Chapter II: Part 2

The first half of the century was singularly barren of incident. The best known Abbot of the time was John Whethamstede (circa 1420–1440), a famous scholar and churchman. Significantly enough he was one of those chosen to represent the English nation at the Councils of Pavia and Basle. He was popular with the convent, perhaps on account of his ardent orthodoxy. The singularly bitter attitude adopted towards Lollards in de la Mare’s time was carefully maintained, and Whethamstede, by means of synods and commissions, extirpated heresy within the Liberty.[64] The Abbot was regarded by the monks as having conferred notable benefits upon them; the chief of these were his acquisition of the Priory of Pembroke (1439), his generosity to the Abbey’s students at Oxford and certain financial innovations.[65] To-day, as one digs him out of the very inferior chronicle of the time, he seems rather wanting in purpose, and somewhat vain and foolish; nevertheless, he certainly had the confidence of the convent, who, after his voluntary retirement for some years insisted upon re-electing him Abbot in 1452. The reason was probably that he was old, experienced, and cautious. At the time these qualities were invaluable; the Abbey was acquiring a political significance, and skilful guidance was necessary to avoid disaster amid the intrigues of Henry VI’s reign, which were threatening to culminate in Civil War. The second abbacy of Whethamstede, within which fell the Wars of the Roses, was therefore an anxious and, as it proved, disastrous time for the monks.

It was maintained by Hallam that the sympathies of Abbot Whethamstede were wholly Lancastrian during the Wars of the Roses. Riley, after a more careful study, affirmed that the reverse was the case,[66] and without doubt he was nearer the mark than Hallam. The great affection consistently displayed for Humphrey Duke of Gloucester (a lavish patron of the Abbey), and the attempt in the chronicle to clear his memory, in themselves indicate with which party the Abbot’s sympathies lay. Further proof is supplied by florid verses, strongly Yorkist in tone, from the Abbot’s own hand; and finally, there is the fact that the Abbey was pillaged by the Lancastrian troops in 1461. But the question is of the slightest importance.[67] As a matter of fact, the Abbey enjoyed the full favour of Henry VI. as much as of Edward IV; it was only in the actual fighting that its political proclivities affected its fortunes.

Henry VI was a frequent visitor at St. Albans, and bestowed, among many other marks of his favour, a notable extension of the franchise. The seignorial jurisdiction of the Abbot over the Hundred of Cashio, which was based on a charter of Henry II, had gradually been diminished by the encroachments of neighbouring Lords. In 1440 the King granted a new interpretation of the words of Henry II’s Charter, by which the Abbot’s authority was restored to its full limit, if not rendered greater than ever before.[68] In order to obtain such a grant it is obvious that the Abbot must have been in high favour with Henry VI, who indeed is always mentioned in these chronicles in terms of respect.

Nevertheless, when in 1455 the Yorkist party triumphed at the first battle of St. Albans, only the fact that the direction of the Abbey’s sympathies was well known can have saved it from being plundered.[69]

[Sidenote: Second Battle of St. Albans.]

The continual fighting in its neighbourhood reduced the Abbey to dire straits, and the next six years were among the darkest in its history. Its troubles culminated in the disaster of 1461, when, after a Lancastrian victory at the second battle of St. Albans, the Northern troops plundered the Abbey and horribly ravaged the surrounding country. The Queen even condescended to rob the Abbey of its most precious jewels and treasures.[70] The result was sheer famine; the convent were dispersed, and the Abbot retired to his native town. Thus for the only time in its history the continuity of conventual life at St. Albans was broken. The final triumph of Edward IV in the same year ensured such amelioration of the Abbey’s fortunes as was possible. The battle had taken place in February, and by November the convent had re-assembled, to enter upon the last stage of its existence with a fresh grant of privileges. A complicated jurisdiction, which far exceeded the grant of 1440, was bestowed upon the Abbey.[71]

[Sidenote: Hostility of Bishops in 15th Century.]

The unsoundness of the Abbey’s economic practice and the consequent increasing financial embarrassment were at the root of all its troubles in the fifteenth century. Its poverty weakened its independence, and was at once the cause of the decline of its hospitality and the reason for its growing obsequiousness toward the great. The bishops especially were quick to realise the weakness of the Abbey.[72] Always jealous of exempt houses, they exhibited in the fifteenth century an unusually bitter hostility towards St. Albans. In 1399, Henry Bishop of Lincoln had formally notified the Abbot that he claimed no jurisdiction over the Abbey[73]; this was nothing more than an acknowledgment of an old and undoubted privilege pertaining to St. Albans as an exempt monastery. Only twenty years later, at the Council of Pavia, a new Bishop of Lincoln claimed full jurisdiction over St. Albans, and called for the reform of exempt houses. This was followed by the revival of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s claims to jurisdiction, but these the Abbot was still strong enough to resist. A few years later a dispute concerning the Bishop of Norwich’s jurisdiction over the Cell of Binham broadened out into an organised attack by the English bishops upon the privileges of St. Albans. This was evidently regarded as a test case. Exactly how the struggle ended is not recorded, but probably it left matters in the old uncertain condition. These attempts mark a fresh stage in the growing unpopularity of the Abbey, and it is worthy of notice that the increasing hatred towards exempt houses on the part of the bishops might well of itself have led to the fall of the monastic system in England. As it was, the support of the bishops made it more easy for Henry VIII to carry through the Dissolution.

[Sidenote: Decay of the Monastic Spirit (1396 to 1464).]

