 163, 183 Raket, William, JP, 43 Ralph the clerk, s. of Flambard, 100–1 Ralph the chaplain, rector, 153 R[alph], vicar, 134 Rannulph, chaplain, 134–5, 153, 175 Raper, Agnes, married Robert Preston, 145 Raper, John, dau. Agnes, s. Thomas, w. Emma, 145 Raper, Margaret, married Robert Forster, 145 Rawe, William, parish clerk, 47, 177 Redding, William of, 136 Redinges, William de, and s. John, 162 Reformation, xii and Chapter 12 laws and statutes, 188 (Ten Articles), 189 (Injunctions), 192 parliament, 185 Royal Supremacy, 185, 192, 196 Reginald of Durham, 14 relics, 35, 187, 195; see also Ascension, Pentecost Richard, procurator, 11 Richardson, Cuthbert, 187 Richardson, Henry, weaver, 30, 46, 47, 48 Richardson, John, 63 Richardson, Sibilla, 68 n. 203 Richardson, William, 97 Richardson, William, 74 Richenson, John, 177 Richmond, Roger de, see Melsonby, Roger de Richmonde, John, 177 Rihopp, Thomas, carpenter, 175–6 Riop, Thomas, 43 Ripon, Robert, career, 126 sermon collection (Harley 4894), xiii, 27, 56, 125 sermons 27–31, 33–4, 36–7, 125–8, 198, and see Advent; Lent sources, Bible, 30, 36–7, 127, 128; see also Bromyard, Gorran, Grosseteste topics, baptism, 48, 130; business dealings, 61–2; charity, 49; education, 125–8; heresy, see Lollards; holy life, 37; indulgences, 181; laity, 29–30, 127, 128, 130; local lords, 33, 37; plague, 59; Rogation, 33, 59, 125; Schism, 13 n. 77, 182; sin and confession, 30–31;

228

INDEX superstition and sorcery, 129–30; tithes and offerings, 28, 37 Ripon, William of, 136 Riseley, Christopher, ex-monk, ‘rood’ priest, 190, 191 Rising of the North, (1569), 194–7 Rites of Durham, 32, 33, 35, 125–6, 165, 166, 194 Robert, s. of Hervicus, 162 Robert, Thomas, vicar, 105 Robinson, Agnes (de Wingatt, Wingates), sis. of dominus J. Holywell, monk, 174 Robinson, John, 50 Robson, Robert, br. of Cuthbert Heighington, monk, 174 Robynson, John, fuller, 28 Robynson, Thomas, 97 Rodes, Robert, merchant of Newcastle and w. Agnes, 155, 163 Rogation Days, 33, 125 and see Ripon, Robert Rogerson, Alexander, churchwarden, 41–2 Rogerson, John, 81 Rogerson, Thomas, 42 Rogerson, Thomas, 63 Rogerson, William, 63 Rolle, Richard, 67 Roma, Bartholomew and Urban de, 183 Roman Curia, advocate in, 103, appeal, 69; cause of saint, 67; judges delegate of, 86, 141; visit to, 158, 164 Rome, city of, 178; English hospices in, 123, 183 Rome, John de and w. Agnes, 92 Rome, Thomas, monk, 182 rosary beads, 64, 173, 195, 197 Rose-, 186 Rosse, John de, chantry priest, 106, 142 Ru[d]de, master John, 152, 155 Rufus, Geoffrey, bp of Durham (1133–41), 16, 101, 102 Runcorn, John, chantry priest, 105, 110–11, 118, 141 Russell, Adam, 44 Ryall, dominus Thomas, mass priest, 81 Ryhale, Thomas, junior, chaplain, relative of notary, 118 Ryhale, Thomas, senior, notary, 118 Sadbery, John de, 82, 92–3, 94 St Agatha’s Abbey (Yorks, NR), 139 Ste Barbe, William of, bp of Durham (1143–52), 17, 171

