CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY FROM Cornell University Library The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027961352 SCENES AND CHARACTERS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. . SCENES AND CHARACTERS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. By the Rev. EDWARD L.'^CUTTS, b.a., LATE HON. SEC OF THE ESSEX ARCH^OLOGICAL SOCIETY. WITH ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-TWO ILLUSTRATIONS. I^ONDON : VIRTUE & CO., 26, IVY LANE, PATERNOSTER ROW. c^ 1872. ^: LONDON PRINTED DY VIRTUE ANI> CO. CITY ROAD PREFACE. I HE Essays which are collected in this volume were originally published, from time to time, in the monthly numbers of the Art-Journal, extending over a period of nearly five-and- twenty years. The woodcuts which accompanied them have gradually accumulated into a very considerable series of interesting and really valuable con- temporary illustrations of the costume and manners of the Middle Ages, well worthy of being thus brought together in a convenient form. The Essays were in some cases little more than popular sketches intended to introduce and explain the woodcuts, in some cases they were the results of some original research into little known subjects of antiquarian interest. The author would gladly have rewritten the Essays on a more complete and systematic plan, had more important occupations left him the necessary leisure ; he has made some considerable additions to the original matter. It is hoped that in its present shape the work may interest the general reader; the illustrations cannot fail to be of value to the antiquary ; and the numerous references to the Illuminated MSS. in the British Museum will help the student to gather for him- self fresh material from that rich and inexhaustible mine of medieeval archaeology. CONTENTS. \/ THE MONKS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. CHAPTER I. THE ORIGIN OF MONACHISM. PAOB Hermits of the Thebaid — The " Laura " — Rule of Pachomius — ^Rule of St. Basil — British Monasteries i CHAPTER n. THE BENEDICTINE ORDERS. St. Benedict— His Rule— Early Saxon Monasteries put under Rule of St. Benedict by Archbishop Dunstan — The Habit — Relaxation of DiscipHne — Reformed Orders of Benedictines — Founding of Clairvaux — Clugniacs — Carthusians — Cistercians ... . 6 CHAPTER in. THE AUGUSTINIAN ORDERS. Canons Secular — Canons Regular — Premonstratensians — GUbertines — Nuns of Tontevraud — ^Bonhommes — Brigittines — Hospitals — St. Bartholemew's . .18 CHAPTER IV. THE MILITARY ORDERS. Templars — Hospitallers— Trinitarians— Alien Priories 26 CHAPTER V. THE ORDERS OF FRIARS. TheirObject— Labours— Character— Dominicans— Franciscans— Carmelites— Austin Friars — Chaucer's Friars — Dissolution of Monasteries 36 Contents. CHAPTER VI. THE CONVENT. PAGK Abbot — His Duties — His Habit — ^Abbess — Prior — Prioress — Chaucer's Prioress — Prior's Duties — Sub-prior — Precentor — Sacrist — Hospitaller — Infirmarer — Almoner — Master of the Novices — Porter — Kitchener — Seneschal — Cloister Monks — Novices — Chaplains — Artificers — Servants — Associates — Chaucer's Monks 54 CHAPTER VII. THE MONASTERY. Sites of Monasteries — Ground Plan — Church — Chapter-house — Fratry — Refectory — Other Buildings — Scriptorium — Abbot's Lodging — Hospitium — Piers Plough- man'sDescription ofaConvent of Friars — Dependent Cells . . . .70 I , THE HERMITS AND RECLUSES OF THE MIDDLE AGES. CHAPTER I. THE HERMITS. Their Origin — Chararcter — Habit — Service for habiting and blessing Hermit — Different Social Classes — Sites of Hermitages — Richard of Hampole — Hermit- ages — St. Robert's Chapel, Knaresborough — At "Warkworth — At Dale Abbey . — At Wetheral' — At Bewdley — At Teuton — Construction of Hermitages — ■ Spenser's Hermit — Hermitage at Limay 93 CHAPTER II. ANCHORESSES, OR FEMALE EECLUSES. Origin— Early Customs— Description of Anchorage— Its Chapel— Chaplain— An- chorages in Town Churchyards, at York, Lincoln, Norwich, &c. . .' .120 CHAPTER III. ANCHORAGES. Plan— Material— At Rettendon— At East Homdon— At St. Patricio— At Chipping Norton — At Warmington — Recluse Priests— Interior of Reclusorium— The "Ancren Riewle" — Bilney's Account of Anchoresses — Habit— Service for enclosing Recluse 1,2 Contents. ix CHAPTER IV. CONSECRATED WIDOWS. PAGE Service for their Benediction — Form of Profession — Examples — Lady Aleanor GifFard— Isabelle Golafre — Lady Cecyle of Ballavylle 152 Xxy THE PILGRIMS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. CHAPTER I. PILGRIMS. Origin of Pilgrimages — Saxon Pilgrims — Pilgrims of different Ranks — With different Motives — Popular Shi'lnes^ — Service for blessing Pilgrims — Robe — Hat — Staff — Scrip — Pilgrim Signs — Piers Ploughman's Pilgrim . . . . . 157 CHAPTER II. OUR LADY OF WALSINGHAM AND ST. THOMAS OF CANTERBURY. Pilgrims for Penance — For Pleasure — Went in Companies — Erasmus's "Pere- grinatio Religionis erga" — Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham — Relics — Modem Pilgrims — Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrimage — Erasmus's Description of the Shrine of St. Thomas i. Becket — Relics — Shrine of St. Edmund at Bury — Female Pilgrims — Returned Thanks on Return Home — Tombs of Pilgrims — Illustrations of Costume 176 ^^7/ THE SECULAR CLERGY OF THE MIDDLE AGES. CHAPTER I. THE PAROCHIAL CLERGY. Conversion of the English — Parochial SY Sleip — Cathedral Establishments — Parish Rectors — Impropriation — Foreign Incumbents — Pluralities — Incumbents in Minor Orders — Parish_Chaplains — Education of Priest — Poor Scholars — Educa- tion promoted by the Church — Chantry Priests — Guild Priests — Mass Priests — Domestic Chaplains — Chapel Establishments of Noblemen and Gentlemen — Oratories . . 195 CHAPTER. II. CLERKS IN MINOR ORDERS, l^^ Names and Symbols of Minor Orders — Meaning of Title " Clerk "—Chaucer's Clerks of Oxford — Parish Clerk — Antiquity of Office-Duties — Chaucer's Parish Clerk . 214 b Contents. CHAPTER 11 r. THE PARISH PRIEST. PAGE Monies— Friars— Seculars— Rivalry between Friars and Secrdars— Extracts from Piers Ploughman's Vision— Comparison of Mediaeval Seculars and Modern Clergy— " Instructions to Parish Priests "—Chaucer's " Poor Parson " . . 222 CHAPTER IV. CLERICAL COSTUME. Official Costume of Pope— Cardinal— Archbishop— Bishop— Priest— Deacon— Sub- deacon — Acolyte — Ordinary Costume— Ecclesiastical Regulations — Illustrated from Miniatures — Wills — Post-Reformation Costume 232 CHAPTER V. PARSONAGE HOUSES. The Cathedral Close — Canons' Houses— Vicar's Court — Rectories — Kelvedon Vicar- age — Furniture of a Parsonage — Hospitality of the Clergy .... 252 // , THE MINSTRELS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. / CHAPTER I. Music of the Israelites — Saxon Bards — Saxon Musical Instruments — The Organ — Troubadours — Bands of Minstrels retained by Kings and Nobles — By Corpo- rate Towns — Music at the Banquet — At the Dance 267 CHAPTER II. SACRED MUSIC. Minstrels in Chapel — Angel Minstrels — Bishop Grostete's Minstrel — Minstrels in Monasteries — At Tournaments — Wandering Minstrels — Their Romantic Adventures — Legislation ... . . ... 284 CHAPTER III. GUILDS OF MINSTRELS. The Chester Minstrels — The Beverley Minstrels — Shepherds — Female Minstrels — Costume — Miniature Pictures — Musical Instruments of the Fifteenth Centuiy . 298 Contents, xi PAGE -^y THE KNIGHTS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. CHAPTER I. SAXON ARMS AND ARMOUR. Illustrated from Relics in their Graves— From Miniature Pictures— From Beowulf- The Helmet— Coat of MaU — Dagger— Sword— Spear— Shield— Horsemen- Troop of Soldiers — Mantle and Brooch 311 CHAPTER H. , ARMS AND ARMOUR, FROM THE NORMAN CONQUEST DOWNWARDS. The Feudal System— Military Service— Armour of Knights— Coat of Mail— Chausses —Helmet — Ai'morial Bearings — Weapons — Sword — Spear— Axe— Mace — Cross-bow — Illustrations from Miniatures 326 CHAPTER HI. ARMOUR OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. Gradual Introduction of Plate Armour — The Surcoat— Cyclas—Jupon— Belt- Leather Armour — QuUted Armour — Gambeson — Hacqueton — Illustrations from Miniatures— Jousting— Chaucer's " Sire Thopas "—The Squire . . .338 CHAPTER TV. THE DAYS OF CHIVALRY. Medieval England— The Knight-Errant— His Adventures— His Combats . . 353 CHAPTER V. KNIGHTS-ERRANT. Adventures — A Siege— Medieval Drill and Tactics — Warfare .... 369 CHAPTER VI. MILITARY ENGINES. Attack of Fortified Place— Scaling-ladder-^Trebuchet — Arbalast — Battering-ram —Mining — The " Sow " — Movable Tower — Mantelet — Cannon and Mortars — Field Works — Defences of Camp 380 CHAPTER VII. ARMOUR OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY, Plate Armour — Its Changes of Form — Illustrations from Miniatures . . 394 CHAPTER VIII. THE knight's education. j.^^^^^ Page— Playm?atToumaments-Squii-e-Chaucer'sSquire— Knighthood— Chaucer's Knight-Chivalric Character of War— Tournaments regulated by Legislation ^^ —Single Combat— Wager of Battle 4° CHAPTER IX. ON TOURNAMENTS. In the Romances — Froissart's Passage of Arms at St. Inglebert's — Chaucer's Tournament of Palamon and Arcite 4^3 CHAPTER X, MEDIEVAL BOWMEN. Norman Archers at Hastings— Mounted Archers— The Cross-bow— Illustrations from Miniatm-es — Legislative Encouragement of Archery— Cannon— Hand- guns — Greek Fire ■. 439 CHAPTER XI. FIFTEENTH CENTURY AND LATER ARMOUR. Changes in the latter part of the Fifteenth Century— Armour of Henry VIII.— Tournament Armour— Henry VIII.'s Army— His Camp— Armour of the Time of Elizabeth— Of the Stuarts 45^ NY THE MERCHANTS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. CHAPTER I. / THE BEGINNINGS OP BRITISH COMMERCE. Ancient British Commerce with the Phoenicians — Carthaginians — Gauls — Romans — Saxon Commerce — Charlemagne's Letter — Athelstan's Law — Saxon Exports and Imports — London^- Shipping— Commerce of London in the Twelfth Century — Carried on by Foreign Merchants — Shipping of Thirteenth Cen- tury — Galleys — Fourteenth Century Seaport — Early Illustration of Whale Fishery ..... . ij.6l CHAPTER II. THE NAVY. Navy of Richard I. — Fourteenth Century Shipping — Fifteenth Century Shipping — The Cinque Ports — Piracy — Private Naval Warfare. ^yc Contents. xiii CHAPTER III. THE SOCIAL POSITION OF THE MEDIEVAL MERCHANTS. PAOK Mediaeval Estimation of Trade — Cadets of good Families became Traders — Merchant Guilds — Bird's-eye View of Mediaeval England^Merchant Princes — The De la Poles at Hull — Cannynges at Bristol — Whittington at London — Their Munificence — Chaucer's Merchants and Burgesses — Alderman Field — Costume .............. 487 CHAPTER IV. MEDIEVAL TRADE. , Fairs and Markets — Shops in Towns — Illustrations of Shops from Miniatures — Slarlset-day — Pedlars — Pacli-horses 503 CHAPTER V. COSTUME. Townsmen of St. Alban's — ^Wool Merchants of Northleach — Sumptuary Laws — Merchants' Marks S'^ CHAPTER VI. MEDIAEVAL TOWNS. Their Origin — Hull — Winchelsea — Population of Towns — Houses and Streets — Illustrations from Miniatures — Inns — Town Halls ...... 529 .._l THE MONKS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. CHAPTER I. THE ORIGIN OF MONACHISM. E do not aim in these chapters at writing general history, or systematic treatises. Our business is to give a series of sketches of mediaeval life and mediaeval characters, looked at especially from the artist's point of view. And first we have to do with the monks of the Middle Ages. One branch of this subject has already been treated in Mrs. Jameson's " Legends of the Monastic Orders." This accomplished lady has very pleasingly narrated the traditionary histories of the founders and saints of the orders, which have furnished subjects for the greatest works of mediaeval art ; and she has placed monachism before her readers in its noblest and most poetical aspect. Our humbler task is to give a view of the familiar daily life of ordinary monks in their monasteries, and of the way in which they enter into the general life without the cloister ; — such a sketch as an art-student might wish to have who is about to study that picturesque mediaeval period of English history for subjects for his pencil. The religious orders occupied so important a position in medieval society, that they cannot be overlooked by the historical student ; and the flowing black robe and severe intellectual features of the Benedictine monk or the coarse frock and sandalled feet of the mendicant friar, are too characteristic and too effective, in contrast with the gleaming armour B The Monks of the Middle Ages. and richly-coloured and embroidered robes of the sumptuous civil costumes of the period, to be neglected by the artist. Such an art- student would desire first to have a general sketch of the whole history of monachism, as a necessary preliminary to the fuller study of any particular portion of it. He would wish for a sketch of the internal economy of the cloister ; how the various buildings of a monastery were arranged ; and what was the daily routine of the life of its inmates. He would seek to know under what circumstances these recluses mingled with the outer world. He would require accurate particulars of costumes and the like antiquarian details, that the accessories of his picture might be correct. And, if his monks are to be anything better than representations of monkish habits hung upon " lay figures," he must know what kind of men the Middle Age monks were intellectually and morally. These particulars we proceed to supply as fully as the space at our command will permit. Monachism arose in Egypt. As early as the second century we read of men and women who, attracted by the charms of a peaceful, contemplative life, far away from the fierce, sensual, persecuting heathen world, betook themselves to a life of solitary asceticism. The mountainous desert on the east of the Nile valley was their favourite resort ; there they lived in little hermitages, rudely piled up of stones, or hollowed out of the mountain- side, or in the cells of the ancient Egyptian sepulchres, feeding on pulse and herbs, and water from the neighbouring spring. One of the frescoes in the Campo Santo, at Pisa, by Pietro Laurati, engraved in Mrs. Jameson's " Legendary Art," gives a curious illustration of this phase of the eremitical life. It gives us a panorama of the desert, with the Nile in the foreground, and the rock caverns, and the httle her- mitages built among the date-palms, and the hermits at their ordinary occu- pations : here is one angling in the Nile, and another dragging out a net ; there is one sitting at the door of his cell shaping wooden spoons. Here, again, we see them engaged in those mystical scenes in which an over- wrought imagination pictured to them the temptations of their senses in visible demon-shapes— beautiful to tempt or terrible to affright j or materialised the spiritual joys of their minds in angelic or divine visions : Anthony driving out with his staff the beautiful demon from his cell, or The Origin of Monachism. rapt in ecstasy beneath the Divine apparition.* Such pictures of the early hermits are not infrequent in mediaeval art — one, from a fifteenth century MS. Psalter in the British Museum (Domit. A. xvii. f. 4 v), will be found in a subsequent chapter of this book. We can picture to ourselves how it must have startled the refined Graeco- Egyptian world of Alexandria when occasionally some man, long lost to society and forgotten by his friends, reappeared in the streets and squares of the city, with attenuated limbs and mortified countenance, with a dark hair-cloth tunic for his only clothing, with a reputation for exalted sanctity and spiritual wisdom, and vague rumours of supernatural revelations of the unseen world ; like another John Baptist sent to prfeach repentance to the luxurious citizens ; or fetched, perhaps, by the Alexandrian bishop to give to the church the weight of his testimony to the ancient truth of some doctrine which began to be questioned in the schools. Such men, when they returned to the desert, were frequently accom- panied by numbers of others, whom the fame of their sanctity and the persuasion of their preaching had induced to adopt the eremitical life. It is not to be wondered at that these new converts should frequently build, or select, their cells in the neighbourhood of that of the teacher whom they had followed into the desert, and should continue to look up to him as their spiritual guide. Gradually, this arrangement became systematised ; a number of separate cells, grouped round a common oratory, contained a community of recluses who agreed to certain rules and to the guidance of a chosen head ; an enclosure wall was generally built around this group, and the establishment was called a laura. The transition from this arrangement of a group of anchorites occupying the anchorages of a laura under a spiritual head, to that of a community * We cannot put down all these supernatural tales as fables or impostures ; similar tales abound in the lives of the religious people of the Middle Ages, and they are not unknown in modem days: e.g., Luther's conflict with Satan in the Wartzburg, and Colonel Gardiner's vision of the Saviour. Which of them (if any) are to be considered true supernatural visions, which may be put down as the natural results of spiritual excitement on the imagination, which are mere baseless legends, he would be a very self-confident . critic who professed in all cases to decide. The Monks of the Middle Ages. living together in one building under the rule of an abbot, was natural and easy. The authorship of this ccenobite system is attributed to St. Anthony, who occupied a ruined castle in the Nile desert, with a community of disciples, in the former half of the fourth century. The coenobitical insti- tution did not supersede the eremitical ; both continued to flourish together in every country of Christendom.* The first written code of laws for the regulation of the lives of these communities was drawn up by Pachomius, a disciple of Anthony's. Pachomius is said to have peopled the island of Tabenne, in the Nile, with coenobites, divided into monasteries, each of which had a superior, and a dean to every ten monks ; Pachomius himself being the general director of the whole group of monasteries, which are said to have con- tained eleven hundred monks. The monks of St. Anthony are represented in ancient Greek pictures with a black or brown robe, and often with a tau cross of blue upon the shoulder or breast. St. Basil, afterwards bishop of Cesaraea, who died a.d. 378, introduced monachism into Asia Minor, whence it spread over the East. He drew up a code of laws founded upon the rule of Pachomius, which was the foun- dation of all succeeding monastic institutions, and which is still the rule followed by all the monasteries of the Greek Church. The rule of St. Basil enjoins poverty, obedience, and chastity, and self-mortification. The habit both of monks and nuns was, and still is, universally in the Greek Church, a plain, coarse, black frock with a cowl, and a girdle of leather, or cord. The monks went barefooted and barelegged, and wore the Eastern tonsure, in which the hair is shaved in a crescent ofif the fore part of the head, instead of the Western tonsure, in which it is shaved in a circle off the crown. Hilarion is reputed to have introduced the Basilican institution mto Syria ; St. Augustine into Africa ; St. Martin of Tours into France • St. Patrick into Ireland, in the fifth century. ' The early history of the British Church is enveloped in thick obscurity but It seems to have derived its Christianity (indirectly perhaps) from an Eastern « Besides consulting the standard authorities on the archaeology of the subject th. student wiU do weU to read Mr. Kingsley's charming book, '■ The Hermits of the Desert " . The Origin of Monachimi. source, and its monastic system was probably derived from that established in France by St. Martin, the abbot-bishop of Tours. One remarkable feature in it is the constant union of the abbatical and episcopal offices ; this conjunction, which was foreign to the usage of the church in general, seems to have obtained all but universally in the British, and subsequently in the English Church. The British monasteries appear to have been very large ; Bede tells us that there were no less than two thousand one hundred monks in the monastic establishment of Bangor in the sixth century, and there is reason to believe that the number is not overstated. They appear to have been schools of learning. The vows do not appear to have been perpetual; in the legends of the British saints we constantly find that the monks quitted the cloister without scruple. The legends lead us to imagine that a provost, steward, and deans, were the officers under the abbot ; answering, perhaps, to the prior, cellarer, and deans of Benedictine insti- tutions. The abbot-bishop, at least, was sometimes a married man. CHAPTER II. THE BENEDICTINE ORDERS. |N the year 529 a.d., St. Benedict, an Italian of noble birth and great reputation, introduced into his new monastery on Monte Cassino — a hill between Rome and Naples — a new monastic rule. To the three vows of obedience, poverty, and chastity, which formed the foundation of most of the old rules, he added another, that of manual labour (for seven hours a day), not only for self-support, but also as a duty to God and man. Another important feature of his rule was that its vows were perpetual. And his rule lays down a daily routine of monastic life in much greater detail than the preceding rules appear to have done. The rule of St. Benedict speedily became popular, the majority of the existing monasteries embraced it ; nearly all new monasteries for centuries afterwards adopted it ; and we are told, in proof of the universality of its acceptation, that when Charlemagne caused inquiries to be made about the beginning of the eighth century, no other monastic rule was found existing throughout his wide dominions. The monasteries of the British Church, however, do not appear to have embraced the new rule. St. Augustine, the apostle of the Anglo-Saxons, was prior of the Bene- dictine monastery which Gregory the Great had founded upon the Celian Hill, and his forty missionaries were monks of the same house. It cannot be doubted that they would introduce their order into those parts of England over which their influence extended. But a large part of Saxon England owed its Christianity to missionaries of the native church sent forth from the great monastic institution at lona and afterwards at Lindisfame and these would doubtless introduce their own monastic system. We find The Benedictine Orders. in fact, that no uniform rule was observed by the Saxon monasteries ; some seem to have kept the rule of Basil, some the rule of Benedict, and others seem to have modified the ancient rules, so as to adapt them to their own circumstances and wishes. We are not surprised to learn that under such circumstances some of the monasteries were lax in their discipline ; from Bede's accounts we gather that some of them were only convents of secular clerks, bound by certain rules, and performing divine offices daily, but enjoying all the privileges of other clerks, and even sometimes being married. Indeed, in the eighth century the primitive monastic discipline appears to have become very much relaxed, both in the East and West, though the popular admiration and veneration of the monks was not diminished. In the illuminations of Anglo-Saxon MSS. of the ninth and tenth cen- turies, we find the habits of the Saxon monks represented of different colours, viz., white, black, dark brown, and grey.* In the early MS. Nero C. iv., in the British Museum, at f. 37, occurs a very clearly drawn group of monks in white habits; another group occurs at i. 34, rather more stiffly drawn, in which the margin of the hood and the sleeves is bordered with a narrow edge of ornamental work. About the middle of the ninth century, however. Archbishop Dunstan reduced all the Saxon monasteries to the rule of St. Benedict j not without opposition on the part of some of them, and not without rather peremptory treatment on his part ; and thus the Benedictine rule became universal in the West. The habit of the Benedictines consisted of a white woollen cassock, and over that an ample black gown and a black hood. We give here an excellent representation of a Benedictine monk, from a book which formerly belonged to St. Alban's Abbey, and now is preserved in the British Museum (Nero D. vii. f. 81). The book is the official catalogue which each monastery kept of those who had been benefactors to the house, and who were thereby entitled to their grateful remembrance and their prayers. In many cases the record of a benefaction is accompanied by an illuminated portrait of the benefactor. In the i)resent case, he is .* Strutt's "Dress and Habits of the People of England." 8 The Monks of the Middle Ages. represented as holding a golden tankard in one hand and an embroidered cloth in the other, gifts which he made to the abbey, and for which he is thus immortalised in their Catalogus Benefac- torum. Other illustrations of Benedictine monks, of early fourteenth century date, may be found in the Add. MS. 17,687, at f. 3 ; again at f. 6, where a Benedictine is preaching ; and again at i. 34, where one is preaching to a group of nuns of the same order; and at f. 41, where one is sitting writing at a desk (as in the scrip- torium, probably). Yet again in the MS. Royal 20 D. vii., is a picture of St. Benedict preaching to a group of his monk^. A con- siderable number of pictures of Benedictine monks, illustrating a mediaeval legend of which they are the subject, occur in the lower margin of the MS. Royal 10 E. iv., which is of late thirteenth or early fourteenth century date. A drawing of Abbot Islip of Westminster, who died A.D. 1532, is given in the "Vetusta Monumenta," vol. iv. PI. xvi. In working and travelling they wore over the cossack a black sleeveless tunic of shorter and less ample dimensions. The female houses of the order had the same regulations as those of the monks ; their costume too was the same, a white under garment, a black gown and black veil, with a white wimple around the face and neck. They had in England, at the dissolution of the monasteries, one hundred and twelve monasteries and seventy-four nunneries.* For illustration of an abbess see the fifteenth century -MS. Royal 16 F. ii. at f. 137. The Benedictine rule was all but universal in the West for four centuries ; but during this period its observance gradually became relaxed. Benedictine Monk. * This is the computation of Tanner in his " Notitia Monastica ;" but the editors of the last edition of Dugdale's "Monasticon," adding the smaller houses or cells, swell the number of Benedictine establishments in England to a total of two hundred and fifty- The Benedictine Orders. We cannot be surprised if it was found that the seven hours of manual labour which the rule required occupied time which might better be devoted to the learned studies for which the Benedictines were then, as they have always been, distinguished. We should have anticipated that the excessive abstinence, and many other of the mechanical observances of the rule, would soon be found to have little real utility when simply enforced by a rule, and not practised willingly for the sake of self-dis- cipline. We are not therefore surprised, nor should we in these days attribute it as a fault, that the obligation to labour appears to have been very generally dispensed with, and some humane and sensible relaxations of the severe ascetic discipline and dietary of the primitive rule to have been very generally adopted. Nor will any one who has any experience of human nature expect otherwise than that among so large a body of men — many of them educated from childhood * to the monastic profession — there would be some who were wholly unsuited for it, and some whose vices brought disgrace upon it. The Benedictine monasteries, then, at the time of which we are speaking, had become different from the poor retired com- munities of self-denying ascetics which they were originally. Their general character was, and continued throughout the Middle Ages to be, that of wealthy and learned bodies ; influential from their broad possessions, but still more influential from the fact that nearly all the Uterature, and art, and science of the period was to be found in their body. They were good * If a child was to be received his hand was wrapped in tlie hanging of the altar, " and then," says the rule of St. Benedict, " let them offer him." The words are " Si quas forte de nobilibus oflfert filium suum Deo in monasterio, si ipse puer minore aetata est, parentes ejus faciant petitionem et raanum pueri involvant in pallu altaris, et sic eurn oflFerunt " (c. 59). The Abbot Herman tells us that in the year 1055 his mother took him and his brothers to the monastery of which he was afterwards abbot. " She went to St. Martin's (at Toumay), and delivered over her sons to God, placing the httle one in his cradle upon the altar, amidst the tears of many bystanders" (Maitland's "Dark Ages," p. 78). The precedents for such a dedication of an infant to an ascetic life are, of course, the case of Samuel dedicated by his mother from infancy, and of Samson and John Baptist, who were directed by God to be consecrated as Nazarites from birth. A law was made prohibiting the dedication of children at an earlier age than fourteen. At f. 209 of the MS. Nero D. vii., is a picture of St. Benedict, to whom a boy in monk's habit is holding a book, and he is reading or preaching to a group of monks. lO The Monks of the Middle Ages. landlords to their tenants, good cultivators of their demesnes; great patrons of architecture, and sculpture, and painting ; educators of the people in their schools; healers of the sick in their hospitals; great almsgivers to the poor ; freely hospitable to travellers ; they continued regular and constant in their religious services; but in housing, clothing, and diet, they lived the hfe of temperate gentlemen rather than of self-mortifying ascetics. Doubtless, as we have said, in some monasteries there were evil men, whose vices brought disgrace upon their calling; and there were some monasteries in which weak or wicked rulers had allowed the evil to prevail. The quiet, unostentatious, every-day virtues of such monastics as these were not such as to satisfy the enthusiastical seeker after monastical perfection. Nor were they such as to command the admiration of the unthinking and illiterate, who are always more prone to reverence fanaticism than to appreciate the more sober virtues, who are ever inclined to sneer at religious men and religious bodies who have wealth, and are accustomed to attribute to a whole class the vices of its disreputable members. The popular disrepute into which the monastics had fallen through their increased wealth, and their departure from primitive monastical austerity, led, during the next two centuries, viz., from the beginning of the tenth to the end of the eleventh, to a series of endeavours to revive the primitive discipline. The history of all these attempts is very nearly alike. Some young monk of enthusiastic disposition, disgusted with the laxity or the vices of his brother monks, flies from the monastery, and betakes himself to an eremitical life in a neighbouring forest or wild mountain valley. Gradually a few men of like earnestness assemble round him. He is at length induced to permit himself to be placed at their head as their abbot, requires his followers to observe strictly the ancient rule, and gives them a few other directions of still stricter life. The new community gradually becomes famous for its virtues ; the Pope's sanction is obtained for it ; its followers assume a distinctive dress and name ; and take their place as a new religious order. This is in brief the history of the successive rise of the Clugniacs, the Carthusians, the Cistercians, and the orders of Camaldoli and Vallombrosa and Grandmont ; they all sprang The Benedictine Orders. 1 1 thus out of the Benedictine order, retaining the rule of Benedict as the groundwork of their several systems. Their departures from the Bene- dictine rule were comparatively few and trifling, and need not be enumerated in such a sketch as this : they were in fact only reformed Benedictines, and in a general classification may be included with the parent order, to which these rivals imparted new tone and vigour. The following account of the foundation of Clairvaux by St. Bernard will illustrate these general remarks. It is true that the founding of Clairvaux was not technically the founding of a new order, for it had been founded fifteen years before in Citeaux; but St. Bernard was rightly esteemed a second founder of the Cistercians, and his going forth from the parent house to found the new establishment at Clairvaux was under circum- stances which make the narrative an excellent illustration of the subject. "Twelve monks and their abbot," says his life in the " Acta Sanctorum," " representing our Lord and his apostles, were assembled in the church. Stephen placed a cross in Bernard's hands, who solemnly, at the head of his small band, walked forth from Citeaux Bernard struck away to the northward. For a distance of nearly ninety miles he kept this course, passing up by the source of the Seine, by Chatillon, of school- day memories, till he arrived at La Fertd, about equally distant between Troyes and Chaumont, in the diocese of Langres, and situated on the river Aube. About four miles beyond La Fertd was a deep valley opening to the east. Thick umbrageous forests gave it a character of gloom and wildness ; but a gushing stream of limpid water which ran through it was sufficient to redeem every disadvantage. In June, a.d. 1115, Bernard took up his abode in the valley of Wormwood, as it was called, and began to look for means of shelter and sustenance against the approaching winter. The rude fabric which he and his monks raised with their own hands was long preserved by the pious veneration of the Cistercians. It consisted of a building covered by a single roof, under which chapel, dormitory, and refectory were all included. Neither stone nor wood hid the bare earth, which served for floor. Windows scarcely wider than a man's hand admitted a feeble light. In this room the monks took their ■ frugal meals of herbs and water. Immediately above the refectory was the 1 2 The Monks of the Middle Ages. sleeping apartment. It was reached by a ladder, and was, in truth, a sort of loft. Here were the monks' beds, which were peculiar. They were made in the form of boxes or bins of wooden planks, long and wide enough for a man to lie down in. A small space, hewn out with an axe, allowed room for the sleeper to get in or out. The inside was strewn with chaff, or dried leaves, which, with the woodwork, seem to have been the only covering permitted The monks had thus got a house over their heads; but they had very little else. They had left Citeaux in June. Their journey had probably occupied them a fortnight, their clearing, preparations, and building, perhaps two months ; and thus they would be near September when this portion of their labour was accomplished. Autumn and winter were approaching, and they had no store laid by. Their food during the summer had been- a compound of leaves intermixed with coarse grain. Beech-nuts and roots were to be their main support during the winter. And now to the privations of insufficient food was added the wearing out of their shoes and clothes. Their necessities grew with the severity of the season, till at last even salt failed them ; and presently Bernard heard murmurs. He argued and exhorted ; he spoke to them of the fear and love of God, and strove to rouse their drooping spirits by dwelling on the hopes of eternal life and Divine recompense. Their sufferings made them deaf and indifferent to their abbot's words. They would not remain in this valley of bitterness ; they would return to Citeaux. Bernard, seeing they had lost their trust in God, reproved them no more ; but himself sought in earnest prayer for release from their difficulties. Presently a voice from heaven said, 'Arise, Bernard, thy prayer is granted thee.' Upon which the monks said, ' What didst thou ask of the Lord ?' ' Wait, and ye shall see, ye of little faith,' was the reply ; and presently came a stranger who gave the abbot ten livres." WilKam of St. Thierry, the friend and biographer of St. Bernard, describes the external aspect and the internal life of Clairvaux. We extract it as a sketch of the highest type of monastic life, and as a corrective of the revelations of corrupter life among the monks which find illustration in these pages. "At the first glance as you entered Clairvaux by descending the The Benedictine Orders. 1 3 hill you could see it was a temple of God ; and the still, silent valley bespoke, in the modest simplicity of its buildings, the unfeigned humiHty of Christ's poor. Moreover, in this valley full of men, where no one was permitted to be idle, where one and all were occupied with their allotted tasks, a silence deep as that of night prevailed. The sounds of labour, or the chants of the brethren in the choral service, were the only exceptions. The order of this silence, and the fame that went forth of it, struck such a reverence even into secular persons that they dreaded breaking, it — I will not say by idle or wicked conversation, but even by pertinent remarks. The solitude, also, of the place — between dense forests in a narrow gorge of neighbouring hills — in a certain sense recalled the cave of our father St. Benedict, so that while they strove to imitate his life, they also had some similarity to him in their habitation and loneliness Although the monastery is situated in a valley, it has its foundations on the holy hills, whose gates the Lord loveth more than all the dwellings of Jacob. Glorious things are spoken of it, because the glorious and wonderful God therein worketh great marvels. There the insane recover their reason, and although their outward man is worn away, inwardly they are bom again. There the proud are humbled, the rich are made poor, and the poor have the Gospel preached to them, and the darkness of sinners is changed into light. A large multitude of blessed poor from the ends of the earth have there assembled, yet have they one heart and one mind ; justly, therefore, do all who dwell there rejoice with no empty joy. They have the certain hope of perennial joy, of their ascension heavenward already commenced. In Clairvaux they have found Jacob's ladder, with angels upon it ; some descending, who so provide for their bodies that they faint not on the way ; others ascending, who so rule their souls that their bodies hereafter may be glorified with them. " For my part, the more attentively I watch them day by day, the more do I believe that they are perfect followers of Christ in all things. When they pray and speak to God in spirit and in truth, by their friendly and quiet speech to Him, as well as by their humbleness of demeanour, they are plainly seen to be God's companions and friends. When, on the other hand, they openly praise God with psalmody, how pure and fervent are 1 4 The Monks of the Middle Ages. their minds, is shown by their posture of body in holy fear and reverence, while by their careful pronunciation and modulation of the psalms, is shown how sweet to their lips are the words of God — sweeter than honey to their mouths. As I watch them, therefore, singing without fatigue from before midnight to the dawn of day, with only a brief interval, they appear a little less than the angels, but much more than men " As regards their manual labour, so patiently and placidly, with such quiet countenances, in such sweet and holy order, do they perform all things, that although they exercise themselves at many works, they never seem moved or burdened in anything, whatever the labour may be. Whence it is manifest that that Holy Spirit worketh in them who disposeth of all things with sweetness, in whom they are refreshed, so that they rest even in their toil. Many of them, I hear, are bishops and earls, and many illustrious through their birth or knowledge ; but now, by God's grace, all acceptation of persons being dead among them, the greater any one thought himself in the world, the more in this flock does he regard himself as less than the least. I see them in the garden with hoes, in the meadows with forks or rakes, in the fields with scythes, in the forest with axes. To judge from their outward appearance, their tools, their bad and disordered clothes, they appear a race of fools, without speech or sense. But a true thought in my mind tells me that their life in Christ is hidden in the heavens. Among them I see Godfrey of Peronne, Raynald of Picardy, WilKam of St. Omer, Walter of Lisle, all of whom I knew formerly in the old man, whereof I now see no trace, by God's favour. I knew them proud and puffed up ; I see them walking humbly under the merciful hand of God." The first of these reformed orders was the Clugniac, so called because it was founded, in the year 927, at Clugny, in Burgundy, by Odo the Abbot. The Clugniacs formally abrogated the requirement of manual labour required in the Benedictine rule, and professed to devote themselves more sedulously to the cultivation of the mind. The order was first introduced into England in the year 1077 a.d., at Lewes, in Sussex; but it never became popular in England, and never had more than twenty houses here, and they small ones, and nearly all of them founded before the reign The Benedictine Orders. 15 of Henry II. Until the fourteenth century they were all priories dependent on the parent house of Clugny; though the prior of Lewes was the High Chamberlain, and often the Vicar-general, of the Abbot of Clugny, and exercised a supervision over the English houses of the order. The English houses were all governed by foreigners, and contained more foreign than English monks, and sent large portions of their surplus revenues to Clugny. Hence they were often seized, during war between England and France, as ahen priories. But in the fourteenth century many of them were made denizen, and Bermondsey was made an abbey, and they were all discharged from subjection to the foreign abbeys. The Clugniacs retained the Benedictine habit. At Cowfold Church, Sussex, still remains a monumental brass of Thomas Nelond, who was prior of Lewes at his death, in 1433 A.D., in which he is represented in the habit of his order.* In the year 1084 a.d., the Carthusian order was founded by St. Bruno, a monk of Cologne, at Chartreux, near Grenoble. This was the most severe of all the reformed Benedictine orders. To the strictest observance of the rule of Bene- dict they added almost perpetual silence ; flesh was forbidden even to the sick ; their food was confined to one meal of pulse, bread, and water, daily. It is remarkable that this the strictest of all monastic rules has, even to the present day, been but slightly modified ; and that the monks have never been accused of personally deviating from it. The order was numerous on the Continent, but only nine houses of the order were ever established in England. The principal of these was the Charter- house (Chartreux), in London, which, at the dissolution, was rescued by Thomas Sutton to serve one at least of the purposes of its original Carihusian Monk. Engraved in Boutell's "Monumental Brasses." i6 The Monks of the Middle Ages. foundation — the training of youth in sound religious learning. There were few nunneries of the order — none in England. The Carthusian habit con- sisted of a white cassock and hood, over that a white scapulary — a long piece of cloth which hangs down before and behind, and is joined at the sides by a band of the same colour, about six inches wide ; unlike the other orders, they shaved the head entirely. The representation of a Carthusian monk, on previous page, is reduced from one of Hollar's well-known series of prints of monastic cos- tumes. Another illustration may be referred to in a fifteenth century book of Hours (Add.), at f. lo, where one occurs in a group of religious, which includes also a Benedictine and a Cistercian abbot, and others. In 1098 A.D., arose the Cistercian order. It took the name from Citeaux (Latinised into Cistercium), the house in which the new order was founded by Robert de Thierry. Stephen Harding, an Englishman, the third abbot, brought the new order into some repute ; but it is to the fame of St. Bernard, who joined it in 1113 a.d., that the speedy and widespread popularity of the new order is to be attributed. The order was introduced into England at Waverly, in Surrey, in 11 28 a.d. The Cistercians professed to observe the rule of St. Benedict with rigid exactness, only that some of the hours which were devoted by Benedictines to reading and study, the Cistercians devoted to manual labour. They affected a severe simplicity; their houses were to be simple, with no lofty towers, no carvings or represen- tation of saints, except the crucifix; the furniture and ornaments of their establishments were to be in keeping— chasubles of fustian, candlesticks of iron, napkins of coarse cloth, the cross of wood, and only the chalice might be of precious metal. The amount of manual labour Cistercian Monk. the The Benedictine Orders. 17 prevented the Cistercians from becoming a learned order, though they did produce a few men distinguished in literature ; they were excellent farmers and horticulturists, and are said in early times to have almost monopolised the wool trade of the kingdom. They changed the colour of the Bene- dictine habit, wearing a white gown and hood over a white cassock ; when they went beyond the walls of the monastery they also wore a black cloak. St. Bernard of Clairvaux is the great saint of the order. They had seventy- five monasteries and twenty-six nun- neries in England, including some of the largest and finest in the kingdom. The cut represents a group of Cister- cian monks, from a MS. (Vitellius A. 13) in the British Museum. It shows some of them sitting with hands crossed and concealed in their sleeves — an atti- tude which was considered modest and respectful in the presence of superiors ; some with the cowl over the head. It will be observed that some are and some are not bearded. The Cistercian monk, whom we give in the opposite woodcut, is taken from Hollar's plate. Other reformed Benedictine orders which arose in the eleventh centurj-, viz., the order of Camaldoli, in 1027 a.d., and that of Vallombrosa, in 1073 A.D., did not extend to England. The order of the Grandmon- TiNES had one or two ahen priories here. The preceding orders differ among themselves, but the rule of Benedict is the foundation of their discipline, and they are so far impressed with a common character, and actuated by a common spirit, that we may consider them all as forming the Benedictine family. Group of Cistercian Monks, CHAPTER III. THE AUGUSTINIAN ORDERS. E come next to another great monastic family which is included under the generic name of Augustinians. The Augustinians claim the great St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, as their founder, and relate that he established the monastic communities in Africa, and gave them a rule. That he did patronise monachism in Africa we gather from his writings, but it is not clear that he founded any distinct order ; nor was any order called after his name until the middle of the ninth century. About that time all the various denominations of clergy who had not entered the ranks of monachism- — priests, canons, clerks, &c. — were incorporated by a decree of Pope Leo III. and the Emperor Lothaire into one great order, and were enjoined to observe the rule which was then known under the nafne of St. Augustine, but which is said to have been really compiled by Ivo de Chartres from the writings of St. Augustine. It was a much milder rule than the Benedictine. The Augustinians were divided into Canons Secular and Canons Regular. The Canons Secular of St. Augustine were in fact the clergy of cathedral and collegiate churches, who lived in community on the monastic model ; their habit was a long black cassock (the parochial clergy did not then universally wear black) ; over which, during divine service, they wore a surpHce and a fur tippet, called an almuce, and a four-square black cap, called a baret ; and at other times a black cloak and hood with a leather girdle. According to their rule they might wear their beards, but from the thirteenth century downwards we find them usually shaven. In the Canon's Yeoman's tale, from which the following extract is taken, Chaucer The Augushnian Orders, ig gives us a pen-and-ink sketch of a canon, from which it would seem that even on a journey he wore the surplice and fur hood under the black cloak : — " Ere we had ridden fully five mile," At Brighton under Blee us gau atake [overtake] A man that clothed was in clothes blake, And underneath he wered a surphce. « 4» « « And in my hearte wondren I began "What that he was, till that I understood How that his cloak was sewed to his hood,* For which when I had long avised me, I deemed him some chanon for to be. His hat hung at his back down by a lace." The hat which hung behind may have been like that of the abbot in a subsequent woodcut ; but he wore his hood ; and Chaucer, with his usual humour and life-like portraiture, tells us how he had put a burdock leaf under his hood because of the heat : — " A clote-leaf he had laid under his hood For sweat, and for to keep his head from heat. Chaucer rightly classes the canons rather with priests than monks : — " All be he monk or frere, Priest or chanon, or any other wight." The canon whom we give in the wood-cut over-leaf, from one of Hollar's plates, is in ordinary costume. An engraving of a semi-choir of canons in their furred tippets from the MS. Domitian xvii., will be found in a sub- sequent chapter on the Secular Clergy. There are numerous existing monumental brasses in which the effigies of canons are represented in choir costume, viz., surplice and amice, and often with a cope over all ; they are all bareheaded and shaven. We may mention specially that of William Tannere, first master of Cobham College (died 1 41 8 a.d.), in Cobham Church, Kent, in which the almuce, with its • Probably this means that he had " clocks " — little bell-shaped ornaments — sewn to the lower margin of his tippet or hood. 20 The Monks of the Middle Ages. fringe of bell-shaped ornaments, over the surplice, is very distinctly shown ; it is fastened at the throat with a jewel. The effigy of Sir John Stodeley, canon, in Over Winchendon Church, Bucks (died 1505), is in ordinary costume, an under garment reaching to the heels, over that a shorter black cassock, girded with a leather girdle, and over all a long cloak and hood. The Canons Regular of St. Augustine were perhaps the least ascetic of the monastic orders. Enyol de Provins, a minstrel (and after- wards a monk) of the thirteenth century, says of them : "Among them one is well shod, well clothed, and well fed. They go out when they like, mix with the world, and talk at table." They were little known till the tenth or eleventh century, and the general opinion is, that they were first introduced into England, at Col- chester, in the reign of Henry I., where the ruins of their church, of Norman style, built of Roman bricks, still remain. Their habit was like that of the secular canons — a long black cassock, cloak and hood, and leather girdle, and four-square cap ; they are distinguished from the secular canons by not wearing the beard. According to Tanner, they had one hundred and seventy-four houses in England one hundred and fifty-eight for monks, and sixteen for nunsj but the editors of the last edition of the " Monasticon " have recovered the names of additional small houses, which make up a total of two hundred and sixteen houses of the order. The Augustinian order branches out into a number of denominations ; indeed, it is considered as the parent rule of all the monastic orders and religious communities which are not included under the Benedictine order; and retrospectively it is made to include all the distinguished recluses and clerics before the institution of St. Benedict, from the fourth to the sixth century. Canon of St. Augustine. The Augustinian Orders. 2 1 The most important branch of the Regular Canons is the Premon- STRATENSiAN, founded by St. Norbert, a German nobleman, who died in 1 1 34 A.D. ; his first house, in a barren spot in the valley of Coucy, in Picardy, called Pr^-montre, gave its name to the order. The rule was that of Augustine, with a severe discipline superadded ; the habit was a coarse black cassock, with a white woollen cloak and a white four-square cap. Their abbots were not to use any episcopal insignia. The Pre- monstratensian nuns were not to sing in choir or church, and to pray in silence. They had only thirty-six houses in England, of which Welbeck was the chief; but the order was very popular on the Continent, and at length numbered one thousand abbeys and five hundred nunneries. Under this rule are also included the Gilbertines, who were founded by a Lincolnshire priest, Gilbert of Sempringham, in the year 1139 a.d. There were twenty-six houses of the order, most of them in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire; they were all priories dependent upon the house of Sempringham, whose head, as prior-general, appointed the priors of the other houses, and ruled absolutely the whole order. All the houses of this order were double houses, that is, monks and nuns lived in the same enclosure, though with a rigid separation between their two divisions. The monks followed the Augustinian rule; the nuns followed the rule of the Cistercian nuns. The habit was a black cassock, a white cloak, and hood lined with lambskin. The " Monasticon '' gives very effective repre- sentations (after Hollar) of the Gilbertine monk and nun. The Nuns of Fontevraud was another female order of Augustinians, of which little is known. It was founded at J'ontevraud in France, and three houses of the order were established in England in the time of Henry II. ; they had monks and nuns within the same enclosure, and all subject to the rule of an abbess. The BoNHOMMES were another small order of the Augustinian rule, of little repute in England; they had only two houses here, which, however, were reckoned among the greater abbeys, viz., Esserug in Bucks, and Edindon in Wilts. The female Order of our Saviour, or, as they are usually called, the Brigittines, were founded by St. Bridget of Sweden, in 1363 a.d. They 22 The Monks oj the Middle Ages. were introduced into England by Henry V., who built for them the once glorious nunnery of Sion House. At the dissolution, the nuns fled to Lisbon, where their successors still exist. Some of the relics and vest- ments which they carried from Sion House have been carefully preserved ever since, and are now in the possession of the Earl of Shrewsbury.* Their habit was like that of the Benedictine nuns — a black tunic, white wimple and veil, but is distinguished by a black band on the veil across the forehead. Other small offshoots of the great Augustinian tree were those which observed the rule of St. Austin according to the regulations of St. Nicholas of Arroasia, which had four houses here ; and those which observed the order of St. Victor, which had three houses. We may refer the reader to two MS. illuminations of groups of religious for further illustration of their costumes. One is in the beautiful fourteenth century MS. of Froissart in the British Museum (Harl. 4,380, at f. 18 v). It represents a dying pope surrounded by a group of representative religious, cardinals, &c. Among them are one in a brown beard, and with no appearance of tonsure (? a hermit) ; another in a white scapular and hood (? a Carthusian) ; another in a black cloak and hood over a white frock (? a Cistercian) ; another in a brown robe and hood, tonsured. Again, in the MS. Tiberius B iii. article 3, f. 6, the text speaks of "Convens of monkys, chanons and chartreus, celestynes, freres and prestes, palmers, pylgreymys, hermytes, and reclus," and the illuminator has illustrated it with a row of religious— first a Benedictine abbot ; then a canon with red cassock and almuce over surplice; then a monk with white frock and white scapular banded at the sides, as in Hollar's cut given above, is clearly the Carthusian ; then comes a man in brown, with a knotted girdle, holding a cross staff and a book, who is perhaps a friar; then one in white surpUce over red cassock, who is the priest; then a hermit, in brown cloak over dark grey gown ; and in the background are partly seen two pilgrims and a monk. Other illustrations of monks are frequent in the illuminated MSS. * Mrs. Jameson, " Legends of the Monastic Orders," p. 137. The Augustinian Orders. 23 The HOSPITALS of the Middle Ages deserve a more extended notice than we can afford them here. Some were founded at places of pilgrimage and along the high roads, for the entertainment of poor pilgrims and travellers. Thus at St. Edmund's Bury there was St. John's Hospital, or God's House, without the south gate ; and St. Nicholas Hospital, without the east gate ; and St. Peter's Hospital, without the Risley gate ; and St. Saviour's Hospital, without the north gate — all founded and endowed by abbots of St. Edmund. At Reading there was the Hospital of St. Mary Magdalene, for twelve leprous persons and chaplains; and the Hospital of St. Lawrence, for twenty-six poor people and for the entertainment of strangers and pilgrims — ^both founded by abbots of Reading ; one at the gate of Fountains Abbey, for poor persons and travellers ; one at Glaston- bury, under the care of the almoner, for poor and infirm persons ; &c., &c. In- deed, they were scattered so profusely up and down the country that the last edition of the " Monasticon " enume- rates no less than three hundred and seventy of them. Those for the poor had usually a little chamber for each person, a common hall in which they took their meals, a chapel in which they attended daily service. They 'Bedesmen. Temp. Hen. VII. usually were under the care and go- vernment of one or more clergymen; sometimes in large hospitals of a prior and brethren, who were Augustinian canons. The canons of some of these hospitals had special statutes in addition to the general rules, and were distinguished by some pecuUarity of habit; for example, the canons of the Hospital of St. John Baptist at Coventry wore a cross on the breast of their black cassock, and a similar one on the shoulder of their cloak. The poor people were also under a simple rule, and were regarded as part of the community. The accompanying woodcut enables us to place a group of them before the eye of the reader. It is from one of the initial letters of the deed (Harl. 1,498) by which Henry VII. 24 The Monks of the Middle Ages. founded a fraternity of thirteen poor men (thirteen was a favourite number for such hospitals) in Westminster Abbey, who were to be under the governance of the monks, and to repay the king's bounty by their pfayers.- The group represents the abbot and some of the monks, and behind them some of the bedesmen, each of whoni has the royal badge — the rose and crown — on the shoulder of his habit, and holds in his hand his rosary, the symbol of his prayers. Happily some of these ancient foundations have continued to the present day, and the brethren may be seen yet in coats of antique fashion, with a cross or other badge on the sleeve. Examples of the architecture of the buildings may be seen in the Bede Houses in Higham Ferrers Churchyard, built by Archbishop Chechele in 1422 ; St. Thomas's Hospital, Northampton; Wyston's Hospital, Leicester; Ford's Hospital, Coventry ; the Alms Houses at Sherborne ; the Leicester Hospital at Warwick, &c. Mr. Turner, in the " Domestic Architecture," says that there exists a complete chronological series from the twelfth century downwards. Hospitals were also established for the treatment of the sick, of which St. Bartholomew's Hospital is perhaps our most illustrious instance. It was founded to be an infirmary for the sick and infirm poor, a lying-in hospital for women — there were sisters on the hospital staff, and if the women happened to die in hospital their children were taken care of till seven years of age. The staff" usually consisted of a community living under monastic vows and rule, viz., a prior and a number of brethren who were educated and trained to the treatment of sickness and disease and one or more of whom were also priests ; a college, in short, of clerical physicians and surgeons and hospital dressers, who devoted themselves to the service of the sick poor as an act of religion, and had always in mind our Lord's words, " Inasmuch as ye do it to one of the least of these my brethren, ye do it unto me." In the still existing church of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, in Smithfield, is a monument of the founder " Rahere, first canon and prior," which is, however, of much later date probably of about 1410 a.d. ; his recumbent effigy, and the kneeling figures of two of his canons beside him, afford good authorities for costume. They have been engraved in the " Vetusta Monumenta," vol. ii. PI. xxxvi The Augustinian Orders. 2 5 The building usually consisted of a great hall in which the sick lay, a chapel for their worship, apartments for the hospital staff, and other apart- ments for guests. We are not aware of any examples in England so perfect as some which exist in other countries, and we shall therefore borrow some foreign examples in illustration of the subject. The commonest form of these hospitals seems to have been a great hall divided by pillars into a centre and aisles, in which rows of beds were arranged ; with a chapel in a separate building at one end of the hall, and other buildings irregularly disposed in a courtyard ; as at the Hotel Dieu of Chartres, a building of 1153 A.D.,* and the Salle des Morts at Ourscamp.f AtTonerre we find a modification of the above plan. The hospital is still a vast hall, but is divided by timber partitions along the side walls into little separate cells. Above these cells, against the side walls, and projecting partly over the cells, are two galleries, along which the attendants might walk and look down into the cells. At the east end of this hall two bays were screened off for the chapel, so that they who were able might go up into the chapel, and they who could not rise from their beds could still take part in the service.^ At Tartoine, near Laon la Ffere, is a hospital on a different plan : a hall, with cells on one side of it, is placed on one side of a square courtyard, and the chapel and lodgings for the brethren on another side of the' court. § » Viollet le Due's " Dictionary of Architecture," vol. vi. p. 104. t Ibid. vi. 107. X Ibid. vi. 112. \ Ibid. vi. 112. CHAPTER IV. THE MILITARY ORDERS. E have already sketched the history of the rise of monachism in the fourth century out of the groups of Egyptian eremites, and the rapid spread of the institution, under the rule of Basil, over Christendom ; the adoption in the west of the new rule of Benedict in the sixth century ; the rise of the reformed orders of Benedictines in the tenth and eleventh centuries; and the institution in the eleventh and twelfth centuries of a new group of orders under the milder discipline of the Augustinian rule. We come now to a class of monastics who are included under the Augustinian rule, since that rule formed the basis of their discipline, but whose striking features of difference from all other religious orders entitle them to be reckoned as a distinct class, under the designation of the Military Orders. When the history of the mendicant orders which arose in the thirteenth century has been read, it will be seen that these military orders had anticipated the active religious spirit which formed the characteristic of the friars, as opposed to the contemplative religious spirit of the monks. But that which peculiarly characterises the military orders, is their adoption of the chivalrous crusading spirit of the age in which they arose : they were half friars, half crusaders. The order of the Knights of the Temple was founded at Jerusalem in 1118 A.D., during the interval between the first and second crusades, and in the reign of Baldwdn I. Hugh de Payens, and eight other brave knights, in the presence of the king and his barons, and in the hands of the Patriarch, bound themselves into a fraternity which embraced the fundamental monastic vows of obedience, poverty, and chastity • and in The Military Orders. 2 7 addition, as the special object of the fraternity, they undertook the task of escorting the companies of pilgrims from the coast up to Jerusalem, and thence on the usual tour to the Holy Places. For 'the open country was perpetually exposed to the incursions of irregular bands of Saracen and Turkish horsemen, and death or slavery was the fate which awaited any caravan of helpless pilgrims whom the infidel descried as they swept over the plains, or whom they could waylay in the mountain passes. The new knights undertook besides to wage a continual war in defence of the Cross against the infidel. The canons of the Temple at Jerusalem gave the new fraternity a piece of ground adjoining the Temple for the site of their home, and hence they took their name of Knights of the Temple ; and they gradually acquired dependent houses, which were in fact strong castles, whose ruins may still be seen, in many a strong place in Palestine. Ten years after, when Baldwin II. sent envoys to Europe to implore the aid of the Christian powers in support of his kingdom against the Saracens, Hugh de Payens was sent as one of the envoys. His order received the approval of the Council of Troyes, and of Pope Eugene III., and the patronage of St. Bernard, who became the great preacher of the second crusade ; and when Hugh de Payens returned to Palestine, he was at the head of three hundred knights of the noblest houses of Europe, who had become members of the order. Endowments, too, for their support flowed in abundantly; and gradually the order established depend- ent houses on its estates in nearly every country of Europe. The order was introduced into England in the reign of King Stephen ; at first its chief house, " the Temple," * was on the south side of Holbom, London, near Southampton Buildings ; afterwards it was removed to Fleet Street, where the establishment still remains, long since converted to other uses ; but the original church, with its round nave, after the form of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem,! still continues a monument of the * All its houses were called Temples, as all the Carthusian houses were called Char- tereux (corrupted in England into Charterhouse). t Of the four round churches in England, popularly supposed to have been built by the Templars, the Temple Church in I^ondon was built by them ; that of Maplestead, in Essex, by the Hospitallers ; that of Northampton by Simon de St. Liz, first Norman 28 The Monks of the Middle Ages. wealth and grandeur of the ancient knights. They had only five other houses in England, which were called Preceptories, and were dependent upon the Temple in London. The knights wore the usual armour of the period ; but while other knights wore the flowing surcoat of the twelfth or thirteenth centuries, or the tight-fitting jupon of the fourteenth, or the tabard of the fifteenth, of any colour which pleased their taste, and often embroidered with their armorial bearings, the Knights of the Temple • were distinguished by wearing this portion of their equipment of white, with a red cross over the breast; and over all a long flowing white mantle, with a red cross on the shoulder; they also wore the monastic ton- sure. In the early fourteenth cen- tury MS. in the British Museum, Royal 1,696, at f. 335, is a representation of Eracles, Prior at Jerusalem, the Prior of the Hospital, and the Master of the Temple, sent to France to ask for succour. The illumination shows us the King of France sitting on his throne, and before him is standing a religious in mitre and crozier, who is no doubt Eracles, and another in a peculiarly shaped black robe, with a cross patee on the left shoulder, who is either Hugh de Payens the Templar, or Raymond de Puy the Hospitaller, but which it is difficult to determine. Again, in the fine fourteenth A Knight Templa Earl of Northampton, twice a pilgrim, to the Holy Land ; and that of Cambridge by some unknown individual. The Military Orders. 29 century MS., Nero E. 2, at f. 345 v, is a representation of the trial of the Templars : there are three of them standing before the Pope and the King of France, dressed in a grey tunic, and over that a black mantle with a red cross on the left breast, and a pointed hood over the shoulders. Folio 350 represents the Master of the Temple being burnt to death in presence of the king and nobles. Again, in the fine MS. Royal 20, c. viii., of the time of our Richard II., at f. 42 and f. 48, are representations of the same scenes. Folio 42 is a group of Templars habited in long black coat, fitting close up to the neck, like the ordinary civil robes of the time, with a pointed hood (like that with which we are familiar in the portraits of Dante), with a cross patee on the right shoulder ; the hair is tonsured. At f. 45 is the burning of a group of Templars (not tonsured), and at f. 48 the burning of the Master of the Temple and another (tonsured). Their banner was of a black and white striped cloth, called beauseani, which word they adopted as a war- cry. The rule allowed three horses and a servant to each knight. Married knights were admitted, but there were no sisters of the order. The order was suppressed with circumstances of gross injustice and cruelty in the fourteenth century, and the bulk of their estates was given to the Hospitallers. The knight here given, from Hollar's plate, is a prior of the order, in armour of the thirteenth century. The Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, or the Knights Hospitallers, originally were not a military order; they were founded about 1092 by the merchants of Amalfi, in Italy, for the purpose of affording hospitality to pilgrims in the Holy Land. Their chief house, which was called the Hospital, was situated at Jerusalem, over against the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; and they had independent hospitals in other places in the Holy Land, which were frequented by the pilgrims. Their kindness to the sick and wounded soldiers of the first crusade made them popular, and several of the crusading princes endowed them with estates ; while many of the crusaders, instead of returning home, laid down their arms, and joined the brotherhood of the Hospital. During this period of their history their habit was a plain black robe, with a hnen cross upon the left breast. 