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The Division of the Mensa in Early English Monasteries
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011
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A study of the division of the mensa in early medieval English monasteries must involve a tedious and detailed investigation of what most people will rightly regard as the mere externals of monastic life. But the topic is not without its importance for the study of the inner life of the early religious community and for the study of early medieval social and economic problems in general. Professor Knowles has doubted the existence of an effective division of the mensa in the English religious houses before the time of Rufus and Henry I. He calls the division the ‘feudalization of the abbot's position’ and he ascribes its origin to ‘the claim of the king…to hold and enjoy the revenues of a vacant abbey. To avoid this, the abbey's lands and income were divided between the abbot and community’. He considers that the effect of this division on the life of the community was considerable because it brought about the virtual separation of the abbot from the rest of the community. It created ‘a private household of servants and officials and, ultimately separate quarters in which they and the abbot lived…’.
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page 143 note 1 I have to thank my colleagues and teachers, Professor C. R. Cheney and Dr. F. E. Harmer and my friends Mr. P. H. Sawyer and Mr. E. Stone for their valuable criticism and advice.
page 143 note 2 Monastic Order in England, 405.
page 143 note 3 Professor Galbraith expressed a rather different opinion in E.H.R., xliv. (1929), 366.
page 144 note 1 Whitelock, D., Anglo-Saxon Wills, Cambridge 1930Google Scholar; Robertson, A. J., Anglo-Saxon Charters, Cambridge 1939Google Scholar; Harmer, F. E., Anglo-Saxon Writs, Manchester 1952Google Scholar. Miss Harmer's earlier collection, Select English Historical Documents of the Ninth and Tenth Centuries, Cambridge 1914Google Scholar, is also relevant.
page 144 note 2 de G. Birch, W., Cartularium Saxonicum, London 1885–99, no. 319Google Scholar.
page 144 note 3 Journal of English and Germanic Philology, xxxvii. (1938), 140, note 15Google Scholar.
page 144 note 4 The division of the mensa at London was first pointed out by Miss Gibbs, Early Charters of St. Paul's Cathedral, Camden Series lviii., xviii., note 2.
page 144 note 5 Ibid., 2.
page 144 note 6 Whitelock, Wills, 4.
page 144 note 7 Ibid., 2.
page 145 note 1 Whitelock, Wills, 8.
page 145 note 2 Ibid., 34.
page 145 note 3 Ibid., 38.
page 145 note 4 Domesday Book, i. fo. 133b; ii. fo. 13b.
page 145 note 5 Whitelock, Wills, 42.
page 145 note 6 D.B., ii. fo. 10a.
page 145 note 7 Early Charters, 20.
page 145 note 8 This writ omits the conventional freondlice but does not seem otherwise suspicious. The ‘ealle þa gricthe þe into þam cristendome gebyrað on minan lande 7 on ælces oðres mannes lande ofer eall p bisceoperice on morðspecce 7 unrichthæmed 7 on unrichtweorc …’ (all the rights assigned to spiritual jurisdiction on my lands and on every other man's lands over all the diocese in murdrum cases, fornication and unrighteous deeds) seems a reasonable addition to the pre-Conquest formulae in view of the Conqueror's legislation. I take þa gricthe to be a corruption of þa gerihte: for cristendom v. Harmer, Writs, 488. Another of these writs, Gibbs, op. cit., 13, refers to rights on mor ð spræche and can be dated 1072–8. It is difficult to see what else this could refer to other than the lex murdrorum although it is odd to find it classed as spiritual jurisdiction: the vernacular form is additional evidence for Miss Hurnard's theory of the motives behind the lex murdrorum, v. E.H.R., lvi. (1941), 387–90. As the lex murdrorum was probably enunciated at Gloucester (v. Liebermann, Gesetze, iii. 280) and the only occasion the Conqueror is known to have transacted business at Gloucester between 1072 and 1078 is 1072, this writ is good evidence for Stubb's conjectured date for this law: See his Lectures on Early English History, 75.
page 146 note 1 Journal of Theological Studies, xxvii. (1927), 235Google Scholar.