St Calais, William of, bp of Durham, (1080–96), 5, 16 St Giles, Richard of, chantry chaplain, 137–8 Salter, Thomas, priest, 112–13 Salvin (Salvayn) Gerard, and w. Alice, of Croxdale, 183–4 Saracenus, John, rector, s. of Peter, 102 Sarum rite, 30, 121, 148, 169 Sayer, Robert, priest, 112 Sayncler, Nicholas, schoolmaster, 122 Schism, Great, 182 schools, Almonry (grammar), 39, 120, 122; masters, 109, 122, 142–3, 158, 164, 196; and see Boy Bishop St Mary, N. Bailey, 17 song school, 120–1 Langley’s chantry and school, 120, 121–2; masters, 108, 109–10, 112, 122–4 Schort, John, 95 Schort, John, 172 Seaforth, Richard de, 57 n. 105 secular jurisdiction, and ecclesiastical, 70, 73, 74, 185 Sedgefield, dominus John, 42 Sedgefield, Robert, priest, 81, 112, 113, 114 Sedgefield, Robert, chantry chaplain, 63, 80, 81, 112 Segbroke, Richard de, monk, 180 sermons, by monks, xiii, 29, 33, 125, 198, 200 and see Ripon, Robert; Todde, William by others, 29 servitors, 124 Seton, William, 67 Shaldford, William de, w, Alice, s. John, dau. Joan, 85, 89 Sharpe, Joanna, 48 Sheperdon, John, 10 n. 70 sins, ‘reserved’, 181 public notorious, 85, 86–7, 129 seven deadly, 128 Sireburne, Richard de, 162 Skipper, Robert, 177 Skirlaw, Walter, bp of Durham (1388–1406), 121, 155 Slade, Alice de, 82 Smalwood, Richard, fuller, 166 Smith (Smyth[e]), Agnes, alias Maxwell, 80 Smith, Joanna, of Pittington, 50 Smith, John, 154

229

INDEX Smith, dominus John, parochial chaplain, 82 Smith, Marion, 154 Smith, Thomas, 43 Smith, William, 74 Smith, William, priest, 143 Smyrke, family, 42 Smyrke, Richard, fuller, 43, 96, 124, 176, s. William, 124; servant Joan, 96 Smyrke, Robert, churchwarden, 41 Smurthwaite (Smorethwayt), William, priory porter, 186 Smythson, Joanna, 81–2 Snell, Hugh, vicar, 104 Socburn, William de, householder, excloth merchant, 88 Solby, Robert, 176 sorcery and witchcraft, 71, 82, 130–1, and see also defamation; Ripon, Robert, superstition Soreby, Christopher, 186 Sotheron, Robert, schoolmaster, 109, 112, 123–4, 163, 164 Souley, Henry, 186 Spalding, Hugh, 124 Sparew, Robert, 42 Sparke, Thomas, suffragan bp of Durham, (1536), 186 Spence, Gilbert, notary, 68 Stanes, John de, hermit, 65 Staynesby, Alan de, 92 Steel, John and w. Helen, and s. John, cantor, 172 Steel, William, tanner (barker), 45 Stevynson, Richard, guild chaplain, 164 Stillington, John, chantry chaplain, 149 Stobbes, Rolland, 186 Stobele, Johanna de, 173 suicide, 130 Surtees, Robert, 11, 20 Swan, John, parochial chaplain, 112 Swanne, Christianna, 91, 92 Swanne, Thomas, 61, 92 Swayne, Michael, 187 Swelyngton, Alice, widow, vowess, 66 Symeon of Durham, 101 synods, 11, 71, 126 Syreston, William de, chantry chaplain, 141

Tailboys, Aimeric de, 5, 6 Tailfer, Cuthbert, 63 Taillour, William, 78 Tailyour, Richard, churchwarden, 43 Talbot, dominus Richard, chaplain, 88 Talzor, Johanna, (alias Trotter), m. of dominus Richard, 174 Tang family (Tong[e]), 114, 127 Tang, Andrew de, and w. Alice, 115; sons Richard de, Adam de, possibly Robert de, 115–6; possible dau. Margaret de Tong, 115 Tang, Thomas, alias clerk, 114–15, 116, 159, 168 n. 101, s. John, 116 Taylor, Roger, glover, 52–4 Taylour, Ingram, 44 Tebot, William and w., 56 Teesdale, Richard, 171 n. 17 theft, branding of clerk for, 1489, 74 Thomas, rector, 14, 15 Thomas, s. of Lewyn, butcher, w. Emma, s. William, 137, 142 Thomas, Stephen, 60 Thomason, Richard, 62 Thomson, Agnes, 81–2 Thomson, Henry, 153 Thomson, Henry, 81 Thomson, John, webster, 20 Thoralby, John, 121 tithes, 12, 25, 70, 77–9, 117, 198 in Northumberland, 78, 117 of coal, justified, 78–9 title, see ordination Tiwe (Tywe), John s. of Hugh, 162 Todd, Ralph, school master, 109 Todde, William, 55 Todde, William, monk, 59, 128 n. 70 Toller, Laurence, 44 Tomson, John, tinker, 63, 164 triennials, 134 Trotter, Thomas, 44 Trotter, Thomas, 161 Trotter, see Talzor trustees, 110, 123 and see use, feoffment to Tunstal, Cuthbert, bp of Durham (1530–59), 165, 186, 192–4 Turgot, prior of Durham (1087–1109), 5 Turpin, Nicholas, 177

