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Architecture and Environment: St Benet's Holm and the Fashioning of the English Monastic Gatehouse

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 January 2016

Julian Luxford
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Extract

This article analyses the gatehouse of the wealthy Benedictine abbey of St Benet's Holm in Norfolk, one of the set-pieces of English monastic architectural patronage in the fourteenth century. The ruinous condition of this building, and its sequestered location, means that it has attracted little scholarly attention in the past, and the neglect has been exacerbated by the presence of a brick windmill-tower superimposed on its remains four centuries after the gatehouse was built. This forced marriage, at once preposterous and compelling in effect, has absorbed most of the attention paid to the site, and because what is left of the gatehouse's main façade is embedded within the mill-tower, and thus difficult to photograph, its artistic uniqueness and quality of execution have been concealed. There has hence been no serious attempt to investigate or contextualize it (Figs 1, 2).

Type
Research Article
Information
Architectural History , Volume 57 , 2014 , pp. 31 - 72
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 2014

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References

Notes

1 Notes made c. 1770 date the mill's construction c. 1730: Norwich, Norfolk Record Office [hereafter NRO], MS Rye 3:2 (eighteenth-century antiquarian collections), p. 490.

2 The main source worth noting is Pestell, Tim, St Benet's Abbey: A Guide and History (Norwich, 2008), pp. 7–12 Google Scholar, where an impressionistic reconstruction of the monastery is presented. This guidebook gives a good general account of the abbey. Others are Blomefield, Francis, An Essay Towards a Topographical History of the County of Norfolk, 2nd edn, 11 vols (London, 1805-10), XI, p. 55 Google Scholar; Loftus Brock, Edgar Philip, ‘The Abbey of St. Benet's at Holm’, Journal of the British Archaeological Association, 36 (1880), pp. 15–21 (pp. 18-19)Google Scholar; Snelling, Joan M., St. Benet's Abbey, Norfolk, rev. Edwards, William Frederick (Norwich, 1983), p. 7 Google Scholar; Morant, Roland W., The Monastic Gatehouse and Other Types of Portal of Medieval Religious Houses (Lewes, 1995), pp. 86, 91,183Google Scholar; Pevsner, Nikolaus and Wilson, Bill, The Buildings of England. Norfolk 1: Norwich and North-East (New Haven and London, 1997), pp. 561-62Google Scholar; Emery, Anthony, Greater Medieval Houses of England and Wales 1300—1500, 3 vols (Cambridge, 1996-2006), II, p. 142.Google Scholar An unpublished description is ‘The Abbey of St Benet at Holm, Horning, Norfolk: An Archaeological and Architectural Survey by the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England’, ed. Topping, Peter (s.l., 1994), pp. 27–36.Google Scholar

3 Kew, The National Archives [hereafter TNA], E167/1607, m. 4 (survey of 1594, mentioning ‘a gatehouse uncovered’).

4 First accessibly published in Vestusta Monumenta quae ad rerum Britannicarum memoriam conservandam (London, 1747), pls 13, 14.Google Scholar

5 NRO, MS Rye 17:6 (eighteenth-century antiquarian collections), p. 1.

6 The aesthetic development of later medieval gatehouses in continental Europe, and also parts of the Islamic world, mainly involved civic or palatial gates. These could be highly ornate, but there is no obvious parallel between them and later medieval English ecclesiastical gatehouses.

7 On cross-fertilization in Decorated Gothic, see Webb, Geoffrey, Architecture in Britain: The Middle Ages (Harmondsworth, 1956), pp. 163-64Google Scholar; Bony, Jean, The English Decorated Style: Gothic Architecture Transformed 1250-1350 (Oxford, 1979), pp. 19–25 Google Scholar; Coldstream, Nicola, The Decorated Style: Architecture and Ornament 1240-1360 (London, 1994), pp. 35–52 Google Scholar; Binski, Paul, ‘The English Decorated Style: Problems and Possibilities’, in Bilan et Perspectives des Etudes Médiévales en Europe, ed. Hamesse, Jacqueline (Louvain-la-Neuve, 1995), pp. 313-28CrossRefGoogle Scholar. A forthcoming book by Paul Binski will be a major addition to this literature.

8 For acknowledgement of the problem, see Fergusson, Peter, ‘The Greencourt Gatehouse at the Cathedral Monastery of Christchurch, Canterbury’, in Das Bauwerk und die Stadt: Aufsatzefur Eduard F. Sekler, ed. Böhm, Wolfgang (Vienna, 1994), pp. 87–97 Google Scholar; Fergusson, Peter, ‘“ Porta patens esto“: Notes on Early Cistercian Gatehouses in the North of England’, in Medieval Architecture and its Intellectual Context: Studies in Honour of Peter Kidson, ed. Fernie, Eric and Crossley, Paul (London, 1990), pp. 47–59.Google Scholar

9 See, for example, Lateinische Schriftquellen zur Kunst in England, Wales und Schottland vom Jahre 901 bis zum Jahre 1307, ed. Lehmann-Brockhaus, Otto, 5 vols (Munich, 1955-60), I, p. 581 (no. 2197).Google Scholar

10 Goodall, John, The English Castle (New Haven and London, 2011), pp. 274-76Google Scholar; Goodall, John, ‘The English Gatehouse’, Architectural History, 55 (2012), pp. 1–23 (pp. 7,14-19)Google Scholar: the latter is essential for understanding the morphology of later medieval gatehouses in general.

11 See, for example, Thompson, Michael, Cloister, Abbot and Precinct in Medieval Monasteries (Stroud, 2001), p. 110 Google Scholar: ‘The “great gate” (magna porta) seems to have been a late medieval invention.'