page 146 note 2 C.S., 319.
page 146 note 3 Robertson, Anglo-Saxon Charters, 10.
page 146 note 4 Whitelock, Wills, 26.
page 147 note 1 Robertson, op. cit., 12.
page 147 note 2 The Council of Celcyth in 816 had attempted to limit such leases to one life only. Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, iii. 582.
page 147 note 3 Ibid., 545 and Reg. Cone., ed. Symons, 7.
page 147 note 4 Earle and Plummer, i. 65.
page 147 note 5 Other evidence for the use of this phrase ‘lord of the church’ as an ecclesiastical title is known. Robertson, Charters, 34, a lease of bishop Werfrith of Worcester about a generation later than the Peterborough agreement, refers to Æthelred and Æthelflæd as the community's lords. Æthelflæd and her busband were rulers of Mercia with almost royal status and the phrase is unlikely to mean lay proprietor here. The lease goes on to use the phrase in a context which must refer to the bishop. The lord and the community at Worcester are to earn Æthelred and Æthelflæd's favour by the performance of divine service by day and night in the expectation of the restoration of the estates with increased endowment. Cf. also ibid., 26, and Harmer, English Historical Documents, 25 for further examples. The bishop is sometimes referred to as primas ecclesie in the latin texts of St. Oswald's læns. The will of the reeve Abba, Harmer, E.H.D. 3 (833–9) seems to use the phrase ‘lord of the church’ to denote an abbess and a Canterbury charter (ibid., 12) uses it to express the relationship of the archbishop to the community of Christ Church. This phrase, like the word hired in its sense of religious community, is an interesting instance of the penetration of the monastic vocabulary by that of the ‘first age of feudalism’.
page 147 note 6 Robertson, Charters, 30.
page 148 note 1 Robertson, Charters, 48.
page 148 note 2 Ibid., 30.
page 148 note 3 Ibid., 42.
page 148 note 4 Since the rest of this paper is mainly concerned with the Benedictine houses, it may be useful to note here a few more cases where the separation of the estates between bishop and chapter has been noticed. Crediton: Napier and Stevenson, Crawford Charters, x. bishop Alfwold (953–72) wills land to his chapter and frees all the penal slaves ‘on each episcopal estate’. Hereford: Harmer, Writs, 230, a writ of the Confessor to Hereford granting full rights of jurisdiction to ‘the Prestes in Hereford at Seint Edielbert ministre’ and v. Galbraith, , E.H.R., xliv. (1929), 357CrossRefGoogle Scholar, n. 3. Wells: Ecclesiastical Documents, Camden Series, 1840, 20, a narrative account of bishop Giso's virtual endowment and separation of the estates of the church of Wells: ‘Hujus rei praelibationem ideo praemisi, ut, cum in sequentibus de istis et omnibus quae ad episcopalem pertinent dignitatem terris confuse tractavero, quae ad usum canonicorum, quae ad episcopi dominium vel dispensationem, proprie, innotescat…’. Giso is in effect endowing the church and providing an economic foundation for a community of canons; it is significant that he treats the division of the estates as an integral part of that provision. Durham: Barlow, Durham Jurisdictional Peculiars, 5, and Craster, , E.H.R., lxix. (1954), 197CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
page 149 note 1 Regularis Concordia, ed. Dom Thomas Symons, 69.
page 149 note 2 Liebermann, Gesetze, ii. 500–2: Whitelock, Wills, 100.
page 149 note 3 The heriot of bishop Theodred (Whitelock, op. cit., 2) includes money, two silver cups and three estates.
page 149 note 4 Reg. Conc., 69.