Tadcaster (Tedcaster, Tadcastell), John, churchwarden, 42–3, 176 Tadcaster, Richard, 76 Tadcaster, William, 60, 78 n. 70

Uhtred, earl of Northumberland, w. Ecfrida,100 Ulkeston, Adam de, chantry chaplain, 93–4 230

INDEX Urban VI, pope (1378–89), 180 use, feoffment to, 152, 176 Valor Ecclesiasticus (1535), 152, 160, 164, 168 vestments for churches, 21, 24 vicarages, 4, 6–7, 12 visitation, by archdeacon, 19, 71 (prior as) by bishop, 70, 85, 88, 149; see also Hatfield, Thomas Wade, Thomas, 168 n. 101 Walker, John, goldsmith, 52–3 Walker, master John, 97, 111 Walker, William, chaplain, 113 Wall, William, chaplain, 173 Walle, Robert, of Chibton, 97 Walter the priest, s. of Dolphin, 101 Walter, s. of Stephen, 87 Walton, William, draper, 177 Walworth, John, 171 nn. 17, 24 Ward, Thomas, monk, hostillar, 62 Wardale, Christopher, vicar, 105 Wardon, John, 63 Warner, Christopher, 63; and see Waryner Warke, Robert, 164, 168 Warton, John and tomb, 25, 66–7, 188, 199 Waryner, Christopher, churchwarden, 41–2; and see Warner Watson, John, w. of, 49 n. 74 Watson, John, 129 Watson, John, yeoman, 46, 47 Watson, Thomas, 168 n. 101 Watson, William, of Monk Heselden, 55 Watson, William (alias Wylom), monk, subprior, shrine-keeper, chantry chaplain, 191 Wayman, Thomas, and f. William, 47 Webster, Juliana, w. of Richard Bayard, 50 Weddale, Robert, litster, 72 Weddelt, Richard, 82 Welles, Thomas, ?hermit, 65 Welles, William, guild chaplain, 167 Wessington, John, prior of Durham (1416–46), 120, 121, 183 Wether see Wither Wharram, Robert, of Langley, 42–3, 61 Wheatley, Thomas, of Kelloe, 54–5 Whitehead, Christopher and Thomas, 191 Whitehead, Hugh, prior and dean of Durham (1519–51), 191 Whitehead, Robert, chantry chaplain, 35

Whitfield, Giles, clerk, 74 Whithorn, bp of, see Pehtwine; Oswald Whitreson, Henry, esq., 190 Whyte Smith, Matilda, w. of John, 114 Wilkinson, Agnes, widow, of Heselden, 54–6 Wilkinson, Joanna, alias Manerer, sis. of dominus John Manerer, monk, 174 Wilkinson, Margaret, 55 Wilkinson, Richard, 44 Wilkinson, Thomas, 36 Wilkinson, William, of Heselden, 55 William I, king of England (1066–87) and Queen Matilda, 178 William II, king of England (1087–1100), 178 William s. of Absolon, 135–6, 137 and see Coldingham William the priest, 162 William s. of Roger of London, see London, Roger of William s. of Herbert, 136 Williamson, Thomas, procurator, 78, 79–80, 82, 90, 96, 110, 119 Williamson, William (?Thomas), 78 wills, 25, 42, 43, 59, 70, 73, 90, 173 of named individuals, 12 n. 87, 42, 43, 59–60, 82, 90, 112, 113, 118, 144, 144–5, 148, 152, 153, 154, 167, 173, 177 Willy, Edward, churchwarden, 41 Winchelsea, Robert, archbp of Canterbury (1293–1313), 89 witchcraft, see sorcery Witewelle, William de, 162–3 Wither (Wether), Adam, and w. Eda, 61, 91, 92, 94 Witton Gilbert, 72, 101; chapel, 10; chaplains, 81, 108 Wod, Alice de, 70 Wodde, William, 78 Wolfhill, Alice de, 174 n.43 Wo[o]dmouse, John, churchwarden, 43 Woodmouse, William (or Alexander), curate, ex-monk, 191 Worme, John, 186 Wrake, Robert, churchwarden, 41 Wright, Roger, chantry chaplain, excellarer, 191 Wright, William, church warden, 46, 195 Wrightson, Margaret, 154 writ of prohibition, 73