30 The Monks of the Middle Ages. At length their endowments having become greater than the needs of their hospitals required, and incited by the example of the Templars, a little before estabhshed, Raymond de Puy, the then master of the hospital, offered to King Baldwin II. to reconstruct the order on the model of the Templars. From this time the two military orders formed a powerful standing army for the defence of the kingdom of Jerusalem. When Palestine was finally lost to the Christians, the Knights of St. John passed into the Isle of Cyprus, afterwards to the Isle of Rhodes, and, finally, to the Isle of Malta,* .maintaining a constant warfare against the infidel, and doing good service in checking the westward progress of the Mohammedan arms. In the latter part of their history, and down to a recent period, they conferred great benefits by checking the ravages of the corsairs of North Africa on the commerce of the Mediterranean and the coast towns of Southern Europe. They patrolled the sea in war- galleys, rowed by galley-slaves, each of which carried a force of armed soldiers— inferior brethren of the order, officered by its knights. They are not even now extinct. The order was first introduced into England in the reign of Henry I., at Clerkenwell; which continued the principal house of the order in England, and was styled the Hospital. The Hospitallers had also dependent houses, called Commanderies, on many of their English estates, to the number of fifty-three in all. The houses of the military knights in England were only cells, erected on the estates with which they had been endowed, in order to cultivate those estates for the support of the order, and to form depots for recruits ; i.e. for novices, where they might be trained, not in learning like Benedictines, or agriculture like Cistercians, or preaching like Dominicans, but in piety and in military exercises. A plan and elevation of the Commandery of Chabbum, Northumberland, are engraved in Turner's " Domestic Architecture," vol. iii. p. 197. The superior of the order in England sat in Parliament, and was * The order was divided into nations — the English knights, the French knights, &c. — each nation having a separate house, situated at different points of the island, for its defence. These houses, large and fine buildings, still remain, and many unedited records of the order are said to be still preserved on the island. The Military Orders. 31 accounted the first lay baron. When on military duty the knights wore the ordinary armour of the period, with a red surcoat marked with a white cross on the breast, and a red mantle with a white cross on the shoulder. Some of their churches in England possibly had circular naves, like the church of the Temple in Jerusalem; out of the four " round churches," which remain, one belonged to the Knights of the Hospital. The chapel at Chabburn is a rectangular building. There were many sisters of the order, but only one house of them in England. One of two earUer represen- tations of knights of the order may be noted here. In a MS. in the Library at Ghent, of the date of our Edward IV., is a picture of John Lonstrother, prior of the order; he wears a long sleeveless gown over armour. It is engraved in the " ArchaRogia," xiii. 14. The MS. Add. 18,143 in the British Museum is said in a note at the beginning of the volume to have been the missal of Phillippe de VilUers de ITsle Adam, the famous Grand Master of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem from 1521 to 1534. In the frontispiece is a portrait of the Grand Master in a black robe lined with fur, and a cross patee on the breast. On the opposite page is another portrait of him in a robe of different fashion, with a cross rather differently shaped. The monument of the last Enghsh Prior, Sir Thomas Tresham, in his robes as prior of the order, still remains in Rushton Church, Northants. A fine portrait of a Knight of Malta is in the National Gallery. The Hospitaller given on the A Knight Hospitaller. 32 The Monks of the Middle Ages. preceding page, from Hollar's plate, is a (not very good) representation of one in the armour of the early part of the fourteenth century, with the usual knight's chapeau, instead of the mail hood or the basinet, on his head. It will be gathered from the authorities of the costume of the Knights of the Temple and of the Hospital here noted, that when we picture to our- selves the knights on duty in the Holy Land or elsewhere, it should be in the armour of their period with the uniform surcoat of their order ; but when we desire to realise their appearance as they were to be ordinarily seen, in chapel or refectory, or about their estates, or forming part of any ordinary scene of English life, it must be in the long cassock-like gown, with the cross on the shoulder, and the tonsured head, described in the above authorities, which would make their appearance resemble that of other religious persons. Other military orders, which never extended to England, were the order of Teutonic Knights, a fraternity similar to that of the Tem- plars, but consisting entirely of Germans ; and the order of Our Lady OF Mercy, a Spanish knightly order in imitation of that of the Trini- tarians. * • One other order of religious — the Trinitarians— we have reserved for this place, because while by their rule they are classed among the Augus- tinian orders, the object of their foundation gives them an affinity with the military orders, and their mode of pursuing that object makes their organisation and life resemb le that of friars. The moral interest of their work, and its picturesque scenes and associations, lead us to give a little larger space to them than we have been able to do to most of the other orders. It is difficult for us to realise that the Mohammedan power seemed at one time not unlikely to subjugate all Europe ; and that after their career of conquest had been arrested, the Mohammedan states of North Africa continued for centuries to be a scourge to the commerce of Europe, and a terror to the inhabitants of the coasts of the Mediter- ranean. They scoured the Great Sea with their galleys, and captured ships; they made descents on the coasts, and plundered towns and villages ; and carried off the captives into slavery, and retreated in safety The Military Orders. 33 with their booty, to their African harbours. It is only within quite recent times that the last of these strongholds was destroyed by an English fleet, and that the Greek and Italian feluccas have ceased to fear the Algerine pirates. We have already briefly stated how the Hospitallers, after their original service was ended by the expulsion of the Christians from the Holy Land, settled first at Cyprus, then at Rhodes, and did good service as a bulwark against the Mohammedan progress ; and lastly, as Knights of Malta, a.cted as the police of the Mediterranean, and did their best to oppose the piracies of the Corsairs. But in spite of the vigilance and prowess of the knights, many a merchant ship was captured, many a fishing village was sacked, and many captives, men, women, and children of all ranks of society, were carried off into slavery ; and their slavery was a cruel one, exaggerated by the scorn and hatred bred of antagonism in race and religion, and made ruthless by the recollection of ages of mutual injuries. The relations and friends of the unhappy captives, where they were people of wealth and influence, used every exertion to rescue those who were dear to them, and their captors were ordinarily willing to set them to ransom; but hopeless indeed was the lot of those — and they, of course, were the great majority — who had no friends rich enough to help them. The miserable fate of these helpless ones moved the compassion of some Christ-like souls. John de Matha, born, in 11 54, of noble parents in Provence, with Felix de Valois, retired to a desert place, where, at the foot of a little hill, a fountain of cold water issued forth ; a white hart was accustomed to resort to this fountain, and hence it had received the name of Cervus Frigidus, represented in French by (or representing the French?) Cerfroy. There, about a.d. 1197, these two good men— the Clarkson and Wilberforce of their time— arranged the institution of a new Order for the Redemption of Captives. The new order received the approval of the Pope Innocent III., and took its place among the recognised orders of the church. This Papal approval of their institution constituted an authorisation from the head of the church to seek alms from all Christen- dom in furtherance of their object. Their rules directed that one-third of their income only should be reserved for their own maintenance, one-third F 34 The Monks of the Middle Ages. should be given to the poor, and one-third for the special object of redeeming captives. The two philanthfopists preached throughout France, collecting alms, and recruiting men who were willing to join them in their good work. In the first year they were able to send two brethren to Africa, to negotiate the redemption of a hundred and eighty-six Christian captives ; next year, John himself went, and brought back a thankful company of a hundred and ten ; and on a third voyage, a hundred and twenty more; and the order continued to flourish,* and established a house of the order in Africa, as its agent with the infidel. They were introduced into England by Sir William Lucy of Charlecote, on his return from the Crusade ; who built and endowed for them Thellesford Priory in Warwickshire ; and subsequently they had eleven other houses in England. St. Rhadegunda was their tutelary saint. Their habit was white, with a Greek cross of red and blue on the breast — the three colours being taken to signify the three persons of the Holy Trinity, viz., the white, the Eternal Father ; the blue, which was the transverse limb of the cross, the Son ; and the red, the charity of the Holy Spirit. The order were called Trinitarians, from their devotion to the Blessed Trinity, all their houses being so dedicated, and hence the significance of their badge ; they were commonly called Mathurins, after the name of their founder; and Brethren of the Order of the Holy Trinity FOR THE Redemption of Captives, from their object. Before turning from the monks to the friars, we must devote a brief sentence to the Alien Priories. These were cells of foreign abbeys, founded upon estates which English proprietors had given to the foreign houses. After the expenses of the establishment had been defrayed, the surplus revenue, or a fixed sum in lieu of it, was remitted to the parent house abroad. There were over one hundred and twenty of them when Edward I., on the breaking out of the war with France, seized upon them. * An order, called our Lady of Mercy, was founded in Spain in 1258, by Peter Nolasco, for a similar object, including in its scope not only Christian captives to the infidel, but also all slaves, captives, and prisoners for debt. The Military Orders. 35 in 1285, as belonging to the enemy. Edward II. appears to have pursued the same course; and, again, Edward III, in 1337. Henry IV. only reserved to himself, in time of war, what these houses had been accustomed to pay to the foreign abbeys in time of peace. But at length they were all dissolved by act of Parliament in the second year of Henry V., and their possessions were devoted for the most part to religious and charitable uses. CHAPTER V. THE ORDERS OF FRIARS. |E have seen how for three centuries, from the beginning of the tenth to the end of the twelfth, a series of reHgious orders arose, each aiming at a more successful reproduction of-4he monastic ideal. The thirteenth^entury saw the rise of a new class of religious~X)rders, actuated by a different principle from that of mon- achism. The principle of monachism, we have said, was seclusion from mankind, and abstraction from worldly affairs, for the sake of religious contemplation. To this end monasteries were founded in the wilds, far from the abodes of men ; and he who least often suffered his feet or his thoughts to wander beyond the cloister was so far the best ^ monk. The principle which inspired the Friars was that of devotion to the^erfbrmance of active religious duties among maiikind. Their houses were built in or near the great towns ; and to the majority of the brethren the houses of the ordet.were mere temporary resting-places, from which they issued to make their journeys through town and country, preaching in the parish churches, or from the steps of the market-crosses, and carrying their ministrations to every castle and every cottage. " I speke of many hundred years ago, For uow can no man see non elves mo ; For now the great charity and prayers Of lymytours and other holy freres That serchen every land and every stream As thick as motis in the sunne-beam, Blessing halls, chambers, kitchens, and bowers, Cities and burghs, castles high and towers. The Orders of Friars. 3 7 Thorps and barns, shippons and dairies, This maketh that there been no fairies. For there as wont to walken was an elf. There walketh now the lymytour himself In undermeles and in morwenings,* And sayeth his matins and his holy things. As he goeth in his lymytacioun." — Wife of Bath's Tale. They were, in fact, home missionaries ; and the zeal and earnestness of their early efforts, falling upon times when such an agency was greatly needed, produced very striking results. " Till the days of Martin Luther," says Sir James Stephen, " the church had never seen so great and effectual a reform as theirs . . . Nothing in the histories of Wesley or of Whitefield can be compared with the enthusiasm which everywhere welcomed them, or with the immediate visible result of their labours." In the character of St. Francis, notwithstanding its superstition and exaggerated asceticism, there is something specially attractive : in his intense sympathy with the sorrows and sufferings of the poor, his tender and respectful love for them as members of Christ, his heroic self-devotion to their service for Christ's sake in his vivid realisation of the truth that birds, beasts, and fishes are God's creatures, and our fellow-creatures. In the work of both Francis and Dominic there is much which is worth careful study at; the present day. Now, too, there is a mass of misery in our large towns huge and horrible enough to kindle the Christ-Uke pity of another Francis; in country as well as town there are ignorance and irreligion enough to call forth the zeal of another Dominic. In our Sisters of Mercy we see among women a wonderful rekindling of the old spirit of self-sacrifice, in a shape adapted to our time; we need not despair of seeing the same spirit rekindled among men, freed from the old superstitions and avoiding the old blunders, and setting itself to combat the gigantic evils which threaten to overwhelm both religion and social order. Both these re/ormers took great pains to fit their followers for the office of preachers and teachers, sending them in large numbers to the universities, and founding colleges there for the reception of their students. With an admirable largeness of view, they did npt confine * Afternoons and mornings. ^/ 38 The Orders of Friars. their studies to theology, but cultivated the whole range of- Science and Art, and so successful were they, that in a short time the pro- fessional chairs of the universities of Europe were almost monopolised by the learned members of the mendicant orders.* The constitutions required that no one should be licensed as a general preacher until he had studied-theology for three years ; then a provincial or general chapter examined into his character and learning ; and, if these were satis- factory, gave him his commission, either limiting his ministry to a certain district (whence he was called in English a limitour, Hke Chaucer's Friar Hubert), ox-allowing him to exercise it where he listed (when he was called a lister). I Th\s authority to preach, and exercise other spiritual functions, necessarily brought the friars into collision with the parochial clergy ;t and while a learned and good friar would do much good in parishes which were cursed with an ignorant, or slothful, or wicked pastor, on the other hand, the inferior class of friars are accused of abusing their position by setting the people against their pastors whose pulpits they usurped, and interfering injuriously with the discipline of the parishes into which they intruded. For it was not very long before the primitive purity and zeal of the mendicant orders began to deteriorate. This was inevitable ] zeal and goodness cannot be perpetuated by a system; all human societies of superior pretensions gradually deteriorate, even as the Apostolic Church itself did. But there were peculiar circumstances in the system of the mendi- cant orders which tended to induce rapid deterioration. The profession of mendicancy tended to encourage the use of all those httle paltry arts of * As an indication of their zeal in the pursuit of science it is only necessary to mention the names of Friar Roger Bacon, the Franciscan, and Friar Albert-le-Grand (Albertus Magnus), the Dominican. The Arts were cultivated with equal zeal — some of the finest paintings in the world were executed for the friars, and their own orders produced artists of the highest excellence. Fra Giacopo da Turrita, a celebrated artist in mosaic of the thirteenth century, was a Franciscan, as was Fra Antonio da Negroponti, the painter ; Fra Fillippo Lippi, the painter, was a Carmelite ; Fra Bartolomeo, and Fra Augelico da Fiesole — than whom no man ever conceived more heavenly visions of spiritual loveliness and purity — were Dominicans. t " By his (i.e. Satan's) queyntise they comen in. The curates to helpen. But that harmed hem hard And help them ful littel." — Fters Ploughman's Creed. The Orders of Friars. 39 popularity-hunting which injure the usefulness of a minister of reUgion, and lower his moral tone : the fact that an increased number of friars^ was a source of additional wealth to a convent, since it gave an increased number of collectors of alms for it, tended to make the convents less scrupulous as to the fitness of the men whom theyiadmitted. So that we can believe the truth of the accusations of the old satirists, that ^dissolute. good-foMiothing_fenows_sought_t^ and cowl, for the license which it gave to lead a va gabond. life,, and levy contributions on the charitable. Such men could easily appropriate to themselves a portion of what was given them for the convent ; and they had ample opportunity, away from the control of their ecclesiastical superiors, to spend their peculations in dissolute living. *^e may take, therefore, Chaucer's Friar John, of the Sompnour's Tale, as a type of a certain class of friars ; but we must remember that at the same time there were many earnest, learned, and excellent men in the mendicant ordersjjeven as Mawworm and John Wesley might flourish together in the same Dody. The convents of friars were not independent bodies, fike the Benedictine Costumes of the Four Orders of Friars. and Augustinian abbeys ; each order was an organised body, governed by the general of the order, and under him, by provincial priors, priors of the con- vents, and their subordinate officials. There are usually reckoned four orders of friars— the Dominicans, Franciscans, CarmeHtes, and Augustines. * The extract from Chaucer on p. 46, Hnes 4, S, 6, seem to indicate that an individual friar sometimes " farmed " the alms of a district, paying the convent a stipulated sum, and taking the surplus for himself. 40 The Orders of Friars. *»Eic^ ftTcitc? " I found there freres, All the foure orders, Techynge the peple To profit of themselves." Piers Ploughman, 1. 115. The four orders are pictured together in the woodcut on the preceding page from the thirteenth century MS. Harl. 1,527. They were called Friars because, out of humility, their founders would not have them called Father and Dominus, like the monks, but simply Brother {Frater, Frire, Friar). The Dominicans and Franciscans arose simultaneously at the beginning of the thirteenth century. Dominic, an Augustinian canon, a Spaniard of noble birth, was seized with a zeal for converting heretics, and having gradually associated a few ecclesiastics with himself, he at length conceived the idea of founding an order of men who should spend their lives in preaching. Simultaneously, Francis, the son of a rich Italian merchant, was inspired with a design to establish a new order of men, who should spend their lives in preaching the Gospel and doing works of charity among the people. These two men met in Rome in the year 1216 a.d., and some attempt was made to induce them to unite their institutions in one; but Francis was unwilling, and the Pope sanctioned both. Both adopted the Augustinian rule, and both required not only that their followers personally should have no property, but also that they should not possess any property collectively as a body ; their followers were to work for a livelihood, or to live on alms. The two orders retained something of the character of their founders : the Domi- nicans that of the learned, energetic, dogmatic, and stem controversialist; they were defenders of the orthodox faith, not only by argument, but by the terrors of the Inquisition, which was in their hands ; even as their master S. Dominic and S, Francis, The Dominicans and Franciscans. 41 is, rightly or wrongly, said to have sanctioned the cruelties which were used against the Albigenses when his preaching had failed to convince them. The Franciscans retained something of the character of the pious, ardent, fanciful enthusiast from whom they took their name. Dominic gave to his order the name of Preaching Friars; more commonly they were styled Dominicans, or, from the colour of their habits. Black Friars* — their habit^ consisting of a white tunic, fastened with a white girdle, over that a white scapulary, and over all a black mantle and hood, and shoes; the lay brethren wore a black scapulary. The woodcut which we give on the preceding page of two friars, with their names, Dominic and Francis, inscribed over them, is taken from a representation in a MS. of the end of • the thirteenth century (Sloan 346), of a legend of a vision of Dominic related in the " Legenda Aurea," in which the Virgin Mary is deprecating the wrath of Christ, about to destroy the worid for its iniquity, and presenting to him Dominic and Francis, with a promise that they will convert the world from its wickedness. The next woodcut is from Hollar's print in the " Monas- ticon." An early fifteenth century illustration of a Dominican friar, in black mantle and brown hood over a white tunic, may be found on the last page of the Harieian MS., 1,527. A fine picture of St. Dominic, by Mario Zoppo (1471-98), in the National Gallery, shows the costume admi- rably ; he stands preaching, with book and rosary in his left hand. The Dominican nuns wore the same dress with a white veil. They had, accord- ing to the last edition of the " Monasticon," fifty-eight houses in England. A Dominican Friar. » In France, Jacobins. G 42 The Orders of Friars. The Franciscans were styled by their founder Fratri Minori — lesser brothers, Friars Minors ; they were more usually called Grey Friars, from the colour of their habits, or Cordeliers, from the knotted cord which formed their characteristic girdle. Their habit was originally a grey tunic with long loose sleeves (but not quite so loose as those of the Benedictines), a knotted cord for a girdle, and a black hood; the feet always bare, or only protected by sandals. In the fifteenth century the colour of the habit was altered to a dark brown. The woodcut is from Hollar's print. A picture of St. Francis, by Felippino Lippi (1460 — 1505), in the National Gallery shows the costume very clearly. Piers Ploughman describes the irregular indulgences in habit worn by less strict members of the order : — "In cutting of his cope Is more cloth y-folden Than was in Frauncis' froc, Wlien he them first made. And yet under that cope A coat hath he, furred With foyns or with fichews, Or fur of beaver, And that is out to the knee, And quaintly y-buttoned Lest any spiritual man Espie that guile. Fraunceys bad his brethren Barefoot to wenden. Now have they buckled shoon For blenying [blistering] of ther heels, And hosen in harde weather Y-hamled [tied] by the ancle." A beautiful little picture of St. Francis receiving the stigmata may be found in a Book of Offices of the end of the fourteenth century (Harl. 2,89 7, f. 407 v.). Another fifteenth-century picture of the same subject is in a Book of Hours (Harl. 5,328, f. 123). Some fine sixteenth- century authorities for Franciscan costumes are in the MS. life of St. Francis (Harl. 3,229, f. 26). The principal picture represents St. Bonaventura, a saint of the order, in a gorgeous cope over his brown frock and hood, seated A Franciscan Friar. The Carmelites. 43 writing in his cell ; through the open door is seen a corridor with doors opening off it to other cells. In the corners of the page are other pictures of St. Anthony of Padua, and St. Bernardine, and another saint, and St. Clare, foundress of the female order of Franciscans. A very good illumination of two Franciscans in grey frocks and hoods, girded with rope and barefooted, will be found in the MS. Add. 17,687 of date 1498. The Franciscan nuns, or Minoresses, or Poor Clares, as they were sometimes called, from St. Clare, the patron saint and first nun of the order, wore the same habit as the monks, only with a black veil instead of a hood. For another illustration of minoresses see MS. Royal 1,696, f. Ill, V. The Franciscans were first introduced into England, at Canterbury, in the year 1223 a.d., and there were sixty-five houses of the order in England, besides four of minoresses. While the Dominicans retained their unity of organisation to the last, the Franciscans divided into several branches, under the names of Minorites, Capuchins, Minims, Observants, Recollets, &c. The Carmelite Friars had their origin, as their name indicates, in the East. According to their own traditions, ever since the days of Elijah, whom they claim as their founder, the rocks of Carmel have been inhabited by a succession of hermits, who have lived after the pattern of the great prophet. Their institution as an order of friars, however, dates from the beginning of the thirteenth century, when Albert, Patriarch of Jerusalem, gave them a rule, founded upon, but more severe than, that of St. Basil ; and gave them a habit of white and red stripes, which, according to tradition, was the fashion of the wonder-working mantle of their prophet- founder. The order immediately spread into the West, and Pope Honorius III. sanctioned it, and changed the habit to a white frock over a dark brown tunic ; and very soon after, the third general of the order, an Englishman, Simon Stock, added the scapulary, of the same colour as the tunic, by which they are to be distinguished from the Premonstratensian canons, whose habit is the same, except that it wants the scapulary. From the colour of the habit the popular Enghsh name for the Carmelites was the White Friars. Sir John de Vesci, an English crusader, in the early part of the thirteenth century, made the ascent of Mount Carmel, 44 The Orders of Friars. and found these religious living there, claiming to be the successors of Elijah. The romantic incident seems to have interested him, and he brought back some of them to England, and thus introduced the order here, where it became more popular than elsevi'here in Europe, but it was never an influential order. They had ultimately fifty houses in England. The Austin Friars were founded in the middle of the thirteenth century. There were still at that time some small communities which were not enrolled among any of the great recognised orders, and a great number of hermits and soli- taries, who lived under no rule at all. Pope Innocent IV. decreed that all these hermits, solitaries, and separate communi- ties, should be incorporated into a new order, under the rule of St. Augustine, with some stricter clauses added, under the name of Ermiti Augustini, Hermits of St. Augustine, or, as they were popularly called, Austin Friars. Their exterior habit was a black gown with broad sleeves, girded with a leather belt, and black cloth hood. There were forty-five houses of them in England. There were also some minor orders of friars, who do not need a detailed description. The Crutched (crossed) Friars, so called because they had a red cross on the back and breast of their blue habit, were introduced into England in the middle of the thirteenth century, and had ten houses here. The Friars de Prenitentia, or the Friars of the Sack, were introduced a little later, and had nine houses. And there were six other friaries of obscure orders. But all these minor mendicant orders— all except the four great orders, the Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustinians, and Carmelites were suppressed by the Council of Lyons, a.d. 1370. ChauceMivedJn the latter half of the fourteenth century, when, after A Car77ielite Friar. The Austin Friars. 45 a Oiundred and forty years' existence, the orders of fr iars, or a t least man y individ uals of the orders, had lost much of jheir primi tive holiness and zeal. His avowed purpose is to satirise their abuses ; so that, while we quote him largely tor the hte-like pictures_ of ancient customs and manners which he gives us, we must make allowance for the exaggerations of a satirist; and especially we must not take the faulty or vicious individuals, wh om it suits _hIi^purpose"Ta depict, as fair samples of the whole class. We have a nineteenth-century satirist of the failings and foibles of the clergy, to whom future generations will turn for illustrations of the life of cathedral towns and country parishes. We know how wrongly they would suppose that Dr. Proudie was a fair sample of nineteenth-century bishops, or Dr. Grantley of archdeacons " of the period," or Mr. Smylie of the evangelical clergy ; we know there is no real bishop, archdeacon, or incumbent among us of whom those characters, so cleverly and amusingly, and in one sense so truthfully, drawn, are anything but exaggerated likenesses. With this caution, we do not hesitate to borrow illustrations of our subject from Chaucer and other contemporary writers. . In his description of Friar Hubert, who was one of the Canterbury pilgrims, he tells us how — " Full well beloved and familiar was he With frankelins over all in his countrie ; ABd eke.with worthy women of the town,* For he had power of confession, As said himself, more than a curate. For of his order he was licenciate. Full sweetely heard he confession. And pleasant was his absolution. He was an easy man to give penance There as he wist to have a good pittance. For unto a poor order for to give, Is signe that a man is well y-shrive. » * * * His tippet was aye farsedf full of knives And pinnes for to give to faire wives. And certainly he had a merry note, Well could he sing and playen on a rote. J t » * * * Wives of burgesses. t Stuffed. X Musical instrument so called. 46 The Orders of Friars. And over all there as profit should arise, Courteous he was, and lowly of service. There was no man no where so virtuous. He was the beste beggar in all his house, And gave a certain ferme for the grant None of his brethren came in his haunt." As to his costume : — " For there was he not like a cloisterer. With threadbare cope, as is a poor scholar, But he was like a master or a pope, Of double worsted was his semi-cope,* That round was as a bell out of the press." In the Sompnour's-4a4eH:h:eT±[aract-eF,-herejnerely-sk.etc±ue(i,_is worked out in detail, and gives such a wonderfiilly li-fe-hke"pic'tare~of-a_£dai:,_and_ of his occupation, and his intercoursejvith the people,, that we cannot do better than lay consiHefaBIe extracts from it before our readers : — "Xdrdings there is in Yorkshire, as I guess, A marsh country y-called Holderness, In which there went a limitourf about To preach, and eke to beg, it is no doubt. And so befel that on a day this frere Had preached at a church in his mannere. And specially aboven every thing Excited he the people in his preaching To trentals,:; and to give for Godd^'s sake, Wherewith men mighten holy houses make. There as divine service is honoured. Not there as it is wasted and devoured. § * Piers Ploughman (creed 3, hue 434), describing a burly Dominican friar, describes his cloak or cope in the same terms, and describes the under gown, or kirtle, also : — " His cope that beclypped him Wei clean was it folden. Of double worsted y-dyght Down to the heel. His kirtle of clean white, Cleanly y-served. It was good enough ground Grain for to beren." t A hmitour, as has been explained above, was a friar whose functions were limited to a certain district of country ; a hster might exercise his office wherever he hsted. % Thirty masses for the repose of a deceased person. § Viz., in convents of friars, not in monasteries of monks and by the secular clergy. Chaucer' s Dominican Friars. 47 ' Trentals,' said he, ' deliver from penance Thar friend^s' soules, as well old as young, Yea, when that they are speedily y-sung. Not for to hold a priest jolly and gay, He singeth not but one mass* of a day, Deliver out,' quoth he, ' anonf the souls. Full hard it is, with flesh-hook or with owles To be y-clawed, or to bum or bake : Now speed you heartily, for Christy's sake.' And when this frere had said aU his intent. With qui cum patreX forth his way he went ; When folk in church had given him what they lest He went his way, no longer would he rest." Then he takes his way through the village with his brother friar (it seems to have been the rule for them to go in couples) and a servant after them to carry their sack, begging at every house. " With scrippe and tipped staff, y-tucked high, In every house he gan to pore and pry ; And begged meal or cheese, or elles com. His fellow had a staff tipped with hom, A pair of tables all of ivory. And a pointel y-polished fetisly, And wrote always the namSs, as he stood. Of alle folk that gave them any good, As though that he woulde for them pray. ' Give us a bushel of wheat, or malt, or rye, A Godd^'s kichel,§ or a trippe of cheese ; Or ell^s what you list, we may not chese ; || A Goddg's halfpenny, or a mass penny, • Or give us of your bran, if ye have any, A dagon H of your blanket, dearS dame, Our sister dear (lo ! here I write your name) : Bacon or beef, or such thing as you find.' A sturdy harlot* * went them aye behind. * He was forbidden to say more. t A convent of friars used to undertake masses for the dead, and each friar saying one the whole number of masses was speedily completed, whereas a single priest saying his one mass a day would be very long completing the number, and meantime the souls were supposed to be in torment. J The usual way of concluding a sermon, in those days as in these, was with an ascrip- tion of praise, " Who with the Father," &c. § Cake. II Choose. IT Slip or piece. ** Hired man. 48 The Orders of Friars. That was their host^'s man, and bare a sack, And what men gave them laid it on his back. And when that he was out at door, anon He planed away the names every one. That he before had written on his tables ; He served them with trifHes* and with fables." At length he comes to a house in which, the goodwife being devote, he has been accustomed to be hospitably received : — " So along he went, from house to house, till he Came to a house where he was wont to be Refreshed more than in a hundred places. Sick lay the husbandman \Yhose that the place is ; Bedrid upon a couche low he lay : ' Deus hie,' quoth he, 'O Thomas, friend, good day ! ' Said this frere, all courteously and soft. ' Thomas,' quoth he, ' God yieldf it you, full oft Have I upon this bench fared full well. Here have I eaten many a merry meal.' And from the bench he drove away the cat, And laid adown his potentj and his hat. And eke his scrip, and set himself adown : His fellow was y-walked into town Forth with his knave, into that hostlery • Where as he shope him thilkg night to Ue. ' O dere master,' quoth this sicke man, ' How have ye fared since that March began ? I saw you not this fourteen night and more.' ' God wot,' quoth he, ' laboured have I full sore ; And specially for thy salvation Have I sayd many a precious orison. And for our other friendes, God them bless. I have this day been at your church at messe. And said a sermon to my simple wit. * * * * And there I saw our dame. Ah ! where is she ? ' ' Yonder I trow that in the yard slie be,' Saide this man, ' and she will come anon.' ' Eh master, welcome be ye, by St. John ! ' Saide this wife ; ' how fare ye heartily 'i ' This friar ariseth up full courteously. And her embraceth in his armes narwe, § And kisseth her sweet, and chirketh as a sparrow * Trifles. t Requite. + Staff. \ Closely. The Friars. 49 With his lippes : ' Dame,' quoth he, ' right well, As he that is your servant every deal.* Thanked be God that you gave soul and life, Yet saw I not this day so fair a wife In all the churchS, God so save me. ' ' Yea, God amends defaults, sire,' quoth she ; ' Algates welcome be ye, by my fay.' ' Graunt mercy, dame ; that have I found alway. But of your great goodness, by your leve, I woulde pray you that ye not you grieve, I will with Thomas speak a little throw ; These curates be so negligent and slow To searchen tenderly a conscience. In shrift, in preaching, is my diligence. And study, on Peter's words and on Paul's, I walk and fishen Christian menne's souls, To yield our Lord Jesu his proper rent ; To spread his word is set all mine intent.' 'Now, by your faith, dere sir,' quoth she, • Chide him well for Seinte Charitee. He is as angry as a pissemire,' " &c. Whereupon the friar begins at once to scold the goodman : " ' O Thomas, je vous die, Thomas, Thomas, This maketh the iiend, this must be amended. Ire is a thing that high God hath defended.f And therefore will J speak a word or two.' ' Now, master,' quoth the wife, ' ere that I go, What win ye dine ? I will go thereabout.' . ' Now, dame,' quoth he, 'je vous dis sans double, Have I not of a capon but the liver. And of your white bread but a shiver. And after that a roasted piggy's head (But I ne would for me no beast were dead). Then had I with you homely suffisance ; I am a man of little sustenance, My spirit hath his fostering in the Bible. My body is aye so ready and so penible To waken, that my stomach is destroyed. I pray you, dame, that ye be not annoyed. Though I so friendly you my counsel shew. By God ! I n'oldj; have told it but a few.' * Part. t Forbidden. H + Would not. 50 The Orders of Friars. ' Now, sir,' quoth she, ' but one word ere I go. My child is dead within these weekfis two. Soon after that ye went out of this town.' * ' His death saw I by revelation,' Said this frere, 'at home in our dortour.f I dare well say thatjere that half an hour After his death, I saw him borne to blisse In mine vision, so God me wisse. ", So did our sexton and our fermerere,J That have been tru6 friars fifty year ; They may now, God be thanlced of his loan. Make their jubilee and walke alone.' "§ We do not care to continue the blasphemous lies with which- he plays upon the mother's tenderness for her dead babe. At length, addressing the sick goodman, he continues : — " ' Thomas, Thomas, so might I ride or go, And by that lord that cleped is St. Ive, N'ere|| thou our brother, shouldest thou, not thrive, In our chapter pray M'e U day and night To Christ that he thee send hele and might** Thy body for to welden hastily.' ' God wot, ' quoth he, ' I nothing thereof feel. So help me Christ, as I in fewe years Have spended upon divers manner freres Full many a pound, yet fare I never the bet.' The frere answered, ' O Thomas, dost thou so ? What need have you diverse friars to seche ? What needeth him that hath a perfect leech f f To seeken other leches in the town ? Your inconstancy is your confusion. Hold ye then me, or elles our convent. To pray for you is insuiBcient ? Thomas, that jape is not worth a mite ; Your malady is for we have too lite. JJ * The good man also said he had not seen the friar " this fourteen nights : "—Did a limitour go round once a fortnight ? t The dormitory of the convent. % Infirm arer. § Aged monks and friars lived in the Infirmary, and had certain privileges. II Wert thou not. •K 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. ** Health and strength. ft Doctor. +J Little. The Friars. 51 Ah ! give that convent half a quarter of oates ; And give that convent four and twenty groats ; And give that friar a penny and let him go ; Nay, nay, Thomas, it may nothing be so ; W hat is a fai-thing worth parted in twelve ? " And so he takes up the cue the wife had given him, and reads him a long sennon on anger, quoting Seneca, and giving, for instances, Cambyses and Cyrus, and at length urges him to confession. To this — " ' Nay,' quoth the sick man, ' by Saint Simon, I have been shriven this day by my curate.' ****** ' Give me then of thy gold to make our cloister,' and again he proclaims the virtues and morals of his order. " ' For if ye lack our predication,* Then goth this world aU to destruction. For whoso from this world would us bereave, So God me save, Thomas, by your leave, He would bereave out of this world the sun,' &c. And SO ends with the ever-recurring burden ; " 'Now, Thomas, help for Sainte Charitee.' This sicke man wax well nigh wood for ire,t He woulde that the frere had been a fire, With his false dissimulation ;" and proceeds to play a practical joke upon him, which will not bear even hinting at, but which sufficiently shows that superstition did not prevent men from taking great hberties, expressing the utmost contempt of these men. Moreover, — " His mennie which had hearden this aflFray, Came leaping in and chased out the frere." Thus ignominiously turned out of the goodman's house, the friar goes to the court-house of the lord of the village :— " A sturdy pace down to the court he goth. Whereat there woned % a man of great honour. To whom this friar was alway confessour ; This worthy man was lord of that village. * Preaching; he was probably a preaching friar-s.«., a Dominican. + Waxed nearly mad. X Lived. 52 The Orders of Friars. This frere came, as he were in a rage, Whereas this lord sat eating at his board. * * * * This lord gan look, and saide, 'Benedicite ! What, frere John ! what manner of world is this ? I see well that something there is amiss.' " We need only complete the picture by adding the then actors in it : — " The lady of the house aye stille sat, TUl she had herde what the friar said." And "Now stood the lorde's squire at the board, That carved his meat, and hearde every word Of all the things of which I have you said." And it needs little help of the imagination to complete this con- temporary picture of an English fourteenth-century village, with its lord and its well-to-do farmer, and its villagers, its village inn, its parish church and priest, and the fortnightly visit of the itinerant friars. We have now completed our sketch of the rise of the religious orders, and of their general character ; we have only to conclude this portion of our task with a brief history of their suppression in England. Henry VIII. had resoved to "Break with the pope; the religious orders were great upholders of the papal supremacy ; the friars especially were called " the pope's militia;" the king resolved, therefore, upon the destruction of the friars. The pretext was a reform of the rehgious orders. At the end of the year 1535 a royal commission undertook the visitation of all the religious houses, above one thousand three hundred in number, including their cells and hospitals. They performed their task with incredible celerity—" the king's command was exceeding urgent ; " and in ten weeks they presented their report. The small houses they reported to be full of irregularity and vice ; while " in the great solemne monasteries, thanks be to God, religion was right well observed and kept up." So the king's decree went forth, and pariiament ratified it, that all the religious houses of less than ;^2oo annual value should be suppressed. This just caught all the friaries, and a few of the less powerful monasteries for the sake of impartiality. Perhaps the monks were not greatly moved at the destruc- tion which had come upon their rivals ; but their turn very speedily came. The Friars. 53 They were not suppressed forcibly ; but they were induced to surrender. The patronage of most of the abbacies was in the king's hands, or under his control. He induced some of the abbots by threats or cajolery, and the offer of place and pension, to surrender their monasteries into his hand ; others he induced to surrender their abbatial offices only, into which he placed creatures of his own, who completed the surrender. Some few intractable abbots — like those of Reading, Glastonbury, and St. John's, Colchester, who would do neither one nor the other — were found guilty of high treason — no difficult matter when it had been made high treason by act of Parliament to " pubhsh in words '' that the king was an " heretic, schismatic, or tyrant " — and they were disposed of by hanging, drawing, and quartering. The Hospitallers of Clerkenwell were still more difficult to deal with, and required a special act of Parliament to suppress them. T^ose who gave no trouble were rewarded with bishoprics, livings, and pensions ; the rest were turned adrift on the wide world, to dig, or beg, or starve. We are not defending the principle of monasticism ; it may be that, with the altered circumstances of the church and nation, the day of usefulness of the monasteries had passed. But we cannot restrain an expression of indignation at the shameless, reckless manner of the suppression. The commissioners suggested, and Bishop Latimer entreated in vain, that two or three monasteries should be left in every shire for religious, and learned, and charitable uses ; they were all shared among the king and his courtiers. The magnificent churches were pulled down ; the libraries, of inestimable value, were destroyed ; the alms which the monks gave to the poor, the hospitals which they maintained for the old and impotent, the infirmaries for the sick, the schools for the people —all went in the wreck; and the tithes of parishes which were in the hands of the monasteries, were swallowed up indiscriminately— they were not men to strain at such gnats while they were swallowing camels- some three thousand parishes, including those of the most populous and important towns, were left impoverished to this day. No wonder that the fountains of religious endowment in England have been dried up ever since j— and the course of modem legislation is not calculated to set them again a-flowing. CHAPTER VI. THE CONVENT. AVING thus given a sketch of the history of the various monastic orders in England, we proceed to give some account of the constitution of a convent, taking that of a Benedictine monastery as a type, from which the other orders departed only in minor particulars. The convent is the name especially appropriate to the body of indi- viduals who composed a religious community. These were the body of cloister monks, lay and clerical; the professed brethren, who were also lay and clerical ; the clerks ; the novices ; and the servants and artificers. The servants and artificers were of course taken from the lower ranks of society ; all the rest were originally of the most various degrees of rank and social position. We constantly meet with instances of noble men and women, knights and ladies, minstrels and merchants, quitting their secular occupations at various periods of their life, and taking the religious habit ; some of them continuing simply professed brethren, others rising to high offices in their order. Scions of noble houses were not infrequently entered at an early age as novices, either devoted to the religious life by the piety of their parents, or, with more worldly motives, thus provided with a calling and a maintenance ; and sometimes con- siderable interest was used to procure the admittance of novices into the great monasteries. Again, the children of the poor were received into the monastic schools, and such as showed peculiar aptitude were sometimes at length admitted as monks,* and were eligible, and were often chosen, to the highest ecclesiastical dignities. * "On the foundation,'' as we say now of colleges and endowed schools. The Convent. 55 The whole convent was under the government of the abbot, who, how- ever, was bound to govern according to the rule of the order. Sometimes he was elected by the convent ; sometimes the king or some patron had a share in the election. Frequently there were estates attached to the office, distinct from those of the convent ; sometimes the abbot had only an allowance out of the convent estates ; but always he had great power over the property of the convent, and bad abbots are frequently accused of wasting the property of the house, and enriching their relatives and friends out of it. The abbots of some of the more important houses were mitred abbots, and were summoned to Parliament. In the time of Henry VIII. twenty-four abbots and the prior of Coventry had seats in the House of Peers.* The abbot did not live in common with his monks ; he had a separate establishment of his own within the precincts of the house, sometimes over the entrance gate, called the Abbot's Lodgings.f He ate in his own hall,, slept in his own chamber, had a chapel, or oratory, for his private devotions, and accommodation for a retinue of chaplains and servants. His duty was to set to his monks an example of observance of the rule, to keep them to its observance, to punish breaches of it, to attend thfe services in church when not hindered by his other duties, to preach on holy days to the people, to attend chapter and preach on the rule, to act as confessor to the monks. But an abbot was also involved in many secular duties ; there were manors of his own, and of the convent's, far and near, which required visiting; and these manors involved the abbot in all the numerous * " 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, 1. 1,157. t Just as heads of coUeges 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. 56 The Orders of Friars. duties which the feudal system devolved upon a lord towards his tenants, and towards his feudal superior. The greater abbots were barons, and sometimes were thus involved in such duties as those of justices in eyre, military leaders of their vassals, peers of Parliament. Hospitality was one of the great monastic virtues. The usual regulation in convents was that the abbot should entertain all guests of gentle degree, while the convent entertained all others. This again found abundance of occupa- tion for my lord abbot in performing all the offices of a courteous host, which seems to have been done in a way becoming his character as a lord of wealth and dignity ; his table was bountifully spread, even if he chose to confine himself to pulse and water ; a band of wandering minstrels was always welcome to the abbot's hall to entertain his gentle and fair guests ; and his falconer could furnish a cast of hawks, and his forester a leash of hounds, and the lord abbot would not decline to ride by the river or into his manor parks to wit- ness and to share in the sport. In the Harl. MS. 1,527, at fol. 108 (?), is a picture of an abbot on horseback casting off a hawk from his fist. A pretty little illustration of this abbatial hospitaHty A Benedictine Ailot. ^^curs in Marie's " Lay of Ywonec." * A baron and his family are travelling in obedience to the royal summons, to keep one of the high festivals at Caerleon. In the course of their journey they stop for a night at a spacious abbey, where they are received with the greatest hospitahty. " The good abbot, for the sake of detaining his guests during another day, exhibited to them the whole of the apartments, the dormitory, the refectory, and the chapter-house, in which last they beheld * Ellis's " Early English Romances.' Th& Convent. 57 a splendid tomb covered with a superb palL fringed with gold, surrounded by twenty waxen tapers in golden candlesticks, while a vast silver censer, constantly burning, filled the air with fumes of incense." An abbot's ordinary habit was the same as that of his monks. In the processions which were made on certain great feasts he held his crosier, and, if he were a mitred abbot, he wore his mitre : this was also his parlia- mentary costume. We give on the opposite page a beautiful drawing of a Benedictine abbot of St. Alban's, thus habited, from the Catalogus Bmefac- torum of that abbey. When the abbot celebrated high mass on certain great festivals he wore the full episcopal costume. Thomas Delamere, abbot of St. Alban's, is so represented in his magnificent sepulchral brass in that abbey, executed in his lifetime, circa 1375 a.d. Richard Bewferest, abbot of the Augustine canons of Dorchester, Oxfordshire, has a brass in that Benedictine Abbess and Nun. church, date circa 1520 a.d., representing him in episcopal costume, bare- headed, with his staff; and in the same church is an incised gravestone, representing Abbot Roger, circa 15 10 a.d., in full episcopal vestments. Abbesses bore the crosier in addition to the ordinary costume of their order ; the sepulchral brass of Elizabeth Harvey, abbess of the Benedictine Abbey of Elstow, Bedfordshire, circa 1530 a.d., thus represents her, in the I 58 The Monks of the. Middle Ages. church of that place. Our representation of a Benedictine abbess on the previous page is from the fourteenth century MS. Royal, 2 B. vii. Under the abbot were a number of officials iobedientiarii), the chief of whom were the Prior, Precentor, Cellarer, Sacrist, Hospitaller, Infirmarer, Almoner, Master of the Novices, Porter, Kitchener, Seneschal, &c. It was only in large monasteries that all these officers were to be found ; in the smaller houses one monk would perform the duties of several offices. The officers seem to have been elected by the convent, subject to the approval of the abbot, by whom they might be deposed. Some brief notes of the duties of these obedientiaries will serve to give a considerable insight into the economy of a convent. And first for the Prior : — In some orders there was only one abbey, and all the other houses were priories, as in the Clugniac, the Gilbertine, and in the Military and the Mendicant orders. In all the orders there were abbeys, which had had distant estates granted to them, on which either the donor had built a house, and made it subject to the abbey ; or the abbey had built a house for the management of the estates, and the celebration of divine and charitable offices upon them. These priories varied in size, from a mere cell containing a prior and two monks, to an establishment as large as an abbey ; and the dignity and power of the prior varied from- that of a mere steward of the distant estate of the parent house, to that of an autocratic head, only nominally dependent on the parent house, and himself in every- thing but name an abbot. The majority of the female houses of the various orders (except those which were especially female orders, like the Brigittines, &c.) were kept subject to some monastery, so thatJlieL.superiors-of-th«se -houses usually bore only the title ofjmoress, though they had the power of an abbess in the internal discipline of the house. One cannot forbear to quote at least a portion of Chaucer's very beautiful description of his prioress, among the Canterbury pilgrims : — " That of her smiliiig ful simple was and coy." She sang the divine service sweetly ; she spoke French correctly, though with an accent which savoured of the Benedictine convent at Stratford-le- The Convent. 59 Bow, where she had been educated, rather than of Paris ; jhe behaved with lady-Uke deli cacy at table; she was cheerful of mood, and amiabl e ; with a pretty affectation of courtly breeding, and. a care to exhibit a "reverend stateliness becoming her office : — " But for to speken of her conscience, She was so charitable and so piteous, She would wepe if that she saw a mouse Caught in a trappe, if it were dead or bled ; Of smalg houndes had she that she fed With rosted flesh, and milk, and wastel bread ; But sore wept she if one of them were dead, Or if men smote it with a yerdS smerte ; And all was conscience and tendre herte. Ful semfily her wimple y-pinched was ; Her nose tretis,* her eyen grey as glass. Her mouth full small, and thereto soft and red, And sickerly she had a fayre forehed— It was almost a spannS broad I trow. And hardily she was not undergi-ow."t Her habit was becoming ; her beads were of red coral gauded with green, to which was hung a jewel of gold, on which was— " Written a crowned A, And after. Amor vincit omnia. Another nun also with her had she. That was her chapelleine, and priestes three." But in abbeys the chief of the obedientiaries was styled prior ; and we cannot, perhaps, give a better idea of his functions than by borrowing a naval analogy, and calling him the abbot's first Heutenant ; for, like that officer in a ship, the prior at all times carried on the internal discipline of the convent, and in the abbot's absence he was his vicegerent; wielding all the abbot's powers, except those of making or deposing obedientiaries and consecrating novices. He had a suite of apartments of his own, called the prior's chamber, or the prior's lodging; he could leave the house for a day or two on the business of the house, and had horses and servants appro- priated to his use ; whenever he entered t he monks present rose out o f * Long and well proportioned, t She was of tall stature. 6o The Monks of the Middle Ages. respect ; some little license in diet was allowed him in refectory, and he might also have refreshment in his own apartments ; sometimes he enter- tained guests of a certain condition in his prior's chamber. Neither the prior, nor any of the obedientiaries, wore any distinctive dress or badge of office. In large convents he was assisted by a sub-prior. The Sub-prior was the prior's deputy, sharing his duties in his residence, and fulfilling them in his absences. The especial functions appropriated to him seem to have been to say grace at dinner and supper, to see that all the doors were locked at five in-the evening, and keep the keys until five next morning ; and, by sleeping near the dormitory door, and by making private search, to prevent wandering about at night. In large monasteries there were additional sub-priors. The Chantor, or Precentor, appears to come next in order and dignity, since we are told that he was censed after the abbot and prior. He was choir-master ; taught music to the monks and novices ; and arranged and ruled everything which related to the conduct of divine service. His place in church was in the middle of the choir on the right side ; he held an instrument in his hand, as modern leaders use a baton ; and his side of the choir commenced the chant. He was besides librarian, and keeper of the archives, and keeper of the abbey seal. He was assisted by a Succentor, who sat on the left side of the choir, and led that half of the choir in service. He assisted the chantor, and in his absence undertook his duties. The Cellarer was in fact the steward of the house ; his modem representative is the bursar of a college. He had the care of everything relating to the provision of the food and vessels of the convent. He was exempt from the observance of some of the services in church ; he had the use of horses and servants for the fulfilment of his duties, and sometimes he Adam the Cellarer. The Convent. 6i appears to have had separate apartments. The cellarer, as we have said, wore no distinctive dress or badge; but in the Catalogus Benefadorum of St. Alban's there occurs a portrait of one " Adam Cellarius," who for his distinguished merit had been buried among the abbots in the chapter- house, and had his name and effigy recorded in the Catalogus; he is holding two keys in one hand and a purse in the other, the symbols of his office ; and in his quaint features — so different from those of the dignified abbot whom we have given from the same book — the limner seems to have given us the type of a business-like and not ungenial cellarer. The Sacrist, or Sacristan (whence our word sexton), had the care and charge of the fabric, and furniture, and ornaments of the church, and generally of all the material appliances of divine service. He, or some one in his stead, slept in a chamber built for him in the church, in order to protect it during the night. There is such a chamber in St. Alban's Abbey Church, engraved in the Builder for August, 1856. There was often a sub-sacrist to assist the sacrist in his duties. The duty of the Hospitaller was, as his name implies, to perform the duties of hospitality on behalf of the convent. The monasteries received all travellers to food and lodging for a day and a night as of right, and for a longer period if the prior saw reason to grant it.* A special hall was provided for the entertainment of these guests, and chambers for their accommodation. The hospitaller performed the part of host on behalf of the convent, saw to the accommodation of the guests who belonged to the convent, introduced into the refectory strange priests or others who desired and had leave to dine there, and ushered guests of degree to the abbot to be entertained by him. He showed the church and house at suitable times to guests whose curiosity prompted the desire. Every abbey had an infirmary, which was usually a detached building, with its own kitchen and chapel, besides suitable apartments for the sick, * " And 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 Cohens Institutes. 62 The Monks of the Middle Ages. and for aged monks, who sometimes took up their permanent residence in the infirmary, and were excused irksome duties, and allowed indulgences in food and social intercourse. Not only the sick monks, but other sick folk were received into the infirmary ; it is a very common incident in mediaeval romances to find a wounded knight carried to a neighbouring monastery to be healed. The officer who had charge of everything relating to this department was styled the Infirmarer. He slept in the infirmary, was excused from some of the "hours;" in the great houses had two brethren to assist him besides the necessary servants^ and often a clerk learned in pharmacy as physician. The Almo7ier had charge of the distribution of the alms of the house. Sometimes money was left by benefactors to be distributed to the poor annually at their obits ; the distribution of this was confided to the almoner. One of his men attended in the abbot's chamber when he had guests, to receive what alms they chose to give to the poor. Moneys belonging to the convent were also devoted to this purpose ; besides food and drink, the surplus of the convent meals. He had assistants allowed him to go and visit the sick and infirm folk of the neighbourhood. And at Christmas he provided cloth and shoes for widows, orphans, poor clerks, and others whom he thought to need it most. The Master of the Novices was a grave and learned monk, who superin- tended the education of the youths in the schools of the abbey, and taught the rule to those who were candidates for the monastic profession. The Porter was an ofiicer of some' importance ; he was chosen for his age and gravity; he had an apartment in the gate lodge, an assistant, and a lad to run on his messages. But sometimes the porter seems to have been a layman. And, in small houses and in nunneries, his office involved other duties, which we have seen in great abbeys distributed among a number of officials. Thus, in Marie's " Lay le Fraine," we read of the porter of an abbey of nuns : — " The porter of the abbey arose, And did his office in the close ; Rung the bells, and tapers light, Laid forth books and all ready dight. The church door he undid," &c. ; The Convent. 63 and in the sequel it appears that he had a daughter, and therefore in all probability was a layman. The Kitchener, or Cook, was usually a monk, and, as his name implies, he ruled in the kitchen, went to market, provided the meals of the house, &c. The Seneschal in great abbeys was often a layman of rank, who did the secular business which the tenure of large estates, and consequently of secular offices, devolved upon abbots and convents; such as hold- ing manorial courts, and the like. But there was, Fosbroke tells us, another officer with the same name, but of inferior dignity, who did Alan Middleton. the convent business of the prior and cellarer which was to be done out of the house ; and, when at home, carried a rod and acted as marshal of the guest-hall. He had horses and servants allowed for the duties of his office ; and at the Benedictine Abbey of Winchcombe he had a robe of clerk's cloth once a year, with lamb's fur for a supertunic, and for a hood of budge fur ; he had the same commons in hall as the cellarer, and £2 every year at Michaelmas. Probably an officer of this kind was Alan Middleton, who is recorded in the Cafalogus of St. Alban's as 64 The Monks of the Middle Ages. " collector of rents of the obedientiaries of that monastery, and especially of those of the bursar." Prudenter in omnibus se agebat, and so, deserving well of the house, they put a portrait of him among their benefactors, clothed in a blue robe, of "clerk's cloth" perhaps, furred at the wrists and throat with " lamb's fur " or " budge fur ;" a small tonsure shows that he had taken some minor order, the penner and inkhom at his girdle denote the nature of his office ; and he is just opening the door of one of the abbey tenants to perform his unwelcome function. They were grateful men, these Benedictines of St. Alban's ; they have immortalised another of their inferior o o o o -s^-yL^o o a O O O w i I J _ / - i ° VV/ -111 IJ ff c $ ff ' ; \\ St^'iT" If /aL ^o. o o o o a o^^o o o o Walter of Hamuntesham attacked iy a Mob. officers, Walterus de Hamuntesham, fidelis minister hujus ecdesim, because on one occasion he received a beating at the hands of the rabble of St. Alban's — inter villanos Sci Albatii — while standing up for the rights and liberties of the church. Next in dignity after the obedientiaries come the Cloister Monks; of these some had received holy orders at the hands of the bishop, some not. Their number was limited. A cloister monk in a rich abbey seems to have been something like in dignity to the fellow of a modern college, and a The Convent. 65 good deal of interest was sometimes employed to obtain the admission of a yOuth as a novice, with a view to his ultimately arriving at this dignified degree. Next in order come the Professed Brethren. These seem to be monks who had not been elected to the dignity of cloister monks ; some of them were admitted late in life. Those monks who had been brought up in the house were called nutriti, those who came later in life conversi ; the lay brothers were also sometimes called conversi. There were again the Novices, who were not all necessarily young, for a conversus passed through a noviciate ; and even a monk of another order, or of another house of their own order, and even a monk from a cell of their own house, was reckoned among the novices. There were also the Chaplains of the abbot and other high officials ; and frequently there were other clerics living in the monastery, who served the chantries in the abbey church, and the churches and chapels which belonged to the monastery and were in its neighbourhood. Again, there were the Artificers and Servants of the monastery : millers, bakers, tailors, shoemakers, smiths, and similar arti- ficers, were often a part of a monastic establishment. And there were numerous men-servants, grooms, and the like : these were all under certain vows, and were kept under discipline. In the Cistercian abbey of Waverley there were in 1187 a.d. seventy monks and one hundred and twenty conversi, besides priests, clerks, servants, &c. In the great Bene- dictine abbey of St. Edmund's Bury, in the time of Edward I., there were eighty monks ; fifteen chaplains attendant on the abbot and chief officers; about one hundred and eleven servants in the various offices, chiefly residing within the walls of the monastery ; forty priests, offici- ating in the several chapels, chantries, and monastic appendages in the town ; and an indefinite number of professed brethren. The following notes will give an idea of the occupations of the servants. In the time of William Rufus the servants at Evesham numbered— five in the church, two in the infirmary, two in the cellar, five in the kitchen, seven in the bakehouse, four brewers, four menders, two in the bath, two shoe- makers, two in the orchard, three gardeners, one at the cloister gate, two at the great gate, five at the vineyard, four who served the monks when they went out, four fishermen, four in the abbot's chamber, three in the 66 The Monks of the Middle Ages. hall. At Salley Abbey, at the end of the fourteenth century, there were about thirty-five servants, among whom are mentioned the shoemaker and barber, the prior's chamberlain, the abbot's cook, the convent cook and baker's mate, the baker, brewers, tailor, cowherd, waggoners, pages of the kitchen, poultry-keeper, labourers, a keeper of animals and birds, baihffs, foresters, shepherds, smiths : there are others mentioned by name, without a note of their office. But it was only a few of the larger houses which had such numerous establishments as these ; the majority of the monasteries contained from five to twenty cloister monks. Some of the monasteries were famous as places of education, and we must add to their establishment a number of children of good family, and the learned clerks or ladies who acted as tutors ; thus the abbey of St. Mary, Winchester, in 1536, contained twenty-six nuns, five priests, thirteen lay sisters, thirty-two officers and servants, and twenty-six children, daughters of lords and knights, who were brought up in the house. Lastly, there were a number of persons of all ranks and conditions who were admitted to " fraternity." Among the Hospitallers (and probably it was the same with the other orders) they took oath to love the house and brethren, to defend the house from ill-doers, to enter that house if they did enter any, and to make an annual present to the house. In return, they were enrolled in the register of the house, they received the prayers of the brethren, and at death were buried in the cemetery., Chaucer's Dominican friar (p. 48), writes the names of those who gave him donations in his " tables." In the following extract from Piers Ploughman's Creed, an Austin friar promises more definitely to have his donors enrolled in the fraternity of his house : — "And gyf thou hast any good, And will thyself helpen, Help us herblich therewith. And here I undertake, Thou shall ben brother of oure hous, And a book habben, At the next chapetre, Clerliche enseled. And then our provincial Hath power to assoylen The Convent. 67 AJle sustren and brethren That beth of our ordre." Piers Ploughman's Creed, p. 645. In the book of St. Alban's, which we have before quoted, there is a list of many persons, knights and merchants, ladies and children, vicars and rectors, received ad fraternitatem hujus monasterii. In many cases por- traits of them are given : they are in the ordinary costume of their time and class, without any badge of their monastic fraternisation. Chaucer gives several sketches which enable us to fill out our realisation of the monks, as they appeared outside the cloister associating with their fellow-men. He includes one among the merry company of his Canterbury pilgrims ; and first in the Monk's Prologue, makes the Host address the monk thus :— " ' My lord, the monk,' quod he . . ' By my trothe I can not tell youre name, Whether shall I call you my Lord Dan John, Or Dan Thomas, or elles Dan Albon ? Of what house be ye by your father kin ? I vow to God thou hast a full fair sldn ; It is a gentle pasture ther thou goest, Thou art not like a penaunt* or a ghost. Upon my faith thou art some officer, Some worthy sextem or some celerer. For by my father's soul, as to my dome. Thou art a maister when thou art at home ; No poure cloisterer, ne non novice, But a governor both ware and wise.' " Chaucer himself describes the same monk in his Prologue thus :— " A monk there was, a fayre for the maisterie. An out-rider that lovered venerie,t A manly man to be an abbot able. Ful many a dainty horse had he in stable ; And when he rode men might his bridle hear Gingling in a whistling wind as clear. And eke as loud as doth the chapel bell, Whereas this lord was keeper of the cell. The rule of Saint Maur and of Saint Benet, Because that it was old and somedeal strait. * A person doing penance. t Huntmg. 