Violent death of a bishop in London in 1326

Seven centuries ago the London of 1326 was falling into chaos. The invasion of the country led by the Queen, Isabella of France, and her lover Roger Mortimer, having landed at Orwell, swept through Suffolk, Cambridge and Oxford, and the government had virtually abandoned London.

  

 

  

Queen Isabella

  

A label stop in Beverley Minster

Image: rebeccastarrbrown.com

Her husband, King Edward II and his close adviser Hugh Despenser the Younger, had fled westwards to Gloucester. The former Treasurer, Bishop Walter Stapledon of Exeter, was left in London together with his brother. Both men were in their sixties. As a figure very much associated with the collapsing government Stapledon and his properties in and close to London came under attack. He was also seen as an opponent by the Queen as a result of some of his actions the previous year when she had been in exile at the court of her brother King Charles IV.

As was their wont the population of London was hostile to the government of the day and on October 15th that by now intense hostility was to claim the lives of the Bishop, his brother who was a judge, and at least two of their servants.

The effigy of Bishop Walter Stapledon 

on his tomb in Exeter Cathedral 

Image: Wikipedia 

There is a detailed account of their murders on Kathryn Warner’s Edward II blog at The Murder of Walter Stapledon, Bishop of Exeter, 15 October 1326

According to Walter Stapledon’s modern biographer he was beheaded at the Cross in Cheapside with a bread knife. Since reading that over thirty years ago I have never looked at a bread knife in quite the same way.

Stapledon’s head was reportedly sent to Queen Isabella at Bristol as proof of his death.

 Wikipedia has illustrated biographies of the Bishop and his brother at Walter Stapledon and at Richard Stapledon

Bishop Stapledon has left two enduring monuments. 

The first is the presbytery and choir, with its throne and stalls at Exeter Cathedral. Taking his inspiration no doubt from the Lady Chapel built by a previous bishop a generation earlier the Devon-born Stapledon began the rebuilding of the whole cathedral in the latest style. All that survives of the previous structure are the distinctive transeptal towers. It fell to his successor Bishop John Grandisson to complete the nave in the succeeding decades.

The second is Exeter College in Oxford. Founded in 1314 by the bishop and his brother, and originally known as Stapledon Hall, this was intended to provide for clerical students from the counties of Devon and Cornwall, which comprised the diocese of Exeter. It is the fourth oldest in date of the constituent colleges of the University. 

The Battle of Hastings

As the Bayeux Tapestry at the British Museum is the hottest ticket in town at the moment it seems appropriate to write about the central event it depicts, the Battle of Hastings, fought in this day 960 years ago in 1066.

The death of King Harold II

The King is the figure being cut down in the right. The standing figure apparently with an arrow in his eye is the result of nineteenth century restoration - originally what is now an arrow was a spear the figure was throwing

Image: Wikipedia 

Duke William, if he did not know it already, took over the most sophisticated royal government in Europe, and being the intelligent and practical man that he was as King William he kept it in place and learned how to use it. Domesday Book may be a great monument to the Normans, but they could not have created it without the institutions created and nurtured by the Anglo-Saxons.

 

The Norman cavalry face the English foot soldiers 

 

Image: historic-uk.com

The battle saw the destruction of much of the military elite of the English realm. Those who survived or were not present were to often go into exile in the years following, but some, with varying success, made their peace with the new dispensation. At least one great English Whig aristocratic family which claims its ancestor fought alongside Duke William at Hastings has been shown by twentieth century scholarship to be of northern English origin who acquired a more glamorous pedigree over the centuries.

The heat and fury, and also the casualties, of the battle

Image: britannica.com

   

There can be no doubt that what happened on the battlefield at Hastings was one of the most momentous events in the history of England, and, by extension, of the British Isles. Virtually everything which has happened since that day is either directly a consequence of the Norman victory, or indirectly conditioned by it. The survival of English as a language, of some national institutions such as the Monarchy and parts of the Common Law and, surprisingly, many Anglo-Saxon churches is a tribute to the vigour and resilience of the kingdom the Duke of Normandy had conquered.

 

The link with Normandy and, consequently, with the Angevin territories shaped the English medieval centuries and the continuing relationship with Europe. Without Hastings there would be little likelihood of such images of national identity as Crécy, Poitiers and, above all, Agincourt. The French territories may have been lost, but the memory shaped the sense of nationhood.

By linking England to the mainstream of European thought and culture England itself, and then the rest of the British Isles, were integrated into the ecclesiastical, cultural and intellectual world of western Europe, and played a major part in transmitting those ideas to Scandinavia.

Within the British Isles the Normans were to have both direct and indirect impact on Wales, in Scotland, and Ireland. These were the new frontiers for territorial and cultural expansion, but yet again, building on Anglo-Saxon precedents.

The sharp distinction between Norman and Saxon so beloved of seventeenth century radicals, nineteenth century novelists and twentieth century filmmakers does seem to have faded quite rapidly. The wealth of England which attracted invaders had already seen successful Danish invasions in the earlier part of the eleventh century and King Harold II’s family were Anglo-Saxon protégés of King Cnut. Within a relatively short time after Hastings men and women of Anglo-Saxon descent were entering into the life of a new Anglo-Norman elite. The very fact that the Bayeux Tapestry is thought to be the work of English embroiderers at Canterbury suggests how early that linkage was taking place.