Even during the fourteenth century there had been a natural and almost inevitable growth of luxury in the monastic life: in the course of the fifteenth it progressed by leaps and bounds. A host of insignificant facts illustrate the tendency. The food of the novices was rendered more sumptuous on the plea that the youths had not such strong constitutions as their fathers. Papal Bulls were secured remitting fasts, and the allowance of spices was doubled. As with the convent, so was it with the Abbots themselves. William Heyworth (1401–1420), who was considered so excellent a cleric as to be raised to episcopal dignity as Bishop of Lichfield, spent large sums of money on the completion of a splendid Abbot’s mansion at Tittenhanger, contrary, needless to say, to all Benedictine precedent. A parallel tendency was a perceptible decline of zeal and interest in the religious life. In 1428, for instance, owing (as the Abbot confessed) to its uselessness, the ancient cell of Beaulieu[74] was abandoned, and twenty years later the Priory of Wymondham, as the result of a trifling dispute broke away from the mother house, and was erected into an Abbey. The tendency is further illustrated by the Constitutions published by Whethamstede after a formal visitation of the convent.[75] No gross abuses were discovered, but a certain laziness and indifference towards religious services and observance was found to have pervaded the convent. It was much the same in the cells which the Abbot visited a little later. It appeared that the monks were lazy, and slept too long; just correction for offences had not always been inflicted; services were apt to be carried out indifferently, and sometimes to be omitted altogether. It was slothfulness, not positive vice, that had to be fought against. A subtle illustration of this is unconsciously supplied by the chronicler. The Abbot had promulgated a set of rigorous constitutions which went to the root of the trouble more than was usual; but the convent murmured, refused to accept them, and finally carried their will against the Abbot; as for the Constitutions they became a dead letter. When Whethamstede was re-elected in 1452[76] he was informed that three great defects existed in the Monastery. Scarcely one in the Abbey, it appeared, could be found competent to teach grammar; there were hardly any students from St. Albans at Gloucester Hall; and it was only with difficulty that persons could be found prepared to undertake the burden of preaching.

These facts point to a rapid raising of the standard of comfort, to growing indifference, and a sad decay of the monastic spirit. But in view of the dreadful condition of the convent in 1490 it is important to observe that they give us no reason to suppose the existence of immorality in the cloister or even of any serious relaxation of the discipline.

[Sidenote: Abbot Wallingford.]

Abbot Whethamstede’s successor was a certain William Albon (1464–1476), ‘who,’ says the chronicler, ‘followed diligently in the footsteps of his predecessor. During all the time he was Abbot he strove after the good of his Church in things temporal and spiritual.’[77] His reign and that of William Wallingford (1476-?1490) carry us to the year 1490, when a letter of Cardinal Morton reveals the monastery in a state of utter degradation. The decay must be placed entirely between the years 1476 and 1490, and it is impossible to account for its rapidity. Perhaps it was due to the bad influence of William Wallingford, but the whole matter is not a little mysterious. In 1451 Wallingford is found holding the joint offices of Archdeacon, Cellarer, Bursar, Forester and Sub-Cellarer of the Abbey, and in some of these offices he was continued during Whethamstede’s second abbacy (1452–1464). During this same period he was to all intents and purposes convicted of having laid hands upon the moneys of the previous Abbot. The matter is dealt with at length in the chronicle, and in most violent terms Wallingford is accused again and again of habitual perjury.[78] Yet on the death of Whethamstede he was elected prior, and in 1476 Abbot.[79] Finally, in an account of _The Lives and Benefactions of the Later Abbots_[80] he is spoken of in terms of the most extravagant praise. On the whole the general impression of this difficult character derived from the Chronicle is that of a bad man but a vigorous Abbot, who, however evil his influence upon the convent, nevertheless rendered it important services. The monks, perhaps, forgot his vices in their admiration of what was to them the first of virtues--his strenuous efforts to preserve the independence of the house. For it was during his rule that the most determined, and, as it proved, successful attacks were made upon the Abbey’s highly-prized exemption from archiepiscopal visitation.

[Sidenote: Traffic in Patronage.]

In the register of Wallingford’s abbacy there is only one indication of the bad turn conventual life was taking. This is the record of an enormous traffic in patronage, a new and bad feature at St. Albans, confined for the most part to Wallingford’s abbacy.[81] Economically bankrupt, the Monastery was reduced at last to bartering the livings in its gift, and even to trafficking in the monastic offices.[82] In the register of William Wallingford there is a long list of entries noting the gift by the Abbot to all sorts of important persons of the right to present to the next vacancy in many of the Abbey’s livings. These transactions, whether accompanied by a money consideration or simply to gain the support and protection of persons of high rank, indicate a willingness on the part of the Abbot to trifle with some of his most sacred responsibilities. More sinister still are the frequent changes of the vicars in the various livings. At Elstree, for example, there were as many as nine rectors in sixteen years; at Shephale five occur in six years.[83]

[Sidenote: Morton’s Commission.]

The case of St. Albans may have been exceptional. In the general decay of English monasticism the Abbey incurred an unenviable notoriety, which indeed still clings to it. But that the English monasteries as a body were in a depraved condition was fully realised by the heads of Church and State. In 1490 Archbishop Morton applied for and received from Innocent VIII the special powers necessary for a visitation of Cluniac, Cistercian and Premonstratension Houses with foreign heads.[84] Armed with the Papal commission Morton wrote letters to the heads of the various monasteries, in which he imperatively called upon them to reform.

In a letter which he addressed to the Abbot, Morton wrote[85]: ‘It has come to our ears, being at once publicly notorious and brought before us on the testimony of many witnesses worthy of credit, that you the Abbot aforementioned have been of long time noted and diffamed, and do yet continue so noted, of simony, of usury, of dilapidation and waste of goods, revenues and possessions of the said monastery and of certain other enormous crimes and excesses hereafter written.... You and certain of your fellow monks and brethren ... have relaxed the measure and form of religious life; you have laid aside the pleasant yoke of contemplation and all regular observances, hospitality, alms[86] ... and the ancient rule of your order is deserted ... you have dilapidated the common property; you have made away with the jewels and the woods to the value of 8,000 marks or more.’ The letter goes on to specify ‘the enormous crimes and excesses’ in a most complete manner; names and details are given in every case, and the Abbot and Thomas Sudbury, a monk, are accused of the most disgusting offences. The nunneries of Prez and Sopwell--cells of the Abbey--are stated to be little better than brothels. ‘The brethren of the Abbey, some of whom, as it is reported, are given over to all the evil things of the world, neglect the service of God altogether. They live with harlots and mistresses publicly and continuously within the precincts of the monastery and without.’

