Chapter VI: Mediæval Towns (2)

[48] Implying, whether truly or not, that he had been enrolled in the fraternity of the house, and was prayed for, with other benefactors, in chapter.

[49] Health and strength.

[50] Doctor.

[51] Little.

[52] Preaching; he was probably a preaching friar--_i.e._, a Dominican.

[53] Waxed nearly mad.

[54] Lived.

[55] "On the foundation," as we say now of colleges and endowed schools.

[56]

"Maysters of divinite
Her matynes to leve,
And cherliche [richly] as a cheveteyn
His chaumbre to holden,
With chymene and chaple,
And chosen whom him list,
And served as a sovereyn,
And as a lord sytten."
_Piers Ploughman_, l. 1,157.

[57] Just as heads of colleges now have their Master's, or Provost's, or Principal's Lodge. The constitution of our existing colleges will assist those who are acquainted with them in understanding many points of monastic economy.

[58] Ellis's "Early English Romances."

[59] Long and well proportioned.

[60] She was of tall stature.

[61] "And as touching the almesse that they (the monks) delt, and the hospitality that they kept, every man knoweth that many thousands were well received of them, and might have been better, if they had not so many great men's horse to fede, and had not bin overcharged with such idle gentlemen as were never out of the abaies (abbeys)."--_A complaint made to Parliament not long after the dissolution, quoted in Coke's Institutes._

[62] A person doing penance.

[63] Hunting.

[64] Without state.

[65] A plan of the Chartreuse of Clermont is given by Viollet le Duc (Dict. of Architec., vol. i. pp. 308, 309), and the arrangements of a Carthusian monastery were nearly the same in all parts of Europe. It consists of a cloister-court surrounded by about twenty square enclosures. Each enclosure, technically called a "cell," is in fact a little house and garden, the little house is in a corner of the enclosure, and consists of three apartments. In the middle of the west side of the cloister-court is the oratory, whose five-sided apsidal sanctuary projects into the court. In a small outer court on the west is the prior's lodgings, which is a "cell" like the others, and a building for the entertainment of guests. See also a paper on the Carthusian priory of Mount Grace, near Thirsk, read by Archdeacon Churton before the Yorkshire Architectural Society, in the year 1850.

[66] A bird's-eye view of Citeaux, given in Viollet le Duc's "Dictionary of Architecture," vol. i. p. 271, will give a very good notion of a thirteenth-century monastery. Of the English monasteries Fountains was perhaps one of the finest, and its existing remains are the most extensive of any which are left in England. A plan of it will be found in Mr. Walbran's "Guide to Ripon." See also plan of Furness, _Journal of the Archæological Association_, vi. 309; of Newstead (an Augustinian house), ibid. ix. p. 30; and of Durham (Benedictine), ibid. xxii. 201.

[67] A double choir of the fifteenth century is in King René's Book of Hours (Egerton, 1,070), at folio 54. Another semi-choir of Religious of late fifteenth and early sixteenth century date, very well drawn, may be found in Egerton, 2,125, f. 117, v.

[68] Lydgate's Life of St. Edmund, a MS. executed in 1473 A.D., preserved in the British Museum (Harl. 2,278), gives several very good representations of the shrine of that saint at St. Edmund's Bury, with the attendant monks, pilgrims worshipping, &c.

[69]

"Tombes upon tabernacles, tiled aloft,

* * * * *

Made of marble in many manner wise,
Knights in their conisantes clad for the nonce,
All it seemed saints y-sacred upon earth,
And lovely ladies y-wrought lyen by their sides
In many gay garments that were gold-beaten."
_Piers Ploughman's Creed._

[70] Henry VII. agreed with the Abbot and Convent of Westminster that there should be four tapers burning continually at his tomb--two at the sides, and two at the ends, each eleven feet long, and twelve pounds in weight; thirty tapers, &c., in the hearse; and four torches to be held about it at his weekly obit; and one hundred tapers nine feet long, and twenty-four torches of twice the weight, to be lighted at his anniversary.

[71]

"For though a man in their mynster a masse wolde heren,
His sight shal so be set on sundrye werkes,
The penons and the pornels and poyntes of sheldes
Withdrawen his devotion and dusken his heart."
_Piers Ploughman's Vision._

[72] The chapter-houses attached to the cathedrals of York, Salisbury, and Wells, are octagonal; those of Hereford and Lincoln, decagonal; Lichfield, polygonal; Worcester is circular. All these were built by secular canons.

[73] There are only two exceptions hitherto observed: that of the Benedictine Abbey of Westminster, which is polygonal, and that of Thornton Abbey, of regular canons, which is octagonal.

[74] And at Norwich it appears to have had an eastern apse. See ground-plan in Mr. Mackenzie E. C. Walcott's "Church and Conventual Arrangement," p. 85.

[75] Piers Ploughman describes the chapter-house of a Benedictine convent:--

"There was the chapter-house, wrought as a great church,
Carved and covered and quaintly entayled [sculptured];
With seemly selure [ceiling] y-set aloft,
As a parliament house y-painted about."

[76] In the "Vision of Piers Ploughman" one of the characters complains that if he commits any fault--

"They do me fast fridays to bread and water,
And am challenged in the chapitel-house as I a child were;"

and he is punished in a childish way, which is too plainly spoken to bear quotation.

[77] See note on p. 76.

[78] The woodcut on a preceding page (23) is from another initial letter of the same book.

[79] A room adjoining the hall, to which the fellows retire after dinner to take their wine and converse.

[80] The ordinary fashion of the time was to sleep without any clothing whatever.

[81] In the plan of the ninth-century Benedictine monastery of St. Gall, published in the _Archæological Journal_ for June, 1848, the dormitory is on the east, with the calefactory under it; the refectory on the south, with the clothes-store above; the cellar on the west, with the larders above. In the plan of Canterbury Cathedral, a Benedictine house, as it existed in the latter half of the twelfth century, the church was on the south, the chapter-house and dormitory on the east, the refectory, parallel with the church, on the north, and the cellar on the west. At the Benedictine monastery at Durham, the church was on the north, the chapter-house and locutory on the east, the refectory on the south, and the dormitory on the west. At the Augustinian Regular Priory of Bridlington, the church was on the north, the fratry (refectory) on the south, the chapter-house on the east, the dortor also on the east, up a stair twenty steps high, and the west side was occupied by the prior's lodgings.

