Medieval Monastic Orders- part I

Posted on by
4

imagesDuring the later Anglo-Saxon period all monasteries were Benedictine. Benedictine monks follow the rules written by St Benedict in the early sixth century (535-540) for his monastic foundation at Monte Cassino. The rule covers what monks are and aren’t allowed to do as well as regulating their days and nights with regard to Divine worship, study, manual labour and prayer.  However, as the medieval period went on many monks, such as the Benedictine in the manuscript image to the left of this paragraph developed a reputation for behaving in a decidedly unmonastic manner.

By the eleventh century, Cluny Abbey, which followed the rules of St Benedict, as indeed did X889_727_CWBernhardBoxevery monastic order that followed, chose to reinterpret the rules. The order applied itself to the liturgy rather than educational and intellectual work expanded. In England, William Warenne founded the Cluniac abbey at Lewes just after the conquest. William the Conqueror requested more Cluniac monks to come from their mother abbey in Cluny to England but was unsuccssessful in the first instance. Gradually though more Cluniacs did arrive. William Rufus, not known for his piety, encouraged the Cluniacs to come to England as did his brother King Henry I who funded Reading Abbey which interestingly was inhabited initially by Cluniac monks but did not go on to become a Cluniac establishment. The royal family continued to support the Cluniac order. King Stephen founded the Cluniac priory at Faversham which became notable as the burial place for his family. In Yorkshire Pontefract was a Cluniac establishment. Despite this early popularity the Cluniacs did not prosper as an order in England as the centuries progressed not least because all Cluniac houses were daughter houses following the rule and direction of the mother-house in Cluny and thus aliens.  Whilst the Plantagenets held a huge European empire it wasn’t a problem but as English monarchs found the size of their continental domains dwindling they didn’t want monks who looked to Europe for direction and preferred to sponsor home-grown talent.

images-101The Cistericans, pictured left, were founded in 1098 by the monks of Citeaux who believed in austerity and hard work – again a reinterpretation of the rule of St Benedict and reforms designed to counter perceived laxity in other monastic houses. Their habit was made from unbleached wool. These were the so-called ‘White monks.’ They arrived in the south of England in 1128. In 1132 Walter Espec gave the white monks land at Rievaulx – the rest as they say, is history. Fountains Abbey is also a Cistercian foundation. Unlike the standard Benedictine monks they refused gifts and rights of patronage – in short anything that would have made them easily wealthy. Instead they cultivated the wilderness. An emphasis was placed upon labour. The great Yorkshire abbeys acquired land and farms over the next two hundred years extending south into Derbyshire and north into Cumberland. In 1147 Furness Abbey was founded. At that time Furness was in Lancashire rather than Cumbria as it is in present times.

The next influx of monastic types were the Charterhouse monks or Carthusians as they should be more properly named. ThisDP808069 order was developed by the monks of Chartreuse. The first monastic foundations for this order were in Somerset at the turn of the twelfth century. They lived in isolation. Each monk had a cell and a cloistered garden. They did not see one another, even for Divine service as each stall was screened – together but alone. They arrived during the reign of King Henry II as part of the monarch’s penance for the death of Thomas Becket. The Carthusians restricted the numbers of monks in each priory to 13 monks composed of a prior and twelve monks and eighteen lay brothers. There was a vow of silence and they were vegetarians. The order did not really take off until the fourteenth century by which time monasticism was suffering on account of the Black Death: changing economy and social structures. In Yorkshire the Carthusians established Mount Grace Priory in 1398. Today its ruins remain the best preserved Carthusian monastery in England. The seated Carthusian on the right is an early eighteenth century portrayal and can be found in The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Of these orders only the Carthusians do not have nuns as well as monks.

So far, so good.  Part two of Medieval Monastic orders will cover the canons and part three will cover friars.

Monasteries- 1066 +

Posted on by
2

DSCN2029William the Conqueror was committed to a programme of monastery building in his new kingdom.  The invasion of England, complete with papal banner, was after all a crusade.  However, in comparison to the twelfth century when monastic foundation and building reached an apex the first Normans on English shores were relatively slow off the mark.  Chester, Colchester and Shrewsbury were early establishments as were Tewkesbury and Lewes which housed monks from Cluny.  All of the above mentioned were funded by Norman barons eager to emulate their monarch and no doubt to give thanks for doing so very nicely out of the English venture.