12 Lateinische Schriftquellen, I, pp. 312, 506 (nos 1156, 1868)Google Scholar; Chronicon abbatiae de Evesham, ed. Macray, William Dunn, Rolls Series 29 (London, 1863), xliv n. 1Google Scholar; The Chronicle of Glastonbury Abbey, ed. Carley, James P., trans. Townsend, David (Woodbridge, 1985), p. 166 Google Scholar (‘portam exteriorem speciosam ex lapidibus quadris’).

13 For licences to crenellate English monastic precincts and gates see Coulson, Charles, ‘Hierarchism in Conventual Crenellation: An Essay in the Sociology and Metaphysics of Medieval Fortification’, Medieval Archaeology, 26 (1982), pp. 69–100 (pp. 93-95)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the build-dates of gate, Peterborough's, see Lateinische Schriftquellen, II, pp. 342, 343Google Scholar (nos 3512, 3516).

14 Kirkham's gate is usually dated to the 1290s, but its window tracery seems too advanced for this: Coppack, Glyn, Harrison, Stuart and Hayfield, Colin, ‘Kirkham Priory: the Architecture and Archaeology of an Augustinian House’, Journal of the British Archaeological Association, 148 (1995), pp. 55–136 (pp. 107-08).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 On these systems, see Documents Illustrating the Activities of the General and Provincial Chapters of the English Black Monks 1215-1540, ed. Pantin, William Abel, 3 vols, Camden Society, 3rd ser. 45, 47, 54 (London, 1931-37)Google Scholar; Chapters of the Augustinian Canons, ed. Salter, H.E., Oxford Historical Society 85 (Oxford, 1922).Google Scholar

16 On the Ethelbert gate, see particularly Fernie, Eric, An Architectural History of Norwich Cathedral (Oxford, 1993), pp. 178,180-82Google Scholar; Macnaughton-Jones, J.T., ‘Saint Ethelbert's Gate, Norwich’, Norfolk Archaeology, 34 (1966), pp. 74–84 Google Scholar; Wilson, Christopher, ‘The Origins of the Perpendicular Style and its Development to circa 1360’ (doctoral thesis, University of London, 1980), pp. 174, 179-80, 383 n. 13.Google Scholar

17 For Butley, see Mann, James G., ‘Butley Priory, Suffolk’, Country Life, 73 (1933), pp. 308-14Google Scholar; Caröe, William Douglas, ‘The Later History of the Priory and the Gatehouse’, Archaeological Journal, 90 (1933), pp. 229-41Google Scholar; Pevsner, Nikolaus and Radcliffe, Enid, The Buildings of England. Suffolk (New Haven and London, 2002), pp. 155-57Google Scholar; Emery, , Greater Medieval Houses, II, pp. 53–56.Google Scholar

18 On Bury's gatehouse, see, briefly, Evans, Joan, English Art 1307-1461 (Oxford, 1949), p. 114 Google Scholar; Whittingham, Arthur B., ‘Bury St. Edmunds Abbey: The Plan, Design and Development of the Church and Monastic Buildings’, Archaeological Journal, 108 (1951), pp. 173-83 (p. 186)Google Scholar; Whittingham, Arthur B., Bury St Edmunds Abbey (London, 1992), p. 24 Google Scholar; Webb, , Architecture in Britain, pp. 163-64Google Scholar; Pevsner, and Radcliffe, , Suffolk, pp. 138-39Google Scholar; Goodall, , The English Castle, pp. 274-75.Google Scholar

19 See, for example, Goodall, John, ‘A Study of the Grotesque 14th-century Sculpture at Adderbury, Bloxhall and Hanwell in its Architectural Context’, Oxoniensia, 60 (1995), pp. 271–332 (pp. 291, 295, 318-19 and n. 79)Google Scholar; Cockerell, Sydney Carlyle and James, Montague Rhodes, Two East Anglian Psalters at the Bodleian Library, Oxford (Oxford, 1926), pl. X Google Scholar; Sandler, Lucy Freeman, Gothic Manuscripts 1285-1385, Survey of Manuscript Illuminated in the British Isles 5, 2 vols (London, 1986), I, ill. 83.Google Scholar

20 The main locally composed chronicle is printed in Chronica Johannis de Oxenedes, ed. Ellis, Sir Henry, Rolls Series 13 (London, 1859), pp. 1–287 Google Scholar; see also Flores Historiarum, ed. Luard, Henry Richards, 3 vols, Rolls Series 95 (London, 1890), 1, pp. xxii–xxiv, xxvGoogle Scholar; II, pp. 22, 52, 53, 56, 62, 70, 81, 92, 98, 143, 170, 196, 211, 223, 378, 414, 477; III, pp. 17, 19, 23, 24, 46, 64, 112, 117. The Chronica, composed c. 1292, survives in two copies, and an independent set of annals also exists (Chronica Johannis de Oxenedes, pp. 291-315). For a further foundation- history, see Licence, Tom, ‘Suneman and Wulfric: Two Forgotten Saints of St Benedict's Abbey at Holme in Norfolk’, Analecta Bollandiana, 122 (2004), pp. 361-72 (pp. 370—72).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 Carless Davis, Godfrey Rupert, Medieval Cartularies of Great Britain, rev. edn (London, 2012), pp. 99–100 Google Scholar; Calendar of Charters and Rolls Preserved in the Bodleian Library, ed. Turner, William H. (Oxford, 1878), pp. 239-50Google Scholar; NRO, DN/EST 1-14, 100 (medieval account rolls). On the main surviving cartulary, now London, British Library [hereafter BL] MS Cotton Galba E.II, see St. Benet of Holme 1020-1210, ed. West, James R., 2 vols, Norfolk Record Society 2, 3 (Norwich, 1932).Google Scholar

22 Pestell, Tim, Landscapes of Monastic Foundation: The Establishment of Religious Houses in East Anglia c.650-1200 (Woodbridge, 2004), pp. 143-46Google Scholar; Licence, Tom, ‘The Origins of the Monastic Communities of St Benedict at Holme and Bury St Edmunds’, Revue Benedictine, 116 (2006), pp. 42–61 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Licence, ‘Suneman and Wulfric'. The foundation-date of 633 is recorded in a number of lists of the foundation of monastic houses made in the late Middle Ages: Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 329, fol. 217r; Trinity College MSS R.5.33, fol. 13V; O.2.21, fol. 213V; London, BL MS Additional 39758, fol. 2r; Oxford, Bodleian Library [hereafter OBL], MS Gough Essex 1, fol. 13V.

