BOOKS KEPT AT THE SHRINE OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR AT WESTMINSTER ABBEY IN THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

Abstract

Three late medieval inventories of the chapel surrounding the shrine of St Edward the Confessor at Westminster Abbey, London, record the presence of a number of books and pamphlets among the relics and liturgical paraphernalia. This article discusses these books, their significance and the reason for their maintenance at the shrine, and offers possible identifications with several surviving manuscripts.

INTRODUCTION

The shrine of Edward the Confessor (r 1042–66), behind the high altar, formed the most sacred space within Westminster Abbey (fig 1). The chapel that surrounds it was chosen by many of the Confessor’s successors, from Henry iii (r 1216–72) onwards, as their final resting place, thus creating a royal mausoleum at the heart of the church. In addition, its sanctity and importance encouraged it as the space in which the abbey’s most holy objects were stored. ¹

Fig 1. The Shrine of Westminster Abbey. Image: reproduced by kind permission of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster.

The collection of relics held by the abbey was unique. It included the shrine itself (a relic and reliquary in its own right), the Holy Blood relic acquired by Henry iii and translated to the abbey with much ceremony in 1247, the girdle of the Virgin given to the church by Edward the Confessor and a panoply of saintly relics reflecting the patronage of kings and queens from the tenth century onwards. ² In the 1440s, the abbey’s chronicler, Fr John Flete, diligently listed them as part of his history of the church, ³ but the relics were not the only objects stored in the Confessor’s chapel. In addition to the array of vestments, silver, textiles and assorted furniture required for worship, a number of books were also kept in this holy space. While some of them were predictable liturgical works required for divine office, they included a number of less obvious manuscripts, whose function in this space is not immediately clear.

Westminster was not alone in keeping manuscripts in such sacred spaces. At Lichfield, for example, ‘two very old books which are called the books of St Chad’ were kept at the shrine. ⁴ At Durham, the shrine keeper kept the ‘Book of St Cuthbert’, as well as the expected psalters and missals, and gospels with copies of the Life of St Cuthbert. ⁵ In 1383–4 the Durham shrine keeper also acquired parchment for ‘chronicles and rolls and other necessaries’, and the following year paid 17s 5d for the ‘writing of chronicles and emending psalters and for nailing rings to the feretory’. ⁶ In 1441–2 Durham listed books at the shrine that included a volume containing excerpts of history, the ‘chronica martini’, and other ecclesiastical historical material. ⁷ At Canterbury, from 1428 the shrine keepers maintained a customary, bound with two thirteenth-century lives of St Thomas Becket. ⁸ Other books could be kept nearby, often behind the high altar. ⁹ But the nature of the books kept at the Confessor’s shrine, and our ability to identify some of the surviving manuscripts, makes this a study of particular importance.

INVENTORIES

On 21 December 1467, the Feast of St Thomas the Apostle, the outgoing shrine keeper Fr Thomas Arundel formally delivered up to his successor, Fr Richard Tedyngton, the collection of chests, altar furnishings and relics in his custody. ¹⁰ To witness the agreement, he compiled an inventory of the objects that were to be handed over to Tedyngton, in the form of a tripartite indenture. ¹¹ The urge to formalise the process was doubtless prompted by the disarray within the monastery following the resignation from active duties of Abbot Norwich the previous month, on grounds of financial mismanagement. ¹² In his absence, the prior, Thomas Millyng, and two senior monks, William Chertsey and John Estney, were appointed to manage the abbey, until Norwich died two years later, at which point Millyng could be formally appointed his successor. ¹³ In addition, the sacrist, Fr Thomas Ruston, was accused of pilfering and pawning items from the sacristy, possibly in support of Abbot Norwich, and summarily removed from all offices. ¹⁴ In the light of such events, it is perfectly natural that an audit of items at the shrine should be undertaken, and that Arundel would wish to protect himself from any future charges.

The 1467 inventory is the earliest of such inventories to survive complete, but is complemented by two later examples, produced in 1479 and 1520. ¹⁵ In 1467 fourteen books were recorded by Arundel as being stored within the Confessor’s chapel. All but one of these are listed in the upper section of the inventory, among the vestments and plate, as follows:

Also ij massebokys. Also vj bokys for seint Edwardes masse on Sondays to syng on. Also ij bokys of cronycles on callyd polycronicon & ƥe oƥer callyd flores historiarum. Also a portos of salysbury use. Also ij quayers on with collectes & gospel for our lady gyrdyll, Anoƥer of ƥe relyquys.

The lower section of the inventory, which is concerned with the relics themselves, includes one further book, ‘a sauter of Seint Edward’.

Twelve years later, the inventory compiled by Tedyngton himself at the end of his term as shrine keeper follows Arundel’s wording, except that he recorded that the ‘portaus of Salesbury use, the which was lost by sir Richard Widevyle in ƥe tyme of ƥe dan Richard Tedyngton’. As Julian Luxford has pointed out, the portable breviary had clearly been made available ‘for the use of distinguished lay visitors’. ¹⁶ Sir Richard Woodville, the ‘greedy and grasping’ father of the queen, died on 12 August 1469, so this misadventure had presumably happened between Tedyngton’s second appointment to the position of shrine keeper in 1467 and this date, a period when Woodville was Constable of England. ¹⁷ The circumstances surrounding the disappearance must be a matter of speculation, but it is perhaps not coincidental that the king’s third daughter (and therefore Woodville’s granddaughter) was baptised in the abbey soon after her birth in the Palace of Westminster on 20 March 1469. ¹⁸ The prior, Fr Thomas Millyng, deputing for the dismissed Abbot Norwich, probably stood godfather to Princess Cecily, just as he was to do the following year to her brother Edward. ¹⁹ Woodville’s appropriation of the breviary was perhaps in character. ²⁰ The previous year he had been involved in a legal scandal over the persecution of the former mayor of London, Sir Thomas Cook. His servants were accused of ransacking Cook’s London house, while Cook himself was in prison for treason, and making off with enormous quantities of expensive cloths and precious jewels and plate. ²¹