In addition to these new foundations and, in the North, refoundation of early sites such as Whitby there was another significant change in the Church.  Leading Anglo-Saxon abbots and bishops with a few notable exceptions such as Wulfstan of Worcester were shown the door and replaced by William’s men headed up by Lanfranc of Bec who promptly reorganised and reformed the Church.

Lanfranc did use some of the earlier Anglo-Saxon administrative structure including the incorporation of cathedrals into monastic foundations.  Given-Wilson lists them: Bath ( & Wells), Canterbury, Carlisle (hence my interest), Coventry, Durham, Ely, Norwich, Rochester, Winchester and Worcester.  Both Canterbury (pictured at the beginning of this post) and Worcester had been founded before 1066 and may have acted as the models which Lanfranc chose to emulate. Carlisle was home to an order of Augustinian Canons the other nine were Benedictine.  These cathedrals were at the heart of their dioceses with a bishop at their head.  The monastery would have been headed up by an abbot or a prior – the two posts need not be held by the same person which could, and in deed did, lead to some lively disagreements.

Not all cathedrals were staffed by monks.  Some cathedrals were ‘secular’ – which means that the clergy who ran the cathedrals were not attached to a religious order.  Lincoln Cathedral was never associated with a monastery and neither bizarrely, given the number of monasteries in the vicinity, was York.

Darley Abbey

Posted on by
4

lh_derbyshire_darleyabbey_fsWright’s Discovering Abbeys and Priories lists the principal monastic sites in England.  It’s alphabetical.  Devon follows Cumbria.  There are no significant monastic sites remaining in the county but in medieval England as with the rest of the country Derbyshire was home to more than one monastic foundation.

Darley Abbey, confusingly a priory rather than an abbey as it housed Augustinian canons, was founded by Robert Ferrers, who was the seond Earl of Derby. The Victoria County History for Derbyshire is quick to point out that there is no evidence for a claim that there was an earlier abbey closer to Derby. Perhaps this was because the abbey was founded during the reign of King Stephen – so the “Nineteen years when Christ and all his apostles slept.” In any event Robert Ferrers survived the demise of Stephen and continued his abbey building with the approval of King Henry II. Funds came in part from the church at Crich which was in Ferrers’ possession. The land itself came from a Rural Dean of Derby. So, Hugh is the abbey’s joint founder. It was populated as a daughter house to the Augustinian Canons of Calke Abbey.

The Victoria County History goes on to explain:

Other gifts speedily flowed into the new foundation, so that in a very short time the abbot and canons, in addition to lands at Crich, Wessington, Lea, Dethick, Tansley and Little Chester, and various mills, held the advowsons of the churches of Bolsover, Pentrich, Ripley, Ashover, South Wingfield, and the three Derby town churches of St. Peter, St. Michael, and St. Werburgh.

So, while there may not be many – okay none- great abbeys in Derbyshire remaining it is evident that their influence covered the religious needs of many villages in the region.

Over the next three hundred years the abbey gained more land and many more gifts including one man who was seeking to avoid giving all his possessions to a moneylender in return for his debts. Some of its abbots gained reputations as arbitrators amongst their fellow clergy but by 1538 the writing was on the wall. Thomas Cromwell needed to fill his master’s treasury.

Darley Abbey had escaped the cull of 1536 being worth considerably more than £200 per annum but in October 1538 Abbot Thomas Page and twelve other Augustinians signed the surrender document and handed the abbey nto the hands of Dr Leigh who sold off the granges, the harvest and the livestock that belonged to the outlying farms. In the abbey itself he calculated the worth of the paving and the glass in the windows. He even sold off the cooking utensils.

As was usual all the monks received a pension, in 1555 the prior and sub-prior were still receiving their pensions. What is more unusual was that a certain “Doctor Legh” who has featured elsewhere in this blog appeared on the list in receipt of £6 13s 4d per year. Cromwell spotted the addition and had stern words with his commissioner for his dodgy accounting.

In 1541 the site of the abbey was granted to Sir William West who built himself a rather nice house on the site of the priory. As is the way of these things the house passed through several hands and each owner and each new generation wished to place their own mark upon Abbey House so that in the end no evidence of the abbey which had once been so important to the economy and faith of the people of Derbyshire. Ultimately the house was demolished in 1962. The image at the start of this post comes from a website entitled England’s Lost Country Houses which not only lists all the demolished stately stacks in the country but provides photographs of many as well as an informative discussion about their demise. Click on the image to follow the link in a new window.

