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King Henry III and the Blessed Virgin Mary*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Nicholas Vincent
Nicholas Vincent*
Affiliation:
University of East Anglia
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Extract

Much has been written of the Marian devotions of King Louis IX of France. Louis, so we are told, would mortify his flesh on the vigils of the four principal feasts of the Virgin. Regular pilgrimages were made by the King to the great Marian shrines of France, most notably those of Chartres and Rocamadour. Day by day, in his own chapel, the King listened to matins, tierce and compline sung with the appropriate offices of Our Lady, and on Tuesdays and Saturdays the Mass itself was dedicated to the Virgin. When the King took communion, which he did on six principal feast-days each year, two of these feasts, the Assumption and the Purification, were those of the Virgin. Rather than listen to ribald or secular songs, Louis preferred the singing of the Ave Maria stella.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 39: The Church and Mary , 2004 , pp. 126 - 146
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2004

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Footnotes

*

I am indebted to Paul Binski for valuable discussion and for several bibliographical references. To my former tutor, Henry Mayr-Harting, I owe whatever merits this article may possess.

References

1 Beaulieu, Geoffroy de, ‘Vita et sancta conversatio piae memoriae Ludovici’, in Recueil des Hisloriens des Gautes et de la France, ed. Bouquet, M. et al., 24 vols (Paris, 1738–1904), 20:10–11.Google Scholar

2 Goff, J. Le, Saint Louis (Paris, 1996), 538–40.Google Scholar

3 Vie de Saint Louis par Guillaume de Saint-Pathus confesseur de la reine Marguerite, ed. H.-F. Delaborde (Paris, 1899), 33-5.

4 Ibid., 39.

5 Ibid, 19.

6 For an introduction to the secondary literature on Alfonso’s great collection, emphasising the political dimension in which Alfonso appears as intercessor with Mary on behalf of the people of Spain, see Goff, J. Le, ‘Le Roi, la Vierge, et les images: le manuscrit des “Cantigas de Santa Maria” d’Alphonse X de Castille’, in Clerck, P. de and Palazzo, E., eds, Rituels: Mélanges offerts á Pierre-Marie Gy, O.P. (Paris, 1990), 383–92.Google Scholar

7 Le Goff, Saint Louis, 540.

8 Beaune, C., The Birth of an Ideology. Myth and Symbols of Nation in Late-Medieval France (Berkeley, CA, 1991), 204–11 Google Scholar, and for evidence of even more ancient devotions by the kings of France, see D. Iogna-Prat, ‘Le culte de la Vierge sous le régne de Charles le Chauve’, in Marie: Le Culte de la Vierge dans la société médiévale, ed. D. Iogna-Prat, E. Palazzo and D. Russo (Paris, 1996), 65-98.

9 For the general background to Anglo-French approaches to ‘sacrality’, see Vincent, N., The Holy Blood: King Henry III and the Westminster Blood Relic (Cambridge, 2001), esp. 188–96 Google Scholar; idem, ‘The pilgrimages of the Angevin Kings of England 1154-1272’, in C. Morris and P. Roberts, eds, Pilgrimage, the English Experience from Becket to Bunyan, (Cambridge, 2002), 12-45, esp. 30-45.

10 For brief remarks on the Marian devotions of Richard II, see Mitchell, S., ‘Richard II, kingship and the cult of saints’, in Gordon, D., Monnas, L., and Elam, C., eds, The Regal Image of Richard II and the Wilton Diptych (1997), 123–4.Google Scholar

11 For the general background and for an introduction to the secondary literature for English Marian devotions both before and after 1066, see the important studies by M. Clayton, The Cult of the Virgin Mary in Anglo-Saxon England (Cambridge, 1990), and Morgan, N., ‘Texts and images of Marian devotion in thirteenth-century England’, in Ormrod, W.M., ed., England in the Thirteenth Century, Harlaxton Medieval Studies, 1 (Stamford, CA, 1991), 69–103.Google Scholar

12 Southern, R.W., ‘The English origins of the “Miracles of the Virgin”’, Mediaeval and Renaissance Studies, 4 (1958), 176–216.Google Scholar