By 1520 the number of relics had grown considerably, but the quantity of books was reduced. Only one massbook then survived, together with the six books of St Edward’s mass. But no mention is made of the chronicles, nor the two quires or pamphlets. The loss of the breviary by Sir Richard Woodville is no longer required to be recorded. Conversely, an acquisition had been made in the form of ‘a paper masseboke of Salisbury use, of William Caxton gyfte’. No mention is made of the psalter among the relics, although ‘an olde sawterboke of parchement’ was then listed among the vestments. The gift by Caxton of a mass book may have formed part of his will (which does not survive). ²² It probably refers to a copy of the Missale Saresberiense, printed in Paris by Guillame Maynyal for William Caxton on 4 December 1487. ²³

The rather more wide-ranging inventory of the abbey drawn up at the Dissolution, after all of the relics had gone, makes no mention of books being present in the chapel at all. ²⁴ This is understandable if, as the 1520 list suggests, only liturgical manuscripts remained in the chapel at that date. These would inevitably have been disposed of swiftly, before the assessors arrived, as symbols of the saintly cult no longer acceptable. But there is some evidence that the inventories may not have been the complete audit one might have hoped for. In 1485 William Caxton recorded in his prologue to La Morte d’Arthur that evidence for the historical existence of King Arthur could be found in a number of places. Among these evidential objects was an impression of the seal of the king, which was to be found at the shrine of St Edward the Confessor at Westminster: ‘in the abbey of westmestre at saynt Edwardes shrine remayneth the prynte of his seal in reed wax closed in beryl, In which is wryton Patricius Arthurus Britannie Gallie Germanie dacie Imperator’. ²⁵ It is not clear why such a venerable object was not listed among the items handed on by the shrine keeper in 1479 or 1520. That the seal impression remained at the shrine is attested firstly by John Rastell in 1530, who had been shown the seal. ²⁶ Rastell used it as evidence in his assessment of the historical existence of Arthur. ²⁷ In 1544 John Leland also recorded a visit to Westminster to inspect it. ²⁸ What the seal’s fate was we do not know, but it is clear that such an object was to be found in the shrine keeper’s custody from at least the late fifteenth to the mid-sixteenth century, even if not recorded in the monastery’s inventories. The seal impression was doubtless produced to provide further evidence for the link between the coronation church and the symbol of English kingship. This link had already been drawn upon. After the suppression of the revolt of Llywelyn in Wales in 1283, Edward i received various treasured relics as tokens of submission, among them the Welsh prince’s crown. This was purported to be the crown of King Arthur. The following year, Edward’s young son Alfonso apparently presented the crown and other jewels to the Shrine of the Confessor. ²⁹ What became of this royal relic is unknown; no further mention of it is made. In early 1440 the abbey’s sacrist, Edmund Kyrton, paid for the embellishment or replacement of a screen on the west side of the chapel of St Andrew, at the end of the north transept. This was ornamented by a series of coats of arms, mostly of leading contemporary political figures (and inserting his own arms among them). The upper register boasted in the centre the Trinity, with the abbey’s own arms on the left (with King Henry vi’s next), and those of King Arthur on the right, adjacent to Kyrton’s patron, Duke Humphrey of Gloucester. ³⁰

Although the 1467 inventory is the earliest complete inventory for the shrine to survive, that the practice of compiling such documents had a longer history is confirmed by two fragmentary strips of another inventory that, at some point in the fifteenth century, were used to form a thin ‘spine’ to support a manuscript of De Scismate, a short treatise on the schism within the church. ³¹ These fragments come from adjacent strips in the top centre of the inventory. Although little text remains, there is enough to indicate that the original document formed an inventory of relics and related items being handed over (liberavit) from Fr John Bassingbourne to another monk, only the name ‘Ralph’ of which is shown. John Bassingbourne joined the abbey in 1387–8, and served as treasurer and kitchener in 1409–14, at which point he disappears from the records (presumably he died, although he may have moved elsewhere). ³² The recipient was probably Fr Ralph Toneworth, who entered in 1379–80, and served first as revestiarius (or vestry keeper) in the early 1390s, sacrist in 1399–1411, warden of the new work, 1400–11, and died probably in 1420. ³³ This would suggest Bassingbourne was handing over to Toneworth in the 1390s, possibly as revestiarius. Little enough of the inventory itself survives to assist greatly, although there are mentions of frontals and a grid-iron; a number of largely unidentified saintly bones and ribs, some kept in purses (demonstrating that, at least at this date, relics were not kept exclusively in the Confessor’s chapel); cloths and towels and other accoutrements. Since neither Bassingbourne nor Toneworth served as shrine keeper (see Appendix 1), this presumably indicates that these were items held at one of the other chapels in the abbey. ³⁴

SHRINE KEEPERS

The office of shrine keeper (custos feretri) and keeper of the relics (custos reliquiarum), terms which seem to have been used interchangeably, and sometimes in conjunction, was established at Westminster by at least the mid-thirteenth century. ³⁵ He had charge of the shrine itself, the relics and associated paraphernalia that were housed in the Confessor’s chapel, and he accounted for the oblations that were received there. ³⁶ He also seems to have managed the oblations received elsewhere in the church, other than at certain designated altars. Some other duties accrued. From 1352, by decree of the Abbot Simon Langham, he was to serve a loving cup to the brethren on the Feast of the Translation of St Edward (13 October). ³⁷ He was one of the monks overseen by the sacrist, from whom he generally received an allowance to carry out his duties. This was usually 40s per annum, double the allowance made over to the sacrist’s other officials, the revestiarius and subsacrist, which presumably reflected the status of his role. ³⁸