At the Premonstratensian Abbey of Easby, the church is on the north, the transept, passage, chapter-house, and small apartments on the east, the refectory on the south, and on the west two large apartments, with a passage between them. The Rev. J. F. Turner, Chaplain of Bishop Cozin's Hall, Durham, describes these as the common house and kitchen, and places the dormitory in a building west of them, at a very inconvenient distance from the church.

[82] Maitland's "Dark Ages."

[83] At Winchester School, until a comparatively recent period, the scholars in the summer time studied in the cloisters.

[84] For much curious information about scriptoria and monastic libraries, see Maitland's "Dark Ages," quoted above.

[85] The hall of the Royal Palace of Winchester, erected at the same period, was 111 feet by 55 feet 9 inches.

[86] Its total length would perhaps be about twenty-four paces.

[87] The above woodcut, from the Harleian MS. 1,527, represents, probably, the cellarer of a Dominican convent receiving a donation of a fish. It curiously suggests the scene depicted in Sir Edwin Landseer's "Bolton Abbey in the Olden Time."

[88] See an account of this hall, with pen-and-ink sketches by Mr. Street, in the volume of the Worcester Architectural Society for 1854.

[89] Quoted by Archdeacon Churton in a paper read before the Yorkshire Architectural Society in 1853.

[90] Ground-plans of the Dominican Friary at Norwich, the Carmelite Friary at Hulne and the Franciscan Friary at Kilconnel, may be found in Walcott's "Church and Conventual Arrangement."

[91] In the National Gallery is a painting by Fra Angelico, in which is a hermit clad in a dress woven of rushes or flags.

[92] "The Wonderful and Godly History of the Holy Fathers Hermits," is among Caxton's earliest-printed books. Piers Ploughman ("Vision") speaks of--

"Anthony and Egidius and other holy fathers
Woneden in wilderness amonge wilde bestes
In spekes and in spelonkes, seldom spoke together.
Ac nobler Antony ne Egedy ne hermit of that time
Of lions ne of leopards no livelihood ne took,
But of fowles that fly, thus find men in books."

And again--

"In prayers and in penance putten them many,
All for love of our Lord liveden full strait,
In hope for to have heavenly blisse
As ancres and heremites that holden them in their cells
And coveten not in country to kairen [walk] about
For no likerous lifelihood, their liking to please."

And yet again--

"Ac ancres and heremites that eaten not but at nones
And no more ere morrow, mine almesse shall they have,
And of my cattle to keep them with, that have cloisters and churches,
Ac Robert Run-about shall nought have of mine."
_Piers Ploughman's Vision._

[93] Piers Ploughman ("Vision") describes himself at the beginning of the poem as assuming the habit of a hermit--

"In a summer season when soft was the sun
In habit as a hermit unholy of works,
Went wild in this world, wonders to hear,
All on a May morning on Malvern Hills," &c.

And at the beginning of the eighth part he says--

"Thus robed in _russet_ I roamed about
All a summer season."

[94] For the custom of admitting to the fraternity of a religious house, see p. 66.

[95] "Officium induendi et benedicendi heremitam."

[96] We are indebted to Mr. M. H. Bloxam for a copy of it.

[97] "_Famulus tuus N._" It is noticable that the masculine gender is used all through, without any such note as we find in the Service for Inclosing (which we shall have to notice hereafter), that this service shall serve for both sexes.

[98] The hermit who interposed between Sir Lionel and Sir Bors, and who was killed by Sir Lionel for his interference (Malory's "Prince Arthur," III, lxxix.), is called a "hermit-priest." Also, in the Episcopal Registry of Lichfield, we find the bishop, date 10th February, 1409, giving to Brother Richard Goldeston, late Canon of Wombrugge, now recluse at Prior's Lee, near Shiffenall, license to hear confessions.

[99]

"Great loobies and long, that loath were to swink [work],
Clothed them in copes to be known from others,
And shaped them hermits their ease to have."

[100] Wanderers.

[101] Breakers out of their cells.

[102] Kindred.

[103] In "Piers Ploughman" we read that--

"Hermits with hoked staves
Wenden to Walsingham;"

These hooked staves may, however, have been pilgrim staves, not hermit staves. The pastoral staff on the official seal of Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, was of the same shape as the staff above represented. A staff of similar shape occurs on an early grave-stone at Welbeck Priory, engraved in the Rev. E. L. Cutts's "Manual of Sepulchral Slabs and Crosses," plate xxxv.

[104] Blomfield, in his "History of Norfolk," 1532, says, "It is to be observed that hermitages were erected, for the most part, near great bridges (see _Mag. Brit._, On Warwickshire, p. 597, Dugdale, &c., and Badwell's 'Description of Tottenham') and high roads, as appears from this, and those at Brandon, Downham, Stow Bardolph, in Norfolk, and Erith, in the Isle of Ely, &c."

[105] In the settlement of the vicarage of Kelvedon, Essex, when the rectory was impropriated to the abbot and convent of Westminster, in the fourteenth century, it was expressly ordered that the convent, besides providing the vicar a suitable house, should also provide a hall for receiving guests. See subsequent chapter on the Secular Clergy.

[106] From the "Officium et Legenda de Vita Ricardi Rolle."

[107] When is not stated; he died in 1349.

[108] Afterwards it is described as a cell at a distance from the family, where he was accustomed to sit solitary and to pass his time in contemplation. In doing this Sir John Dalton and his wife were, according to the sentiment of the time, following the example of the Shunammite and her husband, who made for Elisha a little chamber on the wall, and set for him there a bed, and a table, and a stool, and a candlestick (2 Kings iv. 10). The Knight of La Tour Landry illustrates this when in one of his tales (ch. xcv.) he describes the Shunammite's act in the language of mediæval custom: "This good woman had gret devocion unto this holy man, and required and praied hym for to come to her burghe and loged in her hous, and her husbonde and she made a chambre solitaire for this holy man, where as he might use his devocions and serve God."