13 The classic article here remains that by Edmund Bishop, ‘On the origins of the Feast of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary’, in his Liturgica Historica (Oxford, 1918), 238-59. For an introduction to the more recent secondary literature, see C. H. Talbot, ‘Nicholas of St Albans and Saint Bernard’, Revue Benedictine, 64 (1954), 83-117;R.M. Dessi and M. Lamy, ‘Saint Bernard et les controverses mariales au Moyen-Age’, in P. Arabeyre et al., eds, Vies et légendes de Saint Bernard de Clairvaux, Citeaux: Commentarii Cistercienses Textes et Documents, 5 (Citeaux, 1993), 230-60. For Gloucester, see The Original Acta of St Peter’s Abbey, Gloucester, c.1 122 to 1263, ed. R.B. Patterson, Gloucestershire Record Series, 11 (1998), xxv.

14 Liber monasterii de Hyda, ed. E. Edwards, RS (1866), 317, and for a miracle story involving Henry I, preserved in the vast fifteenth-century collection now at Cambridge, Sidney Sussex College, see James, M.R., A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge (Cambridge, 1895), 101 no.98 Google Scholar, from Sidney Sussex College, MS 94, fol. 190V, where the Virgin is said to have rescued a nun threatened with rape by the King.

15 For the claim that it was prece regis Henrici that abbot Hugh celebrated the feast at Reading, and for evidence of the introduction of the associated feast of St Anne, the mother of Mary, at Worcester Cathedral Priory, see The Letters of Osbert of Clare Prior of Westminster, ed. E.W. Williamson (Oxford, 1929), 11-15, 65-8 no. 7, esp. 67 ll. 19-21. For the Reading relics of Mary, recorded early in the thirteenth century, see BL, MS Egerton 3031 (Reading cartulary), fol. 6v: ‘Reliquie de domina nostra sancta Maria: capillus sancte Marie ut putatur; de terra ubi nata fuit beata virgo Maria; de vestimento eius in quattuor locis; de lecto cius in duobus locis; de zona eius; de sepulcro eius in viii. locis.’

16 Pending the appearance of the revised itinerary of Henry II by Dr Judith Everard, see R.W. Eyton, Court, Household and Itinerary of King Henry II (1878), 1, based upon Robert de Torigni, ‘Chronica’, in Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II and Richard I, ed. R, Howlett, 4 vols, RS (1885-9), 4:181-2, dated 7 Ides Dec.

17 Eyton, Court, Household and Itinerary, 15-16, based upon Torigni, ‘Chronica’, in Howlett, Chronicles, 4:186. The King sailed in late Jan., in time to be in Rouen by 2 Feb.

18 Eyton, Court, Household and Itinerary, 40-1, based upon Torigni and upon the Bec continuation of Torigni in Chronicles, ed. Howlett, 4:196,318.

19 For a critical edition, see A. Pantel, Das Altfranzösische Gedicht über die Himmetfahrt Mariä von Wace und dessen Überarbeihmgen (Greifswald, 1909).

20 Mason, E., ‘“Rocamadour in Quercy above all other churches”: the healing of Henry II’, SCH, 19 (1982), 39–54.Google Scholar

21 Torigni, ‘Chronica’, in Chronicles, ed. Howlett, 4:265.

22 Eyton, Court, Household and Itinerary, 184-8, based upon Torigni, ‘Chronica’, in Chronicles, ed. Howlett, 4:265; Radulfi de Diceto decani Lundoniensis Opera historica, ed. W. Stubbs, 2 vols, RS (1876), 1:396, 398; Chronica Magistri Rogeri de Houedene, ed. W. Stubbs, 4 vols, RS (1868-71), 2:71.

23 For Chartres, see Recueil des Actes de Henri II roi d’Angleterre et due de Normandie concernant les provinces francaises et les affaires de France, ed. L. Delisle and E. Berger, 3 vols (Paris, 1916-27), 1:228-9 no.123, 2:142-3 no.563. For Henry and St-Pierre-sur-Dive, whose miracles worked by the Virgin after 1145 are set out in a report published by L. Delisle, ‘Lettre de l’abbeé Haimon sur la construction de Peglise de Saint-Pierre-sur-Dive en 1145’, Bibliothéque de 1’École des Chartes [hereafter BÉC], 21 (1860), 113-39, see Rotuli chartarum, ed. T.D. Hardy (1835), 35. Amongst other Norman churches patronized by Henry, note the miracles of the Virgin reported earlier in the twelfth century at Coutances cathedral: E.-A. Pigeon, Histoire de la cathédrale de Coutances (Coutances, 1876), 367-83, including at 378-9 reference to a hair-relic of the Virgin.