68 The Monks of the Middle Ages. This ilke monk let olde thinges pace, And held after the newe world the trace. He gave not of the text a pulled hen, That salth, that hunters been not holy men ; Ne that a monk, when he is regneless,* Is like a fish that is waterless ; That is to say, a monk out of his cloister : This ilke text he held not worth an oyster. And I say his pinion was good. Why should he study, and make himselven wood. Upon a book in cloister alway to pore, Or swinkin with his handis, and labour, As Austin bid ? How shall the world be served ? Therefore he was a prickasoure aright : Greyhounds he had as swift as fowls of flight ; Of pricking and of hunting for the hare Was all his lust, for no cost would he spare. I saw his sleeves pm-fled at the hand With gris, and that the finest of the land. And for to fasten his hood under his chin He had of gold y-wrought a curious pin : A love-knot in the greater end there was. * * * * His bootis supple, his horse in great estate ; Now certainly he was a fair prelate." Again, in the " Shipman's Tale " we learn that such an officer had con- siderable freedom, so that he was able to pay very frequent visits to his friends. The whole passage is worth giving : — " A marchant whilom dwelled at St. Denise, That riche was, for which men held him wise. « * * * This noble marchant held a worthy house. For which he had all day so great repair For his largesse, and for his wife was fair. What wonder is ? but hearken to my tale. Amonges all these guestes great and small There was a monk, a fair man and a bold, I trow a thirty winters he was old. That ever anon was drawing to that place. This younge monk that was so fair of face, * Without state. The Convent. 69 Acquainted was so with this goode man, Silhen that their firste Icnowledge began, That in his house as familiar was he As it possible is any friend to be. And for as mochel as this goode man. And eke this monk, of which that I began, Were both^ two y-bom in one village. The monlc him claimeth as for cosinage ; And he again him said not ones nay. But was as glad thereof, as fowl of day ; For to his heart it was a great plesaunce ; Thus ben they knit with eterne aUiance, And eche of them gan other for to ensure Of brotherhood, while that hfe may endure." Notwithstanding his vow of poverty, he was also able to make presents to his friends, for the tale continues : — " Free was Dan John, and namely of despence As in that house, and full of diligence To don plesaunce, and also great costage ; He not forgat to give the leaste page In aU that house, but, after their degree. He gave the lord, and sithen his mennie. When that he came, some manner honest thing ; For which they were as glad of his coming As fowl is fain when that the sun upriseth." Chaucer does not forget to let us know how it was that this monk came to have such liberty and such command of means : — " This noble monk, of which I you devise. Hath of his abbot, as him hst, licence (Because he was a man of high prudence. And eke an officer), out for to ride To see their granges and their bames wide.' CHAPTER VII. THE MONASTERY. [ E proceed next to give some account of the buildings which com- pose the fabric of a monastery. And first as to the site. The orders of the Benedictine family preferred sites as secluded and remote from towns and villages as possible. The Augustinian orders did not cultivate seclusion so strictly ; their houses are not unfrequently near towns and villages, and sometimes a portion of their conventual church — the nave, generally — formed the parish church. The Friaries, Colleges of secular canons, and Hospitals, were generally in or near the towns. There is a popular idea that the monks chose out the most beautiful and fertile spots in the kingdom for their abodes. A little reflection would show that the choice of the site of a new monastery must be confined within the limits of the lands which the founder was pleased to bestow upon the convent. Sometimes the founder gave a good manor, and gave money besides, to hfelp to build the house upon it ; sometimes what was given was a tract of unre- claimed land, upon which the first handful of monks squatted Hke settlers in a new country. Even the settled land, in those days, was only half cultivated ; and on good land, unreclaimed or only half reclaimed, the skill and energy of a company of first-rate farmers would soon produce great results ; barren commons would be dotted over with sheep, and rushy valleys would become rich pastures covered with cattle, and great clearings in the forest would grow green with rye and barley. The revenues of the monastic estates would rapidly augment; little of them would be required for the coarse dress and frugal fare of the monks ; they did not, like the lay landowners, spend them on gilded armour and jewelled robes, and troops The Monastery. 7.1 of armed retainers, and tournaments, and journeys to court; and so they ' had enough for plentiful charity and unrestricted hospitality, and the sur-; plus they spent upon those magnificent buildings whose very ruins are among the architectural glories of the land. The Cistercians had an espe- cial rale that their houses should be built on the lowest possible sites, in token of humility ; but it was the general custom in the Middle Ages to choose low and sheltered sites for houses which were not especially intended as strongholds, and therefore it is that we find nearly all monas- teries in sheltered spots. To the monks the neighbourhood of a stream ' was of especial importance : when headed up it supplied a pond for their \ fish, and water-power for their corn-mill. If, therefore, there were within \ the limits of their domain a quiet valley with a rivulet running through it, that was the site which the monks would select for their house. And here, beside the rivulet, in the midst of the green pasture land of the valley dotted with sheep and kine, shut in from the world by the hills, whose tops were fringed with the forest which stretched for miles around, the stately buildings of the monastery would rise year after year ; the cloister court, and the great church, and the abbot's lodge, and the numerous offices, all surrounded by a stone wall with a stately gate-tower, like a goodly walled town, and a suburban hamlet of labourers' and servants' cottages sheltering beneath its walls. There was a certain plan for the arrangement of the principal buildings of a monastery, which, with minor variations, was followed by nearly all the monastic orders, except the Carthusians. These latter differed from the other orders in this, that each monk had his separate cell, in which he hved, and ate, and slept apart from the rest, the whole commu- nity meeting only in church and chapter.* Our limits will not permit us to enter into exceptional arrangements. * Apian of the Chartreuse of Clermont is given by VioUet le Due (Diet, of Arehitee., 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 eaUed a " ceU," is in fact a little house and garden, the little house is in a comer 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 7.2 The Monks of the Middle Ages. The nucleus of a monastery was the cloister court. It was a quadran- gular space of green sward, around which were arranged the cloister build- ings, viz., the church, the chapter-house, the refectory, and the dormitory.* The court was called the Paradise — the blessed garden in which the inmates passed their li vSs "Dt— tiijTf^ace . A porter was often placed at the cloister-gate, and the monks might not quit its seclusion, nor strangers enter to disturb its quiet, save under exceptional circumstances. The cloister-court had generally, though it is doubtful whether it was always the case, a covered ambulatory round its four^ sides. The ambula- tories of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries have usually an open arcade on the side facing the court, which supports the groined roof. In th e fourt eenth and fifteenth_centuries, instead of an _^open arcade, we^usually find a series of large traceried windows, tolerably close together ; in many cases they were glazed, sometimes with painted glass, and formed doubt- less a grand series of scriptural or historical paintings. The blank wall opposite was also sometimes painted. This covered ambulatory was not merely a promenade for the monks ; it was the place in which the convent assembled regularly every day, at certain hours, for study and meditation ; and in some instances (e.g., at Durham) a portion of it was fitted up with little wooden closets for studies for the elder monks, with book-cupboards in the wall opposite for books. The monks were sometimes buried in the cloister, either under the turf in the open square, or beneath the pave- ment of the ambulatory. There was sometimes a fountain at the comer of the cloister, or on its south side near the entrance to the refectory, at which the monks washed before meals. 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. * A bird's-eye view of Citeaux, given in VioUet le Due'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 Fumess, Journal of the Archceological Association,yi. 309; of Newstead (an Augustinian house), ibid. ix. p. 30; and of Durham (Benedictine), ibid. xxii. 201. The Minster Church. 73 The _church jwas always the principal building of a monastery. Many of them remain entire, though despoiled of their shrines, and tombs, and altars, and costly furniture, and many more remain in ruins, and they fill us with astonishment at their magnitude and splendour. Our existing cathedrals . were, in fact, abbey churches ; nine or ten of them were the churches of Benedictine monasteries, the remainder of secular Augustines. But these, the reader may imagine, had the wealth of bishops and the offerings of dioceses lavished upon them, and may not be therefore fair examples of ordinary abbey churches. But some of them originally were ordinary abbey churches, and were subsequently made Episcopal sees, such as Beverley, Gloucester, Christ Church Oxford, and Peterborough, which were originally Benedictine abbey churches ; Bristol was the church of a house of regular canons ; Ripon was the church of a college of secular canons. The Benedictine churches of Westminster and St. Alban's, and the collegiate church of Southwell, are equal in magnitude and splendour to any of the cathedrals ; and the ruins of Fountains, and Tintem, and Netley, show that the Cistercians equalled any of the other orders in the magnitude and beauty of their churches. It is indeed hard to conceive that communities of a score or two of monks should have built such edifices as Westminster and Southwell as private chapels attached to their monasteries. And this, though it is one aspect of the fact, is not the true one. They did not build them for private chapels to say their daily prayers in ; they built them for temples in which they believed that the Eternal and Almighty condescended to dwell; to whose contemplation and worship they devoted their lives. They did not think of the church as an appendage to their monastery, but of their monastery as an appendage to the church. The cloister, under the shadow and protection of the church, was the court of the Temple, in which its priests and Levites dwelt. The church of a monastery was almost always a cross church, with a nave and aisles; a central tower (in Cistercian churches the tower was only to rise one story above the roof); transepts, which usually have three chapels on the north side of each transept, or an aisle divided into three chapels by parclose screens ; a choir with or without aisles ; a 74 The Monks of the Middle Ages. retro-choir or presbytery ; and often a Lady chapel, east of the presbytery, or in some instances parallel with the choir. The entrance for the monks was usually on the south side opposite to the eastern alley of the cloisters ; there was also in Cistercian churches, and in some others, a newel stair in the south transept, by means of which the monks could descend from their dormitory (which was in the upper story of the east side of the cloister court) into the church for the night services, without going into the open air. The principal entrance for the laity was on the north side, and was usually provided with a porch. The great western A Semi-choir of Franciscan Friars. entrance was chieOy used for processions; the great entrance gate in the enclosure wall of the abbey being usually opposite to it or nearly so. In several instances stones have been found, set in the pavements of the naves of conventual churches, to mark the places where the different members of the convent were to stand before they issued forth in pro- cession, amidst the tolling of the great bell, with cross and banner, and chanted psalms, to meet the abbot at the abbey-gate, on his' return from an absence, or any person to whom it was fitting that the convent should show such honour. The Minster CImrch. 75 The internal arrangements of an abbey-church were very nearly like those of our cathedrals. The convent occupied the stalls in the choir; the place of the abbot was in the first stall on the right-hand (south) side to one entering from the west — it is still appropriated to the dean in cathe- drals; in the corresponding stall on the other side sat the prior; the precentor sat in the middle stall on the right or south side ; the succentor in the middle stall on the north side. The beautiful little picture of a semi-choir of Franciscan friars on the opposite page is from a fourteenth -century psalter in the British Museum (Domitian, A. 17). It is from a large picture, which gives a beautiful A Semi-choir of Minoresses. representation of the interior of the choir of the church. The picture is worth careful examination for the costume of the friars— grey frock and cowl, with knotted cord girdle and sandalled feet; some wearing the hood drawn over the head, some leaving it thrown back on the neck and shoulders; one with his hands folded under his sleeves like the Cistercians at p. 17. The precentor may be easily distinguished in the middle stall beating time, with an air of leadership. There is much character in all the faces and attitudes-^.^., in the withered old face on the left, with his cowl pulled over his ears to keep off the draughts, or the one on the 76 The Monks of the Middle Ages. precentor's left, a rather burly friar, evidently singing bass.* On the next page is an engraving from the same MS. of a similar semi-choir of minoresses, which also is only a portion of a large church interior. When there was a shrine of a noted saintf it was placed in the presby- tery, behind the high-altar ; and here, and in the choir aisles, were fre- quently placed the monuments of the abbots, and of founders and distin- guished benefactors of the house ; sometimes heads of the house and' founders were buried in the chapter-house. It would require a more elaborate description than our plan will admit to endeavour to bring before the mind's-eye of the reader one of these abbey churches before its spoliation ; — when the sculptures were unmutilated and the paintings fresh, and the windows filled with their stained glass, and the choir hung with hangings, and banners and tapestries waved from the arches of the triforium, and the altar shone gloriously with jewelled plate, and the monumentsj of abbots and nobles were still perfect, and the wax tapers burned night and day§ in the hearses, throwing a flickering light on the solemn effigies below, and glancing upon the tarnished armour and * A double choir of the fifteenth century is in King Rene's Book of Hours (Egerton, 1,070), at folio 54. Another serai-choir of Religious of late fifteenth and early sixteenth century date, very well drawn, may be found in Egerton, 2,125, f- "7> v.' t 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 ai St. Edmund's Bury, with the attendant monks, pilgrims worshipping, &c. . J "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." Fiers Floughinai-C s Creed. \ Henry VH. 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-fcur torches of twice the weight, to be lighted at his anniversaiy. The Chapter-house. 77 the dusty banners * which hung over the tombs, while the cowled monks sat in their stalls and prayed. Or when, on some high festival, the convent walked round the lofty aisles in procession, two and two, clad in rich copes over their coarse frocks, preceded by cross and banner, with swinging censers pouring forth clouds of incense, while one of those angelic boy's voices which we still sometimes hear in cathedrals chanted the solemn litany — the pure sweet ringing voice floating along the vaulted aisles, until it was lost in the swell of the chorus of the whole procession — Ora ! Or a ! Ora ! pro nobis ! The Cloister was usually situated on the south side of the nave of the church, so that the nave formed its north side, and the south transept a part of its eastern side ; but sometimes, from reasons of local convenience, the cloister was on the north side of the nave, and then the relative positions of the other buildings were similarly transposed. The Chapter-house was always on the east side of the court. In establishments of secular canons it seems to have been always multi- sided t with a central pillar to support its groining, and a lofty, conical, lead-covered roof. In these instances it is placed in the open space eastward of the cloister, and is usually approached by a passage from the east side of the cloister court. In the houses of all the other orders % the chapter - house is rectangular, even where ' the church is a cathedral. Usually, then, the chapter-house is a rectangular building on the east side of the cloister, and its longest axis is east and west ; at Durham it has an • " For though a man in their mynster a masse wolde heren, His sight shal so be set on sundiye werkes. The penons and the pomels and poyntes of sheldes Withdrawen his devotion and dusken his heart." Piers Ploughman's Vision, + 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. + 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. 78 The Monks of the Middle Ages. eastern apse.* It was a large and handsome room, with a good deal of architectural ornament ;t often the western end of it is divided off as a vestibule or ante-room ; and generally it is so large as to be divided intb two or three aisles by rows of pillars. Internally, rows of stalls or benches Monis and Lawyers in Charier-house. were arranged round the walls for the convent ; there was a higher seat at the east end for the abbot or prior, and a desk in the middle from which certain things were read. Every day after the service called Terce, the convent walked in procession from the choir to the chapter-house, and took their proper places. When the abbot had taken his place, the monks * 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. t Piers Ploughman describes the chapter-house of a Benedictine convent : — " There was the chapter-house, wrought as a great church, Car\-ed and covered and quaintly entayled [sculptured] ; With seemly selure [ceiling] y-set aloft, As a parliament house y-painted about." The Cloister Buildings. 79 descended one step and bowed ; he returned their salutation, and all took their seats. A sentence of the rule of the order was read by one of the novices from the desk, and the abbot, or in his absence the prior, delivered an explanatory or hortatory sermon upon it ; then from another portion of the book was read the names of brethren, and benefactors, and persons who had been received into fraternity, whose decease had happened on that day of the year ; and the convent prayed a requiescant in pace for their souls, and the souls of all the faithful departed this life. Then members of the convent who had been guilty of slight breaches of discipline con- fessed them, kneeling upon a low stool in the middle, and on a bow from the abbot, intimating his remission of the breach, they resumed their seats. If any had a complaint to make against any brother, it was here made and adjudged.* Convent business was also transacted. The woodcut gives an example of the kind. Henry VII. had made grants to Westminster Abbey, on condition that the convent should perform certain religious services on his behalf ;t and in order that the services should not fall into disuse, he directed that yearly, at a certain period, the chief-justice, or the king's attorney, or the recorder of London, should attend in chapter, and the abstract of the grant and agreement between the king and the convent should be read. The gi-ant which was thus to be read still exists in the British Museum j it is written in a volume superbly bound, with the royal seals attached in silver cases ; it is from the illuminated letter at the head of one of the deeds in this book | that our woodcut is taken. It rudely represents the chapter-house, with' the .chief-justice and a group of lawyers on one side, the abbot and convent on the other, and a monk reading the grant from the desk in the middle. Lydgate's "Life of St. Edmund" (Harl. 2,278) was written a.d. 1433, by * 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, t See note on p. 76. X The woodcut on a preceding page (23) is from another initial letter of the same book. 8o The Monks of the Middle Ages. command of his abbot — he was a monk of St. Edmund's Bury — on the occasion of King Henry VI. being received — " Of their chapter a brother for to be ;" that is, to the fraternity of the house. An illumination on f. 6 seems to represent the king sitting in the abbot's place in the chapter-house, with royal officers behind him, monks in their places on each side of the chapter-house, the lectern in the middle, and a group of clerks at the west end. It is probably intended as a picture of the scene of the king's being received to fraternity. Adjoining the south transept is usually a narrow apartment ; the de- scription of Durham, drawn up soon after the Dissolution, says that it was the " Locutory." Another conjecture is that it may have been the vestry. At Netley it has a door at the west, with a trefoil light over it, a two-Hght window at the east, two niches, like monumental niches, in its north and south walls, and a piscina at the east end of its south wall. Again, between this and the chapter-house is often found a small apart- ment, which some have conjectured to be the penitential cell. In other cases it seems to be merely a passage from the cloister-court to the space beyond ; in which space the abbot's lodging is often situated, so that it may have been the abbot's entrance to the church and chapter. In Cistercian houses there is usually another long building south of the chapter-house, its axis running north and south. This was perhaps in its lower story the Frater-house, a room to which the monks retired after refection to converse, and to take their allowance of wine, or other indul- gences in diet which were allowed to them; and some quotations in Fosbroke would lead us to imagine that the monks dined here on feast days. It would answer to the great chamber of mediaeval houses, and in some respects to the Combination-room * of modern colleges. The upper story of this building was probably the Dormitory. This was a long room, with a vaulted or open timber roof, in which the pallets were arranged in rows on each side against the wall. The prior or sub-prior usually slept in the * A room adjoining the hall, to which the fellows retire after dinner to talie their wine and converse. The Monastery. 3 1 dormitory, with a light burning near him, in order to maintain order The monks slept in the same habits * which they wore in the day-time About the middle of the south side of the court, in Cistercian houses, there is a long room, whose longer axis lies north and south, with a smaller room on each side of it, which was probably the Refectory. In other houses, the refectory forms the south side of the cloister court, lying parallel with the nave of the church. Very commonly it has a row of pillars down the centre, to support the groined roof. It was arranged, like all mediseval halls, with a dais at the upper end and a screen at the lower. In place of the oriel window of mediaeval halls, there was a pulpit, which was often in the embrasure of a quasi-oriel window, in which one of the brethren read some edifying book during meals. The remaining apartments of the cloister-court it is more difficult to appropriate. In some of the great Cistercian houses whose ground-plan can be traced— as Fountains, Salley, Netley, &c.— possibly the long apartment which is found on the west side of the cloister was the hall of the Hospitium, with chambers over it. Another conjecture is, that it was the house of the lay brethren. In the uncertainty which at present exists on these points of monastic arrangement, we cannot speak with any degree of certainty ; but we throw together some data on the subject in the subjoined note.f * The ordinary fashion of the time was to sleep without any clothing whatever. t In the plan of the ninth-century Benedictine monastery of St. Gall, published in the Archaological 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 churchwas_onLthfi_south,_tlie_ chapter-house and dormitory on the_ east, the refectory, parallel with the, church, on the no rth,._arL d the re llaL nn 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, 82 The Monks of the Middle Ages. The Scriptorium is said to have been usually over the chapter-house. It was therefore a large apartment, capable of containing many persons, and, in fact, many persons did work together in it in a very business-like manner at the transcription of books. For example, William, Abbot of Herschau, in the eleventh century, as stated by his biographer : " Knowing, what he had learned by laudable experience, that sacred reading is the necessary food of the mind, made twelve of his monks very excellent writers, to whom he committed the office of transcribing the holy Scriptures, and the treatises of the Fathers. Besides these, there were an indefinite number of other scribes, who wrought with equal diligence on the transcription of other books. Over them was a monk well versed in all kinds of knowledge, whose business it was to appoint some good work as a task for each, and to correct the mistakes of those who wrote negligently."* The general chapter of the Cistercian order, held in A.D. 1134, directs that the same silence should be maintained in the scrip- torium as in the cloister. Sometimes perhaps little separate studies of wainscot were made round this large apartment, in which the writers sat at their desks. Sometimes this literary work was carried on in the cloister, which, being glazed, would be a not uncomfortable place in temperate weather, and a very comfortable place in summer, with its coolness and quiet, and the peep through its windows on the green court and the foun- tain in the centre, and the grey walls of the monastic buildings beyond ; the slow footfall of a brother going to and fro, and the cawing of the rooks in the minster tower, would add to the dreamy charm of such a library.f Odo, Abbot of St. Martin's, at Tournay, about 1093, "used to exult in the number of writers the Lord had given him ; for if you had gone into the cloister you might in general have seen a dozen young monks sitting on chairs in perfect silence, writing at tables carefully and artificially 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 dis- tance from the church. * Maitland's " Dark Ages." t At Winchester School, until a comparatively reient period, the scholars in the summer time studied in the cloisters. The Monastery. 83 constructed. All Jerome's commentaries on the Prophets, all the works of St. Gregory, and everything that he could find of St. Augustine, Ambrose, Isodore, Bede, and the Lord Anselm, then Abbot of Bee, and afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, he caused to be transcribed. So that you would scarcely have found such a monastery in that part of the country, and everybody was begging for our copies to correct their own." Some- times little studies of wainscot were erected in the cloisters for the monks to study or transcribe in. At Gloucester Cathedral, at BeauUeu, and at Melrose, for example, there are traces of the way in which the windows of the cloisters were enclosed and turned into such studies.* Monk in Scriptorium. There are numerous illuminations representing monks and ecclesiastics writing; they sit in chairs of various kinds, some faldstools, some armed chairs, some armed backed; and they have desks and bookstands before them of various shapes, commonly a stand with sloping desk Hke a Bible lectern, not unfrequently a kind of dumb-waiter besides on which are several books. We see also in these illuminations the forms of the * For much curious information about scriptoria and monastic libraries, see Maitland's " Dark Ages," quoted above. 84 The Monks of the Middle Ages. pens, knives, inkstands, &c., which were used. We will only mention two of unusual interest. One is in a late fourteenth-century Psalter, Harl. 2,897, ^t p. 186, v., where St. Jude sits writing his Epistle in a canopied chair, with a shelf across the front of the chair to serve as a desk ; a string with a weight at the end holds his parchment down, and there is a bench beside, on which lies a book. A chair with a similar shelf is at f. 12 of the MS. Egerton, 1,070. Our woodcut on the preceding page is from a MS. in the Library of Soissons. We also find representations of ecclesiastics writing in a small cell which may represent the enclosed scriptoria — e.g. St. Bonaventine writing, in the MS. Harl. 3,229 ; St. John painting, in the late fifteenth-century MS. Add. 15,677, f. 35. The Abbot's Lodging sometimes formed a portion of one of the monastic courts, as at St. Mary, Bridlington, where it formed the western side of the cloister-court; but more usually it was a detached house, precisely similar to the contemporary unfortified houses of laymen of similar rank and wealth. No particular site relative to the monastic buildings was appropriated to it; it was erected wherever was most convenient within the abbey enclosure. The principal rooms of an abbot's house are the Hall, the Great Chamber, the Kitchen, Buttery, Cellars, &c., the Chambers, and the Chapel. We must remember that the abbots of the greater houses were powerful noblemen ; the abbots of the smaller houses were equal in rank and wealth to country gentlemen. They had a very constant succession of noble and gentle guests, whose entertainment was such as their rank and habits required. This involved a suitable habitation and establishment ; and all this must be borne in mind when we endeavour to picture to ourselves an abbot's lodging. To give an idea of the magnitude of some of the abbots' houses, we may record that the hall of the Abbot of Fountains was divided by two rows of pillars into a centre and aisles, and that it was 170 feet long by 70 feet wide."' Half a dozen noble guests, with tlieir retinues of knights and squires, and men- at-arms and lacqueys, and all the abbot's men to boot, would be lost in * The hall of the Royal Palace of Winchester, erected at the same period, was 1 1 1 feet by 55 feet g inches. The Monastery. 85 such a hall. On the great feast-days it might, perhaps, be comfortably filled. But even such a hall would hardly contain the companies who were sometimes entertained, on such great days for instance as an abbot's installation-day, when it is on record that an abbot of one of the greater houses would give a feast to three or four thousand people. Of the lodgings of the superiors of smaller houses, we may take that of the Prior of St. Mary's, Bridlington, as an example. It is very accurately described by King Henry's commissioners ; it formed the west side of the cloister-court; it contained a hall with an undercroft, eighteen paces long from the screen to the dais,* and ten paces wide ; on its north side a great chamber, twenty paces long and nineteen wide ; at the west end of the great chamber the prior's sleeping-chamber, and over that a garret ; on the east side of the same chamber a little chamber and a closet; at the south end of the hall the buttery and . pantry, and a chamber called the Auditor's Chamber; at the same end of the hall a fair parlour, called the Low Summer Parlour ; and over it another fair chamber; and adjoining that three little chambers for servants"; at the south end of the hall the Prior's Kitchen, with three houses covered with lead, and adjoining it a chamber called the South Cellarer's Chamber, t There were several other buildings of a monastery, which were some- times detached, and placed as convenience dictated. The Infirmary especially seems to have been more commonly detached ; in many cases it had its own kitchen, and refectory, and chapel, and chambers, which sometimes were arranged round a court, and formed a complete little separate establishment. The Hospitium, or Guest-house, was sometimes detached; but more * Its total length would perhaps be about twenty-four paces. t 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. A Present of Fish. 86 The Monks of the Middle Ages. usually it seems to have formed a portion of an outer court, westward of the cloister-court, which court was entered from the great gates, or from one of the outer gates of the abbey. In Cistercian houses, as we have said, the guest-house, with its hall below and its chambers above, perhaps occupied the west side of the cloister-court, and would therefore form the eastern range of buildings of this outer court. At St. Mary's, Bridlington, where the prior's lodging occupied this position, the " lodgings^ and stables for strangers " were on the north side of this outer court. The guest- houses were often of great extent and magnificence. The Guesten-hall of St. Augustine's, Canterbury, still remains, and is a very noble building, 150 feet long by 50 broad, of Norman date, raised on an undercroft. The Guesten-hall of Worcester also remains, a very noble building on an undercroft, with a fine carved timber roof, and portions of the painting which decorated the wall behind the dais still visible.' Besides the hall, the guest-house contained often a great-chamber (answering to our modem drawing-room) and sleeping-chambers, and a chapel, in which service was performed for guests — for in those days it was the custom always to hear prayers before dinner and supper. Thus, at Durham, we are told that " a famous house of hospitality was kept within the abbey garth, called the Guest-hall, and was situate in the west side, towards the water. The sub-prior of the house was the master thereof, as one appointed to give entertainment to all estates, noble, gentle, or what other degree soever, came thither as strangers. Their entertainment was not inferior to that of any place in England, both for the goodness of their diet, the clean and neat furniture of their lodgings, and generally all things necessary for travellers ; and, with this entertain- ment, no man was required to depart while he continued honest and of good behaviour. This hall was a stately place, not unlike the body of a church, supported on each side by very fine pillars, and in the midst of the hall a long range for the fire. The chambers and lodgings belonging to it were kept very clean and richly furnished." At St. Albans, the Guest- * See an account of this hall, with pen-and-ink sketches by Mr. Street, in the volume of the Worcester Architectural Society for 1854. The Monastery. 87 house was an enormous range of rooms, with stabUng for three hundred horses. There is a passage in the correspondence of Coldingham Priory (pub- lished by the Surties Society, 1841, p. 52) which gives us a graphic sketch of the arrival of guests at a monastery : — " On St. Alban's-day, June 1 7 [year not given— it was towards the end of Edward III.], two monks, with a company of certain secular persons, came riding into the gateway of the monastery about nine o'clock in the morning. This day happened to be Sunday, but they were hospitably and reverently received, had lodgings assigned them, a special mass service performed for them, and after a refection and washing their feet, it being supposed that they were about to pursue their journey to London the next morning, they were left at an early hour to take repose. While the bell was summoning the rest of the brotherhood to vespers, the monk who had been in attendance upon them (the hospitaller) having gone with the rest to sing his chant in the choir, the secular persons appear to have asked the two monks to take a walk with them to look at the Castle of Durham,'' &c.* There could hardly have been any place in the Middle Ages which could have presented such a constant succession of picturesque scenes as the Hospitium of a monastery. (And what a contrast must often have existed between the Hospitium and the Cloister. Here a crowd of people of every degree — nobles and ladies, knights and dames, traders with their wares, minstrels with their songs and juggUng tricks, monks and clerks, palmers, friars, beggars — bustling about the court or crowding the long tables of the hall ; and, a few paces off, the dark-frocked monks, with faces buried in their cowls, pacing the ambulatory in silent meditation, or sitting at their meagre refection, enHvened only by the monotonous sound of the novice's voice reading a homily from the pulpit ! Many of the remaining buildings of the monastery were arranged around this outer court. Ingulphus tells us that the second court of the Saxon monastery of Croyland (about 875 a.d.) had the gate on the north, and * Quoted by Archdeacon Churton in a paper read before the Yorkshire Architectural Society in 1853. 88 The Monks of the Middle Ages. the almonry near it — a very usual position for it ; the shops of the tailors and shoe-makers, the hall of the novices, and the abbot's lodgings on the east j the guest-hall and its chambers on the south ; and the stable-house, and granary, and bake-house on the west. The Gate-house was usually a large and handsome tower, with the porter's lodge on one side of the arched entrance ; and often a strong room on the other, which served as the prison of the manor-court of the convent ; and often a handsome room over the entrance, in which the manorial court was held. In the middle of the court was often a stone cross, round which markets and fairs were often held. In the " Vision of Piers Ploughman '' an interesting description is given of a Dominican convent of the fourteenth century. We will not trouble the reader with the very archaic original, but will give him a paraphrase of it. The writer says that, on approaching, he was so bewildered by their magnitude and beauty, that for a long time he could distinguish nothing certainly but stately buildings of stone, pillars carved and painted, and great windows well wrought. In the quadrangle he notices the cross standing in the centre, surrounded with tabernacle-work : he enters the minster (church), and describes the arches car\'ed and gilded, the wide windows full of shields of arms and merchants' marks on stained glass, the high tombs under canopies, with armed effigies in alabaster, and lovely ladies lying by their sides in many gay garments. He passes into the cloister and sees it pillared and painted, and covered with lead and paved with tiles, and conduits of white metal pouring their water into latten (bronze) lavatories beautifully wrought. The chapter-house he says was wrought like a great church, carved and painted like a parliament-house. Then he went into the fratry, and found it a hall fit for a knight and his house- hold, with broad boards (tables) and clean benches, and windows wrought as in a church. Then he wandered all about — " And seigh halles ful heigh, and houses ful noble, Chambres with chymneys, and chapeles gaye, And kychenes for an high kynge in castels to holden, And their dortoure ydight with dores ful stronge, Ferraerye, and fraitur, with fele more houses, Monastic Cells. 89 And all strong stone wall, steme opon heithe, With gay garites and grete, and icli whole yglazed, And other houses ynowe to herberwe the queene." The churches of the friars differed from those of monks. They were frequently composed either of a nave only or a nave and two (often very narrow) aisles, without transepts, or chapels, or towers; they were adapted especially for preaching to large congregations — e.g. the Austin Friars' Church in the City of London, lately restored; St.- Andrew's Hall, Norwich. In VioUet le Due's "Dictionary of Architecture" is given a bird's-eye view of the monastery of the Augustine Friars of St. Marie des Vaux Verts, near Brussels, which is a complete example of one of these houses.* Every monastery had a number of dependent establishments of greater or less size : cells on its distant estates ; granges on its manors ; chapels in places where the abbey tenants were at a distance from a church; and often hermitages under its protection. A ground -plan and view of one of these cells, the Priory of St. Jean-les-Bons-hommes, of the end of the twelfth century, still remaining in a tolerably perfect state, is given by Viollet le Due (Diet. Arch., i. 276, 277). It is a miniature monastery, with a Uttle cloistered court, surrounded by the usual buildings : an oratory on the north side ; on the east a sacristy, and chapter-house, and long range of buildings, with dormitory over; on the south side the refectory and kitchen ; and another exterior court, with stables and offices. The preceptory of Hospitallers at Chibburn, Northumberland, which remains almost as the knights left it, is another example of these small rural houses. It is engraved in Turner's " Domestic Architecture," vol. ii. p. 197. It also consists of a small court, with a chapel about forty-five feet long, on the west side ; and other buildings, which we cannot appropriate, on the remaining sides. Of the riionastic cells we have already spoken in describing the office of prior. The one or two brethren who were placed in a cell to manage the distant estates of the monastery would probably be * Ground-plans of the Dominican Friary at Norwich, the Carmelite Friary at Hulne, and the Franciscan Friary at Kilconnel, may be found in Walcotfs "Church and Con- ventual Arrangement." go The Monks of the Middle Ages. chosen rather for their qualities as prudent stewards than for their piety. The command of money which their office gave them, and their distance from the supervision of their ecclesiastical superiors, brought them under temptation, and it is probably in these cells, and among the brethren who superintended the granges, and the officials who could leave the monastery at pleasure on the plea of convent business, that we are to look for the irregularities of which the Middle-Age satirists speak. The monk among Chaucer's " Canterbury Pilgrims " was prior of a cell, for we read that — " When he rode, men might his bridel here Gingehng in a whistling sound, as clere And eke as loud as doth the chapelle belle, Ther as this lord was keeper of the celle." The monk on whose intrigue "The Shipman's Tale" is founded, was probably the cellarer of his convent : — " This noble monli of which I you devise, Had of his abbot, as him Ust, licence ; Because he was a man of high prudence, And eke an officer, out for to ride To seen his granges and his hemes wide." An Abbot travellijig. The abbot, too, sometimes gave license to the monks to go and see their friends, or to pass two or three days at one or other of the manors of the Monastic Cells. 91 house for recreation; and sometimes he took a monk with him on his, own journeys. In a MS. romance, in the British Museum (Add. 10,293, f- ii)> is a representation of a monk with his hood on, journeying on horseback. We give here, from the St. Alban's Book (Nero, D. vii.), a woodcut of an abbot on horseback, with a hat over his hood — " an abbot on an ambUng pad ;" he is giving his benediction in return to the salute of some passing traveller. Hermitages or anchorages sometimes depended on a monastery, and were not necessarily occupied by brethren of the monastery, but by any one desirous to embrace this mode of hfe whom the convent might choose. , The hermit, however, probably, usually wore the habit of the order. The monastery often supphed the hermit with his food. In a picture in the MS. romance, before quoted (Add. 10,292, f. 98), is a representation of a knight-errant on horseback, conversing by the way with a clerk, who is carrying bread and wine to a hermitage. The woodcut with which we conclude, from the Harleian MS., 1,527, represents the characteristic costume of three orders of religious with whom we have been concerned — a bishop, an abbot, and a clerk. Bishop, Abbot, and Clerk. THE HERMITS AND RECLUSES OF THE MIDDLE AGES. CHAPTER I. THE HERMITS. |E have already related, in a former chapter (p. 3), that the ascetics who abandoned the stirring world of the ^gypto-Greek cities, and resorted to the Theban desert to lead a life of self-mortification and contemplation, frequently associated themselves into communities, and thus gave rise to the coenobitical orders of Christendom. But there were others who still preferred the solitary life ; and they had their imitators in every age and country of the Christian world. We have not the same fulness of information respecting these sohtaries that we have respecting the great orders of monks and friars ; but the scattered notices which remain of them, when brought together, form a very curious chapter in the history of human nature, well worthy of being written out in full. The business of the present paper, however, is not to write the whole chapter, but only to select that page of it which relates to the Enghsh solitaries, and to give as distinct a picture as we can of the part which the Hermits and Recluses played on the picturesque stage of the England of the Middle Ages. We have to remember, at the outset, that it was not all who bore 94 The Hermits and Rechoses of the Middle Ages. the name of Eremite who lived a solitary Hfe. We have already had occasion to mention that Innocent IV., in the middle of the thirteenth century, found a number of small religious communities and solitaries, who were not in any of the recognised religious orders, and observed no authorised rule ; and that he enrolled them all into a new order, with the rule of St. Augustine, under the name of Eremiti Augustini. The new order took root, and flourished, and gave rise to a considerable number of large communities, very similar in every respect to the communities of friars of the three orders previously existing. The members of these new communities did not affect seclusion, but went about among the people, as the Dominicans, and Franciscans, and Carmelites did. The popular tongue seems to have divided the formal title of the new order, and to have applied the name of Augustine, or, popularly, Austiti Friars, to these new communities of friars ; while it reserved the distinctive name of Eremites, or Hermits, for the religious, who, whether they lived absolutely alone, or in little aggregations of solitaries, still professed the old eremitical principle of seclusion from the world. These hermits may again be sub- divided into Hermits proper, and Recluses. The difference between them was this : that the hermit, though he professed a general seclusion from the world, yet, in fact, held communication with his fellow-men as freely as he pleased, and might go in and out of his hermitage as inclination prompted, or need required ; the recluse was understood to maintain a more strict abstinence from unnecessary intercourse with others, and had entered into a formal obligation not to go outside the doors of his hermitage. In the imperfect notices which we have of them, it is often impossible to deter- mine whether a particular individual was a hermit or a recluse ; but we incline to the opinion that of the male solitaries few had taken the vows of reclusion \ while the female solitaries appear to have been all recluses. So that, practically, the distinction almost amounts to this — that the male solitaries were hermits, and the females recluses. Very much of what we have to say of the mediaeval solitaries, of their abodes, and of their domestic economy, applies both to those who had, and to those who had not, made the further vow of reclusion. We shall, therefore, treat first of those points which are common to them, and The Hermits. 95 then devote a further paper to those things which are peculiar to the recluses. The popular idea of a hermit is that of a man who was either a half- crazed enthusiast, or a misanthrope — a kind of Christian Timon — who abandoned the abodes of men, and scooped out for himself a cave in the rocks, or built himself a rude hut in the forest j and lived there a half- savage life, clad in sackcloth or skins,* eating roots and wild fruits, and drinking of the neighbouring spring ; visited occasionally by superstitious people, who gazed and listened in fear at the mystic ravings, or wild denunciations, of the gaunt and haggard prophet. This ideal has probably been derived from the traditional histories, once so popular,t of the early hermit-saints ; and there may have been, perhaps, always an individual or two of whom this traditional picture was a more or less exaggerated repre- sentation. But the ordinary English hermit of the Middle Ages was a totally different type of man. He was a sober-minded and civilised person, who * In the National Gallery is a painting by Fra Angelico, in which is a hermit clad in a dress woven of rushes or flags. t " 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 hfelihood, their hking 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." Fiers Ploughman' s Vision. 96 The Hermits and Recluses of the Middle Ages. dressed in a robe very much like the robes of the other rehgious orders ; lived in a comfortable little house of stone or timber ; often had estates, or a pension, for his maintenance, besides what charitable people were pleased to leave him in their wills, or to offer in their lifetime ; he lived on bread and meat, and beer and wine, and had a chaplain to say daily prayers for him, and a servant or two to wait upon him ; his hermitage was not always up in the lonely hills, or deep-buried in the shady forests — very ■ often it was by the great high roads, and sometimes in the heart of great towns and cities. This summary description is so utterly opposed to all the popular notions, that we shall take pains to fortify our assertions with sufficient proofs ; indeed, the whole subject is so little known that we shall illustrate it freely from all the sources at our command. And first, as it is one of our especial objects to furnish authorities for the pictorial representation of these old hermits, we shall inquire what kind of dress they did actually wear in place of the skins, or the sackcloth, with which the popular imagination has clothed them. We should be inclined to assume a priori that the hermits would wear the habit prescribed by Papal authority for the Eremiti Augustini, which, according to Stevens, consisted of " a white garment, and a white scapular over it, when they are in the house ; but in the choir, and when they go abroad, they put on, over all, a sort of cowl and a large hood, both black, the hood round before, and hanging down to the waist in a point, being girt with a black leather thong." And in the rude woodcuts which adorn Caxton's " Vitas Patrum," or " Lives of the Hermits," we do find some of the religious men in a habit which looks like a gown, with the arms coming through slits, which may be intended to represent a scapular, and with hoods and cowls of the fashion described ; while others, in the same book, are in a loose gown, in shape more like that of a Benedictine. Again, in Albert Durer's " St. Christopher," as engraved by Mrs. Jameson, in her " Sacred and Legendary Art," p. 445, the hermit is represented in a frock and scapular, with a cowl and hood. But in the majority of the representations of hermits which we meet with in medieval paintings and illuminated manu- scripts, the costume consists of a frock, sometimes girded, sometimes not, Hermits. 97 and over it an ample gown, like a cloak, with a hood ; and in the cases where the colour of the robe is indicated, it is almost always indicated by a light brown tint.* It is not unlikely that there were varieties of costume among the hermits. Perhaps those who were attached to the monasteries of monks and friars, and who seem to have been usually admitted to the fraternity of the house,t may have worn the cos- tume of the order to which they were attached ; while priest-hermits serving chantries may have worn the usual costume of a secular priest. Bishop Poore, who died 1237, in his"Ancren Riewle," speaks of the fashion of the dress to be worn, at least by female recluses, as indifferent. Bilney, speaking especially of the recluses in his day, just before the Reformation, says, "their apparell is indifferent, so it be dissonant from the laity." In the woodcuts, from various sources, which illustrate this paper, the reader will see for himself how the hermits are represented by the medieval artists, who had them constantly under their observation, and who at least tried their best to represent faithfully what they saw. The best and clearest illustration which we have been able to find of the usual costume in which the hermits are represented, we here give to the reader. of St. Damasus, one of the group in the fine picture of " St. Jerome," by St. Damasus, Hermit. It is from the figure * Hers 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, AH 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." t For the custom of admitting to the fraternity of a religious house, see p. 66. O 98 The Hermits and Recluses of the Middle Ages. Cosimo Roselli (who lived from 1439 to 1506), now in the National Gallery. The hermit-saint wears a light-brown frock, and scapular, with no girdle, and, over all, a cloak and hood of the same colour, and his naked feet are protected by wooden clogs. Other illustrations of hermits may be found in the early fourteenth cen- tury MS. Romances Additional 10,293 f- 335; a-^d 10,294 f. 95. In the latter case there are two hermits in one hermitage; also in Royal 16 G. vi. Illustrations of St. Anthony, which give authorities for hermit costume, and indications of what hermitages were, abound in the later MSS. ; for example, in King Rent's " Book of Hours " (Egerton 1,070), at f. 108, the hermit-saint is habited in a grey frock and black cloak with a T-cross on the breast ; he holds bell and book and staff in his hands. In Egerton 1,149, of the middle of the fifteenth century. In Add. 15,677, of the latter part of the fifteenth century, at £ 150, is St. Anthony in brown frock and narrow scapulary, with a grey cloak and hood and a red skull cap ; he holds a staff and book ; his hermitage, in the background, is a building like a Uttle chapel with a bell-cot on the gable, within a grassy enclosure fenced with a low wattled fence. Add. 18,854, of date 1525 a.d., f. 146, repre- sents St. Anthony in a blue-grey gown and hood, holding bell, rosary, and staff, entering his hermitage, a Httle building with a bell-cot on the gable. A man could not take upon himself the character of a hermit at his own pleasure. It was a regular order of religion, into which a man could not enter without the consent of the bishop of the' diocese, ■ and into which he was admitted by a formal religious service. And just as bishops do not ordain men to' holy orders until they have obtained a "title," a place in which to exercise their ministry, so bishops did not admit men to the order of Hermits until they had obtained a hermitage in which to exercise their vocation. The form of the vow made by a hermit is here given, from the Insti- tution Books of Norwich, lib. xiv. fo. 27a ("East Anglian," No. 9, p. 107). " I, John Fferys, nott maridd, promyt and avowe to God, 0' Lady Sent Mary, and to all the seynts in heven, in the p'sence of you reverend fadre in God, Richard bishop of Norwich, the wowe of chastite, after the rule of sent Hermits. 99 paule the heremite. In the name of the fadre, sone, and holy gost. John Fferere. xiij. meii, anno dni. mlvciiij. in capella de Thorpe." We summarize the service for habiting and blessing a hermit* from the pontifical of Bishop Lacy of Exeter, of the fourteenth century.t It begins with several psalms ; then several short prayers for the incepting hermit, mentioning him by name. J Then follow two prayers for the benediction of his vestments, apparently for diiferent parts of his habit ; the first mention- ing "hec indumenta humilitatem cordis et mundi contemptum signifi- cancia," — these garments signifying humility of heart, and contempt of the world ; the second blesses " hanc vestem pro conservande castitatis signo," — this vestment the sign of chastity. The priest then delivers the vestments to the hermit kneehng before him, with these words, " Brother, behold we give to thee the eremitical habit {habitum heremitkum), with which we admonish thee to live henceforth chastely, soberly, and holily ; in holy watchings, in fastings, in labours, in prayers, in works of mercy, that thou mayest have eternal life, and live for ever and ever." And he receives them saying, " Behold, I receive them in the name of the Lord ; and promise myself so to do according to my power, the grace of God, and of the saints, helping me." Then he puts off his secular habit, the priest saying to him, " The Lord put off from thee the old man with his deeds ; " and while he puts on his hermit's habit, the priest says, " The Lord put on thee the new man, which, after God, is created in righteousness and true holiness." Then follow a collect and certain psalms, and finally the priest sprinkles him with holy water, and blesses him. Men of all ranks took upon them the hermit life, and we find the popular writers of the time sometimes distinguishing among them ; one is a " hermit-priest,"§ another is a "gentle hermit," not in the sense of the * "Officium induendi et benedicendi hereraitam." t We are indebted to Mr. M. H. Bloxam.for a copy of it. ^ ,, , , t " Famulus tuus N." It is noticable that the mascuUne gender is used all through, wiaioutanysuchnoteaswe find in the Service for Inclosing (which we shaU have to notice hereafter), that this service shall serve for both sexes. § Thehennitwho interposed between Sir Lionel and Sir Bors, and who was killed by Sir Lionel for his interference (Maloiy's "Prince Arthur," IIT., Ixxix.), is called a lOO The Hermits and Recluses of the Middle Ages. " gentle hermit of the dale," but meaning that he was a man of gentle birth. The hermit in whose hermitage Sir Launcelot passed long time is described as a " gentle hermit, which sometime was a noble knight and a great lord of possessions, and for great goodness he hath taken him unto wilful poverty, and hath forsaken his possessions, and his name is Sir Baldwin of Britain, and he is a full noble surgeon, and a right good leech.'' This was the type of hermit who was venerated by the popular superstition of the day : a great and rich man who had taken to wilful poverty, or a man who lived wild in the woods — a St. Julian, or a St. Anthony. A poor man who turned hermit, and lived a prosaic, pious, useful life, showing travellers the way through a forest, or over a bog, or across a ferry, and humbly taking their alms in return, presented nothing dramatic and striking to the popular mind ; very likely, too, many men adopted the hermit life for the sake of the idleness and the alms,* and deserved the small repute they had. It is apropos of Sir Launcelot's hermit above-mentioned that the romancer complains " for in those days it was not with the guise of hermits as it now is in these days. For there were no hermits in those days, but that they have been men of worship and prowess, and those hermits held great households, and refreshed people that were in distress." We find the author of " Piers Ploughman " making the same complaint. We have, as in other cases, a little modernised his language : — ' ' But eremites that inhabit them by the highways, And in boroughs among brewers^ and beg in churches, All that holy eremites hated and despised, (As riches, and reverences, and rich men's alms), These lollers.f latche drawers,! lewd eremites, " hermit-priest." AJso, in the Episcopal Registry of Lichfield, we find the bishop, date lOth February, 1409, giving to Brother Richard Goldeston, late Canon ofWombnigge, now recluse at Prior's Lee, near ShifFenall, license to hear confessions. * " 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." t Wanderers. t Breakers out of their cells. Hermitages. jqi Covet on the contrary. Nor Uve holy as eremites, That lived wild in woods, with bears and lions. Some had livelihood from their lineage* and of no life else ; And some lived by their learning, and the labour of their hands. bome had foreigners for friends, that their food sent ; And birds brought to some bread, whereby they lived. All these holy eremites were of high kin. Forsook land and lordship, and Kkings of the body. But these eremites that edify by the highways Whilome were workmen— Webbers, and tailors, And carter's knaves, and clerks without grace. They held a hungry house, And had much want. Long labour, and light winnings. And at last espied That lazy fellows in friar's clothing had fat cheeks. Forthwith left they their labour, these lewd knaves, And clothed them in copes as they were clerks. Or one of some order [of monks or friars], or else prophets [eremites]." This curious extract from " Piers Ploughman " leads us to notice the localities in which hermitages were situated. Sometimes, no doubt, they were in lonely and retired places among the hills, or hidden in the depths of the forests which then covered so large a portion of the land. On the next page is a very interesting little picture of hermit life, from a MS. Book of Hours, executed for Richard II. (British Museum, Domitian, A. xvii., foho 4 V.) The artist probably intended to represent the old hermits of the Egyptian desert, Piers Poughman's — "Holy eremites. That lived wild in woods With bears and lions ;" but, after the custom of mediaeval art, he has introduced the scenery, costume, and architecture of his own time. Erase the bears, which stand for the whole tribe of outlandish beasts, and we have a very pretty bit of English mountain scenery. The stags are characteristic enough of the scenery of mediaeval England. The hermitage on the right seems to be of the ruder sort, made in part of wattled work. On the left we have the more usual hermitage of stone, with its little chapel bell in a bell-cot on the gable. The venerable old hermit, coming out of the doorway, is a charming illus- * Kindred. I02 The Hermits and Recluses of the Middle Ages. tration of the typical hermit, with his venerable beard, and his form bowed by age, leaning with one hand on his cross-staff, and carrying his rosary in the other. The hermit in the illustration hereafter given from the " History of Launcelot," on page 1 14, leans on a similar staff; it would seem as if such a staff was a usual part of the hermit's equipment.* The hermit in Albert Diirer's "St. Christopher," already Hermits and Hermitages. mentioned, also leans on a staff, but of rather different shape. Here is a companion-picture, in pen and ink, from the " Morte d' Arthur : " — " Then he departed from the cross [a stone cross which parted two ways in waste land, under which he had been sleeping], on foot, into a wild forest. And so by prime he came unto an high mountain, and there he found an hermitage. * In " Piers Ploughman " we read that — " Hermits with holced staves Wenden to Walsingham ;" These hooked staves may, however, have been pilgrim staves, not hermit staves. The pastoral staiff 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 Prioiy, engraved in the Rev. E. L. Cutts's " Manual of Sepulchral Slabs and Crosses," plate xxxv. Hermitages. 103 and an hermit therein, which was going to mass. And then Sir Launcelot kneeled down upon both his knees, and cried out, ' Lord, mercy ! ' for his wicked works that he had done. So when mass was done, Sir Launcelot called the hermit to him, and prayed him for charity to hear his confession. ' With a good will,' said the good man." But many of the hermitages were erected along the great highways of the 'country, and especially at bridges and fords,* apparently with the express view of their being serviceable to travellers. One of the hermit- saints set up as a pattern for their imitation was St. Julian, who, with his wife, devoted his property and life to showing hospitality to travellers ; and the hermit who is always associated in the legends and pictures with St. Christopher, is represented as holding out his torch or lantern to light the giant ferryman, as he transports his passengers across the dangerous ford by which the hermitage was built. When hostelries, where the traveller could command entertainment for hire, were to be found only in the great towns, the religious houses were the chief resting-places of the traveller ;tiot only the conventual establishments, but the country clergy also were expected to be given to hospitality, t But both monasteries and country parsonages often lay at a distance of miles of miry and intricate by-road off the highway. We must picture this state of the country and of society to ourselves, before we can appreciate the intentions of those who founded these hospitable establishments ; we must try to imagine ourselves travellers, getting belated in a dreary part of the road, where it ran over a bleak wold, or dived through a dark forest, or approached an unknown ford, before we can appreciate the gratitude of those who suddenly caught * 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 War- wickshire, 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 NorfoUi, and Erith, in the Isle of Ely, &c." t In the settlement of the vicarage of Kelvedon, Essex, when the rectory was impro- priated to the abbot and convent of Westminster, in the fourteenth centmy, it was expressly ordered that the convent, besides providing the vicar a suitable house, should also provide a haU for receiving guests. See subsequent chapter on the Secular Clergy. I04 The Hermits and Recluses of the Middle Ages. the light from the hermit's window, or heard the faint tinkle of his chapel bell ringing for vespers. Such incidents occur frequently in the romances. Here is an example : — " Sir Launcelot rode all that day and all that night in a forest ; and at the last, he was ware of an hermitage and a chapel that stood between two cliffs ; and then he heard a little bell ring to mass, and thither he rode, and alighted, and tied his horse to the gate, and heard mass." Again : " Sir Gawayne rode till he came to an hermitage, and there he found the good man saying his even-song of our Lady. And there Sir Gawayne asked harbour for charity, and the good man granted it him gladly." We shall, perhaps, most outrage the popular idea of a hermit, when we assert that hermits sometimes lived in towns. The extract from " Piers Ploughman's Vision," already quoted, tells us of— " Eremites that inhabit them In boroughs among brewers." The difficulty of distinguishing between hermits proper and recluses becomes very perplexing in this part of our subject. There is abundant proof, which we shall have occasion to give later, that recluses, both male and female, usually lived in towns and villages, and these recluses are some- times called hermits, as well as by their more usual and peculiar name of anchorites and anchoresses. But we are inclined to the opinion, that not all the male solitaries who lived in towns were recluses. The author of " Piers Ploughman's Vision " speaks of the eremites who inhabited in boroughs as if they were of the same class as those who lived by the highways, and who ought to have lived in the wildernesses, like St. Anthony. The theory under which it was made possible for a solitary, an eremite, a man of the desert, to live in a town, was, that a churchyard formed a solitary place — a desert— within the town. The curious history which we are going to relate, seems to refer to hermits, not to recluses. The Mayor of Sudbury, under date January 28, 1433, petitioned the Bishop of Norwich, setting forth that the bishop had refused to admit " Richard Appleby, of Sudbury, conversant with John Levynton, of the same town, heremyte, to the order of Hermits, unless he was sure to be inhabited in a solitary place where Hermitages. 105 virtues might be increased, and vice exiled ; " and that therefore " we have granted hym, be the assent of all the sayd parish and cherch reves, to be inhabited with the sayd John Levynton in his solitary place and hermytage, whych y' is made at the cost of the parysli, in the cherchyard of St. Gregory Cherche, to dwellen togedyr as (long as) yey liven, or whiche of them longest liveth ; '' and thereupon the mayor prays the bishop to admit Richard Appleby to the order. This curious incident of two solitaries living together has a parallel in the romance of " King Arthur." When the bold Sir Bedivere had lost his lord King Arthur, he rode away, and, after some adventures, came to a chapel and an hermitage between two hills, " and he prayed the hermit that he might abide there still with him, to live with fasting and prayers. So Sir Bedivere abode there still with the hermit ; and there Sir Bedivere put upon him poor clothes, and served the hermit full lowly in fasting and in prayers." And afterwards (as we have aheady related) Sir Launcelot " rode all that day and all that night in a forest. And at the last he was ware of an hermitage and a chapel that stood between two cliffs, and then he heard a litde bell ring to mass ; and thither he rode, and alighted, and tied his horse to the gate and heard mass." He had stumbled upon the hermitage in which Sir Bedivere was living. And when Sir Bedivere had made himself known, and had "told him his tale all whole," "Sir Launcelot's heart almost burst for sorrow, and Sir Launcelot threw abroad his armour, and said,—' Alas ! who may trust this world ? ' And then he kneeled down on his knees, and prayed the hermit for to shrive him and assoil him. And then he besought the hermit that he might be his brother. And he put an habit upon Sir Launcelot, and there he served God day and night with prayers and fastings." And afterwards Sir Bors came in the same way. And within half a year there was come Sir Galahad, Sir Galiodin, Sir Bleoberis, Sir Villiers, Sir Clams, and Sir Gahalatme. " So these seven 'noble knights abode there still : and when they saw that Sir Launcelot had taken him unto such perfection, they had no hst to depart, but took such an habit as he had. Thus they endured m great penance six years, and then Sir Launcelot took the habit of priesthood, and twelve months he sung the mass ; and there was none of these other p io6 The Hermits and Recluses of the Middle Ages. knights but that they read in books, and helped for to sing mass, and ring bells, and did lowly all manner of service. And so their horses went where they would, for they took no regard in worldly riches." And after a little time Sir Launcelot died at the hermitage : " then was there weeping and wringing of hands, and the greatest dole they made that ever made man. And on the morrow the bishop-hermit sung his mass of requiem." The accompanying wood-cut, from one of the small compartments at the bottom of Cosimo Roselh's picture of St. Jerome, from which we have already taken the figure of St. Damasus, may serve to illustrate this Funeral Service of a Hermit. incident. It represents a number of hermits mourning over one of their brethren, while a priest, in the robes proper to his office, stands at the head of the bier and says prayers, and his deacon stands at the foot, hold- ing a processional cross. The contrast between the robes of the priest and those of the hermits is lost in the woodcut ; in the oifginal the priest's cope and amys are coloured red, while those of the hermits are tinted with light brown. If the reader has wondered how the one hermitage could accommodate these seven additional habitants, the romancer does not forget to satisfy Hermitages. 