23 For example, Chronica Johannis de Oxenedes, pp. 270-71Google Scholar; Flores Historiarum, III, p. 23 Google Scholar.

24 Early Christian Lives, ed. and trans. White, Carolinne (Harmondsworth, 1998), p. 168 Google Scholar; Clark, James G., The Benedictines in the Middle Ages (Woodbridge, 2011), pp. 10—11.Google Scholar

25 St. Benet of Holme 1020-1210, II, pp. 198–208 Google Scholar; English Monastic Estates, 1066-1540: A List of Manors, Churches and Chapels, ed. Jurkowski, Maureen, Ramsay, Nigel and Renton, Simon, 3 vols (Kew, 2007), II, pp. 339-43Google Scholar (local concentration of Holm's property).

26 'Willielmo, aurifabro de Constantinopoli': see BL, MS Cotton Galba E.II, Ms 220r-221r. The Augustinian priory of Walsingham was also involved in these transactions. Although undated, one of the four charters mentions Abbot Robert of Holm and Prior William of Walsingham, a combination only found between 1237 and 1251.

27 BL, MS Royal 14.C.VI (copy of the Flores Historiarum, 1320s). The section from 1305 to 1322 is based on annals from Tintern abbey in Monmouthshire, but is likely (for reasons not relevant to the current discussion) to have been written at Holm. For the existence of other chronicles at the abbey, see Chronica Johannis Oxenedes, pp. viii–x Google Scholar; Flores Historiarum, I, pp. xxiii–iv Google Scholar; Gransden, Antonia, Historical Writing in England c. 440-c. 1307 (London, 1974), pp. 402-03.Google Scholar

28 The purpose of adding these extracts at the beginning was presumably to increase the general usefulness of the chronicle without going to the trouble of interpolating the information into the main text.

29 BL, MS Royal 14.C.VI, fol. 1r. Compare The Marvels of Rome: Mirabilia urbis Romae, ed. and trans. Nichols, Francis organ, 2nd edn (New York, 1986), pp. 4–6 Google Scholar (listing seventeen gates).

30 Chronica Johannis de Oxenedes, pp. 18–19 Google Scholar; Memorials of St. Edmunds Abbey, ed. Arnold, Thomas, 3 vols, Rolls Series 96 (London, 1890-96), I, p. 359 Google Scholar; III, pp. 1-3. There is some scholarly disagreement over actual events: see Licence, ‘The Origins of the Monastic Communities'.

31 Chronica Johannis Oxenedes, p. 19 Google Scholar; Memorials of St. Edmunds Abbey, III, pp. 2–3,36—38Google Scholar; Gransden, Antonia, ‘The Cronica Buriensis and the Abbey of St Benet of Hulme’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 36 (1963), pp. 77–82 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 Memorials of St. Edmunds Abbey, II, pp. 330-31Google Scholar; III, pp. 39-41.

33 Calendar of Patent Rolls, Edward II. A.D. 1313-1317 (London, 1898), pp. 496-97Google Scholar (abbot's property and servants attacked, 1316); Flores Historiarum, I, p. xxii; III, pp. 24-25Google Scholar (account of riot at Norwich). On the latter, see also Chronica Johannes Oxenedes, pp. 240-42, 247-48Google Scholar.

34 Memorials of St. Edmunds Abbey, III, pp. 41–48 Google Scholar; Lambrick, Gabrielle, ‘Abingdon and the Riots of 1327’, Oxoniensia, 29 (1964), pp. 129-41Google Scholar; Gesta Abbatum monasterii Sancti Albani, ed. Riley, Henry Thomas, 3 vols, Rolls Series 28 (London, 1867-69), II, pp. 158-61,175-77.Google Scholar

35 TNA, C66/168 (Chancery records, 1327-28), m. 13: ‘Concessimus et licencia dedimus […] Abbati et conuentui sancti Benedicti de Hulmo quod ipsi situm suum Abbatie predicte muro de petra et calce firmare et kernellare'.

36 See, for example, TNA, C66/173 (Chancery records, 1330-31), m. 6 (Abingdon Abbey, 1330); C66/275 (Chancery records, 1367-68), m. 22 (Shaftesbury Abbey, 1367).

37 Arthur Whittingham ascribed the design of the gate at Holm to the Norwich-based architect William Ramsey: Whittingham, A.B., ‘The Ramsey Family of Norwich’, Archaeological Journal, 137 (1980), pp. 285-89 (p. 289)Google Scholar. But this attribution, which is not supported by any evidence, is unsafe.

38 Cited in NRO, MS Rye 3:2, p. 495. For standing remains of the walls, see ‘The Abbey of St Benet at Holm, Horning', pp. 13-14.

39 The low return wall shown in the antiquarian illustrations was evidently a post-medieval structure.

40 For the postern, see ‘The Abbey of St Benet at Holm, Horning', p. 6. Payments ‘pro facture portis cimeterij' are recorded in OBL, Norfolk Rolls 79 (sacrist's roll), mm. 1, 2.

41 Gilchrist, Roberta, Norwich Cathedral Close: the Evolution of the English Cathedral Landscape (Woodbridge, 2005), pp. 47–55 Google Scholar; James, Montague Rhodes, On the Abbey of S. Edmund at Bury (Cambridge, 1895), p. 126.Google Scholar

42 Worcestre, William, Itineraries, ed. Harvey, John H. (Oxford, 1969), pp. 224-29, 234-35Google Scholar (dimensions of the towers and other buildings).