24 J. Hubert, ‘Le Miracle de Deols et la trêve conclue en 1187 entre les rois de France et d’Angleterre’, BÉC, 96 (1935), 285-300, esp. 298-300, with further details of the interest taken in the miracle by Henry II and his sons Richard and Geoffrey the chancellor in the brief excerpts from John Agnellus’ once extensive collection of miracle stories, in P. Labbe, Novae bibliothecae manuscriptorum librorum, 2 vols (Paris, 1657), 1:319-22. The thief of the arm relic, described by Agnellus merely as quidam vir illustris, is identified as John by the Capetian chronicler Rigord: Oeuvres de Rigord et de Guillaume le Breton, ed. H.F.Delaborde, 2 vols (Paris, 1882-5), 1:79-80, whence Vincent of Beauvais, Bibliotheca mundi seu speculi maioris, 4 vols (Douai, 1624), 4:1199-1200.

25 Under Richard, note perhaps the King’s sailing from Genoa on 14 August 1190, his moving into winter quarters at Ramleh on 8 December 1191, and his judgement over Limoges on 25 March 1196: The Itinerary of King Richard I, ed. L. Landon, Pipe Roll Society, n.s. 13 (1935), 39, 58, 111.

26 Thomas, A., ‘Les Miracles de Notre-Dame de Chartres. Texte Latin inédit’, BÉC, 42 (1881), 531.Google Scholar

27 The ‘Missae Roll 11 John’ (1209-10), employs a calendar that includes the feasts of the Assumption, the Nativity, the Conception, the Annunciation and the Purification: Rotuli de Liberate ac de Misis et Praestitis, ed.T.D. Hardy (1844), 127, 130, 141, 148, 158. The ‘Missae Roll 14 John’ (1212-13), notes all feasts save that of the Conception, but nonetheless includes a payment of the King’s gambling debts on 2 February 1213, suggesting a less than assiduous religious observance: Documents Illustrative of English History in the Thirteenlh and Fourteenth Centuries, ed. H. Cole (1844), 238, 240, 251, 257, esp. 251.

28 Annales monastici, ed. H.R. Luard, 5 vols, RS (1864-9), 1:58, 4:393-4.

29 For the ‘Invectivum’, BL, MS Cotton Vespasian E iii, fols 171r-178v, see N. Vincent, ‘Master Simon Langton, King John and the Court of France’ (forthcoming). For the events of 1222, see Councils and Synods with Other Documents Relating to the English Church II: 1205-1313, ed. F.M. Powicke and C.R. Cheney, 2 vols (Oxford, 1964), 1:105-6.

30 Memoriale fratris Walteride Coventria, ed. W. Stubbs, 2 vols, RS (1872-3), 2:251-2.

31 BL, MS Cotton Vespasian E iii, fol. 174v (164v, 171v): ‘Cumque mater et virgo Maria pietate plena cum omni celesti curia perspiceret populos Anglie, Scotie, Hybernie in libro malorum operum cleri et prelatorum exemplari obcecatos infernalibus ministrare et obedire, ait omnibus Sanctis et celi civibus universis: Venite dilecti mei mecum, et dominum Ihesum Cristum, quem genui, quern uberibus meis lactavi, quern infantulum more matris diligenter nutrivi, humiliter deprecemur ut in multitudine miserationum suarum omnium nationum et populorum et cleri totius mundi misereatur, ne infernis insatiabilis genus humanum morte et passione preciosa redemptum absorbeat, deglutiat in tenebris palpapilibus, in tormentis eternis, in penis millenis sine fine puniat’.

32 Matthew Paris, Chronica majora, ed. H.R. Luard, 7 vols, RS (1872-84), 5:246-54; Le Goff, Saint Louis, 195-8.

33 In general, see Jordan, W.C., Louis LX and the Challenge of the Crusade (Princeton, NJ, 1979)Google Scholar, ch. 6-8.

34 For Henry’s stay at Walsingham in March 1251, see Close Rolls of the Reign of Henry III preserved in the Public Record Office, 14 vols (1902-38) [hereafter CCR], 1247-51, 425; Calendar of the Patent Rolls preserved in the Public Record Office: Henry III, 6 vols (1901-13) [hereafter CPR], 1247-58, 91; Calendar of the Liberate Rolls preserved in the Public Record Office: Henry III, 6 vols (1916-64) [hereafter CLR], 1245-51, 343. For the gifts, see CCR 1247-51, 423; CLR 1245-51, 343-4, 354.