107 his curiosity : a few pages farther we read — " So at the season of the night they went all to their beds, for they all lay in one chamber." It was not very unusual for hermitages to be built for more than one occupant ; but probably, in all such cases, each hermit had his own cell, adjoining their common chapel. This was the original arrangement of the hermits of the Thebais in their laura. The great difference between a hermitage with more than one hermit, and a small cell of one of the other religious orders, was that in such a cell one monk or friar would have been the prior, and the others subject to him ; but each hermit was independent of any authority on the part of the other ; he was subject only to the obligation of his rule, and the visitation of his bishop. The life * of the famous hermit, Richard of Hampole, which has lately been, published for the first time by the Early English Text Society, will enable us to realise in some detail the character and life of a mediaeval hermit of the highest type. Saint Richard was bom f in the village of Thornton, in Yorkshire. At a suitable age he was sent to school by the care of his parents, and afterwards was sent by Richard Neville, Archdeacon of Durham, to Oxford, where he gave himself specially to theological study. At the age of nineteen, considering the uncertainty of life and the awfulness of judg- ment, especially to those who waste life in pleasure or spend it in acquiring wealth, and fearing lest he should fall into such courses, he left Oxford and returned to his father's house. One day he asked of his sister two of her gowns (tunicas), one white, the other grey, and a cloak and hood of his father's. He cut up the two gowns, and fashioned out of them and of the hooded cloak an imitation of a hermit's habit, and next day he went off into a neighbouring wood bent upon living a hermit life. Soon after, on the vigil of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, he went to a certain church, and knelt down to pray in the place which the wife of a certain worthy knight, John de Dalton, was accustomed to occupy. When the lady came to church, her servants would have turned out the intruder, but she would not permit it. When vespers were over and he rose from his • From the " Officium et Legenda de Vita Ricardi Rolle." t When is not stated; he died in 1349. io8 The Hermits and Recluses of the Middle Ages. knees, the sons of Sir John, who were students at Oxford, recognised him as the son of William Rolle, whom they had known at Oxford. Next day Richard again went to the same church, and without any bidding put on a surplice and sang mattins and the office of the mass with the rest. And when the gospel was to be read at mass, he sought the blessing of the priest, and then entered the pulpit and preached a sermon to the people of such wonderful edification that many were touched with compunction even to tears, and all said they had never heard before a sermon of such power and efficacy. After mass Sir John Dalton invited him to dinner. When he entered into the manor he took his place in a ruined building, and would not enter the hall, according to the evangelical precept, " When thou art bidden to a wedding sit down in the lowest room, and when he that hath bidden thee shall see it he will say to thee, Friend, go up higher;" which was fulfilled in him, for the knight made him sit at table with his own sons. But he kept such silence at dinner that he did not speak one word ; and when he had eaten sufficiently he rose before they took away the table and would have departed, but the knight told him this was contrary to custom, and made him sit down again. After dinner the knight had some private conversation with him, and being satisfied that he was not a madman, but really seemed to have the voca- tion to a hermit's life, he clothed him at his own cost in a hermit's habit, and retained him a long time in his own house, giving him a solitary chamber [locum mansionis solitarice)^ and providing him with all neces- saries. Our hermit then gave himself up to ascetic discipline and a contemplative life. He wrote books ; he counselled those who came to him. He did both at thesame time ; for one afternoon the lady of the house * 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 mediaeval 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 soli- taire for this holy man, where as he might use his devocions and serve God." Hermitages. j qq came to him with many other persons and found him writing very rapidly, and begged him to stop writing and speak some words of edification to them ; and he began at once and continued to address them for two hours with admirable exhortations to cultivate virtue and to put away worldly vanities, and to increase the love of their hearts for God ; but at the same time he went on writing as fast as before. He used to be so absorbed in prayer that his friends took, off his torn cloak, and when it had been mended put it on him again, without his knowing it. Soon we hear of his having temptations like those which assailed St. Anthony, the devil tempting him in the form of a beautiful woman. He was specially desirous to help recluses and those who required spiritual consolation, and who were vexed by evil spirits. At length Lady Dalton died, and (whether as a result of this is not stated) the hermit left his cell and began to move from place to place. One time he came near the cell of Dame Margaret, the recluse of Anderby in Richmond- shire, and was told that she was dumb and suffering from some strange disease, and went to her. And he sat down at the window of the house of the recluse,* and when they had eaten, the recluse felt a desire to sleep ; and being oppressed with sleep her head fell towards the window at which St. Richard was reclined. And when she had slept a little, leaning some- what on Richard, suddenly she was seized with a convulsion, and awoke with her power of speech restored. He wrote many works of ascetic and mystical divinity which were greatly esteemed. The Early English Text Society has published some specimens in the work from which these notices are gathered, which show that his reputation as a devotional writer was not undeserved. At length he settled at Hampole, where was a Cistercian nunnery. Here he died, and in the church of the nunnery he was buried. We are indebted for the Officium and Legenda from which we have gathered this outline of his life to the pious care of the nuns of Hampole, to whom the fame of Richard's sanctity was a source of great profit and honour. That he had a line of * 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. no The Hermits and Rechises of the Middle Ages. successors in his anchorage is indicated by the fact hereafter stated (p. 128), that in 1415 a.d., Lord Scrope left by will a bequest to Elizabeth, late servant to the anchoret of Hampole. There are indications that these hermitages were sometimes mere bothies of branches ; there is a representation of one, from which we here give a woodcut, in an illuminated MS. romance of Sir Launcelot, of early fourteenth-century date (British Museum, Add. 10,293, folio 118 v., date 13 16) : we have already noticed another of wattled work.* There are also Sir Launcelot and a Hermit. caves + here and there in the country which are said by tradition to have been hermitages : one is described in the Archmological Journal, vol. iv., p. 150. It is a small cave, not easy of access, in the side of a hill called Cardiff Tor, near Rowsley, a little miserable village not far from Haddon Hall. In a recess, on the right side as you enter the cave, is a crucifix about four feet high, sculptured in bold relief in the red grit rock out of * A hermitage, partly of stone, partly of timber, may be seen in the beautiful MS. Egerton 1,147, f. 218 v. t 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. Hermitages. I II which the cave is hollowed ; and close to it, on the right, is a rude niche, perhaps to hold a lamp. St. Robert's Chapel, at Knaresborough, Yorkshire, is a very excellent example of a hermitage.* It is hewn out of the rock, at the bottom of a cliff, in the comer of a sequestered dell. The exterior, a view of which is given below, presents us with a simply arched doorway at the bottom of Exterior View of St. Robertas Chapel, Knaresborough, the rough cliff, with an arched window on the left, and a little square opening between, which looks like the little square window of a recluse. Internally we find the cell sculptured into the fashion of a little chapel, with a groined ceiling, the groining shafts and ribs well enough designed, but rather rudely executed. There is a semi-octagonal apsidal recess at the east end, in which the altar stands ; a piscina and a credence and stone seat in the north wall ; a row of sculptured heads in the south wall, and a grave-stone in the middle of the floor. This chapel appears to have been * Eugene Aram's famous murder was perpetrated within it. See Sir E. L. Bulwer's description of the scene in his " Eugene Aram." 112 The Hermits and Recluses of the Middle Ages. also the hermit's living room. The view of the exterior, and of the interior and ground-plan, are from Carter's "Ancient Architecture," pi. Ixvii. Another hermitage, whose chapel is very similar to this, is at Warkworth. It is half-way up the cliff, on one side of a deep, romantic valley, through which runs the river Coquet, overhung with woods. The chapel is hewn out of the rock, i8 feet long by yj^ wide, with a little entrance-porch on the south, also hewn in the rock ; and, on the farther side, a long, narrow Interior View of St. Robert's Chapel, apartment, with a small altar at the east end, and a window looking upon the chapel altar. This long apartment was probably the hermit's living room ; but when the Earls of Northumberland endowed the hermitage for a chantry priest, the priest seems to have lived in a small house, with a garden attached, at the foot of the cliff The chapel is groined, and has Gothic windows, very like that of Knaresborough. A minute description of this henriitage, and of the legend connected with it, is given in a poem called "The History of Warkworth " (4to, 1775), and in a letter in Grose's " Antiquities,'' vol. iii., is a ground-plan of the chapel and its appurtenances. Hermitages. 113 A view of the exterior, showing its picturesque situation, will be found in Heme's "Antiquities of Great Britain," pi. 9. There is a little cell, or oratory, called the hermitage, cut out of the face of a rock near Dale Abbey, Derbyshire. On the south side are the door and three windows; at the east end, an altar standing upon a raised platform, both cut out of the rock ; there are little niches in the walls, and a stone seat all 'round.* There is another hermitage of three cells at Wetheral, near Carlisle called Wetheral Safeguard, or St. Constantine's Cells— Wetheral Priory was dedicated to St. Constantine, and this hermitage seems to have belonged to the priory. It is not far from Wetheral Priory, in the face of a rock standing 100 feet perpendicularly out of the river Eden, which washes its base; the hill rising several hundred feet higher still above this rocky escarpment. The hermitage is at a height of 40 feet from the river, and can only be approached from above by a narrow and difficult path down the face of the precipice. It consists of three square cells, close together, about 10 feet square and 8 feet high; each with a short passage leading to it, which increases its total length to about 20 feet. These passages communicate with a little platform of rock in front of the cells. At a lower level than this platform, by about 7 feet, there is a narrow gallery built up of masonry; the door to the hermitage is at one end of it, so that access to the cells can only be obtained by means of a ladder from this gallery to the platform of rock 7 feet above it. In the front of the gallery are three windows, opposite to the three cells, to give them light, and one chimney. An engraving will be found in Hutchinson's " History of Cumberland," vol. i. p. 160, which Ground-Plan of St. Robert's Chapel. • See view in Stukeley's " Itin. Curios.," pi. 14. Q 1 14 The Her7nits and Recluses of the Middle Ages. shows the picturesque scene — the rocky hill-side, with the river washing round its base, and the three windows of the hermitage, half-way up, peeping through the foliage ; there is also a careful plan of the cells in the letterpress. A chapel, and a range of rooms — which communicate with one another, and form a tolerably commodious house of two floors, are excavated out of a rocky hill-side, called Blackstone Rock, which forms the bank of the Severn, near Bewdley, Worcestershire. A view of the exterior of the rock, and a plan and section of the chambers, are given both in Stukeley's " Itinerarium Curiosum," pis. 13 and 14, and in Nash's "History of Worcestershire,'' vol. ii. p. 48. At Lenton, near Nottingham, there is a chapel and a range of cells excavated out of the face of a semicircular sweep of rock, which crops out on the bank of the river Leen. The river winds round the other semicircle, leaving a space of greensward between the rock and the river, upon which the cells open. Now, the whole place is enclosed, and used as a public garden and bowling-green, its original features being, however, preserved with a praiseworthy appreciation of their interest. In former days this hermitage was just -within the verge of the park of the royal castle of Nottingham ; it Hermitages. 115 was doubtless screened by the trees of the park ; and its inmates might pace to and fro on their secluded grass-plot, fenced in by the rock and the river from every intruding foot, and yet in full view of the walls and towers of the castle, with the royal banner waving from its keep, and catch a glimpse of the populous borough, and see the parties of knights and ladies prance over the level meadows which stretched out to the neighbouring Trent like a green carpet, embroidered in spring and autumn by the purple crocus, which grows wild there in myriads. Stukeley, in his " Itinerarium Curiosum," pi. 39, gives a view and ground-plan of these curious cells. Carter also figures them in his "Ancient Architecture," pi. 12, and gives details of a Norman shaft and arch in the chapel. But nearly all the hermitages which we read of in the romances, or see depicted in the illuminations and paintings, or find noticed in ancient historical documents, are substantial buildings of stone or timber. Here is one from folio 56 of the " History of Launcelot " (Add. 10,293) : the hermit stands at the door of his house, giving his parting benediction to Sir Launcelot, who, with his attendant physician, is taking his leave after a night's sojourn at the hermitage. In the paintings of the Campo Santo, at Pisa (engraved in Mrs. Jameson's " Sacred and Legendary Art "), which represent the hermits of the Egyptian desert, some of the hermitages are caves, some are little houses of stone. In Caxton's "Vitas Patrum" the hermitages are little houses ; one has a stepped gable ; another is like a gateway, with a room over it.* They were founded and built, and often endowed, by the same men who founded chantries, and built churches, and endowed monasteries ; and from the same motives of piety, charity, or superstition. And the founders seem often to have retained the patronage of the hermitages, as of valuable benefices, in their own hands.f A hermit- * Suggesting the room so often found over a church porch. t 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, i£ 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 1 16 The Hermits and Recluses of the Middle Ages. age was, in fact, a miniature monastery, inhabited by one religious, who was abbot, and prior, and convent, all in one : sometimes also by a chap- lain,* where the hermit was not a priest, and by several lay brethren, i.e. servants. It had a chapel of its own, in which divine service was performed daily. It had also the apartments necessary for the accommodation of the hermit, and his chaplain — when one lived in the hermitage — and his servants, and the necessary accommodation for travellers besides ; and it had often, perhaps generally, its court-yard and garden. The chapel of the hermitage seems not to have been appropriated solely to the performance of divine offices, but to have been made useful for other more secular purposes also. Indeed, the churches and chapels in the Middle Ages seem often to have been used for great occasions of a semi-religious character, when a large apartment was requisite, e.g. for holding councils, for judicial proceedings, and the like. Godric of Finchale, a hermit who lived about the time of Henry II. ,t had two chapels adjoin- ing his cell ; one he called by the name of St. John Baptist, the other after the Blessed Virgin. He had a kind of common room, " communis domus," in which he cooked his food and saw visitors; but he lived chiefly, day and night, in the chapel of St. John, removing his bed to the chapel of St. Mary at times of more solemn devotion. In an illumination on folio 153 of the "History of Launcelot," already quoted (British Mus., Add. 10,293), is a picture of King Arthur taking 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 rehgion. 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 vdthout time of mind. (Test. Ebor. ii. 115.) * 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 witliout Salop), which is recorded elsewhere to have been given by Richard, the Dapifer of Chester, to the monks of Salop." t "Vita S. Godrici," published by the Surtees Society. Spenser^ s Hertnit. 117 counsel with a hermit in his hermitage. The building in which they are seated has a nave and aisles, a rose-window in its gable, and a bell-turret, and seems intended to represent the chapel of the hermitage. Again, at folio 107 of the same MS. is a picture of a hermit talking to a man, with the title, — "Ensi y come une hermites prole en une chapele de son hermitage," — " How a hermit conversed in the chapel of his hermitage.'' It may, perhaps, have been in the chapel that the hermit received those who sought his counsel on spiritual or on secular affairs. In addition to the references which have already been given to illus- trations of the subject in the illuminations of MSS., we call the special attention of the student to a series of pictures illustrating a mediaeval story of which a hermit is the hero, in the late thirteenth century MS. Royal 10 E IV. ; it begins at folio 113 v., and runs on for many pages, and is full of interesting passages. We also add a few lines from Lydgate's unpublished "Life of St. Edmund," as a typical picture of a hermit, drawn in the second quarter of the fifteenth century : — " — holy Ffremund though he were yonge of age, And ther he bilte a litel hermitage Be side a ryver with al his besy peyne, He and his fellawis that were in nombre tweyne. " A litel chapel he dide ther edifie, Day be day to make in his praiere, In the reverence only off Marie And in the worshipe of her Sone deere, And the space fully off sevene yeere Hooly Ffremund, lik as it is founde, Leved be frut and rootes off the grounde. " Off frutes wilde, his story doth us telle. Was his repast penance for t' endure. To stanch his thurst drank water off the weUe And eet acorns to sustene his nature, Kemelles off notis. [nuts] when he myhte hem recure. To God alway doying reverence, What ever he sent took it in patience." And in concluding this chapter let us call to mind Spenser's description of a typical hermit and hermitage, while the originals still lingered in the living memory of the people : — "At length they chaunst to meet upon the way An aged sire, in long blacke weedes yclad, His feet all bare, his head all hoarie gray, And by his belt his booke he hanging had ; Sober he seemde, and very sagely sad. And to the ground his eyes were lowly bent. Simple in shew, and voide of malice bad ; And all the wa)- he prayed as he went. And often Icnockt his brest as one that did repent. " He faire the knight saluted, louting low, Who faire him quited, as that courteous was ; And after asked him if he did know Of strange adventures which abroad did pas. 'Ah! my dear sonne,' quoth he, 'how should, alas ! Silly* old man, that lives in hidden cell. Bidding his beades all day for his trespas, Tidings of war and worldly trouble tell ? With holy father sits not with such things to mell.'f Quoth then that aged man, ' The way to win Is wisely to advise. Now day is spent, Therefore with me ye may take up your in For this same night.' The knight was well content ; So with that godly father to his home he went. " A little lowly hermitage it was, Down in a dale, hard by a forest's side. Far from resort of people that did pass In traveill to and froe ; a little "wyde ThereVas an holy chappell edifyde. Wherein the hermite dewly wont to say His holy things, each mome and eventyde ; Hereby a chrystall streame did gently play, WMch from a sacred fountaine welled forth alway. " Arrived there, the little house they fill ; Ne look for entertainment where none was ; Rest is their feast, and all things at their will ; The noblest mind the best contentment has. With fair discourse the evening so they pas ; For that old man of pleasing words had store, And well could file his tongue as smooth as glas ; * Simple. t Meddle. A Modern Hermit. 1 1 9 He told of saintes and popes, and evermore He strovvd an Ave- Mary after and before."* Faery Queen, i. i, 29, 33, 34, 35. * 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 hiQ, 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 diimer 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 mde 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 neigh- bouring 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 buUt 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 hiU above. The cure of Limay performs service here on certain days in the year. The hermit wUl disappoint those who desire to see a modem 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 inqune ; but he finds the hours lonely. The good cur£ 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. CHAPTER II. ANCHORESSES, OR FEMALE RECLUSES. ND now we proceed to speak more particularly of the recluses. The old legend tells us that John the Hermit, the contemporary of St. Anthony, would hold communication with no man except through the window of his cell.* But the recluses of more modem days were not content to quote John the Egyptian as their founder. As the Carmelite friars claimed Elijah, so the recluses, at least the female recluses, looked up to Judith as the foundress of their mode of life, and patroness of their order. Mabillon tells us that the first who made any formal rule for recluses was one Grimlac, who lived about 900 a.d. The principal regulations of his rule are, that the candidate for reclusion, if a monk, should signify his intention a year beforehand, and during the interval should continue to live among his brethren. If not already a monk, the period of probation was doubled. The leave of the bishop of the diocese was to be first obtained, and if the candidate were a monk, the leave of his abbot and convent also. When he had entered his cell, the bishop was to put his seal upon the door, which was never again to be opened, f unless for the * One of the little heimitages 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. t 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. Female Recluses. \ 2 1 help of the recluse in time of sickness or on the approach of death. Suc- cessive councils published canons to regulate this kind of life. That of Millo, in 692, repeats in substance the rule of Grimlac. That of Frankfort, in 787, refers to the recluses. The synod of Richard de la Wich, Bishop of Chichester, a.d. 1246, makes some canons concerning them : " Also we ordain to recluses that they shall not receive or keep any person in their houses concerning whom any sinister suspicion might arise. Also that they have narrow and proper windows ; and we permit them to have secret communication with those persons only whose gravity and honesty do not admit of suspicion." * Towards the end of the twelfth century a rule for anchorites was written by Bishop Richard Pooret of Chichester, and afterwards of Salisbury, who died A.D. 1237, which throws abundant light upon their mode of life; for it is not merely a brief code of the regulations obligatory upon them, but it is a book of paternal counsels, which enters at great length, and in minute detail, into the circumstances of the recluse life, and will be of great use to us in the subsequent part of this chapter. There were doubtless different degrees of austerity among the recluses ; but, on the whole, we must banish from our minds the popular \ idea that they inhabited a living grave, and lived a life of the extremest mortification. Doubtless there were instances in which religious enthusiasm led the * Wilkins's '• Concilia," i. 693. t 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 Axiv.; another in Beimet 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. X 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. R 122 The Hermits and Recluses of the Middle Ages. recluse into frightful and inhuman self-torture, like that of Thaysis, in the " Golden Legend :" " She went to the place whiche th' abbot had assygijed to her, and there was g. monasterye of vyrgyns ; and there he closed her in a celle, and sealed the door with led. And the celle was lytyll and strayte, and but one lytell wyndowe open, by whyche was mynistred to her poor lyvinge ; for the abbot commanded that they shold gyve to her a lytell brede and water."* Thaysis submitted to it at the command of Abbot Pafnucius, as penance for a sinful life, in the early days of Egyptian austerity; and now and then throughout the subsequent ages the self- hatred of an earnest, impassioned nature, suddenly roused to a feeling of exceeding sinfulness ; the remorse of a wild, strong spirit, conscious of great crimes ; or the enthusiasm of a weak mind and morbid conscience, might urge men and women to such self-revenges, to such penances, as these. Bishop Poore gives us episodically a pathetic example, which our readers will thank us for repeating here. " Nothing is ever so hard that love doth not make tender, and soft, and sweet. Love maketh all things easy. What do men and women endure for false love, and would endure more ! And what is more to be wondered at is, that love which is faithful and true, and sweeter than any other love, doth not overmaster us as doth sinful love ! Yet I know a man who weareth at the same time both a heavy cuirass f and haircloth, bound with iron round the middle too, and his arms with broad and thick bands, so that to bear the sweat of it is severe suffering. He fasteth, he watcheth, he laboureth, and, Christ knoweth, he complaineth, and saith that it doth not oppress him ; and often asks me to teach him something wherewith he might give his body pain. God knoweth that he, the most sorrowful of men, weepeth to me, and saith that God hath quite forgotten him, because He sendeth him no great sickness'; whatever is bitter seems sweet to him for our Lord's sake. God knoweth love doth this, because, as he often saith to me, he could never love God the less for any evil thing that He might do to him, even * A cell in the north-west angle of Edington Abbey Church, Wilts, seems to be of this kind. t 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. The Reclusoriuvi. 123 were He to cast him into hell with those that perish. And if any believe any such thing of him, he is more confounded than a thief taken with his theft. I know also a woman of like mind that suffereth Httle less. And what remaineth but to thank God for the strength that He giveth them ; and let us humbly acknowledge our own weakness, and love their merit, and thus it becomes our own. For as St. Gregory says, love is of so great power that it maketh the merit of others our own, without labour." But though powerful motives and great force of character might enable an individual here and there to persevere with such austerities, when the severities of the recluse life had to be reduced to rule and system, and when a succession of occupants had to be found for the vacant anchor- holds, ordinary human nature revolted' from these unnatural austerities, and the common sense of mankind easily granted a tacit dispensation from them ; and the recluse life was speedily toned down in practice to a life which a religiously-minded person, especially one who had been wounded and worsted in the battle of life, might gladly embrace and easily endure. Usually, even where the cell consisted of a single room, it was large enough for the comfortable abode of a single inmate, and it was not desti- tute of such furnishing as comfort required. But it was not unusual for the cell to be in fact a house of several apartments, with a garden attached ; and it would seem that the technical " cell " within which the recluse was immured, included house and garden, and everything within the boundary wall.* It is true that many of the recluses lived entirely, and perhaps all partly, upon the alms of pious and charitable people. An alms-box was hung up to receive contributions, as appears from " Piers Ploughman,"— " In ancres there a box hangetli." And in the extracts hereafter given from the " Ancren Riewle,- we shall find several allusions to the giving of alms to recluses as a usual custom. But it was the bishop's duty, before giving license for the building of a reclusorium, to satisfy himself that there would be, either from alms or from an endowment, a sufficient maintenance for the recluse. Practically, they . The cell of a Carthusian monk, as we have stated, consisted of a httle house of three apartmeiits and a Utile garden within an inclosure wall. 1 24 The Hermits and Recluses of the Middle Ages. do not seem often to have been in want ; they were restricted as to the times when they might eat flesh-meat, but otherwise their abstemiousness depended upon their own rehgious feeling on the subject; and the only check upon excess was in their own moderation. They occupied them- selves, besides their frequent devotions, in reading, writing, illuminating, and needlework; and though the recluses attached to some monasteries seem to have been under an obligation of silence, yet in the usual case the recluse held a perpetual levee at the open window, and gossiping and scandal Sir Percival at the Reclusorium. appear to have been among her besetting sins. It will be our business to verify and further to illustrate this general sketch of the recluse life. And, first, let us speak more in detail of their habitations. The reclu- sorium, or anchorhold, seems sometimes to have been, like the hermitage, a house of timber or stone, or a grotto in a solitary place. In Sir T. Mallory's " Prince Arthur " we are introduced to one of these, which afforded all the appliances for lodging and entertaining even male guests. We read : — " Sir Percival returned again unto the recluse, where he deemed to have tidings of that knight which Sir Launcelot followed. And so he kneeled at her window, and anon the recluse opened it, and asked Sir Percival what he would. ' Madam,' said he, ' I am a knight of King The Reclusoriuvi. 125 Arthur's court, and my name is Sir Percival de Galis.' So when the recluse heard his name, she made passing great joy of him, for greatly she loved him before all other knights of the world ; and so of right she ought to do, for she was his aunt. And then she commanded that the gates should be opened to him, and then Sir Percival had all the- cheer that she might make him, and all that was in her power was at his commandment." But it does not seem that she entertained him in person ; for the story continues that " on the morrow Sir Percival went unto the recluse,'' i.e., to her little audience-window, to propound his question, " if she knew that knight with the white shield." Opposite is a woodcut of a picture in the MS. " History of Sir Launcelot" (Royal 14, E. III. foHo loi v.), entitled, " Ensi q Percheva retouma k la rencluse qui estait en son hermitage." * In the case of these large remote anchorholds, the recluse must have had a chaplain to come and say mass for her every day in the chapel of her hermitage.t But in the vast majority of cases, anchorholds were attached to a church either of a religious house, or of a town, or of a village ; and in these situations they appear to have been much more numerous than is at all suspected by those who have not inquired into this litde-known portion of our medieval antiquities. Very many of our village churches had a recluse living within or beside them, and it will, perhaps, especially surprise the majority of our readers to learn that these recluses were spe- cially numerous in the mediaeval towns.J The proofs of this fatt are abun- dant; here are some. Henry, Lord Scrope, of Masham, by will, dated 23rd June, 1415, bequeathed to every anchoret § and recluse dwelling in London or its suburbs bs. M. ; also to every anchoret and recluse dwelling in York and its suburbs 6^. Zd. From other sources we learn more about * This very same picture is given also in another MS. of about the same date, marked Add. 10,294, at folio 14. , . ,, , v i,-i t As was probably the case at Warkworth, the hermit Imng m the hermitage, while the chantry priest lived in the house at the foot of the hUl. + " Eremites that inhabiten By the highways, And in boroughs among brewers." Piers Ploughman's Vision. § Probably " anchoret " means male, and " recluse " female recluse. 126 The Hertnits and Recluses of the Middle Ages. these York anchorets and recluses. The will of Adam Wigan, rector of St. Saviour, York (April 20, 1433, a.d.)* leaves ^s. 4d. to Dan John, who dwelt in the Chapel of St. Martin, within the parish of St. Saviour. The female recluses of York were three in number in the year 1433, as we learn from the will of Margaret, relict of Nicholas Blackburne : t " Lego . tribus reclusis Ebor.," ijs. Where their cells were situated we learn from the will of Richard Rupell (a.d. 1435 X), who bequeaths to the recluse in the cemetery of the Church of St. Margaret, York, five marks ; and to the recluse in the cemetery of St. Helen, in Fishergate, five marks; and to the recluse in the cemetery of All Saints, in North Street, York, five marks. They are also all three mentioned in the will of Adam Wigan, who leaves to the anchorite enclosed in Fishergate 2S. ; to her enclosed near the church of St. Margaret 2s. ; to her enclosed in North Street, near the Church of All Saints, 2S. The will of Lady Margaret Stapelton, 1465 A.D.,§ mentions anchorites in Watergate and Fishergate, in the suburbs of York, and in another place the anchorite of the nunnery of St. Clement, York. At Lincoln, also, we are able to trace a similar suc- cession of anchoresses. In 1383 a.d., William de Belay, of Lincoln, left to an anchoress named Isabella, who dwelt in the Church of the Holy Trinity, in Wigford, within the city of Lincoln, I3J-. ^d. In 1391, John de Sutton left her 20s. ; in 1374, John de Ramsay left her \2d. Besides these she had numerous other legacies from citizens. In 1453, an anchoress named Matilda supplied the place of Isabella, who we may suppose had long since gone to her reward. In that year John Tilney — one of the Tilneys of Boston — left " Domine Matilde incluse infra ecclesiam sanctse Trinitatis ad gressus in civitate Lincoln, vjj-. y\\]d." In 1502, Master John Watson, a chaplain in Master Robert Flemyng's chantry, left xij(/. to the " ankers " at the Greese foot. This Church of the Holy Trinity " ad gressus " seems to have been for a long period the abode of a female recluse.|| The will of Roger Eston, rector of Richmond, Yorkshire, a.d. 1446, also mentions the recluses in the city of York and its suburbs. The * Test. Vetust., ii. 25. t Ibid. ii. 47. \ Ibid. ii. 56. § Ibid. ii. 271. II Note p. 87 to " Instructions for Parish Priests," Early English Text Society. Female Recluses. \ 2 7 will of Adam Wilson also mentions Lady Agnes, enclosed at (apud) the parish church of Thorganby, and anchorites (female) at Beston and Pontefract. Sir Hugh Willoughby, of Wollaton, in 1463 bequeathed (>s. 5//. to the anchoress of Nottingham.* The will of Lady Joan Wombewell, a.d. 1454,+ also mentions the anchoress of Beyston. The will of John Brompton, of Beverley, a.d. 1444,:!: bequeaths y. 4d. to the recluse by the Church of St. Giles, and is. 6d. to anchorite at the friary of St. Nicholas of Beverley. Roger Eston also leaves a bequest to the anchorite of his parish of Richmond, respecting whom the editor gives a note whose substance is given elsewhere. In a will of the fifteenth century § we have a bequest " to the ancher in the wall beside Bishopsgate, London." || In the will of St. Richard, Bishop of Chichester, «f we have bequests to Friar Humphrey, the recluse of Pageham, to the recluse of Hogton, to the recluse of Stopeham, to the recluse of Herringham ; and in the will of Walter de Suffield, Bishop of Norwich, bequests to " anchers " and recluses in his diocese, and especially to his niece Ela, in reclusorio at Massingham.** Among the other notices which we have of solitaries living in towns, Lydgate mentions one in the town of Wakefield. Morant says there was one in Holy Trinity churchyard, Colchester. The episcopal registers of Lichfield show that there was an anchorage for several female recluses in the churchyard of St. George's Chapel, Shrewsbury. The will of Henry, Lord Scrope, already quoted, leaves looj-. and the pair of beads which the testator was accustomed to use to the anchorite of Westminster : it was his predecessor, doubtless, who is mentioned in the time of Richard II. : when the young king was going to meet Wat Tyler in Smithfield, he went to Westminster Abbey, " then to the church, and so to the high altar, where he devoutedly prayed and offered ; after which he spake with the * Test. Vetust., ii. 131. f Ibid. 178. J Ibid. ii. 98. \ Ibid. 356. II Other bequests to recluses occur in the will of Henry II., to the recluses [incluses) of Jerusalem, England, and Normandy. H Sussex Archseol. Coll., i. p. 174. *» Blomfield's "Norfolk," ii. pp. 347-8. See also the bequests to the Norwich recluses, infra. 128 The Hermits and Recluses of the Middle Ages. anchore, to whom he confessed himself."* Lord Scrope's will goes on to bequeath 40^-. to Robert, the recluse of Beverley ; 13^-. 4^. each to the anchorets of Stafford, of Kurkebeck, of Wath, of Peasholme, near York, of Kirby, Thorganby, near Colingworth, of Leek, near Upsale, of Gainsburgh, of Kneesall, near South Well, of Dartford, of Stamford, living in the parish church there ; to Thomas, the chaplain dwelling continually in the church of St. Nicholas, Gloucester ; to Elizabeth, late servant to the anchoret of Hamphole ; and to the recluse in the house of the Dominicans at New- castle : and also 6^. %d. to every other anchorite and anchoritess that could be easily found within three months of his decease. We have already had occasion to mention that there were several female recluses, in addition to the male solitaries, in the churchyards of the then great city of Norwich. The particulars which that laborious antiquary, Blomfield, has collected together respecting several of them will throw a little additional light upon our subject, and fill up still further the out- lines of the picture which we are engaged in painting. There was a hermitage in the churchyard of St. Julian, Norwich, which was inhabited by a succession of anchoresses, some of whose names Blom- field records: — Dame Agnes, in 1472; Dame Ehzabeth Scot, in 1481; Lady Elizabeth, in 1510; Dame Agnes Edrigge, in 1524. The Lady Julian, who was the anchoress in 1393, is "said to have had two servants to attend her in her old age. " She was esteemed of great holiness. Mr. Francis Peck had a vellum MS. containing an account of her visions.'' Blomfield says that the foundations of the anchorage might still be seen in his time, on the east side of St. Julian's churchyard. There was also an anchorage in St. Ethelred's churchyard, which was rebuilt in 1305, and an anchor continually dwelt there till the Reformation, when it was pulled down, and the grange, or tithe-bani, at Brakendale was built with its timber; so that it must have been a timber house of some magnitude. Also in St. Edward's churchyard, joining to the church on the north side, was a cell, whose ruins were still visible in Blomfield's time, and most per- sons who died in Norwich left small sums towards its maintenance. In * Stow's Chronicle, p. 559. Female Recluses. 129 1428 Lady Joan was anchoress here, to whom Walter Ledman left 20s., and ifid. to each of her servants. In 1458, Dame Anneys Kite was the recluse here; in 15 16, Margaret Norman, widow, was buried here, and gave a legacy to the lady anchoress by the church. St. John the Evan- gelist's Church, in Southgate, was, about a.d. 1300, annexed to the parish of St. Peter per Montergate, and the Grey Friars bought the site ; they pulled down the whole building, except a small part left for an anchorage, in which they placed an anchor, to whom they assigned part of the church- yard for his garden. Also there used anciently to be a recluse dwelling in a little cell joining to the north side of the tower of St. John the Baptist's Church, Timber Hill, but it was down before the Dissolution. Also there was an anchor, or heimit, who had an anchorage in or adjoining to All Saints' Church. Also in Henry IH.'s time a recluse dwelt in the church- yard of St. John the Baptist, and the Holy Sepulchre, in Ber Street. In the monastery of the Carmelites, or White Friars, at Norwich, there were two anchorages — one for a man, who was admitted brother of the house, and another for a woman, who was admitted sister thereof. The latter was under the chapel of the Holy Cross, which was still standing in Blom- field's time, though converted into dwelling-houses. The former stood by St. Martin's Bridge, on the east side of the street, and had a small garden to it, which ran down to the river. In 1442, December 2nd, the Lady Emma, recluse, or anchoress, and religious sister of the Carmelite order, was buried in their church. In 1443, Thomas Scroope was anchorite in this house. In 1465, Brother John Castleacre, a priest, was anchorite. In 1494 there were legacies given to the anchor of the White Friars. This Thomas Scroope was originally a Benedictine monk; in 1430 he became anchorite here (being received a brother of the Carmelite order), and led an anchorite's life for many years, seldom going out of his cell but when he preached ; about 1446 Pope Eugenius made him Bishop of Down, which see he afterwards resigned, and came again to his convent, and became suffragan to the Bishop of Norwich. He died, and was buried at Lowes- toft, being near a hundred years old. The document which we are about to quote from Whittaker's " History of Whalley " (pp. 72 and 77), illustrates many points in the history of these s 130 The Hermits and Recluses of the Middle Ages. anchorholds. The anchorage therein mentioned was built in a parish churchyard, it depended upon a monastery, and was endowed with an allowance in money and kind from the monastery ; it was founded for two recluses ; they had a chaplain and servants ; and the patronage was retained by the founder. The document will also give us some very curious and minute details of the domestic economy of the recluse life ; and, lastly, it will give us an historical proof that the assertions of the contemporary satirists, of the laxity* with which the vows were sometimes kept, vi^ere not without foundation. " In 1349, Henry, Duke of Lancaster, granted in trust to the abbot and convent of Whalley rather large endowments to support two recluses (women) in a certain place within the churchyard of the parish church of Whalley, and two women servants to attend them, there to pray for the soul of the duke, &c.; to find them seventeen ordinary loaves, and seven inferior loaves, eight gallons of better beer, and '^d. per week ; and yearly ten large stock-fish, one bushel of oatmeal, one of rye, two gallons of oil for lamps, one pound of tallow for candles, six loads of turf, and one load of faggots ; also to repair their habitations ; and to find a chaplain to say mass in the chapel of these recluses daily ; their successors to be nominated by the duke and his heirs. On July 6, 15th Henry VI., the king nominated Isole de Heton, widow, to be an anachorita for life, in loco ad hoc ordinato juxta ecclesiam parochiakm de Whalley. Isole, however, grew tired of the solitary life, and quitted it ; for afterwards a representation was made to the king that ' divers that had been anchores and recluses in the seyd place aforetyme, have broken oute of the seyd place wherein they were reclusyd, and departyd therefrom wythout any reconsilyation ;' aird that Isole de Heton had broken out two years before, and was not willing to return ; and that divers of the women that had been servants there had been with child. So Henry VI. dissolved the hermitage, and appointed instead two chaplains to say mass daily, &c." Whittaker thinks that the hermitage occupied the site of some cottages on the west side of the church- * In the " Ancren Riewle," p. 129, we read, "Who can with more facility commit sin than the false recluse ?"i Female Recluses. yard, which opened into the churchyard until he had the doors walled up. There was a similar hermitage for several female recluses in the church- yard of St. Romauld, Shrewsbury, as we learn from a document among the Bishop of Lichfield's registers,* in which he directs the Dean of St. Chadd, or his procurator, to enclose Isolda de Hungerford an anchorite in the houses of the churchyard of St. Romauld, where the other anchorites dwell. Also in the same registry there is a precept, dated Feb. i, 1310, from Walter de Langton, Bishop, to Emma Sprenghose, admitting her an anchorite in the houses of the churchyard of St. George's Chapel, Salop, and he appoints the archdeacon to enclose her. Another license from Roger, Bishop of Lichfield, dated 1362, to Robert de Worthin, permitting him, on the nomination of Queen Isabella, to serve God in the reclusorium built adjoining {juxta) the chapel of St. John Baptist in the city of Coventry, has been published in extenso by Dugdale, and we transcribe it for the benefit of the curious.f Thomas Hearne has printed an Episcopal Commission, dated 1402, for enclosing John Cherde, a monk of Ford Abbey. Burnett's " History of Bristol " mentions a commission opened by Bishop William of Wykham, in August, 1403, for enclosing Lucy de Newchurch, an anchoritess in the hermitage of St. Brendon in Bristol. Richard Francis, an ankret, is spoken of as inter quahwr parietes pro christi inclusus in Langtoft's " Chronicle," ij. 625. * Owen and Blakeway's "History of Shrewsbury." t " Rogerus, &c., delecto in Christo filio Roberto de Worthin, cap. salutem, &c. Precipue devotionis affectum, quem ad serriendum Deo in reclusorio juxta capellam Sancti Joh. Babtiste in civitate Coventriensi constmcto, et spretis mundi deliciis at ipsius vagis discurribus contemptis, habere te asseres, propensius intuentes, ac volentes te, considera- tione nobilis domine, domine IsabeUe Regine Anglie nobis pro te supplicante m hiijus laudabili proposito confovere, ut in prefato reclusorio morari possis, et recludi et vitam tuam in eodam ducere in tui laudibus Redemptoris, licentiam tibi quantum m nobis est concedi per presentes, quibus sigillum nostrum duximus apponendum. Dat apud Hey- wood, 5 Kal. Dec. m.d. a.d. mccclxii, et consecrationis nostrae tricessimo sexto. — DUGDALE'S Warwickshire, 2nd Edit., p. 193. CHAPTER III. ANCHORAGES. UST as in a monastery, though it might be large or small in magnitude, simple or gorgeous in style, with more or fewer offices and appendages, according to the number and wealth of the establishment, yet there was always a certain suite of conventual buildings, church, chapter refectory, dormitory, &c., arranged in a certain order, which formed the cloister; and this cloister was the nucleus of all the rest of the buildings of the estabKshment ; so, in a reclusorium, or anchorhold, there was always a " cell " of a certain construction, to which all things else, parlours or chapels, apartments for servants and guests, yards and gardens, were accidental appendages. Bader's rule for recluses in Bavaria' describes the dimensions and plan of the cell minutely ; the domus indusi was to be 12 feet long by as many broad, and was to have three windows — one towards the choir (of the church to which it was attached), through which he might receive the Holy Sacrament ; another on the opposite side, through which he might receive his victuals ; and a third to give light, which last ought always to be closed with glass or horn. The reader will have already gathered from the preceding extracts that the reclusorium was sometimes a house of timber or stone within the churchyard, and most usually adjoining the church itself. At the west end of Laindon Church, Essex, there is a unique erection of timber, of which we here give a representation. It has been modernised in appearance by * Fosbroke's "British Monachism," p. 372. The Reclusorium. 133 the insertion of windows and doors ; and there are no architectural details of a character to reveal with certainty its date, but in its mode of construc- tion — the massive timbers being placed close together — and in its general , appearance, there is an air of considerable antiquity. It is improbable that a house would be erected in such a situation after the Reforma- tion, and it accords generally with the descriptions of a recluse house. Probably, however, many of the anchorholds attached to churches were of smaller dimensions;' sometimes, perhaps, only a single little timber Laindon Church, Essex. apartment on the ground floor, or sometimes probably raised upon an under croft, according to a common custom in mediaeval domestic buildmgs. Very probably some of those Httle windows which occur m many of our churches, in various situations, at various heights, and which, under the name of "low side windows," have formed the subject of so much discus- sion among ecclesiologists, may have been the windows of such anchor- holds The peculiarity of these windows is that they are sometimes merelv a square opening, which originally was not glazed, but closed with a 134 The Heiynits and Recluses of the Middle Ages. shutter; sometimes a small glazed window, in a position where it was clearly not intended to light the church generally ; sometimes a window has a stone transom across, and the upper part is glazed, while the lower part is closed only by a shutter. It is clear that some of these may have served to enable the anchorite, living in a cell ^«/«'(/i? the church, to see the altar. It seems to have been such a window which is alluded to in the following incident from Mallory's " Prince Arthur:"- — ^" Then Sir Launcelot armed him and took his horse, and as he rode that way he saw a chapel where was a recluse, which had a window that she might see Reclusoriuni, or Anchorhold^ at Rettenden, Essex. up to the altar ; and all aloud she called Sir Launcelot, because he seemed a knight arrant And (after a long conversation) she commanded Launcelot to dinner." In the late thirteenth-century MS., Royal lo E. IV. at f. 1 8 1, is a representation of a recluse-house, in which, besides two two-light arched windows high up in the wall, there is a smaller square " low side window " very distinctly shown. Others of these low side windows may have been for the use of wooden anchcrholds built within the church, combining two of the usual three windows of the cell, viz., the one to give light, and the one through which to receive The Reclusorium. 13 r food and communicate with the outer world. There is an anchorhold still remaining in a tolerably unmutilated state at Rettenden, Essex. It IS a stone building of fifteenth-century date, of two stories, adjoining the north side of the chancel. It is entered by a rather elaborately moulded doorway from the chancel. The lower story is now used as a vestry, and is lighted by a modern window broken through its east wall ; but it is described as having been a dark room, and there is no trace of any original window. In the north wall, and towards the east, is a bracket, such as would hold a small statue or a lamp. In the west side of this room, on the left immediately on entering it from the chancel, is the door of a stone winding stair (built up in the nave aisle, but now screened towards the aisle by a very large monument), which gives access to the upper story. This story consists of a room which very exactly agrees with the description of a recluse's cell (see opposite wood- cut). On the south side are two arched niches, in which are stone benches, and the back of the easternmost of these niches is pierced by a small arched window, now blocked up, which looked down upon the altar. On the north side is a chimney, now filled with a modern fireplace, but the chimney is a part of the original building; and westward of the chimney is a small square opening, now filled with modern glazing, but the hook upon which the original shutter hung still remains. This window is not splayed in the usual mediseval manner, but is recessed in such a way as to allow the head of a person to look out, and especially down, with facility. On the exterior this window is about 10 feet from the ground. In this respect it resembles the situation of a low side window in Prior Crawden's Chapel, Ely Cathedral,* which is on the first floor, having a room, lighted only by narrow slits, beneath it ; and at the Sainte Chapelle, in Paris, which also has an undercroft, there is a similar example of a side window, at a still greater height from the ground. The east side of the Rettenden reclusorium has now a modern window, probably occupying the place of the original window which gave light to the cell. The stair-turret at the top of the winding staircase, seems to have been intended to serve * Engraved in the ArchaoUgical Journal, iv. p. 320. 136 The Hermits and Recluses of the Middle Ages. for a little closet : it obtained some light through a small loop which looked out into the north aisle of the church ; the wall on the north side of it is recessed so as to form a shelf, and a square slab of stone, which looks like a portion of a thirteenth-century coffin-stone, is laid upon the top of the newel, and fitted into the wall, so as to form another shelf or little table. At East Horndon Church, Essex, there are two transept-like projections from the nave. In the one on the south there is a monumental niche in the south wall, upon the back of which are the indents of the brasses of a man and wife and several children ; and there is a tradition, with which these indents are altogether inconsistent, that the heart of the unfortunate Queen Anne BuUen is interred therein. Over this is a chamber, open to the nave, and now used as a gallery, approached by a modem wooden stair; and there is a projection outside which looks like a chimney, carried out from this floor upwards. The transeptal projection on the north side is very similar in plan. On the ground floor there is a wide, shallow, cinque-foil headed niche (partly blocked) in the east wall ; and there is a wainscot ceiling, very neatly divided into rectangular panels by moulded ribs of the date of about Henry VIII. The existence of the chamber above was unknown until the present rector discovered a door- way in the east wall of the ground floor, which, on being opened, gave access to a stone staircase behind the east wall, which led up into a first- floor chamber, about 12 feet from east to west, and 8 feet from north to south ; the birds had had access to it through an unglazed window in the north wall for an unknown period, and it was half filled with their nests ; the floor planks were quite decayed. ' There is no trace of a chimney here. It is now opened out to the nave to form a gallery. Though we do not find in these two first-floor chambers the arrangements which could satisfy us that they were recluse cells, yet it is very probable that they were habitable chambers, inhabited, if not by recluses, perhaps by chantry priests, serving chantry chapels of the Tyrrells. Mr. M. H. Bloxam, in an interesting paper in the Transactions of the Lincoln Diocesan Architectural Society, mentions several other anchor- holds : — " Adjoining the little mountain church of S. Patricio, about five miles from Crickhowel, South Wales, is an attached building or cell. It The Recliisoriiim. 137 contains on the east side a stone altar, above which is a small window, now blocked up, which looked towards the altar of the church ; but there was no other internal communication between this cell and the church, to the west end of which it is annexed ; it appears as if destined for a recluse who was also a priest." Mr. Bloxam mentions some other examples, very much resembling the one described at Rettenden. The north transept of Clifton Campville Church, Staffordshire, a structure of the fourteenth century, is vaulted and groined with stone ; it measures 1 7 feet from north to south, and 12 feet from east to west. Over this is a loft or chamber, apparently an anchorhold or domus inclusi, access to which is obtained by means of a newell staircase in the south-east angle, from a doorway at -the north-east angle of the chancel. A small window on the south side of this chamber, now blocked up, afforded a view into the interior of the church. The roof of this chamber has been lowered, and all the windows blocked up. " On the north side of the chancel of Chipping Norton Church, Oxford- shire, is a revestry which still contains an ancient stone altar, with its appurtenances, viz., a piscina in the wall on the north side, and a bracket for an image projecting from the east wall, north of the altar. Over this revestry is a loft or chamber, to which access is obtained by means of a staircase in the north-west angle. Apertures in the wall enabled the recluse, probably a priest, here dwelling, to overlook the chancel and north aisle of the church. " Adjoining the north side of the chancel of Warmington Church, War- wickshire, is a revestry, entered through an ogee-headed doorway in the north wall of the chancel, down a descent of three steps. This revestry contains an ancient stone altar, projecting from a square-headed window in the east wall, and near the altar, in the same wall, is a piscina. In the south-west angle of this revestry is a flight of stone steps, leading up to a chamber or loft. This chamber contains, in the west wall, a fire-place, in the north-west angle a retiring-closet, or jakes, and in the south wall a small pointed window, of decorated character, through which the high-altar in the chancel might be viewed. In the north wall there appears to have been a pointed window, filled with decorated tracery, and in the east wall T ' 138 The Hermits Mid Recluses of the Middle Ages. is another decorated window. This is one of the most interesting and complete specimens of the domus indusi I have met with."* The chamber which is so frequently found over the porch of our churches, often with a fireplace, and sometimes with a closet within it, may probably have sometimes been inhabited by a recluse. Chambers are also sometimes found in the towers of churches. f Mr. Bloxam mentions a room, with a fire-place, in the tower of Upton Church, Nottinghamshire. Again, at Boyton Church, Wiltshire, the tower is on the north side of the church, " and adjoining the tower on the west side, and communicating with it, is a room which appears to have been once permanently inhabited, and in the north-east angle of this room is a fire-place." At Newport, Salop, the first floor of the tower seems to have been a habitable chamber, and has a little inner chamber corbelled out at the north-west angle of the tower. We have already hinted that it is not improbable that timber anchor- holds were sometimes erected inside our churches. Or perhaps the recluse lived in the church itself, or, more definitely, in a par-closed chantry chapel, without any chamber being purposely built for him. The indications which lead us to this supposition are these : there is sometimes an ordinary domestic fire-place to be found inside the church. For instance, in the north aisle of Layer Marney Church, Essex, the western part of the aisle is screened off for the chantry of Lord Marney, whose tomb has the chantry altar still remaining, set crosswise at the west end of the tomb ; in the eastern division of the aisle there is an ordinary domestic fire-place in the north wall. There is a similar fire-place, of about the same date, in Sir Thomas Bullen's church of Hever, in Kent. Again, we sometimes find beside the low side-windows already spoken of, an arrangement which shows that it was intended for some one * Reports of the Lincoln Diocesan Archaeological Society for 1853, pp. 359-60. t 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.' The Reclusorium. 139 habitually to sit there. Thus, at Somerton, Oxfordshire, on the north side of the chancel, is a long and narrow window, with decorated tracefry in the head ; the lower part is divided by a thick transom, and does not appear to have been glazed. In the interior the wall is recessed beside the window, with a sort of shoulder, exactly adapted to give room for a seat, in such a position that its occupant would get the full benefit of the light through the glazed upper part of the little window, and would be in a convenient position for conversing through the unglazed lower portion of it. At Elsfield Church, Oxfordshire, there is an early English lancet window, similarly divided by a transom, the lower part, now blocked up, having been originally un- glazed, and the sill of the window in the interior has been formed into a stone seat and desk. We reproduce here a view of the latter from the " Oxford Architectural Society's Guide to the Neighbourhood of Oxford." Perhaps in such instances as these, the recluse may have been a priest serving a chantry altar, and licensed, perhaps, to hear confessions,* for which the seat beside the little open window would be a convenient arrangement. Lord Scrope's will has already told us of a chaplain dwelling continu- ally (commoranti contitiuo) in the Church of St. Nicholas, Gloucester, and of an anchorite living in the parish church of Stamford. There is a low side-window at Mawgan Church, Cornwall. In the south-east angle between the south transept and the chancel, the inner angle at the junction of the transept and chjincel walls is cut away, from the floor upwards, to the Window, Elsfield Church. * In the LicMeld Registers we find that, on February 10, 1409, the bishop granted to Brot£r RicW Goldest^ne, late canon of Wo.brug^ now recipe at Pnor's Lee, near Shiffenale, license to hear confessions. (History of Whalley, p. SS-) I40 The Her?nits and Recluses of the Middle Ages. height of six feet, and laterally about five feet in south and east directions from the angle. A short octagonal pillar, six feet high, supports all that remains of the angle of these walls, whilst the walls themselves rest on two flat segmental arches of three feet span. A low diagonal wall is built across the angle thus exposed, and a small lean-to roof is run up from it into the external angle enclosing a triangular space within. In this wall the low side-window is inserted. The sill of the window is four feet from the pavement. Further eastward a priest's door seems to have formed part of the arrangement. The west jamb of the doorway is cut away so that from this triangular space and from the transept beyond a view is obtained of the east window. The position of the.low side-windows at Grade, Cury, and Landewednack is the same as that of Mawgan, but the window itself is different in form, those at Grade and at Cury being small oblong openings, the former i ft. 9 in. by i ft. 4 in., the sill only i ft. 9 in. from the ground ; the latter is 1 ft. by II in., the sill 3 ft. 4 in. from ground. At Landewednack the window has two lights, square headed, 2 ft. 6 in. by i ft. 4 in., sill 4 ft. ik in. from ground. A large block of serpentine rock is fixed in the ground beneath the window in a position convenient for a person standing but not kneeling at the window.* , Knighton gives us some particulars of a recluse priest who lived at Leicester. " There was," he says, " in those days at Leicester, a certain priest, hight William of Swynderby, whom they commonly called William the Hermit, because, for a long time, he had lived the hermitical life there ; they received him into a certain chamber within the church, because of the holiness they believed to be in him, and they procured for him victuals and a pension, after the manner of other priests." t In the " Test. Ebor.," p. 244, we find a testator leaving " to the chantry chapel of Kenby my red vestment, .... also the great missal and the great portifer, which I bought of Dominus Thomas Cope, priest and anchorite in that chapel." Blomfield also (ii. 75) tells us of a hermit, who ' Paper by J. J. Rogers, Archceological Journal, xi. 33. + Twysden's " Henry de Knighton," vol. ii. p. 2665. The Reclusorium. 