43 A sixteenth- or early seventeenth-century drawing (BL, Cotton Nero D.II, fol. 314r), used as the basis of descriptions of the conventual church in previous publications on Holm, is in fact unrelated to the monastery.

44 For St Peter's, called variously ‘capella’ and ‘ecclesie', see NRO, Probate Registers Doke, fol. 118v (1439); Brossyard, fol. 54r (1457); Caston, fol. 229r (1484); Heywood, fol. 189r (1529). No parish church is noticed in Heale, Martin, ‘Monastic-Parochial Churches in England and Wales, 1066-1540’, Monastic Research Bulletin, 9 (2003), pp. 1–19 Google Scholar, the most complete hand-list available.

45 On this gate, see Wilson, , ‘Origins of the Perpendicular Style’, pp. 97–100 Google Scholar; Age of Chivalry: Art in Plantagenet England 1200-1400, ed. Alexander, Jonathan and Binski, Paul (London, 1987), p. 339 Google Scholar (text by Christopher Wilson); Luxford, Julian, ‘The Great Gate of St Augustine's Abbey: Architecture and Context’, in Medieval Art and Architecture at Canterbury, ed. Bovey, Alixe, British Archaeological Association Conference Transactions 35 (Leeds, 2013), pp. 261-75.Google Scholar

46 The leaves of the doors must have been of commensurate height. Each appears to have been hinged at two points on the inner face of the corresponding jamb.

47 Sekules, Veronica, ‘The Gothic Sculpture’, in Norwich Cathedral: Church, City and Diocese, 1096-1996, ed. Atherton, Ian, Fernie, Eric, Harper-Bill, Christopher and Smith, Hassell (London, 1996), pp. 197–209 (pp. 201-02)Google Scholar; see also Borg, Alan and others, Medieval Sculpture from Norwich Cathedral (Norwich, 1980), p. 33.Google Scholar

48 Lindley, Philip Graham, ‘The Arminghall Arch and Contemporary Sculpture in Norwich’, Norfolk Archaeology, 40 (1987), pp. 19–43 Google Scholar; Sekules, Veronica, ‘Religious Politics and the Cloister Bosses of Norwich Cathedral’, Journal of the British Archaeological Association, 159 (2006), pp. 284–306.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

49 The Christchurch priory Jesse is illustrated in Coldstream, Decorated Style, p. 54 Google ScholarPubMed.

50 The Kirkham Christ in majesty and Thornton Christ remain in place.

51 Chronicon abbatiae de Evesham, p. 292 Google Scholar: ‘imaginibus etiam petrinis beatae Virginis, sancti Egwini et regum fundatorum nostrorum'.

52 Eighteenth-century drawings of these images are in NRO, MS Rye 17:5 (eighteenth-century antiquarian collections), at pp. 41, 42.

53 For Burnham Norton, see Pevsner, Nikolaus and Wilson, Bill, The Buildings of England. Norfolk 2: North-West and South (New Haven and London, 2002), p. 231.Google Scholar

54 On the quartering of the English arms with those of France, see Michael, Michael A., ‘The Little Land of England is Preferred before the Great Kingdom of France: the Quartering of the Royal Arms by Edward III’, in Studies in Medieval Art and Architecture Presented to Peter Lasko, ed. Buckton, David and Heslop, TA. (Stroud, 1994) pp. 114-26.Google Scholar

55 RB 1980. The Rule of St Benedict in Latin and English with Notes, ed. Fry, Timothy (Collegeville, PA, 1981), pp. 287-89 (ch. 66)Google Scholar; Fergusson, , ‘“Porta patens esto”’, p. 55 Google Scholar. On St James's hospital, see Messent, Claude J.W., The Monastic Remains of Norfolk and Suffolk (Norwich, 1934), p. 30 Google Scholar; Pestell, , St Benet's Abbey, pp. 21,35.Google Scholar

56 Focillon, Henri, The Life of Forms in Art, trans. Hogan, Charles Beecher and Kubler, George (New York, 1989), p. 85 Google Scholar (‘Fashion thus invents an artificial humanity’). For Winchester's stalls, designed c. 1308 by a Norfolk artist, see Tracy, Charles, English Gothic Choir-Stalls 1200-1400 (Woodbridge, 1987), pp. 16–24 Google Scholar; on St William's tomb, made between 1317 and 1340, see Wilson, Christopher, The Shrines of St William of York (York, 1977), pp. 11–17.Google Scholar

57 For example, Baxandall, Michael, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1991), pp. 29–30 Google Scholar; Crossley, Paul, ‘Medieval Architecture and Meaning: the Limits of Iconography’, Burlington Magazine, 130 (1988), pp. 116-21 (p. 121)Google Scholar; Willibald Sauerlander, ‘Integration: a Closed or Open Proposal?', Barbara Abou-El-Haj, ‘Artistic Integration Inside the Cathedral Precinct: Social Consensus Outside?', and Bedos-Rezak, Miriam, ‘Form as Social Process’, in Artistic Integration in Gothic Buildings, ed. Raguin, Virginia Chieffo, Brush, Kathryn and Draper, Peter (London, 2000), pp. 3–18, 214-35, 236-48.Google Scholar

58 Paston Letters and Papers of the Fifteenth Century, ed. Davis, Norman, 2 vols (Oxford, 1971-76), II, pp. 354-56 (no. 727).Google Scholar

59 Worcestre, , Itineraries, pp. 2–3.Google Scholar

60 Memorials of St. Edmunds Abbey, III, p. 39 Google Scholar. Maintenance of manors and granges is recorded in almost all of the surviving account rolls from Holm.