The Archbishop adds that he had warned the Abbot to cure these abuses before securing the papal commission. The Abbot and the Prioresses of Prez and Sopwell are strictly enjoined to correct these enormities within thirty days, and the Priors of the more distant cells within sixty days. Unless they comply the Archbishop himself will be compelled to make a personal visitation and to carry out the necessary reforms.

The Abbot, making no attempt to answer the charges, instantly appealed to the Pope against the authority of the Archbishop to hold a visitation.[87] The Pope consented to prohibit any action on Morton’s part pending the hearing of the appeal by two papal chaplains. Abbot Wallingford must now have won his case but for the intervention of Henry VII. The combined pleadings of King and Archbishop prevailed with the Pope. On July 30th, 1490, Innocent VIII, without pronouncing on the question of exemption, granted special faculties to the Archbishop for this particular visitation notwithstanding all rights and privileges. And there can be little doubt but that the visitation was in due course carried out.[88] Whether all these charges were substantiated we do not know; but it is impossible to doubt that the bulk of them was true. St. Albans was too large, too famous a house, and too near London, for Morton to have been misled by idle rumour. The outcome of Morton’s letter is unrecorded; probably the reforms were effected, though the Abbot, it would appear, was not deposed. It is in the Abbey’s favour that no further trace of immorality is to be found in the history of the fifty years of life which lay before it.

[Sidenote: Events 1489–1539.]

It seems strange that the Abbey should have gone on after this shock without a suspicion of coming destruction. Such, however, was the case; and even Henry VII is found to endow the monastery in return for certain prayers for his soul to be rendered ‘for ever and ever.’ As late as 1530, indeed, there is mention of a grant to the Abbey of an annual fair. Of these last years a wealth of detail has survived, albeit in unlikely places. In 1511 the House had fallen into the King’s debt; in 1515 Abbot Ramrygge, Wallingford’s successor, refused to pay Peter Pence,[89] and in 1519 the Prior of Rochester was appointed coadjutor to the old Abbot.[90] Monastic affairs, it appears, were in complete disorder, and a large debt (4,000 marks) had been accumulated. In the same year the Prior of Tynemouth was freed from the jurisdiction of St. Albans,[91] a measure which illustrates the enfeebled condition of the Abbey.

The first hint of the final catastrophe occurred upon the death of Ramrygge in 1521. By a dispensation of Adrian VI, Wolsey was commended to the vacant abbacy,[92] the convent apparently allowing this infringement of its rights without protest. Perhaps, as Abbot Gasquet has said, the motive for this action was in part a desire to reward the cardinal for secular services. If so, it was a poor compliment to Wolsey to receive an abbey so loaded with debt as to be unable to pay its contribution to Convocation.[93] It is far more likely that he secured it, knowing that the House was bankrupt, and that strong measures were required to save it.[94]

The death of Wolsey necessitated a fresh election. No interference was attempted by Henry VIII, who confirmed the convent’s choice in the person of Robert Catton. It was during his abbacy the Visitation of the monasteries was carried out.

[Sidenote: Social Influence of the Abbey.]

Owing to the disappearance of the Hertfordshire surveys, St. Albans can furnish no certain evidence upon the numerous questions arising out of the Dissolution.[95] Such facts as we have tend to confirm the conclusions of M. Savine.[96] There is no doubt, for example, that the social sympathies of the Abbey were pre-eminently aristocratic. Most of the monks do not themselves appear to have come from the lower strata of society. The Abbey bestowed its corrodies for the most part upon persons of the well-to-do classes. Moreover, a close connection existed between the Abbey and the neighbouring gentry, whose sons it had long been wont to board and educate. On members of the same class many of the lay offices of the monastery were conferred.[97] Even the apparently democratic practice of alms-giving was a perfunctory duty, a mere compliance with the wishes of donors who had in times past liberally endowed the Abbey. At a wealthy House like St. Albans, which relied so completely on the patronage of the great, it could scarcely have been otherwise.

In fact, evidence compels us to reduce the generally accepted estimates of the Abbey’s social and economic importance. Such social services as it did render were chiefly on the side of hospitality and education. Of these, hospitality[98]--which had always been at least as aristocratic as otherwise--had seriously diminished by the sixteenth century.[99] Nevertheless, after the Dissolution this common shelter for rich and poor must have been deeply regretted.[100]

[Sidenote: Education.]

The Abbey perhaps did its best work in the sphere of education; from first to last during our period particular care was expended upon the education of the monks, within the monastery and at the University. The Abbey deserves still greater credit for creating and maintaining St. Albans Grammar School. The first mention of the School occurs in 1100, when it was ruled by a secular head master and received fees from scholars. In the thirteenth century arose the practice of boarding within the monastery and teaching the sons of neighbouring lords; for the future no fees were to be received from the sixteen poorest scholars; the master was given the rare privilege of excommunicating the disobedient, and allowed, after an examination, to confer degrees upon the scholars after the manner of the Universities. All illicit or adulterine schools were to be rooted out of the Liberty. Towards the end of the century the Abbey began to board and educate a number of poor scholars; this custom, as a charity, fell to the Almoner, who soon devolved his duties upon a serjeant, who, like the schoolmaster, was not a monk. The school was thus in no sense ‘an avenue to the monastery’; on the contrary, there was an entire separation of the school from the Abbey. It was, perhaps, for this reason that the institution flourished when the Abbey itself was in decay[101] till, by a wide interpretation of terms, it was dissolved in 1539 as a part of the Abbey. This continuous interest in secular education for four centuries was perhaps the best word that could be said for the Abbey at the Dissolution.[102]