141 lived in St. Cuthbert's Church, Thetford, and performed divine service therein. Who has not, at some time, been deeply impressed by the solemn still- ness, the holy calm, of an empty church ? Earthly passions, and cares, and ambitions, seemed to have died away; one's soul was filled with a spiritual peace. One stood and listened to the wind surging against the walls outside, as the waves of the sea may beat against the walls of an ingulfed temple; and one felt as effectually secluded from the surge and roar of the worldly life outside the sacred walls, as if in such a temple at the bottom of the sea. One gazed upon the monu- mental effigies, with their hands clasped in an endless prayer, and their passionless marble faces turned for ages heavenward, and read their mouldering epitaphs, and moralized on the royal preacher's text — " All is vanity and vexation of spirit." And then one felt the disposition — and, perhaps, indulged it — to kneel before the altar, all alone with God, in that still and solemn church, and pour out one's high-wrought thoughts before Him.. At such times one has probably tasted something of the transcen- dental charm of the life of a recluse priest. One could not sustain the tension long. Perhaps the old recluse, with his experience and his aids, could maintain it for a longer period. But to him, too, the natural reaction must have come in time ; and then he had his mechanical occupa- tions to fall back upon — trimming the lamps before the shrines, copying his manuscript, or illuminating its initial letters ; perhaps, for health's sake, he took a daily walk up and down the aisle of the church, whose walls re-echoed his measured footfalls; then he had his oft-recurring "hours" to sing, and his books to read; and, to prevent the long hours which were still left him in his little par-closed chapel from growing too wearily monotonous, there came, now and then, a tap at the shutter of his " parlour " window, which heralded the visit of some poor" soul, seeking counsel or comfort in his difficulties of this world or the next, or some pilgrim bringing news of distant lands, or some errant knight seeking news of adventures, or some parishioner come honestly to have a dish of gossip with the holy man, about the good and evil doings of his neighbours. There is a pathetic anecdote in Blomfield's " Norfolk," which will show 142 The Hermits ajtd Recluses of the Middle Ages. that the spirit and the tradition of the old recluse priests survived the Reformation. The Rev. Mr. John Gibbs, formerly rector of Gessing, in that county, was ejected from his rectory in 1690 as a non-juror. "He was an odd but harmless man, both in life and conversation. After his ejection he dwelt in the north porch chamber, and laid on the stairs that led up to the rood-loft, between the church and chancel, having a window at his head, so that he could lie in his couch, and see the altar. He lived to be very old,- and was buried at Frenze." Let us turn again to the female recluse, in her anchor-house outside the church. How was her cell furnished ? It had always a little altar at the east end, before which the recluse paid her frequent devotions, hearing, besides, the daily mass in church through her window, and receiving the Holy Sacrament at stated times. Bishop Poore advises his recluses to receive it only fifteen times a year. The little square unglazed window was closed with a shutter, and a black curtain with a white cross upon it also hung before the opening, through which the recluse could conyerse without being seen. The walls appear to have been sometimes painted — of course with devotional subjects. To complete the scene add a comfortable carved oak chair, and a little table, an embroidery frame, and such like appliances for needlework ; a book of prayers, and another of saintly legends, not forgetting Bishop Poore's " Ancren Riewle ; " a fire on the hearth in cold weather, and the cat, which Bishop Poore expressly allows, purring beside it; and lastly paint in the recluse, in her black habit and veil, seated in her chair ; or prostrate before her little altar ; or on her knees beside her church window listening to the chanted mass ; or receiving her basket of food from her servant, through the open parlour window; or standing before its black curtain, conversing with a stray knight-errant ; or putting her white hand through it, to give an alms to some village crone or wandering beggar. A few extracts from Bishop Poore's " Ancren Riewle," already several times alluded to, will give hfe to the picture we have painted. Though intended for the general use of recluses, it seems to have been specially addressed, in the first instance, to three sisters, who, in the bloom of youth. The Recluse Life. 143 forsook the world, and became the tenants of a reclusorium. It would seem that in such cases each recluse had a separate cell, and did not com- municate, except on rare occasions, with her fellow inmates ; and each had her own separate servant to wait upon her. Here are some particulars as to their communication with the outer world. " Hold no conversation with any man out of a church window, but respect it for the sake of the Holy Sacrament which ye see there through ;* and at other times (other whiles) take your women to the window of the house (huses thurle), other men and women to the parlour-window to speak when necessary; nor ought ye (to converse) but at these two windows." Here we have three windows ; we have no difficulty in understanding which was the church- window, and the parlour-window — the window pourparler ; but what was the house-window, through which the recluse might speak to her servant? Was it merely the third glazed window, through which she might, if it were convenient, talk with her maid, but not with strangers, because she would be seen through it ? or was it a window in the larger anchorholds, between the recluse cell, and the other apartment in which her maid lived, and in which, perhaps, guests were entertained? The latter seems the more pro- bable explanation, and will receive further confirmation when we come to the directions about the entertainment of guests. The recluse was not to give way to the very natural temptation to put her head out of the open window, to get sometimes a wider view of the world about her. " A peering anchoress, who is always thrusting her head outward," he compares to " an untamed bird in a cage "—poor human bird ! In another place he gives a more serious exhortation on the same subject. " Is not she too forward and foolhardy who holds her head boldly forth on the open battle- ments while men with crossbow bolts without assail the castle ? Surely our foe, the warrior of hell, shoots, as I ween, more bolts at one anchoress than at seventy and seven secular ladies. The battlements of the castle are the windows of their houses ; let her not look out at them, lest she * 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 he wmdow looking into the church, through which the recluse looked down daily upon the celebra- tion of the mass. 1 44 The Hermits and Recluses of the Middle Ages. have the devil's bolts between her eyes before she even thinks of it." Here are directions how to carry on her "parlements": — " First of all, when you have to go to your parlour- window, learn from your maid who it is that is come ; and when you must needs go forth, go forth in the fear of God to a priest, and sit and listen, and not cackle." They were to be on their guard even with religious men, and not even confess, except in presence of a witness. " If any man requests to see you {i.e. to have the black curtain drawn aside), ask him what good rriight come of it. . . . If any one become so mad and unreasonable that he puts forth his hand toward the window-cloth (curtain), shut the window {i.e. close the shutter) quickly, and leave him ; . . . . and as soon as any man falls into evil discourse, close the window, and go away with this verse, that he may hear it, ' The wicked have told me foolish tales, but not according to thy law ; ' and go forth before your altar, and say the ' Miserere.' " Again, " Keep your hands within your windows, for handling or touching between a man and an anchoress is a thing unnatural, shameful, wicked," &c. The bishop adds a characteristic piece of detail to our picture when he speaks of the fair complexions of the recluses because not sunburnt, and their white hands through not working, both set in strong relief by the black colour of the habit and veil. He says, indeed, that " since no man seeth you, nor ye see any man, ye may be content with your clothes white or black." But in practice they seem usually to have worn black habits, unless, when attached to the church of any monastery, they may have worn the habit of the order. They were not to wear rings, brooches, ornamented girdles, or gloves. " An anchoress," he says, " ought to take sparingly (of alms), only that which is necessary {i.e. she ought not to take alms to give away again). If she can spare ariy fragments of her food, let her send them away (to some poor person) privately out of her dwelling. For the devil," he says elsewhere, "tempts anchoresses, through their charity, to collect to give to the poor, then to a friend, then to make a feast." " There are anchoresses," he says, " who make their meals with their friends without ; that is too much friendship." The editor thinks this to mean that some anchoresses left their cells, and went to dine at the houses of their friends ; but the word is gistes (guests), and, more probably, The Recluse Life. 145 it only means that the recluse ate her dinner in her cell while a guest ate hers m the guest-room of the reclusorium, with an open window between, so that they could see and converse with one another. For we find in another place that she was to maintain " silence always at meals ; and if any one hath a guest whom she holds dear, she may cause her maid, as in her stead, to entertain her friend with glad cheer, and she shall have leave to open her window once or twice, and make signs to her of gladness." But " let no man eat in your presence, except he be in great need. The narrative already given at p. 109, of the visit of St. Richard the hermit to Dame Margaret the recluse of Anderby, also shows that in exceptional cases a recluse ate with men. The incident of the head of the recluse, in her convulsive sleep, falling at the window at which the hermit was reclining, and leaning partly upon him,* is explained by the theory that they were sitting in separate apartments, each close by this house window, which was open between them. As we have already seen, in the case of Sir Percival, a man might even sleep in the reclusorium ; and so the Rule says, " let no man sleep within your walls " as a general rule ; " if, however, great necessity should cause your house to be used " by travellers, " see that ye have a woman of unspotted life with you day and night." As to their occupations, he advises them to make " no purses and blod- bendes of silk, but shape and sew and mend church vestments, and poor people's clothes, and help to clothe yourselves and your domestics." " An anchoress must not become a school-mistress, nor turn her house into a school for children. Her maiden may, however, teach any little girl con- cerning whom it might be doubtful whether she should learn among the boys."f Doubtless, we are right in inferring from the bishop's advice not to do certain things, that anchoresses were in the habit of doing them. From this kind of evidence we gleau still further traits. He suggests to them that in confession they will perhaps have to mention suqji faults as these, * " Caput suum decidit ad fenestram ad quam se reclinabit sanctus Dei Ricardus." t 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.) U 146 The Hermits and Recluses of the Middle Ages. " I played or spoke thus in the church ; went to the play in the church- yard;* looked on at this, or at the wrestling, or other fooHsh sports; spoke thus, or played, in the presence of secular men, or of religious men, in a house of anchorites, and at a different window than I ought ; or, being alone in the church, I thought thus." Again he mentions, " Sitting too long at the parlour-window, spilling ale, dropping crumbs." Again we find, " Make no banquetings, nor encourage any strange vagabonds about the gate." But of all their failings, gossiping seems to have been the besetting sin of anchoresses. " People say of anchoresses that almost every one hath an old woman to feed her ears, a prating gossip, who tells her all the tales of the land, a magpie that chatters to her of every- thing that she sees or hears ; so that it is a common saying, from mill and from market, from smithy and from anchor-house, men bring tidings." Let us add the sketch drawn of them by the unfavourable hand of Bilney the Reformer, in his " Reliques of Rome," published in 1563, and we have done : — " As touching the monastical sect of recluses, and such as be shutte up within walls, there unto death continuall to remayne, giving themselves to the mortification of carnal effects, to the contemplation of heavenly and spirituall thinges, to abstinence, to prayer, and to such other ghostly exercises, as men dead to the world, and havyng their lyfe hidden with Christ, I have not to write. Forasmuch as I cannot fynde probably in any author whence the profession of anckers and anckresses had the beginning and foundation, although in this behalf I have talked with men of that profession which could very little or nothing say of the matter. Notwithstanding, as the Whyte Fryers father that order on Helias the prophet (but falsely), so likewise do the ankers and ankresses make that holy and virtuous matrone Judith their patroness and foundress ; but how unaptly who seeth not? Their profession and religion differeth as far * 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 eveiything 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 ? The Recluse Life. 147 from the manners of Judith as light from darknesse, or God from the devill, as shall manifestly appere to them that will diligentlye conferre the history of Judith with their life and conversation. Judith made herself a privy chamber where she dwelt (sayth the scripture), being closed in with her maydens. Our recluses also close themselves within the walls, but they suffer no man to be there with them. Judith ware a smoche of heare, but our recluses are both softly and finely apparalled. Judith fasted all the days of her lyfe, few excepted. Our recluses eate and drinke at all tymes of the beste, being of the number of them qui curios simulant et Bacchanalia vivunf. Judith was a woman of a very good report. Our recluses are reported to be superstitious and idolatrous persons, and such as all good men flye their company. Judith feared the Lord greatly, and lyved according to His holy word. Our recluses fear the pope, and gladly doe w^hat his pleasure is to command them. Judith lyved of her own sub- stance and goods, putting no man to charge. Our recluses, as persons only borne to consume the good fruits of the erth, lyve idely of the labour of other men's handes. Judith, when tyme required, came out of her closet, to do good unto other. Our recluses never come out of their lobbies, sincke or swimme the people. Judith put herself in jeopardy for to do good to the common countrye. Our recluses are unprofitable clods of the earth, doing good to no man. Who seeth not how farre our ankers and ankresses differe from the manners and life of this vertuous and godly woman Judith, so that they cannot justly claime hertobe theirpatronesse? Of some idle and superstitious heremite borrowed they their idle and super- stitious religion. For who knoweth not that our recluses have grates of yron in theyr spelunckes, and dennes out of the which they looke, as owles out of an yvye todde, when they will vouchsafe to speake with any man at whose hand they hope for advantage? So reade we in ' Vitis Pa.trum,' that John the Heremite so enclosed himself in his hermitage that no person came in unto him; to them that came to visite hi'm he spoke through a window onely. Our ankers and ankresses professe nothing but a solitary lyfe in their hallowed house, wherein they are inclosed wyth the vowe of obedience to the pope, and to their ordinary bishop. Their apparel is indifferent, so it be dissonant from the laity. No kind of meates 148 The Hermits and Recluses of the Middle Ages. they are forbidden to eat. At midnight they are bound to say certain prayers. Their profession is counted to be among other professions so hardye and so straight that they may by no means be suffered to come out of their houses except it be to talie on them an harder and streighter, which is to be made a bishop." It is not to be expected that mediaeval paintings should give illustrations of persons who were thus never visible in the world. In the pictures of the hermits of the Egyptian desert, on the walls of the Campo Santo at Pisa, we see a representa- tion of St. Anthony holding a conversation with St. John the Hermit, who is just visible through his grated window, " like an owl in an ivy tod," as Bilney says ; and we have already given a picture of Sir Percival knock- ing at the door of a female recluse. Bilney says, that they wore any costume, " so it were dissonant from the laity ; " but in all proba- bility they commonly wore a costume similar in colour to that of the male hermits. The picture which we here give of an anchoress, is taken from a figure of St. Paula, one of the anchorite saints of the desert, in the same picture of St. Jerome, which has already supplied us, in the figure of St. Damasus, with our best picture of the hermit's cos- tume. The service for enclosing a recluse * may be found in some of the old Service Books. We derive the following account of it from an old black-letter Manuale ad iisum percdebris ecdesie Sarisburiensis (London, 1554), in the British Museum. The rubric before the service orders that no St. Paula. * 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. The Service /or Enclosing. 149 one shall be enclosed without the bishop's leave ; that the candidate shall be closely questioned as to his motives ; that he shall be taught not to enter- tain proud thoughts, as if he merited to be set apart from intercourse with common men, but rather on account of his own infirmity it was good that he should be removed from contact with others, that he might be kept out of sin himself, and not contaminate them. So that the recluse should esteem himself to be condemned for his sins, and shut up in his solitary cell as in a prison, and unworthy, for his sins, of the society of men. There is a note, that this office shall serve for both sexes. On the day before the ceremony of inclusion, the Includendus — the person about to be inclosed — was to confess, and to fast that day on bread and water ; and all that night he was to watch and pray, having his wax taper burning, in the monastery,* near his inclusorium. On the morrow, all being assembled in church, the bishop, or priest appointed by him, first addressed an exhorta- tion to the people who had come to see the ceremony, and to the inclu- dendus himself, and then began the service with a response, and several appropriate psalms and collects. After that, the priest put on his chasuble, and began mass, a special prayer being introduced for the includendus. After the reading of the gospel, the includendus stood before the altar, and offered his taper, which was to remain burning on the altar throughout the mass ; and then, standing before the altar-step, he read his profession, or if he were a layman (and unable to read), one of the chorister boys read it for him. And this was the form of his profession : — " I, brother (or sister) N, offer and present myself to serve the Divine Goodness in the order of Anchorites, and I promise to remain, according to the rule of that order, in the service of God, from henceforth, by the grace of God, and the counsel of the Church." Then he signed the document in which his profession was written with the sign of the cross, and laid it upon the altar on bended knees. Then the bishop or priest said a prayer, and asperged with holy water the habit of the includendus ; and he put on the habit and prostrated himself before the altar, and so remained, while the ♦ " In monasterio inclusorio suo vicino ; " it seems as if the writer of the rubric were specially thinking of the inclusoria within monasteries. 1 50 The Hermits and Recluses of the Middle Ages. priest and choir sang over him the hymn Veni Creator Spiritus, and then proceeded with the mass. First the priest communicated, then the inclu- dendus, and then the rest of the congregation ; and the mass was concluded. Next his wax taper, which had all this time been burning on the altar, was given to the includendus, and a procession was formed ; first the choir ; then the includendus, clad in his proper habit, and carrying his lighted taper ; then the bishop or priest, in his mass robes ; and then the people following; and so they proceeded, singing a solemn litany, to the cell. And first the priest entered alone into the cell, and asperged it with holy water, saying appropriate sentences ; then he consecrated and blessed the cell, with prayers offered before the altar of its chapel. The third of these short prayers may be transcribed : " Benedic domine domum istam et locum istum, ut sit in eo sanitas, sanctitas, castitas, virtus, victoria, sanctimonia, humilitas, lenitas, mansuetudo, plenitude, legis et obedientse Deo Patre et Filio et Spiritui Sancto et sit super locum istum et super omnes habitantes in eo tua larga benedictio, ut in his manufactis habitaculis cum solemtate manentes ipsi tuum sit semper habitaculum. Per dominum," &c. Then the bishop or priest came out, and led in the includendus, still carrying his lighted taper, and solemnly blessed him. And then — a mere change in the tense of the rubric has an effect which is quite pathetic ; it is no longer the includendus, the person to be enclosed, but the inclusus, the enclosed one, he or she upon whom the doors of the cell have closed for ever in this life — then the enclosed is to maintain total and solemn silence throughout, while the doors are securely closed, the choir chanting appro- priate psalms. Then the celebrant causes all the people to pray for the inclusus privately, in solemn silence, to God, for whose love he has left the world, and caused himself to be inclosed in that strait prison. And after some concluding prayers, the procession left the inclusus to his solitary life, and returned, chanting, to the church, finishing at the step of the choir. One cannot read this solemn — albeit superstitious — service, in the quaint old mediaeval character, out of the very book which has, perhaps, been used in the actual enclosing of some recluse, without being moved. Was it some frail woman, with all the affections of her heart and the hopes of her earthly life shattered, who sought the refuge of this living tomb ? was The Service for Enclosing. 151 It some man of strong passions, wild and fierce in his crimes, as wild and fierce in his penitence ? or was it some enthusiast, with the over-excited religious sensibility, of which we have instances enough in these days? We can see them still, in imagination, prostrate, "in total and solemn silence," before the wax taper placed upon the altar of the little chapel, and listening while the chant of the returning procession grows fainter and fainter in the distance. Ah ! we may scornfully smile at it all as a wild super- stition, or treat it coldly as a question of mere antiquarian interest ; but what broken hearts, what burning passions, have been shrouded under that recluse's robe, and what wild cries of human agony have been stifled under that " total and solemn silence ! " When the processional chant had died away in the distance, and the recluse's taper had burnt out on his little altar, was that the end of the tragedy, or only the end of the first act ? Did the broken heart find repose ? Did the wild spirit grow tame ? Or did the one pine away and die like a flower in a dungeon, and the other beat itself to death against the bars of its self-made cage ? CHAPTER IV. CONSECRATED WIDOWS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. ESIDES all other religious people living under vows, in commu- nity in monasteries, or as solitaries in their anchorages, there were also a number of Widows vowed to that life and devoted to the service of God, who lived at home in their own houses or with their families. This was manifestly a continuation, or imitation, of the primitive Order of Widows, of whom St. Paul speaks in his first Epistle to Timothy (ch. v.). For although religious women, from an early period (fourth cen- tury), were usually nuns, the primitive Orders of Deaconesses and Widows did not altogether cease to exist in the Church. The Service Books * contain offices for their benediction ; and though it is probable that in fact a deaconess was very rarely consecrated in the Western Church, yet the number of allusions to widows throughout the Middle Ages leads us to suspect that there may have been no inconsiderable number of them. A common form of commissionf to a suffragan bishop includes the conse- crating of widows. From the Pontifical of Edmund Lacey, Bishop of Exeter, of the fourteenth century, we give a sketch of the service.J It is the same in substance as those in the earlier books. First, a rubric states that though a widow may be blessed on any day, it is more fitting that she be blessed on a holy day, and especially on the Lord's day. Between the * The Ordo Romanus. The Pontifical of Egbert. The Pontifical of Bishop Lacey. t Guardian newspaper, Feb. 7, 1870. j Surrey Society's Transactions, vol. iii. p. 218. The Consecration Service. 153 Epistle and the Gospel, the bishop sitting on a faldstool facing the people, the widow kneeling before the bishop is to be inteiTogated if she desires, putting away all carnal affections, to be joined as a spouse to Christ. Then she shall pubHcly in the vulgar tongue profess herself, in the bishop's hands, resolved to observe perpetual continence. Then the bishop blesses her habit (clamidem), saying a collect. Then the bishop, genu- flecting, begins the hymn Veni Creator Spiritus ; the widow puts on the habit and veil, and the bishop blesses and gives her the ring ; and with a final prayer for appropriate virtues and blessings, the ordinary service of Holy Communion is resumed, special mention of the widow being made therein. These collects are of venerable age, and have much beauty of thought and expression. The reader may be glad to see one of them as an example, and as an indication of the spirit in which people entered into these religious vows : " O God, the gracious inhabiter of chaste bodies and lover of uncorrupt souls, look we pray Thee, O Lord, upon this Thy servant, who humbly offers her devotion to Thee. May there be in her, O Lord, the gift of Thy spirit, a prudent modesty, a wise graciousness, a grave gentleness, a chaste freedom ; may she be fervent in charity and love nothing beside Thee (extra te) ; may she live praiseworthy and not desire praise ; may she fear Thee and serve Thee with a chaste love ; be Thou to her, O Lord, honour, Thou delight ; be Thou in sorrow her comfort, in doubt her counsellor ; be Thou to her defence in injury, in tribulation patience, in poverty abundance, in fasting food, in sickness medicine. By Thee, whom she desires to love above all things, may she keep what she has vowed ; so that by Thy help she may conquer the old enemy, and cast out the defilements of sin ; that she may be decorated with the gift of fruit sixty fold,* and adorned with the lamps of all virtues, and by Thy grace may be worthy to join the company of the elect widows. This we humbly ask through Jesus Christ our Lord." * 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. 154 Consecrated Widows of the Middle Ages. In a paper in the " Surrey Transactions," vol. iii. p. 208, Mr. Baigent, the writer of it, finds two, and only two, entries of the consecration of widows in the Episcopal Registers' of Winchester, which go back to the early part of the reign of Edward I. The first of these is on May 4, 1348, of the Lady Aleanor Giffard, probably, says Mr. Baigent, the widow of John Giffard, of Bowers Giffard, in Essex. The other entry, on October x8, 1379, is of the Benediction of Isabella Burgh, the widow of a citizen of London (whose will is given by Mr. Baigent), and of Isabella Golafre, widow of Sir John Golafre. The profession of the widow is given in old French, and a translation of it in old English, as follows : " In ye name of God, Fader and Sone and Holy Ghost. Iche Isabelle Burghe, that was sometyme wyfe of Thomas Burghe, wyche that is God be taught helpynge the grace of God [the parallel French is. Quest k Dieu commande ottriaunte la grace de Dieu] behote [promise] conversione of myn maners, and make myn avows to God, and to is swete moder Seynte Marie and to alle seintz,into youre handes leve [dear] fader in God, William be ye grace of God Bisshope of Wyn- chestre, that fro this day forward I schal ben chaste of myn body and in holy chastite kepe me treweliche and devouteliche all ye dayes of myn life," Another form of profession is written on the lower margin of the Exeter Pontifical, and probably in the handwriting of Bishop Lacy: "I, N., wedowe, avowe to God perpetuall chastite of my body from henceforward, and in the presence of the honorable fadyr in God, my Lord N., by the grace of God, Bishop of N., I promyth sabilly to leve in the Church, a wedowe. And this to do, of myne own hand I subscribe this writing : Et postea faciat signum crucis." Another example of a widow in the Winchester registers is that of EHzabeth de Julien, widow of John Plantagenet, Earl of Kent, who made that vow to Bishop William de Edyndon, but afterwards married Sir Eustache Dabrichecourt, September 29, 1360, whereupon proceedings were commenced against her by the Archbishop of Canterbury, who imposed on her a severe and life-long penance. She survived her second husband many years, and dying in 141 1, was buried in the choir of the Friars Minor at Winchester, near the tomb of her first husband. Vidua ac Deo devota. 155 The epitaph on the monumental brass of Joanna Braham, a.d. 1519, at Frenze, in Norfolk, describes her as " Vidua ac Deo devota." In the Book of the Knight of La Tour-Landry is a description of a lady who, if she had not actually taken the vows of widowhood, lived the life we should suppose to be that of a vowess. "It is of a good lady whiche longe tyme was in wydowhode. She was of a holy lyf, and moste humble and honourable, as the whiche every yere kepte and held a feste upon Crystemasse-day of her neyghbours bothe farre and nere, tyll her halle was ful of them. She served and honoured eche one after his degree, and specially she bare grete reverence to the good and trewe wymmen, and to them whiche has deservyd to be worshipped. Also she was of suche customme that yf she knewe any poure gentyll woman that shold be wedded she arayed her with her jewels. Also she wente to the obsequye of the poure gentyll wymmen, and gaf there torches, and all such other lumynary as it neded thereto. Her dayly ordenaunce was that she rose erly ynough, and had ever freres, and two or three chappellayns whiche sayd matyns before her within her oratorye ; and after she herd a hyhe masse and two lowe, and sayd her servyse full devoutely; and after this she wente and arayed herself, and walked in her gardyn, or else aboute her plase, sayenge her other devocions and prayers. And as tyme was she wente to dyner ; and after dyner, if she wyste and knewe ony seke folke or wymmen in theyr childbedde, she went to see and vysited them, and made to be brought to them of her best mete. And then, as she myght not ^o herself, she had a servant propyer therefore, whiche rode upon a lytell hors, and bare with him grete plente of good mete and drynke for to gyve to the poure and seke folk there as they were. And after she had herd evensonge she went to her souper, yf she fasted not. And tymely she wente to bedde ; made her styward to come to her to wete what mete sholde be had the next daye, and lyved by good ordenaunce, and wold be purveyed byfore of alle such thynge that was nedefuU for her household'. She made grete abstynence, and wered the hayre ' upon the Wednesday and upon the Fryday And she rose * Hair-cloth garment worn next the skin for mortification. 156 Consecrated Widows of the Middle Ages. everye night thre tymes, and kneled downe to the ground by her bedde, and redryd thankynges to God, and prayd for al Crysten soules, and dyd grate almes to the poure. This good lady, that wel is worthy to be named and preysed, had to name my lady Cecyle of Ballavylle She was the most good and curtoys lady that ever I knewe or wyste in ony countrey, and that lesse was envious, and never she wold here say ony evyll of no body, but excused them, and prayd to God that they myght amende them, and that none was that knewe what to hym shold happe. .... She had a ryhte noble ende, and as I wene ryht agreable to God ; and as men say coinmonely, of honest and good lyf cometh ever a good ende." In post-Reformation times there are biographies of holy women which show that the idea of consecrated widowhood was still living in the minds of the people. Probably the dress commonly worn by widows throughout their widowhood is a remnant of the mediaeval custom. THE PILGRIMS OF THP: MIDDLE AGES. CHAPTER I. |HE fashion of going on pilgrimage seems to have sprang up in the fourth century. Thes^;st_obiect--ef-pi}gTifHag£_jras thgJJoly, Land. Jerome said, at the outset, the most powerful thing which can be~gatd against it ; viz., that the way to heaven is as short from Britain as from Jerusalem — a consolatory reflection to those who were obliged, or who preferred, to stay at home; but it did not succeed in quenching, the zeal of those many thousands who desired to see, with their own eyes, the places which had been hallowed by the presence and the deeds of their Lord — to tread, with their own footsteps, " Those holy fields Over whose acres walked those blessed feet, Which " eighteen " hundred years ago were nailed For our advantage on the bitter cross ; "* to kneel down and pray for pardon for their sins upon that very spot where the Great Sacrifice for sin was actually offered up ; to stand upon the summit of Mount Olivet, and gaze up into that very pathway through the sky by which He ascended to His kingdom in Heaven. We should, however, open up too wide a field if we were to enter into * King Henry IV., Pt. I., Act i. Sc. i. 158 The Pilgrims of the Middle Ages. the subject of the early pilgrims to the Holy Land ;* to trace their route from Britain, usually via Rome, by sea and land ; to describe how a pilgrim passenger-traffic sprung up, of which adventurous ship-owners took advantage ; how hospitalst were founded here and there along the road, to give refuge to the weary pilgrims, until they reached the Hospital par TJiirteenth Century Pilgrims (the two Disciples at EmmausJ . excellence, which stood beside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; how Saxon kings made treaties to secure their safe conduct through foreign * There have come dcjwn 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 Sffivralf, 1 102 A.D. ; of Sigurd the Crusader, 1107 A.D. ; of Sir John de Man- devUle, 1322 — 1356. — Early Travels in Palestine (Bohn's Antiq. Lib.). t At the present day, the Hospital of the Pellegrini at Rome is capable of enter- taining 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 certi- ficate from a bishop or priest to the effect that they are iona-fide pilgrims. (Wild's " Last Winter in Rome." Longmans : 1865.) Foreign Pilgrimages. 159 countries ;* how the Order of the Knights of the Temple was founded to escort the caravans of pilgrims from one to another of the holy places, and protect them from marauding Saracens and Arabs; how the Crusades were organised partly, no doubt, to stem the course of Mahommedan conquest, but ostensibly to wrest the holy places from the hands of the infidel : this part of the subject of pilgrimage would occupy too much of our space here. Our design is to give a sketch of the less known portion of the subject, which relates to the pilgrimages which sprung up in after-times, when the veneration for the holy places had extended to the shrines of saints ; and when, still later, veneration had run wild into the grossest superstition, and crowds of sane men and women flocked to relic- worships, which would be ludicrous if they were not so pitiable and humi- liating. This part of the subject forms a chapter in the history of the manners of the Middle Ages, which is Httle known to any but the anti- quarian student ; but it is an important chapter to all who desire thoroughly to understand what were the modes of thought and habits of life of our English forefathers in the Middle Ages. The most usual foreign pilgrimages were to the Holy La nd, t h e sce ne of our Lord's earthly life; to Rome, the centre of western Christianity ; and to the shrine of St. James at Cgrnpostella.t The number of pilgrims to these places must have been comparatively limited ; for a man who had any regular business or profession could not * 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 Ofia : — " 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 hea\y tolls usually exacted on the journey to Rome. t 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. 1 60 The Pilgrims of the Middle Ages. well undertake so long an absence from home. The rich of no occupation could afford the leisure and the cost ; and the poor who chose to abandon their lawful occupation could make these pilgrimages at the cost of others ; for the pilgrim was sure of entertainment at every hospital, or monastery, or priory, probably at every parish priest's rectory and every gentleman's hall,* on his way; and there were not a few poor men and women who indulged a vagabond humour in a pilgrim's life. The poor pilgrim repaid his entertainer's hospitality by bringing the news of the countriesf through which he had passed, and by amusing the household after supper with marvellous saintly legends, and traveller's tales. He raised a little money for his inevitable travelling expenses by retailing holy trifles and curiosities, such as were sold wholesale at all the shrines frequented by pilgrims, and which were usually supposed to have some saintly efficacy attached to them. Someti ffles the pilgrim would tak e a bolder flight, and carry with him some fr agment of arelic — a joint_oLa.i)one7oFa pinch of du5t,-Dr a nail- paring, or a couple of hairs of the saint, or a rag of his clothing ; and the people gladly paid the pilgrim for thus bringing to their doors some of the advantages of the holy shriaes. which he had_ visited. Thus Chaucer's Pardoner — " That strait was comen from the Court of Rome " — " In his mailj he had a pilwebere,§ ~" " Which as he saidg was oure Lady's veil ; * 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." t 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 AH of thine spell." + Wallet. j Pillow covering. English Shrines. i6i He said he had a gobbet of the sail Thatte St. Peter had whan that he went Upon the sea, till Jesu Christ him hent.* He had a cross of laton full of stones ;t And in a glass he hadde pigges bones.J But with these relics whanne that he fond A poure parson dwelling upon lond, Upon a day he gat him more mouie Than that the parson gat in monthes tweie. And thus with feined flattering and japes, He made the parson and the people his apes.'' In a subsequent chapter, on the Merchants of the Middle Ages, will be found some illustrations of mediaeval shipping, which also illustrate the present subject. One is a representation of Sir John Mandeville and his companions in mantle, hat, and staff, just landed at a foreign town on their pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Another represents Richard Beau- champ, Earl of Warwick, in mantle, hat, and staff, embarking in his own ship on his departure for a similar pilgrimage. Another illustration in the subsequent chapter on Secular Clergy represents Earl Richard at Rome, being presented to the Pope. But those who could not spare time or money to go to Jerusalem, or Rome, or Corapostella, could spare both for a shorter expedition; and pilgrimages to English shrines appear to have been very common. By far the most popular of our English pilgrimages was to the shritig^of St. Thoma^k-Becket^at-Canterbury, and it was popular not only in England, but all over Europe. The one which stood next in popular estimation, was the pilgrimage to Our Lady of Walsingham. But nearly every cathe- dral and great monastery, and many a parish church besides, had its famous saint to whom the people resorted. There was St. Cuthbert at Durham, and St. WiHiam at York, and little St. William at Norwich, and St. Hugh at Lincoln, and St. Edward Confessor at Westminster, and St. Erkenwald in the cathedral of London, and St. Wulstan at Worcester, and St. Swithin at Winchester, and St. Edmund at Bury, and SS. Etheldreda * Called or took. t i.e. Latten (a land of bronze) set with (mock) precious stones. j Pretending them to be relics of some saint. Y 1 62 The Pilgrims of the Middle Ages. (and Witliburga at Ely, and many more, whose remains were esteemed holy relics, and whose shrines were frequented by the devout. Some came to pray at the tomb for the intercession of the saint in their behalf ; or to seek the cure of disease by the touch of the relic ; or to offer up thanks for deliverance believed to have been vouchsafed in time of peril through the saint's prayers ; or to obtain the number of days' pardon — i.e. of remission of their time in purgatory — offered by Papal bulls to those who should pray at the tomb. Then there were famous roods, the Rood of Chester and of Bromholme ; and statues of the Virgin, as Our Lady of Wilsden, and of Boxley, and of this, that, and the other plac^ There were scores of holy wells besides, under saintly invocations, of which St. Winifred's well with her chapel over it still remains an excellent example.* Some of these were springs of medicinal water, and were doubtless of some efficacy in the cures for which they were noted ; in others a saint had baptized his converts ; others had simply afforded water to a saint in his neighbouring cell.t Before any man | went on pilgrimage, he first went to his church, and received the Church's blessing on his pious enterprise, and her prayers for his good success and safe return. The office of pilgrims (officiwn peregri- norum) may be found in the old service-books. We give a few notes of it from a Sarum missal, date 1554, in the British Museum. § The pilgrim is * See "ArchKological Journal," vol. iii. p. 149. t Mr. Ta3'lor, in his edition of " Blonifield's Norfolk," enumerates no less than seventy- places of pilgrimage in Norfolk alone. I 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 -\vyf 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.) § Marked 3,395 d. 4to. The footnote on a previous page (p. 158) leads us to conjecture Office for Blessing Pilgrims. 163 previously to have confessed. At the opening of the service he lies pros- trate before the altar, while the priest and choir sing over him certain appropriate psalms, viz. the 24th, 50th, and 90th. Then follow some versicles, and three collects, for safety, &c., in which the pilgrim is men- tioned by name, "thy servant, N." Then he rises, and there follows the benediction of his scrip and staff; and the priest sprinkles the scrip with holy water, and places it on the neck of the pilgrim, saying, " In the name of, &c., take this scrip, the habit of your pilgrimage, that, corrected and saved, you may be worthy to reach the thresholds of the saints to which you desire to go, and, your journey done, may return to us in safety." Then the priest delivers the staff, saying, " Take this staff, the support of your journey, and of the labour of your pilgrimage, that you may be able to conquer all the bands of the enemy, and to come safely to the threshold of the saints to which you desire to go, and, your journey obediently performed, return to us with joy." If any one of the pilgrims pre- sent is going to Jerusalem, he is to bring a habit signed with the cross, and the priest blesses it : — " .... we pray that Thou wilt vouchsafe to bless this cross, that the banner of the sacred cross, whose figure is signed upon him, may be to Thy servant an invincible strength against the evil temptations of the old enemy, a defence by the way, a protection in Thy house, and may be to us everywhere a guard, through our Lord, &c," Then he sprinkles the habit with holy water, and gives it to the pilgrim, saying, " Take this habit, signed with the cross of the Lord our Saviour, that by it you may come safely to his sepulchre, who, with the Lydgate's Pilgriin. that in ancient as in modern times the pilgrim may have received a certificate of his havmg been blessed as tt Archaology, vol. iv. p. 342. * Cobbler. t Grease. 204 The Secular Clergy of the Middle Ages. The Church was the great protector and friend of the lower classes of society, and that on the highest grounds. In this very matter of educating the children of the poor, and opening to such as were specially gifted a suitable career, we find so late as the date of the Reformation, Cranmer maintaining the rights of the poor on high grounds. For among the Royal Commissioners for reorganising the cathedral establishment at Can- terbury " were more than one or two who would have none admitted to the Grammar School but sons or younger brothers of gentlemen. As for others, husbandmen's children, they were more used, they said, for the plough and to be artificers than to occupy the place of the learned sort. Whereto the Archbishop said that poor men's children are many times endowed with more singular gifts of nature, which are also the gifts of God, as eloquence, memory, apt pronunciation, sobriety, and such like ; and also commonly more apt to study than is the gentleman's son, more deli- cately educated. Hereunto it was, on the other part, replied that it was for the ploughman's son to go to plough, and the artificer's son to apply to the trade of his parent's vocation ; and the gentleman's children are used to have the knowledge of government and rule of the common- wealth. ' I grant,' replied the Archbishop, ' much of your meaning herein as needful in a commonwealth; but yet utterly to exclude the ploughman's son and the poor man's son from the benefit of learning, as though they were unworthy to have the gifts of the Holy Ghost bestowed upon them as well as upon others, was much as to say as that Almighty God should not be at liberty to bestow his great gifts of grace upon any person, but as we and other men shall appoint them to be employed according to our fancy, and not according to his most goodly will and pleasure, who giveth his gifts of learning and other perfections in all sciences unto all kinds and sUtes of people indifferently." Besides the rectors and vicars of parishes, there was another class of beneficed clergymen in the middle ages, who gradually became very numerous, viz., the chantry priests. By the end of the ante-Reformation period there was hardly a church in the kingdom which had not one or more chantries founded in it, and endowed for the perpetual maintenance Chantry Priests. 205 of a chantry priest, to say mass daily for ever for the soul's health of the , founder and his family. The churches of the large and wealthy towns had sometimes ten or twelve such chantries. The chantry chapel was some- times built on to the parish church, and opening into it ; sometimes it was only a comer of the church screened off from the rest of the area by open- work wooden screens. The chantry priest had sometimes a chantry-house to live in, and estates for his maintenance, sometimes he had only an annual income, charged on the estate of the founder. The chantries were sup- pressed, and their endowments confiscated, in the reign of Edward VI., but the chantry chapels still remain as part of our parish churches, and where the parclose screens have long since been removed, the traces of the chantry altar are still very frequently apparent to the eye of the ecclesiastical anti- quary. Sometimes more than one priest was provided for by wealthy people. Richard III. commenced the foundation of a chantry of one hundred chap- lains, to sing masses in the cathedral church of York ; the chantry-house was begun, and six altars were erected in York Minster, when the king's death at Bosworth Field interrupted the completion of the magnificent design.* We have next to add to our enumeration of the various classes of the mediseval clergy another class of chaplains, whose duties were very nearly akin to those of the chantry priests. These were the guild priests. It was the custom throughout the middle ages for men and women to associate themselves in religious guilds, partly for mutual assistance in temporal matters, but chiefly for mutual prayers for their welfare while Hving, and for their soul's health when dead. These guilds usually maintained a chap- lain, whose duty it was to celebrate mass daily for the brethren and sisters of the guild. These guild priests must have been numerous, e.g., we learn from Blomfield's " Norfolk," that there were at the Reformation ten guilds in Windham Church, Norfolk, seven at Hingham, seven at Swaffham, seventeen at Yarmouth, &c. Moreover, a guild, hke a chantry, had some- times more than one guild priest. Leland tells us the guild of St. John's, in St. Botolph's Church, Boston, had ten priests, " living in a fayre house at the west end of the parish church yard." In St. Mary's Church, Lich- field, was a guild which had five priests.t ^ • York Fabric Rolls, p. 87, note. t " Cliurcli of our Fathers," ii. 441. 2o6 The Secular Clergy of the Middle Ages. The rules of some of these religious guilds may be found in Stow's " Survey of London," e.g., of St. Barbara's guild in the church of St. Kathe- rine, next the Tower of London (in book ii. p. 7 of Hughes's edition.) We find bequests to the guild priests, in common with other chaplains, in the ancient wills, e.g., in 1541, Henry Waller, of Richmond, leaves " to every gyld prest of thys town, vi*. y* ar at my beryall."* Dr. Rock saySjt "Besides this, every guild priest had to go on Sundays and holy days, and help the priests in the parochial services of the church in which his guild kept their altar. All chantry priests were bidden by our old English canons to do the same." The brotherhood priest of the guild of the Holy Trinity, at St. Botolph's, in London, was required to be " meke and obedient unto the qu'er in alle divine servyces duryng hys time, as custome is in the citye amonge alle other p'sts.'' Sometimes a chantry priest was specially required by his foundation deed to help in the cure of souls in the parish, as in the case of a chantry founded in St. Mary's, Maldon, and Little Bentley, Essex ;| sometimes the chantry chapel was built in a hamlet at a distance from the parish church, and was intended to serve as a chapel of ease, and the priest as an assistant curate, as at Foul- ness Island and Billericay, both in Essex. But it is very doubtful whether the chantry priests generally considered themselves bound to take any share in the parochial work of the parish. § In the absence of any cure of souls, the office of chantry or guild priest was easy, and often lucrative ; and we find it a common subject of complaint, from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries, that it was preferred to a cure of souls ; and that even parochial incumbents were apt to leave their parishes in the hands of a parochial chaplain, and seek for themselves a chantry or guild, or one of the temporary engagements to celebrate annals, of which there were so many provided by the wills of which we shall shortly have to speak. Thus Chaucer reckons, among the virtues of his poore parson, that — * Richmond Wills. t " Cliurcli of our Fathers," ii. 408, note. J Newcourt's " Repertorium." \ Johnson's " Canons," ii. 421. Ang. Cath. Lib. Edition. Chantry Priests. 207 " He set not his benefice to hire, And let his shepe accomber in the mire, And rmine to London to Saint Poule's, To seken him a chauntrie for soules, Or with a brotherhood to be with-held. But dwelt at home, and kepte well his fold." So also Piers Ploughman — " Parsons and parisshe preistes, pleyned hem to the bisshope. That hire parishes weren povere sith the pestilence tyme, To have a licence and leve at London to dwelle And syngen ther for symonie, for silver is swete." Besides the chantry priests and guild priests, there was a great crowd of priests who gained a livelihood by taking temporary engagements to say masses for the souls of the departed. Nearly every will of the period we are considering provides for the saying of masses for the soul of the testator. Sometimes it is only by ordering a fee to be paid to every priest who shall be present at the funeral, sometimes by ordering the executors to have a number of masses, varying from ten to ten thousand, said as speedily as may be ; sometimes by directing that a priest shall be engaged to say mass for a certain period, varying from thirty days to forty or fifty years. These casual masses formed an irregular provision for a large number of priests, many of whom performed no other clerical function, and too often led a dissolute as well as an idle life. Archbishop Islip says in his " Constitutions :"* — " We are certainly informed, by com- mon fame and experience, that modem priests, through covetousness and love of ease, not content with reasonable salaries, demand excessive pay for their labours, and receive it ; and do so despise labour and study pleasure, that they wholly refuse, as parish priests, to serve in churches or chapels, or to attend the cure of souls, though fitting salaries are offered them, that they may live in a leisurely manner, by cele- brating annals for the quick and dead ; and so parish churches and chapels remain unofficiated, destitute of parochial chaplains, and even proper curates, to the grievous danger of souls." Chaucer has introduced one of this class into the Canon's Yeoman's tale : — * Johnson's " Canons," ii. 421. 2o8 The Secular Clergy of the Middle Ages. " In London was a priest, an annueller,* That therein dwelled hadde many a year, Which was so pleasant and so serviceable Unto the wife there as he was at table That she would suffer him no thing to pay For board ne clothing, went he never so gay. And spending silver had he right ynoit." t Another numerous class of the clergy were the domestic chaplains. Every nobleman and gentleman had a private chapel in his own house, and an ecclesiastical establishment attached, proportionate to his own rank and wealth. In royal houses and those of the great nobles, this private establishment was not unfrequently a collegiate establishment, with a dean and canons, clerks, and singing men and boys, who had their church and quadrangle within the precincts of the castle, and were main- tained by ample endowments. The establishment of the royal chapel of St. George, in Windsor Castle, is, perhaps, the only remaining example. The household book of the Earl of .Northumberland gives us very full details of his chapel establishment, and of their duties, and of the emolu- ments which they received in money and kind. They consisted of a dean, who was to be a D.D. or LL.D. or B.D., and ten other priests, and eleven gentlemen and six children, who composed the choir. X But country gentle- * One who sang annual or yearly masses for the dead, t Enough. X 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 lor ordering and keaping the queir in my lorde's chappell daUy. It. A preist for a riding chaplain 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 dark of the closet. It. A preist for a maister of graraer 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 Domestic Chaplains. 209 men of wealth often maintained a considerable chapel establishment. 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, iyhe-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 tenour. 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 Lincoln- shire, 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, bs. 8d. On St. Nicholas Eve, 6s. 8d. To them of his lordshipe's chappell if they doe play the play of the Nativitie upon Xmas Day in the momynge in my lorde's chapell before his lordship, xxs. 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 haUowed taper on Candle- mas Day. , ■ i j i.- To his lordship's chaplains and other servts. that play the Play before his lordship on Shrofetewsday at night, xxj. ^ That play the Play of Resurrection upon Estur Daye in the mg. m my lorde s chapell before his lordship. To the yeoman or groom of the vesjry on Allhallows Day for syngynge for all Cns- tynne soles the said.e nyhte to it be past mydnyght, 3^. 4A The Earl and Lady were brother and sister of St. Christopher Gilde of Yorke, and pd. 6s. Sd. each yearly, and when the Master of the Gifd brought my lord and my lady for then- lyverays a yard of nan^ow violette cloth and a yard of narrow rayed cloth, 13J. 4i^. (2>., ayardofeashtoeach). , , j, , v, .,, And to Procter of St. Robert's of Knasbnighe, when my lord and lady were brother and sister, 6s. Sd. each. At pp. 272-278, is an elaborate programme of the ordering of my lord's chapel for E E 2 lo The Secular Clergy of the Middle Ages. Henry Madiyn, in his diary,* tells us, in noticing the death of Sir Thomas Jarmyn, of Rushbrooke Hall, Suffolk, in 1552, that "he was the best housekeeper in the county of Suffolk, and kept a goodly chapel of sing- ing men." KJnights and gentlemen of less means, or less love of goodly singing men, were content with a single priest as chaplain. t Even wealthy yeomen and tradesmen had their domestic chaplain. Sir Thomas More says,| there was "such a rabel [of priests], that every mean man must have a priest in his house to wait upon his wife, which no man almost lacketh now.'' The chapels of the great lords were often sumptuous buildings, erected within the precincts, of which St. George's, Windsor, and the chapel within the Tower of London may supply examples. Smaller chapels erected within the house were still handsome and ecclesiastically- designed buildings, of which examples may be found in nearly every old castle and manor house which still exists ; e.g., the chapel of Colchester Castle of the twelfth century, of Ormsbro Castle of late twelfth century, of Beverstone Castle of the fourteenth century, engraved in Parker's "Domestic Architecture," III. p. 177; that at Igtham Castle of the fifteenth century, engraved in the same work. III. p. 173 ; that at Haddon the various services, from which it appears that there were organs, and several of the sing- ing men played them in turn. At p. 292 is an order about the washing of the linen for the chapel for 3 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 cariy-ing 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 ladle's, and the sort (suit) of vestments and single vestments and copes " accopeed " daily, and all other my lord's chapeU stuff to be sent afore my lord's chariot before his lordship remove. [Cardinal Wolsey, after the Earl's death, intimated his wish to have the books of the Earl's chapel, which a note speaks of as fine service books.— P. 314.] * Edited by Mr. Gough 'Nichols for the Camden Society. t Richard Eurre, a wealthy yeoman and " ifarmer of the parsonage of Sowntyng, called the Temple, which I holde of the howse of St. Jonys," in 19 Henry VIII. wiUs that Sir Robert Bechton, " my chaplen, syng ffor my soule by the span of ix. yers ;" and further requires an obit for his soul for eleven years in Sompting Church.— (" Notes on Wills," by M. A. Lower, " Sussex Archaeological Collections," iii. p. 1 12.) ' X "Dialogue of Heresies," iii. u. 12. Domestic Chaplains. 211 Hall of the fifteenth century. In great houses, besides the general chapel, there was often a small oratory besides for the private use of the lord of the castle, in later times called a closet ; sometimes another oratory for the lady, as in the case of the Earl of Northumberland.* In some of these domestic chapels we find a curious internal arrangement ; the western part of the apartment is divided into two stories by a wooden floor. This is the case also with the chapel of the preceptory of Chobham, Northumberland, of the Coyston Almshouses at Leicester (Parker's " Dom. Arch "). It is the case in one of the chapels in Tewkesbury Abbey Church, and in the case of a priory chtirch in Norway. In some cases it was pro- bably to accommodate the tenants of different stories of the house. The frequency with which in later times the lord of the house had a private gallery in the chapel (a similar arrangement occasionally occurs in parish churches) leads us to conjecture that in these cases of two floors the upper floor was for the members of the family, and the lower for the servants of the house. These chapels were thoroughly furnished with vessels, books, robes, and every usual ornament, and every object and appliance neces- sary for the performance of the offices of the church, with a splendour proportioned to the means of the master of the house. From the Household Book of the Earl of Northumberland, we gather that the chapel had three altars, and that my lord and my lady had each a closet, i.e., an oratory, in which there were other altars. The chapel was furnished with hangings, and had a pair of organs. There were four an- tiphoners and four grails — service books — which were so famous for their beauty, that, at the earl's death, Wolsey intimated his wish to have them. We find mention, too, of the suits of vestments and single vestments, and copes and surplices, and altar-cloths -for the five altars. All these things were under the care of the yeoman of the vestry, and were carried about with the earl at his removals from one to another of his houses. Minute catalogues and descriptions of the furniture of these domestic chapels may also be found in the inventories attached to ancient wills, t * See note on previous page, " the altar-cloths in my lord's closet and my ladle's." t Of the inventories to be found in wms> we will give only two, of the chapels of 2 12 The Secular Clergy of the Middle Ages. We shall give hereafter a picture of one of these domestic chaplains, viz., of Sir Roger, chaplain of the chapel of the Earl of Warwick at Flamstead. There is a picture of another chaplain of the Earl of Warwick in the MS. Life of R. Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick (Julius E. IV.), where the earl and his chaplain are represented sitting together at dinner. Besides the clergy who were occupied in these various kinds of spiritual work, there were also a great number of priests engaged in secular occupa- tions. Bishops were statesmen, generals, and ambassadors, employing suffragan bishops* in the work of their dioceses. Priests were engaged in many ways in the king's service, and in that of noblemen and others. Piers Ploughman says : — " Somme serven the kyng, and his silver tellen, In cheker and in chauncelrie, chalangen his dettes, Of wardes and of wardemotes, weyves and theyves. And some serven as servantz, lordes and ladies, And in stede of stywardes, sitten and demen." The domestic chaplains were usually employed more or less in secular duties. Thus such services are regularly allotted to the eleven priests in the chapel of the Earls of Northumberland ; one was, surveyor of my lord's lands, and another my lord's secretary. Mr. Christopher Pickering, in his will country gentlemen. Rudulph Adirlay, Esq. of Colwick (" Testamenta Eboracehsia," p. 30), Nottinghamshire, a.d. 1429, leaves to Alan de Cranwill, his chaplain, a little missal and another book, and to Elizabeth his wife " the chalice, vestment, with two candelabra of laton, and the httle missal, with all other ornaments belonging to my chapel." In the inventories of the will of John Smith, Esq., of Blackmore, Essex, A.D. 1543, occur : " In the chappell chamber— Item a long setle yoyned. In the chappell— Item one aulter of yoyner's worke. Item a table with two leaves of the passion gilt. Item a long setle of waynscott. Item a bell hanging over the chapel. Chappell stuflF: Copes and vestments thre. Aulter fronts foure. Corporall case one ; and dyvers peces of silk necessary for cusshyons v. ,Thomas Smith (to have) as moche as wyll serve his chap- peU, the resydue to be solde by myn executours." The plate and candlesticks of the chapel are not specially mentioned ; they are probably included among the plate which is otherwise disposed of, and " the xiiiij latyn candlestyckes of dyvers sorts," elsewhere mentioned. — Essex Archaological Society's Transactions, vol. iii. p. 60. * See the Rev. W. Stubbs's learned and laborious " Registrum Sacrum Anglicanum," which gives lists of the suffragan (as well as the diocesan) bishops of the Church of England. Domestic Chaplains. 213 (a.d. 1542), leaves to "my sarvands John Dobson and Frances, xx^ a-pece, besydes ther wages ; allso I gyve unto Sir James Edwarde my sarvand," &c. ; and one of the witnesses to the will is " Sir James Edwarde, preste," who was probably Mr. Pickering's chaplain.* Sir Thomas More says, every man has a priest to wait upon his wife ; and in truth the chaplain seems to have often performed the duties of a superior gentleman usher. Nicholas Blackburn, a wealthy citizen of York, and twice Lord Mayor, leaves (a.d. 143 1-2) a special bequest to his wife " to find her a gentle- woman, and a priest, and a servant."t Lady Elizabeth Hay leaves bequests in this order, to her son, her chaplain, her servant, and her * " Riclimondshire Wills," p. 34. f "Test. Ebor.,'' 220. * Ibid., p. 39. CHAPTER II. CLERKS IN MINOR ORDERS. ||T is necessary, to a complete sketch of the subject of the secular clergy, to notice, however briefly, the minor orders, which have so long been abolished in the reformed Church of England, that we have forgotten their very names. There were seven orders through which the clerk had to go, from the lowest to the highest step in the hierarchy. The Pontifical of Archbishop Ecgbert gives us the form of ordination for each order ; and the ordination ceremonies and exhortations show us very fully what were the duties of the various orders, and by what costume and symbols of office we may recognise them. But these particulars are brought together more concisely in a document of much later date, viz., in the account of the degradation from the priesthood of Sir WiUiam Sawtre, the first of the Lollards who died for heresy, in the year 1400 a.d., and a transcript of it will suffice for our present purpose. The archbishop, assisted by several bishops, sitting on the bishop's throne in St. Paul's— Sir William Sawtre standing before him in priestly robes — proceeded to the degradation as follows : — " In the name, &c., we, Thomas, &c., degrade and depose you from the order of priests, and in token thereof we take from you the paten and the chalice, and deprive you of all power of celebrating mass; we also strip you of the chasuble, take from you the sacerdotal vestment, and deprive you altogether of the dignity of the priesthood. Thee also, the said William, dressed in the habit of a deacon, and having the book of the gospels m thy hands, do we degrade and depose from the order of deacons, as Minor Orders. 215 a condemned and relapsed heretic j and in token hereof we take from thee the book of the gospels, and the stole, and deprive thee of the power of reading the gospels. We degrade thee from the order of subdeacons, and in-token thereof take from thee the albe and maniple. We degrade thee from the order of an acolyte, taking from thee in token thereof this small pitcher and taper staff. We degrade thee from the order of an exorcist, and take from thee in token thereof the book of exorcisms. We degrade thee from the order of reader, and take from thee in token thereof the book of divine lessons. Thee also, the said William Sawtre, vested in a surplice as an ostiary,* do we degrade from that order, taking from thee the surplice and the keys of the church. Furthermore, as a sign of actual degradation, we have caused the crown and clerical tonsure to be shaved off in our presence, and to be entirely obliterated like a lay- man ; we have, also caused a woollen cap to be put upon thy head, as a secular layman." The word clericus — clerk — was one of very wide and rather vague signi- ficance, and included not only the various grades of clerks in orders, of whom we have spoken, but also all men who followed any kind of occupa- tion which involved the use of reading and writing ; finally, every man who could read might claim the " benefit of clergy,'' i.e., the legal immunities of a clerk. The word is still used with the same comprehensiveness and vagueness of meaning. Clerk in Orders is still the legal description of a clergyman ; and men whose occupation is to use the pen are still called clerks, as lawyers' clerks, merchants' clerks, &c. Clerks were often em- ployed in secular occupations ; for example, Alan Middleton, who was * In a pontifical of the middle of the fifteenth century, in the British Museum, (Egerton, 1067) at f. 19, is an illumination at the beginning of the service for ordering an ostiary, in which the act is represented. The bishop, habited in a gieen chasuble and white mitre, is delivering the keys to the clerk, who is habited in a surplice over a black cassock, and is tonsured. At f. 35 of the same MS. is a pretty httle picture, show- ing the ordination of priests ; and at f. 44 v., of the consecration of bishops. Other episcopal acts are illustrated in the same MS. : confirmation at f. 12 ; dedication of a church, f. 100 ; consecration of an altar, f. 120 ; benediction of a cemetery, f. 149 v. ; consecration of chalice and paten, f. 163 ; reconciling penitents, i. 182 and f. :86 v. ; the "feet-washing," f. 186. 2 16 The Secular Clergy of the Middle Ages. employed by the convent of St. Alban's to collect their rents, and who is represented on page 63 ante in the picture from their " Catalogus JBenefac- torum " (Nero D. vii., British [^Museum), is tonsured, and therefore was a clerk. Chaucer gives us a charming picture of a poor clerk of Oxford, who seems to have been a candidate for holy orders, and is therefore germane to our subject : — " A clerke there was of Oxenforde also, That unto logike hadde long ygo, As lene was his horse as is a rake, And he was not right fat, I undertake, But looked holwe and thereto soberly. Ful thredbare was his overest courlepy,* For be hadde getten him yet no benefice, Ne was nought worldly to have an office, t For him was lever han at his beddes hed A twenty bokes, clothed in black or red, Of Aristotle and his philosophic. Than robes riche, or fidel or sautrie. But all be that he was a philosophre. Yet hadde he but little gold in cofre. But all that he might of his frendes hente,J On bokes and on leming he it spente ; And besely gan for the soules praye Of hem that yave him wherewith to scholaie,^^ Of studie toke he moste cure and hede. Not a word spake he more than was nede, And that was said in forme and reverence. And short and quike, and ful of high sentence. Souning in moral vertue was his speche. And gladly wolde he lerne and gladly teche." In the Miller's Tale Chaucer gives us a sketch of another poor scholar of Oxford. He lodged with a carpenter, and " A chambre had he in that hostelerie. Alone withouten any compaynie, Ful fetisly 'ydight with herbes sweet." His books great and small, and his astrological apparatus * Outer short cloak. t "Was not sufficiently a man of the world to be fit for a secular occupation. X Obtain. \ To pursue his studies. Parish Clerks. 217 " Qn shelves couched at his beddS's head, His press ycovered with a falding red, And all about there lay a gay sautrie On which he made on nightes melodie So swetgly that all the chamber rung, And Angelus ad Virginem he sung." We give a typical illustration of the class from one of the characters in a Dance of Death at the end of a Book of the Hours of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in the British Museum. It is described beneath as " Un Clerc." * One of this class was employed by every parish to perform certain duties on behalf of the parishioners, and to assist the clergyman in certain functions of his office. The Parish Clerk has survived the revolution which swept away the other minor ecclesiastical officials of the middle ages, and still has his legal status in the parish church. Probably many of our readers will be surprised to hear that the office is an ancient one, and will take interest in a few original extracts which throw light on the subject. ^ CUrk. In the wills he frequently has a legacy left, together with the clergy — e.g., " Item I leave to my parish vicar iij=- iiij'^- Item I leave to my parish clerk xij''- Item I leave to every chaplain present at my obsequies and mass iiij'^" (Will of John Brompton, of Beverley, merchant, 1443.)! Elizabeth del Hay, in 1434, leaves to "every priest ministering at my obsequies vi''- ; to every parish clerk iiij"*- ; to minor clerks to each one ij''" { Hawisia Aske, of York, in 1450-1 a.d., leaves to the " parish chap- lain of St. Michael iij^- iiij''- ; to every chaplain of the said church xx''- ; to * For another good illustration of a clerk of time of Richard II. see (he illumination of that king's coronation in the frontispiece of the MS. Royal, 14, E iv., where he seems to be in attendance on one of tlie bishops. He is habited in blue cassock, red liripipe, black purse, with penner and inkhom. + "Test. Ebor.," vol. ii. p. 98. % Ibid., vol. ii. p. 38. F F 2 1 8 The Secular Clergy of the Middle Ages. the parish clerk of the said church xx"*- ; to the sub-clerk of the same church x"*" * John Clerk, formerly chaplain of the chapel of the Blessed Mary Magdalen, near York, in 1449, leaves to "the parish clerk of St. Olave, in the suburbs of York, xij''- ; to each of the two chaplains of the said church being present at my funeral and mass iiij"^- ; to the parish clerk of the said church iiij*^- ; to the sub-clerk of the said church ij""- ; among the little boys of the said church wearing surplices iiij''-, to be distributed equally." t These extracts serve to indicate the clerical staff of the several churches mentioned. From other sources we learn -^hat his duties were. In 1540 the parish of Milend, near Colchester, was presented to the archdeacon by the recton because in the said church there was " nother clerke nor sexten to go withe him in tyme of visitacion [of the sick], nor to helpe him say masses, nor to rynge to servyce."J And in 1543 the Vicar of Kelveden, Essex, complains that there is not "caryed holy water, § nor ryngyng to evensonge accordyng as the clerke shuld do, with other dutees to him belongyng." || In the York presentations we find a similar complaint at Wyghton in 1472 ; they present that the parish clerk does not perform his services as he ought, because when he ought to go with the vicar to visit the sick, the clerk absents himself, and sends a boy with the vicar.^f The clerk might be a married man, for in 141 6 Thomas Curtas, parish clerk of the parish of St. Thomas the Martyr, is presented, because with his wife he has hindered, and still hinders, the parish clerk of St. Mary Bishophill, York [in which parish he seems to have lived] from entering his house on the Lord's days with holy water, as is the custom of the city. Also it is complained that the said Thomas and his wife refuse to come to hear divine service at their parish church, and withdraw their oblations.** In the Royal MS., 10, E iv., is a series of illustrations of a mediasval tale, which *• " Test. Ebor.," vol. ii. p. 143. f Ibid., vol. ii. p. 149. X Archdeacon Hale's "Precedents in Criminal Causes," p. 113. § From the duty of carrying holy water, mentioned here and in other extracts, the clerk derived the name of aqua lajulus, by which he is often called, e.g., in many of the places in Archdeacon Hale's " Precedents in Criminal Causes." II Ibid., p. 122. H York Fabric Rolls, p. 257. «* Ibid., p. 248. Parish Clerks. 219 turns on the adventures of a parish clerk, as he goes through the parish aspersing the people with holy water. Two of the pictures will suffice to show the costume and the holy water-pot and aspersoir, and to indicate The Parish Clerk sprinkling the Cook. how he went into all the rooms of the house — now into the kitchen sprink- ling the cook, now into the hall sprinkling the lord and lady who are at breakfast. In the woodcut on p. 241, will be seen how he precedes an The Parish Clerk sprinkling the Knight and Lady. ecclesiastical procession, sprinkling the people on each side as he goes. The subsequent description (p. 221) of the parish clerk Absolon, by Chaucer, indicates that sometimes— perhaps on some special festivals— the clerk went about censing the people instead of sprinkling them. 220 The Sectdar Clergy of the Middle Ages. To continue the notes of a parish clerk's duties, gathered from the churchwardens' presentations: at Wyghton, in 1510, they find "a faut with our parish clerk yt he hath not done his dewtee to ye kirk, yt is to say, ryngyng of ye morne bell and ye evyn bell ; and also another fawt [which may explain the former one], he fyndes yt pour mene pays hym not his wages."