I have no doubt that the battle of Hastings was terrible and bloody for those who took part, whether they survived or not. It is noteworthy that survivors were required to do penance for what had taken place. It is also an event that has shaped, and continues to shape, not only England, but the English-speaking world.

The Pilgrimage of Grace 1536

Today is the 490th anniversary of the beginning of the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536. This followed on from the Lincolnshire Rising which had collapsed a fortnight beforehand. The what extent they were actually linked remains unclear, and they may be an instance of similar circumstances producing similar, but distinct, events.  

        

   

A surviving embroidered badge of the Five Wounds from the Pilgrimage 

Image.adastpaul.com

As I wrote in my article about the Lincolnshire Rising the Pilgrimage of Grace is one of those events which people either so know about, more especially perhaps if they are northerners, or they do not know about it or dismiss as just a conservative, reactionary movement in opposition to the progressive moves of King Henry VIII and his dreadful lackeys, Cromwell and Cranmer. ….

Wikipedia has a very general and rather superficial account at of the movement at Pilgrimage of Grace

We have a great deal of contemporary source material available but it requires time to read it. A knowledge of the region and places involved helps to locate it not just geographically but also spiritually and culturally.

Although there was strong support in Craven and in north Lancashire, Westmoreland and Cumberland, which might be considered ‘backwoods’ areas the  Pilgrimage began in the prosperous lowlands of the East Riding east of the Ouse and similar areas across that Riding and the West Riding. These were areas much more similar to the eastern Midlands and southern England, and with an inbuilt tradition of being independent-minded, and like the Lincolnshire men who had risen only weeks earlier.

Could it have succeeded? I think the odds were ultimately stacked in favour of the Crown and central government. Like the smaller Lincolnshire uprising it appears to have broken down behind the seeming front of unity, especially after the truce arranged at the end of the year. Those like Sir Francis Bigod who started another uprising early in 1537 played into the government’s hand and enabled the King to call off the truce and go on the offensive.

Although there was aristocratic support there was not the type of leadership from a great magnate or magnates which had proved so potent in the previous century with regional and factional rebellions. We do not really know what discussions took place in  private over a sizeable area beforehand, and the historical debate continues as to who was behind the movement.

Was Robert Aske, like Thomas Moigne in Lincolnshire, the leader or the legally trained spokesman for what was in part a movement by the social and religious elite, but was also a genuinely popular movement?

Any hoped for foreign intervention was lacking, though how likely this was is highly debatable given the international situation. Nor can one see how such an operation could have been mounted, especially at short notice.  

King Henry could have abided by the truce, but again one must ask was that ever likely? It had been negotiated by the Duke of Norfolk who probably sympathised with the Pilgrimage’s aims, yet he was also bound to the King and safeguarding his own position in East Anglia and elsewhere.

In a time when the popular voice could only be heard by rebelling its chances of success were slim without support in other regions. Once the initial impact wore off the momentum changed and the balance of advantage passed to the government in London.

Retribution was severe, with executions continuing into the summer of 1538.

As with the members of the Lincolnshire Rising we can  appreciate the zeal to maintain the traditional faith, and to remedy socio-economic grievances, and say of the Pilgrims that at least they tried to save their way of life and faith. 

St Edward the Confessor

Today is the feast of St Edward the Confessor. It is the anniversary of the day in 1163 when his relics were translated from his original tomb in Westminster Abbey to a new shrine, following his canonisation in 1161 by Pope Alexander III.

King Edward the Confessor.   

 

From the Bayeux Tapestry 

    

Image: Wikipedia 

      

With all the coverage of the events of 1066 we are getting in connection with the visit of the Bayeux Tapestry to the British Museum I wonder if today was chosen so that the liturgical celebration of the new saint king falls on the day before the anniversary of the battle of Hastings. This would, by implication, make King William I the immediate successor of King Edward and thus deny King Harold II the status of ever being a lawful monarch.

 

Detail of St Edward the Confessor from the Wilton Diptych of 1397

 

Image: Historical Britain blog     

 

 The cult of St Edward flourished particularly in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, most notably it would appear in the reign of King Richard II. It is noteworthy that in 1399 after the deposition of that king his successor, King Henry IV, chose to be crowned at Westminster on this feast day of St Edward, and by implication, stressing the significance of the role of St Edward as the patron in the monarchy and as the exemplar of divinely approved and sanctioned kingship.

 

A modern icon of St Edward in his shrine chapel at Westminster Abbey. 

Image:Reddit

St Wilfrid

Today is the feast day of the great Anglo-Saxon bishop and missionary St Wilfrid 

 

A modern icon of St Wilfrid 

Image: northumberlandtraveller.wordpress.com - Hexham

Due to the biography written soon after his death by Eddius Stephanus as well as the work of the Venerable Bede we probably know more about the life of St Wilfrid than about that of any of his contemporaries in the episcopate other than the very different life of St Cuthbert.