35 In general, for the shrine and for a summary of Henry’s visits, see J.C. Dickinson, The Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham (Cambridge, 1956), esp. 4-11, 17-19.

36 For the visit in April 1226, see Rotuli litterarum clausarum, ed. T.D. Hardy, 2 vols (1833-44), 2:105.

37 For the King’s visits, see CCR 1227-31, 199; CCR 1231 -4, 82; CCR 1234-7, 59; CCR 1237-42, 58, 407-8; CCR 1242-7, 295; CCR 1254-6, 286; CCR 1268-72, 527; CPR 1225-32, 487-8, 520; CPR 1247-58, 10, 466; CPR 1266-72, 679; Calendar of the Charter Rolls preserved in the Public Record Office, 6 vols (1903-27) [hereafter CChR], 1226-57, 165, 354; CChR 1257-1300, 184, 319; CLR 1245-51, 171; CLR 1251-60, 276, and for 1251 see above.

38 Dickinson, Shrine of Our Lady, 17-18, citing Rotuli litterarum clausarum, 2:105.

39 CLR 1226-40, 398; London, Public Record Office [hereafter PRO], E372/83 m.13.

40 CLR 1240-5, 9.

41 CLR 1240-5, 66, 143; The Great Roll of the Pipe for the Twenty-Sixth Year of the Reign of King Henry the Third, ed. H.L. Cannon, Yale Historical Publications: Manuscripts and Edited Texts, 5 (New Haven, CT, 1918), 190.

42 CChR 1226-57, 354, and cf. 377.

43 CLR 1245-51, 18.

44 CCR 1237-42, 435, and note the 25 lbs of wax that the King awarded on the vigil of the Annunciation for making tapers: CLR 1240-5, 114.

45 PRO, C47/3/4/1. For the Caversham shrine, served by the canons of Notley abbey, including a much later record of its relics, most notably the statue of the Virgin, see Three Chapters of Letters relating to the Suppression of the Monasteries, ed. T. Wright, Camden Series, 38 (1843), 221-7 nos 108-110; CCR 1237-42, 111.

46 CCR 1237-42, 108, 111, 164, 375; CLR 1245-51, 31; CLR 1251-60, 260; CCR 1256-9, 397; CCR 1259-61, 121.

47 CLR 1226-40, 398; CLR 1240-5, 66.

48 CCR 1242-7, 393; CLR 1245-51, 36.

49 PRO, C47/3/43 m.6, and for Katherine, born 25 Nov. 1253, died 3 May 1257, see Howell, M., ‘The children of King Henry III and Eleanor of Provence’, in Coss, P.R. and Lloyd, S.D., eds, Thirteenth Century England IV (Woodbridge, 1992), 57, 63–4.Google Scholar

50 See the typescript ‘Itinerary of Henry III’, on open access in the Map Room of the PRO.

51 For crosses with Mary and John, see CLR 1226-40, 221, 260, 414, 452-3; CLR 1240-5, 216, 218; CLR 1245-51, 45, 83, 157, 239, 292, 294-5; CLR 1251-60, 57, 511. For images of Mary with her tabernacle, of the Annunciation, of Mary with the Magi, and of the Virgin and child, see e.g. CLR 1226-40, 51, 350; CLR 1240-5, 14; CLR 1245-51, 158, 182, 296, 363, 372; CCR 1247-51, 380-1. Many of these paintings and statues, it should be noted, were intended for the Queen’s chapels as well as those of the King.

52 PRO, C47/3/4/1: ‘i. ymaginem eburnei de sancta Mar(ia) ex utraque parte io(co)sa … i. vasculum vitreum cum oleo de Sardenay est in parva ymagine argent(i) beate Marie’, and for the oil and icon, see B. Hamilton, ‘Our Lady of Saidnaiya: an Orthodox shrine revered by Muslims and Knights Templar at the time of the Crusades’, SCH, 36 (2000), 207-15.