[109] Either the little window through which she communicated with the outer world, or perhaps (as suggested further on) a window between her cell and a guest-chamber in which she received visitors.

[110] A hermitage, partly of stone, partly of timber, may be seen in the beautiful MS. Egerton 1,147, f. 218 v.

[111] A very good representation of a cave hermitage may be found in the late MS. Egerton, 2,125, f. 206 v. Also in the Harl. MS. 1,527, at f. 14 v., is a hermit in a cave; and in Royal 10 E IV. f. 130, here a man is bringing the hermit food and drink.

[112] Eugene Aram's famous murder was perpetrated within it. See Sir E. L. Bulwer's description of the scene in his "Eugene Aram."

[113] See view in Stukeley's "Itin. Curios.," pl. 14.

[114] Suggesting the room so often found over a church porch.

[115] In the year 1490, a dispute having arisen between the abbot and convent of Easby and the Grey Friars of Richmond, on the one part, and the burgesses of Richmond, on the other part, respecting the disposition of the goods of Margaret Richmond, late anchoress of the same town, it was at length settled that the goods should remain with the warden and brethren of the friars, after that her debts and the repair of the anchorage were defrayed, "because the said anchoress took her habit of the said friars," and that the abbot and convent should have the disposition of the then anchoress, Alison Comeston, after her decease; and so to continue for evermore between the said abbot and warden, as it happens that the anchoress took her habit of religion. And that the burgesses shall have the nomination and free election of the said anchoress for evermore from time to time when it happens to be void, as they have had without time of mind. (Test. Ebor. ii. 115.)

[116] In June 5, 1356, Edward III. granted to brother Regnier, hermit of the Chapel of St. Mary Magdalen, without Salop, a certain plot of waste called Shelcrosse, contiguous to the chapel, containing one acre, to hold the same to him and his successors, hermits there, for their habitation, and to find a chaplain to pray in the chapel for the king's soul, &c. (Owen and Blakeway's "History of Shrewsbury," vol. ii. p. 165). "Perhaps," say our authors, "this was the eremitical habitation in the wood of Suttona (Sutton being a village just without Salop), which is recorded elsewhere to have been given by Richard, the Dapifer of Chester, to the monks of Salop."

[117] "Vita S. Godrici," published by the Surtees Society.

[118] Simple.

[119] Meddle.

[120] Since the above was written, the writer has had an opportunity of visiting a hermitage very like those at Warkworth, Wetheral, Bewdley, and Lenton, still in use and habitation. It is in the parish of Limay, near Mantes, a pretty little town on the railway between Rouen and Paris. Nearly at the top of a vine-clad hill, on the north of the valley of the Seine, in which Mantes is situated, a low face of rock crops out. In this rock have been excavated a chapel, a sacristy, and a living-room for the hermit; and the present hermit has had a long refectory added to his establishment, in which to give his annual dinner to the people who come here, one day in the year, in considerable numbers, on pilgrimage. The chapel differs from those which we have described in the text in being larger and ruder; it is so wide that its rocky roof is supported by two rows of rude pillars, left standing for that purpose by the excavators. There is an altar at the east end. At the west end is a representation of the Entombment; the figure of our Lord, lying as if it had become rigid in the midst of the writhing of his agony, is not without a rude force of expression. One of the group of figures standing about the tomb has a late thirteenth-century head of a saint placed upon the body of a Roman soldier of the Renaissance period. There is a grave-stone with an incised cross and inscription beside the tomb; and in the niche on the north side is a recumbent monumental effigy of stone, with the head and hands in white glazed pottery. But whether these things were originally placed in the hermitage, or whether they are waifs and strays from neighbouring churches, brought here as to an ecclesiastical peep-show, it is hard to determine; the profusion of other incongruous odds and ends of ecclesiastical relics and fineries, with which the whole place is furnished, inclines one to the latter conjecture. There is a bell-turret built on the rock over the chapel, and a chimney peeps through the hill-side, over the sacristy fireplace. The platform in front of the hermitage is walled in, and there is a little garden on the hill above. The curé of Limay performs service here on certain days in the year. The hermit will disappoint those who desire to see a modern example of

"An aged sire, in long black weedes yclad,
His feet all bare, his beard all hoarie gray."

He is an aged sire, seventy-four years old; but for the rest, he is simply a little, withered, old French peasant, in a blue blouse and wooden sabots. He passes his days here in solitude, unless when a rare party of visitors ring at his little bell, and, after due inspection through his _grille_, are admitted to peep about his chapel and his grotto, and to share his fine view of the valley shut in by vine-clad hills, and the Seine winding through the flat meadows, and the clean, pretty town of Mantes _le jolie_ in the middle, with its long bridge and its cathedral-like church. Whether he spends his time

"Bidding his beades all day for his trespas,"

we did not inquire; but he finds the hours lonely. The good curé of Limay wishes him to sleep in his hermitage, but, like the hermit-priest of Warkworth, he prefers sleeping in the village at the foot of the hill.

[121] One of the little hermitages represented in the Campo Santo series of paintings of the old Egyptian hermit-saints (engraved in Mrs. Jameson's "Legends of the Monastic Orders") has a little grated window, through which the hermit within (probably this John) is talking with another outside.

[122] That recluses did, however, sometimes quit their cells on a great emergency, we learn from the Legenda of Richard of Hampole already quoted, where we are told that at his death Dame Margaret Kyrkley, the recluse of Anderby, on hearing of the saint's death, hastened to Hampole to be present at his funeral.

[123] Wilkins's "Concilia," i. 693.

[124] Several MSS. of this rule are known under different names. Fosbroke quotes one as the rule of Simon de Gandavo (or Simon of Ghent), in Cott. MS. Nero A xiv.; another in Bennet College, Cambridge; and another under the name of Alfred Reevesley. See Fosbroke's "British Monachism," pp. 374-5. The various copies, indeed, seem to differ considerably, but to be all derived from the work ascribed to Bishop Poore. All these books are addressed to female recluses, which is a confirmation of the opinion which we have before expressed, that the majority of the recluses were women.