231

INDEX Wulfkill, priest of Brancepeth, 101 Wyclif, John, 28, 29 Wylkynson, Thomas, 161 and see Wilkinson Wynethorp, Walter de, chaplain, 88 Wyrksale, John de, 87 Yeland family, 92 Agnes, widow of John, 91–2, 94 William de, 92 York, city, chantries, 143, 151

Corpus Christi guild, 159 metropolitan court, xii, xiv, 52, 54, 70, 86 province, statutes, 14 Younger, Oliver, 77 Yowdale, John, tanner and widow Maud, 175 Yrenbrenner, Adam, 85, 89 Yudey, Robert, 114 zelepennys, 79

232

Regions and Regionalism in History

North East England, 1850-1914

The Dynamics of a Maritime-Industrial Region GRAEME J. MILNE

North-East England, 1569-1625 Governance, Culture and Identity DIANA NEWTON

North-East England in the Later Middle Ages Edited by CHRISTIAN D. LIDDY and RICHARD H. BRITNELL

Captain Cook: Explorations and Reassessments Edited by GLYNDWR WILLIAMS

The Durham Liber Vitae and its Context Edited by DAVID ROLLASON ROLLASON, A. J. PIPER and MARGARET HARVEY www.boydell.co.uk www.boydellandbrewer.com

BOYDELL & BREWER Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge IP12 3DF (GB) and 668 Mt Hope Ave, Rochester NY 14620-2731 (US)

Lay Religious Life in Late Medieval Durham

Clerical Discourse and Lay Audience in Late Medieval England

Late Medieval Mysticism

Lay Piety and Religious Discipline in Middle English Literature (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature)

Humanism and Scholasticism in Late Medieval Germany

Atomism in Late Medieval Philosophy and Theology

Crime and Justice in Late Medieval Italy

Women's Power in Late Medieval Romance

Crime and Justice in Late Medieval Italy

The Masculine Self in Late Medieval England

Life in a Medieval City

Life in a Medieval Village

Life in a Medieval Castle

Life in a Medieval Village

Life in a Medieval Village

Life in a Medieval City

Life in a Medieval Village

Life in a Medieval City

Everyday Life in Medieval England

Cambridge Lay Piety And Religious Discipline In Middle English Literature

Life in a Medieval Village

Late-Medieval German Women's Poetry: Secular and Religious Songs (Library of Medieval Women)

Late achievers: famous people who succeeded late in life

Durham Priory 1400-1450 (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought: Third Series)

Chronology of Religious Life in America

Lay Sermons

Conflict and Compromise in the Late Medieval Countryside: Lords and Peasants in Durham, 1349-1400 (Studies in Medieval History and Culture)

Tradition and Belief: Religious Writing in Late Anglo-Saxon England

Angels in the religious imagination of late antiquity

Private Worship, Public Values, and Religious Change in Late Antiquity

Late, Late in the Evening

Lay Religious Life in Late Medieval Durham

Clerical Discourse and Lay Audience in Late Medieval England

Late Medieval Mysticism

Lay Piety and Religious Discipline in Middle English Literature (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature)

Humanism and Scholasticism in Late Medieval Germany

Atomism in Late Medieval Philosophy and Theology

Crime and Justice in Late Medieval Italy

Women's Power in Late Medieval Romance

Crime and Justice in Late Medieval Italy

The Masculine Self in Late Medieval England

Life in a Medieval City

Life in a Medieval Village

Life in a Medieval Castle

Life in a Medieval Village

Life in a Medieval Village

Life in a Medieval City

Life in a Medieval Village

Life in a Medieval City

Everyday Life in Medieval England

Cambridge Lay Piety And Religious Discipline In Middle English Literature

Life in a Medieval Village

Late-Medieval German Women's Poetry: Secular and Religious Songs (Library of Medieval Women)

Late achievers: famous people who succeeded late in life

Durham Priory 1400-1450 (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought: Third Series)

Chronology of Religious Life in America

Lay Sermons

Conflict and Compromise in the Late Medieval Countryside: Lords and Peasants in Durham, 1349-1400 (Studies in Medieval History and Culture)

Tradition and Belief: Religious Writing in Late Anglo-Saxon England

Angels in the religious imagination of late antiquity

Private Worship, Public Values, and Religious Change in Late Antiquity

Late, Late in the Evening

Recommend Documents