53 CLR 1245-51, 33 2.

54 CLR 1226-40, 261.

55 See Belting, H., Likeness and Presence: a History of the Image before the Era of Art (Chicago, IL, 1994), 323–9, 498–502 Google Scholar, a reference that I owe to Paul Binski. The ceremony is described in detail with numerous illustrations by H. L. Kessler and J. Zacharias, Rome 1300: on the Path of the Pilgrim (New Haven, CT, and London, 2000), esp. 62-3.

56 PRO, C47/3/44 mm. 1-2 (Oblations 28 Oct. 1238-7 May 1230);E101/349/30 (Oblations 2 Jan.-6 Aug. 1265).

57 For the Exchequer calendar, see PRO, E36/266 (Black Book of the Exchequer), fols 2v, 3r, 5v, 6r, 7v, specifying the five principal feasts of Our Lady, together with the octave of the Virgin’s Nativity, 15 Sept., noted as the feast of relics in Salisbury cathedral, itself a centre of Marian devotion. The date of the feast of relics at Salisbury had been altered at least twice, before 1161 from an unknown date to 17 Sept., and thereafter to 15 Sept., the octave of the Nativity: A Saltman, Theobald Archbishop of Canterbury (1956), 467-8 no. 243. It is worth noting that the Exchequer calendar forms part of a gathering of gospel readings and religious images, with strong Marian overtones, including drawings (fols lor, 17v) of the Virgin and Child and the Crucifixion with Mary and John. For a description, see N. Morgan, Early Gothic Manuscripts 1900-1250, 2 vols (1982-8), 1:130 no. 83 and illustrations 276-8.

58 PRO, C47/3/44, mm. 1-2. In 1239 the feast of the Annunciation coincided with Good Friday, whose solemnities took precedence.

59 Le Goff, Saint Louis, 372, and for the specific association of miracles of the Virgin with Saturdays, see Suger, ‘Liber de rebus’, PL 186, cols 1223-4, and the miracle of Dérols, said to have taken place on Saturday 30 May 1187: Hubert, ‘Le Miracle de Deols’, 298.

60 PRO, E101/349/30.

61 CLR 1240-5, 220.

62 CLR 1226-40, 499.

63 CLR 1245-51, 156, 300.

64 PRO, C47/3/44, m.1.

65 CLR 1240-5, 129, 146, 173.

66 For the hospital, which acquired numerous royal charters during the years of de Burgh’s ascendancy, see CChR 1226-57, 48, 78-9, 91, 98-9, 101, 126, 129-30, 141-2, 191-2, 202, 315, 330.

67 D. Gordon, ‘The Wilton Diptych: an introduction’, and N. Morgan, ‘The significance of the banner in the Wilton Diptych’, in Gordon, Monnas and Elam, eds, The Regal Image, 22-6, 185. However, for a Bury motet in honour of St Edmund, rewritten with connotations of Mary as Queen of the English as well as the Angels, Ave regina celorum, mater regis angelorum, perhaps in circulation as early as the thirteenth century, see Mitchell, ‘Richard, kingship and the cult of saints’, ibid., 118, 124.

68 For the Westminster retable, see Binski, P., Westminster Abbey and the Plantagenets. Kingship and the Representation of Power 1200-1400 (New Haven, CT, 1995), 152–67 Google Scholar, esp. 156-7. For the orb of the Wilton Diptych, see Gordon, ‘Wilton Diptych’, 22-3.

69 PRO, E101/349/27. Taking a daily average of iolbs of wax used ‘in the chapel and in alms’, 3 6 lbs were expended on the vigil and 153 lbs on the feast of the Purification; 27 lbs on the Annunciation, and 13 lbs on the Assumption. These compare with a mere 7½ lbs on 8 Dec, 75 lbs used on Christmas day, 123 lbs on Easter Saturday and Sunday, 31 lbs on the feast of St Edward in Oct. 1260, and the quite enormous and unexplained expenditure of 237 lbs on the feast of St Peter ad Vincula in Aug. 1260.

70 Paris, Chronica majora, 5:476-7.

71 Kantorowicz, E.H., Laudes Regiae: a Study in Liturgical Acclamations and Mediaeval Ruler Worship (Berkeley, CA, 1946), 171–9 Google Scholar, esp. 175-7.