[125] Thus the player-queen in _Hamlet_, iii. 2:--

"Nor earth to me give food, nor heaven light!
Sport and repose lock from me, day, and night!
To desperation turn my trust and hope!
An anchor's cheer in prison be my scope!
Each opposite, that blanks the face of joy,
Meet what I would have well, and it destroy," &c.

[126] A cell in the north-west angle of Edington Abbey Church, Wilts, seems to be of this kind.

[127] The wearing a cuirass, or hauberk of chain mail, next the skin became a noted form of self-torture; those who undertook it were called _Loricati_.

[128] The cell of a Carthusian monk, as we have stated, consisted of a little house of three apartments and a little garden within an inclosure wall.

[129] This very same picture is given also in another MS. of about the same date, marked Add. 10,294, at folio 14.

[130] As was probably the case at Warkworth, the hermit living in the hermitage, while the chantry priest lived in the house at the foot of the hill.

[131]

"Eremites that inhabiten
By the highways,
And in boroughs among brewers."
_Piers Ploughman's Vision._

[132] Probably "anchoret" means male, and "recluse" female recluse.

[133] Test. Vetust., ii. 25.

[134] Ibid. ii. 47.

[135] Ibid. ii. 56.

[136] Ibid. ii. 271.

[137] Note p. 87 to "Instructions for Parish Priests," Early English Text Society.

[138] Test. Vetust., ii. 131.

[139] Ibid. 178.

[140] Ibid. ii. 98.

[141] Ibid. 356.

[142] Other bequests to recluses occur in the will of Henry II., to the recluses (_incluses_) of Jerusalem, England, and Normandy.

[143] Sussex Archæol. Coll., i. p. 174.

[144] Blomfield's "Norfolk," ii. pp. 347-8. See also the bequests to the Norwich recluses, _infra_.

[145] Stow's Chronicle, p. 559.

[146] In the "Ancren Riewle," p. 129, we read, "Who can with more facility commit sin than the false recluse?"

[147] Owen and Blakeway's "History of Shrewsbury."

[148] "Rogerus, &c., delecto in Christo filio Roberto de Worthin, cap. salutem, &c. Precipue devotionis affectum, quem ad serviendum Deo in reclusorio juxta capellam Sancti Joh. Babtiste in civitate Coventriensi constructo, et spretis mundi deliciis et ipsius vagis discurribus contemptis, habere te asseres, propensius intuentes, ac volentes te, consideratione nobilis domine, domine Isabelle Regine Anglie nobis pro te supplicante in hujus laudabili proposito confovere, ut in prefato reclusorio morari possis, et recludi et vitam tuam in eodam ducere in tui laudibus Redemptoris, licentiam tibi quantum in nobis est concedi per presentes, quibus sigillum nostrum duximus apponendum. Dat apud Heywood, 5 Kal. Dec. M.D. A.D. MCCCLXII, et consecrationis nostræ tricessimo sexto."--DUGDALE'S _Warwickshire_, 2nd Edit., p. 193.

[149] Fosbroke's "British Monachism," p. 372.

[150] Engraved in the _Archæological Journal_, iv. p. 320.

[151] Reports of the Lincoln Diocesan Archæological Society for 1853, pp. 359-60.

[152] Peter, Abbot of Clugny, tells us of a monk and priest of that abbey who had for a cell an oratory in a very high and remote steeple-tower, consecrated to the honour of St. Michael the archangel. "Here, devoting himself to divine meditation night and day, he mounted high above mortal things, and seemed with the angels to be present at the nearer vision of his Maker."

[153] In the Lichfield Registers we find that, on February 10, 1409, the bishop granted to Brother Richard Goldestone, late canon of Wombrugge, now recluse at Prior's Lee, near Shiffenale, license to hear confessions. (History of Whalley, p. 55.)

[154] Paper by J. J. Rogers, _Archæological Journal_, xi. 33.

[155] Twysden's "Henry de Knighton," vol. ii. p. 2665.

[156] The translator of this book for the Camden Society's edition of it, says "therein," but the word in the original Saxon English is "ther thurgh." It refers to the window looking into the church, through which the recluse looked down daily upon the celebration of the mass.

[157] "Caput suum decidit ad fenestram ad quam se reclinabit sanctus Dei Ricardus."

[158] In one of the stories of Reginald of Durham we learn that a school, according to a custom then "common enough," was kept in the church of Norham on Tweed, the parish priest being the teacher. (Wright's "Domestic Manners of the Middle Ages," p. 117.)

[159] These two expressions seem to imply that recluses sometimes went out of their cell, not only into the church, but also into the churchyard. We have already noticed that the technical word "cell" seems to have included everything within the enclosure wall of the whole establishment. Is it possible that in the case of anchorages adjoining churches, the churchyard wall represented this enclosure, and the "cell" included both church and churchyard?

[160] A commission given by William of Wykham, Bishop of Winchester, for enclosing Lucy de Newchurch as an anchoritess in the hermitage of St. Brendun, at Bristol, is given in Burnett's "History and Antiquities of Bristol," p. 61.

[161] "In monasterio inclusorio suo vicino;" it seems as if the writer of the rubric were specially thinking of the inclusoria within monasteries.

[162] The Ordo Romanus. The Pontifical of Egbert. The Pontifical of Bishop Lacey.

[163] _Guardian_ newspaper, Feb. 7, 1870.

[164] Surrey Society's Transactions, vol. iii. p. 218.

[165] The same collect, with a few variations, was used also in the consecration of nuns. Virgin chastity was held to bring forth fruit a hundred fold; widowed chastity, sixty fold; married chastity, thirty fold.

[166] Hair-cloth garment worn next the skin for mortification.

[167] King Henry IV., Pt. I., Act i. Sc. 1.

[168] There have come down to us a series of narratives of pilgrimages to the Holy Land. One of a Christian of Bordeaux as early as 333 A.D.; that of S. Paula and her daughter, about 386 A.D., given by St. Jerome; of Bishop Arculf, 700 A.D.; of Willebald, 725 A.D.; of Sæwulf, 1102 A.D.; of Sigurd the Crusader, 1107 A.D.; of Sir John de Mandeville, 1322-1356.--_Early Travels in Palestine_ (Bohn's Antiq. Lib.).