The Visitation of the monasteries was carried out by Cromwell, as Vicar-General, in 1535.[103] John ap Rice, the commissioner at St. Albans, wrote to his master: ‘At St. Albans we found little although there was much to be found.’[104] The commissioner spoke the simple truth if it was disorder and faction to which he referred. In the same year the prior and about half of the monks petitioned Sir Francis Brian[105] to save them from their own Abbot, who had contracted large debts, had sold the woods belonging to the convent, and had compelled the convent to affix their seal to transactions of which they disapproved, threatening to expel anyone who should inform against him. Within a year there was civil war within the Abbey, and the same section of the convent wrote a second desperate appeal to Sir Brian, saying that the Abbot would surely take vengeance upon them unless Sir Brian secured the appointment of a coadjutor.[106] ‘Our monastery is in much decay and misery,’ they confess sadly, and their words obtain confirmation from another extraordinary incident of that year, the trial of the third Prior for making various treasonable remarks, as for example, that the King intended to leave only four churches in England. Other monks of the Abbey had informed against him to ‘avoid guilty participation.’ The result was indecisive, but the whole matter is an indication of the complete demoralisation of the convent.[107]

By this time it was becoming known to the world that St. Albans must fall.[108] Robert Catton was deprived of the Abbacy in the early days of 1538. The convent was induced to renounce its right to elect a successor in favour of Thomas Cromwell, who appointed a certain Richard Boreman (or Stevynache) to the vacancy. According to Abbot Gasquet, Boreman was chosen simply to effect a voluntary surrender of the Abbey, and it certainly is true that in December, 1537, Cromwell’s commissioners had tried in vain to induce Catton to resign the Abbey into their hands. He had declared himself ready, they wrote to Cromwell, ‘to beg his bread all the days of his life rather than surrender, although by the confession of the Abbot himself there is just cause of deprivation, not only for breaking the King’s injunctions, but also for the manifest dilapidation, making of shifts, negligent administration, and sundry other causes.’[109] It seems plain, in fact, that Catton’s deprivation was in large part due to his own misdeeds,[110] a conclusion which is supported by the fact that Boreman himself was soon involved in difficulties with the Government which appointed him. He was sent for a time to gaol, which is difficult of explanation on the assumption that he was a Government tool appointed only to effect a quiet surrender. Eventually the Act of Surrender was signed on December 5th, 1539. Some forty signatures were appended, indicating a decrease of one-third in the normal numbers of the convent.[111] The net monastic income was estimated at £2,102, the fourth highest in the Kingdom.[112] It only remained to divide the spoils, which was done with astonishing quickness. By the year 1544 every acre of the St. Albans estates was disposed of. The Abbey buildings were acquired by the townsmen (and so saved from destruction) at a cost of £400.

The history of St. Albans is sufficient proof that the time is past when we can rest content with generalisations about monasticism in the later Middle Ages. During the fourteenth century the trend of events in the Abbey was entirely contrary to that in most English Houses. While they decayed, St. Albans revived. A century later it is probable that the monasteries as a whole were in a far less degraded condition than St. Albans. Perhaps similarly startling differences will be revealed when the history of other abbeys has been worked out in detail. Many loose generalisations on the subject of the monasteries are due to the assumption that decay or reform proceeded at an equal pace in different abbeys. Froude, for example, sought to trace a growing corruption of monasticism from Norman times. His view was founded simply on his study of St. Albans records, and even here his account was worthless. The decadence, the immorality of which he spoke was largely confined to the early years of the fourteenth century, and the Abbacy of William Wallingford (1476–1490). To see in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries a consistent, uniform process of decay is largely to misunderstand St. Albans’ history.

It is true, nevertheless, that the best days of the Abbey were already past at the beginning of the fourteenth century. The evolution of modern from mediaeval society, which was effected during our period, was fatal to monasticism. The country grew more and more out of sympathy with the monasteries; amid uncongenial surroundings, St. Albans, in common with other abbeys, became increasingly unpopular. By its unintelligent conservatism St. Albans alienated the sympathies of section after section of the community, until at the Dissolution it stood well-nigh in isolation. Recent defence of the monastic system has failed as completely as Froude’s indictment. In the Dissolution of St. Albans we may not, like Froude, ‘see the workings of the ineffable Being,’ but we are no less unable to regret it, to look upon it as a great social calamity.

Appendix:

_See Note 88, p. 60._

The account of William Wallingford’s abbacy in the _Lives and Benefactions_[113] ... is inconsistent with all that is known of him from other sources. The Abbot is described in a tone of excessive admiration which cannot be reconciled with the account of him supplied by Morton’s letter. In the _Lives and Benefactions_ ..., for instance, he is stated to have left the Monastery entirely free of debt. This is not only intrinsically improbable, but is directly contradicted by Morton’s statement. Again, it is difficult to imagine any adequate reason why the convent should solemnly fix its seal as a testimony to the proof of the narrative, especially when the Abbot was, as it seems, still living. Indeed, considered apart from other evidence, this last passage, without explicitly stating it, distinctly implies that Wallingford did die in 1484. Doubtless the error of Newcome (followed by the editors of Dugdale’s _Monasticon_), who states that Wallingford died in 1484, is to be explained in this way.

It may be well, therefore, to repeat that the folio of the Register containing the account of Wallingford’s election is missing, having been apparently torn from the MS.; that he had been convicted of appropriating Abbot Stoke’s treasure in 1451; that in the ‘Register of John Whethamstede’ he is continually mentioned in terms of extreme disgust; and finally, that the Register of his own abbacy breaks off abruptly the year before Morton’s Commission.

