The beheading of Thomas of Lancaster in 1322

I have posted before on this anniversary day of his death by beheading at Pontefract in 1322 about Thomas  Earl of Lancaster - or as some came to regard him, St Thomas of Pontefract - and these previous posts can be seen at St Thomas of Pontefract from 2011, and there are three posts from 2012, St Thomas of Pontefract at South Newington,  St Thomas of Pontefract in the British Museum and St Thomas of Pontefract in the Sellers Hours.

This year I have found another nearly contemporary depiction of his death. It is from Villani's Cronica Nuova and must date from only a generation or so after the event. As such it indicates interest in English political events in Florence at the time - but the downfall of Earl Thomas would have been a major news story given his prominence in English life and his family connections to both the English and French royal houses.

Unfortunately the photograph is in black and white rather than colour. The miniature is in no way, both in its Florentine provenence and its detail, an eye- witness record. King Edward II can be seen observing the execution of his cousin from within Pontefract castle - in reality the execution took place almost a mile away on what became known as St Thomas' Hill and became a place of pilgrimage as the cult of St Thomas of Pontefract developed in the following years. Nonetheless this is an interesting depiction of an event that clearly attracted wide attention in what happened to become my home town.

 

Image: Wikimedia

 

 

St Thomas of Pontefract in the Sellers Hours

In the collections of the Bridwell Library in Dallas in Texas may be seen a further example of the cult of St Thomas of Pontefract in what is now referred to as the Sellers Book of Hours - Bridwell MS. 13. Therein is depicted the beheading of Earl Thomas:

Hours of the Virgin, Execution of Thomas of Lancaster, 141v-142r.

Image: SMU/Bridwell Library

There is a larger version here:

Image: Luminarium

A Book of Hours according to the Use of Sarum, it was produced in France, probably at Saint-Omer, circa 1330 for an English patron.

The illuminated manuscript is on parchment and consists of 164 leaves, 10 x 6 cm., and written in a single column of 15 lines with a textblock of 5.5 x 3.7 cm. It is now bound in eighteenth-century Flemish red gilt morocco.

The script is gothic textura in brown ink, frame ruled, with ample margins. Some rubrics are written in Picard dialect. The Calendar is illuminated with illustrations of the signs of the Zodiac and the Labours of the Months.

The August Calendar pages

Image: SMU/Bridwell Library

The prayers to Thomas, Earl of Lancaster (d. 1322) serve as a testament to his cult in the fourteenth century. In the manuscript, as with the paintings in South Newington church, Thomas appears to be paired with St Thomas Becket, which suggests that they were associated in the popular mind as, perhaps, defenders of liberty against an authoratorian government.

The manuscript contains a late fourteenth-century mnemonic in English for remembering the number of days of the months is possibly the earliest record of this rhyme.

There are twenty calendar miniatures, and fifteen full-colour miniatures and historiated initials, many on gold leaf; scrolling vine borders set with various marginal drolleries, including dogs, rabbits, birds, humans, and hybrid creations.

It has passed through the following hands: (1) J. B. Toulmin, early inscription. (2) Goodspeed's Bookshop, Boston, 1950. (3) Dr. Lyle M. Sellers, Dallas, 1950-1964. (4) Baylor University Medical Center Library, Dallas, 1964-2001. (5) Long-term deposit at Bridwell Library, Dallas, 2001.

Bibliography:

Eleanor S. Greenhill. "Fourteenth-century Workshop of Manuscript Illuminators and its Localization." Zeitschrift fur Kunstgeschichte 40(1977):1-23.

----------. Gothic and Renaissance Illuminated Manuscripts from Texas Collections. Exhibition, 23 April-23 June 1971. Miriam Lutcher Stark Library: University of Texas, 1971.

John McQuillen. "Bridwell Library Ms. 13, The Sellers Hours." M.A. Thesis, Southern Methodist University, 2004.

St Thomas of Pontefract in the British Museum

In my post last year on St Thomas of Pontefract I referred to a lead devotional plaque about his life and death which is now in the British Museum. Through the Museum website I have now found a photograph of this remarkable survival.

AN755669001

© The Trustees of the British Museum. Department of Prehistory and Europe

Registration number: 1954,0502.1

Of English manufacture and dated to the later fourteenth century, it is described as a devotional panel, and is made from lead. I wonder if originally it would have been painted, or whether it simply had a polished finish, as with modern reproductions of pilgrim badges.

The openwork comprises six scenes from the last days of Thomas, Earl of Lancaster (1278-1322). The scenes are arranged in two tiers under an architectural canopy.

In the upper register the first scene appears to show the King and two bishops; the second is the battle of Boroughbridge and the death of Thomas' ally the Earl of Hereford; the third scene shows Earl Thomas being taken by boat from the battlefield as a captive. In the lower register the first scene shows Thomas being tried in his castle at Pontefract 'on the King's record' - that is to say, the King recounted his cousin's notorious misdemeanours and the jury of peers condemned him prompting the Earl's rejoinder "Shall I die without answer?"; in the second scene he is taken to the place of execution - still known as St Thomas' Hill; in the third scene he is beheaded.

The tracery contains the figure of God seated on rainbow with censing angel on either side. Flanking the gable are figures of St Paul on the left and St Peter on the right. The gable is surmounted by the Crucifixion with two headless saints, presumably Our Lady and St John, on pinnacles; there is a single figure in each of four projecting niches, two on either side; shield with the arms of England in centre.