Although the shrine keeper maintained his own accounts, none have survived. ³⁹ From a comparison of office-holders, it is clear that there was a close overlap between the shrine keeper and the warden of the foundation established by Edward i on the death of his wife, Queen Eleanor (see Appendix 1). ⁴⁰ From the fourteenth century onwards, most holders of the former role also served as one of the wardens of the latter at the same time, to such an extent that it seems reasonable to conclude that the two offices were generally thought of as going together. Given the location of Queen Eleanor’s tomb on the north-eastern side of the Confessor’s chapel, directly adjacent to the Holy Trinity altar where the relics were stored, and the primacy afforded to the foundation as the most important such royal fund to be established after the rebuilding of the abbey church, the connection is understandable. ⁴¹

LITURGICAL MANUSCRIPTS

Westminster Abbey inevitably boasted a large number of liturgical manuscripts, to maintain divine office at the many altars throughout the church. ⁴² While such books were usually provided by the precentor, the sacrist appears to have had charge of the upkeep of many of them, and his accounts make occasional references to these ongoing costs. ⁴³ In 1388, after the sacristy had been rebuilt, an inventory was compiled by Fr Richard Cirencester, Fr William Sudbury, Fr John Breynt and Fr Ralph Tonworth. ⁴⁴ In this are listed seventeen ‘missals and other books’, along with a number of well-ornamented copies of the gospels (textus). ⁴⁵ Foremost among the service books was the Litlyngton Missal (‘unum bonum missale et grande ex dono quondam Nicholai Lytlington abbatis’), compiled at the abbey in 1383–4 for use in major services (fig 2). ⁴⁶ The sacristy housed other missals, including one given by Abbot William Curtlyngton (abbot 1315–33), and another by Fr John Mordon in 1354/5. ⁴⁷ Since all of these were valuable manuscripts, there was at least one other missal for daily use at the high altar. ⁴⁸ Other service books listed include two psalters, one the gift of Henry iii, and the second ‘cum diversis ymaginibus depictis post kalendare’. The latter can be identified as the Westminster Psalter (fig 3), ⁴⁹ a book of various liturgical elements, including prayers, calculations for Easter, litany and a calendar (fols 5r–10v) with the Feast of St Edward written in gold. A benedictional listed may well be in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, ⁵⁰ a fourteenth-century pontifical, with ordines and benedictions on a range of activities, including coronations, baptism and consecrations. ⁵¹ In 1399 a ‘great new book’ was made for the middle of the choir. This was funded by a number of the monks, with Fr Elmin Merston entering the musical notation himself. Using the money contributed, the sacrist acquired sixty-one skins of vellum, costing 28s 6d, and commissioned John Hervyngton to do the scribal work and John Fouler the illumination. The overall cost of the volume was £5 10s 8d. ⁵² A further contribution of 6s 8d was made by John Godmerston (d 1401), the king’s clerk of the works for the major project at Westminster Hall, and recently-appointed chancellor of St Paul’s. ⁵³

Fig 2. Litlyngton Missal, Westminster Abbey ms 37. Image: reproduced by kind permission of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster.

Fig 3. Westminster Psalter, BL, Royal ms 2 A.xxii. Image: courtesy British Library.

All of these were high status manuscripts for use at the high altar and for major services, and stored, when not in use, in the sacristy. They are separate from those items in the custody of the shrine keeper in the fifteenth century. Indeed, most of the items listed in 1388 can be identified as still being stored there when the assessors came in 1540, although inevitably new books had been added in the intervening century and a half. This included a ‘gospell booke’ compiled by Fr John Langham, who entered the monastery in 1501/2, and himself served as shrine keeper in 1528, ⁵⁴ and a copy of the Liber Regalis (‘Boke of Coronacyons of Kynges’), although not the copy now among the abbey collections. ⁵⁵ Some of these books occasionally required attention. In 1391/2 35s 8d was expended by Fr Ralph Toneworth in mending a gospel; ⁵⁶ in 1395/6 15s was spent for parchment for a processional, and 7s 7d for compiling a small book of collects; ⁵⁷ in 1440/1 20d for mending a texta ferialis at the high altar; ⁵⁸ in 1453/4 4s 10d for mending a martyrology with collects; ⁵⁹ in 1462/3 2s for binding a lectionary; ⁶⁰ in 1470/1 2s 6d to the goldsmith Simon Goldsmith for mending two lectionaries (presumably reflecting ornate bindings), along with pontifical rings and one ‘owche’; ⁶¹ in 1507/8 supplying parchment for repairing lectionaries and gospels; ⁶² in 1526/7 6s 8d for binding various books belonging to the high altar; ⁶³ and in 1517/8 6s for binding lectionaries and gospels. ⁶⁴ Necessary liturgical alterations were also covered. In 1484/5 the sacrist paid 14d ‘for writing the mass of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary in the missal belonging to the high altar’, and three years later 8d for ‘writing the new history of the Transfiguration’ in the same missal. ⁶⁵

Some of these ‘lesser’ liturgical books, or fragments of them, may have survived. In the late fifteenth century, and certainly before 1503, a folio from a fourteenth-century breviary was cut up and used as an endpaper for a copy of the Gospel of Nichodemus by Fr John Holond (fig 4); ⁶⁶ a bifolium of a twelfth-century service book was converted into a wrapper for a set of sixteenth-century accounts of the prior (fig 5); ⁶⁷ and a leaf of a psalter was used as an endleaf on a collection of material relating to appropriations of churches belonging to the abbey, compiled by Fr Thomas Jaye as treasurer, which office he held from 1514–28 (fig 6). ⁶⁸

Fig 4. Fragment of the Gospel of Nichodemus. Image: courtesy Lambeth Palace Library, ms Arc.L.40.2/E.25.