61 For the glass, all lost, see Blomefield, , Norfolk, VIII, p. 178 Google Scholar; ix, p. 292; NRO, MS Rye 17:4 (eighteenth-century antiquarian collections), fol. 6; BL, MS Harley 901 (later sixteenth-century heraldic collections), fols 71V, 107V; BL, MS Lansdowne 260, late sixteenth-century heraldic collection, fol. 248. (I owe these references to David King.) The arms at Horning and Catfield survive. This is probably not an exhaustive list.

62 William Thome's Chronicle of Saint Augustine's Abbey Canterbury, trans. Davis, A.H. (Oxford, 1934), p. 394.Google Scholar

63 The Early Communar and Pittancer Rolls of Norwich Cathedral Priory with an Account of the Building of the Cloister, ed. Fernie, Eric C. and Whittingham, Arthur B., Norfolk Record Society 41 (Norwich, 1972), pp. 33–34 Google Scholar. The knowledge that £466 13s. 4d. was spent between 1360 and 1391 on the Cemetery gate at St Augustine's, Canterbury — a building of similar size, but altogether less ornate — is merely suggestive: Cotton, Charles, ‘A Contemporary List of the Benefactions of Thomas Ikham, Sacrist, to St. Austin's Abbey, Canterbury’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 37 (1925), pp. 152-59 (p. 158).Google Scholar

64 Goodall, , English Castle, pp. 266-68, 329-31.Google Scholar Images of gates displaying heraldic shields are also found in contemporary manuscripts: see, for example, Sandler, , Gothic Manuscripts, I, ill. 36.Google Scholar

65 TNA, C 47/6/1 (early fifteenth-century Court of Chivalry records), m. 29 (nos 144-47).

66 NRO, MSS Rye 3:2, P. 490; Rye 6:1 (eighteenth-century antiquarian collections), pp. 84-85. For the manorial holdings of Beauchamp, Clare, Erpingham, Hastings and Valence in Norfolk, see Blake, William J., ‘Norfolk Manorial Lords in 1316’, Norfolk Archaeology, 30 (1947-52), pp. 234-85 (pp. 265-86).Google Scholar At this time, however, the De la Poles had no Norfolk estates, and their arms were possibly added later.

67 Correctly, the Morley lion would be crowned. For the Morley arms on two copes at Holm during the fourteenth century, see TNA, C 47/6/1, m. 29 (nos 144-47).

68 Mann, , ‘Butley Priory’, p. 310.Google Scholar For prayer-book armorials in this light, see Smith, Kathryn A., Art, Identity and Devotion in Fourteenth-Century England: Three Women and Their Books of Hours (London, 2003), pp. 29–31 Google Scholar; Sand, Alexa, ‘ Cele houre memes: An Eccentric English Psalter-Hours in the Huntington Library’, Huntington Library Quarterly, 75 (2012), pp. 171–211 (pp. 188-89).Google Scholar

69 Dickinson, John Compton, The Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham (Cambridge, 1956), pp. 78–79.Google Scholar See also Caley, John, ‘Copy of a Survey of the Priory of Bridlington, in Yorkshire, taken about the 32d Year of Henry VIII’, Archaeologia, 30 (1821), pp. 270-75 (p. 271)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fergusson, Peter, ‘Abbot Anselm's Gate Tower at Bury St Edmunds’, in Architecture, Liturgy and Identity: Liber Amicorum Paul Crossley, ed. Opačić, Zoë and Timmermann, Achim (Turnhout, 2011), pp. 25–33 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fergusson, , ‘Greencourt Gatehouse’, p. 92 Google Scholar; Coppack, , Harrison, and Hayfield, , ‘Kirkham Priory’, pp. 110, 136 n. 58Google Scholar; Goodall, , English Castle, p. 275.Google Scholar

70 Blomefield, , Norfolk, IV, p. 53 Google Scholar; Lateinische Schriftquellen, I, p. 394 Google Scholar (no. 1452: Durham); II, p. 335 (no. 3481: Peterborough); Hall, Jackie, ‘English Cistercian Gatehouse Chapels’, Cîteaux: Commentarii cistercienses, 52 (2001), pp. 61–92 (pp. 88-90: Beaulieu, Whalley)Google Scholar.

71 Documents Illustrating the … English Black Monks, III, p. 42.Google Scholar

72 For example, at the Augustinian priory of Holy Trinity, Aldgate, London: see Calendar of Patent Rolls, Edward III., A.D. 1374-1377 (London, 1916), p. 82.Google Scholar

73 For the Erpingham gate at Norwich (c. 1435) as a ‘grander “west front“’ to the cathedral, see Gilchrist, , Norwich Cathedral Close, p. 51.Google Scholar

74 Coulson, , ‘Heirarchism in Conventual Crenellation’, p. 75 Google Scholar et passim.

75 Coulson, , ‘Heirarchism in Conventual Crenellation’, pp. 70, 71, 76-77 (arriviste patronage), 90 (weapons).Google Scholar For weapons and armour in monasteries, see, for example, Clark, , The Benedictines, pp. 275-77Google Scholar; Luxford, Julian, The Art and Architecture of English Benedictine Monasteries 1300—1540: a Patronage History (Woodbridge, 2005), p. 143 and n. 203 (Glastonbury, Gloucester, Norwich, Peterborough)Google Scholar; William Thome's Chronicle, p. 612 (St Augustine's, Canterbury)Google ScholarPubMed; Gesta Abbatum monasterii Sancti Albani, II, p. 159 (St Albans)Google Scholar; Gransden, Antonia, A History of the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds 1182—1256: Samson of Tottington to Edmund of Walpole (Woodbridge, 2007), p. 38 (Bury).Google Scholar

76 Memorials of St. Edmunds Abbey, III, p. 39 (1327)Google Scholar; William Thome's Chronicle, p. 465 (1330)Google ScholarPubMed; The Victoria History of the County of Suffolk: Volume II, ed. Page, William (London, 1907), p. 86 (Thetford, 1305).Google Scholar

77 The Latin word ostium can of course signify entrance, door and mouth.

78 Some idea of the activities on these occasions is provided by The Customary of the Cathedral Priory Church of Norwich, ed. Lowder Tolhurst, John Basil, Henry Bradshaw Society 82 (London, 1948), p. 210.Google Scholar No customary survives for St Benet's Holm.