72 CLR 1226-40, 197, 231, 255, 406, 441.

73 CCR I 237-42, 233.

74 CCR 1234-7, 64; CPR 1258-66,636.

75 Paris, Chronica majora, 3:59; Radulphi de Coggeshall Chronkon Anglicanum, ed. J. Stevenson, RS (1875), 187-8, noting that the foundations were laid on Saturday (the Virgin’s day) 16 May 1220. For the coronation on Sunday 17 May 1220, see D. Carpenter, The Minority of Henry III (1990), 187-9.

76 Rotuli litterarum clausarum, 1:440b.

77 Binski, Westminster Abbey, 10-13.

78 For the cult of St Mary at Westminster in the twelfth century, see Mason, E., Westminster Abbey and its People, c.1050-c.1216 (Woodbridge, 1996), 262–3 Google Scholar; Rosser, G., Medieval Westminster 1200-1540 (Oxford, 1989) 47–51 Google Scholar. For the abbey’s Marian relics, including those given by St Edward and St Thomas of Canterbury, see The History of Westminster Abbey by John Flete, ed. J. A. Robinson (Cambridge, 1909), 69-70, and below. For miracle stories involving the Virgin and the monks of Westminster, several of them collected in the later compendium at Cambridge, Sidney Sussex College, MS 94, fols 63v-64r, 145r-146r, 211r-212r, whence the calendar by James, Catalogue of the Manuscripts of Sidney Sussex College, 86 no.38, 96 no. 12, 104 no.42, two of these also to be found in the earlier, thirteenth-century collections in BL, MS Royal 6B.x, MS Cotton Cleopatra C x, as noted by H.L.D. Ward, Catalogue of Romances in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum II (1893), 617 no.38, 645 no.6.

79 The assumption must be that it was to Westminster that Osbert of Clare was referring when he wrote of his institution of the feast c. 1129: Letters of Osbert of Clare, 11-13, 65-8 no.7. The feast is included in the calendar attached to the Westminster Psalter c. 1200: Missale ad usum ecclesie Westmonasteriensis, ed. J.W. Legg, 3 vols, Henry Bradshaw Society, 1, 5, 12 (1891-7), 3:1396; Morgan, Early Gothic Manuscripts, 1:49-51 no.2. The Westminster Customary of c.1270 lists the feast of the Conception together with the Purification, the Annunciation, and the Nativity of the Virgin, as one of the abbey’s twenty-five lesser feasts, including only the Assumption amongst the eight major feasts. However, it should be remembered that these rankings were applied to the abbey as a whole, not to the Lady Chapel which had its own distinct customs including a daily recital of the Lady Mass and special pittances at the feast of the Conception, endowed by the monk Robert of Moulsham: Customary of the Benedictine Monasteries of St Augustine Canterbury and Saint Peter, Westminster, ed. E. Maunde Thompson, 2 vols, Henry Bradshaw Society, 23, 28 (1902-4), 2:77-8, 91-3.

80 PRo, C47/3/4/1.

81 CLR 1226-40, 442; CPR 1232-47, 281; CLR 1240-5, 206, 212. These awards are assumed to apply to the monastic Lady Chapel rather than to the chapel of St Mary, not established in the royal palace at Westminster until the 1290s, for which see The History of the King’s Works I: The Middle Ages, ed. R. Allen Brown, H.M. Colvin and A.J. Taylor, 2 vols (1963), 1:521-3.

82 CCR 1254-6, 314; Brown, Colvin, and Taylor, King’s Works, 1:144.

83 CLR 1254-6, 424, 448.

84 For the offering of a piece of gold made at the feast of the Annunciation 1265 ad zonam beate Marie, see PRO, E101/349/30. For the girdle’s journey to Gascony dated 1246, presumably by mistake for June 1242, the date of the birth of Beatrice at Bordeaux, see Maunde Thompson, Customary of Westminster, 2:73; Howell, ‘Children of King Henry III’ 57, 62-3. For the duty of carrying the girdle ‘wherever it may be sent’, imposed upon the sacrist of Westminster, see Maunde Thompson, Customary of Westminster, 2:49, and for its later peregrinations to the court of Edward III both in England and France, see Westminster Abbey Muniments 19621, 19623, 19634. For episcopal indulgences directed to visitors to the relic, after 1287, see Westminster Abbey, MS Domesday, fols 398v-9r.