[169] At the present day, the Hospital of the Pellegrini at Rome is capable of entertaining seven thousand guests, women as well as men; to be entitled to the hospitality of the institution, they must have walked at least sixty miles, and be provided with a certificate from a bishop or priest to the effect that they are _bonâ-fide_ pilgrims. (Wild's "Last Winter in Rome." Longmans: 1865.)

[170] In the latter part of the Saxon period of our history there was a great rage for foreign pilgrimage; thousands of persons were continually coming and going between England and the principal shrines of Europe, especially the threshold of the Apostles at Rome. They were the subject of a letter from Charlemagne to King Offa:--"Concerning the strangers who, for the love of God and the salvation of their souls, wish to repair to the thresholds of the blessed Apostles, let them travel in peace without any trouble." Again, in the year 1031 A.D., King Canute made a pilgrimage to Rome (as other Saxon kings had done before him) and met the Emperor Conrad and other princes, from whom he obtained for all his subjects, whether merchants or pilgrims, exemptions from the heavy tolls usually exacted on the journey to Rome.

[171] At the marriage of our Edward I., in 1254, with Leonora, sister of Alonzo of Castile, a protection to English pilgrims was stipulated for; but they came in such numbers as to alarm the French, and difficulties were thrown in the way. In the fifteenth century, Rymer mentions 916 licences to make the pilgrimage to Santiago granted in 1428, and 2,460 in 1434.

[172] King Horn, having taken the disguise of a palmer--"Horn took bourden and scrip"--went to the palace of Athulf and into the hall, and took his place among the beggars "in beggar's row," and sat on the ground.--_Thirteenth Century Romance of King Horn_ (Early English Text Society). That beggars and such persons did usually sit on the ground in the hall and wait for a share of the food, we learn also from the "Vision of Piers Ploughman," xii. 198--

"Right as sum man gave me meat, and set me amid the floor,
I have meat more than enough, and not so much worship
As they that sit at side table, or with the sovereigns of the hall,
But sit as a beggar boardless by myself on the ground."

[173] In the romance of King Horn, the hero meets a palmer and asks his news--

"A palmere he there met
And fair him grette [greeted]:
Palmer, thou shalt me tell
All of thine spell."

[174] Wallet.

[175] Pillow covering.

[176] Called or took.

[177] _i.e._ Latten (a kind of bronze) set with (mock) precious stones.

[178] Pretending them to be relics of some saint.

[179] See "Archæological Journal," vol. iii. p. 149.

[180] Mr. Taylor, in his edition of "Blomfield's Norfolk," enumerates no less than seventy places of pilgrimage in Norfolk alone.

[181] A man might not go without his wife's consent, nor a wife without her husband's:--

"To preche them also thou might not wonde [fear, hesitate],
Both to wyf and eke husbande,
That nowther of hem no penance take,
Ny non a vow to chastity make,
Ny no pylgrimage take to do
But if bothe assente thereto.

* * * * *

Save the vow to Jherusalem,
That is lawful to ether of them."
_Instructions for Parish Priests._ (Early English Text Society.)

[182] Marked 3,395 d. 4to. The footnote on a previous page (p. 158) leads us to conjecture that in ancient as in modern times the pilgrim may have received a certificate of his having been blessed as a pilgrim, as now we give certificates of baptism, marriage, and holy orders.

[183] See woodcut on p. 90.

[184] "History of Music."

[185]

"Conscience then with Patience passed, Pilgrims as it were,
Then had Patience, as pilgrims have, in his poke vittailes."
_Piers Ploughman's Vision_, xiii. 215.

[186] Grose's "Gloucestershire," pl. lvii.

[187] Girdle.

[188] One of the two pilgrims in our first cut, p. 158, carries a palm branch in his hand; they represent the two disciples at Emmaus, who were returning from Jerusalem.

[189] The existence of several accounts of the stations of Rome in English prose and poetry as early as the thirteenth century (published by the Early English Text Society), indicates the popularity of this pilgrimage.

[190] Innocente III., Epist. 536, lib. i., t. c., p. 305, ed. Baluzio. (Dr. Rock's "Church of our Fathers.")

[191] "Church of our Fathers," vol. iii. p. 438, note.

[192] It is seen on the scrip of Lydgate's Pilgrim in the woodcut on p. 163. See a paper on the Pilgrim's Shell, by Mr. J. E. Tennant, in the _St. James's Magazine_, No. 10, for Jan., 1862.

[193] "Anales de Galicia," vol. i. p. 95. Southey's "Pilgrim to Compostella."

[194] "Anales de Galicia," vol. i. p. 96, quoted by Southey, "Pilgrim to Compostella."

[195] Dr. Rock's "Church of our Fathers," iii. 424.

[196] "Vita S. Thomæ apud Willebald," folio Stephani, ed. Giles, i. 312.

[197] The lily of the valley was another Canterbury flower. It is still plentiful in the gardens in the precincts of the cathedral.

[198] The veneration of the times was concentrated upon the blessed head which suffered the stroke of martyrdom; it was exhibited at the shrine and kissed by the pilgrims; there was an abbey in Derbyshire dedicated to the Beauchef (beautiful head), and still called Beauchief Abbey.

[199] The late T. Caldecot, Esq., of Dartford, possessed one of these.

[200] A very beautiful little pilgrim sign of lead found at Winchester is engraved in the "Journal of the British Archæological Association," No. 32, p. 363.

[201] Dr. Rock's "Church of our Fathers," vol. iii. p. 430.

[202] Fosbroke has fallen into the error of calling this a burden bound to the pilgrim's back with a list: it is the bourdon, the pilgrim's staff, round which a list, a long narrow strip of cloth, was wound cross-wise. We do not elsewhere meet with this list round the staff, and it does not appear what was its use or meaning. We may call to mind the list wound cross-wise round a barber's pole, and imagine that this list was attached to the pilgrim's staff for use, or we may remember that a vexillum, or banner, is attached to a bishop's staff, and that a long, narrow riband is often affixed to the cross-headed staff which is placed in our Saviour's hand in mediæval representations of the Resurrection. The staff in our cut, p. 163, looks as if it might have such a list wound round it.