However, there are other remnants of the monastic foundation. The Abbey Pub is housed in a former abbey building – the abbey guest house as it happens.

Monastic Houses of Derbyshire.

Posted on by
3

DSC_0287-9Yorkshire is knee deep in monastic houses from the great foundations such as Fountains and Rievaulx to the smaller but no less fascinating Kirklees Priory with its links to Robin Hood.  Part of the reason for the great number of monastic foundations in Yorkshire is the fact that the early monks wanted to live like the Desert Fathers – on their own in the wild. It was also excellent land for sheep once it had been cleared, although the monks of Jervaulx made their reputation as breeders of fine horses.  The Yorkshire Moors must have seemed very wild a thousand years ago.  Then there were the monastic patrons and benefactors.  So far so good – but what about Derbyshire surely it was no less wild and surely to goodness there were plenty of patrons eager to save their souls?  It’s not as if its a million miles from Yorkshire either (though clearly the traffic restrictions currently in operation on the M1 are doing a very good job of creating that impression).  In actual fact the large monasteries did have extensive links with Derbyshire but rather than establishing monastic houses they established granges – or farms. Roche Abbey had a number of granges in the White Peak.

The abbey that most immediately springs to mind is Calke Abbey which now bears no resemblance to an abbey and which is in the hands of the National Trust.  A bit of research revealed that it wasn’t an abbey, it was a priory in the hands of Augustinian Canons – so that’s me told.  The priory at Repton is its daughter house.  Now I’ve always known Repton for its links to Vikings so clearly I’m not doing very well thus far.

Gresley Priory became a parish church and Darley Priory – another Augustinian stronghold turned into an eighteenth century stately stack whilst its guest house became an inn rejoining in the name “Old Abbey Inn” just in case a passing historian should miss the obvious. Then there’s Dale Abbey in Deepdale. Then there’s Bradbourne Priory and Breadsall Priory.  Each and every one of these was run by the Augustinians.  As might be expected, Derby boasted more than one monastic foundation including the Augustinians.

The Benedictines were the first monks to settle in Post-Conquest England.  Their robes were black. The Cluniacs were aliens – all under the control of the mother house in France and the Augustinians were priests who went outside the precincts of their monastic houses to minister to their flocks. The later additions to the monastic fold were the twelfth century  Cistercians who looked to a life of poverty and hard work – which brings us back to the Cistercians of Rievaulx and Fountains.

Now, all I need to do is reach for my copy of Derbyshire King’s England by Arthur Mee and a road atlas and plan my route.

The Execution of Anne Boleyn ~ May 19, 1536

Posted on by
Reply

The Freelance History Writer is a brilliant blog that I follow. Thought that this was an interesting post in the light of the day school on Thomas Cromwell that I taught this week. Lots of great detail.

Richard Cromwell

Posted on by
2

640px-Cromwell,Thomas(1EEssex)01Richard Williams was the son of Morgan Williams who came from Putney and Catherine Cromwell, the sister of Thomas (pictured here). Morgan was a brewer, possibly originally from somewhere near Cardiff.

Richard entered Thomas Cromwell’s household in 1530 having previously done a stint as a servant with Thomas Grey the second Marquis of Dorset. In 1529 Thomas made a will, in the aftermath of the sweating sickness which killed his wife and two daughters.  Richard can be found here listed along with ‘poor relations.’ Thomas remedied that particular problem when he arranged his nephew’s marriage with financial advantage in mind. The lady in question was called Frances Murfyn, the daughter of Sir Thomas who had been Lord Mayor of London. She came with several properties.

Richard remained in Thomas’s household and conducted business on his uncle’s behalf ultimately taking on the surname Cromwell – incidentally he was also the great grandfather of Oliver.

In addition to the change of name Richard demonstrated many of the hardheaded attitudes towards wealth that his uncle exemplified. Richard was noticeably enriched by the suppression of the monasteries both at the time and in the years afterwards when the crown first rented the confiscated lands out and then sold them. His reputation was such that the Pilgrims of the Pilgrimage of Grace singled him out as someone who was responsible for the despoiling of centuries of monastic tradition. Richard, apparently not unduly concerned, was part of the posse headed up by the Duke of Suffolk which put down the Pilgrimage in the eastern counties.

