3 - Famous Scribe, Unrecognised Stint

Summary

For those interested in late medieval English religious culture, one seminal document is the registered copy of ‘The Lay Folks’ Catechism’. This 1357 promulgation of Archbishop John Thoresby appears, on inserted leaves and in a hand alien to most of the remainder of its manuscript, at University of York, Borthwick Institute, Reg. 11, fols. 295r–8v. These leaves present Thoresby's Latin command for catechetical instruction throughout his archdiocese, preceded by a slightly differing Middle English version composed by John Gaytryge, a monk of St Mary’s, York.

With his customary sharpness of eye, Ian Doyle long ago identified other examples of the hand that presents Thoresby's catechism copying elsewhere in the archbishop's register. These entries again appear on leaves inserted into the register (in one case, at fol. 28r, including a long add-on, originally a separate parchment sheet, now sewn to the foot of the leaf). In both instances, the writer is identified in his subscription, the repeated ‘ego Thomas de Aldefeld, clericus Ebor’ dioc’, publicus auctoritate apostolica notarius’ (fols. 28r, 113v [twice], 114r, 114v). A third example of his hand and subscription, for which I am grateful to that great student of York, Richard Beadle, and to Helen Watt of the Borthwick Institute, appears in Archbishop Alexander Neville's register, Borthwick Institute, Reg. 12, fols. 2v–3r.

It is worth pausing briefly over Thomas Aldfield's scribal activity additional to his copy of ‘The Lay Folks’ Catechism’, pretty standard work for a notarial scribe in an episcopal chancery. The first document (Reg. 11, fols. 27v–8r) is a letter from Bolton Abbey (OSA) concerning their appropriation of the church of Harewood (nine miles south of Harrogate, near Leeds). The abbey chapter promises, from the next vacancy, to provide a fellow canon as vicar and to support him with six secular priests; it sets stipends for them all and promises to provide them with common housing. The letter is dated as from Westminster, 14 March 1353, and Aldfield dates his registering the document here 15 May 1356.

The second document (Reg. 11, fols. 113r–14v) is an agreement between the executors of one John de Akum and Byland Abbey (OCist) regarding a perpetual chantry.