Dimensions
Height: 165 millimetres
Width: 127 millimetres

Bibliography
Hugh Tait, 'Pilgrim-Signs and Thomas, Earl of Lancaster,' The British Museum Quarterly, Vol XX (1955-56) 40.


This piece may well be similar to the tablet showing Thomas which was set up in St Paul' s in London within a year or so of his death and which the government ordered to be removed. After 1327 the cult spread and a memorial chapel was built on the site of the execution in 1361.

St Thomas of Pontefract at South Newington

Last year on this day I posted St Thomas of Pontefract about the cult that developed around Thomas Earl of Lancaster who was executed for rebellion on this day 690 years ago at Pontefract following his defeat at the battle of Boroughbridge. Devotion to him certainly continued at Pontefract until the sixteenth century. I would point readers back to that post before reading this fresh post about his cult.

In that previous post I illustrated the remains of a wall painting at South Newington in Oxfordshire which depicts the martyrdom of St Thomas of Pontefract and pairs it with that of St Thomas of Canterbury. The pair of paintings are an addition to the cycles that were already in the church, and points to Lancastrian influence in the area after 1326 and the downfall of King Edward II.

The martyrdom of St Thomas of Pontefract
South Newington church, c.1330

Image:paintedchurch.org

There is an online account of both paintings here, and I highly recommend a visit to this very intersting church and its impressive and substantial remains of medieval wall painting.

I have now found on the internet this picture, which appears to be an attempted reconstruction of the painting as it may once have appeared to the parishioners of South Newington.

For some reason the figure of Earl Thomas has been reversed, and the relative postions of the figures would definitely handicap the executioner ("a villein of London"according to a contemporary account.)

Image : Luminarium

St Thomas of Pontefract

Today is the putative feast day of St Thomas of Pontefract. I say putative as Thomas was never formally canonised, but today is the anniversary of his death in 1322, and he did enjoy a popular cult in the decades after his death.

Thomas, Earl of Lancaster was the cousin of King Edward II, and the politics of the years 1312-1322 shaped by their bitter disagreements, which ended with Thomas' defeat at the battle of Boroughbridge in March 1322, followed by his capture and trial and conviction for treason in his own castle at Pontefract, rapidly followed by his beheading on what became known as St Thomas' Hill on the outskirts of the town. As with some other medieval rebels, such as Simon de Montfort at Evesham, a cult sprang up around his tomb in the Cluniac priory in Pontefract, around apicture in St Paul's cathedral in London and, following the deposition of King Edward II in 1326-7, attempts were made to secure Thomas' canonisation. That did not come about despite appeals to Pope John XXII, and his cultus remained local and particular to the Lancastrian family. An office hymn was composed in his honour and pilgrimages made to Pontefract in the fourteenth century. for a number of years it was very popular and survived at Pontefract at least until the dissolution of the priory in 1539. His belt was believed to assist women in child birth and his hat was believed to aid sufferers from migraine and 'rye-asthma' - hay fever. On the site of his execution a memorial chapel was built by a Lancastrian retainer, Simon Symeon in 1361. Now destroyed some fragments of worked stone were found on the site in the 1940s.

As his biographer Dr John Maddicott argues in his book Thomas' sanctity is rather vitiated by his "repulsive" character. He appears to have been violent, harsh, contrary, selfish and promiscuous. Dr Maddicott's biography for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography of Earl Thomas and his wife Countess Alice, the heiress of Pontefract, can be read here.

Thomas, Earl of Lancaster with St George

Bodleian MS Douce 231

Image :Wikipedia

This manuscript indicates a rather more positive view of him. There has been the suggestion that the figure may be his father, Earl Edmund (d.1296), but the five points on the label on his shield may well indicate Thomas as a grandson of King Henry III. Assuming that it is Thomas he is paired with St George, who was increasingly assuming the role of the nation's patron saint.

One surviving piece of devotion to him is the wall painting shown above in South Newington church in north Oxfordshire. The church has a wonderful series of fragments of medieval wall paintings. To that series were added a pair depicting the martyrdoms of St Thomas of Canterbury and St Thomas of Pontefract. Although much damaged they are still clear, and indicate how some at least saw Thomas of Lancaster in the years after his death. The painting were apparently commissioned by a retainer of the Earl.

I have long known of the South Newington painting from photographs, but it was only in recent years that I got to see it whilst on an historic church-crawl with Fr Jerome Bertram of the Oxford Oratory in 2005. The visit was a great delight, to see the painting after so many years, and all the others that survive in the church. There is an article about them here , whence comes the illustration I have copied.

There also survives in the British Museum a large lead openwork plaque in the style of the pilgrim badges from the period depicting scenes from the life and death of Thomas. This presumably was made in some numbers for churches or private devotion.

A long time ago I saw a copy of a drawing of a medieval vestment orphrey depicting Thomas - I ought to check up on this, but I think it was taken from the publications of the Society of Antiquaries.

Here in Oxfordshire there may be another link. In the very intersting church at Stanton Harcourt are the remains of the shrine base of St Edburga from Bicester Priory. This dates from Thomas' lifetime. On the base are a series of coats of arms with small heads above them. I think that these may well be meant to portray the owners of the arms and the two on the right in this photograph are the arms of Earl Thomas and of his wife, Alice , with a male and a female head above them.

The shrine of St Edburga
The possible portraits of Earl Thomas and Countess Alice are on the right

Image:Nash Ford publications

This is one of those pieces of antiquarian research I keep meaning to do some more research on and write up for a suitable academic journal.