79 ‘Pro portacionem draconis diebus rogacionem’, etc. Eighteen such records exist: NRO, DN/EST12/18-25, 27-29, 32, in each case on m. 1; NRO, DN/EST12/26, 30, both on m. 2; NRO, DN/EST12/100/1, m. 2; OBL, Norfolk Rolls 78, m. 1; OBL, Norfolk Rolls 79, 80, both on m. 2, all sacrists’ rolls.

80 A new shrine was made in 1378-79 at a cost of 6d. (OBL, Norfolk Rolls 78 (sacrist's roll), m. 1). On relics as guardians of enclosure, see, for example, Baynes, Norman Hepburn, ‘The Supernatural Defenders of Constantinople’, Analecta Bollandiana, 67 (1949), pp.165-77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

81 For example, the angel and dragon combination in the spandrels of the late fifteenth-century gatehouse of St Osyth's abbey in Essex; the last of the great East Anglian monastic gatehouses to be built.

82 It accounts for the iconography and location of the sculpted ‘threshold guardians’ found in Greece, Assyria, India and China: see generally van Gennep, Arnold, The Rites of Passage, trans. Vizedom, Monika B. and Caffee, Gabrielle L. (Chicago, 1960 [originally published in 1909]), pp. 21–25 Google Scholar; also Lawrence, Arnold Walter, Greek Architecture, rev. Tomlinson, Richard Allan (London, 1983), p. 98 Google Scholar; Collins, Paul, Assyrian Palace Sculptures (London, 2008), pp. 30–33 Google Scholar; Coomaraswamy, Ananda Kentish, ‘Early Indian Architecture, I: Cities and City-Gates Etc.’, Eastern Art, 11 (1930), pp. 208-25 (pp. 215-19)Google Scholar; Paludan, Ann et al., ‘China III: Sculpture’, in The Dictionary of Art, ed. Turner, Jane, 34 vols (London, 1996), VI, pp. 705-35 (pp. 712, 729-32).Google Scholar An apotropaic function has also been identified for English figure-sculpture of the early to mid-fourteenth century. See, for example, Turner, Rick and others, ‘St Davids Bishop's Palace, Pembrokeshire’, Antiquaries Journal, 80 (2000), pp. 87–194 (pp. 163-65).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

83 Gardner, Julian, ‘An Introduction to the Iconography of the Medieval Italian City Gate’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 41 (1987), pp. 199–213 (p. 208 et passim)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ratté, Felicity, ‘Architectural Invitations: Images of City Gates in Medieval Italian Painting’, Gesta, 38 (1999), pp. 142-53 (p.143 et passim).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

84 Pantin, William Abel, The English Church in the Fourteenth Century (Cambridge, 1955), pp. 126-30, 165-81Google Scholar; Pantin, William Abel, ‘Some Medieval English Treatises on the Origins of Monasticism’, in Medieval Studies Presented to Rose Graham, ed. Ruffer, Veronica and Taylor, A.J. (Oxford, 1950), pp. 189–215 Google Scholar; Clark, , The Benedictines, pp. 278-79, 304-06.Google Scholar

85 Pantin, , ‘Some Medieval English Treatises’, p. 194 Google Scholar (place and period of composition) et passim.

86 Ellis, Roger, Catalogue of Seals in the Public Record Office: Monastic Seals, vol. 1 (London 1986), p. 79 and pl. 7 (no. M749).Google Scholar

87 ‘Incipit compendium de libello miraculorum sancti benedicti… cuius originale scribitur ad plenum apud monasterii Ramesis et sancti benedicti de hulmo’: OBL, MS Bodley 240, p. 605. The account extends onto p. 606.

88 NRO, DN/EST12/28, m. 1; NRO, DN/EST12/29, m. 1; NRO, DN/EST12/31, m. 1; NRO, DN/EST12/33, m. 3; OBL, Norfolk Rolls 79, m. 2, all sacrists’ rolls. The pittances cost 9s. 4d. On St Scholastica as patron of nunneries, see Farmer, David, The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1987), p. 380.Google Scholar

89 BL, Egerton MS 3142, Chronicle, c. 1300, fols 82V-83V: printed in Chronica Johannis de Oxenedes, pp. 414-17.

90 Chronica Johannis de Oxenedes, p. 294 Google Scholar.

91 TNA, KB9/116/1 (records of the Court of the King's Bench), mm. 44V, 97,103.

92 TNA, KB9/116/1, m. 103; see also Eiden, Herbert, ‘In der Knechtschaft werdet ihr verharren …’ Ursachen und Verlaufdes englischen Bauerenaufstandes von 1381 (Trier, 1995), p. 351.Google Scholar

93 TNA, KB9/116/1, mm. 44V, 97; Eiden, , ‘In der Knechtschaft’, pp. 337, 344-46.Google Scholar

94 But William de Kymberle and six others were recognized, and de Kymberle later beheaded. Two of the muniment-burners were also executed, and their heads publicly displayed: TNA, KB9/116/1, mm. 44V, 103.