Wilfrid, born in 633 or 634, probably in what is now Yorkshire, lived to be seventy six, dying at his monastery at Oundle in Northamptonshire in 709. His life was rich and varied as, probably, a monk, the spokesman for the Roman option at the Synod of Whitby, a founder of monasteries and churches, a bishop influenced strongly by Frankish practice, a political figure often clashing with Northumbrian kings, a political exile, who used exile to evangelise in Frisia, and later in Sussex and the Isle of Wight, and later still in the East Midlands, and man who travelled three times to Rome to argue his case before the Pope.

  

 His impact on the long term development and life of the Church in England was probably greater than any of his contemporaries amongst the bishops other than Archbishop Theodore of Tarsus who began the establishment of the parochial system.

 

The biography of him on Wikipedia is, like their others on Anglo-Saxon figures, much better than the average on that website, and indicates a serious academic background. It can be read at Wilfrid

The York Oratory website has a short account which very properly brings to the fore the Roman element in St Wilfrid’s formation and ecclesiastical vision. It can be read at Saint Wilfrid of York 

Tradition in Action has an extract from Eddius Stephanus’ life of the saint in which he received a vision of St Michael as messenger of the Virgin Mary, and refers to his church building activities whilst seriously ill in Meaux in France in 704. This in itself is interesting as it is from the time Marian devotion began to develop in the West, and close in date to the Evesham apparition of Our Lady. It can be accessed at The Vision of St. Wilfrid by Eddius

 

St Wilfrid as depicted in a fifteenth century panel in Hexham Abbey

Image: History Extra  

 

May St Wilfrid pray for us

The Charterhouse of Perth

Having just posted about the Carthusian monastery at Parkminster, in which I mentioned the one Scottish house of the Order, I have now found an online report about the excavations on the site in Perth of that Charterhouse. It was founded in 1429 by King James I and it was where he was buried following his murder in the town at the Blackfriars in 1437.

The report from the BBC News website on the excavations and the masonry fragments that have been discovered, and which includes a link to the website of the research project into the history and archaeology of the site, can be seen at Masonry from Perth's lost monastery may have been reused for drain

 

In the later fourteenth and fifteenth centuries European royal and aristocratic patronage often flowed to existing 

Carthusian houses such as Miraflores near Burgos or 

into new foundations such as Champnol at Dijon by the Dujes of Burgundy or in England Sir Walter Manny with the London Charterhouse, the Duke of Norfolk at Axholne, the Duke of Surrey at Mount Grace, and King Henry V at Sheen.

 

King James I had been brought up as a captive from 1406 at the English court, and appears in the view of his modern biographer to have modelled himself on King Henry. When he returned to Scotland in 1424 with an English born Queen in the person of Joan Beaufort 

he apparently set out to emulate English and European practice by establishing a Carthusian house of contemplative prayer.

King James I of Scots

From the Receuil d’Arras

Image: english -history-trip.tumblr.com

 

Inside Parkminster

This past week there was on October 6th the feast of St Bruno, the founder of the Carthusian Order, and next month has the feast of the Carthusian saint Hugh of Lincoln on November 17th.

It is probably linked to these feasts that a video has appeared on the internet from Lux de Coelo which is a tour of Parkminster, the nineteenth century Carthusian monastery in West Sussex. It is the only Carthusian house in the country - at the suppression of the monasteries in the sixteenth century there were nine houses in England and one in Scotland. The English houses produced a significant number of martyrs.

Led by a former member of the community it shows the church, the chapter house with its striking wall paintings, and then library as well as the relic collection and the overall layout. The guide also talks about the Carthusian Rite and the saying of the Divine Office by the two communities.

Amongst the relics is a plain white stole which belonged to St Hugh of Lincoln, which I saw when it was on display at Lincoln Cathedral in 1986 to commemorate his appointment to the See eight centuries earlier.

 

Parkminster from the air

 

The cloister of the choir monks is on the left and that of the lay brothers with the gatehouse to the right

Image : Facebook 

The video can be seen at Lux de Coelo, and there is a charming postscript at Lux de Coelo

Wikipedia has relevant articles about the founder at Bruno of Cologne, at Carthusians  about the Order, and a brief note about the Sussex monastery at St Hugh's Charterhouse 

The Cotswold wool churches

Country Life recently had an article by their Architectural Editor, John Goodall, about the later medieval churches of the Cotswolds, funded by the profits of the wool trade. Hence the term”Wool Churches@ for these wonderful buildings.  

Northleach Church

One of the most famous wool churches

Image: Wikipedia 

  

The article places the churches within the development of the sheep rearing, and shearing, of the region, and is well illustrated. Goodall makes the point that what we see today in these churches are buildings denuded of their stained glass, with the wondrous exception of Fairford with its twenty eight early sixteenth century windows, and the woodwork of screens, and indeed of most of their medieval colour.

It can be accessed at How sheep farming transformed the architectural face of the Cotswolds

 

Fairford Church

Image: Wikipedia 

The early sixteenth century west window of Fairford Church depicting the Last Judgement 

   

Image: Wikipedia