Fig 5. Fragment of a twelfth-century service book, used as a wrapper for WAM 33328. Image: reproduced by kind permission of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster.

Fig 6. Leaf of a psalter, recycled as endpaper, WAM Muniment Book 3. Image: reproduced by kind permission of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster.

The abbot maintained his own personal service books. In 1475/6, Abbot Estney, who had retained his role as sacrist, paid 2s 4d for ‘a binding for the abbot’s book of collects’. ⁶⁹ In 1491/2 he paid 3s 4d for binding ‘a new psalter for the lord abbot’ (ie himself). ⁷⁰ Estney evidently retained an interest in books beyond the liturgical to his last years, illustrating the increasingly frequent appearance of personal books among the monks. On 25 January 1497 he acquired a copy of Alexander of Aphrodisias’ De Anima for 5s, along with Johannes Canonicus’ Quaestiones super Physica Aristotelis for 4s. ⁷¹ On 1 October 1496 Estney had also acquired ‘uno libro vocato Johannes de Magistrum’, for Richard Dudley, possibly a member of his household. ⁷² One of Estney’s successors, Abbot John Islip, owned the prayerbook shown in fig 7 and a late fifteenth-century collection of prayers and hymns, ⁷³ drawn from a breviary, and largely related to the Virgin Mary and St Edward, possibly formed, in Pfaff’s words, ‘a private liturgical vade mecum’. ⁷⁴

Fig 7. Prayerbook of Abbot John Islip, John Rylands Library, ms Lat. 165. Image: provided by The John Rylands Research Institute and Library, The University of Manchester.

The separate maintenance of books devoted to a specific area within the church was not unique. The warden of the Lady Chapel had responsibility for the books at the altar there. ⁷⁵ In 1386–7 the infirmarer paid for the compilation of a new missal, including colours and illumination by the limner Thomas Rolf (who had probably also worked on the Litlyngton Missal), and for binding. ⁷⁶ None of the liturgical books itemised in the shrine keepers’ inventories can be positively identified, and the lack of the office’s accounts dramatically reduces our knowledge of them. The only fragment that might correspond is a single bifolium, removed from its original quire and used as a wrapper for a set of accounts of the kitchener, Fr John Campion for 1516–17 and his successor, Fr Robert Callowe (fig 8). ⁷⁷ When the wrapper was added is not clear. Callowe continued as kitchener until 1520, and served again in 1523–33. In the intervening years between his two periods in office, the role was filled first by William Overton (1520–1) and then Thomas Gardyner (1521–2). The accounts compiled by Overton, ⁷⁸ inherited by Gardyner, were also covered in a wrapper of waste material at some point after 1521, almost certainly by Thomas Gardyner. The wrapper for this item included various stray items as well as a surviving copy of a work probably composed by Gardyner and printed by Pynson c 1512, The Gardyners Passetaunce. ⁷⁹ Gardyner clearly engaged in rather amateur rebinding, and it is possible that he was also responsible for the rebinding of WAM 33327. ⁸⁰

Fig 8. Fragment of an antiphonal in honour of St Edward the Confessor, WAM 33327A. Image: reproduced by kind permission of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster.

The bifolium itself forms two folios from an antiphonal, bearing choral music specifically in honour of St Edward the Confessor. ⁸¹ This would fit the broad description of a book for St Edward’s mass ‘to syng on’. Although the fragment bears no feature that definitely places it in the Confessor’s chapel, it is conceivable that it originated there. It was evidently a sumptuous manuscript, decorated in gold leaf, and apparently produced for choral performance in honour of St Edward. If so, it must have been dismembered after 1520, when all of the St Edward material in the shrine was still present. Why the manuscript was deemed surplus to requirements well before the Dissolution is not clear. Relatively little work appears to have been going on around the shrine in this period, ⁸² but the presence of fragments being reused as waste binding and wrappers in several instances at the abbey, apparently in the 1520s, may be more than coincidence.

Flores Historiarum

The most surprising volumes in the inventories are the two chronicles. The Flores Historiarum was one of the key historical productions of the thirteenth century. The text was first compiled by Matthew Paris at St Albans, and continued by other monks there down to 1259. ⁸³ References in the text to Westminster Abbey suggest that Matthew Paris always intended the manuscript to go to Westminster, perhaps as an offering to the king’s rebuilt church. This finally seems to have happened in 1265, four years before the rededication of the abbey. ⁸⁴ Between 1259 and 1265 the text appears to have been compiled at Pershore Abbey, suggesting a delay between the death of Matthew Paris and its arrival at its intended home. ⁸⁵ After it reached Westminster, monks there took up the chronicle and carried it on in various stages, and in various manuscript copies, resulting in a complicated textual history.