In view of these facts we must regard the story of his abbacy, as told in the _Lives and Benefactions_, with extreme mistrust. It is not improbable that this account was written by a convent fearful of offending a tyrannical Abbot; it is by no means impossible that the Abbot himself caused the narrative to be written as an answer to the charges contained in Morton’s letter.

LIST OF THE ABBOTS OF ST. ALBAN’S

FROM 1291 TO 1539.

John de Berkhamstede 1291–1302.
John de Maryns 1302–1308.
Hugh de Eversdon 1308–1326.
Richard de Wallingford 1326–1335.
Michael de Mentmore 1335–1349.
Thomas de la Mare 1349–1396.
John Moote 1396–1401.
William Heyworth 1401–1420.
John Whethamstede 1420–1440.
John Stoke 1440–1452.
John Whethamstede (2) 1452–1464.
William Albon 1464–1476.
William Wallingford 1476–1491(?).
John Ramrygge 1492–1521.
Thomas Wolsey 1521–1530.
Robert Catton 1530–1538.
Richard Boreman (Stevynache) 1538–1539.

Chief Authorities.

A.--PRIMARY [PRINTED].

_Gesta Abbatum Monasterii St. Albani._ 3 vols. Ed. H. T. Riley.
_Rolls Series._

_Historia Anglicana: Thomas Walsingham._ 2 vols. Ed. H. T. Riley.
_Rolls Series._

_Johannis de Trokelowe et H. de Blaneforde Chronica et Annales._ Ed.
H. T. Riley. _Rolls Series._

_Chronicon Angliae._ Ed. E. M. Thompson. _Rolls Series._

_John Amundesham: Annales Monasterii S. Albani._ 2 vols. Ed. H. T.
Riley. _Rolls Series._

_Registrum Abbatiae Johannis Whethamstede._ 2 vols. Ed. H. T. Riley.
_Rolls Series._

_Calendar of the Patent Rolls_ (from the beginning of the period up
to 1485).

_Calendar of the Close Rolls_ (from the beginning of the period up to
1364).

_Calendar of Papal Registers: Papal Letters and Papal Petitions._

_Calendar: Letters and Papers Foreign and Domestic._ Ed. Brewer and
Gairdner. 1509–1545.

_Wilkins: Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae._ Vol. III.

_Monasticon: Dugdale._ Vol. II. 1819.

_Catalogue: Materials for British History._ Ed. Duffus Hardy. Vol.
III. _Rolls Series._

B.--SECONDARY.

_The History and Antiquities of the County of Hertford._ Robert
Clutterbuck. 3 vols. London. 1815–27.

_History of Hertfordshire._ J. E. Cussans. 3 vols. 1870–81.

_Historical Antiquities of Hertford._ Henry Chauncey. 1700.

_The History of the Abbey of St. Albans._ Peter Newcome. 1795.

_History of the Monastery of Tynemouth._ W. S. Gibson. 2 vols. 1846–7.

_The Victoria History of the English Counties._ Hertford. Vol. II.

_Constitutional History._ Stubbs. Vol. II. 1906.

_Le Soulèvement des Travailleurs d’Angleterre en 1381 par André
Réville._ Ed. Petit Dutaillis. Paris, 1898.

_John of Gaunt._ Armitage Smith. 1904.

_An Essay on English Municipal History._ James Thompson. 1867.

_Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History._ Ed. Vinogradoff.
I.--The English Monasteries on the Eve of Dissolution. Savine.

_Henry VIII and the English Monasteries._ Gasquet. 1899.

_Short Studies: Third Series._ J. A. Froude. 1877. ‘Annals of an
English Abbey.’

_Lollardy and the Reformation._ 3 vols. James Gairdner. 1908–1911.

_History of England._ Froude. Vol. II. 1877.

_The English Historical Review_ (E.H.R.), Vol. XXIV.

Among these authorities the material is derived primarily from _Gesta Abbatum_, Vols. II and III, _Annals of John Amundesham_, and _Register of John Whethamstede, 1422–1488_. Where no authority is given for a statement it is from one of these volumes. Reference to these for every fact cited would have unduly encumbered the essay with notes.

HOLYWELL PRESS, OXFORD.

FOOTNOTES

[1] In view of the fact that the Abbey contained sixty monks, St. Albans was relatively slenderly endowed. _Cf._ below, p. 23.

[2] The shrines of St. Osyth and St. Amphibalus, also at St. Albans, were scarcely less famous.

[3] About twelve cells were founded; the most important being Tynemouth and Wymondham, in Northumberland and Norfolk respectively.

[4] _Gesta Abbatum I_, p. 489.

[5] _Gesta Abbatum I_, p. 307; _II_, p. 3. Still more oppressive was the enactment of a General Lateran Council under Innocent IV, by which the Abbot had to visit Rome, either in person or by proxy, once every three years. The cost of such journeys and the extortion of the Holy See were regarded as a heavy grievance. ‘Iste quoque Abbas,’ says the chronicler (_Gesta Abbatum I_, p. 312), referring to Abbot John of Hertford (elected 1235), ‘in novitate sua multis exactionibus fatigabatur et expensis, sed prae omnibus Romanorum oppressionibus novis et inauditis coepit molestari.’

[6] See for example, _Gesta Abbatum I_, p. 397.

[7] The economic history of the Abbey cannot fairly be so divided, and will therefore be treated in Section II from 1300–1539.

[8] _Mems. of St. Edmundsbury._ Arnold. Vol. III, passim.

[9] _Gesta Abbatum II_, p. 95.

[10] _Gesta Abbatum II_, appendix, p. 469.

[11] _Gesta Abbatum II_, p. 130.

[12] _Gesta Abbatum III_, pp. 396–423.