[203] Fosbrooke, and Wright, and Dr. Rock, all understand this to be a bowl. Was it a bottle to carry drink, shaped something like a gourd, such as we not unfrequently find hung on the hook of a shepherd's staff in pictures of the annunciation to the shepherds, and such as the pilgrim from Erasmus's "Praise of Folly," bears on his back?

[204] Sinai.

[205] Galice--Compostella in Galicia.

[206] Cross.

[207] Asked: people ask him first of all from whence he is come.

[208] Armenia.

[209] Holy body, object of pilgrimage.

[210] Tell us.

[211] The Knight of La Tour Landry, in one of his stories, tells us: "There was a young lady that had her herte moche on the worlde. And there was a squier that loved her and she hym. And for because that she might have better leiser to speke with hym, she made her husbande to understande that she had vowed in diverse pilgrimages; and her husband, as he that thought none evelle and wolde not displese her, suffered and held hym content that she should go wherin her lust.... Alle thei that gone on pilgrimage to a place for foul plesaunce more than devocion of the place that thei go to, and covereth thaire goinge with service of God, fowlethe and scornethe God and our Ladie, and the place that thei goo to."--_Book of La Tour Landry_, chap. xxxiv.

[212] "I was a poor pilgrim," says one ("History of the Troubadours," p. 300), "when I came to your court; and have lived honestly and respectably in it on the wages you have given me; restore to me my mule, my wallet, and my staff, and I will return in the same manner as I came."

[213] "Church of our Fathers," vol. iii. p. 442.

[214] Thus Pope Calixtus tells us ("Sermones Bib. Pat.," ed. Bignio, xv. 330) that the pilgrims to Santiago were accustomed before dawn, at the top of each town, to cry with a loud voice, "Deus Adjuva!" "Sancte Jacobe!" "God Help!" "Santiago!"

[215] Surely he should have excepted St. Thomas's shrine?

[216] In the _Guardian_ newspaper of Sept. 5, 1860, a visitor to Rome gives a description of the exhibition of relics there, which forms an interesting parallel with the account in the text: "Shortly before Ash-Wednesday a public notice ('Invito Sagro') is issued by authority, setting forth that inasmuch as certain of the principal relics and 'sacra immagini' are to be exposed during the ensuing season of Lent, in certain churches specified, the confraternities of Rome are exhorted by the pope to resort in procession to those churches.... The ceremony is soon described. The procession entered slowly at the west door, moved up towards the altar, and when the foremost were within a few yards of it, all knelt down for a few minutes on the pavement of the church to worship. At a signal given by one of the party, they rose, and slowly defiled off in the direction of the chapel wherein is preserved the column of the flagellation (?). By the way, no one of the other sex may ever enter that chapel, except on one day in the year--the very day of which I am speaking; and on _that_ day men are as rigorously excluded. Well, all knelt again for a few minutes, then rose, and moved slowly towards the door, departing as they came, and making way for another procession to enter. It was altogether a most interesting and agreeable spectacle. Utterly alien to our English tastes and habits certainly; but the institution evidently suited the tastes of the people exactly, and I dare say may be conducive to piety, and recommend itself to their religious instincts. Coming from their several parishes, and returning, they chant psalms.

"It follows naturally to speak a little more particularly about the adoration of relics, for this is just another of those many definite religious acts which make up the sum of popular devotion, and supply the void occasioned by the entire discontinuance of the old breviary offices. In the 'Diario Romano' (a little book describing what is publicly transacted, of a religious character, during every day in the year), daily throughout Lent, and indeed on every occasion of unusual solemnity (of which, I think, there are eighty-five in all), you read 'Stazione' at such a church. This (whatever it may imply beside) denotes that relics are displayed for adoration in that church on the day indicated. The pavement is accordingly strewed with box, lights burn on the altar, and there is a constant influx of visitors to that church throughout the day. For example, at St. Prisca's, a little church on the Aventine, there was a 'Stazione,' 3rd April. In the Romish Missal you will perceive that on the Feria tertia Majoris hebdomadæ (this year April 3), there is _Statio ad S. Priscam_. A very interesting church, by the way, it proved, being evidently built on a site of immense antiquity--traditionally said to be the house of Prisca. You descend by thirty-one steps into the subterranean edifice. At this little out-of-the-way church, there were strangers arriving all the time we were there. Thirty young Dominicans from S. Sabina, hard by, streamed down into the crypt, knelt for a time, and then repaired to perform a similar act of worship above, at the altar. The friend who conducted me to the spot, showed me, in the vineyard immediately opposite, some extraordinary remains of the wall of Servius Tullius. On our return we observed fresh parties straggling towards the church, bent on performing their 'visits.' It should, perhaps, be mentioned that prayers have been put forth by authority, to be used on such occasions.

"I must not pass by this subject of relics so slightly, for it evidently occupies a considerable place in the public devotions of a Roman Catholic. Thus the 'Invito Sagro,' already adverted to, specifies _which_ relics will be displayed in each of the six churches enumerated--(_e.g._ the heads of SS. Peter and Paul, their chains, some wood of the cross, &c.)--granting seven years of indulgence for every visit, by whomsoever paid; and promising plenary indulgence to every person who, after confessing and communicating, shall thrice visit each of the aforesaid churches, and pray for awhile on behalf of holy church. There are besides, on nine chief festivals, as many great displays of relics at Rome, the particulars of which may be seen in the 'Année Liturgique,' pp. 189-206. I witnessed _one_, somewhat leisurely, at the Church of the Twelve Apostles, on the afternoon of the 1st of May. There was a congregation of about two or three hundred in church, while somebody in a lofty gallery displayed the relics, his companion proclaiming with a loud voice what each was: 'Questo e il braccio,' &c., &c., which such an one gave to this 'alma basilica,'--the formula being in every instance very sonorously intoned. There was part of the arm of S. Bartholomew and of S. James the Less; part of S. Andrew's leg, arm, and cross; part of one of S. Paul's fingers; one of the nails with which S. Peter was crucified; S. Philip's right foot; liquid blood of S. James; some of the remains of S. John the Evangelist, of the Baptist, of Joseph, and of the Blessed Virgin; together with part of the manger, cradle, cross, and tomb of our Lord, &c., &c.... I have dwelt somewhat disproportionally on relics, but they play so conspicuous a part in the religious system of the country, that in enumerating the several substitutes which have been invented for the old breviary services, it would not be nearly enough to have discussed the subject in a few lines. A visit paid to a church where such objects are exposed, is a distinct as well as popular religious exercise; and it always seemed to me to be performed with great reverence and devotion."