page 150 note 1 Dom Thomas Symons takes this passage differently. He translates secundum anterioris dictatum as according to the command already given and refers it to Edgar's prohibition of the amassing of treasure to pay the heriot. But this passage relates to the disposition of property already amassed and the anterioris dictatum to the manner of its division amongst relatives and: secular tyrants'. In other words the dictatum here is a will. Anterioris is here a substantive and cannot be rendered already; it must refer to the dead abbot and is probably used by way of contrast to subsequens abbas. The ‘secular tyrants’ are surely local lords who exercise, or have exercised, the saecularium prioratum condemned already, Concordia, 7. It is difficult to imagine Edgar referring to himself and his successors as secular tyrants, as we must do, if we relate this passage to the prohibition of the heriot, in view of the contemporary notions of sacerdotal kingship. Clerical wills were only accepted with reluctance by the Church, even in the case of secular priests and bishops See St. Palais d'Aussac, F. J., Le Droit de Dépouille, Paris 1930Google Scholar, passim. I have repunctuated. the passage from the Concordia slightly.
page 150 note 2 The will of bishop Theodred, Wills, 4 makes it clear that the stock found on the episcopal demesne at a bishop's death was his to dispose of, although the demesne itself remained church property. He leaves the Church ‘as much as I found on the estate’; the rest is bequeathed to various parties. Something similar may have obtained at the time of the Concordia in regard to abbatial estates and this may be the origin of the ‘surplus’.
page 151 note 1 M. Lesne pointed out in his Origine des Menses, 1910, cap. iv, that the practice of dividing the mensae originated in the case of continental monasticism, as a counter-measure against the abuse of saecularium prioratium. Both Ghent and Fleury had divided mensae by the time of Dunstan's and Oswald's visits, which makes it all the less likely that they thought of such a division as an abuse, cf. Pöschl, , Bischofsgut und Mensa Episcopalis, Bonn 1909, ii. 70–88Google Scholar, ‘Die Güterteilung als Werk des Reform.’
page 151 note 2 Concordia, 6.
page 151 note 3 E.H.R., liv. (1939), 285–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
page 151 note 4 Chronicle, F. 995, Earle and Plummer, 128 and v. Symons, J. T. S. xxvii. (1927), 409Google Scholar ff. Professor Knowles has suggested (Monastic Order, 697) that Dunstan ‘began to introduce monks, and that the process was formally completed by one of his immediate successors’. He cites a reference in the B life of Dunstan to ‘universos sibi subjectos tam monachos, quam etiam clericos’. But it is altogether likely that Dunstan would have some monks with him as part of his familia. Dom Thomas Symons, Concordia, xxi. cites another passage from the B life which shows Dunstan following the customs prescribed by the Concordia, at Canterbury: but we should expect Dunstan to consider himself bound by the revised rule since he was himself a monk. Against this we have the circumstantial account of the Chronicle which states that Ælfric drove out the clerks with royal and papal approval. As Dr. Armitage Robinson remarked, if this annal is a fabrication it is Dunstan, not Ælfric, whom we should expect to find cast as the scourge of the clerks.
page 151 note 5 Whitelock, Wills, 6.
page 152 note 1 Whitelock, Wills, 38.
page 152 note 2 See below, 155.
page 152 note 3 Charters, 174.
page 152 note 4 Ibid., 188.
page 152 note 5 Fo. 4r.
page 152 note 6 C.S., 1184.
page 152 note 7 Charters, 210, Hemming, 264–5, confirms the existence of the divided mensa in earl Leofric's time. The division was fairly complete by Hemming's day. He speaks of two volumes containing ‘omnia privilegia et cirographia terrarum, que proprie ad victum monachorum pertinent’, the episcopal charters were to be recorded separately; v. i, 286.
page 152 note 8 Professor Galbraith has commented on some of these references and discussed the significance of this formula and the related formulae, de dominio monachorum and de victu monachorum in E.H.R., xliv. (1929), 365–7. He thought the phrase de victu monachorum ‘has already acquired a shade of technical meaning in Domesday’ and he has some valuable remarks on the general practice of Domesday in matters of terminology: ‘The general practice of Domesday seems to be to refer to any portion of conventual or capitular estates as land de victu monachorum (or canonicorum) though the phrase de dominio monachorum is not unknown. Similarly the prelate's lands will be referred to as de dominio episcopi or abbatis though de victu episcopi is also found. De dominio will also be used generally where it is unnecessary to make the distinction between the two portions….’ It is worth noting that these formulae have venerable Anglo-Saxon precedents; ‘þam munecan to scrudfultume 7 to fodan’ looks very like ad vestitum et victum monachorum, and they may all have more than a ‘shade of technical meaning’.
