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Master Silvester and the Compilation of Early English Decretal Collections

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

H. M. R. E. Mayr-Harting
H. M. R. E. Mayr-Harting*
Affiliation:
University of Liverpool
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Extract

It is becoming ever clearer how English canonists, by their intense and early activity in collecting current papal decretal letters, made a vital contribution to the law of the Church in the second half of the twelfth century. Dr Charles Duggan has recently produced a fascinating study of these decretal collections and has shown how they reflect the interest and activity of four bishops in particular: Richard of Dover, archbishop of Canterbury (1174-84); Roger, bishop of Worcester (1164-79); Bartholomew, bishop of Exeter (1161-84); and Baldwin of Ford, bishop of Worcester (1180-4) and archbishop of Canterbury (1184-90). These were all foremost papal judges-delegate, concerned to preserve the pope’s letters for the practical purposes of legal reference. Their collections often consisted of a core of letters directed to themselves. Copies of letters directed to other bishops were added to these as obtainable, and also letters copied from other decretal collections then in circulation. An interesting question arises from Dr Duggan’s work. Although particular decretal collections may in this way be associated with particular bishops, is it likely that the bishops themselves were personally responsible for the work of selection and compilation ? Would they have had time? Since they had trained clerks in their familia, would they not more probably have left all this to them, especially to their legal experts? And so we find ourselves looking past the bishops into their households.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 2: Papers read at the second winter and summer meetings of the Ecclesiastical History Society , 1965 , pp. 186 - 196
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1965

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References

page 186 note 1 Charles Duggan, Twelfth-Century Decretal Collections and their Importance in English History, 1963, 66-151. I wish to thank Prof. C. N. L. Brooke and Dr Charles Duggan for valuable help and discussion in the preparation of this paper. Dr Duggan kindly showed me the proofs of his book.

page 187 note 1 Kuttner, S. and Rathbone, E., ‘Anglo-Norman Canonists of the Twelfth Century,’ Traditio, VII (1951), 285-6Google Scholar, 293-303.

page 187 note 2 Lohmann, H., ‘Die Collectio Wigorniensis,’ ZRG Kan. Abt., XXII (1933), 36–187 Google Scholar, esp. 53, n.i; Charles Duggan, op. cit. 110-115. Dr Duggan comments, ‘if not in his (Baldwin’s) personal possession, the Royal MS 10 A.ii (Wigorniensis) must surely have belonged to a member of his circle.’

page 188 note 1 Mr Silvester, nos. 4, 5,7-11,17-20; Mr Moses, nos. 3-10,12,17,20, 21. Numbers refer to the list of acta in the appendix to this article.

page 188 note 2 Archdeacon Simon, nos. 3-6, 9, 13, 17, 20, 22. The others respectively, nos. 3, 5, 12-17, 21; nos. 8-11, 14, 15; nos. 3, 5, 8, 10-12, 21; nos. 4, 9, 11, 12, 15, 21.

page 188 note 3 Mr Silvester, nos. 23, 24, 26-8; Archdeacon Simon, nos. 25, 27. Mr Moses may have gone to the Roman curia on Roger’s death. For in October 1187 a Mr Moses sent greetings from Rome to Archbishop Baldwin in terms suggestive of personal friendship. Such a friendship could have arisen under Roger, whose friend Baldwin was. Epistolae Cantuarienses, ed. Stubbs, W., RS 1865, 108 Google Scholar. An almost exhaustive search through the cartularies of the diocese as well as a considerable search through other cartularies has produced only six witness-lists for Baldwin as bishop of Worcester, and two of these (nos. 24 and 26) were truncated by the transcriber.

page 188 note 4 Nos. 7, 14; nos. 24, 28.

page 188 note 5 Nos. 7, 23. A Mr Godfrey also witnesses no. 28.

page 188 note 6 Mr Godfrey of Sildon, however, though he does not appear as a witness to Archbishop Baldwin, appears once as the archbishop’s messenger in November 1189 (Epistolae Cantuarienses, 322). A Mr Samson witnesses one document of Bishop Baldwin (no. 28) and may be the same person as the Mr Samson who, though he appears in none of the archbishop’s lists, was one of those described as the archbishop’s clerks in connection with the administration of the spiritualities of Canterbury when Baldwin went on crusade (C. R. Cheney, English Bishops’ Chanceries, 1100-1250, 1950,10). A Mr Samson witnesses no. 19, but even if this is the same person, it is no evidence that he was a clerk of Bishop Roger. For the document is issued in the names of both Gilbert Foliot, bishop of London, and Bishop Roger as papal judges-delegate. Samson’s connection at the time might have been with Foliot, or with Oxford where the document was issued. Neither Mr Godfrey nor Mr Samson could be considered serious candidates for the compilation of Wigorniensis for reasons given about other persons below.

page 189 note 1 Nos. 29, 32-5, 40, 41, 43.

page 189 note 2 Nos. 32, 34, 43.

page 189 note 3 Nos. 29, 30-5, 37-9, 41-4.

page 189 note 4 Nos. 29-32, 34, 36, 42-4.