95 The St Albans Chronicle: I,13/6-1394. The Chronica Maiora of Thomas Walsingham, ed. and trans. Taylor, John, Childs, Wendy R. and Watkiss, Leslie (Oxford, 2003), p. 625.Google Scholar

96 Paston Letters and Papers, II, p. 573 (no. 906)Google Scholar; Richmond, Colin, The Paston Family in the Fifteenth Century: Fastolf's Will (Cambridge, 1996), p. 69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

97 ‘[V]t potius castrum quam claustrum videretur’: Camden, William, Britannia, sive florentissimorum regnorum Angliae, Scotiae, Hiberniae, et insularum adiacentium ex intima antiquitate chorographica descripto (London, 1586), pp. 267-68.Google Scholar

98 For example, Psalms, 117[118], 22, 144(145], 12; Canticles, 2, 13-14 and 4, 4 and 7, 48 and 11-13; Isaiah, 28, 16; 1 Corinthians, 3,9-15; 2 Corinthians, 5,1; Ephesians, 2, 20-22; Colossians, 2,7; Hebrews, 3,1-6 and 9,11; 1 Peter, 2, 4-8; Apocalypse, 21.

99 RB 1980,160, p. 258 (prologue, verses 22, 24; ch. 53).

100 English examples up to 1307 are assembled in Lateinische Schriftquellen, III, pp. 95-115 (nos 5491-5547).

101 Customary … of Norwich, p. 211 Google Scholar. The gate is not mentioned among the Palm Sunday customs (ibid., pp. 76-79), but the instructions for Ascension Day say ‘And let there be a procession through cemetery, cloister and great gate, as on Palm Sunday’ (‘Et fiat processio per cymiterium et per claustrum et per magnam portam sicut in die palmarum’).

102 On the artistic expression of the Virgin as gate of Heaven — the concept manifested at Kingswood — see particularly Guldan, Ernst, Eva und Maria: Eine Antithese als Bildmotiv (Graz, 1966), pp. 14 Google Scholar, 16, 44-45, 105, 127-28,199, 200, 211.

103 Gabriel's image-niche was obliterated after the monastery's dissolution to make way for a (now vanished) external stairway. The Kingswood gate was built in the mid-fifteenth century: Emery, Greater Medieval Houses, III, pp. 110-11.

104 There is a sizeable literature on this topic. Most of the ideas are summarized in Bauer, Gerhard, Claustrum Animae: Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der Metapher vom Herzen als Kloster. Band I: Entstehungsgeschichte (Munich, 1973)Google Scholar; Dynes, Wayne, ‘The Medieval Cloister as Portico of Solomon’, Gesta, 12 (1973), pp. 61–69 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Meyvaert, Paul, ‘The Medieval Monastic Claustrum’, Gesta, 12 (1973), pp. 53–59 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Whitehead, Christiania, Castles of the Mind: a Study of Medieval Architectural Allegory (Cardiff, 2003), pp. 61–86 Google Scholar; Carruthers, Mary J., The Craft of Thought: Meditation, Rhetoric and the Making of Images, 400-1200 (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 239, 272-75.Google Scholar

105 For English Benedictine domus Dei, see Lateinische Schriftquellen, I, pp. 196 (no. 714), 318 (no. 1178), 323 (no. 1195), 423 (no. 1559)Google Scholar; II, 330 (no. 3461), 334 (no. 3480), 439 (no. 3891), 694 (no. 4873).

106 Extracts from the Account Rolls of the Abbey of Durham, ed. Fowler, Joseph Thomas, 2 vols, Surtees Society 99, 100 (Durham, 1898), 1, p. 180 Google Scholar (‘in reparacione muri circa Paradis’); Weaver, Frederic William, ‘Paradise’, Somerset and Dorset Notes and Queries, 11 (1906-09), pp. 252-53.Google Scholar

107 For copies of Durandus's Rationale, see English Benedictine Libraries: The Shorter Catalogues, ed. Sharpe, Richard, Carley, James P., Thomson, Rodney M. and Watson, Andrew G., Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues 4 (London, 1996), pp. 15, 274, 628, 669Google Scholar; Dover Priory, ed. Stoneman, William P., Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues 5 (London 1999), pp. 121, 127Google Scholar; St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, ed. Barker-Benfield, Bruce C., 3 vols, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues 13 (London, 2008), 1, p. 314; II, pp. 1510- 11, 1608-09Google Scholar; Ker, Neil Ripley, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books, 2nd edn (London, 1964), p. 212 Google Scholar (Worcester Cathedral Library, MS F129, a fourteenth-century copy).

108 Guillelmi Duranti Rationale divinorum officiorum I-1V, ed. Davril, Anselme and Thibodeau, Timothy M., Corpus Christianorum 140 (Turnhout, 1995), pp. 25–26.Google Scholar

109 Just eleven books are known from an original collection likely to have included hundreds of volumes: Ker, , Medieval Libraries of Great Britain, p. 102 Google Scholar; BL, Cotton Vitellius D.IX, fols 5-22, annals, c. 1333, with additions; English Benedictine Libraries, pp. 255-26Google Scholar (memorandum of five titles made c. 1536-40).

110 Pevsner, and Wilson, , Norfolk 1, p. 561.Google Scholar

111 For Capua's gate, see most recently Cassidy, Brendan, Politics, Civic Ideals and Sculpture in Italy c. 1240-1400 (London, 2007), pp. 30–41.Google Scholar

112 Fait, Jiri and Royt, Jan, ‘The Pictorial Decoration of the Great Tower at Karlštejn Castle: Ecclesia Triumphans’, in Magister Theodoricus, Court Painter to Emperor Charles IV: the Pictorial Decoration of the Shrines at Karlštejn Castle, ed. Fait, Jiri (Prague, 1998), pp. 107–205 (pp. 164-71)Google Scholar; Meier, Christel, ‘Wände aus Edelstein und Gefäße aus Kristall’, in Die Parler und der schöne Stil, 1350-1400: europäische Kunst unter der Luxemburgern, ed. Legner, Anton, 3 vols (Cologne, 1978), in, pp. 169—88Google Scholar; Šedinová, Hana, ‘Symbolika drahých kamenů v kapli sv. Václava’, Umění, 45 (1997), pp. 32–48 Google Scholar.