[217] From Mr. Wright's "Archæological Album," p. 19.

[218] This slip of lead had probably been put into his coffin. He is sometimes called Thomas of Acre.

[219] Of Chaucer's Wife of Bath we read:--

"Thrice had she been at Jerusalem,
And haddé passed many a strangé stream;
At Rome she haddé been, and at Boloyne,
In Galice, at St. James, and at Coloyne."

[220] Dugdale's "Monasticon."

[221] "Crudities," p. 18.

[222] In Lydgate's "Life of St. Edmund" (Harl. 2,278) is a picture of King Alkmund on his pilgrimage, at Rome, receiving the Pope's blessing, in which the treatment of the subject is very like that of the illumination in the text.

[223] The shells indicate a pilgrimage accomplished, but the rod may not have been intended to represent the pilgrim's bourdon. In the Harl. MS. 5,102, fol. 68, a MS. of the beginning of the thirteenth century, is a bishop holding a slender rod (not a pastoral staff), and at fol. 17 of the same MS. one is putting a similar rod into a bishop's coffin. The priors of small cathedrals bore a staff without crook, and had the privilege of being arrayed in pontificals for mass; choir-rulers often bore staves. Dr. Rock, in the "Church of our Fathers," vol. iii., pt. II, p. 224, gives a cut from a late Flemish Book of Hours, in which a priest, sitting at confession, bears a long rod.

[224] It is engraved in Mr. Boutell's "Christian Monuments in England and Wales," p. 79.

[225] Engraved in Nichols's "Leicestershire," vol. iii., pl. ii., p. 623.

[226] Engraved in the "Manual of Sepulchral Slabs and Crosses," by the Rev. E. L. Cutts, pl. lxxiii.

[227] It will be shown hereafter that secular priests ordinarily wore dresses of these gay colours, all the ecclesiastical canons to the contrary notwithstanding.

[228] Here is a good example from Baker's "Northamptonshire:"--"Broughton Rectory: Richard Meyreul, sub-deacon, presented in 1243. Peter de Vieleston, deacon, presented in 1346-7. Though still only a deacon, he had previously been rector of Cottisbrook from 1342 to 1345."

Matthew Paris tells us that, in 1252, the beneficed clergy in the diocese of Lincoln were urgently persuaded and admonished by their bishop to allow themselves to be promoted to the grade of priesthood, but many of them refused.

The thirteenth Constitution of the second General Council of Lyons, held in 1274, ordered curates to reside and to take priests' orders within a year of their promotion; the lists above quoted show how inoperative was this attempt to remedy the practice against which it was directed.

[229] A writer in the _Christian Remembrancer_ for July, 1856, says:--"During the fourteenth century it would seem that half the number of rectories throughout England were held by acolytes unable to administer the sacrament of the altar, to hear confessions, or even to baptise. Presented to a benefice often before of age to be ordained, the rector preferred to marry and to remain a layman, or at best a clerk in minor orders.... In short, during the time to which we refer, rectories were looked upon and treated as lay fees."

[230] See Chaucer's poor scholar, hereinafter quoted, who--

"busily gan for the soulis pray
Of them that gave him wherewith to scholaie."

[231] "Dialogue on Heresies," book iii. c. 12.

[232] "Norwich Corporation Records." Sessions Book of 12th Henry VII. Memorand.--That on Thursday, Holyrood Eve, in the xijth of King Henry the VIIJ., Sir William Grene, being accused of being a spy, was examined before the mayor's deputy and others, and gave the following account of himself:--"The same Sir William saieth that he was borne in Boston, in the countie of Lincoln, and about xviij yeres nowe paste or there about, he dwellyd with Stephen at Grene, his father at Wantlet, in the saide countie of Lincolne, and lerned gramer by the space of ij yeres; after that by v or vj yeres used labour with his said father, sometyme in husbandrie and other wiles with the longe sawe; and after that dwelling in Boston at one Genet a Grene, his aunte, used labour and other wiles goyng to scole by the space of ij years, and in that time receyved benet and accolet [the first tonsure and acolytate] in the freres Austens in Boston of one frere Graunt, then beying suffragan of the diocese of Lincoln ["Frere Graunt" was William Grant, titular Bishop of Pavada, in the province of Constantinople. He was Vicar of Redgewell, in Essex, and Suffragan of Ely, from 1516 to 1525.--_Stubbs's Registrum Sacrum Anglicanum_]; after that dwelling within Boston wt. one Mr. Williamson, merchaunt, half a yere, and after that dwellinge in Cambridge by the space of half a yere, used labour by the day beryng of ale and pekynge of saffron, and sometyme going to the colleges, and gate his mete and drynke of almes; and aft that the same Sir William, with ij monks of Whitby Abbey, and one Edward Prentis, went to Rome, to thentent for to have ben made p'st, to which order he could not be admitted; and after abiding in Larkington, in the countie of Essex, used labour for his levyng wt. one Thom. Grene his broder; and after that the same Sr. Will. cam to Cambridge, and ther teried iiij or v wekes, and gate his levynge of almes; and after, dwelling in Boston, agen laboured with dyvs persones by vij or viij wekes; and after that dwelling in London, in Holborn, with one Rickerby, a fustian dyer, about iij wekes, and after that the same William resorted to Cambridge, and ther met agen wt. the said Edward Prentise; and at instance and labour of one Mr. Cony, of Cambridge, the same Will. Grene and Edward Prentise obteyned a licence for one year of Mr. Cappes, than being deputee to the Chancellor of the said univ'sitie, under his seal of office, wherby the same Will. and Edward gathered toguether in Cambridgeshire releaff toward their exhibicon to scole by the space of viij weks, and after that the said Edward departed from the company of the same William. And shortly after that, one Robert Draper, scoler, borne at Feltham, in the countee of Lincoln, accompanyed wt. the same Willm., and they forged and made a newe licence, and putte therin ther bothe names, and the same sealed wt. the seale of the other licence granted to the same Will. and Edward as is aforeseid, by which forged licence the same Will. and Robt. gathered in Cambridgeshire and other shires. At Coventre the same Will. and Robt. caused one Knolles, a tynker, dwelling in Coventre, to make for them a case of tynne mete for a seale of a title which the same Robt. Draper holdde of Makby Abbey. And after that the same Willm. and Robt. cam to Cambridge, and ther met wt. one Sr. John Manthorp, the which hadde ben lately before at Rome, and ther was made a prest; and the same Robert Draper copied out the bulle of orders of deken, subdeken, and p'stehod for the same Willm.; and the same Willm. toke waxe, and leyed and p'st it to the prynte of the seale of the title that the said Robert had a Makby aforeseid, and led the same forged seale in the casse of tynne aforeseid, and with labels fastned ye same to his said forged bull. And sithen the same Willm. hath gathered in dyvers shires, as Northampton, Cambridge, Suffolk, and Norfolk, alway shewyng and feyning hymself that he hadde ben at Rome, and ther was made preste, by means whereof he hath receyved almes of dyvers and many persones."--_Norfolk Archæology_, vol. iv. p. 342.

