William Caxton and Commemorative Culture in Fifteenth-Century England

Summary

In an age of recurring epidemics, poor health care, intermittent war and economic depressions, death – and the fate of the soul after death – was a paramount concern for the men and women of late medieval England. The doctrine of purgatory taught that salvation could be influenced by the prayers of the living. It was believed that through careful ‘strategies for eternity’ one might be remembered in intercessory prayer. These strategies might include the foundation of a religious house or a chantry chapel at which a salaried priest would offer prayers for a deceased benefactor, or it might include more humble investment in the fabric of a parish church. The post-mortem economy has formed the cornerstone of the study of late medieval religious culture for the past two decades. Scholars have pointed to the importance of communal activities such as the work of confraternities and guilds and to the introduction of bidding prayers in the Mass to commemorate the deceased as evidence of the opportunities offered to the living to invest in anticipation of a long-term, but substantial, dividend. The idea that the late medieval Church was a ‘cult of the living in the service of the dead’ has become axiomatic.

Many of these strategies served a charitable function and benefited both the living and the dead: ‘Individual largesse which profited the parish community and prompted intercession for the benefactor [represented] a “circular flow”.’ The reciprocal character of commemorative culture in the period is striking. Such general observations, however, are perhaps better illustrated with a specific example. Consider, for instance, the evidence for John Ulsthorp, a tailor whose will was enrolled in the London court of husting on 25 January 1432. The will lists a number of benefactions that were evidently intended to secure intercessory prayer after his death. Thus Ulsthorp left four tenements to the rector and churchwardens of St. Bride’s, Fleet Street, with instruction that the rents from these should maintain a chantry in the church in remembrance of himself, his late wife Alice and their son Raymond, as well as providing prayers for the welfare of his present wife Isabel.