* At Cawood, in 1510 A.D., we find it the duty of the parish clerk "to keepe ye clok and ryng corfer [curfew] at dew tymes appointed by ye parrish, and also to ryng ye day bell." + He had his desk in church near the clergyman, perhaps on the opposite side of the chancel, as we gather from a presentation from St. Maurice, York, in 141 6, that the desks in the choir on both sides, especially where the parish chaplain and parish clerk are accus- tomed to sit, need repair. | A story in Matthew Paris § tells us what his office was worth : " It happened that an agent of the pope met a petty clerk of a village carrying water in a little vessel, with a sprinkler and some bits of bread given him for having sprinkled some holy water, and to him the deceitful Roman thus addressed himself : ' How much does the profit yielded to you by this church amount to in a year?' To which the clerk, ignorant of the Roman's cunning, replied, ' To twenty shillings I think ; ' whereupon (he agent demanded the per-centage the pope had Just demanded on all ecclesiastical benefices. And to pay that small sum this poor man was compelled to hold schools for many days, and by selling his books in the precincts, to drag on a half-starved life." The parish clerks of London formed a guild, which used to exhibit miracle plays at its annual feast, on the green, in the parish of St. James, Clerkenwell. The parish clerks always took an important part in the conduct of the miracle plays ; and it was natural that when they united their forces in such an exhibition on behalf of their guild the result should be an exhibition of unusual excel- lence. Stow tells us that in 1391 the guild performed before the king and queen and whole court three days successively, and that in 1409 they pro- duced a play of the creation of the world, whose representation occupied * York Fabric Rolls, p. 265. t Ibid., p. 266. X Ibid., p. 248. § Bohn's Edition, ii. , Parish Clerks, 22 1 eight successive days. The Passion-play, still exhibited every ten years at Ober-Ammergau, has made all the world acquainted with the kind of exhibition ir^ which our forefathers delighted. These miracle-plays still survive also in Spain, and probably in other Roman Catholic countries. Chaucer has not failed to give us, in his wonderful gallery of contem- porary characters (in the Miller's Tale), a portrait of the parish clerk :— " Now was ther of that churclie a parish clerk. The which that was ycleped Absolon. Cnille was his here,* and ^s the gold it shon, And strouted as a fanne large and brode ; Ful straight and even lay his jolly shode, His rodef was red, his eyen grey as goos, With Poules windowes carven on his shoos. In hosen red he went ful fetisly,j: Yclad "he was ful smal and proprely, All in a kirtle of a light waget,§ Ful faire and thicke ben the pointes set. An' therupon he had a gay surplise, As white as is the blossome upon the rise.|| A mery child he was, so God me save, "Wei coud he leten blod, and clippe, and shave, And make a chartre of lond and a quitapce ; In twenty manere could he trip and dance, (After the scole of Oxenforde tho) And playen songes on a smal ribible,1F Therto he song, sometime a loud quinible.U And as wel could he play on a giterne. In all the toun n'as brewhouse ne tavenje That he ne visited with his solas, Ther as that any gaUiard tapstere was. This Absolon, that joly was and gay, Goth with a censor on the holy day. Censing the wives of the parish faste,** And many a lovely loke he on hem caste. « « « * » Sojnetiijie to shew his lightnesse and maistrie, He plaieth Herode on a skaffold hie." » Hair. t Complexion. 1 Neatly. S Watchet, a kind of cloth. || Small twigs or trees. IT Musical instruments. *» As the parish clerk of St. Mary, York, used to go to the people's houses with holy water on Sundays. CHAPTER III. THE PARISH PRIEST. E shall obtain further help to a comprehension of the character, and position, and popular estimation of the mediseval^s ecular s — Sl the parish priest s — if we compare thepi first with the^r egula^r s' — the monks and fri grs — and then with their modern representatives the parochial clergy. One great point of difference between the regulars and the seculars was that the monks and friars affected asceticism, and the parish priests did not. The monks and friars had taken the three vows of absolute poverty, voluntary celibacy, and implicit obedience to the superior of the convent. The parish priests, on the contrary, had their benefices and their private property ; they long resisted the obligations of celibacy, which popes and councils tried to lay upon them ; they were themselves spiritual rulers in their own parishes, sub- ject only to the constitutional rule of the bishop. The monks professed to shut themselves up from the world, and to mortify their bodily appetites in order the better, as they considered, to work out their own salvation. The friars professed to be the schools of the prophets, to have the spirit of Nazariteship, to be followers of Elijah and John Baptist, to wear sackcloth, and live hardly, and go about as prea,chers of repentance. The secular clergy had no desire and felt no need to shut themselves up from the world like monks ; they did not feel called upon, with the friars, to imitate John Baptist, "neither eating nor drinking," seeing that a greater than he came " eating and drinking " and living the common life of men. They rather looked upon Christian priests and clerks as occupying the place of the priests and Levites of the ancient church, set apart to minister in holy Regulars and Seculars. 223 things like them, but not condemned to poverty or asceticism any more than they were. The difference told unfavourably for the parish clergy in the popular estimation ; for the unreasoning crowd is always impressed by the dramatic exhibition of austerity of life and the profession of extra- ordinary sanctity, and undervalues the virtue which is only seen in the godly regulation of a life of ordinary every-day occupations. The lord monks were the aristocratic order of the clergy. Their convents were wealthy and powerful, their minsters and houses were the glory of the land, their officials ranked with the nobles, and the greatness of the whole house reflected dignity upon each of its monks. Th e friars were the popular order of the cler gy. The Four Orders were great organizations of itinerant preachers ; powerful through their learning and eloquence, their organization, and the Papal support ; cultivating the favour of the people by which they lived by popular eloquence and demagogic arts. Between these " two great classes stood the secular clergy, upon whom the practical pastoral work of the country fell. A numerous body, but disorganized ; diocesan bishops acting as statesmen, and devolving their ecclesiastical duties on suffragans ; rectors refusing to take priests' orders, and living like laymen ; the majority of the parishes practically served by parochial chaplains ; every gentleman having his own chaplain dependent on his own pleasure ; hundreds of priests engaged in secular occupations. Between the_secular_2rl.e§.tsaQd thejriajrs, as we have seen, pp. a^detseq., there was a direct rivalry and a great deal of bitter feeling. The friars ac- cused the parish priests of neglect of duty and ignorance in spiritual things ' and worldliness of life, and came into their parishes whenever they pleased, preaching and visiting from house to house, hearing confessions and pre- scribing penances, and carrying away the offerings of the people. The parish priests looked upon the friars as intruders in their parishes, and accused them of setting ,their people against them and undermining their spiritual influence ; of corrupting discipline, by receiving the confessions of those who were ashamed to confess to their pastor who knew them, and enjoining light penances in order to encourage people to come to them ; and lastly, of using all the arts of low popularity-seeking in order to extract gifts and offerings from their people. 224 The Secular Clergy of the Middle Ages. We have already given one contemporary illustration of this from Chaucer, at p. 46 ante. We add one or two extracts from Piers Plough- man's Vision. In one place of his elaborate allegory he introduces Wrath, saying : — " I am Wrath, quod he, I was sum tyme a frere, And the convent's gardyner for to graff impes* On limitoures and listers lesyngs I imped Till they here leaves of low speech lordes to please And sithen thier blossomed abrode in bower to hear shriftes. And now is fallen therof a fruite, that folk have well liever Shewen her shriftes to hem than shryve hem to ther parsones. And now, parsons have perceyved that freres part with hem. These possessioners preache and deprave freres. And freres find hem in default, as folk beareth witness." — v. 143. And again on the same grievance of the friars gaining the confidence of the people away from their parish priests — "And well is this y-holde : in parisches of Engelonde, For persones and parish presles : that shulde the peple shryve, Ben curatoures called : to know and to hele. AUe that ben her parishens : penaunce to enjoine. And shulden be ashamed in her shrifte : an shame maketh hem wende, And fleen to the freres : as fals folke to Westmynstere, That borwith and bereth it thider."t When we compare the medieval seculars with the modern clergy, we find that the modern clergy form a much more homogeneous body. In the mediaeval seculars the bishop was often one who had been a monk or friar ; the cathedral clergy in many dioceses were regulars. Then, besides the par- sons and parochial chaplains, who answer to our incumbents and curates, there were the chantry and gild priests, and priests who " lived at rovers on trentals;" the great number of domestic chaplains must have consider- ably affected the relations of the parochial clergy to the gentry. Of the inferior ecclesiastical people, deacons, sub-deacons, acolytes, readers, exorcists, and ostiaries it is probable that in an ordinary parish there * Grafted lies. t As debtors flee to sanctuary at Westminster, and live on what they have borrowed, and set their creditors at defiance. MedicBval and Modern Clergy. 225 would be only a parish clerk and a boy-acolyte ; in larger churches an ostiary besides, answering to our verger, and in cathedrals a larger staff of minor officials ; but it is doubtful whether there was any real working staff of sub-deacons, readers, exorcists, any more than we in these days have a working order of deacons ; men passed through those orders on their way upwards to the priesthood, but made no stay in them. But a still greater difference between the mediaeval secular clergy and the modern parochial clergy is in their relative position with respect to society generally. The homogeneous body of " the bishops and clergy " are the only representatives of a clergy in the eyes of modern English society; the relative position of the secular clergy in the eyes of the mediaeval world was less exclusive and far inferior. The seculars were only one order of the clergy, sharing the title with monks and friars, and they were commonly held as inferior to the one in wealth and learning, and to the other in holiness and zeal. Another difference between the medieval seculars and the modem clergy is in the superior independence of the latter. The poor parochial chaplain was largely dependent for his means of living on the fees and offerings of his parishioners. The domestic chaplain was only an upper servant. Even the country incumbent, in those feudal days when the lord of the manor was a petty sovereign, was very much under the influence of the local magnate. In some primitive httle villages, where the lord of the manor continues to be the sovereign of his village, it is still the fashion for the clergyman not to begin service till the squire comes. The Book of the Knight of La Tour Landry gives two stories which serve to show that the deference of the clergyman to the squire was sometimes carried to very excessive lengths in the old days of which we are writing. " I have herde of a knight and of a lady that in her youthe delited hem to rise late. And so they used longe, tille many tymes that thei lost her masse, and made other of her parisshe to lese it, for the knight was lorde and patron of the chirche, and therfor the priest durst not disobeye hym. And so it happed that on a Sunday the knight sent unto the chirche that thei shulde abide hym. And whane he come, it was passed none, wherfor thir might not that day G G 2 26 The Secular Clergy of the Middle Ages. have no masse, for every man saide it was passed tyme of the day, and therfor thei durst not singe. And so that Sunday the knight, the lady, and alle the parisshe was without masse, of the whiche the pepelle were sori, but thir must needs sufifre." And on a night there came a vision to the parson, and the same night the knight and lady dreamed a dream. And the parson came to the knight's house, and he told him his vision, and the priest his, of which they greatly marvelled, for their dreams were like. " And the priest said unto the knight, ' There is hereby in a forest an holy crmyte that canne telle us what this avision menithe.' And than thei yede to hym, and tolde it hym fro point to point, and as it was. And the wise holi man, the which was of blessed lyff, expounded and declared her avision." The other story is of "aladi that dwelled faste by the chirche, that toke every day so long time to make her redy that it made every Sunday the person of the chirche and the parisshenes to abide after her. And she happed to abide so longe on a Sunday that it was fer dayes, and every man said to other, ' This day we trow shall not this lady be kemed and arraied.' " The condition of the parochial clergy being such as we have sketched, it might seem as if the people stood but a poor chance of being Chris- tianly and virtuously brought up. But when we come to inquire into that part of the question the results are unexpectedly satisfactory. The priests in charge of parishes seem, on the whole, to have done their duty better than we should have anticipated; and the people generally had a knowledge of the great truths of religion, greater probably than is now generally possessed — it was taught to them by the eye in sculp- tures, paintings, stained glass, miracle plays ; these religious truths were probably more constantly in their minds and on their lips than is the case now — they occur much more frequently in popular literature; and though the people were rude and coarse and violent and sensual enough, yet it is probable that religion was a greater power among them gene- rally than it is now; there was probably more crime, but less vice; above all, an elevated sanctity in individuals was probably more common in those times than in these. The Mediceval Pastor in his Parish. 227 One interesting evidence of tlie actual mode of pastoral ministrations in those days is the handbooks, which were common enough, teach- ing the parish priest his duties. The Early English Text Society has lately done us a service by publishing one of these manuals of " Instruc- tions for Parish Priests," which will enable us to give some notes on the subject. " Great numbers," says the editor, " of independent works of this nature were produced in the Middle Ages. There is probably not a language or dialect in Europe that has- not now, or had not once, several treatises of this nature among its early hterature. The growth of languages, the Reformation, and the alteration in clerical education consequent on that great revolution, have caused a great part of them to perish or become forgotten. A relic of this sort fished up from the forgotten past is very useful to us as a help towards understanding the sort of life our fathers lived. To many it will seem strange that these directions, written without the least thought of hostile criticism, when there was no danger in plain speaking, and no inducements to hide or soften down, should be so free from superstition. We have scarcely any of the nonsense which some people still think made up the greater part of the religion of the Middle Ages, but instead thereof good sound moraUty, such as it would be pleasant to hear preached at the present day." The book in question is by John Myrk, a canon regular of St. Austin, of Lilleshall, in Shropshire ; the beautiful ruins of his monastery may still be seen in the grounds of the Duke of Sutherland's shooting-box at Lilleshall. He tells us that he translated it from a Latin book called " Pars OcuH." It is worthy of note that a former prior of Lilleshall, Johannes Mirsus, had written a work on the same subject, called " Manuale Sacerdotis," to which John Myrk's bears much resemblance, both in subject and treat- ment. The editor's sketch of the argument of the "Instructions to Parish Priests " will help us to give a sufficient idea of its contents for our present purpose. The author begins by telling the parish priest what sort of man he himself should be. Not ignorant, because " Whenne the blynde ledeth the blynde Into the dyche they fallen both." 228 The Secular Clergy of the Middle Ages. He must himself be an example to his people : — "What thee nedeth hem to teche And whyche thou inuste thy self be. For lytel is worth thy prechynge If thou be of evyle lyvynge." He must be chaste, eschew lies and oaths, drunkenness, gluttony, pride, sloth, and envy. Must keep from taverns, trading, wrestling, and shooting, and the hke manly sports ; from hunting, hawking, and dancing. Must not wear cutted clothes or pyked shoes, or dagger, but wear becoming clothes, and shave his crown and beard. Must be given to hospitality, both to poor and rich, read his psalter, and remember doomsday ; return good for evil, eschew jesting and ribaldry, despise the world, and follow after virtue. The priest must not be content with knowing his own duties. He must be prepared to teach those under his charge all that Christian men and women should do and believe. We are told that when any one has done a sin he must not continue long with it on his conscience, but go straight to the priest and confess it, lest he should forget before the great shriving time at Eastertide. Pregnant women, especially, are to go to their shrift, and receive the Holy Communion at once. Our instructor is very strict on the duties of midwives — women they were really in those days, and properly licensed to their office by the ecclesiastical authorities. They are on no account to permit children to die unbaptized. If there be no priest at hand, they are to administer that sacrament themselves if they see danger of death. They must be especially careful to use the right form of words, such as our Lord taught ; but it does not matter whether they say them in Latin or English, or whether the Latin be good or bad, so that the intention be to use the proper words. The water, and the vessel that contained it, are not to be again employed in domestic use, but to be burned or carried to the church and cast into the font. If no one else be at hand, the parents themselves may baptize their children. All infants are to be christened at Easter and Whitsuntide in the newly- blessed fonts, if there have not been necessity to administer the Sacrament before. Godparents are to be careful to teach their godchildren the Pater Nosier, Ave Maria, and Credo ; and are not to be sponsors to their god- children at their Confirmation, fon, they have already contracted a spiritual The MedicBval Pastor in his Parish. 229 relationship. Before weddings banns are to be asked on three holidays, and all persons who contract irregular marriages, and the priests, clerks, and others that help thereat, are cursed for the same. The real presence of the body and blood of our Saviour in the Sacrament of the Altar is to be fully held ; but the people are to bear in mind that the wine and water given them after they have received Communion is not a part of the Sacrament. It is an important thing to behave reverently in church, for the church is God's house, not a place for idle prattle. When people go there they are not to jest, or loll against the pillars and walls, but kneel down on the floor and pray to their Lord for mercy and grace. When the Gospel is read they are to stand up, and sign themselves with the cross ; and when they hear the Sanctus bell ring, they are to kneel and worship their Maker in the Blessed Sacrament. All men are to show reverence when they see the priest carrying the Host to the sick. He is to teach them the " Our Father," and " Hail, Mary," and " I believe," of which metrical versions are given, with a short exposition of the Creed. The author gives some very interesting instructions about churchyards, which show that they were sometimes treated with shameful irreverence. It. was not for want of good instnictions that our ancestors, in the days of the Plantagenets, played at rustic games, and that the gentry held their manorial courts, over the sleeping-places of the dead. Of witchcraft we hear surprisingly little. Myrk's words are such that one might almost think he had some sceptical doubts on the subject. Not so with usury : the taking interest for money, or lending anything to get profit thereby, is, we are shown, " a synne full grevus." After these and several more general instructions of a similar character, the author gives a very good commentary on the Creed, the Sacra- ments, the Commandments, and the deadly sins. The little tract ends with a few words of instruction to priests as to the " manner of saying mass, and of giving Holy Communion to the sick." On several subjects the author gives very detailed instructions and advice as to the best way of dealing with people, and his counsels are so right and sensible, that they might well be read now, not out of mere curiosity, but for profit. Here is his conclusion, as a specimen of the English and versification ;— 230 The Secular Clergy of the Middle Ages. " Hyt ys I-made hem* to schonne That have no bokes of heret owne, And other that beth of mene lore That wolde fayn conne J more, And those that here-in leamest most, Thonke yeme the Holy Gost, That geveth wyt to eche men To do the gode that he con, And by hys travayle and hys dede Geveth hym heven to hys mede ; The mede and the joye of heven lyht God us graunte for hys myht. Amen.'' That these instructions were not thrown away upon the mediseval parish priests we may infer from Chaucer's beautiful description of the poor par- son of a town, who was one of his immortal band of Canterbury Pilgrims, which we here give as a fitting conclusion of this first part of our subject : — "A good man there was of religioun, That was a poure persone of a toun ; But riche he was of holy thought and werk. He was also a lerned man, a clerk, That Criste's gospel trewely wolde preche, His parishens devoutly wolde he teche. Benigne he was and wonder diligent, And in adversite ful patient ; And such he was yproved often sithes. Full loth were he to cursen for his tithes, But rather wolde he given out of doubte Unto his poure parishens about. Of his offering and eke of his substance. He could in htel thing have suffisance. Wide was his parish, and houses fer asunder. But he ne left nought for no rain ne thunder. In sikenesse and in mischief to visite The farthest in his parish much and lite, § Upon his fete, and in his hand a staff. This noble ensample to his sheep he gaf || That first he wrought, and afterward he taught. • Out of the gospel he the wordes caught. And this figure he added yet thereto. That if gold ruste what should iren do ? * Them. t Then-. J Know. § Great and little. |{ Gave. A Mediaeval Parish Priest. For if a priest be foul, on whom we trust. No wonder is a 16wed man to rust ; Well ought a preest ensample for to give, By his clenenesse how his shepe shulde live. He sette not his benefice to hire. And lefte his sheep accumbered in the mire. And ran unto London, unto Seint Poules, To seeken him a chanterie for souls. Or with a brotherhede to be withold. But dwelt at home and kepte weD his fold. He was a shepherd and no mercenare ; And though he holy were and vertuous, He was to sinful men not despitous, * Ne of his speche dangerous ne digne,t But in his teaching discrete and benigne. To drawen folk to heaven with fairenesse. By good ensample was his businesse. But it were any persone obstinat, What so he were of highe or low estate, Him wolde he snibbenj sharply for the nones, A better preest I trow that nowhere none is. He waited after no pomp ne reverence, Ne maked him no spiced§ conscience. But Christes lore, and his apostles twelve, He taught, but first he followed it himselve." Thus, monk, and friar, and hermit, and recluse, and rector, and chantry priest, played their several parts in mediaeval society, until the Reforma- tion came and swept away the religious orders and their houses, the chantry priests and their superstitions, and the colleges of seculars, with all their good and evil, and left only the parish churches and the parish priests remaining, stripped of half their tithe, and insufficient in number, in learning, and in social status to fulfil the office of the ministry of God among the people. Since then, for three centuries the people have multiplied, and the insufficiency of the ministry has been propor- tionately aggravated. It has been left to our day to complete the work of the Reformation by multiplying bishops and priests, and creating an order of deacons, re-distributing the ancient revenues and supplying what more is needed, and by effecting a general reorganization of the ecclesiastical establishment to adapt it to the actual spiritual needs of the people. • Angry. t Difficult nor proud. % Smite, rebuke. § Scrupulous. CHAPTER IV. CLERICAL COSTUME. fE proceed to give some notes on the costume of the secular clergy ; first the official costume which they wore when performing the public functions of their order, and next the ordinary costume in which they walked about their parishes and took part in the daily affairs of the mediaeval society of which they formed so large and important a part. The first branch of this subject is one of considerable magnitude ; it can hardly be altogether omitted in such a series of papers as this, but our limited space requires that we should deal with it as briefly as may be. Representations of the pope occur not infrequently in ancient paintings. His costume is that of an archbishop, only that instead of the usual mitre he wears a conical tiara. In later times a cross with three crossbars has been used by artists as a symbol of the pope, with two crossbars of a patriarch, and with one crossbar of an archbishop ; but Dr. Rock assures us that the pope never had a pastoral staff of this shape, but of one crossbar only ; that patriarchs of the Eastern Church used the cross of two bars, but never those of the Western Church ; and that the example of Thomas-k-Becket with a cross of two bars, in Queen Mary's Psalter (Royal, 2 B. vii.) is a unique example (and possibly an error of the artist's). A representation of Pope Leo III. from a contemporary picture is engraved in the " Annales Archaeologique," vol. viii. p. 257; another very complete and clear representation of the pontifical costume of the time of Innocent III. is engraved by Dr. Rock (" Church of our Fathers,'' p. 467) from a fresco painting at Subiaco, near Rome. Another representa- Costume of Pope and Cardinals. 233 tion, of late thirteenth-century date, is given in the famous MS. called the " Psalter of Queen Mary," in the British Museum (Royal, 2 B. vii.) ; there the pope is in nothing more than ordinary episcopal costume — alb, tunic, chasuble, without the pall — and holds his cross-staff of only one bar in his right hand, and his canonical tiara has one crown round the base. Beside him stands a bishop in the same costume, except that he wears Pope, Cardinal, and Bishop. the mitre and holds a crook. A good fourteenth-century representation of a pope and cardinals is in ,the MS. August. V. i. 459- We give a woodcut of the fifteenth century, from a MS. life of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, in 4he, British Museum (Julius E. iv. f. 207) ; the subject is the presentation of the pilgrim earl to the pope, and it enables us to bring into one view the costumes of pope, cardinal, and bishop. A later picture H H 234 The Secular Clergy of the Middle Ages. of considerable artistic merit may be found in Hans Burgmair's " Der Weise Konig," where the pope, officiating at a royal marriage, is habited in a chasuble, and has the three crowns on his tiara. The cardinalate is not an ecclesiastical " order." Originally the name was applied to the priests of the chief churches of Rome, who formed the chapter of the Bishop of Rome. In later times they were the princes of the papal sovereignty, and the dignity was conferred not only upon the highest order of the hierarchy, but upon priests, deacons,* and even upon men who had only taken minor orders to qualify them- selves for holding office in the papal kingdom. The red hat, which became their distinctive symbol, is said to have been given them first by Inno- cent VI. at the Council of Lyons in 1245 ; and De Curbio says they first wore it in 1246, at the interview between the pope and Louis IX. of France. A representation of it may be seen in the MS. Royal, 16 G. vi., which is engraved in the " Pictorial History of England," vol. i. 869. Another very clear and good representation of the costume of a cardinal is in the plate in Hans Burgmair's " Der Weise Konig," already men- tioned ; a group of them is on the right side of the drawing, each with a fur-lined hood on his head, and his hat over the hood. It is not the hat which is peculiar to cardinals, but the colour of it, and the number of its tassels. Other ecclesiastics wore the hat of the same shape, but only a cardinal wears it of scarlet. Moreover, a priest wore only one tassel to each string, a bishop three, a cardinal seven. It was not the hat only which was sc'arlet. Wolsey, we read, was in the habit of dressing entirely in scarlet for his ordinary costume. In the Decretals of Pope Gregory, Royal, 10 E. iv. f. 3 v., are representations of cardinals in red gown and hood and hat. On the following page they are represented, in pontificalibus . The archbishop wore the habit of a bishop, his differences being in the crosier and pall.t His crozier had a cross head instead of a curved head * Cardinal Olho, the Papal legate in England in the time of Henry III., was a deacon (Matthew Paris, Sub. Ann. 1237) ; Cardinal Pandulph, in King John's time, was a sub-deacon (R. "Wendover, Sub. Ann. 12 12). t There is a very fine drawing pf an archbishop in pontificalitus of th« latter part Cif the thirteenth century in the MS. Royal, 2 A. f. 219 v. Costume of Bishops. 235 like the bishop's. Over the chasuble he wore the pall, which was a flat circular band, or collar, placed loosely round the shoulders, with long ends hanging down behind and before, made of lambs' wool, and marked with a number of crosses. Dr. Rock has engraved* two remarkably interesting early representations of archbishops of Ravenna, in which a very early form of the pontifical garments is given, viz., the sandals, alb, stole, tunic, cha- suble, pall, and tonsure. They are not represented with either mitre or staff. Other representations of archbishops may Ije found of the eleventh century in the Bayeux tapestry, and of the thirteenth in the Royal MS., 2 B. vii. In the Froissart MS., Harl. 4,380, at f. 170, is a fifteenth-century representation of the Archbishop of Canterbury in ordinary dress — a lavender-coloured gown and red liripipe. The bishop wore the same habit as the priest, with the addition of sandals, gloves, a ring, the pastoral staff with a curved head, and the mitre. The chasuble was only worn when celebrating the Holy Communion ; on any other ceremonial occasion the cope was worn, .f.^., when in choir, as in the woodcut on p. 197 : or when preaching, as in a picture in the Harl. MS. 1319, engraved in the " Pictorial History of England," vol. i. 806 ; or when attending parliament. In illuminated MSB. bishops are very commonly represented dressed in alb and cope only, and this seems to have been their most usual habit. If the bishop were a monk or friar he wore the cope over the robe proper to his order. We might multiply indefinitely references to representations of bishops and other ecclesiastics in the illu- minated MS. We will content ourselves with one reference to a beauti- fully drawn figure in the psalter of the close of the 14th century (Harl. 2,897, f- 380)- In the early fourteenth-century MS. (Royal, 14 E. iii. at ff. r6 and 25), we find two representations of a bishop in what we may suppose was his ordinary unofficial costume ; he wears a blue-grey robe and hood with empty falling sleeves, through which appear the blue sleeves of his under robe ; it is the ordinary civil and clerical costume of the period, but he is marked out as a bishop by a white mitre. In the Pontifical of the middle of the fifteenth century, already referred to (Eger- * " Church of our Fathers," i. 319. 236 The Secular Clergy of the Middle Ages. ton, 1067) at f. 186 in the representation of the ceremony of the feet-washing, the bishop in a long black sleeveless robe* over a white alb, and a biretta. The earliest form of the mitre was that of a simple cap, like a skull-cap, of which there is a representation, giving in many respects a clear and elaborate picture of the episcopal robes, in a woodcut of St. Dunstan in the MS. Cotton, Claudius A. iii.t In this early shape it has already the infulae — two narrow bands hanging down behind. In the twelfth century it is in the form of a large cap, with a depression in the middle, which produces two blunt horns at the sides. There is a good representation of this in the MS. Cotton, Nero C. iv. f. 34, which has been engraved by Strutt, Shaw, and Dr. Rock. In the Harl. MS. 5,102, f 17, is a picture of the entombment of an arch- bishop, in which is well shown the transition shape of the mitre frojn the twelfth century, already described, to the cleft and pointed shape which was used in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The depression is here deepened into a partial cleft, and the mitre is put oh so that the horns come before and behind, instead of at the sides, but the horns are still blunt and rounded. The archbishop's gloves in this picture are white, like the mitre, and in shape are like mittens, i.e., not divided into fingers. The shape in the thirteenth and fourteenth century presented a stiff low triangle in front and behind, with a gap between them. It is well shown in a MS. of the close of the twelfth century, Harl. 2,800, f 6, and, in a shape a little further developed, in the pictures in the Royal MS., 2 B. vii., already noticed. In the fifteenth century the mitre began to be made taller, and with curved sides, as seen in the beautiful woodcut of a bishop and his canons in choir given in our last chapter, p. 197. The latest example in the English Church is in the brass of Archbishop Harsnett, in Chig- well Church, in which also occur the latest examples of the alb, stole, dalmatic, and cope. The pastoral staff also varied in shape at different times. The earKest * In a Spansli Book of Hours (Add. 1819 — 3), at f. 86 v., is a representation of an ecclesiastic in a similar robe of dark purple with a hood, he wears a cardinal's hat and holds a papal tiara in his hand. t Engraved by Dr. Rock, ii. 97. The Pastoral Staff. 237 examples of it are in the representations of St. Mark and St. Luke,* in the " Gospels of MacDurnan," in the Lambeth Library, a work of the middle of the ninth century. St. Luke's staff is short, St. Mark's longer than him- self; in both cases the staff terminates with a plain, slightly reflexed curve of about three-fourths of a circle. Some actual examples of the metal heads of these Celtic pastoral staves remain ; one is engraved in the " Archffiologia Scotica," vol. ii., another is in the British Museum ; that of the abbots of Clonmacnoise, and that of the ancient bishops of Waterford, are in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire. They were all brought together in 1863 in the Loan Exhibition at South Kensington. One of the earhest English representations of the staff is in the picture of the con- secration of a church, in a MS. of the ninth century, in the Rouen Library, engraved in the " Archasologia," vol. xxv. p. 17, in the " Pictorial History of England," and by Dr. Rock, ii. p. 24. Here the staff is about the length of an ordinary walking-stick, and is terminated by a round knob. ■Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, is represented on his great seal with a short staff, with a tau-cross or crutch head. An actually existing staff of this shape, which belonged to Gerard, Bishop of Limoges, who died in 1022, is engraved in the " Annales Archaeologique," vol. x. p. 176. The staves represented in illuminations of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries have usually a plain spiral curve of rather more than a circle;! in later times they were ornamented with foliage, and sometimes with statuettes, and were enamelled and jewelled. Numerous representations and actual examples exist; some may be seen in the South Kensington Museum. From early in the fourteenth century downward, a napkin of linen or silk is often found attached by one corner to the head of the staff, whose origin and meaning seem to be undetermined. The official costume of the remaining orders, together with the symbols significant of their several offices, are well brought out in the degradation of W. Sawtre, already given at p. 214. Some of the vestments there mentioned may need a few words of explana- * Engraved in the Archceological Journal, vii. 17 and 19. t A plain straight staff is sometimes seen in illuminations being put into a bishop's grave"; such staves have been actually found in the coffins of bishops. 238 The Secular Clergy of the Middle Ages. tion. The alb was a kind of long coat with close fitting sleeves made of white* linen, and usually, at least during the celebration of divine service, ornamented with four to six square pieces of cloth of gold, or other rich stuff, or of goldsmith's work, which were placed on the skirt before and behind, on the wrist of each sleeve, and on the back and breast. The dalmatic of the deacon was a kind of tunic, reaching generally a little below the knees, and slit some way up the sides, and with short,- broad sleeves ; it was usually ornamented with a broad hem, which passed round the side slits. The sub-deacon's tunicle was like the dalmatic, but rather shorter, and less ornamented. The cope was a kind of cloak, usually of rich material, fastened across the chest by a large brooch ; it was worn by priests in choir and in processions, and on other occasions of state and ceremony. The chasuble was the Eucharistic vestment ; originally it was a circle of rich cloth with a slit in the middle, through which the head was passed, and then it fell in ample folds all round the figure. Gradu- ally it was made oval in shape, continually decreasing in width, so as to leave less of the garment to encumber the arms. In its modern shape it consists of two stifi" rectangular pieces of cloth, one piece falling before, the other behind, and fastened together at the shoulders of the wearer. The ancient inventories of cathedrals, abbeys, and churches show us that the cope and chasuble were made in every colour, of every rich material, and sometimes embroidered and jewelled. Indeed, all the official robes of the clergy were of the costliest material and most beautiful workmanship which could be obtained. England was celebrated for its skill in the arts em- ployed in their production, and an anecdote of the time of Henry III. shows us that the English ecclesiastical vestments excited admiration and cupidity even at Rome. Their richness had nothing to do with personal pride or luxury on the part of the priests. They were not the property of the clergy, but were generally presented to the churches, to which they belonged in perpetuity ; and they were made thus costly on the principle of honouring the divine worship. As men gave their costliest material and * The alb was often of coloured materials. We find coloured albs in the mediaeval inventories. In Louandre's "Arts Somptuaires," vol. i. xi. siecle, is a picture of the canons of St. Martin of Tours in blue albs. Their costume is altogether worth notice. Costume of Deacon and Sub-Deacon. 239 noblest Art for the erection of the place in which it was offered, so also for the appliances used in its ministration, and the robes of the ministrants. In full sacerdotal habit the priests wore the apparelled alb, and stole, and over that the dalmatic, and either the cope or the chasuble over all, with the amys thrown back like a hood over the cope or chasuble. Repre- sentations of priests in pontificalibus abound in illuminated MSS., and in their monumental effigies, to such an extent that we need hardly quote any particular examples. Representations of the inferior orders are compara- tively rare. Examples of deacons may be found engraved in Dr. Rock's " Church of our Fathers," i. 376, 378, 379, 443, and 444. Two others of early fourteenth-century date may be found in the Add. MS. 10,294, f. 72, one wearing a dalmatic of cloth of gold, the other of scarlet, over the alb. Two others of the latter part of the fourteenth century are seen in King Richard II. 's Book of Hours (Dom. A. xvii. f. 176), one in blue dalmatic embroidered with gold, the other red embroidered with gold. A monu- mental effigy of a deacon under a mural arch at Avon Dassett, Warwick- shire, was referred to by Mr. M. H. Bloxam, in a recent lecture at the Architectural Museum, South Kensington. The effigy, which is of the thirteenth century, is in alb, stole, and dalmatic. We are indebted to Mr. Bloxam for a note of another mutilated effigy of a deacon of the four- teenth century among the ruins of Fumess Abbey ; he is habited in the alb only, with a girdle round the middle, whose tasselled kuobs hang down in front. The stole is passed across the body from the left shoulder, and is fastened together at the right hip. Dr. Rock, vol. i. p. 384, engraves a very good representation of a ninth- century sub-deacon in his tunicle, holding a pitcher in one hand and an empty chaUce in the other ; and in vol. ii. p. 89, an acolyte, in what seems to be a surplice, with a scarlet hood— part of his ordinary costume -=over .it, the date of the drawing being cir. 1395 a.p. We have already noted the costume of an ostiary at p. 215. In the illuminations we frequently find an inferior minister attending upon a priest when engaged in his office, but in many cases it is difficult to determine whether he is deacon, sub-deacon, or acolyte, ^.^.— in the early fourteenth-century MS., Add. 10,294, at f. 72, is a priest officiating at a funeral, attended by a 240 The Secular Clergy of the Middle Ages. minister, who is habited in a pink under robe — his ordinary dress — and over it a short white garment with wide loose sleeves, which may be either a deacon's dalmatic, or a sub-deacon's tunic, or an acolyte's surplice. In the Add. MS. 10,293, a^t f- iS4, is a representation of a priest celebrating mass in a hermitage, with a minister kneeling behind him, habited in a white alb only, holding a lighted taper. Again, in the MS. Royal, 14 E. iii. f. 86, is a picture of a prior dressed like some of the canons in Coronation Procession of Charles V. of France. our woodcut from Richard II. 's Book of Hours, in a blue under robe, white surplice, and red stole crossed over the breast, and his furred hood on his head ; he is baptizing a heathen king, and an attendant minister, who is dressed in the ordinary secular habit of the time, stands beside, holding the chrismatory. In the same history of Richard Earl of Warwick which we have already quoted, there is at f. 213 v., a boy in a short surplice with a censer. In the early fourteenth-century MS., Royal, 14 E. iii. at f. 84 v., is a picture of a bishop anointing a king ;, an Ordinary Dress of the Clergy. 241 attendant minister, who carries a holy water vessel and aspersoir, is dressed in a surplice over a pink tunic. The surplice is found in almost as many and as different shapes in the Middle Ages as now ; sometimes with narrow sleeves and tight up to the neck ; sometimes with shorter and wider sleeves and falling low at the neck ; sometimes longer and sometimes shorter in the skirt; never, however, so long as altogether to hide the cassock beneath. In addition to the references already given, it may be sufficient to name as further authorities for ecclesiastical costumes gene- rally : — for Saxon times, the Benedictional of St. Ethelwold, engraved in the Archasologia ; for the thirteenth century, Queen Mary's Psalter, Royal, 2 B. vii. ; for the fourteenth. Royal, 20, c. vii. ; for the fifteenth century, Lydgate's " Life of St. Edmund ; " for the sixteenth century, Hans Burg- maier's " Der Weise Konig," and the various works on sepulchral monu- ments and monumental brasses. The accompanying woodcut from Col. Johnes's Froissart, vol. i. p. 635, representing the coronation procession of Charles V. of France, will help us to exhibit some of the orders of the clergy with their proper costume and symbols. First goes the aquabajalus, in alb, sprinkling holy water ; then a cross-bearer in cassock and surplice ; then two priests, in cassock, surplice, and cope ; then follows a canon in his cap (biretta), with his furred amys over his arm.* But the clergy wore these robes only when actually engaged in some ofi&cial act. What was their ordinary costume is generally little known, and it is a part of the subject in which we are especially interested in these papers. From the earliest times of the English Church downwards it was considered by the rulers of the Church that clergymen ought to be dis- tinguished from laymen not only by the tonsure, but also by their dress. We do not find that any uniform habit was prescribed to them, such as distinguished the regular orders of monks and friars from the laity, and from one another ; but we gather from the canons of synods, and the injunctions of bishops, that the clergy were expected to wear their clothes * For another ecclesiastical procession which shows very clearly the costume of the various orders of clergy, see Achille Jubinal's "Anciennes Tapisseries," plate ii. I r 242 The Secular Clergy of the Middle Ages. not too gay in colour, and not too fashionably cut ; that they were to abstain from wearing ornaments or carrying arms ; and that their horse furniture was to be in the same severe style. We also gather from the frequent repetition of canons on the subject, and the growing earnestness of their tone, that these injunctions were very generally disregarded. We need not take the reader through the ^ whole series of authorities which may be found in the various collections of councils ; a single quota- tion from the injunctions of John (Stratford) Archbishop of Canterbury, A.D. 1342, will suffice to give us a comprehensive sketch of the general contents of the whole series. " The external costume often shows the internal character and condi- tion of persons ; and though the behaviour of clerks ought to be an example and pattern of the laity, yet the abuse of clerks, which has gained ground more than usually in these days in tonsures, in garments, in horse trappings, and other things, has now generated an abominable scandal among the people, while persons holding ecclesiastical dignities, rectories, honourable prebends, and benefices with cure of souls, even when ordained to holy orders, scorn to wear the crown (which is the token of the heavenly kingdom and of perfection), and, using the distinction of hair extended almost to the shoulders like effeminate persons, walk about clothed in a military rather than a clerical outer habit, viz., short, or notably scant, and with excessively wide sleeves, which do not cover the elbows, but hang down, lined, or, as they say, turned up with fur or silk, and hoods with tippets of wonderful length, and with long beards ; and rashly dare, con- trary to the canonical sanctions, to use rings indifferently on their fingers ; and to be girt with zones, studded with precious stones of wonderful size with purses engraved with various figures, enamelled and gilt, and attached to them (i.e. to the girdle), with knives, hanging after the fashion of swords, also with buskins red and even checked, green shoes and peaked and cut* in many ways, with cruppers (croperiis) to their saddles, and horns hang- ing to their necks, capes and cloaks furred openly at the edges to such an extent, that little or no distinction appears of clerks from laymen, whereby * Incisis, cut and slashed so as to show the lining. Ordinary Dress of the Clergy. 243 they render themselves, through their demerits, unworthy of the privilege of their order and profession. " We therefore, wishing henceforward to prevent such errors, &c., com- mand and ordain, that whoever obtain ecclesiastical benefices in our province, especially if ordained to holy orders, wear clerical garments and tonsure suitable to their status; but if any clerks of our province go publicly in an outer garment short, or notably scant, or in one with long or excessively wide sleeves, not touching the elbow round about, but hanging, with untonsured hair and long beard, or publicly wear their rings on their fingers, &c., if, on admonition, they do not reform within six months, they shall be suspended, and shall only be absolved by their diocesan, and then only on condition that they pay one-fifth of a year's income to the poor of the place through the diocesan," &c., &c. The authorities tried to get these canons observed. Grostete sent back a curate who came to him for ordination " dressed in rings and scarlet like a courtier." * Some of the vicars of York Cathedral f were presented in 1362 A.D. for being in the habit of going through the city in short tunics, ornamentally trimmed, with knives and baselards \ hanging at their girdles. But the evidence before us seems to prove that it was not only the aco- lyte-rectors, and worldly-minded clerics, who indulged in such fashions, but that the secular clergy generally resisted these endeavours to impose upon them anything approaching to a regular habit like those worn by the monks and friars, and persisted in refusing to wear sad colours, or to cut their coats differently from other people, or to abstain from wearing a gold ring or an ornamented girdle. In the drawings of the secular clergy in the illumin^ed MSS., we constantly find them in the ordinary civil costume. Even in representations of the different orders and ranks of the secular clergy drawn by friendly hands, and intended to represent them comme ilfaut, we find them dressed in violation of the canons. * Monumenta Franciscana, Ixxxix. Master of the Rolls' publications, t Tork Fabric Rolls, p. 243. + This word, which wiU frequently occur, means a kind of ornamental dagger, which was worn hanging at the girdle in front by civilians, and knights when out of armour. The instructions to parish priests, already quoted, says — In honeste clothes thow muste gon Baselard ny bawdtyke were thou non. 244 The Secular Clergy of the Middle Ages. We have already had occasion to notice a bishop in a blue-grey gown and hood, over a blue under-robe ; and a prior performing a royal baptism, and canons performing service under the presidency of their bishop, with the blue and red robes of every-day life under their ritual surplices. The MSS. furnish us with an abundance of other examples, e.g. — In the early fourteenth-century MS., Add. 10,293, at f. 131 v., is a picture showing " how the priests read before the barony the letter which the false queen sent to Arthur." One of the persons thus described as priests has a blue gown and hood and black shoes, the other a claret-coloured gown and hood and red shoes. But our best examples are those in the book (Cott. Nero D. vii.) before quoted, in which the grateful monks of St. Alban's have recorded the names and good deeds of those who had presented gifts or done services to the convent. In many cases the scribe has given us a portrait of the benefactor in the margin of the record ; and these portraits supply us with an authentic gallery of typical portraits of the various orders of society of the time at , - .™ which they were executed. From these \ ,{ • IX we have taken the three examples we here present to the reader. On f. 100 v. is a portrait of one Lawrence, a clerk, who is dressed in a brown robe ; another clerk, - « V 'is=-- - William by name, is %i a scarlet robe and W^' "WjS-" hood; on f. 93 v., Leofric, a deacon, is in a blue robe and hood. The accom- Dns.RicardusdeThretoriySacerdos. panymg woodcut, from folio 105, is Dns. Ricardus de Threton, sacerdos, — Sir Richard de Threton, priest,— who was executor of Sir Robert de Thorp, knight, formerly chancellor of the king, and who gave twenty marks to the convent. Our woodcut gives only the outlines of the full-length portrait. In the original the robe and hood are of full bright blue, lined with white ; the under sleeves. Ordinary Dress of the Clergy. 245 which appear at the wrists, are of the same colour ; and the shoes are red. At f. 106 V. is Dns. Bartholomeus de Wendone, rector of the church of Thakreston, and the character of the face leads us to think that it may have been intended for a portrait. His robe and hood and sleeves are scarlet, with black shoes. Another rector, Dns. Johannes Rodland (at f. 105), rector of the church of Tod)nigton, has a green robe and scarlet hood. Still another rector, of the church of Little Waltham, is represented half-length in pink gown and purple hood. On f. 108 v. is the full- length portrait which is here represented. It is of Dns. Rogerus, chaplain ■■'li-i^ Dm. Barth. de Wendone, Rector. Dns. Rogerus, Capellanus. of the chapel of the Earl of Warwick, at Flamsted. Over a scarlet gown, of the same fashion as those in the preceding pictures, is a pink cloak lined with blue ; the hood is scarlet, of the same suit as the gown ; the buttons at the shoulder of the cloak are white, the shoes red. It will be seen also that all three of these clergymen wear the moustache and beard. Dominus Robertus de Walsham, precentor of Sarum (f. 100 v.), is in his choir habit, a white surplice, and over it a fur amys fastened at the throat with a brooch. Dns. Robertus de Hereforde, Dean of Sarum 246 The Secular Clergy of the Middle Ages. (f. loi), has a lilac robe and hood fastened by a gold brooch. There is another dean, Magister Johnnes Appleby, Dean of St. Paul's, at f. 105, whose costume is not very distinctly drawn. It may be necessary to assure some of our readers, that the colours here described were not given at the caprice of a limner wishing to make his page look gay. The portraits were perhaps imaginary, but the personages are habited in the costume proper to their rank and order. The series of Benedictine abbots and John Ball, Priest. monks in the same book are in black robes ; other monks introduced are in the proper habit of their order ; a king in his royal robes ; a knight sometimes in armour, sometimes in the civil costume of his rank, with a sword by his side, and a chaplet round his flowing hair ; a lady in the fashionable dress of the time ; a burgher in his proper habit, with his hair cut short. And so the clergy are represented in the dress which they usually wore \ and, for our purpose, the pictures are more valuable than if they were actual portraits of individual pecuHarities of costume, because we are the more sure that they give us the usual and recognised costume of the several characters. Indeed, it is a rule, which has very rare exceptions, that the mediEeval illuminators represented contemporary subjects with scrupulous accuracy. We give another representation from the picture of John Ball, the priest who was concerned in Wat Tyler's rebellion, taken from a MS. of Froissart's Chronicle, in the Bibliothfeque Imp^riale at Paris. The whole picture is interesting ; the background is a church, in whose churchyard are three tall crosses. Ball is preaching from the pulpit of his saddle to the crowd of insurgents who occupy the left side of the picture. In the Froissart MS. Harl. 4,380, at f. 20, is a picture of un vaillant homme et clerque nomine Maistre Johan Warennes, preaching against Pope Boniface ; he is in a pulpit panelled in green and gold, with a pall hung over the front, and the people sit on benches before him ; he is habited in a blue robe and hood lined with white. The author of Piers Ploughman, carping at the clergy in the latter half of the fourteenth century, says it would be better " If many a priest bare for their baselards and their brooches, A pair of beads in their hand, and a book under their arm. Sire* John and Sire Geffrey hath a girdle of silver, A baselard and a knife, with botons overgilt." * The honorary title of Sir was given to priests down to a late period. A law of Canute declared a priest to rank with the second order of thanes— z.^., with the landed gentry. "By the laws, armorial, civil, and of arms, a priest in his place in civil conver- sation is always before any esquire, as being a knight's fellow by his holy orders, and the third of the three Sirs which only were in request of old (no baron, viscount, earl, nor marquis being then in use), to wit. Sir King, Sir Knight, and Sir Priest But afterwards Sir in English was restrained to these four,— Sir Knight, Sir Priest, and Sir Graduate, and, in common speech, Sir Esquire ; so always, since distinction of titles were, Sir Priest was ever the second."— A Decacordon of Quodlibetical Questions con- cerning Religion and State, quoted in Knight's Shakespeare, Vol. I. of Comedies, note to Sc. I, Act i. of " Merry "Wives of Windsor." In Shakespeare's characters we have Sir Hugh Evans and Sir Oliver Martext, and, at a later period stUl, " Sir John " was the popular name for a priest. Piers Ploughman (Vision XI. 304) calls them " God's knights," And also in the Psalter says David to overskippers, Fsallite Deo nostra, fsallite ; quoniam rex terre Deus Israel ; psallite safienter. The Bishop shall be blamed before God, as I leve [beheve] That crowneth such goddes knightes that conneth nought sapienter Synge ne psalmes rede ne segge a masse of the day. Ac never neyther is blameless the bisshop ne the chapleyne, For her either is endited ; and that of ignorancia Non excusat episcopos, nee idiotes prestes. 248 The Secular Clergy of the Middle Ages. A little later, he speaks of proud priests habited in patlocks, — a short jacket worn by laymen, — with peaked shoes and large knives or daggers. And in the poems of John Audelay, in the fifteenth century, a parish priest is described in "His girdle harnesched with silver, his baselard hangs by." In the wills of the clergy they themselves describe their " togas " of gay colours, trimmed with various furs, and their ornamented girdles and purses, and make no secret of the obj ectionable knives and baselards. In the Bury St. Edmunds Wills, Adam de Stanton, a chaplain, a.d. 1370, bequeaths one girdle, with purse and knife, valued at sj-. — a rather large sum of money in those days. In the York wills, John Wynd-hill, Rector of Arnecliffe, A.D. 1431, bequeaths a pair of amber beads, such as Piers Ploughman says a priest ought " to bear in his hand, and a book under his arm ; " and, curiously enough, in the next sentence he leaves " an English book of Piers Ploughman;" but he does not seem to have been much influenced by the popular poet's invectives, for he goes on to bequeath two green gowns and one of murrey and one of sanguine colour, besides two of black, all trimmed with various furs; also, one girdle of sanguine silk, ornamented with silver, and gilded, and another zone of green and white, ornamented with silver and gilded; and he also leaves behind him— proh pudor — his best silver girdle, and a baselard with ivory and silver handle. John Gilby, Rector of Knesale, 1434-5, leaves a red toga, furred with byce, a black zone of silk with gilt bars, and a zone ornamented with silver. J. Bagule, Rector of All Saints, York, a.d. 1438, leaves a little baselard, with a zone harnessed with silver, to Sir T. Astell, a chap- lain. W. Duffield, a chantry priest at York, a.d. 1443, leaves a black zone silvered, a purse called a " gypsire,'' and a white purse of " Burdeux." W. Siverd, chaplain, leaves to H. Hobshot a hawk-bag ; and to W. Day, parochial chaplain of Calton, a pair of hawk-bag rings ; and to J. Sarle, chaplain, "my ruby zone, silvered, and my toga, furred with 'bevers;'" and to the wife of J. Bridlington, " a ruby purse of satin.'' R. Rolleston, provost of the church of Beverley, a.d. 1450, leaves a " toga lunata" with a red hood, a toga and hood of violet, a long toga and hood of black, trimmed with martrons, and a toga and hood of violet. J. Clyft, chaplain, Ordinary Dress of the Clergy. 249 A.D. 1455, leaves a zone of silk, ornamented with silver. J. Tidman, chaplain, a.d. 1458, a toga of violet and one of meld. C. Lassels, chap- lain, A.D. 1461, a green toga and a white zone, silvered. T. Horneby, rector of Stokesley, a.d. 1464, a red toga and hood ; and, among the Rich- mondshire Wills, we find that of Sir Henry Hailed, Lady-priest of the parish of Kirby-in-Kendal, in 1542 a.d. (four years before the suppression of the chantries), who leaves a short gown and a long gown, whose colour is not specified, but was probably black, which seems by this time to have been the most usual clerical wear. The accompanying woodcut will admirably illustrate the ornamented girdle, purse, and knife, of which we have been reading. It is from a MS. of Chau- cer's poem of the Romaunt of the Rose (Harl. 4,425, f. 143), and represents a priest confessing a lady in a church. The characters in the scene are, like the poem, allegorical; the priest is Genius, and the lady is Dame Nature ; but it is not the less an accurate picture of a con- fessional scene of the latter part of the fourteenth century. The priest is habited in a robe of purple, with a black cap and a black liripipe attached to it, brought over the shoulder to the front, and falling over the arm. The tab, peeping from beneath the cap above the ear, is red ; the girdle, purse, and knife, are, in the original illumination, very clearly represented. In another picture of the same person, at f. 106, the black girdle is represented as ornamented with little circles of gold. Many of these clergymen had one black toga with hood en suite — not for constant use in divine service, for, as we have already seen, they are generally represented in the illuminations with coloured "togas" under their surplices, — but perhaps, for wear on mourning occasions. Thus, in the presentations of York Cathedral, a.d. 1519, "We thynke it were con- K K A Priest Confessing a Lady. 250 The Secular Clergy of the Middle Ages. venient that whene we fetche a corse to the churche, that we shulde be in our blak abbettes [habits] mornyngly, w' our hodes of the same of our hades, as is used in many other places." * At the time of the Reformation, when the EngHsh clergy abandoned the mediaeval official robes, they also desisted from wearing the tonsure, which had for many centuries been the distinguishing mark of a cleric, and they seem generally to have adopted the academical dress, for the model both ot their official and their ordinary dress. The Puritan clergy adopted a costume which differed little, if at all, from that of the laity of the same school. But it is curious that this question of clerical dress continued to be one of complaint on one side, and resist- ance on the other, down to the end of our ecclesiastical legislation. The 74th canon of 1 603 is as rhetorical in form, and as querulous in tone, and as minute in its description of the way in which ecclesiastical persons should, and the way in which they should not, dress, as is the Injunction of 1342, which we have already quoted. " The true, ancient, and flourish- ing churches of Christ, being ever desirous that their prelacy and clergy might be had as well in outward reverence, as otherwise regarded for the worthiness of their ministry, did think it fit, by a prescript form of decent and comely apparel, to have them known to the people, and thereby to receive the honour and estimation due to the special messengers and ministers of Almighty God : we, therefore, following their grave judgment and the ancient custom of the Church of England, and hoping that in time new fangleness of apparel in some factious persons will die of itself, do constitute and appoint, that the archbishops and bishops shall not intermit to use the accustomed apparel of their degree. Likewise, all deans, masters of colleges, archdeacons, and prebendaries, in cathedrals and collegiate churches (being priests or deacons), doctors in divinity, law, and physic, bachelors in divinity, masters of arts, and bachelors of law, having any ecclesiastical living, shall wear gowns with standing collars, and sleeves straight at the hands, or wide sleeves, as is used in the universities, with hoods or tippets of silk or sarcenet, and square caps ; and that all * York Fabric Rolls, p. 268. Canonical Costume. 251 other ministers admitted, or to be admitted, into that function, shall also usually wear the like apparel as is aforesaid, except tippets only. We do further in like manner ordain, that all the said ecclesiastical persons above mentioned shall usually wear on their journeys cloaks with sleeves, commonly called Priests' Cloaks, without guards, welts, long buttons, or cuts. And no ecclesiastical person shall wear any coif, or wrought night- cap, but only plain night caps of black silk, satin, or velvet. In all which particulars concerning the apparel here prescribed, our meaning is not to attribute any holiness or special worthiness to the said garments, but for decency, gravity, and order, as is before specified. In private houses and in their studies the said persons ecclesiastical may use any comely and scholarlike apparel, provided that it be not cut or pinkt; and that in public they go not in their doublet and hose without coats or cassocks ; and that they wear not any light-coloured stockings. Likewise, poor beneficed men and curates (not being able to provide themselves long gowns) may go in short gowns of the fashion aforesaid." The portraits prefixed to the folio works of the great divines of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have made us familiar with the fact, that at the time of the Reformation the clergy wore the beard and moustache. They continued to wear the cassock and gown as their ordinary out-door costume until as late as the time of George II. ; but in the fashion of doublet and hose, hats, shoes, and hair, they followed the custom of other gentlemen. Mr. Fairholt, in his " Costume in England," p. 327, gives us a woodcut from a print of 1680 a.d., which admirably illus- trates the ordinary out-door dress of a clergyman of the time of William and Mary. CHAPTER V. PARSONAGE HOUSES. [ HEN, in our endeavour to realise the life of these secular clergymen of the Middle Ages, we come to inquire, What sort of houses did they live in ? how were these furnished ? what sort of life did their occupants lead? what kind of men were they? it is curious how little seems to be generally known on the subject, compared with what we know about the houses and life and character of the regular orders. In- stead of gathering together what others have said, we find ourselves engaged in an original investigation of a new and obscure subject. The case of the cathedral and collegiate clergy, and that of the isolated parochial clergy, form two distinct branches of the subject. The limited space at our disposal will not permit us to do justice to both ; the latter branch of the subject is less known, atid perhaps the more generally interesting, and we shall therefore devote the bulk of our space to it. We will only premise a few words on the former branch. The bishop of a cathedral of secular canons had his house near his cathedral, in which he maintained a household equal in nunibers and. expense to that of the secular barons among whom he took rank ; the chief difference being, that the spiritual lord's family consisted rather of chaplains and clerks than of squires and men-at-arms. The bishop's palace at Wells is a very interesting example in an unusually perfect con- dition. Britton gives an engraving of it as it appeared before the reign of Edward VI. The bishop besides had other residences on his manors, some of which were castles like those of the other nobility. Farnham, the present residence of the see of Winchester, is a noble example, which still The Cathedral Close. 253 serves its original purpose. Of the cathedral closes many still remain sufficiently unchanged to enable us to understand their original condition. Take Lincoln for example. On the north side of the church, in the angle between the nave and transept, was the cloister, with the polygonal chapter-house on the east side. The lofty wall which enclosed the pre- cincts yet remains, with its main entrance in the middle of the west wall, opposite the great doors of the cathedral. This gate, called the Exchequer Gate, has chambers over it, devoted probably to the official business of the diocese. There are two other smaller gates at the north-east and south- east corners of the close, and there is a postern on the south side. The bishop's palace, whose beautiful and interesting ruins and charming grounds still remain, occupied the slope of the southern hill outside the close. The vicar's court is in the corner of the close near the gateway to the palace grounds. A fourteenth-century house, which was the official residence of the chaplain of one of the endowed chantries, still remains on the south side of the close, nearly opposite the choir door. On the east side of the close the fifteenth-century houses of several of the canons still remain, and are interesting examples of the domestic architecture of the time. It is not difficult from these data to picture to ourselves the original condition of this noble establishment when the cathedral, with its cloister and chapter-house, stood isolated in the middle of the green sward, and the houses of the canons and chaplains formed a great irregular quadrangle round it, and the close walls shut them all in from the outer world, and the halls and towers of the bishop's palace were still perfect amidst its hanging gardens enclosed within their own walls, the quadrangle of houses which had been built for the cathedral vicars occupying a corner cut out of the bishop's grounds beside his gateway. And we can repeople the restored close. Let it be on the morning of one of the great festivals ; let the great bells be ringing out their summons to high mass ; and we shall see the dignified canons in amice and cap crossing the green singly on their way from their houses to their stalls in the choir ; the vicars convers- ing in a little group as they come across from their court ; the surpliced chorister boys under the charge of their schoolmaster ; a band of minstrels with flutes, and hautboys, and viols, and harps, and organs, coming in 254 The Secular Clergy of the Middle Ages. from the city, to use their instruments in the rood-loft to aid the voices of the choir ; scattered clerks and country clergy, and townspeople, are all con- verging to the great south door ; and last of all the lord bishop, in cope and mitre, emerges from his gateway, preceded by his cross-bearer, attended by noble or royal guests, and followed by a suite of officials and clerks ; while over all the great bells ring out their joyous peal to summon the people to the solemn worship of God in the mother church of the vast diocese. ' But we must turn to our researches into the humbler life of the country rectors and vicars. And first, what sort of houses did they live in ? We have not been able to find one of the parsonage houses of an earlier date than the Reformation still remaining in a condition sufficiently unaltered to enable us to understand what they originally were. There is an ancient rectory house of the fourteenth century at West Deane, Sussex,* of which we give a ground-plan and north-east view on the following page ; but the rectory belonged to the prior and convent of Benedictine Monks of Wil- mington, and this house was probably their grange, or cell, and may have been inhabited by two of their monks, or by their tenant, and not by the parish priest. Again, there is a very picturesque rectory house, of the fifteenth century, at Little Chesterton, near Cambridge,! but this again is believed to have been a grange, or cell, of a monastic house. In the absence of actual examples, we are driven to glean what informa- tion we can from other sources. There remain to us a good many of the deeds of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, by which, on the impro- priation of the benefices, provision was made for the permanent endow- ment of vicarages in them. In the majority of cases the old rectory house was assigned as the future vicarage house, and no detailed descrip- tion of it was necessary ; but in the deed by which the rectories of Saw- bridgeworth, in Herts, and Kelvedon, in Essex, were appropriated to the convent of Westminster, we are so fortunate as to find descriptions of the fourteenth-century parsonage houses, one of which is so detailed as to enable any one who is acquainted with the domestic architecture of the * Described and engraved in the Sussex Archaeological Collections, vii. f. 13. t Described and engraved in Mr. Parker's " Domestic Architecture." Parsonage Houses. 