page 189 note 5 Nos. 33, 39, 41, and see C. R. Cheney, loc. cit. and Epistolae Cantuarienses, 290.

page 189 note 6 Nos. 30, 33, 37-9, 41, and see C. R. Cheney, loc. cit.

page 189 note 7 Nos. 29, 32, 33, 43, and also nos. 23, 26, 28.

page 189 note 8 Nos. 29, 31, 33, 41, 43, 44, and also nos. 23, 28

page 189 note 9 Nos. 29, 31-3, 42, 44 (no. 39 has a Gaufrido notario); nos. 31-3, 35, 44. I am not certain that all these latter are clerks rather than laymen. Richard of Humfraville and Reginald of Oilly appear in the same four documents of the archbishop (nos. 31, 35, 42, 44). They may have been his estates-stewards.

page 189 note 10 His presence in one of the two documents of Bishop Baldwin which he witnesses could be explained merely by his being archdeacon of Gloucester. He became bishop of Worcester in 1186. Two persons called Robert of Beckington and Roger of Cherrington appear occasionally at both Worcester and Canterbury (nos. 24, 33, 40, 41; nos. 23, 24, 41). But all that is said about John of Exeter and William Prudhomme below applies a fortiori to them.

page 189 note 11 Of those who could be taken seriously, Peter of Blois and Ralph of St Martin had previously been in Archbishop Richard’s household. Henry of Northampton had been a clerk of Gilbert Foliot from 1169 to 1173 onwards. He witnesses one document issued by Roger of Worcester and Richard, archdeacon of Winchester, as papal judges-delegate at Newbury in 1174-5. But this cannot be taken as evidence that he was in any way attached to Roger’s service. William of St Faith is elusive before 1184, but I have found him in a witness-list of Richard of Ilchester, bishop of Winchester (1174-88) (PRO Ancient Deeds, E40, A. 14242), and as an assessor to Herbert, archdeacon of Canterbury, in a law suit heard at Canterbury in 1176 (CDF, no. 1344).

page 190 note 1 The Acta of the Bishops of Chichester, 1075-1207, ed. Mayr-Harting, H., Canterbury and York Society cxxx (1965), 8–9, 13-7,49-51Google Scholar. Archdeacon Simon died in 1189. The case of archdeacons who left their dioceses to join the households of other bishops is, of course, different.

page 190 note 2 The nearest is Henry of Northampton who appears in nine of Archbishop Baldwin’s witness-lists. The two lists of the archbishop in which Silvester does not appear are both severely truncated (nos. 36 and 40), having only one and two names respectively.

page 191 note 1 The decretals which were added to Wigorniensis were transcribed into the manuscript in a variety of hands. One must remember here that the clerk who draughts or, in this case, selects a document, the dictator, will not necessarily or even probably be the same person as the scribe. See Acta Stephani Langton, ed. Major, Kathleen, Canterbury and York SeriesL, 1950, xlviii–xlix Google Scholar.

page 191 note 2 Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, 11 (Gemma Ecclesiastica), ed. Brewer, J. S., RS 1862, 107-10Google Scholar.

page 191 note 3 For Silvester’s career at Chichester see Acta of the Bishops of Chichester, 15-16.

page 191 note 4 Worcester, D and C Library, Register I, f. 40v.

page 191 note 5 In her unpublished thesis ( Hall, Mary G., Roger, Bishop of Worcester, 1164-1179, B. Litt., Oxford 1940 Google Scholar), which she kindly allowed me to read.

page 192 note 1 Duggan, Charles, ‘The Trinity Collection of Decretals and the Early Worcester Family,’ Traditio, xvii (1961), 508, n.10Google Scholar.

page 192 note 2 PRS(NS), III, 122; v, 88-9; vi, 142; vii, 70; VIII, xxiv (introduction by Lady Stenton). See Richardson, H. G., ‘The Schools of Northampton in the Twelfth Century,’ EHR, LVI (1941), 603 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, n.3, where doubt is cast on whether Nicholas actually came from Hungary. Mr Richardson says, ‘it is quite improbable that the numerous brood bearing this name came from that country.’ This is a useful caution, but a scholar maintained in the schools by the king is more likely in fact to have come from Hungary than others.

page 192 note 3 S. Kuttner and E. Rathbone, art. cit. 323-7.

page 192 note 4 Charles Duggan, op. cit. 69-73.

page 193 note 1 Nos. 8, 9.

page 193 note 2 No. 7.

page 193 note 3 Mary G. Hall, unpublished op. cit. and see E. Seckel in Deutsche Zeilschrift für Kirchenrecht, IX (1899).

page 193 note 4 Brooke, C. N. L., ‘Canons of the English Church Councils in the Early Decretal Collections,’ Traditio, XIII (1957), 471–80 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 475. It is pointed out here that the one collection of the primitive ‘English’ group which has the canons of the 1175 council in a Tours context is Regalis, a manuscript of Worcester provenance.

page 193 note 5 Morey, A. and Brooke, C. N.L., Gilbert Foltot and His Letters, 1965, 26, 213-14Google Scholar.

page 193 note 6 Master Moses witnesses nos. 7, 8, and 9; Archdeacon Simon witnesses no. 9.