[13] _Gesta Abbatum III_, p. x.

[14] St. Albans probably kept a ‘studium’ at Gloucester Hall from 1337. De la Mare, John Moote, Hethworth and Whethamstede were all considerable benefactors of the College, among their gifts being a chapel, library, and the rebuilding of the old wooden house in stone. For the relations of the Abbey and Gloucester Hall, see Daniel and Barker’s _History of Worcester College_, chapter III.

[15] _Gesta Abbatum II_, 406.

[16] Living in England in captivity. He was a close friend of the Abbot, and spent much of his time at St. Albans.

[17] The need of it had long been felt: the privilege had, in fact, been bought in two particular cases, _viz._, in 1235 for 300 marks, and in 1260 for 600 marks. The figures (as well as the new arrangement to pay 1000 marks in the future) indicate the growth of governmental extortion.

[18] The almost chronic dearth at St. Albans in the early fourteenth century was a further misfortune. In 1314 the price of provisions in the town was excessive, and Edward endeavoured to fix it by Ordinance (_Trokelowe_, p. 89).

[19] _Cal. Papal Registers: Papal Letters II_, 1305–1342, p. 75.

[20] _Cal. Papal Registers: Papal Letters II_, 1305–1342, p. 75.

[21] _Cal. Pat. Rolls_, 1327–1330, p. 84.

[22] _Cal. Pat. Rolls_, 1327–1330, p. 362.

[23] _Gesta Abbatum III_, p. 147, ‘per epidemias hominum et mortalitatem bestiarum facultates monasterii redditae sunt exiles.’ Also Walsingham, _Hist. Ang. I_, 273. ‘At that time,’ says Walsingham, ‘villages formerly very populous were bereft of inhabitants, and so thickly did the plague lay them low that there scarcely survived enough to bury the dead.... Many were of opinion that scarce a tenth of the population survived.’

[24] _Cal. Pat. Rolls_, 1348–1350, p. 476.

[25] _Gesta Abbatum III_, p. 146. A minor demand was liberty for the abbot-elect to receive benediction at the hand of whatever bishop he chose.

[26] _Gesta Abbatum III_, p. 148. Summa taxae omnium bonorum.

[27] _Gesta Abbatum III_, p. 171.

[28] _Cal. Papal Letters IV_, p. 293. Sep., 1396.

[29] The grant of the same privilege to the Abbey of Evesham in 1363 was used as a strong argument by de la Mare during negotiations.

[30] _Gesta Abbatum III_, p. 143. In 1396, Bury St. Edmunds made a similar arrangement, the annual payment being fixed at £40 (_Cal. Pat. Rolls_, 1396–99, p. 21). About a year later, following the example of St. Albans, Abbot Cratfield, of Bury St. Edmunds, made an agreement with Boniface IX identical with that of de la Mare (_Cal. Pat. Rolls_, 1396–99, p. 406).

[31] He tells, for instance, how in 1384, in the midst of an argument with the Duke of Lancaster, he threw his shoes and cap through the window. In 1387 a judge made difficulties about signing a document presented to him. His son said, according to Walsingham, that his father was knocked down and kicked as he lay.

[32] _Trokelowe_, p. 167.

[33] _Gesta Abbatum III_, lxxii.

[34] The chronicle has survived in two forms, _viz._, Cotton MSS., Otho Cii (British Museum), and Bodleian MSS. 316 ff, 150–1, plus Harleian MSS. 6434. It has been printed in _Chronicon Angliae_ (Rolls Series).

[35] The Royal MSS. E. ix (B.M.)--the basis of Walsingham’s _Historia Anglicana_.

[36] See Maunde Thompson. Intro. to _Chronicon Angliae_ (Rolls Series).

[37] _Historia Anglicana I_, p. 339.

[38] The peasant armies in 1381 are said to have taken as their cry: ‘We will have no King named John.’

[39] See Armitage Smith, John of Gaunt, pp. 169–171.

[40] This is sufficient proof--if proof were needed--of the ‘independence’ of English chroniclers, _i.e._, they did not merely write what they were told.

[41] _Tout. Polit. Hist. of England_, 1216–1377, p. 452: ‘The monks were jealously proud of their library to which almost every abbot found it expedient to contribute largely.’ In 1326 there was great indignation when Abbot Richard gave or sold nearly forty volumes to Richard de Bury, a famous lover of books, to promote the interests of the abbot at Court. The incident was not forgotten, and after de Bury’s death the books were bought back by the new abbot.

[42] _E.g._ Higden’s _Polychronicon_, viii. 278.

[43] The Scriptorium had been founded by Abbot Paul, circa 1077. Owing to the ignorance of his own monks he was compelled to fill it with hired scribes. Towards the end of the twelfth century a ‘historiographer’ was appointed, and from that time the systematic compilation of annals may be taken to date. From the peculiar character of the St. Albans script Sir T. Duffus Hardy concluded that Matthew Paris learnt the art of writing from a foreign schoolmaster. See Catalogue: _Materials for History of Great Britain and Ireland III_, xxv, xxxiv, cxxiii.

[44] The same epoch left its impress upon the Abbey fabric. Much of it was rebuilt by Abbot Thomas, though unfortunately lapse of time and the restoration by Lord Grimthorpe’s munificence have left little except the great Abbey gateway. Some stained glass, wall-paintings and a rood screen of this date still remain, and in Abbot Whethamstede’s chapel there is a beautiful brass of De la Mare.

[45] Chaucer: Prologue, &c. (Morris), lines 165–206.

[46] _Cf._ p. 12 ante.

[47] _Viz._ Essex, Hertford, Bedford, Bucks, Cambridge, Kent, Middlesex, Yorkshire, Norfolk, Northampton, Berks, Lincoln, and in London.

[48] _Gesta Abbatum II_, pp. 157–8.