255 time to form a very definite picture of the whole building. In the case of Sawbridgeworth, the old rectory house was assigned as the vicarage house, and is thus described—" All the messuage which is called the priest's Rectory House, West Deane, Sussex. ><=>e=7v=^ A Entrance door. B Windows. Length of exterior . Width, of interior . -^ ^^ C Cellar window. D Entrance to stair. ft. in. 35 6 14 10 Thickness of wall Height of rooms E A recess. F Fire-place. ft. in. . 2 6 . 8 messuage, with the houses thereon built, that is to say, one hall with two chambers, with a buttery, cellar, kitchen, stable, and other fitting and decent houses, with all the garden as it is enclosed with walls to the said 255 The Secular Clergy of the Middle Ages. messuage belonging." The description of the parsonage house at Kelve- don is much more definite and intelligible. For this the deed tells us the convent assigned — " One hall situate in the manor of the said abbot and convent near the said church, with a chamber and soler at one end of the hall and with a buttery and cellar at the other. Also one other house in three parts, that is to say, for a kitchen with a convenient chamber in the end of the said house for guests, and a bakehouse. Also one other house in two parts, next the gate at the entrance of the manor, for a stable and cowhouse. He (the vicar) shall also have a convenient grange, to be built within a year at the expense of the prior and convent. He shall also have the curtilage with the garden adjoining to the hall on the north side, as it is enclosed with hedges and ditches." The date of the deed is 1356 A.D., and it speaks of these houses as already existing. Now the common arrangement of a small house at that date, and for near a century before and after, was this, " a hall in the centre, with a soler at one end and offices at the other."* A description which exactly agrees with the account of the Kelvedon house, and enables us to say with great proba- bility that in the Sawbridgeworth " priest's messuage " also, the two chambers were at one end of the hall, and the buttery, cellar, and kitchen at the other, the stable and other fitting and decent houses being detached from and not forming any portion of the dwelling house. Confining ourselves, however, to the Kelvedon house, a little study will enable us to reconstruct it conjecturally with a very high probability of being minutely accurate in our conjectures. First of all, a house of this character in the county of Essex would, beyond question, be a timber house. To make our description clearer we have given a rough diagram of our conjectural arrangement. Its principal feature was, of course, the " one hall " (a). We know at once what the hall of a timber house of this period of architecture would be. It would be a rather spacious and lofty apartment, with an open timber roof; the principal door of the house would open into the " screens " (d), at the lower end of the hall, and the back door of the house would be at the other end of the screens. At the * Parker's "Domestic Architecture," ii. p. 87. Kelvedon Rectory in the Fourteenth Century. 257 upper end of the hall would be the raised dais (b), at which the master of the house sat with his family. The fireplace would either be an open hearth in the middle of the hall, like that which still exists in the four- teenth-century hall at Penshurst Place, Kent, or it would be an open fire- place, under a projecting chimney, at the further side of the hall, such as is frequently seen in MS. illuminations of the small houses of the period. There was next " a chamber and soler at one end of the hall." The soler of a mediaeval house was the chief apartment after the hall, it answered to the " great chamber " of the sixteenth century, and to the parlour or draw- ing-room of more modern times. It was usually adjacent to the upper end Conjectural Plan of Rectory-House at Kelvedon, Essex. of the hall, and built on transversely to it, with a window at each end. It was usually raised on an undercroft, which was used as a storeroom or cellar, so that it was reached by a stair from the upper end of the hall. Sometimes, instead of a mere undercroft, there was a chamber under the soler, which was the case here, so that we have added these features to our plan '(c). Next there was " a buttery and cellar at the other " end of the hall. In the buttery in those days were kept wine and beer, table hnen, cups, pots, &c. : and in the cellar the stores of eatables which, it must be remembered, were not bought in weekly from the village shop, or the next market town, but were partly the produce of the glebe and tithe, and partly L L . >58 The Secular Clergy of the Middle Ages. were laid in yearly or half-yearly at some neighbouring fair. The buttery and cellar — they who are familiar with old houses, or with our colleges, will remember— are always at the lower end of the hall, and open upon the screens, with two whole or half doors side by side ; we may therefore add them thus upon our plan (h, i). The deed adds, " Also one other house in three parts." In those days the rooms of a house were not massed compactly together under one roof, but were built in separate buildings more or less detached, and each build- ing was called a house ; " One other house in three parts, that is to say, a kitchen with a convenient chamber at one end of the said house for guests, and a bakehouse." " The kitchen," says Mr. Parker, in his " Domestic Architecture," "was frequently a detached building, often connected with the hall by a passage or alley leading from the screens ;" and it was often of greater relative size and importance than modern usage would lead us to suppose; the kitchens of nld monasteries, mansion houses, and colleges often have almost the size and architectural character of a second hall. In the case before us it was a section of the " other house," and probably occupied its whole height, with an open timber roof (g). In the disposition of the bakehouse and convenient chamber for guests which were also in this other house, we meet with our first difficulty ; the " chamber " might possibly be over the bakehouse, which took the usual form of an under- croft beneath the guest chamber ; but the definition that the house was divided " in three parts " suggests that it was divided from top to bottom into three distinct sections. Inclining to the latter opinion, we have so disposed these apartments in our plan (f, e). The elevation of the house may be conjectured with as much probability as its plan. Standing in front of it we should have the side of the hall towards us, with the arched door at its lower end, and perhaps two windows in the side with carved wood tracery * in their heads. To the right would be the gable end of the chamber with soler over it; the soler would pro- bably have a rather large arched and traceried window in the end, the chamber a smaller and perhaps square-headed light. On the left would be * There are numerous curious examples of fifteenth-century timber window-tracery in the Essex churches. Kelvedon Rectory in the Fourteenth Century. 259 the building, perhaps a lean-to, containing the buttery and cellar, with only a small square-headed light in front. The accompanying wood-cut of a fourteenth-century house, from the Add. MSS. 10,292, will help to illustrate our conjectural elevation of Kelvedon Rectory. It has the hall with its great door and arched traceried window, and at the one end a chamber A Fourteenth Century House. and soler over it. It only wants the oiSces at the other end to make the resemblance complete.* * The deed of settlement of the vicarage of Bulmer, in the year 1425, gives us the description of a parsonage house of similar character. It consisted of one hall with two chambers annexed, the bakehouse, kitchen, and larder-house, one chamber for the vicar's servant, a stable, and a hay-soUer (Soler, loft), with a competent garden. Ingrave rectory house was a similar house; it is described, in a terrier of 1610, as "a house containing a hall, a parlour, a buttery, two lofts, and a study, also a kitchen, a milk- house, and a house for poultry, a bam, a stable and a hay-house." — Newcourt, ii. p. 281. Ingatestone rectory, in the terrier of 1610, was " a dwelling-house with a hall, a parlour, and a chamber within it ; a study newly built by the then parson ; a chamber over the parlour, and another within that with a closet ; without the dweUing-house a kitchen and two little rooms adjoining to it, and a chamber over them ; two little butteries over against the hall, and next them a chamber, and one other chamber over the same ; without the kitchen there is a dove-house, and another house built by the then parson ; a barn and a stable very ruinous." — Newcourt, ii. 348. Here, too, we seem to have an old house with hall in the middle, parlour and chamber at one end and two butteries at the other, in the midst of successive additions. There is also a description of the rectory house of West Haningfield, Essex, in New- court, ii. 309, and of North Bemfleet, ii. 46. 26o The Secular Clergy of the Middle Ages. Of later date probably and greater size, resembling a moated manor house, was the rectory of Great Bromley, Essex, which is thus described in the terrier of 1610 a.d. : "A large parsonage house compass'd with a Mote, a Gate-house, with a large chamber, and a substantial bridge of timber adjoining to it, a Httle yard, an orchard, and a little garden, all within the Mote, which, together with the Circuit of the House, contains about half an Acre of Ground ; and without the Mote there is a Yard, in which there is another Gate-house and a stable, and a hay house adjoining ; also a barn of 25 yards long and 9 yards wide, and about 79 Acres and a-half of glebe- land." * The outbuildings were perhaps arranged as a courtyard outside the moat to which the gate-house formed an entrance, so that the visitor would pass through this outer gate, through the court of offices, over the bridge, and through the second gate-house into the base court of the house. This is the arrangement at Ightham Mote, Kent. The parish chaplains seem to have had houses of residence provided for them. The parish of St. Michael-le-Belfry, York, complained in its visita- tion presentment, in the year 1409, that there was no house assigned for the parish chaplain or for the parish clerk. That they were small houses we gather from the fact that in some of the settlements of vicarages it is required that a competent house shall be built for the vicar where the parish chaplain has been used to live ; e.g. at Great Bentley, Essex, it was ordered in 1323, that the vicars " shall have one competent dwelling-house with a sufficient curtilage, where the parish chaplain did use to abide, to be prepared at the cost of the said prior and convent." \ And at the settle- ment of the vicarage of St. Peter's, Colchester, a.d. 1319, it was required that " the convent of St.- Botolph's, the impropriators, should prepare a competent house for the vicar in the ground of the churchyard where a house was built for the parish chaplain of the said church.'' At Radwinter, Essex, we find by the terrier of 1610 a.d., that there were two mansions belonging to the benefice, " on the south side of the church, towards the west end, one called the great vicarage, and in ancient time the Domus Capellanorum, and the other the less vicarage," which latter " formerly * Newcoui t's " Repertorum," ii. 97. \ Newcourt, ii. 49. The Furniture of the Parsonage. 261 served for the ease of the Parson, and, as appears by evidence, first given to the end that if any of the parish were sick, the party might be sure to find the Parson or his curate near the church ready to go and visit him." At the south-west corner of the churchyard of Doddinghurst, Essex, there still exists a little house of fifteenth-century date, which may have been such a curate's house. From a comparison of these parsonages with the usual plan and arrange- ment of the houses of laymen of the fourteenth century, may be made the important deduction that the houses of the parochial clergy had no eccle- siastical peculiarities of arrangement ; they were not little monasteries or great recluse houses, they were like the houses of the laity ; and this agrees with the conclusions to which we have arrived already by other roads, that the secular clergy lived in very much the same style as laymen of a similar degree of wealth and social standing. The poor clerk lived in a single chamber of a citizen's house ; the town priest had a house like those of the citizens ; the country rector or vicar a house like the manor houses of the smaller gentry. As to the furniture of the parsonage, the wills of the clergy supply us with ample authorities. We will select one of about the date of the Kelvedon parsonage house which we have been studying, to help us to conjecturally furnish the house which we have conjecturally built. Here is an inventory of the goods of Adam de Stanton, a chaplain, date 1370 A.D., taken from Mr. Tymms's collection of Bury wills. " Imprimis, in money vi'- viii""- and i seal of silver worth ijs." The money will seem a fair sum to have in hand when we consider the greater value of money then and especially the comparative scarcity of actual coin. The seal was probably his official seal as chaplain of an endowed chantry; we have extant examples of such seals of the beneficed clergy. " Item, iij brass pots and i posnet worth xj- vj^- Item, in plate, xxij*- Item, a round pot with a laver, j=- vj^-" probably an ewer and basin for washing the hands, ike those- still used in Germany, &c. "Item, in iron instruments, vj» viiij*- and vj"-" perhaps fire dogs and poker, spit, and pothook. " Item, in pewter vessels, iiij'- ij^-" probably .plates, dishes, and spoons. "Item, of wooden utensils," which, from comparison with other inventories of 262 The Secular Clergy of the Middle Ages. about the same period, we suppose may be boards and trestles for tables, and benches, and a chair, and perhaps may include trenchers and bowls. " Item, i portiforum, x'-" a book of church service so called, which must have been a handsome one to be worth ten shillings, perhaps it was illuminated. " Item, j book de Lege and j Par Statutorum, and j Book of Romances.* Item, j girdle with purse and knife, v°'" on which we have already commented in our last chapter. " Item, j pair of knives for the table, xij''- Item, j saddle with bridle and spurs, iij'- Item, of linen and woollen garments, xxviij'- and xij''- Item, of chests and caskets, vj=- ij''-" Chests and caskets then served for cupboards and drawers.f If we compare these clerical inventories with those of contemporary laymen of the same degree, we shall find that a country parson's house was furnished like a small manor house, and that his domestic economy was very like that of the gentry of a like income. Matthew Paris tells us an anecdote of a certain handsome clerk, the rector of a rich church, who surpassed all the knights living around him in giving repeated entertain- ments and acts of hospitality. J: But usually it was a rude kind of life which the country squire or parson led, very like that which was led by the substantial farmers of a few generations ago, when it was the fashion for the unmarried farm labourers to live in the farm-house, and for the farmer and his household all to sit down to meals together. These. were their hours : — " Rise at five, dine at nine, Sup at five, and bed at nine, Will make a man live to ninety-and-nine.'' The master of the house sat in the sole arm-chair, in the middle of the * George DareU, a.d. 1432, leaves one book of statutes, containing the statutes of Kings Edward III., Richard II., and Henry IV. ; one boolc of law, called "Natura Brevium ;" one Portus, and one Par Statutorum Veterum. — Testamenta Eboracemia, ii. p. 27. t There are other inventories of the goods of clerics, which will help to throw light upon their- domestic economy at different periods, e.g., of the vicar of Waghen, A.D. 1462, in the York Wills, ii. 261, and of a chantry priest, A.D. 1542, in the Sussex Archaeological Collections, iii. p. 115. % Bohn's Edition, vol. ii. p. 278. Hospitality of the Clergy. 263 high table on the dais, with his family on either side of him ; and his men sat at the movable tables of boards and trestles, with a bench on each side, which we find mentioned in the inventories : or the master sat at the same table with his men, only he sat above the salt and they below ; he drank his ale out of a silver cup while they drank it out of horn ; he ate white bread while they ate brown, and he a capon out of his curtilage while they had pork or mutton ham ; he retired to his great chamber when he desired privacy, which was not often perhaps ; and he slept in a tester bed in the great chamber, while they slept on truckle beds in the hall. One item in the description of the Kelvedon parsonage requires special consideration, and opens up a rather important question as to the domestic economy of the parochial clergy over and above what we have hitherto gleaned. " The convenient chamber for guests " there mentioned was not a best bedroom for any friend who might pay him a visit. It was a pro- vision for the efficient exercise of the hospitality to which the beneficed parochial clergy were bound. It is a subject which perhaps needs a little explanation. In England there were no inns where travellers could obtain food and lodging until the middle of the fourteenth century ; and for long after that period they could only be found in the largest and most important towns ; and it was held to be a part of the duty of the clergy to " entertain strangers," and be " given to hospitality." It was a charity not very likely to be abused ; for, thanks to bad roads, unbridged fords, no inns, wild moors, and vast forests haunted by lawless men, very few travelled, except for serious business ; and it was a real act of Christian charity to aff'ord to such travellers the food and shelter which they needed, and would have been hard put to it to have obtained otherwise. The monasteries, we all know, exercised this hospitality on so large a scale, that in order to avoid the interruption a constant succession of guests would have made in the seclusion and regularity of conventual life, they provided special buildings for it, called the hospitium or guest house, a kind of inn within the walls, and they appointed one of the monks, under the name of the hospitaller or guest master, to represent the convent in entertaining the guests. Hermitages also, we have seen, were frequently built along the high roads, especially near bridges and fords, for the purpose of aiding travellers. 264 The Secular Clergy of the Middle Ages. Along the road which led towards some famous place of pilgrimage hos- pitals, which were always religious foundations, were founded especially for the entertainment of poor pilgrims. And the parochial clergy were expected to exercise a similar hospitality. Thus in the replies of the rectors of Berkshire to the papal legate, in 1240 a.d., they say that " their churches were endowed and enriched by their patrons with lands and revenues for the especial purpose that the rectors of them should receive guests, rich as well as poor, and show hospitality to laity as well as clergy, according to their means, as the custom of the place required." * Again, in 1246, the clergy, on a similar occasion, stated that "a custom has hitherto prevailed, and been observed in England, that the rectors of parochial churches have always been remarkable for hospitality, and have made a practice of supplying food to their parishioners who were in want, .... and if a portion of their benefices be taken away from them, they will be under the necessity of refusing their hospitality, and aban- doning their accustomed offices of piety. And if these be withdrawn, they will incur the hatred of those subject to them [their parishioners], and will lose the favour of passers-by [travellers] and their neighbours." t Again, in 1253 a.d.. Bishop Grostete, in his remonstrance to the Pope, says of the foreigners who were intruded into English benefices, that they " could not even take up their residence, to administer to the wants of the poor, and to receive travellers." \ There is an interesting passage illustrative of the subject quoted in Parker's " Domestic Architecture,'' i. p. 123. ./Eneus Sylvius, afterwards Pope Pius II., describing his journey from Scotland into England, in the year 1448, says that he entered a large village in a wild and barbarous part of the country, about sunset, and " alighted at a rustic's house, and supped there with the priest of the place and the host." The special mention of the priest in the first place almost leads us to conjecture that the foreign ecclesiastic had first gone to the priest of the place for the usual hospitality, and had been taken on by him to the manor house — for * Matthew Paris, vol. i. p. 285 (Bohn's edition), t Ibid., vol. ii. p. 193. % Ibid., vol iii. p. 48. Hospitality of the Clergy. 265 the " rustic " seems to have been a squire — as better aSle to afford him a suitable hospitality. Sundry pottages, and fowls, and geese, were placed on the table, but there was neither bread nor wine. He had, however, brought with him a few loaves and a roundel of wine, which he had received at a certain monastery. Either a stranger was a great novelty, or the Italian ecclesiastic had something remarkable in his appearance, for he says all " the people of the place ran to the house to stare at him." Kelvedon being on one of the great high roads of the country, its parson would often be called upon to exercise his duty of hospitality, hence the provision of a special guest chamber in the parsonage house. And so in our picture of the domestic economy and ordinary life of a mediaeval country parson we must furnish his guest chamber, and add a little to the contents of buttery and cellar, to provide for his duty of hospitality ; and we must picture him not always sitting in solitary dignity at his high table on the dais, but often playing the courteous host to knight and lady, merchant, minstrel, or pilgrim ; and after dinner giving the broken meat to the poor, who in the days when there was no poor law were the regular dependants on his bounty. M M THE MINSTRELS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. CHAPTER I. T would carry us too far a-field to attempt to give a sketch of the early music of the principal nations of antiquity, such as might be deduced from the monuments of Egypt and Nineveh and Greece. We may, however, briefly glance at the most ancient minstrelsy of the Israelites ; partly for the sake of the peculiar interest of the subject itself, partly because the early history of music is nearly the same in all nations, and this earliest history will illustrate and receive illustration from a comparison with the history of music in mediaeval England. Musical instruments, we are told by the highest of all authorities, were invented in the eighth generation of the world — that is in the third gene- ration before the flood — by Tubal, " the Father of all such as handle the harp and organ, both stringed and wind instruments." The ancient Israelites used musical instruments on the same occasions as the mediaeval Europeans — in battle ; in their feasts and dances ; in processions, whether of religious or civil ceremony ; and in the solemnising of divine worship. The trumpet and the horn were then, as always, the instruments of warlike music — " If ye go to war then shall ye blow an alarm with the silver trumpets."* The trumpet regulated the march of the hosts of Israel through the wilderness. When Joshua compassed Jericho, the seven * Numb. X. 9. 268 The Minstrels of the Middle Ages. priests blew trumpets of rams' horns. Gideon and his three hundred dis- comfited the host of the Midianites with the sound of their trumpets. The Tabret was the common accompaniment of the troops of female dancers, whether the occasion were religious or festive. Miriam the prophetess took a timbrel in her hand, and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances, singing a solemn chorus to the triumphant song of Moses and of the Children of Israel over the destruc- tion of Pharaoh in the Red Sea, — " Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously ; The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea."* Jephthah's daughter went to meet her victorious father with timbrels and dances : — ■ " The daughter of the warrior Gileadite, From Mizpeh's tower'd gate with welcome light. With timbrel and with song." And so, when King Saul returned from the slaughter of the Philistines, after the shepherd David had killed their giant champion in the valley of Elah, the women came out of all the cities to meet the returning warriors " singing and dancing to meet King Saul, with tabrets, with joy, and with instruments of music;'' and the women answered one another in dramatic chorus — " Saul hath slain his thousands. And David his ten thousands."! Laban says that he would have sent away Jacob and his wives and children, " with mirth and with songs, with tabret and with harp." And Jeremiah prophesying that times of ease and prosperity shall come again for Israel, says : " O Virgin of Israel, thou shalt again be adorned with thy tabrets, and shalt go forth in the dances of them that make merry." \ In their feasts these and many other instruments were used. Isaiah tells us § that they had " the harp, and the viol, the tabret, and pipe, and wine in their feasts ; " and Amos tells us of the luxurious people who lie upon beds of ivory, and " chant to the sound of the viol, and invent to * Exod. XV. 21. t I Sam. xviii. 7. % Jer. xxxi. 4. § Is. v. 12. Minstrelsy of the Israelites. 269 themselves instruments of music like David," and drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the costliest perfumes. Instruments of music were used in the colleges of Prophets, which Samuel established in the land, to accompany and inspire the delivery of their prophetical utterances. As Saul, newly anointed, went up the hill of God towards the city, he met a company of prophets coming down, with a psaltery, and a tabret, and a pipe, and a harp before them, pro- phesying ; and the spirit of the Lord came upon Saul when he heard, and he also prophesied.* When Elisha was requested by Jehoram to prophesy the fate of the battle with the Moabites, he said : " Bring me a minstrel ; and when the minstrel played, the hand of the Lord came upon him, and he prophesied." When David brought up the ark from Gibeah, he and all the house of Israel played before the Lord on all manner of instruments made of fir- wood, even on harps, psalteries, timbrels, cornets, and cymbals.! And in the song which he himself composed to be sung on that occasion,]: he thus describes the musical part of the procession : — " It is well seen how thdu goest, How thou, my God and King, goest to the sanctuary ; The singers go before, the minstrels follow after, In the midst are the damsels playing with the timbrels." The instruments appointed for the regular daily service of the Temple " by David, and Gad the king's seer, and Nathan the prophet, for so was the commandment of the Lord by his prophets," were cymbals, psalteries, and harps, which David made for the purpose, and which were played by four thousand Levites. Besides the instruments already mentioned,— the harp, tabret, timbrel, psaltery, trumpet, comet, cymbal, pipe, and viol,— they had also the lyre, bag-pipes, and -bells; and probably they carried back with them from Babylon further additions, from the instruments of " all peoples, nations, and languages " with which they would become famiHarised in that capital of the world. But from the time of Tubal down to the time when the * I Sam. X. S. t 2 Sam. vi. S- t P^^'™ 1==^"'- 270 The Minstrels of the Middle Ages. royal minstrel of Israel sang those glorious songs which are still the daily solace of thousands of mankind, and further down to the time when the captive Israelites hanged their unstrung harps upon the willows of Babylon, and could not sing the songs of Zion in a strange land, the harp continued still the fitting accompaniment of the voice in all poetical utterance of a dignified and solemn character : — the recitation of the poetical portions of historical and prophetical Scripture, for instance, would be sustained by it, and the songs of the psalmists of Zion were accompanied by its strains. And thus this sketch of the history of the earliest music closes, with the minstrel harp still in the foreground ; while in the distance we hear the sound of the fanfare of cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of music, which were con- certed on great occasions ; such as that on which they resounded over the plain of Dura, to bow that bending crowd of heads, as the ripe corn bends before the wind, to the great Image of Gold : — an idolatry, alas ! which the peoples, nations, and languages still perform almost as fervently as of old. The northern Bard, or Scald, was the father of the minstrels of medi- aeval Europe. Our own early traditions afford some picturesque anecdotes, proving the high estimation in which the character was held by the Saxons and their kindred Danes ; and showing that they were accustomed to wander about to court, and camp, and hall ; and were hospitably received, even though the Bard were of a race against which his hosts were at that very time encamped in hostile array. We will only remind the reader of the Royal Alfred's assumption of the character of a minstrel, and his visit in that disguise to the Danish camp (a.d. 878) ; and of the similar visit, ten years after, of Anlaff" the Danish king to the camp of Saxon Athelstane. But the earliest anecdote of the kind we shall have hereafter to refer to, and may therefore here detail at length. It is told us by Geoffrey of Mon- mouth, that Colgrin, the son of Ella, who succeeded Hengist in the leader- ship of the invading Saxons, was shut up in York, and closely besieged by King Arthur and his Britons. Baldulf, the brother of Colgrin, wanted to gain access to him, to apprise him of a reinforcement which was coming Saxon Minstrelsy. 271 from Germany. In order to accomplish this design, he assumed the character of a minstrel. He shaved his head and beard ; and dressing himself in the habit of that profession, took his harp in his hand. In this disguise he walked up and down the trenches without suspicion, playing all the while upon his instrument as a harper. By little and little he approached the walls of the city ; and, making himself known to the sentinels, was in the night drawn up by a rope. The harper continued throughout the Middle Ages to be the most digni- fied of the minstrel craft, the reciter, and often the composer, of heroic legend and historical tale, of wild romance and amorous song. Frequently, and perhaps especially in the case of the higher class of harpers, he travelled alone, as in the cases which we have already seen of Baldulf, and Alfred, and Anlaff. But he also often associated himself with a band of minstrels, who filled up the intervals of his recitations and songs with their music, much as vocal and instrumental pieces are alternated in our modem concerts. With a band of minstrels there was also very usually associated a mime, who amused the audience with his feats of agility and leger-de-main. The association appears at first sight somewhat undignified — the heroic harper and the tumbler — but the incongruity was not peculiar to the Middle Ages ; the author of the " Iliad " wrote the " Battle of the Frogs," — the Greeks were not satisfied without a satiric drama after their grand heroic tragedy ; and in these days we have a farce or a pantomime after Shakspeare. We are not all Heraclituses, to see only the tragic side of life, or Democrituses, to laugh at everything ; the majority of men have faculties to appreciate both classes of emotion ; and it would seem, from universal experience, that, as the Russian finds a physical delight in leaping from a vapour-bath into the frozen Neva, so there is some mental delight in the sudden alternate excitation of the oppo- site emotions of tragedy and farce. If we had time to philosophise, we might find the source of the dehght deeply seated in our nature r— alternate tears and laughter — it is an epitome of human life ! In the accompanying woodcut from a Late Saxon MS. in the British Museum (Cott. Tiberius C. vi.) we have a curious evidence of the way in which custom blinded men to any incongruity there may be in the asso- 272 The Minstrels of the Middle Ages. ciation of the harper and the juggler, for here we have David singing his Psalms and accompanying himself on the harp, the dove reminding us that he sang and harped under the influence of inspiration. He is accompanied by performers who must be Levites ; and yet the Saxon illu- minator was so used to see a mime fonn one of a minstrel band, that he Saxon Band of Minstrels. has introduced one playing the common feat of tossing three knives and three balls. The Saxons were a musical people. We learn from Bede's anecdote of the poet Csedmon, that it was usual at their feasts to pass the harp round from hand to hand, and every man was supposed to be able to sing in his turn, and accompany himself on the instrument. They had a considerable num- Saxon Musical Instruments. 273 ber of musical instruments. In a MS. in the British Museum, Tiberius C. VI., folios 16 v., 17 v., 18, are a few leaves of a formal treatise on the subject, which give us very carefully drawn pictures of different instruments, with their names and descriptions. There are also illustrations of them in the Add. 11,695, foHos 86, 86 v., 164, 170 v., 229, and in Cleopatra E. vm. Among them are the Psaltery of various shapes, the Sambuca or sackbut, the single and double Chorus, &c. Other instruments we find in Saxon MSS. are the lyre, viol, flute, cymbals, organ, &c. A set of hand-bells (carillons) which the player struck with two hammers, was a favourite instrument. We often find different instruments played Saxon Organ. together. At folio 93 v. of the MS. Claudius B iv. there is a group of twelve female harpists playing together ; one has a small instrument, probably a kind of lyre, the rest have great harps of the same pattern. They probably represent Miriam and the women of Israel joining in the triumphal song of Moses over the destruction of the Egyptians in the Red Sea. The organ, already introduced into divine service, became, under the hands of St. Dunstan, a large and important instrument. William of N N 2 74 The Minstrels of the Middle Ages. Malmesbury says that Dunstan gave many to churches which had pipes of brass and were inflated with bellows. In a MS. psalter in Trinity College, Cambridge, is a picture of one of considerable size, which has no less than four bellows played by four men. It is represented in the accompanying wood cut. The Northmen who invaded and gave their name to Normandy, took their minstrels with them ; and the learned assert that it was from them that the troubadours of Provence learned their art, which ripened in their sunny clime into la joyeuse science, and thence was carried into Italy, France, and Spain. It is quite certain that minstrelsy was in high repute among the Normans at the period of the Conquest. Every one will re- member how Taillefer, the minstrel-knight, commenced the great battle of Hastings. Advancing in front of the Norman host, he animated himself and them to a chivalric daring by chanting the heroic tale of Charlemagne and his Paladins, at the same time showing feats of skill in tossing his sword into the air ; and then rushed into the Saxon ranks, like a divinely- mad hero of old, giving in his own self-sacrifice an augury of victory to his people. From the period of the Conquest, authorities on the subject of which we are treating, though still not so numerous as could be desired, become too numerous to be all included within the limits to which our space restricts us. The reader may refer to Wharton's "History of English Poetry," to Bishop Percy's introductory essay to the " Reliques of Early English Poetry," and to the introductory essay to Ellis's " Early English Metrical Romances," for the principal published authorities. For a series of learned essays on mediaeval musical instruments he may consult M. Didron's " Annales Archeeologiques," vol. iii. pp. 76, 142, 260; vol. iv. pp. 25, 94; vol. vi. p. 315; vol. vii. pp. 92, 157, 244, 325; vol. viii. p. 242 ; vol. ix. pp. 289, 329.* We propose only from these and other published and unpublished materials to give a popular sketch of the subject. Throughout this period minstrelsy was in high estimation with all * Also a paper read before the London and Middlesex Architectural Society in June, 1871. Domestic Minstrels. 275 classes of society. The king himself, like his Saxon* predecessors, had a king's minstrel, or king of the minstrels, who probably from the first was at the head of a band of royal minstrels, t This fashion of the royal court, doubtless, like all its other fashions, obtained also in the courts of the great nobility (several instances will be observed in the sequel), and in their measure in the households of the lesser nobility. Every gentleman of estate had probably his one, two, or more minstrels as a regular part of his household. It is not difficult to discover their duties. In the representations of dinners, which occur plen- tifully in the medieval MSS., we constantly find musicians introduced ; sometimes we see them preceding the servants, who are bearing the dishes to table — a custom of classic usage, and which still lingers to this day at Queen's College, Oxford, in the song with which the choristers usher in the boar's head on Christmas-day, and at our modern public dinners, * The king's minstrel of the last Saxon king is mentioned in Domesday Book as hold- ing lands in Gloucestershire. t In the reign of Henry I., Rayer was the King's Minstrel. Temp. Heniy II., it was Galfrid, or Jeffrey. Temp. Richard I., Blondel, of romantic memory. Temp. Henry III., Master Ricard. It was the Harper of Prince Edward (afterwards King Edward I.) who brained the assassin who attempted the Prince's life, when his noble wife Eleanor risked hers to extract the poison from the wound. In Edward I.'s reign we have mention of a King Robert, who may be the impetuous minstrel of the Prince. Temp. Edward II., there occur two : a grant of houses was made to William de Morley, the King's Min- strel, which had been held by his predecessor, John de Boteler. At St. Bride's, Glamor- ganshire, is the insculpt eiBgy of a knightly figure, of the date of Edward I., with an inscription to John le Boteler ; but there is nothing to identify him with the king of the minstrels. Temp. Richard II., John Camuz was the king of his minstrels. When Henry V. went to France, he took his fifteen minstrels, and Walter Haliday, their Mar- shal, with him. After this time the chief of the royal minstrels seems to have been styled Marshal instead of King ; and in the next reign but one we find a Sergeant of the Min- strels. Temp. Henry VI., Walter Haliday was still Marshal of the Minstrels ; and this king issued a commission for impressing boys to supply vacancies in their number. King Edward IV. granted to the said long-lived Walter Haliday, Mar- shal, and to seven others, a charter for the restoration of a Fraternity or Gild, to be governed by a marshal and two wardens, to regulate the minstrels throughout the realm (except those of Chester). The minstrels of the royal chapel establishment of this king were thirteen in number ; some trumpets, some shalms, some small pipes, and others singers. The charter of Edward IV. was renewed by Henry VIII. in 1520, to John Gilraan.his then marshal, on whose death Hugh Wodehouse was promoted to the office. 276 The Minstrels of the Middle Ages. when the band strikes up " Oh the Roast Beef of Old England," as that national dish is brought to table. We give here an illustration of such a scene from a very fine MS. of the early part of the fourteenth century, in the British Museum (marked Royal 2 B vii., f. 184 V. and 185). A very fine representation of a similar scene occurs at the foot of the large Flemish Brass of Robert Braunche and his two wives in St. Margaret's Church, Lynn ; the scene is intended as a delineation of a feast given by the corporation of Lynn to King Edward III. Servants from both sides of the picture are bringing in that famous dish of chivalry, the peacock with his tail displayed ; and two bands of minstrels are ushering A Royal Dinner. in the banquet with their strains : the date of the brass is about 1364 a.d. In the fourteenth-century romance of " Richard Cceur de Lion,'' we read of some knights who have arrived in presence of the romance king whom they are in quest of; dinner is immediately prepared for them ; " trestles,'' says Ellis in his abstract of it, " were immediately set ; a table covered with a silken cloth was laid ; a rich repast, ushered in by the sound of trumpets and shalms, was served up."* Having introduced the feast, the minstrels continued to play during its progress. We find numerous representations of dinners in the illuminations, in which one or two minstrels are standing beside the table, playing their instruments during the progress of the meal. In a MS. volume of romances * Ellis's " Earl English Metrical Romances " (Bohn's edition), p. 287. Domestic Minstrels. 277 of the early part of the fourteenth century in the British Museum (Royal 14 E iii.), the title-page of the. romance of the " Qu^te du St. Graal " (at folio 89 of the MS.) is adorned with an illumination of a royal banquet; a squire on his knee (as in the illustration given on opposite page) is carving, and a minstrel stands beside the table playing the violin ; he is dressed in a parti-coloured tunic of red and blue, and wears his hat. In the Royal MS. 2 B vii., at folio 168, is a similar representation of a dinner, in which a minstrel stands playing the violin ; he is habited in a red tunic, and is Royal Dinner of the time of Edward IV. bareheaded. At folio 203 of the same MS. (Royal 2 B vii.), is another representation of a dinner, in which two minstrels are introduced ; one (wearing his hood) is playing a cittern, the other (bareheaded) is playing a vioHn : and these references might be multiplied. We reproduce here, in further illustration of the subject, engravings of a royal dinner of about the time of our Edward IV., " taken from an illu- mination of the romance of the Compte d'Artois, in the possession of 278 The Minstrels of the Middle Ages. M. Barrois, a distinguished and well-known collector in Paris."* The Other is an exceedingly interesting representation ot a grand imperial ban- Imperial Banquet. quet, from one of the plates of Hans Burgmair, in the volume dedicated to the exploits of the Emperor Maximilian, contemporary with our * From Mr. T. Wright's " Domestic Manners of the English." Domestic Minstrels. 279 Henry VIII. It represents the entrance of a masque, one of those strange entertainments, of which our ancestors, in the time of Henry and Elizabeth, were so fond, and of which Mr. C. Kean some years ago gave the play-going world of London so accurate a representation in his mise en scene of Henry VIII. at the Princess's Theatre. The band of minstrels who have been performing during the banquet, are seen in the left corner of the picture. So in " The Squier's Tale " of Chaucer, where Cambuscan is " holding his feste so solempne and so riche.'' " It so befel, that after the thridde cours, While that this king sat thus in his nobley, * Harking his ministralles herf thinges play, Befome him at his bord deliciously," &c. The custom of having instrumental music as an accompaniment of dinner Harper. is Still retained by her Majesty and by some of the greater nobility, by military messes, and at great public dinners. But the musical accompani- ment of a mediaeval dinner was not confined to instrumental performances. We frequently find a harper introduced, who is doubtless reciting some romance or history, or singing chansons of a lighter character. He is often represented as sitting upon the floor, as in the accompanying illustration, from the Royal MS., 2 B vii., folio 71 b. Another similar representation * Among his nobles. t Their. 28o The Minstrels of the Middle Ages. occurs at folio 203 b of the same MS. In the following very charming picture, from a MS. volume of romances of early fourteenth century date in the British Museum (Additional MS., 10,292, folio 200), the harper is sitting upon the table. Gower, in his " Confessio Amantis,'' gives us a description of a scene of the kind. Appolinus is dining in the hall of King Pentapolin, with the king and queen and their fair daughter, and all his " lordes in estate.' Appolinus was reminded by the scene of the royal estate from which he is Royal Harper. fallen, and sorrowed and took no meat; therefore the king bade his daughter take her harp and do all that she can to enliven that "sorry man." " And she to dou her fader's hest, Her harpe fette, and in the feste Upon a chaire which thei fette, Her selve next to this man she sette." Appolinus in turn takes the harp, and proves himself a wonderful pro- ficient, and " When he hath harped all his fille, ' The l-'s "History of Prince Arthur,'' vol. i. p. 44. Divine Service. 285 lished by the Early English Text Society, from a MS. of about 1500 a.d., in the Bodleian Library, bids its pupils — " Aryse be tyme oute of thi bedde, And blysse * thi brest and thi forhede, Then wasche thi handes and thi face, Keme thi hede and ask God grace The to heipe in all thi workes ; Thou schalt spede better what so thou carpes. Then go to the chyrche and here a massg, There aske mersy for thi trespasse. When thou hast done go breke thy faste With mete and drynk a gode repast." In great houses the service was performed by the chaplain in the chapel of the hall or castle, and it seems probable that the lord's minstrels assisted in the musical part of the service. The organ doubtless continued to be, as we have seen it in Saxon times, the most usual church instrument. Thus the King of Hungary in " The Squire of Low Degree," tells his daughter : — "Then shal ye go to your even song. With tenours and trebles among ; . * * * Your quere nor organ song shal want With countre note and dyscant ; The other half on organs playing, With young children ful fayn synging." And in inventories of church furniture in the Middle Ages we find organs enumerated : t Not only the organ, but all instruments in common use, were probably also used in the celebration of divine worship. We meet with repeated instances in which David singing the psalms is accom- panied by a band of musicians, as in the Saxon illumination on p. 272, and again in the initial letter of this chapter, which is taken from a psalter * Viz., by making the sign of the cross upon them. t Edward VI.'s commissioners return a pair of organs in the church of St. Peter Man- croft Norwich, which they value at 40^-., and in the church of St. Peter, Parmentergate, in the same city, a pair of organs which they value at^fio (which would be equal to about £10 or^fSo in these days), and soon after we find that id. were " paied to a car- penter for makyng of a plaunche (a platform of planks) to sette the organs on." 286 The Minstrels of the Middle Ages. of early thirteenth-century date in the British Museum (Harl. 5,102). The men of those days were in some respects much more real and practical, less sentimental and transcendental, than we in religious matters. We must have everything relating to divine worship of different form and fashion from ordinary domestic appliances, and think it irreverent to use things of ordinary domestic fashion for religious uses, or to have domestic things in the shapes of what we call religious art. They had only one art, the best they knew, for all purposes ; and they were content to apply the best of that to the service of God. Thus to their minds it would not appear at all unseemly that the minstrels who had accom- panied the divine service in chapel should walk straight out of chapel into the hall, and tune their instruments anew to play symphonies, or accompany chansons during dinner, or enliven the dance in the great chamber in the evening — no more unseemly than that their master and his family should dine and dance as well as pray. The chapel royal esta- blishment of Edward IV. consisted of trumpets, shalms, and pipes, as well as voices ; and we may be quite sure that the custom of the royal chapel was imitated by noblemen and gentlemen of estate. A good fifteenth- century picture of the interior of a church, showing the organ in a gallery, is engraved in the " Annales Archeeologiques," vol. xii., p. 349. A very good representation of an organ of the latter part of the sixteenth century (1582) is in the fine MS. Plut. 3,469, folio 27.* An organ of about this date is still preserved in that most interesting old Manor House, Igtham Mote, in Kent. They were sometimes placed at the side of the chancel, sometimes in the rood-loft, which occupied the same relative position in the choir which the music gallery did in the hall. In the MSS. we not unfrequently find the ordinary musical instruments placed in the hands of the angels ; e.g., in the early fourteenth-century MS. Royal 2 B. vii., in a representation of the creation, with the morning stars singing together, and all the sons of God shouting for joy, an angelic choir are making melody on the trumpet, violin, cittern, shalm (or psaltery), and harp. There is another choir of angels at p. 1 68 of the same MS., two * Another, with kettle-drums and trumpets, in the MS. Add. 27,675, f. 13. Angel Minstrels. 287 citterns and two shalms, a violin and trumpet. Similar representations occur very significantly in churches. On the arch of the Porta Delia Gloria of Saragossa Cathedral, of the eleventh century, from which there is a cast at the "entrance to the South Kensington Museum, are a set of angel minstrels with musical instruments. In the bosses of the ceiling of Tewkes- bury Abbey Church we find angels playing the cittern (with a plectrum), the harp (with its cover seen enveloping the lower half of the instrument)* The Morning Stars singing together. and the cymbals. A set of angel musicians is sculptured on the rood loft of York Minster. In the triforum of the nave of Exeter Cathedral is a pro- jecting gallery for the minstrels, with sculptures of them on the front play- ing instruments, t In the choir of Lincoln Cathedral, some of the noble series of angels which fill the spandrels of its arcades, and which have given to it the name of the Angel Choir, are playing instruments, viz., the trumpet, double pipe, pipe and tabret, dulcimer, viol and harp. They represent the heavenly choir attuning their praises in harmony with the human choir below : " Therefore with angels and archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify thy glorious name.'' There is a band of musicians sculptured on the grand portal of the Cathedral at Rheims ; a sculptured capital from the church of St. Georges * A harp with its case about the lower part is in the Add. MS. 18,854, ^- 9'- t There are casts of these in the Mediaeval Court of the Crystal Palace. The Minstrels of the Middle Ages. de Bocherville, now in the Museum at Rouen, represents eleven crowned figures playing different instruments.* On tHe chasse of St. Ursula at Bruges are angels playing instruments beau- tifully painted by Hemling.t We cannot resist the temp- tation to introduce here another charming little drawing of an angelic minstrel, playing a psaltery, from the Royal MS. 14 E iii.; others occur at folio 1 of the same MS. The band of village musicians with flute, violin, clarinet, and bass-viol, whom most of us have seen occupying the singing-gallery of some country church, are the representa- tives of the band of minstrels who occupied the rood-lofts in mediaeval times. Clerical censors of manners during the Middle Ages frequently denounce the dissoluteness of minstrels, and the minstrels take their revenge by lampooning the vices of the clergy. Like all sweeping censures of whole classes of men, the accusations on both sides must be received cautiously. However, it is certain that the minstrels were patronised by the clergy.^ We shall presently find a record of the minstrels of the Bishop of Winchester in the four- teenth century; and the Ordinance of Edward II., quoted at p. 296, tells us that minstrels flocked to the houses of prelates as well as of nobles and gentlemen. In the thirteenth century, that fine sample of an English bishop, Grostete of Lincoln, was a great patron of minstrel science : he himself composed an allegorical romance, the Chasteau d' Amour. Robert de Brunne, in his English paraphrase of Grostete's Manuel de Peches (begun in 1303), gives us a charming anecdote of the Bishop's love of minstrelsy. " Y shall yow telle as y have herde, Of the bysshope seyut Roberde, Hys to-name ys Grostet. Of Lynliolne, so seyth the gest An Angel Minstrel. ■ Annales Aichsologiques," vol. vi. p. 315. t Ibid., vol. ix. p. 329. Bishops^ Minstrels. 289 He loved moche to here the harpe, For mannys wilte hyt makyth sharpe. Next hys chaumber, besyde his stody, Hys harpers chaumbre was fast therby. Many tymes be nyght and dayys, He had solace of notes and layys. One askede hym onys resun why He hadde delyte in mynstralsy ? He answered hym on thys manere Why he helde the harper so dere. The vertu of the harpe, thurghe skylle and ryght, Wyl destroy the fendes myght ; And to the croys by gode skylle Ys the harpe lykened weyle. Tharfor gode men, ye shul lere Whan ye any gleraan here, To wurschep Gode al youre powere, As Dauyde seyth yn the sautere." We know that the abbots Hved in many respects as other great people did ; they exercised hospitality to guests of gentle birth in their own halls, treated them to the diversions of hunting and hawking over their manors and in their forests, and did not scruple themselves to partake in those amusements ; possibly they may have retained minstrels wherewith to solace their guests and themselves. It is quite certain at least that the wandering minstrels were welcome guests at the religious houses ; and Warton records many instances of the rewards given to them on those occasions. We may record two or three examples. The monasteries had great annual feasts, on the ecclesiastical festivals, and often also in commemoration of some saint or founder ; there was a grand service in church, and a grand dinner afterwards in the refectory. The convent of St. Swithin, in Winchester, used thus to keep the anniver- sary of Alwyne the Bishop ; and in the year a.d. 1374 we find that six min- strels, accompanied by four harpers, performed their minstrelsies at dinner, in the hall of the convent, and during supper sang the same gest in the great arched chamber of the prior, on which occasion the chamber was adorned, according to custom on great occasions, with the prior's great p p 290 The Minstrels of the Middle Ages. dorsal (a hanging for the wall behind the table), haying on it a picture of the three kings of Cologne. These minstrels and harpers belonged partly to the Royal household in Winchester Castle, partly to the Bishop of Win- chester. Similarly at the priory of Bicester, in Oxfordslijre, in the year A.D. 1432, the treasurer of the monastery gave four shillings to six minstrels from Buckingham, for singing in the refectory, on the Feast of the Epiphany, a legend of the Seven Sleepers. In a.d. 1430 the brethren of the Holie Crosse at Abingdon celebrated their annual feast ; twelve priests were hired for the occasion to help to sing the dirge with becoming solemnity, for which they received four pence each ; and twelve minstrels, some of whom came from the neighbouring town of Maidenhead, were rewarded with two shillings and four pence each, besides their share of the feast and food for their horses. At Mantoke Priory, near Coventry, there was a yearly obit ; and in the year a.d. 1441, we find that eight priests were hired from Coventry to assist in the service, and the six minstrels of their neighbour. Lord Clinton, of Mantoke Castle, were engaged to sing, harp, and play, in the hall of the monastery, at the grand refection allowed to the monks on the occasion of that anniversary. The minstrels amused Ihe monks and their guests during dinner, and then dined themselves in the painted chamber {camera pida) of the monastery with the sub-prior, on which occasion the chamberlain furnished eight massy tapers of wax to light their table. These are instances of minstrels formally invited by abbots and convents to take part in certain great festivities ; but there are proofs that the wan- dering minstrel, who, like all other classes of society, would find hospi- tality in the guest-house of the monastery, was also welcomed for his minstrel skill, and rewarded for it with guerdon of money, besides his food and lodging. Warton gives instances of entries in monastic accounts for disbursements on such occasions ; and there is an anecdote quoted by Percy of some dissolute monks who one evening admitted two poor priests whom they took to be minstrels, and ill-treated and turned them out again when they were disappointed of their anticipated gratification. On the next page is a curious illumination from the Royal MS. 2 B vii., representing a friar and a nun themselves making minstrelsy. Military Music. 291 At tournaments the scene was enlivened by the strains of minstrels, and horses and men inspirited to the charge by the loud fanfare of their Nun and Friar with Musical Instruments. instruments. Thus in " The Knight's Tale," at the tournament of Palamon and Arcite, as the king and his company rode to the lists : — And again : — " Up S°^ ^^ trumpets and the melodie. And to the listes ride the companie." ' ' Then were the gates shut, and cried was loude Now do your devoir younge knightes proud. The heralds left their pricking up and down, Now ringen trumpets loud and clarioun. There is no more to say, but East and West In go the speares sadly in the rest ; In goeth the sharpe spur into the side ; There see men who can just and who can ride. Men shiveren shaftes upon shieldes thick. He feeleth thro the hearte-spoon the prick." In actual war only the trumpet and horn and tabor seem to have been used. In " The Romance of Merlin " we read of " Trumpes beting, tambours classing " in the midst of a battle ; and again, in Chaucer's " Knight's Tale " — "Pipes, trumpets, nakeres,* and clariouns That in the battle blowen bloody sounds ;" * Kettle-drums. 292 The Minstrels of the Middle Ages. and again, on another occasion — " The trumping and the tabouring, Did together the knights fling." There are several instances in the Royal MS., 2 B vii., in which trumpeters are sounding their instruments in the rear of a company of charging chevaliers. Again, when a country knight and his neighbour wished to keep their spears in practice against the next tournament, or when a couple of errant knights happened to meet at a manor-house, the lists were rudely staked out in the base-court of the castle, or in the meadow under the castle-walls ; and, while the ladies looked on and waved their scarfs from the windows or the battlements, and the vassals flocked round the ropes, the minstrels gave animation to the scene. In the illus- tration on p. 414 from the title-page of the Royal MS., 14 E iii., a fine volume of romances of early fourteenth-century date, we are made spec- tators of a scene of the kind ; the herald is arranging the preliminaries between the two knights who are about to joust, while a band of minstrels inspire them with their strains. Not only at these stated periods, but at all times, the minstrels were liable to be called upon to enliven the tedium of their lord or lady with music and song ; the King of Hungary (in " The Squire of Low Degree "), trying to comfort his daughter for the loss of her lowly lover by the promise of all kinds of pleasures, says that in the morning — ' ' Ye shall have harpe, sautry, and songe, And other myrthes you among." And again a little further on, after dinner — " When you come home your menie araonge, Ye shall have revell, daunces, and songe ; Lytle children, great and smale, Shall syng as doth the nightingale." And yet again, when she is gone to bed — "And yf ye no rest can take, All night raynstrels for you shall wake." Errant Minstrels. 293 Doubtless many of the long winter evenings, when the whole household was assembled round the blazing wood fire in the middle of the hall, would be passed in listening to those interminable tales of chivalry which my lord's chief harper would chant to his harp, while his fellows would play a symphony between the " fyttes." Of other occasions on which the min- strels would have appropriate services to render, an entry in the House- hold Book of the Percy family in a.d. 1512 gives us an indication : There were three of them at their castle in the north, a tabret, a lute, and a rebec ; and we find that they had a new-year's gift, " xxj. for playing at my lordes chamber doure on new yeares day in the momynge ; and for play- inng at my lordes sone and heire's chamber doure, the lord Percy, \\s. ; and for playing at the chamber dours of my lord's yonger sonnes, my yonge masters, after viii. the piece for every of them." But besides the official minstrels of kings, nobles, and gentlemen, bishops, and abbots, and corporate towns, there were a great number of " minstrels unattached," and of various grades of society, who roamed abroad singly or in company, from town to town, from court to camp, from castle to monastery, flocking in great numbers to tournaments and festivals and fairs, and welcomed everywhere. The summer-time was especially the season for the wanderings of these children of song,* as it was of the knight-errant f and of the pilgrim! also. No wonder that the works of the minstrels abound as they do with charming outbursts of song on the return of the spring and summer, and the delights which they bring. All winter long the minstrel had lain in some town, chafing at its miry and unsavoury streets, and its churlish, money-getting citizens ; or in some hospitable castle or manor-house, perhaps, listening to the wind roaring through the broad forests, and howling among the • In the account of the minstrel at Kenilworth, subsequently given, he is described as " a squiere minstrel of Middlesex, that travelled the country this summer time." t " Miri it is in somer's tide Swainfe gin on justing ride." J " Whanne that April with his shoures sote," &c. " Than longen folk to gon on pilgrimages." 294 The Minstrels of the Middle Ages. turrets overhead, until he pined for freedom and green fields ; his host, perchance, grown tired of his ditties, and his only occupation to con new ones ; this, from the " Percy Reliques," sounds like a verse composed at such a time : — " In time of -winter alange* it is ! The foules lesenf her bliss ! The leves fallen off the tree ; Rain alangeth % the countree." No wonder they welcomed the return of the bright, warm days, when they could resume their gay, adventurous, open-air life, in the fresh, flowery meadows, and the wide, green forest glades ; roaming to town and village, castle and monastery, feast and tournament ; alone, or in company with a band of brother minstrels ;' meeting by the way with gay knights adven- turous, or pilgrims not less gay — if they were like those of Chaucer's company ; welcomed everywhere by priest and abbot, lord and loon. These are the sort of strains which they carolled as they rested under the white hawthorn, and carelessly tinkled an accompaniment on their harps : — " Merry is th' ente of May ; The fowles maketh merry play ; The time is hot, and long the day. The joyful nightingale singeth, In the grene mede flowers spiingeth. * * ■ * * " MeiTy it is in somer's tide ; Fowles sing in forest wide ; Swaines gin on justing ride, Maidens liffen hem in pride." The minstrels were often men of position and wealth. Rayer, or Raherus, the first of the king's minstrels whom we meet with after the Conquest, founded the Priory and Hospital of St. Bartholomew, in Smithfield, London, in the third year of Henry I., a.d. 1102, and became the first prior of his own foundation. He was not the only minstrel who turned religious. Foulquet de Marseille, first a merchant, then a minstrel of note — some of his songs have descended to these days — at length turned monk, and was made abbot of Tournet, and at length Archbishop of * Tedious, irksome. f Lose their. J Renders tedious. Errant Minstrels. 295 Toulouse, and is known in history as the persecutor of the Albigenses : he died in 1 2 3 1 A.D. It seems to have been no unusual thing for men of family to take up the wandering, adventurous life of the minstrel, much as others of the same class took up the part of knight adventurous ; they frequently travelled on horseback, with a servant to carry their harp ; flocking to courts and tournaments, where the graceful and accomplished singer of chivalrous deeds was perhaps more caressed than the large-limbed warrior who achieved them ; and obtained large rewards, instead of huge blows, for his guerdon. There are some curious anecdotes showing the kind of people who became minstrels, their wandering habits, their facility of access to all companies and places, and the uses which were sometimes made of their pri- vileges. All our readers will remember how Blondel de Nesle, the minstrel of Richard Cceur de Lion, wandered over Europe in search of his master. There is a less known instance of a similar kind and of the same period. Ela, the heiress of D'Evereux, Earl of Salisbury, had been carried abroad and secreted by her French relations in Normandy. To discover the place of her concealment, a knight of the Talbot family spent two years in exploring that province; at first under the disguise of a pilgrim; then, having found where she was confined, in order to gain admittance, he assumed the dress and character of a harper; and being a jocose person, exceed- ingly skilled in the Gests of the ancients, he was gladly received into the family. He succeeded in carrying off the lady, whom he restored to her liege lord the king, who bestowed her in marriage, not upon the adven- turous knight-minstrel, as ought to have been the ending of so pretty a novelet, but upon his own natural brother, William Longesp^e, to whom she brought her earldom of Salisbury in dower. Many similar instances, not less valuable evidences of the manners of the times because they are fiction, might be selected from the romances of the Middle Ages ; proving that it was not unusual for men of birth and station* to assume, for a longer or shorter time, the character and life of the wandering minstrel. * Fontenelle ("Histoire du ThSitre," qaoted by Percy) tells us that in France, men, who by the division of the family property had only the half or the fourth part of an old 296 The Minstrels of the Middle Ages. But besides these gentle minstrels, there were a multitude of others of the lower classes of society, professors of the joyous science ; descending through all grades of musical skill, and of respectability of character. We find regulations fropi time to time intended to check their irregularities. In 1315 King Edward II. issued an ordinance addressed to sheriffs, &c., as fol- lows :" Forasmuch as . . . . many idle persons under colour of mynstrelsie, and going in messages* and other faigned busines, have been and yet be receaved in other men's houses to meate and drynke, and be not therwith contented yf they be not largely considered with gyftes of the Lordes of the Houses, &c We wyllyng to restrayne such outrageous enter- prises and idlenes, &c., have ordeyned that to the houses of Prelates, Earls, and Barons, none resort to meate and drynke unless he be a mynstrell, and of these mynstrels that there come none except it be three or four mynstrels of honour at most in one day unless he be desired of the Lorde of the House. And to the houses of meaner men, that none come unlesse he be desired ; and that such as shall come so holde themselves contented with meate and drynke, and with such curtesie as the Master of the House wyl shewe unto them of his owne good wyll, without their askyng of any thyng. And yf any one do against this ordinaunce at the first tyme he to lose his minstrelsie, and at the second tyme to forsweare his craft, and never to be received for a minstrell in any house." This curious ordinance gives additional proof of several facts which we have before noted, viz., that minstrels were well received everywhere, and had even become exacting in their expectations ; that they used to wander about in bands ; and the penalties seem to indicate that the minstrels were already incorporated in a guild. The first positive evidence of such a seignorial castle, sometimes went rhyming about the world, and returned to acquire the remainder of their ancestral castle. * In the MS. illuminations of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the messenger is denoted by peculiarities of equipment. He generally bears a spear, and has a very small, roun'd target (or, perhaps, a badge of his lord's arms) at his girdle — e.g., in the MS. Add. 11,639 of the close of the thirteenth century, folio 203 v. In the fifteenth century we see messengers cairying letters openly, fastened in the cleft of a split wand, in the MS. of about the same date, Harl. 1,527, folio 1,080, and in the fourteenth century MS. Add. 10,293, folio 45 ; and in Hans Burgmaier's Der Weise Konige. Organization of Minstrels. 