In 1537 Richard began to buy up properties in Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire. He was also knighted by Henry VIII at this time. By 1542 he was the first knight of the latter shire. In 1543 he was made a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber and found himself in charge of infantry when war broke out with France. In 1544 he was made Constable of Berkely Castle – which wasn’t at all bad for a man who’d made no secret of his sorrow when Uncle Thomas had been executed.  He was also a very wealthy man by this time and an MP as well.  No doubt his uncle would have been very proud of him.

Gregory Cromwell – Thomas Cromwell’s son

Posted on by
4

640px-Cromwell,Thomas(1EEssex)01Gregory, born about 1520, was the only son of Thomas and Elizabeth Cromwell. Gregory’s two legitimate sisters died along with his mother of sweating sickness when Gregory was nine.

Thomas Cromwell sought to ensure his son’s well-being and education in the aftermath of his bereavement by sending him to nuns to be cared for. Cromwell knew many abbesses having gained a reputation as a man of business, legal advisor and arbitrator: an irony probably not lost upon the nuns when they were unceremoniously booted out of their homes. After Gregory outgrew the nuns Cromwell sent his son, aged about fifteen, to be educated in Cambridge where he worked hard according to the letters that his tutors sent Cromwell but without the gifts that Cromwell himself demonstrated for language and learning. It must have been frustrating for Cromwell, a self-made and apparently self-taught man, to see his son provided with the best education that money could buy but apparently lacked the skills to make most use of the education which his father provided.

One of the letters that Gregory’s tutor sent to Cromwell reveals a narrowly averted tragedy.  Gregory’s room-mate accidentally set fire to his bedding and caused much damage but, fortunately, no loss of life.  Cromwell was called upon to compensate the tutor for the loss of his possessions.  Other letters cover more mundane affairs such as the need to feed a clothe the growing boy.

In a bizzare twist of fate Cromwell arranged for Gregory to marry Elizabeth Seymour in 1537– sister of Jane Seymour so was the brother-in-law of the man who had his father executed in 1540– Henry VIII.   So technically Henry VIII was the uncle of Gregory’s children.  Gregory did not suffer from his father’s fall from favour instead he went on to become a baron owning extensive lands in Leicestershire and in Rutland. He was created a baron less than five months after his father’s execution and would eventually regain some of the lands that the king had confiscated when Cromwell was found guilty of treason.

Gregory died in 1551 of sweating sickness. His letters demonstrate the depth of his affection for his wife and his children.  There is no picture of him that is known.  It is odd given the number of pictures of Cromwell painted by Holbein that none was commissioned of Cromwell Junior.  There is however a possible picture of Elizabeth Seymour who went on to marry for a third time after Gregory’s death.

Hamelin de Warenne

Posted on by
Reply

DSCN6677Hamelin was an illegitimate son of Geoffrey of Anjou born in approximately 1129, so half-brother of Henry II.  He was married by order of the king to Isabella de Warenne, in her own right Countess of Surrey.  She was the only surviving child of the third earl who’d died whilst he was on crusade.  He first husband was the fourth earl.  It just so happened that Isabelle’s husband was King Stephen’s son William of  Blois – a real strategy to bring all that lovely land and loot into the family orbit.  William must have been quite happy with the arrangement because he didn’t bat an eyelid when his father disinherits shim and made Henry Fitzempress, the son of his cousin Matilda, the heir to the throne and in so doing brought the years of anarchy and civil war to a conclusion.  William who was several years younger than Isabel served Henry II until his death in 1159.

Henry II cast his eyes over all of Isabel’s considerable charms (that’ll be all those Yorkshire estates) and decided that they ought to be kept in the family.  Enter Hamelin. After the marriage, in 1164, he was recognized as Earl of Warenne – or the fifth Earl of Surrey. Hamelin, unusually, took the name of his wealthy bride.  Hamelin remained loyal throughout his life to his brother even though ultimately he did not agree with the end that befell Thomas Becket especially as he came to believe in the archbishop’s saintliness. He was supposed to have been cured of an eye problem by the cleric.  He went with his niece Joan to Sicily when she married its king and his nephew, Richard the Lionheart, recognised his uncle’s trustworthiness when he became co-regent with William Longchamp whilst Richard was away on crusade and then found himself having to count the gold in order to ransom his nephew from the clutches of his enemies.