The resulting chronicle survives in numerous manuscripts, indicating its rapid dissemination and significance. ⁸⁶ However the exemplar, on which the others were originally based, contains sections in the hand of Matthew Paris himself, along with several other monks of St Albans (fig 9). ⁸⁷ This is presumably the manuscript that was at Westminster by c 1265. ⁸⁸ As an offering from St Albans, it may have been viewed with particular reverence. After 1265, Westminster monks, including Robert de Reading, added continuations to the text up until early 1326. ⁸⁹ Thereafter this particular manuscript contains only a couple more folios that continue the chronicle for a year until the accession of Edward iii, at which point it breaks off. Further continuation of the chronicle was compiled at Westminster in a separate manuscript, written by Fr John de Reading in the 1360s. ⁹⁰ This latter extension survives now only in a mid-fifteenth-century copy, but in its original form John de Reading appears to have copied his text from the exemplar manuscript from 1299, with portions of another continuation from 1327 to 1345 added on. The section from 1346 to 1367 was compiled by John de Reading himself. John de Reading’s suitability for the task may have been enhanced by his appointment as shrine keeper. He was certainly holding this position in 1363–4, when he also arranged for new iron chains for the feretory. ⁹¹ In his history, Reading is at pains to record the donation by Edward iii in 1363 of vestments in which St Peter had celebrated mass, relics which he, as shrine keeper, would have taken charge. ⁹² In 1359, together with two other monks, he had helped to compile an inventory of the regalia of Edward the Confessor (themselves forms of relics), possibly in the same capacity. ⁹³ That this inventory was drawn up on the day after the Feast of the Relics (16 July), and that it specifies that one of its aims was to record those things that had gone missing since before the Black Death ten years earlier, are surely telling. Absences from the relics would have been most notable at the feast when they were displayed (fig 10). And the shrine keeper, just as a century later, would have been concerned to demonstrate that these losses had not occurred during their office. At some point Reading also paid £20 for the construction of a screen or railing (clausura) at the altar of the Holy Trinity, on the eastern side of the shrine where the relics had come to be stored. ⁹⁴ All of which demonstrates that he was deeply involved in the shrine and its accoutrements in the decade before his death in 1368/9. ⁹⁵ No Westminster copy of the Flores continues beyond 1367, and attention among the monks evidently turned to other texts. ⁹⁶

Fig 9. Flores Historiarum. Image: courtesy Chetham Library, ms 6712.

Fig 10. Polychronicon, Bodleian, ms Bodley 341. Image: courtesy Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford.

Ownership inscriptions within the original manuscript of the Flores ⁹⁷ demonstrate its presence at Westminster for a prolonged period. At the foot of the beginning and end of the calendar, a fourteenth-century hand has written ‘iste liber e ecclie beati petri Westm’. The calendar has been heavily annotated with the dates of coronations and royal deaths, and, in one instance, the death of a Westminster abbot, as if it were important to have the details of those anniversaries easily accessible. While most of these dates were relatively recent, the death in 975 of King Edgar, a great benefactor of the abbey, and in whose reign Westminster was founded by St Dunstan, is also included. The latest date to appear is the coronation of Henry vi as king of France in 1431 (the last coronation or death of a monarch until 1461). On the final flyleaf, numerous notes and jottings have been added, at the foot of which appears the name ‘R Teddynton’, the shrine keeper from 1467. It seems probable that this manuscript was the one Tedyngton recorded at the shrine, although it should be pointed out that, in addition to John de Reading’s continuation, the abbey owned at least one other copy of the text. ⁹⁸ By the second half of the fifteenth century, monks certainly also owned books in a private capacity. ⁹⁹ In fact, Tedyngton himself had in his keeping more than one book, including a collection of medical texts, ¹⁰⁰ which he inscribed ‘Ecclesie Petri Westm. R Tedyngton monachi’, and a fifteenth-century copy of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. ¹⁰¹ All of which suggests in him a wide range of interests. But the primacy afforded to Flores Historiarum as the original text, ¹⁰² including as it does the hand of Matthew Paris himself, would have recommended it as the copy to be kept at the most sacred part of the abbey. Although its presence there by 1467 does not prove a continuous location for the previous two centuries, it is tempting to imagine that the gift of such a manuscript from St Albans (even if via Pershore) in time for the reconstruction of the shrine and rededication of the abbey in 1269, might indicate an original intention for the manuscript to be kept in the Confessor’s chapel. If so, John de Reading’s position as shrine keeper in the 1360s would have provided him with ready access to the text.

The absence from the list of 1520 of the abbey’s Flores may be explained in part by another ownership inscription just above Tedyngton’s. Here has been written ‘Duompnus T Gardener anno dm 1503 et anno rr henrici 7 18^o in vigilia J baptist’. Fr Thomas Gardyner was at the time a junior monk in the monastery, but he had royal connections and was a budding writer of Tudor propaganda. ¹⁰³ He had entered Westminster in 1493–4, and in 1503 was apparently in the service of the prior, William Mane. ¹⁰⁴ What prompted him to write his name in of one of the books at the shrine on 24 June (the Feast of St John the Baptist, one of the quarter days) is not clear. The king and Abbot Islip’s great project to rebuild the Lady Chapel had got underway at the beginning of the year, interrupted almost immediately by the death of the queen, Elizabeth of York. Her burial in the abbey on 23 February was a vast, solemn occasion, at which the whole house was present. The following month the abbey was formally granted the house of St Martin Le Grand as part of the arrangement to fund the works. ¹⁰⁵ Perhaps Gardyner’s writing career, that was to produce at least two works for which the Flores Historiarum might prove useful (the Flowers of England and the Gardyner’s Passetaunce), began at an early stage. ¹⁰⁶ Gardyner himself was clearly in high esteem. Within two years he was to take a leading role in the arrangements for the temporary chantry of the king’s mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort. ¹⁰⁷ He is not listed as shrine keeper in 1503, that office being then held by Fr Richard Caxton. Caxton died sometime in the year 1503–4, and was replaced by Fr Martin James in mid-year. ¹⁰⁸ At about the same time it evidently became apparent that the duties of the shrine keeper were increasing, and from the following year two keepers are recorded accounting for the offerings. ¹⁰⁹ Unfortunately, from this point, they are not named, but the specific recording of the major feast day by Gardyner in his inscription suggests a formal appointment to office, possibly as chantry priest or second shrine keeper in the Confessor’s chapel. Fr Martin James was probably frail, as he died in late 1504. It is quite plausible that Gardyner’s inscription coincides with him taking on responsibility at the shrine that involved him in keeping the books, books which he would find useful in his own historical compositions. ¹¹⁰