297 guild is in the charter (already alluded to) of 9th King Edward IV., A.D. 1469, in which he grants to Walter Haliday, Marshall, and seven others, his own minstrels, a charter by which he restores a Fraternity or perpetual Guild (such as he understands the brothers and sisters of the Fraternity of Minstrels had in times past), to be governed by a mar- shall, appointed for life, and by two wardens, to be chosen annually, who are empowered to admit brothers and sisters into the guild, and are authorised to examine the pretensions of all such as affect to exercise the minstrel profession ; and to regulate, govern, and punish them through- out the realm — those of Chester excepted. It seems probable that th,e King's Minstrel, or the King of the Minstrels, had long previously pos- sessed an authority of this kind over all the members of the professiojj^ and that the organization veiy much resembled that of the heralds. The two are mentioned together in the Statute of Arms for Tournaments, passed in the reign of Edward I., a.d. 1295. "E qe nul Roy de Harraunz ne Menestrals* portent privez armez :" that no King of the Heralds or of the Minstrels shall carry secret weapons. That the minstrels attended all tournaments we have already mentioned. The heralds and minstrels are often coupled in the same sentence 5 thus Froissart tells us that at a Christmas entertainment given by the Earl of Foix, there were many minstrels, as well his own as strangers, " and the Earl gave to Heraulds and Minstrelles the sum of fyve hundred frankes ; and gave to the Duke of Tourayne's mynstreles gowns of cloth of gold furred with ermine, valued at 200 frankes." f * It is right to state that one MS. of this statute gives Mareschans instead of Menes- trals ; but the reading in the text is that preferred by the Record Commission, who have published the whole of the interesting document. f In the romance of Richard Cceur de Lion we read that, after the capture of Acre, he distributed among the " heralds, disours, tabourers, and trompours," who accompanied him, {he greater part Of the money, jewels, horses, and fine robes which had fallen to his share. We have many accounts of the lavish generosity with which chivalrous lords propitiated the favourable report of the heralds and minstrels, whose good repprt was Q Q CHAPTER III. GUILDS OF MINSTRELS. T is not unlikely that the principal minstrel of every great noble exercised some kind of authority over all minstrels within his lord's jurisdiction. There are several famous instances of some- thing of this kind on record. The earliest is that of the authority granted by Ranulph, Earl of Chester, to the Buttons over all minstrels of his jurisdiction ; for the romantic origin of the grant the curious reader may see the Introductory Essay to Percy's " Rehques," or the original autho- rities in Dugdale's " Monasticon," and D. Towel's " History of Cambria." The Beverley iliiistreh. The ceremonies attending the exercise of this authority are thus described by Dugdale, as handed down to his time : — viz., " That at Midsummer fair there, all the minstrels of that countrey resorting to Chester, do attend the heir of Button from his lodging to St. John's Church (he being then The Great Guilds. 299 accompanied by many gentlemen of the couatrey), one of the minstrels walking before him in a surcoat of his armSj depicted on taffeta ; the rest of his fellows proceeding two and two, and playing on their several sorts of musical instruments. And after divine service ended, gave the like attendance on him back to his lodging ; where a court being kept by his (Mr. Button's) steward, and all the minstrels formally called, certain orders and laws are usually made for the better government of that society, with penalties on those that transgress." This court, we have seen, was exempted from the jurisdiction of the King of the Minstrels by Edward IV., as it was also from the operation of all Acts of Parliament on the subject down to so late a period as the seventeenth year of George II., the last of them. In the fourth year of King Richard II., John* of Gaunt created a court of minstrels at Tutbury, in Staffordshire, similar to that at Chester ; in the charter (which is quoted in Dr. Plott's " History of Staffordshire," p. 436) he gives them a King of the Minstrels and four officers, with a legal authority over the men of their craft in the five adjoining counties of Stafford, Derby, Notts, Leicester, and Warwick. The form of election, as it existed at a comparatively late period, is fully detailed by Dr. Plott. Another of these guilds was the ancient company or fraternity of min- strels in Beverley, of which an account is given in Poulson's " Beverlac " (p. 302). When the fraternity originated we do not know ; but they were of some consideration and wealth in the reign of Henry VI., when the Church of St. Mary's, Beverley, was built ; for thfey gave a pillar to it, on the capital of which a band of minstrels are sculptured, of whom we here re-produce a drawing from Carter's " Ancient Painting and Sculpture," to which we shall have presently to ask the reader's further attention. The oldest existing document of the fraternity is a copy of laws of the time of Philip and Mary. They are similar to those by which all trade guilds were governed : their officers were an alderman and two stewards or sears * May we infer from the exemption of the jurisdiction of the Buttons, and not of that of the court of Tutbury and the guUd of Beverley, that the jurisdiction of the King ofthe Minstrels over the whole realm was established after the former, and before the latter ? The French minstrels were incorporated by charter, and had a king in the year 1330, forty-seven years before Tutbury. In the ordonnance of Edward II., 1315, there is no allusion to such a general jurisdiction. 300 The Minstrels of the Middle Ages. (i.Ci seers, searchers) ; the only items in their laws which throw much aidditional light upon our subject are the one already partly quoted, that they should not take " any new brother except he be mynstrell to some man of honour or worship (proving that men of honour and worship still had minstrels), or waite * of some towne corporate or other ancient town^ or else of such honestye and conyng as shall be thought laudable and pleasant to the hearers there." And again, " no myler, shepherd, Or of Goatherds playing Musical Instruments. other occupation, or husbandman, or husbandman servant, playing upon pype or othet instrument, shall sue any wedding, or other thing that pertaineth to the said science, except in his own parish." We may here * One of the minstrels of King Edward the Fourth's household (there were thirteen others) was called the wayte ; it was his duty to "pipe watch." In the romance of " Richard Cceur de Lion," when Richard, with his fleet, has come sUently in the night under the walls of Jaffa, which was besieged on the land side by the Saracen army : — " They looked up to the castel. They heard no pipe, ne flagel,^ They drew em nigh to land, If they mighten understand, And they could ne nought espie, Ne by no voice of minstralcie, That quick man in the castle were." And so they continued in uncertainty until the spring of the day, then " A wait there came, in a kemel,^ And piped a nott in a flagel." And when he recognised King Richard's galleys, " Then a merrier note he blew, And piped, ' Seigneurs or sus ! or sus ! King Richard is comen to us ! ' " ' Flageolet. 2 Batdement. Shepherds^ Pipes. 301 digress for a moment to say that the shepherds, throughout the Middle Ages, seem to have been as musical as the swains of Theocritus or Virgil ; in the MS. illuminations we constantly find them represented playing upon instruments ; we give a couple of goatherds from the MS. Royal 2 B vii. folio 83, of early fourteenth-century date. Besides the pipe and horn, the bagpipe was also a rustic instrument. There is a shepherd play- ing upon one in folio 112 of the same MS. ; and again, in the early fourteenth-century MS. Royal 3 B vi., on the reverse of folio 8, is a group of shepherds, one of whom plays a small pipe, and another the bagpipes. Chaucer (3rd Book of the " House of Fame ") mentions — "Pipes made of greene come, As have these little herd gromes, That keepen beastes in the bromes." Shepherd with Bagpipes, It is curious to find that even at so late a period as the time of Queen Mary, the shepherds still officiated at weddings and other merrymakings in their villages, so as to excite the jealousy of the professors of the joyous science. Rustic Merry-making. The accompanying wood-cut, from a MS. in the French" National Library, may represent such a rustic merry-making. 302 The Minstrels of the Middle Ages. One might, perhaps, have been disposed to think that the good minstrels of Beverley were only endeavouring to revive usages which had fallen into desuetude ; but we find that in the time of Elizabeth the profession of minstrelsy was sufficiently universal to call for the inquiry, in the Injunctions of 1559, "Whether any minstrells, or any other persons, do use to sing any songs or ditties that be vile or unclean.'' Ben Jonson gives us numerous allusions to them : e.g., in the " Tale of a Tub," old Turve talks of " old Father Rosin, the chief minstrel here — chief minstrel, too, of Highgate ; she has hired him, and all his two boys, for a day and a half." They were to be dressed in bays, rosemary, and ribands, to precede the bridal party across the fields to church and back, and to play at dinner. And so in " Epicoene,'' act iii. sc. i ; — " Well, there be guests to meat now ; how shall we do for music .' " [for Morose's wedding.] Clerimont. — The smell of the venison going thro' the street will invite one noise of fiddlers or other. Dauphine. — I would it would call the trumpeters hither ! Clerimont. — Faith, there is hope : they have intelligence of all feasts. There's a good correspondence betwixt them and the London cooks : 'tis twenty to one but we have them." And Dryden, so late as the time of William III., speaks of them — " These fellows Were once the minstrels of a country show, Followed the prizes through each paltry town, By trumpet cheeks and bloated faces known." There were also female minstrels throughout the Middle Ages ; but, as might be anticipated from their irregular wandering life, they bore an indifferent reputation. The romance of " Richard Coeur de Lion " says that it was a female minstrel, and, still worse, an Enghshwoman, who re- cognised and betrayed the knight-errant king and his companions, on their return from the Holy Land, to his enemy, the " King of Almain." The passage is worth quoting, as it illustrates several of the traits of minstrel habits which we have already recorded. After Richard and his com- panions had dined on a goose, which they cooked for themselves at a tavern — Female Minstrels. 303 " When they had drunken well afin, A minstralle com therin," And said ' Gentlemen, wittOy, Will ye have any miustrelsey ? ' Richard bade that she should go. That turned him to mickle woe ! The minstralle took in mind,* And saith, ' Ye are men unkind ; And if I may, ye shall for-think t Ye gave neither meat nor drink. For gentlemen should bede % To minstrels that abouten yede \ Of their meat, "wine, and ale ; For los II rises of minstrale.' She was English, and well true By speech, and sight, and hide, and hue." Stow tells that in 1316, while Edward II. was solemnizing his Feast of Pentecost in his hall at Westminster, sitting royally at table, with his peers about him, there entered a woman adorned like a minstrel, sitting on a great horse, trapped as minstrels then used, who rode round about the tables showing her pastime. The reader will remember the use which Sir E. B. Lytton has made of a troop of tymbesteres in "The Last of the Barons," bringing them in at the epochs of his tale with all the dramatic effect of the Greek chorus : the description which he gives of their habits is too sadly truthful. The daughter of Herodias dancing before Herod is scorn- fully represented by the mediaeval artists as a female minstrel performing the tumbling tricks which were part of their craft. We give, a representation of a female minstrel playing the tambourine from the MS. Royal, 2 B vii. folio 182. A question of considerable interest to artists, no less than to antiquaries, is whether the minstrels were or not distinguished Female Minstrel. * Was offended. t Repent. X Give, \ Travel. Praise 304 The Minstrels of the Middle Ages. by any peculiar costume or habit. Bishop Percy* and his followers say that they were, and the assertion is grounded on the following evidences : Baldulph, the Saxon, in the anecdote already related, when assuming the disguise of a minstrel, is described as shaving his head and beard, and dressing himself in the habit of that profession. Alfred and Aulaff were known at once to be minstrels. The two poor priests who were turned out of the monastery by the dissolute monks were at first mistaken for minstrels. The woman who entered Westminster Hall at King Edward the Second's Pentecost feast was adorned like a minstrel, sitting on a great horse, trapped as minstrels then used. The Knight of La Tour-Landry (chap, xvii.) tells a story which shows that the costume of minstrels was often conspicuous for richness and fashion : " As y have herde telle, Sir Piere de Luge was atte the feste where as were gret foyson of lordes, ladies, knightes, and squieres, and gentil- women, and so there came in a yonge squier before hem that was sette atte dyner and salued the companie, and he was clothed in a cote-hardy f upon the guyse of Almayne, and in this wise he come further before the lordes and ladies, and made hem goodly reverence. And so the said Sir Piere called this yonge squier with his voys before alle the statis, and saide unto hym and axed hym, where was his fedylle or hys ribible, or suche an instrument as longethe unto a mynstralle. ' Syr,' saide the squier, ' I canne not medille me of such thinge, it is not my craft nor science.' ' Sir,' saide the knight, ' I canne not trowe that ye saye, for ye be counterfait in youre araye and lyke unto a mynstralle ; for I have knowe herebefore alle youre aunsetours, and the knightes and squiers of youre kin, which were alle worthie men ; but I sawe never none of hem that were [wore] counterfait, nor that clothed hem in such array.' And thanne the yonge squier answered the knight and saide, 'Sir, by as moche as it mislykithe you it shalle be amended,' and cleped a pursevant and gave him the cote-hardy. And he abled hym selff in an other gowne, and come agen into the halle, and thanne the anncyen knight saide openly, ' This yonge squier shalle have * Introduction to his " Reliques of Early EngUsh Poetry." t The close-iitting outer garment worn in the fourteenth century, shown in the engravings on p. 350. The Kenilworth Minstrel. 305 worshipe for he hath trowed and do bi the counsaile of the elder with- oute ani contraryenge.'" In the time of Henry VII. we read of nine ells of tawny cloth for three minstrels ; and in the " History of Jack of Newbury," of " a noise \i.e. band] of musicians in townie coats, who, putting off their caps, asked if they would have music." And lastly, there is a description of the person who personated " an ancient mynstrell " in one of the pageants which were played before Queen Elizabeth at her famous visit to Kenilworth, which is curious enough to be quoted. " A person, very meet seemed he for the purpose, of a forty-five years old, apparalled partly as he would himself. His cap off; his head seemly rounded tonsterwise ;* fair kembed, that with a sponge daintily dipped in a little capon's grease was finely smoothen, to make it shine like a mallard's wing. His beard smugly shaven ; and yet his shirt after the new trick, with ruff's fair starched, sleeked and glistering like a paire of new shoes, marshalled in good order with a setting stick and strut, that every rufif stood up like a wafer. A side {i.e. long) gown of Kendal Green, after the freshness of the year now, gathered at the neck with a narrow gorget, fastened afore with white clasp and keeper close up to the chin ; but easily, for heat to undo when he list. Seemly begirt in a red caddis girdle : from that a pair of capped Sheffield knives hanging a' two sides. Out of his bosom drawn forth a lappel of his napkin {i.e. handkerchief) edged with a blue lace, and marked with a true love, a heart, and a D. for Damian, for he was but a batchelor yet. His gown had side {i.e. long) sleeves down to midleg, slit from the shoulder to the hand, and lined with white cotton. His doublet sleeves of black worsted : upon them a pair of paynets (perhaps points) of tawny chamlet laced along the wrist with blue threaden points, a weall towards the hand of fustian-a-napes. A pair of red neather socks. A pair of pumps on his feet, with a cross cut at the toes for corns ; not new, indeed, yet cleanly blackt with soot, and shining as a shoeing honi. About his neck a red ribband suitable to his girdle. His harp in good grace dependant before him. His wrest tyed to a green lace, and hanging by ; under the gorget * Which Percy supposes to mean " tonsure-wise," like priests and monks. R R 3o6 The Mifisirels of the Middle Ages. of his gown a fair flaggon chain (pewter for) silver, as a squire-minstrel * of Middlesex that travelled the country this summer season, unto fairs and worshipful men's houses. From this chain hung a scutcheon, with metal and colour resplendant upon his breast, of the ancient arms of Islington,'' to which place he is represented as belonging. From these authorities Percy would deduce that the minstrels were tOHSured and apparelled very much after the same fashion as priests. The A Band of Minstrels. pictorial authorities do not bear out any such conclusion. There are abundant authorities for the behef that the dress of the minstrels was remarkable for a very unclerical sumptuousness ; but in looking through the numerous ancient representations of minstrels we find no trace of the tonsure, and no peculiarity of dress ; they are represented in the ordinary costume of their time ; in colours blue, red, grey, particoloured, like other civiKans ; with hoods, or hats, or without either ; frequently the different members of the same band of minstrels present all these differences of * Percy supposes from this expression that there were inferior orders, as yeomen- minstrels. May we not also infer that there were superior orders, as knight-minstrels, over whom was the king-minstrel .? for we are told " he was but a batchelor (whose chivalric signification has no reference to matrimony) yet." We are disposed to believe that this was a real minstrel. Langham tells us that he was dressed "partly as he would himself:" probably, the only things which were not according to his wont, -were that my Lord of Leicester may have given him a new coat ; that he had a httle more capon's grease than usual in his hair ; and that he was set to sing " a solemn song, warranted for story, out of King Arthur's Acts," instead of more modern minstrel ware. Private Minstrels. 307 costume, as in the instance here given, from the title-page of the fourteenth century MS. Add., 10,293 ; proving that the minstrels did not affect any uniformity of costume whatever. The household minstrels probably wore their master's badge* (liveries were not usual until a late period) ; others the badge of their guild. Thus in the Morte Arthur, Sir Dinadan makes a reproachful lay against King Arthur, and teaches it an harper, that hight Elyot, and sends him to sing it before King Mark and his nobles at a great feast. The king asked, " Thou harper, how durst thou be so bold to sing this song before me ? " " Sir," said Elyot, " wit you well I am a minstrell, and I must doe as I am commanded of these lords that I bear the armes of;" and in proof of the privileged character of the minstrel we find the outraged king replying, " Thou saiest well, I charge thee that thou hie thee fast out of my sight." So the squire-minstrel of Middlesex, who belonged to Islington, had a Cymbals and Trumpets. chain round his neck, with a scutcheon upon it, upon which were blazoned the arms of Islington. And in the efifigies of the Beverley minstrels, which we have given on page 298, we find that their costume is the ordinary costume of the period, and is not alike in all; but that each of them has a chain round his neck, to which is suspended what is probably a scutcheon, like that of the Islington minstrel. In short, a -' Heralds in the fourteenth century bore the arms of their lord on a small scutcheon fastened at the side of their girdle. 3o8 The Minstrels of the Middle Ages. careful examination of a number of illustrations in illuminated MSS. of various dates, from Saxon downwards, leaves the impression that minstrels RegaU and Double Pipe (Royal 2 B vii). wore the ordinary costume of their period, more or less rich in material, or fashionable in cut, according to their means and taste ; and that the only Regals or Organ (Royal, 14 K iii). distinctive mark of their profession was the instrument which each bore, or, as in the case of the Kenilworth minstrel, the tuning wrest hung by a Musical Instruments. 309 riband to his girdle ; and in the case of a household minstrel the badge of the lord whom he served. The forms of the most usual musical instruments of various periods may- be gathered from the illustrations which have already been given. The most common are the harp, fiddle, cittern or lute, hand-organ, the shalm or psaltery, the pipe and tabor, pipes of various sizes played like clarionets, but called flutes, the double pipe, hand-bells, trumpets and horns, bag- pipes, tambourine, tabret, drum, and cymbals. Of the greater number of these we have already incidentally given illustrations ; we add, on the last page, other illustrations, from the Royal MS., 2 B vii., and Royal MS. 14 E iii. In the fourteenth century new instruments were invented. Guillaume de Marhault in his poem of " Le Temps Pastour," gives us an idea of the multitude of instruments which composed a grand concert of the fifteenth century ; he says * — " La je vis tout en un ceme Viole, rubebe, gniterne, L'enmorache, le micamon, Citole et Psalterion, Harpes, tabours, trompes, nacaires, Orgues, comes plus de dix paires, Comemuse, flajos et chevrettes Douceines, simbales, clochettes, Tymbre, la flauste lorehaigne, Et le grand comet d'Alleraayne, Flacos de sans, fistula, pipe, Muse d'Aussay, trompe petite, Buisine, eles, monochorde, Ou il n' y a qu'une corde ; Et muse de blet tout ensemble. Et certainment il me semble Qu' oncques mais tele melodie Ne feust oncques vene ne oye ; Car chascun d'eux, selon I'accort De son instrament sans descort, Vitole, guiteme, citole, Harpe, trompe, come, flajole, Pipe, souffle, muse, naquaire, Taboure et qu eunque ou put faire ' Annales Archaeologiques," vii. p. 323. 3IO The Minstrels of the Middle Ages. De dois, de peune et k I'archet, Ois et vis en ce porchet." In conclusion we give a group of musical instruments from one of the illustrations of " Der Weise Konig," a work of the close of the fifteenth century. lUusical Iiistriiments of the i^ih Century. THE KNIGHTS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. CHAPTER I. SAXON ARMS AND ARMOUR. |E proceed, in this division of our work, to select out of the inex- haustible series of pictures of mediaeval life and manners con- tained in illuminated MSS., a gallery of subjects which will illustrate the armour and costume, the military life and chivalric adventures, of the Knights of the Middle Ages ; and to append to the pictures such explanations as they may seem to need, and such discursive remarks as the subjects may suggest. For the military costume of the Anglo-Saxon period we have the authority of the descriptions in their literature, illustrated by drawings in their illuminated MSS. ; and- if these leave any thing wanting in definiteness, the minutest details of form and ornamentation may often be recovered from the rusted and broken relics of armour and weapons which have been recovered from their graves, and are now preserved in our museums. Saxon freemen seem to have universally borne arms. Tacitus tells us of their German ancestors, that swords were rare among them, and the majority did not use lances, but that spears, with a narrow, sharp and short head, were the common and universal weapon, used either in distant or close fight; and that even the cavalry were satisfied with a shield and one of these spears. The law in later times seems to have required freemen to bear arms for 312 The Knights of the Middle Ages. the common defence ; the laws of Gula, which are said to have been originally established by Hacon the Good in the middle of the eighth century, required every man who possessed six marks besides his clothes to furnish himself with a red shield and a spear, an axe or a sword ; he who was worth twelve marks was to have a steel cap also ; and he who was worth eighteen marks a byrnie, or shirt of mail, in addition. Accordingly, in the exploration of Saxon graves we find in those of men " spears and javelins are extremely numerous," says Mr. C. Roach Smith, " and of a variety of shapes and sizes." "So constantly do we find them in the Saxon graves, that it would appear no man above the condition of a serf was buried without one. Some are of large size, but the majority come under the term of javelin or dart." The rusty spear-head lies beside the skull, and the iron boss of the shield on his breast ; the long, broad, heavy, rusted sword is comparatively seldom found beside the skeleton ; sometimes, but rarely, the iron frame of a skull-cap or helmet is found about \i^ ^\:Jh^^^^^ \ 'TI '^^ head. An examination of the pictures in the Saxon illuminated MSS. confirms the conclu- sion that the shield and spear were the com- mon weapons. Their bearers are generally in the usual civil costume, and not infrequently are bare-headed. The spear-shaft is almost i always spoken of as being of ash-wood; in- deed, the word cesc (ash) is used by metonymy for a spear ; and the common poetic name for a soldier \s,asc-berend, or asc-born, a spear-bearer; just as, in later times, we speak of him as a swordsman. We learn from the poets that the shield — " the broad war disk " — was made of linden-wood, as in Beowulf : — " He could not then refrain, but grasped his shield the yellow linden, drew his ancient sword." Saxon Soldiers. Saxon Militia. 313 From the actual remains of shields, we find that the central boss was of iron, of conical shape, and that a handle was fixed across its concavity by which it was held in the hand. The helmet is of various shapes ; the commonest are the tliree repre- Saxon Horse Soldiers. sented in our first four wood-cuts. The most common is the conical shape seen in the large wood-cut on p. 316. The Phrygian-shaped helmet, seen in the single figure on p. 314 is also a very common form; and the curious crested helmet worn by all the warriors in our first two wood-cuts of Saxon soldiers is also common. In some cases the conical helmet was of iron, but perhaps more frequently it was of leather, strengthened with a frame of iron. In the group of four foot soldiers in our first woodcut, it will be observed that the men wear tunics, hose, and shoes ; the multiplicity of folds and fluttering ends in the drapery is a characteristic of Saxon art, but the spirit and elegance of the heads is very unusual and very admirable. Our first three illustrations are taken from a beautiful little MS. of Pru- dentius in the Cottonian Library, known under the press mark, Cleopatra C. IV. The illuminations in this MS. are very clearly and skilfully drawn with the pen ; indeed, many of them are designed with so much spirit and s s 314 The K7iights of the Middle Ages. skill and grace, as to make them not only of antiquarian interest, but also of high artistic merit. The subjects are chiefly illustrations of Scripture history or of allegorical fable ; but, thanks to the custom which prevailed throughout the Middle Ages of representing all such subjects in contem- porary costume, and according to contemporary manners and customs, the Jewish patriarchs and their servants afford us perfectly correct repre- sentations of Saxon thanes and their cheorls ; Goliath, a perfect picture of a Saxon warrior, armed cap-a-pied ; and Pharaoh and his nobles of a Saxon Basileus and his witan. Thus, our second wood-cut"" is an illustration of the incident of Lot and his family being carried away captives by the Canaanitish kings after their successful raid against the cities of the plain ; but it puts before our eyes a group of the armed retainers of a Saxon king on a military expedition. It will be seeh that they wear the ordinary Saxon civil costume, a tunic and cloak ; that they are all armed with the spear, all wear crested helmets ; and the last of the group carries a round shield suspended at his back. The variety of attitude, the spirit and life of the figures, and the skill and gracefulness of the drawing, are admirable. Another very valuable series of illustrations of Saxon miUtary costume will be found in a MS. of ^Ifric's Paraphrase of the Pentateuch and Joshua, in the British Museum (Cleopatra B. iv.) ; at folio 25, for ex- ample, we have a representation of Abraham pursuing the five kings in order to rescue Lot : in the version of the Saxon artist the patriarch and his Arab servants are translated into a Saxon thane and his house carles, who are represented marching in a long array which takes up two bands of drawing across the vellum page. The Anglo-Saxon poets let us know that chief- tains and warriors wore a body defence, which they call a byrnie or a battle-sark. In the illu- minations we find this sometimes of leather, as in the wood-cut here given from the Prudentius which has already supplied us with twQ illustrations. It is very usually Vandyked at the edges, as Saxon Soldier, in Leather Armour^ Saxon Armour. 315 here represented. But the epithets, " iron byrnie," and " ringed byrnie," and " twisted battle-sark," show that the hauberk was often made of iron mail. In some of the illuminations it is represented as if detached rings of iron were sewn flat upon it : this may be really a representation of a kind of jazerant work, such as was frequently used in later times, or it may be only an unskilful way of representing the ordinary linked mail. A document of the early part of the eighth century, given in Mr. Thorpe's Anglo-Saxon Laws, seems to indicate that at that period the mail hauberk was usually worn only by the higher ranks. In distinguishing between the eorl and the cheorl it says,- if the latter thrive so well that he have a helmet and byrnie and sword ornamented with gold, yet if he have not five hydes of land, he is only a cheorl. By the time of the end of the Saxon era, however, it would seem that the men-at-arms were usually furnished with a coat of fence, for the warriors in the battle of Hastings are nearly all so represented in the Bayeux tapestry. In ^Ifric's Paraphrase, already mentioned (Cleopatra B. iv.), at folio 64, there is a representation of a king clothed in such a mail shirt, armed with sword and shield, attended by an armour-bearer, who carries a second shield but no offensive weapon, his business being to ward off the blows aimed at his lord. We should have given a wood-cut of this interesting group, but that it has already been engraved in the " Pictorial History of England" (vol. i.) and in Hewitt's "Ancient Armour" (vol. i. p. 60). This king with his shield-bearer does not occur in an illustration of Goliath and the man bearing a shield who went before him, nor of Saul and his armour-bearer, where it would be suggested by the text ; but is one of the three kings engaged in battle against the cities of the plain ; it seems therefore to indicate a Saxon usage. Another of the kings in the same picture has no hauberk, but only the same costume as the warrior in the wood-cut on the next page. In the Additional MS. 11,695, in the British Museum, a work of the eleventh century, there are several representations of warriors thus fully armed, very rude and coarse in drawing, but valuable for the clearness with which they represent the military equipment of the time. At folio 194 there is a large figure of a warrior in a mail shirt, a conical helmet, 3i6 The Knights of the Middle Ages. strengthened with iron ribs converging to the apex, the front rib extending downwards, into what is called a nasal, i.e., a piece of iron extending downwards over the nose, so as to protect the face from a sword-cut across the upper part of it. At folio 233 of the same MS. is a group of six warriors, two on horseback and four on foot. We find them all with hauberk, iron helmets, round shields, and various kinds of leg defences • they have spears, swords, and one of the horsemen bears a banner of characteristic shape, i.e., it is a right-angled triangle, with the shortest side applied to the spear-shaft, so that the right angle is at the bottom. Saxon Military Customs. 317 A few extracts from the poem of Beowulf, a curious Saxon fragment, which the best scholars concur in assigning to the end of the eighth cen- tury, will help still further to bring these ancient warriors before our mind's eye. Here is a scene in King Hrothgar's hall : " After evening carae and Hrothgar had departed to his court, guarded the mansion countless warriors, as they oft ere had done, they bared the bench-floor_ it was overspread with beds and bolsters, they set at their heads their disks of war, their shield-wood bright ; there on the bench was over the noble, easy to be seen, his high martial helm, his ringed bymie and war-wood stout." Beowulfs funeral pole is said to be — " with helmets, war brands, and bright bymies behung." And in this oldest of Scandinavian romances we have the natural reflec- tions — "the hard helm shall adorned with gold from the fated fall ; mortally wounded sleep those who war to rage by trumpet should announce ; in lilce manner the war shirt which in battle stood over the crash of shields the bite of swords shall moulder after the warrior ; the byrnie's ring may not 3 iB The Knights of the Middle Ages. after the martial leader go far on the side of heroes ; there is no joy of harp no glee-wood's mirth, no good hawk swings through the hall, nor the swift steed tramps the city place. Baleful death has many living kinds sent forth." Reflections which Coleridge summed up in the brief lines — " Their swords are rust. Their bones are dust. Their souls are with the saints, we trust." The wood-cut on page 316 is taken from a collection of various Saxon pictures in the British Museum, bound together in the volume marked Tiberius C. VI., at folio 9. Our wood-cut is a reduced copy. In the original the warrior is seven or eight inches high, and there is, therefore, ample room for the delineation of every part of his costume. From the embroidery of the tunic, and the ornamentation of the shield and helmet, we conclude that we have before us a person of consideration, and he is represented as in the act of combat ; but we see his armour and arms are only those to which we have already affirmed that the usual equipment was limited. The helmet seems to be strengthened with an iron rim and converging ribs, and is furnished with a short nasal. The figure is without the usual cloak, and therefore the better shows the fashion of the tunic. The banding of the legs was not for defence, it is common in civil costume. The quasi-banding of the forearm is also some- times found in civil costume ; it seems not to be an actual banding, still less a spiral armlet, but merely a fashion of wearing the tunic sleeve. We see how the sword is, rather inartifi daily, slung by a belt over the shoulder; how the shield is held by the iron handle across its hollow spiked umbo ; and how the barbed javelin is cast. On the preceding page of this MS. is a similar figure, but without the sword. Saxon Weapons. 319 There were some other weapons frequently used by the Saxons which we have not yet had occasion to mention. The most important of these is the axe. It is not often represented in illuminations, and is very rarely found in graves, but it certainly was extensively in use in the latter part of the Anglo-Saxon period, and was perhaps introduced by the Danes. The house carles of Canute, we are expressly told, were armed with axes, halberds, and swords, ornamented with gold. In the ship which Godwin presented to Hardicanute, William of Malmesbury tells us the soldiers wore two bracelets of gold on each arm, each bracelet weighing sixteen ounces ; they had gilt helmets ; in the right hand they carried a spear of iron, and in the left a Danish axe, and they wore swords hiked with gold. The axe was also in common use by the Saxons at the battle of Hastings. There are pictorial examples of the single axe in the Cottonian MS., Cleo- patra C. VIII. ; of the double axe — the bipennis — in the Harleian MS., 603 ; and of various forms of the weapon, including the pole-axe, in the Bayeux tapestry. The knife or dagger was also a Saxon weapon. There is a picture in the Anglo-Saxon MS. in the Paris Library, called the Duke de Berri's Psalter, in which a combatant is armed with what appears to be a large double-edged knife and a shield, and actual examples of it occur in Saxon graves. The seax, which is popularly believed to have been a dagger and a characteristic Saxon weapon, seems to have been a short single-edged slightly curved weapon, and is rarely found in England. It is mentioned in Beowulf: — he — " drew his deadly seax, bitter and battle sharp, that he on his bymie bore." The sword was usually about three feet long, two-edged and heavy in the blade. Sometimes, especially in earlier examples, it is without a guard. Its hilt was sometimes of the ivory of the walrus, occasionally of gold, the blade was sometimes inlaid with gold ornaments and runic verses. Thus in Beowulf — " So was on the surface of the bright gold 320 The Knights of the Middle Ages. with runic letters rightly marked, set and said, for whom that sword, costliest of irons, was first made, with twisted hilt and serpent shaped." The Saxons indulged in many romantic fancies about their swords. Some swordsmiths chanted magical verses as they welded them, and tempered them with mystical ingredients. Beowulf's sword was a — "tempered falchion that had before been one of the old treasures ; its edge was iron tainted with poisonous things hardened with warrior blood ; never had it deceived any man of those who brandished it with hands." Favourite swords had names given them, and were handed down from father to son, or passed from champion to champion, and became famous. Thus, again, in Beowulf, we read — " He could not then refrain, but grasped his shield, the yellow linden, drew his ancient sword that among men was a relic of Eanmund, Ohthere's son, of whom in conflict was, when a friendless exile, Weohstan the slayer with falchions edges, and from his kinsmen bore away the brown-hued helm, the ringed bymie, the old Eotenish* sword which him Onela had given." There is a fine and very perfect example of a Saxon sword in the * " Eoten," a giant; " Eotenish," made by or descended from the giants. Saxon Weapons. 321 British Museum, which was found in the bed of the river Witham, at Lincoln. The sheath was usually of wood, covered with leather, and tipped, and sometimes otherwise ornamented with metal. The spear was used javelin-wise, and the warrior going into battle sometimes carried several of them. They are long-bladed, often barbed, as represented in the woodcut on p. 316, and very generally have one or tvvo little cross-bars below the head, as in cuts on pp. 313 and 314. The Saxon artillery, besides the javelin, was the bow and arrows. The bow is usually a small one, of the old classical shape, not the long bow for which the English yeomen afterwards became so famous, and which seems to have been introduced by the Normans. In the latest period of the Saxon monarchy, the armour and weapons were almost identical with those used on the Continent. We have abundant illustrations of them in the Bayeux tapestry. In that invaluable historical monument, the minutest differences between the Saxon and Norman knights and men-at-arms seem to be carefully observed, even to the national fashions of cutting the hair ; and we are therefore justified in assuming that there were no material differences in the military equip- ment, since we find none indicated, except that the Normans used the long bow and the Saxons did not. We have abstained from taking any illustrations from the tapestry, because the whole series has been several times engraved, and is well known, or, at least, is easily accessible, to those who are interested in the subject. We have preferred to take an illustra- tion from a MS. in the British Museum, marked Harleian 2,895, from foHo 82 V. The warrior, who is no less a person than Goliath of Gath, has a hooded hauberk, with sleeves down to the elbow, over a green tunic. The legs are tinted blue in the drawing, but seem to be unarmed, except for the green boots, which reach half way to the knee. He wears an iron helmet with a nasal, and the hood appears to be fastened to the nasal, so as to protect the lower part of the face. The large shield is red, with a yellow border, and is hung from the neck by a chain. The belt round his waist is red. The well-armed giant leans upon his spear, looking down contemptuously on David, whom it has not been thought necessary to include in our copy of the picture. The group forms a very T T 322 The Knights of the Middle Ages. appropriate fiUing-in of the great initial letter B of the Psalm Benedidus Dns. Ds. Ms. qui docet man-us meas ad pralium et digitos meos ad bellum (Blessed be the Lord my God, who teacheth my hands to war and my fingers to fight). In the same MS., at foho 70, there are two men armed with helmet and sword, and at folio 81 V. a group of armed men on horseback, in sword, shield, and spurs. It may be convenient to some of our readers, if we indicate here where a few other examples of Saxon military costume may be found which we have noted down, but have, not had occasion to refer to in the above remarks. In the MS. of Prudentius (Cleopatra C. viii.), from which we have taken our first three woodcuts, are many other pictures well worth study. On the same page (folio i v.) as that which contains our wood-cut p. 3r2, there is another very similar group on the lower part of the page ; on folio 2 is still another group, in which some of the faces are most charming in drawing and expression. At folio 15 v. there is a spirited combat of two footmen, armed with sword and round shield, and clad in short leather coats of fence, vandyked at the edges. At folio 24 v., is an alle- gorical female figure in a short leather tunic, with shading on it which seems to indicate that the hair of the leather has been left on, and is worn outside, which we know from other sources was one of the fashions of the time. In the MS. of ^Ifric's Paraphrase (Claud. B. iv.) already quoted, there are, besides the battle scene at folio 24 v., in which occurs the king and his armour-bearer, at folio 25 two long line's of Saxon horsemen marching across the page, behind Abraham, who wears a crested Phrygian helm. On the reverse of foho 25 there is another group, and also on folios 62 and 64. On folio 52 is another troop, of Esau's horsemen, marching across the page in ranks of four abreast, all bareheaded and armed with spears. At folio 96 v. is another example of a warrior, with a shield- Saxon Arms and Arvioiir. 323 bearer. The pictures in the latter part of this MS. are not nearly so clearly delineated as in the former part, owing to their having been tinted with colour ; the colour, however, enables us still more completely to fill in to the mind's eye the distinct forms which vi^e have gathered from the former part of the book. The large troops of soldiers are valuable, as showing us the style of equipment which was common in the Saxon militia. There is another MS. of Prudentius in the British Museum of about the same date, and of the same school of art, though not quite so finely executed, which is well worth the study of the artist in search of authori- ties for Saxon military (and other) costume, and full of interest for the amateur of art and archaeology. Its press mark is Cottonian, Titus D. xvi. On the reverse of folio 2 is a group of three armed horsemen, representing the confederate kings of Canaan carrying off Lot, while Abraham, at the head of another group of armed men, is pursuing them. On folio 3 is another group of armed horsemen. After these Scripture histories come some allegorical subjects, conceived and drawn with great spirit. At folio 6 v., " Piidicitia pugnat contra Libidinem," Pudicitia being a woman armed with hauberk, helmet, spear, and shield. On the opposite page Pudicitia — in a very spirited attitude — is driving her spear through the throat of Libido. On folio 26 v., " Discordia vulnerat occulte Concordiicm." Concord is represented as a woman armed with a loose sleeved hauberk, helmet, and sword. Discord is lifting up the skirt of Concord's hauberk, and thrusting a sword into her side. In the Harleian MS. 2,803, is a Vulgate Bible, of date about 1 1 70 a.d. ; there are no pictures, only the initial letters of the various books are illuminated. But while the illuminator was engaged upon the initial of the Second Book of Kings, his eye seems to have been caught by the story of Saul's death in the last chapter of the First Book, which happens to come close by in the parallel column of the great folio page : — Arripuit itaqu, gladium et erruit sup. eum (Therefore Saul took a sword, and fell upon it) ; and he has sketched in the scene with pen-and-ink on the margin of the page, thus affording us another authority for the armour of a Saxon king when actually engaged in battle. He wears a hauberk, with an ornamented border, has his crown 324 The Knights of the Middle Ages. on his head, and spurs on his heels ; has placed his sword-hilt on the ground, and fallen upon it. In the Additional MS. 11,695, on folio 102 v., are four armed men on horseback, habited in hauberks without hoods. Two of them have the sleeves extending to the wrist, two have loose sleeves to the elbow only, showing that the two fashions were worn contemporaneously. They all have mail hose ; one of them is armed with a bow, the rest with the sword. There are four men in similar armour on folio 136 v. of the same MS. Also at folio 143, armed with spear, sword, and round orna- mented shield. At folio 222 V. are soldiers manning a gate-tower. When the soldiers so very generally wore the ordinary citizen costume, it becomes necessary, in order to give a complete picture of the military costume, to say a few words on the dress which the soldier wore in com- mon with the citizen. The tunic and mantle composed the national costume of the Saxons. The tunic reached about to the knee : some- times it was slit up a little way at the sides, and it often had a rich orna- mented border round the hem, extending round the side slits, making the garment almost exactly resemble the ecclesiastical tunic or Dalmatic. It had also very generally a narrower ornamental border round the opening for the neck. The tunic was sometimes girded round the waist. The Saxons were famous for their skill in embroidery, and also in metal-work ; and there are sufficient proofs that the tunic was often richly embroidered. There are indications of it in the wood-cut on p. 316 ; and in the relics of costume found in the Saxon graves are often buckles of elegant workmanship, which fastened the belt with which the tunic was girt. The mantle was in the form of a short cloak, and was usually fastened at the shoulder, as in the wood-cuts on pp. 312, 313, 314, so as to leave the right arm unencumbered by its folds. The brooch with which this cloak was fastened formed a very conspicuous item of costume. They were of large size, some of them of bronze gilt, others of gold, beautifully ornamented with enamels ; and there is this interesting fact about them, they seem to corroborate the old story, that the Saxon invaders were of three different tribes— the Jutes, Angles, and Saxons— who subdued and inhabited different portions of Britain. For in Kent and the Isle of Wight, the settlements of Saxon Ornaments. 325 the Jutes, brooches are found of circular form, often of gold and enamelled. In the counties of Yorkshire, Derby, Leicester, Nottingham, Northampton, and in the eastern counties, a large gilt bronze brooch of peculiar form is very commonly found, and seems to denote a peculiar fashion of the Angles, who inhabited East Anglia, Mercia, and Northumbria. Still ano- ther variety of fashion, shaped like a saucer, has been discovered in the counties of Gloucester, Oxford, and Buckingham, on the border between the Mercians and West Saxons. It is curious to find these peculiar fashions thus confirming the ancient and obscure tradition about the original Saxon settlements. The artist will bear in mind that the Saxons seem generally to have settled in the open country, not in the towns, and to have built timber halls and cottages after their own custom, and to have avoided the sites of the Romano-British villas, whose blackened ruins must have thickly dotted at least the southern and south-eastern parts of the island. They appear to have built no fortresses, if we except a few erected at a late period, to check the incursions of the Danes. But they had the old Roman towns left, in many cases with their walls and gates tolerably entire. In the Saxon MS. Psalter, Harleian 603, are several illuminations in which walled towns and gates are represented. But we do not gather that they were very skilful either in the attack or defence of fortified places. Indeed, their weapons and armour were of a very primitive kind, and their warfare seems to have been conducted after a very unscientific fashion. Little chance had their rude Saxon hardihood against the miHtary genius of WiUiam the Norman and the disciplined valour of his bands of mercenaries. CHAPTER II. ARMS AND ARMOUR, FROM THE NORMAN CONQUEST DOWNWARDS. HE Conquest and subsequent confiscations put the land of Eng- land so entirely into the hands of William the Conqueror, that he was able to introduce the feudal system into England in a more simple and symmetrical shape than that in which it obtained in any other country of Europe. The system was a very intelligible one. The king was supposed to be the lord of all the land of the kingdom. He retained large estates in his own hands, and from these estates chiefly he derived his personal followers and his royal revenues. The rest of the land he let in large lordships to his principal nobles, on condition that they should maintain for the defence of the kingdom a certain number of men armed after a stipulated fashion, and should besides aid him on cer- tain occasions with money payments, with which we have at present no concern. These chief tenants of the crown followed the example of the sovereign. Each retained a portion of the land in his own hands, and sub-let the rest in estates of larger or smaller size, on condition that each noble or knight who held of him should supply a proportion of the armed force he was required to furnish to the royal standard, and contribute a propor- tion of the money payments for which he was liable to be called upon. Each knight let the farms on his manor to his copyholders, on condition that they provided themselves with the requisite arms, and assembled under his banner when called upon for military suit and service ; and they rendered certain personal services, and made certain payments in money or in kind besides, in lieu of rent. Each manor, therefore, fur- The Fetidal Militia. 327 nished its troop of soldiers ; the small farmers, perhaps, and the knight's personal retainers fighting on foot, clad in leather jerkins, and armed with pike or bow ; two or three of his greater copyholders in skull caps and coats of fence ; his younger brothers or grown-up sons acting as men- at-arms and esquires, on horseback, in armour almost or quite as complete as his own ; while the knight himself, on his war horse, armed from top to toe — cap-cL-pied—-^\'&i shield on arm and lance in hand, with its knight's pennon fluttering from the point, was the captain of the little troop. The troops thus furnished by his several manors made up the force which the feudal lord was bound to furnish the king, and the united divisions made up the army of the kingdom. Besides this feudal army bound to render suit and service at the call of its sovereign, the laws of the kingdom also required all men of fit age — between sixteen and sixty — to keep themselves furnished with arms, and made them liable to be called out en masse in great emergencies. This was the Posse Comitatus, the force of the county, and was under the com- mand of the sheriff We learn some particulars on the subject from an assize of arms of Henry II., made in 1181, which required all his subjects being free men to be ready in defence of the realm. Whosoever holds one knight's fee, shall have a hauberk, helmet, shield and lance, and every knight as many such equipments as he hsis knight's fees in his domain. Every free layman having ten marks in chattels shall have a habergeon, iron cap, and lance. All burgesses and the whole community of freemen shall have each a coat of fence (padded and quilted, a wambeys), iron cap, and lance. Any one having more arms than those required by the statute, was to sell or otherwise dispose of them, so that they might be utilised for the king's service, and no one was to carry arms out of the kingdom. There were two great points of difference between the feudal system as introduced into England and as established on the Continent. William made all landowners owe fealty to himself, and not only the tenants in capite. And next, though he gave his chief nobles immense possessions, these possessions were scattered about in different parts of the kingdom. The great provinces which had once been separate kingdoms of the Saxon heptarchy, still retained, down to the time of the Confessor, much of 328 772^ Knights of the Middle Ages. their old political feeling. Kentish men, for example, looked on one another as brothers, but Essex men, or East Anglians, or Mercians, or Northumbrians, were foreigners to them. If the Conqueror had committed the blunder of giving his great nobles all their possessions together, Rufus might have found the earls of Mercia or Northumbria semi-independent, as the kings of France found their great vassals of Burgundy, and Cham- pagne, and Normandy, and Bretagne. But, by the actual arrangement, every county was divided ; one powerful noble had a lordship here, and another had half-a-dozen manors there, and some religious community had one or two manors between. The result was, that though a combination of great barons was powerful enough to coerce John or Henry III., or a single baron like Warwick was powerful enough, when the nobility were divided into two factions, to turn the scale to one side or the other, no one was ever able to set the power of the crown at defiance, or to establish a semi-independence ; the crown was always powerful enough to enforce 'a sufficiently arbitrary authority over them all. The consequence was that there was little of the clannish spirit among Englishmen. They rallied round their feudal superior, but the sentiment of loyalty was warmly and directly towards the crown. We must not, however, pursue the general subject further than we have done, in order to obtain some apprehension of the position in the body politic occupied by the class of persons with whom we are specially con- cerned. Of their social position we may perhaps briefly arrive at a correct estimate, if we call to mind that nearly all our rural parishes are divided into several manors, which date from the Middle Ages, some more, some less remotely ; for as population increased and land increased in value, there was a tendency to the subdivision of old manors and the creation of new ones out of them. Each of these manors, in the times to which our re- searches are directed, maintained a family of gentle birth and knightly rank. The head of the family was usually a knight, and his sons were eligible for, and some of them aspirants to, the same rank in chivalry. So that the great body of the knightly order consisted of the country gentle- men — the country squires we call them now, then they were the country knights — whose wealth and social importance gave them a claim to the Twelfth Century Armour. 329 rank ; and to these we must add such of their younger brothers and grown- up sons as had ambitiously sought for and happily achieved the chivalric distinction by deeds of arms. The rest of the brothers and sons who had not entered the service of the Church as priest or canon, monk or friar, or into trade, continued in the lower chivalric and social rank of squires. When we come to look for authorities for the costume and manners of the knights of the Middle Ages, we find a great scarcity of them for the period between the Norman Conquest and the beginning of the Edwardian era. The literary authorities are not many ; there are as yet few of the illuminated MSS., from which we derive such abundant material in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries;* the sepulchral monuments are not' numerous ; the valuable series of monumental brasses has not begun ; the Bayeux tapestry, which affords abundant material for the special time to which it relates, we have abstained from drawing upon ; and there are few subjects in any other class of pictorial art to help us out. The figure of Goliath, which we gave in our last chapter (p. 322), will serve very well for a general representation of a knight of the twelfth century. In truth, from the Norman Conquest down to the introduction of plate armour at the close of the thirteenth century, there was wonderfully little alteration in the knightly armour and costume. It would seem that the body armour consisted of garments of the ordinary fashion, either quilted in their substance to deaden the force of a blow, or covered with mailles (rings) on the exterior, to resist the edge of sword or point of lance. The ingenuity of the armourer showed itself in various ways of quilting, and various methods of applying the external defence of metal. Of the quilted armours we know very little. In the illuminations is often seen armour covered over with lines arranged in a lozenge pattern, which perhaps repre- sents garments stuffed and sewn in this commonest of all patterns of quilting; but it has been suggested that it may represent lozenged-shaped scales, of horn or metal, fastened upon the face of the garments. In the wood-cut * The Harl. MS. 603, of the close of the eleventh century, contains a number of military subjects rudely drawn, but conveying suggestions vifhich the artist will be able to interpret and profit by.- In the Add. MS. 28,107, of date A.D. 1096, at f. 25 v., is a Goliath ; and at f. 1,630 v., a group of soldiers. u u 330 The Knights of the Middle Ages. here given from the MS. Caligula A. vii., we have one of the clearest and best extant illustrations of this quilted armour. In the mail armour there seem to have been different ways of applying the mailles. Sometimes it is represented as if the rings were sewn by one edge only, and at such a distance that each overlapped the other in the same row, but the rows do not overlap one another. Sometimes they look as if each row of rings had been sewn upon a strip of linen or leather and then the strips applied to the garment. Some- times the rings were interlinked, as in a common steel purse, so that the garment was entirely of steel rings. Very frequently we find a surcoat or chausses represented, as if rings or little discs of metal were sewn flat all over the garment. It is possible that this is only an artistic way of indicat- ing that the garment was covered with rings, after one of the methods above de- scribed ; but it is also possible that a light armour was composed of rings thus sparely sewn upon a linen or leather garment. It is possible also that little round plates of metal or horn were used in this way for defence, for we have next to mention that scale armour is sometimes, though rarely, found ; it consisted of small scales, usually rectangular, and probably usually of horn, though sometimes of metal, attached to a linen or leather garment. The shield and helmet varied somewhat in shape at various times. The shield in the Bayeux tapestry was kite-shaped, concave, and tolerably large, like that of Goliath on p. 322. The tendency of its fashion was continually to grow shorter in proportion to its width, and flatter. The round Saxon target continued in use throughout the Middle Ages, more especially for foot-soldiers. Quilted Armour. Twelfth Century Arms and Armour. 331 The helmet, at the beginning of the period, was Hke the old Saxon conical helmet, with a nasal ; and this continued in occasional use far into the fourteenth century. About the end of the twelfth century, the cylin- drical helmet of iron enclosing the whole- head, with horizontal slits for vision, came into fashion. Richard I. is represented in one on his second great seal. A still later fashion is seen in the next woodcut, p. 334. William Longespde, a.d. 1227, has a flat-topped helmet. The only two inventions of the time seem to be, first, the surcoat, which began to be worn over the hauberk about the end of the twelfth century. The seal of King John is the first of the series of great seals in which we see it introduced. It seems to have been of linen or silk. The other great invention of this period was that of armorial bearings, properly so called. Devices painted upon the shield were common in classical times. They are found ordinarily on the shields in the Bayeux tapestry, and were habitually used by the Norman knights. In the Bayeux tapestry they seem to be fanciful or merely decorative ; later they were sym- bolical or significant. But it was only towards the close of the twelfth century that each knight assumed a fixed device, which was exclusively appropriated to him, by which he was known, and which became hereditary in his family. The ofi"ensive weapons used by the knights were most commonly the sword and spear. The axe and mace are found, but rarely. The artillery consisted of the crossbow, which was the most formidable missile in use, and the long bow, which, however, was not yet the great arm of the English yeomanry which it became at a later period ; but these were hardly the weapons of knights and gentlemen, though men-at-arms were frequently armed with the crossbow, and archers were occasionally mounted. The sling was sometimes used, as were other very rude weapons, by the half- armed crowd who were often included in the ranks of mediseval armies. We have said that there is a great scarcity of pictorial representations of the military costume of the thirteenth century, and of the few which exist the majority are so vague in their definition of details, that they add nothing to our knowledge bf costume, and have so little of dramatic character, as to throw no light on manners and customs. Among the best 332 The Kiiights of the Middle Ages. are some knightly figures in the Harleian Roll, folio 6, which contains a life of St. Guthlac of about the end of the twelfth century. The figures are armed in short-sleeved and hooded hauberk ; flat-topped iron helmet, some with, some without, the nasal ; heater-shaped shield and spear ; the legs undefended, except by boots like those of the Goliath on p. 322. The Harleian MS. 4,751, a MS. of the beginning of the thirteenth cen- tury, shows at folio 8 a group of soldiers attacking a fortification ; it con- tains hints enough to make one earnestly desire that the subject had been more fully and artistically worked out. The fortification is repre- sented by a timber projection carried on brackets from the face of the wall. Its garrison is represented by a single knight, whose demi-figure only is seen ; he is represented in a short-sleeved hauberk, with a surcoat over it having a cross on the breast. He wears a flat-topped cylindrical helmet, and is armed with a crossbow. The assailants would seem to be a tabble of half-armed men ; one is bareheaded, and armed only with a sling ; others have round hats, whether of felt or iron does not appear ; one is armed in a hooded hauberk and carries an axe, and a cylindrical helmet also appears amidst the crowd. In the Harleian MS. 5,102, of the beginning of the thirteenth century, at folio 32, there is a representation of the martyrdom of St. Thomas of Canterbury, which gives us the effigies of the three murderers in knightly costume. They all wear long-sleeved hauberks, which have the pecuHarity of being slightly sht up the sides, and the tunic flows from beneath them. Fitzurse (known by the bear on his shield) has leg defences fastened behind, like those in our next woodcut, p. 334, and a circular iron helmet. One of the others wears a flat-topped helmet, and the third has the hood of mail fastened on the cheek, like that in the same woodcut. The drawing is inartistic, and the picture of little value for our present purposes. The Harleian MS. 3,244 contains several MSS. bound together. The second of these works is a Penitential, which has a knightly figure on horseback for its frontispiece. It has an allegorical meaning, and is rather curious. The inscription over the figure is Milicia est vita hominis super terram. (The life of man upon the earth is a warfare.) The knightly figure represents the Christian man in the spiritual panoply ot this warfare • Thirteenth Century Armour. 333 and the various items of armour and arms have inscriptions affixed to tell us what they are. Thus over the helmet is Spes futuri gau'dii (For a helmet the hope of salvation) ; his sword is inscribed, Verbtcm d'i ; his spear, Persevanda ; its pennon, Regni calesH desiderium, &c. &c. The shield is charged with the well-known triangular device, with the enuncia- tion of the doctrine of the Trinity, Pater est Dens, &c., Pater non est Filius, &c. The knight is clad in hauberk, with a rather long flowing sur- coat ; a helmet, in general shape like that in the next woodcut, but not so ornamental ; he has chausses of mail ; shield, sword, and spear with pennon, and prick spurs ; but there is not sufficient definiteness in the details, or character in the drawing, to make it worth while to reproduce it. But there is one MS. picture which fully atones for the absence of others by its very great merit. It occurs in a small quarto of the last quarter of the thirteenth century, which contains the Psalter and Eccle- siastical Hymns. Towards the end of the book are several remarkably fine full-page drawings, done in outline with a pen, and partially tinted with colour ; large, distinct, and done with great spirit and artistic skill. The first on the verso of folio 218 is a king; on the opposite page is the knight, who is here given on a reduced scale; on the opposite side of the page is St. Christopher, and on the next page an archbishop. The figure of the knight before us shows very clearly the various details of a suit of thirteenth-century armour. In the hauberk will be noticed the mode in which the hood is fastened at the side of the head, and the way in which the sleeves are continued into gauntlets, whose palms are left free from rings, so as to give a firmer grasp. The thighs, it will be seen, are protected by haut-de-chausses, which are mailed only in the exposed parts, and not on the seat. The legs have chausses of a different kind of armour. In the MS. drawings we often find various parts of the armour thus represented in different ways, and, as we have already said, we are sometimes tempted to think the unskilful artist has only used different modes of representing the same kind of mail. But here the drawing is so careful, and skilful, and self-evidently accurate, that we cannot doubt that the defence of the legs is really of a different kind of armour from the mail of the hauberk and haut-de-chausses. The surcoat is of graceful fashion, 334 The Knights of the Middle Ages. and embroidered with crosses, which appear also on the pennon, and one of them is used as an ornamental genouillifere on the shoulder. The helmet is elaborately and very elegantly ornamented. The attitude of the figure is spirited and dignified, and the drawing unusually good. Altogether we do not know a finer representation of a knight of this century. Knight of the latter fart of the Thirteenth Century, A few, but very valuable, authorities are to be found in the sculptural monumental effigies of this period. The best of them will be found in Stothard's "Monumental Effigies," and his work not only brings these examples together, and makes them easily accessible to the student, but it has this great advantage, that Stothard well understood his subject, and gives every detail with the most minute accuracy, and also elucidates obscure points of detail. Those in the Temple Church, that of William Thirteenth Century Arms and Armour. 335 Longespde in Salisbury Cathedral, and that of Aymer de Valence in West- minster Abbey, are the most important of the series. Perhaps, after all, the only important light they add to that already obtained from the MSS. is, they help us to understand the fabrication of the mail-armour, by giving it in fac-simile relief. There are also a few foreign MSS., easily accessible, in the library of the British Museum, which the artist student will do well to consult ; but he must remember that some of the peculiarities of costume which he will find there are foreign fashions, and are not to be introduced in English subjects. For example, the MS. Cotton, Nero, c. iv., is a French MS. of about 1125 A.D., which contains some rather good drawings of military subjects. The Additional MS. 14,789, of German execution, written in 11 28 a.d., contains military subjects ; among them is a figure of Goliath, in which the Philistine has a hauberk of chain mail, and chausses of jazerant work, like the knight in the last woodcut. The Royal MS. 20 D. i., is a French MS., very full of valuable military drawings, executed probably at the close of the thirteenth century, belonging, however, in the style of its Art and costume, rather to the early part of the next period than to that under con- sideration. The MS. Addit. 17,687, contains fine and valuable German drawings, full of military authorities, of about the same period as the French MS. last mentioned. The accompanying wood-cut represents various peculiarities of the armour in use towards the close of the thirteenth century. It is taken from the Sloane MS. 346, which is a metrical Bible. In the original drawing a female figure is kneeling before the warrior, and there is an Knight and Men-at-Arms of the end of the Thirteenth Century. 336 The Knights of the Middle Ages. inscription over the picture, Abygail placet tram regis David (Abigail appeases the anger of King David). So that this group of a thirteenth- century knight and his men-at-arms is intended by the mediaeval artist to represent David and his followers on the march to revenge the churlishness of Nabal. The reader virill notice the round plates at the elbows and knees, which are the first visible introduction of plate armour — breast- plates, worn under the hauberk, had been occasionally used from Saxon times. He will observe, too, the leather gauntlets which David wears, and the curious defences for the shoulders called ailettes : also that the shield is hung round the neck by its strap {gidge), and the sword-belt round the hips, while the surcoat is girded round the waist by a silken \ w^. J '^)--'