[233] Cobbler.

[234] Grease.

[235] York Fabric Rolls, p. 87, note.

[236] "Church of our Fathers," ii. 441.

[237] Richmond Wills.

[238] "Church of our Fathers," ii. 408, note.

[239] Newcourt's "Repertorium."

[240] Johnson's "Canons," ii. 421. Ang. Cath. Lib. Edition.

[241] Johnson's "Canons," ii. 421.

[242] One who sang annual or yearly masses for the dead.

[243] Enough.

[244] Chapel of Earl of Northumberland, from the Household Book of Henry Algernon, fifth Earl of Northumberland, born 1477, and died 1527. ("Antiq. Repertory," iv. 242.);

First, a preist, a doctour of divinity, a doctor of law, or a bachelor of divinitie, to be dean of my lord's chapell.

_It._ A preist for to be surveyour of my lorde's landes.

_It._ A preist for to be secretary to my lorde.

_It._ A preist for to be amner to my lorde.

_It._ A preist for to be sub-dean for ordering and keaping the queir in my lorde's chappell daily.

_It._ A preist for a riding chaplein for my lorde.

_It._ A preist for a chaplein for my lorde's eldest son, to waite uppon him daily.

_It._ A preist for my lorde's clark of the closet.

_It._ A preist for a maister of gramer in my lorde's hous.

_It._ A preist for reading the Gospell in the chapel daily.

_It._ A preist for singing of our Ladies' mass in the chapell daily.

The number of these persons as chapleins and preists in houshould are xi.

The gentlemen and children of my lorde's chappell which be not appointed to attend at no time, but only in exercising of Godde's service in the chapell daily at matteins, Lady-mass, hyhe-mass, evensong, and compeynge:--

First, a bass.

_It._ A second bass.

Third bass.

A maister of the childer, or counter-tenor.

Second and third counter-tenor.

A standing tenour.

A second, third, and fourth standing tenor.

The number of theis persons, as gentlemen of my lorde's chapell, xi.

Children of my lorde's chappell:--

Three trebles and three second trebles.

In all six.

A table of what the Earl and Lady were accustomed to offer at mass on all holydays "if he keep chappell," of offering and annual lights paid for at Holy Blood of Haillis (Hales, in Gloucestershire), our Lady of Walsingham, St. Margaret in Lincolnshire, our Lady in the Whitefriars, Doncaster, of my lord's foundation:--

Presents at Xmas to Barne, Bishop of Beverley and York, when he comes,
as he is accustomed, yearly.

Rewards to the children of his chapell when they do sing the responde
called Exaudivi at the mattynstime for xi. in vespers upon Allhallow
Day, 6_s._ 8_d._

On St. Nicholas Eve, 6_s._ 8_d._

To them of his lordshipe's chappell if they doe play the play of the
Nativitie upon Xmas Day in the mornynge in my lorde's chapell before
his lordship, xx_s._

For singing "Gloria in Excelsis" at the mattens time upon Xmas Day in
the mg. To the Abbot of Miserewle (Misrule) on Xmas.

To the yeoman or groom of the vestry for bringing him the hallowed
taper on Candlemas Day.

To his lordship's chaplains and other servts. that play the Play
before his lordship on Shrofetewsday at night, xx_s._

That play the Play of Resurrection upon Estur Daye in the mg. in my
lorde's chapell before his lordship.

To the yeoman or groom of the vestry on Allhallows Day for syngynge
for all Cristynne soles the saide nyhte to it be past mydnyght, 3_s._
4_d._

The Earl and Lady were brother and sister of St. Christopher Gilde of
Yorke, and pd. 6_s._ 8_d._ each yearly, and when the Master of the
Gild brought my lord and my lady for their lyverays a yard of narrow
violette cloth and a yard of narrow rayed cloth, 13_s._ 4_d._ (_i.e._,
a yard of each to each).

And to Procter of St. Robert's of Knasbrughe, when my lord and lady
were brother and sister, 6_s._ 8_d._ each.

At pp. 272-278, is an elaborate programme of the ordering of my lord's chapel for the various services, from which it appears that there were organs, and several of the singing men played them in turn.

At p. 292 is an order about the washing of the linen for the chapel for a year. Surplices washed sixteen times a year against the great feasts--eighteen surplices for men, and six for children--and seven albs to be washed sixteen times a year, and "five aulter-cloths for covering of the alters" to be washed sixteen times a year.

Page 285 ordered that the vestry stuff shall have at every removal (from house to house) one cart for the carrying the nine antiphoners, the four grailles, the hangings of the three altars in the chapel, the surplices, the altar-cloths in my lord's closet and my ladie's, and the sort (suit) of vestments and single vestments and copes "accopeed" daily, and all other my lord's chapell stuff to be sent afore my lord's chariot before his lordship remove.