Polychronicon

The other historical text listed in the fifteenth-century inventories was the Polychronicon. The Polychronicon, first composed by Ranulph Higden, a monk of St Werburgh in Chester, survives in more than 100 manuscripts, and was, together with the Brut, the most popular version of English history in circulation. ¹¹¹ No surviving manuscript can definitely be associated with Westminster Abbey, but it is clear that the abbey owned multiple copies. In 1375–6, the treasurers, Fr John de Lakyngheath and Fr William Colchester, purchased for £4 a ‘book called the Polychronicon’. ¹¹² This large sum presumably reflects a deluxe manuscript. In 1396/7 Fr Richard Exeter bequeathed a copy of the Polychronicon ‘cum libro Marci Pauli’ to Westminster Abbey. ¹¹³ Several extant copies of the Polychronicon are found bound with manuscript versions of Francesco Pipino’s work on Marco Polo, ¹¹⁴ but the first of these is a large manuscript compendium, with the Polychronicon almost an afterthought at the end, which possibly originated in Evesham; ¹¹⁵ the second contains only those two works, but with the Pipino first; and the last also contains multiple texts, and appears to have come from Norwich Priory. While the shrine keepers’ inventories are clearly not full bibliographical lists, they contain no mention of any work bound with the Polychronicon, and it seems more likely that the copy kept there was a stand-alone text.

A fourteenth-century copy of the short recension ¹¹⁶ contains several additional notes and marginalia, including a description of Henry iii’s procession to Westminster Abbey with the Holy Blood in 1247 (fol 133r; fig 11), added from a later recension. ¹¹⁷ A note at the end of the text appears to direct the reader to what may be the final part of a paper manuscript containing the Westminster Chronicle ¹¹⁸ along with other continuations to the Polychronicon assembled by Archbishop Parker in the sixteenth century: ‘reliqua de isto Edwardo iii vide infra in papero in fine libri’. ¹¹⁹ Since Polychronicon ends at 1327 (very close to the point that the abbey’s Flores ends), this points the reader to the continuation of the history, which takes the chronicle on to 1394, and assumes that the reader had access to both texts. If so, it is possible that these two texts were both to be found at Westminster.

Fig 11. The Feast of the Relics, from the Litlyngton Missal, Westminster Abbey ms 37. Image: reproduced by kind permission of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster.

PAMPHLETS

The fifteenth-century inventories list two quires or pamphlets. The first contained collects and gospel texts ‘for our lady girdyll’, a major abbey relic kept at the shrine. As Luxford says, ‘perhaps the pamphlet was used on the feast of the Assumption (15 August), when the Virgin Mary was supposed to have dropped her girdle into the hand of the apostle Thomas’. ¹²⁰ No surviving manuscripts have been identified that fit the description. The second of the smaller pamphlets is described as being only ‘of ƥe relyquys’. Luxford suggests quite understandably that this item might either have been associated with the Feast of Relics on 16 July, or have formed a ‘comprehensive, self-contained relic list’, but the description is vague, and it is equally plausible that it was a text concerning the history and significance of the relics in the shrine keeper’s care.

Until 1916 a manuscript ¹²¹ held by the Society of Antiquaries formed part of a larger composite manuscript with a complicated history. Its contents were generally concerned with heraldry, and dated from the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries. According to an internal note, in the early eighteenth century it formed part of the joint library of Lord Keeper Sir Nathan Wright (1654–1721) and Master of the Rolls Sir Joseph Jekyll (1662–1738), but Nathan Wright’s library of books and manuscripts at Caldecote was bequeathed by him to his son William Wright, with no mention of Joseph Jekyll. ¹²² Sir Joseph Jekyll acquired most of his manuscripts from his brother-in-law, John Somers (1651–1716). ¹²³ Since the manuscript was presented to the Society of Antiquaries in 1796 by Joseph Jekyll FSA, Sir Joseph’s great nephew, an origin in Baron Somers’ library seems more likely. ¹²⁴ In 1916 it was rebound in four parts. It is a fairly large volume, measuring 15” × 10”. What is now SAL ms 136C comprises fourteenth-century material, combining notes on the family and descent of William Marshall (fols 1r–3v); a register of Roger de Mortuo for 1355; two documents concerning the sergeantry of Meath of 1353 (fols 4r–v); a transcript of the Black Book of the Exchequer (fols 5r–26v); and portions of a fourteenth-century cartulary (fols 37r–8v). At the foot of fol 36v is a fifteenth-century inscription, erased but visible under UV light, reading ‘Liber ecclesie sancti Pauli London’. After this, there is a small separate quire, fols 39r–42v formed of two additional bifolia, with no apparent connection with the earlier parts of the volume. This quire has been folded back on itself to be stitched into the volume, so that fol 41r would originally have formed the first page, and fol 40v the last.

On the blank folio that originally formed the opening of the collection (fol 41r), another erased inscription can be made out under UV light (fig 12). This reads: ‘Liber de feretro Sci Edwardi Regis & confessoris ex procuracione fratris Iohannis Breynt anno regni regis Ricardi secundo post conquestum xxiii. cuius anime propicietur deus Amen.’ Fr John Breynt entered Westminster Abbey in 1373. ¹²⁵ He served as both treasurer and kitchener in 1391–3. In 1393 he was appointed both treasurer of the manors of Queen Eleanor, and shrine keeper, replacing in both roles Fr John London. ¹²⁶ He died in the winter of 1418. Although this manuscript is specifically stated to have been procured by Breynt for the shrine, it was not the only book he acquired for the abbey. Hereford Cathedral holds a fourteenth-century compendium of religious and moral texts. ¹²⁷ It is inscribed on the back cover ‘Iohannes Breynt’, with another inscription declaring that it was acquired by him ‘et pertinent ad communia armaria [Westm’]’. ¹²⁸

Fig 12. Endpaper of a pamphlet on relics under ultra violet light, SAL, ms 136C. Image: reproduced with the permission of the Society of Antiquaries of London.