page 153 note 1 D.B., i. fo. 173b.
page 153 note 2 It may be useful to indicate here some other houses for which Domesday shows some kind of division of the endowment by reference ad victum monachorum or some related formula. Abingdon, fo. 59a, Certsey, fo. 59b, Pershore, fo. 164a, Ely, fo. 198b, Peterborough, fo. 222. Volume ii. has St. Benet's Holme, fo. 216b, and Bury St. Edmunds, fo. 371b. These references are all to conditions T.R.E. and only those Houses have been included for which no other evidence has been found.
page 153 note 3 Wills, 32.
page 153 note 4 Harmer, Writs, 267.
page 153 note 5 Ibid., 134.
page 154 note 1 Harmer, Writs, 430.
page 154 note 2 Wills, 62.
page 154 note 3 Ecclesiastical Documents, Camden Series, 1840, 20.
page 154 note 4 Robertson, Charters, no. xxv, is at first sight evidence for a completely apportioned mensa at Winchester in Æthelstan's reign. King Æthelstan grants three estates to supply the community with food and clothing. The grant is a considerable one amounting altogether to fifty hides. In the Anglo-Saxon version, the charter concludes with a curious provision ‘And se ðæt sæ bisceop a þæ ðær þonne sie him do hira fullan fostær butan hira beodlandum of his bisceophamum’: in order to get any meaning out of this it is necessary to have recourse to the Latin version, ‘Sed et quicunque episcopus qui tunc superfuerit illiusque aecclesiæ regimen teneat; eos de suis propriis episcopalibus villis pleniter pascat’ (C.S., 705), and Miss Robertson renders the Anglo-Saxon, ‘And the bishop who is there at the time shall always furnish them with their full supply of food from his episcopal estates, apart from those appropriated to their refectory.’ If this is genuine it seems to mean not only that the estates of Old Minster formed two distinct blocks but that the refectory of the monks had become such a technical term that the monks were in fact fed out of the bishop's portion. The body of the charter is unexceptionable for of the three estates which compose the grant, Domesday records that Chilbolton was held T.R.E. de victu monachorum and rated at ten hides (i. fo. 41a), Enford was held by the ‘church of Winchester’ and rated at thirty hides (i. fo. 65b), Ashmansworth was part of the estate at Whitchurch which was held de victu monachorum (i. fo. 41a). But it is impossible to accept the provision relating to the mensa. The Latin and Anglo-Saxon versions of this charter do not differ in substance but they do differ in their placing of the disputed provision. The Latin version has it clumsily inserted between the king's announcement that he is about to make a gift to the refectory of the monks and the naming of the estates involved; the Anglo-Saxon version inserts it between the confirmation of the freedom of the estates of Winchester from secular services and the dating clause. If the provision is deleted from both charters we are left with two versions of a charter of Æthelstan with no obviously suspicious features, which closely resemble each other. It seems likely that the provision has been inserted in a late copy of a charter of Æthelstan which seems otherwise genuine. If the fabrication were done before 1066 it would of course be valuable evidence for the history of the mensa; unfortunately the Anglo-Saxon version has the older place-name forms of the two versions, whilst it is so linguistically corrupt that it cannot be safely assigned a pre-Conquest date. Miss Harmer has suggested that Anglo-Saxon was still known at Winchester in the late twelfth century, Writs, 387–95. The fabrication shows that the mensa of the monks could offer a motive for forgery and makes the problems of the Latin charters relating to its division still more difficult; cf. C.S., 1135, a puzzling and corrupt charter of the monks of Worcester. The Winchester charter shorn of the suspect provision, still retains its interest as an early and generous grant to the refectory of the Winchester monks.
page 155 note 1 Journal of English and Germanic Philology, xxxvii. (1938), 133–52Google Scholar.
page 155 note 2 Ibid., 135.