85 Le Goff, Saint Louis, 425, 772.

86 Morgan, ‘Texts and images’, 69-103, and for the earliest English diocesan legislation prescribing prayers to Our Lady before 1240, see Powicke and Cheney, Councils and Synods II, 1:61 no.5, 213 no.20, 228 no.2, 269 no.8.

87 Cheney, C.R., ‘Rules for the observance of feast-days in medieval England’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 34 (1961) 117–47 Google Scholar; B. Harvey, ‘Work and “Festa ferianda” in medieval England’, JEH, 23 (1972), 289-308.

88 For the insistence that every church obtain an image of Our Lady, set out in the diocesan legislation of the see of Exeter in 1287, see Powicke and Cheney, Councils and Synods II, 2:1006.

89 Sharpe, R., A Handlist of the Latin Writers of Great Britain and Ireland before 1540 (Turnhout, 1997), 631–2 Google Scholar; Gereimte Psalterien des Mittelalters, ed. G.M. Dreves, Analecta Hymnica Medii Aevi, 3 5 (Leipzig, 1900), 153-71 no. 11. In April 1220, it was on Langton’s behalf that the second stone of the new cathedral of Salisbury was laid, the cathedral itself having been founded by Langton’s former pupil Richard Poer in consequence, so it was much later alleged, of a vision of the Virgin Mary: The Register of St Osmund, ed. W.H. Rich Jones, 2 vols, RS (1883-4), 2:civ, 12-13.

90 N. Vincent, Peter des Roches: an Alien in English Politics 1205-38 (Cambridge, 1996), 256.

91 Crouch, D., William Marshal. Knighthood, War and Chivalry, 1147-1219, 2nd edn (2002), 214–16 Google Scholar, based closely upon the contemporary Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal.

92 For Hubert’s awards to Walsingham, referring to the burial there of his mother Alice, see BL, MS Cotton Nero E vii (Walsingham cartulary), fols 91r, 140r.

93 For Hubert’s charters to the hospital, see BL, Campbell Charter II. 12; London, Lambeth Palace Library, MS 241 (Dover cartulary), fol. 41r; Register of Archbishop Warham, fol. 134r.

94 Colker, M.L., ‘The “Margam Chronicle” in a Dublin manuscript’, The Haskins Society Journal, 4 (1993), 135 Google Scholar (mentioning Hubert’s possession of a psalter), 137.

95 Vincent, N., ‘Isabella of Angouleme: John’s Jezebel’, in Church, S.D., ed., King John: New Interpretations (Woodbridge, 1999), 215–16 Google Scholar. Beyond the perfunctory obit celebrations cited there (213-14) as having been made by Henry for his mother after 1246, note that in 1251 Henry arranged for his mother’s obit to be inscribed in the martyrology of Rouen Cathedral, and that as late as 1265 he was celebrating an obit mass for her on the anniversary of her death: CPR 1247-58, 89; PRO, E101/349/30, this latter correctly dated 4 June but assigned by the clerk who compiled the roll to Alyanora mater domini regis, suggesting that the clerk, if not the King, was ignorant even as to Isabella’s name.

96 For the fact that Henry III spent the feast of St Edward’s translation at Westminster in most years of his reign and certainly from the mid 1230s, and that from 1238 he also made it his practice to be in Westminster for the feast of Edward’s deposition in Jan., see Vincent, ‘The pilgrimages of the Angevin kings’, and the digest of a lecture by David Carpenter in The Westminster Abbey Chorister, 31 (2000), 37-9, drawn to my attention by Paul Binski.

97 CCR 1247-51, 18.

98 PRO, E101/349/30, recording 22 recitals of the Mass of St Edward, besides celebrations and offerings on the feast of his deposition in Jan.. The Masses were celebrated on Monday (8 times), Tuesday and Saturday (once each), Wednesday (twice), Thursday (6 times), and Friday (5 times).

99 CLR 1245-51, 362; Binski, P., ‘Abbot Berkyng’s tapestries and Matthew Paris’s Life of St Edward the Confessor’, Archaeologia, 109 (1991), 85–100 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and for Abbot Richard’s burial in the Lady Chapel, see Maunde Thompson, Customary of Westminster, 2:92.

100 For the events of 1247, see Vincent, The Holy Blood, 1-19.