Where Breynt acquired SAL ms 136C in 1399 is not stated, but we may speculate as to why he did, and why he presented it to the shrine. The verso of the original opening folio, fol 41v, is blank. Fol 42, which on the current arrangement would have formed the next folio, contains 241 lines of a mid-fourteenth-century Anglo-Norman redaction of the popular thirteenth-century anonymous poem, the Ordene de chevalerie, a chivalric poem following the capture of Prince Hue de Tabarie by Saladin before the Third Crusade, and the subsequent moralising on the form of knighthood. ¹²⁹ The poem survives in at least ten manuscripts. ¹³⁰ This fragment provides about one-half of the final poem. The poem was, in Keith Busby’s words, ‘one of the earliest vernacular texts to treat in detail the theory of knighthood’, representing ‘a growing awareness of the historical and literary need to explain the duties and functions of the knight in Christian terms’. ¹³¹ In it, the poet tried to ‘assign knighthood to its proper place in Christian society’. ¹³²

The next reordered folios (fols 39r–40r), which would have sat after an unknown number of bifolia stitched in between, contain a brief treatise on the making of knights of the Order of the Bath, ‘L’Ordonnance et maniere de creer et faire nouveaulx chevaliers du Baing’. This treatise was evidently popular, and a large number of copies of it survive, ¹³³ but no other copy is known from before the fifteenth century (the earliest being perhaps BL, Add ms 34801, of the early fifteenth century). The provenance of the Society of Antiquaries’ manuscript suggests the ceremonial of creating a knight in this way began somewhat earlier than the reign of Henry iv that has traditionally been ascribed to it. The process of knighthood, and the role of bathing as part of the ceremony, appears to have been longstanding. ¹³⁴ Westminster Abbey played a leading role in the ceremony. In 1306, for example, Edward i, in preparation for his last campaign in Scotland, summoned nobles to come to Westminster to obtain knighthood. According to the Flores Historiarum, some 300 obeyed the summons, and thronged first to the Palace of Westminster, and then to the abbey for the Feast of Pentecost. ¹³⁵ Foremost among them was the king’s son, Edward, who was duly knighted. He then in turn knighted his followers, but such was the pressure from the crowd before the high altar, that two prospective knights died and many more fainted. The prince had therefore to conduct the investiture at the high altar. From the late fourteenth century, the creation of knights was closely bound with the coronation service, itself inextricably linked with the high altar and shrine at Westminster. All of which suggests a particular relevance in this text for Breynt and the abbey.

The final page of the quire, fol 40v, contains a description of how the relic of the Holy Blood came to be taken by Thierry of Alsace from the Patriarch of Jerusalem in the Holy Land to Bruges in 1148, and of indulgences granted in relation to this (fig 13). The Holy Blood relic at Bruges was one of the most celebrated examples of its kind, the church that housed it becoming a major focus of pilgrimage, ¹³⁶ but more importantly for Westminster, its origins in twelfth-century Jerusalem meant that it was ‘the only other relic in Europe that lent support to Westminster’s claim that the patriarchs of Jerusalem had been in possession of a portion of the Holy Blood prior to 1247’. ¹³⁷ Writing also in the 1390s, Westminster’s most brilliant scholar, Fr William Sudbury, devoted particular attention to the Bruges relic in a treatise on the Holy Blood relic, Tractatus de sanguine christi precioso, dedicated to Richard ii. ¹³⁸ Sudbury cites a number of authorities for his description of the Bruges relic, and Vincent is doubtless correct that Sudbury probably corresponded with keepers of the chapel of St Basil in Bruges. This manuscript suggests his information may also have come from other textual sources. The precise date of Sudbury’s work is not known, but it must have been after his return to Westminster from Oxford in 1387. ¹³⁹ In the surviving manuscript, Sudbury’s treatise on the authenticity of the Holy Blood relic is preceded by another treatise on the abbey’s rights of sanctuary, Objectiones et argumenta contra et pro privilegiis sanctuarii Westmonasterii, which was almost certainly also written by Sudbury. ¹⁴⁰ This formed part of a period of active work to promote and reinforce the abbey’s interests. Huge sums were spent on the acquisition of royal charters confirming the abbey’s privileges and liberties. ¹⁴¹ At about the same time, a parchment placard was drawn up, doubtless for display at some prominent spot within the abbey, with extracts from early royal charters touching on the rights to sanctuary. ¹⁴² Whether Sudbury’s work on the relics inspired the procurement of texts on relevant subjects, or whether the texts themselves formed source material for Sudbury, must be open to question. ¹⁴³

Fig 13. Fragment of a pamphlet on relics, SAL, ms 136C. Image: reproduced with the permission of the Society of Antiquaries of London.

We do not know what other treatises the quire included, but it seems plausible that they would also have related to either relics or chivalric practices, with a special relevance to Westminster, and specifically to the high altar and shrine. This suggests that the manuscript itself was assembled with Westminster in mind, if not indeed on commission from Breynt (perhaps with advice from Sudbury). While this may not be the quire referred to in the later fifteenth-century inventories as ‘of ƥe relyquys’, the surviving fragmentary contents and the original location of the manuscript make this a possibility.