113 At Sta Maria Maggiore, Jerusalem and Bethlehem are presented as symbolic of the Heavenly Jerusalem, and their gates as the door of the sheepfold (i.e. Christ himself): Die frühchristlichen und mittelalterlichen Mosaiken in Santa Maria Maggiore zu Rom, ed. Karpp, Heinrich (Baden-Baden, 1966), pls 27,28.Google Scholar For the panel, see Degenhart, Bernhard and Schmitt, Annegrit, Corpus der italienischen Zeichnungen 1300-1400, Teil I: Süd- und Mittelitalien, 4 vols (Berlin, 1968), 1, p. 19 (fig. 28).Google Scholar The Apocalypse images are Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS fr. 403, fol. 41V, Apocalypse; New York, Pierpont Morgan Library MS M.524, fol. 20v, Apocalypse; OBL, MS Auct. D. 4. 17, fol. 2IV, Apocalypse. On the manuscripts in general, see Morgan, Nigel, Early Gothic Manuscripts (2): 1250-1285, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles 4 (London, 1988), pp. 63–66 (no. 103), 92-94 (no. 122), 113-14 (no. 131).Google Scholar

114 Dublin, Trinity College MS 64, fol. 36r, Apocalypse: see Sandler, , Gothic Manuscripts, I, pp. 52–53 (no. 46)Google Scholar; Lewis, Suzanne, ‘Vision and Revision: On “Seeing” and “Not Seeing” God in the Dublin Apocalypse’, Word and Image, 10 (1994), pp. 289–311 (pp. 307, 308-09).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

115 London, Lambeth Palace Library, MS 209, fol. 38r, Apocalypse; Lisbon, Museu Calouste Gulbenkian MS L. A. 139, fol. 74r, Apocalypse (the Metz Apocalypse is destroyed). All three images are juxtaposed in Morgan, Nigel, The Lambeth Apocalypse: Manuscript 209 in Lambeth Palace Library. A Critical Study (London, 1990), pl. 38.Google Scholar See generally Morgan, , Early Gothic Manuscripts, pp. 70–72 (no. 108), 101-06 (no. 126), 108-10 (no. 128).Google Scholar

116 Cambridge, Magdalene College, MS 5, fol. 38r, Apocalypse: see Sandler, , Gothic Manuscripts, I, pp. 101-02Google Scholar; Sandler, Lucy Freeman, The Peterborough Psalter in Brussels and Other Fenland Manuscripts (London, 1974), pp. 62–63, 84.Google Scholar For a twelfth-century prefiguration of these motifs, see Pächt, Otto and Alexander, Jonathan J.G., Illuminated Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. 3 British, Irish and Icelandic Schools (Oxford, 1973), pl. XI (no. 110).Google Scholar

117 See Prudentius, ed. and trans. Thomson, Henry John, 2 vols (Cambridge, MA, 1949), I, pp. 336-43Google Scholar; Patrologia Latina, ed. Migne, Jacques-Paul, 221 vols (Paris, 1844-55), XVII, cols 936-60 (Berengaudus)Google Scholar; XCIII, cols 194-204 (Bede); CXIV, cols 745-50 (Glossa ordinaria); CXVII, cols 1191-1211 (Haimo of Auxerre). For English Benedictine copies of Apocalypse commentaries see Registrum Anglie de libris doctorum et auctorum verterum, ed. Richard H., and Rouse, Mary A., Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues, 2 (London, 1991), pp. 72 (two copies), 98 (nine copies), 156 (three copies), 197 (five copies)Google Scholar; English Benedictine Libraries, pp. 7, 58, 136-37, 180, 241, 326, 428-29,434,439,487,488,503, 538, 547, 548,635, 672, 727, 739Google Scholar; Peterborough Abbey, ed. Friis-Jensen, Karsten and Willoughby, James M. W., Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues, 8 (London, 2001), pp. 48, 179Google Scholar; St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, I, p. 604 Google Scholar. For copies of the Psychomachia see Registrum Anglie, p. 159 Google Scholar; English Benedictine Libraries, pp. 207 (three copies), 520,655Google Scholar; Dover Priory, p. 154 Google Scholar; Peterborough Abbey, p. 106 Google Scholar; St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, II, pp. 1392,1393,1394Google Scholar; III, p. 1713

118 Patrologia Latina, XVII, cols 947-49, 953-58.Google Scholar

119 Michael, Michael A., ‘An Illustrated “Apocalypse” Manuscript at Longleat House’, Burlington Magazine, 126 (1984), pp. 340-43Google Scholar; English Benedictine Libraries, p. 256 Google Scholar; McEvoy, James J., ‘Robert Grosseteste on the Celestial Hierarchy of the Pseudo-Dionysius: an Edition and Translation of his Commentary, Chapters 10 to 15’ (doctoral thesis, Queen's University Belfast, 1967), pp. 203-07Google Scholar.

120 For continental responses, see Dronke, Peter, ‘Tradition and Innovation in Medieval Western Colour-Imagery’, Eranos Jahrbuch, 41 (1972), pp. 51-106Google Scholar (pp. 77-88); Meier, , ‘Wände aus Edelstein’, pp. 185-87.Google Scholar

121 Lateinische Schriftquellen, III, pp. 96–97 (no. 5494)Google Scholar; The Letters of Osbert of Clare, Prior of Westminster, ed. Williamson, Edward William (Oxford, 1929), pp. 148-53Google Scholar; Chronica Majora Matthaei Parisiensis, monachi sancti Albani, ed. Luard, Henry Richards, 7 vols, Rolls Series 57 (London, 1872-83), II, p. 510 Google Scholar; Chronica Johannis de Oxenedes, pp. ix–x Google Scholar; Flores Historiarum, I, p. xxiii.Google Scholar

122 ‘[P]erverenrunt ad portam speciosissimam, gemmis ornatam et lapidibus pretiosus’.

123 Crossley, ‘Medieval Architecture and Meaning’.