[49] Another small outbreak in 1356 has escaped the notice of writers on St. Albans municipal history. See _Cal. Pat. Rolls_, 1354–1358, p. 493. It was perhaps as a consequence of this that the Convent secured a licence (1357) to crenellate the dwelling-place of the Abbey. _Cal. Pat. Rolls_, 1354–1358, p. 574.

[50] _Whethamstede II_, p. 324–5; for such services the villein commonly received besides his food a small wage.

[51] _Gesta Abbatum I_, p. 453–455.

[52] An unusually severe regulation.

[53] It was highly desirable for the Abbot to maintain this distinction. In the King’s courts the villein had no case against his lord save for bodily injury. In practice it appears that the Abbot of St. Albans could inflict even bodily injury with impunity. See, for instance, the case of Nicholas Tybson, who, having been stripped, thrashed and wounded by the Abbot’s servants, brought an action for redress. The case was at once dismissed as a false appeal on the ground that Tybson was the born villein of the Abbot (_Gesta Abbatum III_, p. 39).

[54] T. W. Page: ‘End of Villeinage in England’ passim. See, too, Petit-Dutaillis’ introduction to Réville, where the views of Stubbs and Thorold Rogers on this subject are exploded. The period 1349–1381, it is proved, was not marked (as they believed) by the reduction to serfdom of men emancipated before the Black Death, or the re-assertion on the part of landlords of labour services already commuted for money payments. On the contrary, the process of commutation (which had not advanced nearly so far by 1349 as Stubbs thought) proceeded at an increasing rate after 1349.

[55] No manumissions occur in the records until more than a generation after the revolt: evidently the old system remained unprosperous but intact at St. Albans in 1381.

[56] Réville: _Le Soulèvement des Travailleurs d’Angleterre en 1381_, p. xxv. See also _Gesta Abbatum II_, p. 123 and _III_, pp. 39–41, _Whethamstede II_, pp. 324 and 333. At the cell of Tynemouth in 1378 there is no trace of commutation in the manor rolls; the old system still exists in its entirety; see Gibson: _History of Tynemouth_, Vol. II, Appendix, p. cxxi.

[57] _Amundesham I_, 163.

[58] _Whethamstede II_, Intro., p. xxxv.

[59] A few years earlier Abbot Heyworth had suppressed a similar rising at Barnet (_Whethamstede I_, 451–2).

[60] _Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History_, Vol. I, p. 177.

[61] See _Utopia_ (Clarendon Press Edition), pp. 13–20.

[62] It is unfortunate that the surveys of the Commissioners in 1535 for Hertford have perished. At the same time the condition of monastic estates was wonderfully similar, and St. Albans was probably no exception.

[63] On the other hand classical learning became more esteemed. It is impossible not to see in the florid verses of Whethamstede and in his prose (loaded with classical allusion and metaphor) an early appearance of the Renaissance spirit in England. Verse and prose are alike worthless, but show a striving after something better than mediaeval monastic writing. The tendency becomes more marked in his work after his visit to Italy in 1423, where he was certainly influenced by the early Humanist movement.

[64] The town of St. Albans was apparently something of a Lollard centre. Sir John Oldcastle lay in hiding there, and when in 1414 William Murlee (one of his followers) was hanged and burnt, the convent firmly believed that he had planned to put them every one to death (Walsingham: _Hist. Angl. II_, 298–299). See, too, the account of the proceedings at the Synod held by Whethamstede in 1429 (_Amundesham I_, 222–3): for commission to put down heresy (_Amundesham II_, 23). The Abbot’s bitterness extended to any departure from orthodoxy, and Pecock was an object of his special dislike.

[65] _E.g._ He instituted and endowed ‘a common chest,’ to which resort was to be made only at times of great financial necessity. He also created the office of ‘Master of the Works,’ to whom he assigned regular funds with which the Master was to keep the Abbey buildings in repair and put up new structures when required.

[66] Riley, for instance, thought it probable that Whethamstede was the Duke of Gloucester’s political adviser, and that his resignation of the abbacy in 1440 was due to the waning of ‘Good Duke Humphrey’s’ popularity before the rising star of Beaufort. ‘When ... the contending rivals had been alike removed by the impartial hand of death, we find him emerging from his comparatively obscure position as a pensioned monk of the Abbey, and on the first opportunity attaining the Abbacy once more’ (_Amundesham II_, liv).

[67] ‘His (Whethamstede’s) counsels,’ says Riley, ‘seem to have been sought with equal eagerness by the two great heads of the antagonistic parties of the politics of the times, the intriguing and ambitious Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, and his ... nephew, the Duke of Gloucester’ (_Amundesham I_, xv).

[68] _Cal. Pat. Rolls_, 1436–1441, p. 422.

[69] The King is found nevertheless in 1549 spending Easter at the Abbey and lavishing gifts upon the Abbot.

[70] _Whethamstede I_, 396. The St. Albans chronicles make a valuable contribution to political history for the years 1450–1461. For this the coincidence of two decisive battles being fought at St. Albans is responsible.

[71] _Newcome_, p. 374. Clutterbuck: _History and Antiquities of the County of Hertford I_, Appendix I, pp. 527–46, for a copy of Edward IV’s charter.

[72] For the growth of Episcopal hatred, see _Amundesham I_, p. 73–82, 142–195, and 300–408.

[73] _Gesta Abbatum III_, p. 472.

[74] _Amundesham I_, 29, 31.

[75] _Amundesham I_, 101.

[76] _Whethamstede I_, p. 25.

[77] _Whethamstede I_, p. 475.

[78] _Whethamstede I_, XV.

[79] It is a curious circumstance that the folio containing the account of his election has been torn out of the register.