THE GATHERING OF MANUSCRIPTS

By the mid-fifteenth century the shrine keeper of Westminster Abbey had assembled a small assortment of texts to complement the collection of relics and other paraphernalia stored at the shrine. These texts were gathered to assist the functioning of the chapel, and to enhance the understanding of the sacred space and its contents. The liturgical manuscripts required for divine office were supplemented by several works fulfilling a different function. The instigation for this possibly lay in the arrival from St Albans of the formative text of the Flores Historiarum in time for the abbey’s rededication in 1269. As such, it may have acted as a form of ‘offering’ to the abbey, and to the Confessor himself. In the following years the chronicle was maintained at Westminster, and its calendar continued to be annotated with important royal anniversaries until the mid-fifteenth century.

In due course, other texts joined it. A more up to date chronicle, a copy of the Polychronicon, was probably added towards the end of the fourteenth century. A composite manuscript of treatises on relics and chivalry was acquired by the shrine keeper in 1399. Each of these works would have assisted the shrine keeper in understanding the context of his charges, and the events and ceremonial associated with the space. The books were also used by other monks. In the 1390s Fr William Sudbury may have used the treatises on relics as source material for his own work. When Fr John Flete came to compile his history of the abbey in the 1440s, he consulted and cited both the Flores and the Polychronicon. ¹⁴⁴ His work combines historical material relating to Westminster with a protracted relic list, echoing the material held by the shrine keeper. Although not a shrine keeper himself, he did serve as one of the wardens of Queen Eleanor’s manors from 1443–56; his counterpart in office acted as the shrine keeper. Flete’s slightly later copyist, Fr Richard Sporley, also consulted the Flores manuscript, ¹⁴⁵ but none of the resulting texts are known to have been kept, like their source material, at the shrine itself, despite their focus on relics and the role of the shrine. Nor did other chronicle material, like that actively compiled at the abbey firstly by John de Reading, himself a shrine keeper, in the 1360s, and then possibly by Fr Richard Exeter up to 1394, find a place at the shrine (unless the latter was seen as simply a continuation, and therefore classified under the same heading, as the note in Bodleian, ms Bodley 341 suggests). ¹⁴⁶ All of which suggests that the shrine and the Confessor’s chapel acted as a focal point not only for the religious activities of the abbey, but as its historical centre for texts acquired from outside the abbey, authoritative sources for works produced in-house by the community that could in turn be kept and consulted elsewhere.

This centring of the shrine area as the source of historical authority may have been cemented in the late fourteenth century, a period of dramatic change and development in the abbey, inspired by renewed royal patronage. Regular visits to the abbey by Richard ii, both for prayer (especially during critical moments) and to entertain distinguished visitors, greatly increased the visibility and responsibility of the shrine keeper. They were matched by lavish gifts made by the king. ¹⁴⁷ In January 1386 Richard ii led the visiting king of Armenia to the shrine to inspect the relics and regalia. ¹⁴⁸ Physical changes in the chapel also acted to demarcate the space. The insertion of tombs on the south side of the chapel for Queen Philippa (completed by 1376), Edward iii (apparently still in construction in 1386) and finally for Richard ii and Anne of Bohemia themselves (1395–8), effectively sealed it off from the rest of the abbey, and confirmed the space as a royal mausoleum. ¹⁴⁹ This must have necessitated other practical rearrangements of the relics and associated paraphernalia.

The scholarly investigations of Sudbury, and the accompanying acquisition of texts, were also prompted by issues of security, and the rights and status of the abbey that enshrined them. The murder of the knight Robert Hauley in 1378, who had claimed sanctuary in the abbey, shocked both the monastery and the wider community. The legal ramifications of the incident were still being felt as late as 1432. ¹⁵⁰ Hauley and his companion John Shakell had escaped from the Tower of London, where they had been sent by John of Gaunt. Having been pursued to Westminster, the two knights took refuge in the abbey, but Hauley was cut down in the choir during high mass, in front of the prior’s stall. The threat to the abbey’s rights that this outrage manifested prompted the ‘writing of the privileges over the door of the church’. ¹⁵¹ Four years later rioting Londoners broke into the abbey and ‘forcibly dragged away from that holy spot’ and beheaded Richard Imworth, steward of the Marshalsea, ‘who had fled to safety to the church of Westminster and was clinging to the columns of the shrine’. ¹⁵² The abbey must have felt violated, and its security under increased threat. The need to assert its long-held rights to a sympathetic monarch was self-evident.

CONCLUSION

The gathering of a range texts at the shrine was part of the process of affirming the abbey’s status. They provided the historical evidence required to support the abbey’s claims over its rights and the authenticity of its relics. At the same time, the very act of locating those texts in the most sacred part of the abbey gave the manuscripts themselves still further significance and authority. It was to them that the monks turned when compiling their own histories. Their association with the shrine turned the manuscripts into objects with their own sacred authority.

The texts also fulfilled an allied function, serving to support the shrine’s role as a focal point to visitors and pilgrims. In the visits paid to the shrine by royal and noble dignitaries, they provided a recourse to which the shrine keeper could turn for authoritative answers. By the late fifteenth century, they also demonstrate that the shrine was not the singular preserve of the community and royalty. William Caxton’s advice to his readers, and John Leland’s description of his own visit, demonstrate that the Confessor’s chapel was in theory accessible to a far wider proportion of the population. Pilgrims, of course, descended upon the abbey in great numbers, but in 1477 we are told ‘there is a continual concourse to the said monastery for the hearing of divine offices, as the most convenient place or church, both of natives, and of strangers who come to the said realm … wherefore the monks and ministers of the said monastery cannot continue divine worship without great labour’. ¹⁵³ To all of them, when necessary, the shrine keepers could turn to his key texts to assert the abbey’s rights, answer questions and point to the fundamental authority for the abbey’s relics, texts imbued with greater significance by the manuscripts’ very location in the sacred heart of the abbey.