The de Warenne’s held lands across Yorkshire and it was Hamelin who built Conisborough Castle near Doncaster around about 1180.

 

His eldest son, William went on to marry William Marshal’s daughter Matilda who was at that time the widow of Hugh Bigod. One of Hamelin and Isabella’s daughter apparently got a little too close for comfort to her royal cousin Prince John, who had a reputation for liking the ladies, and bore him a child.

 

 

Sybilla of Conversano

Posted on by
2

df53082bbdd2602149f06143573dfe88Sybilla of Conversano, daughter of Geoffrey of Brindisi, was rather younger than her husband – Robert, Duke of Normandy a.k.a. Curthose pictured left. Chroniclers waxed lyrical about her intelligence, virtue and her beauty.  She is even purported to have sucked the poison from a poisoned arrow, or something of that ilk, that had wounded and threatened to kill her stout spouse. I note that his effigy makes him fetchingly lean as well as demonstrating a pressing need to avail himself of the facilities…sorry, shouldn’t joke.  The crossed legs are a reminder of the fact that Robert has been on crusade.

Apparently he met her on his way to the First Crusade. Obviously she made quite an impression on him because he married her on the way home. Clearly being a Duke meant you couldn’t sit around at home admiring your beautiful young bride and besides which he was a bit peeved because he’d already missed out on the English crown to his younger brother William Rufus. Whilst he’d been away William had a nasty accident with an arrow and his even younger brother Henry had snitched the crown to become King Henry I. Robert had already tried to take the crown from William and now he felt honour bound to have a go at the next brother (I should imagine the royal nursery was a cheery place during their infancies!)

 

Sybilla proved herself to be an effective agent on her husand’s behalf in his absence. Robert of Torigny even said that she did a better job than the Duke. What more could a Duke want of a wife? Just one thing – sons. Sybilla duly obliged and produced William known as Clito which translates as something similar to ‘Atheling’ or ‘heir.’

 

A few months later, in 1103, she died at Rouen. There’s nothing like a happy ending and this is nothing like a happy ending. History does not know what carried Sybilla off. William of Malmesbury blamed a midwife for binding her breasts too tightly. It could just have likely been a complication of childbirth but rumour was quick to blame Robert’s mistress. Robert of Torigny who was clearly one of Sybilla’s fans blamed the mistress as did the Orderic Vitalis who pointed a finger at Agnes Gifford who’d been widowed for about a year and was looking for another spouse – if she had arranged for her arrival to exit stage left she was to be sadly disappointed as Robert found himself rather occupied with keeping his kingdom for himself.

 

 

Mary, Abbess of Romsey

Posted on by
Reply

218px-Stepan_BloisThe County History of Hampshire declares that:

 

Mary, daughter of King Stephen, became abbess here (of Romsey) about 1160, and it was her uncle, Henry de Blois, Bishop of Winchester (1129-71), who was probably the builder of the greater part of Romsey Abbey as it now stands. Abbess Mary in 1160 left her monastery to become the wife of Matthew, son of Theodoric, Earl of Flanders. By him she had two daughters, but was afterwards separated from her husband. According to Matthew Paris this separation was brought about by the censure of the Church, and she returned in penitence to Romsey.

 

The Victorian writer of the County History was being a tad on the coy side in his description of Mary’s departure from Romsey. She was abducted by her distant cousin Matthew who was also a cousin of Henry II. She’d been a nun for over a decade, and had been the abbess since 1155, when her brother, William of Boulogne, died. He’d been married to Isabella de Warenne who ended up married to Henry II’s illegitimate half-brother Hamlyn. Unfortunately Mary’s other brother Eustace was also dead. This meant that the abbess became a very wealthy countess and it’s a well-known fact that being an unmarried countess makes you fair game even, apparently, if you’re living a cloistered life at the time.

 

Pope Alexander III was not amused. Letters were exchanged. Meanwhile Matthew became the Count of Boulogne and two daughters, Ida and Mathilde, were born from the union. Mary was eventually able to return to the monastic life when the Catholic Church annulled her marriage.

 

Once again history does not provide us with the complete truth of proceedings let alone Mary’s view of events and it certainly doesn’t provide us with a picture of the unfortunate abbess for which reason this post has an image of Mary’s father King Stephen. Mary’s mother was Mathilde of Boulogne from when the title that caused all the problems originated.