[80] MS. Cotton: _Nero D.VII_ (British Museum), folios 25A-48A. _Whethamstede I_, 451. A different MS. from that of his Register (_viz._ MS. Arundel III, College of Arms), which contains the charges against him.

[81] There are a few instances, however, during Albon’s rule.

[82] _E.g._ Office of Seneschal of the Liberty bestowed upon several prominent political figures between 1474 and 1482 (see _Whethamstede II_, xxx).

[83] _Whethamstede II_, xxxii. Riley has examined such cases in detail. It appears that even his right of presentation of a Prior to the Cell of Tynemouth was alienated by Wallingford.

[84] E.H.R. xxiv. 319–321: the Bull was promulgated in March, 1490. Mr. James Gairdner believes the curious omission in the Bull of any mention of Benedictine Houses due to the fact that there were so few exempt in England. More probably, I think, the omission was due to the Pope’s unwillingness to reverse a brief he had issued less than two months previously. In February, 1490, at the solicitation of Abbot Wallingford, Innocent VIII had addressed a brief to the Archbishop bidding him defend St. Albans against all attacks as an exempt House. Evidently Wallingford had an inkling of the impending reform and strove to anticipate Morton.

[85] _Wilkins Concilia III_, p. 632; the translation is from Froude.

[86] In 1484 Wallingford formally allowed Thomas Hethnes, keeper of the George Inn, to have a chapel for the celebration of the Mass by the Chaplains of ‘such great men and nobles and others as should be lodging at this hostelry’ (_Whethamstede II_, xxxiii; also p. 269), a clear indication of the decline of the one-time famous hospitality.

[87] The history of these transactions is taken from an article by Mr. Gairdner (E.H.R. xxiv. 319–321) based upon Abbot Gasquet’s researches in the Papal archives.

[88] Mr. Gairdner gives it as his opinion that the visitation was not carried out (see _Lollardy and the Reformation_, Vol. I, pp. 269–272, Vol. III, p. xxxi). He bases his view on a passage in the St. Albans obit book (_Whethamstede I_, p. 478), recording a victory of Wallingford over the Archbishop. This passage, it appears from what follows, was written not later than 1484 (see _Whethamstede I_, p. 479), the convent solemnly affixing its seal to the narrative under the date ‘anno domini millesimo quadringentesimo octogesimo quarto, die, videlicet, mensis Augusti octava.’ Probably therefore the account refers to an earlier and unsuccessful attempt of the Archbishop to carry out a visitation (see Appendix).

[89] _Letters and Papers I_, No. 71.

[90] _Letters and Papers_, 1519, No. 487.

[91] _Letters and Papers_, 1519, No. 510.

[92] _Letters and Papers_, 1521, No. 1843.

[93] _Letters and Papers_, 1523, No. 3239.

[94] Gasquet: _Henry VIII and the English Monasteries_, p. 27; the appropriation of the revenues of Prez and Tenby to his colleges at Oxford and Ipswich is natural; the revenues of the suppressed houses were too small to have been of any real assistance to St. Albans.

[95] Savine: _English Monasteries on the Eve of the Dissolution_, p. 24 (Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History). The surveys of six counties are missing from _Valor Ecclesiasticus_.

[96] _Ibid._, pp. 263–267. _Cf._ His conclusion that the monks maintained a population not more than four times their own number. Abbot Gasquet had stated it to be at least ten times as great. _Cf._, too, Hibbert’s _The Dissolution of the Monasteries_, p. 210.

[97] _E.g._ _Whethamstede II_, xxxi.

[98] _Cf._ Morton’s letter to the Abbot, 1490. _Whethamstede II_, xxxiii.

[99] _Cf._ Morton’s letter to the Abbot, 1485 (_Whethamstede II_, xxxiii).

[100] _Cf._ Robert Aske’s remarks in 1536 with regard to the blessings the abbeys conferred upon the ‘poor commons’ (Gasquet’s _Henry VIII and the English Monasteries_, p. 225).

[101] The printing press generally said to have existed within the Abbey was probably set up in the town by an anonymous master of the Grammar School about 1480. See an elaborate article in the _Victoria History of English Counties_ (Hertford), Vol. II, pp. 47–56.

[102] The school was refounded 1549; probably it never ceased actually to exist.

[103] Already in 1528 Wolsey had suppressed a number of the smaller monasteries, among them the nunnery of St. Mary de Prez (on the ground that the inmates did not preserve good discipline) and the cell of Pembroke.

[104] Adding ‘It were well to suppress the nunnery of Sopwell as you may see by the comperts’ (_Letters and Papers_, 1535, No. 661). The state of affairs would thus really seem to have been worse in the smaller houses than at St. Albans; but of Binham, on the other hand, there is direct evidence that, except that its numbers had grown smaller, it was in good condition (_Letters and Papers_, 1534, No. 574).

[105] _Letters and Papers_, 1535, No. 1155.

[106] _Letters and Papers_, 1536, No. 642.

[107] _Letters and Papers_, 1536, No. 354.

[108] _Letters and Papers_, 1537, No. 1209.

[109] _Monasticon II_, p. 207.

[110] From one of his letters to Cromwell it would appear that as early as January, 1536, Catton felt his position insecure owing to the complaints of his own monks. ‘Trusts greatly to Cromwell his position here being so intrikyd with extreme penury ... and most of all encumbered with an uncourteous flock of brethren.’ (_Letters and Papers_, 1536, No. 152).

[111] The average decline in numbers has been calculated by Savine as one-fifth; so the proportion at St. Albans was high.

[112] The three greater were: Canterbury (£2,423); Westminster (£2,409); and Glastonbury (£3,311) (Savine Appendix, p. 270–288).

[113] _Whethamstede I_, p. 475–479.

Transcriber’s Notes

Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they were not changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left unbalanced.

This book contains archaic spellings of many words.

Pages containing only chapter titles were deleted, as the same information appeared at the top of the next page.