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The Northern Saints after the Reformation in the Writings Of Christopher Watson (d. 1580)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Margaret Harvey
Margaret Harvey*
Affiliation:
Durham University
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Extract

Regional identity in medieval Durham depended crucially on St Cuthbert. The property and privileges of the diocese were presented as possessions of an originally Celtic community which had carried the miraculously incorrupt body of the saint from Lindisfarne to a final home in Durham. Tradition added other holy abbots, bishops and kings, remembered as obedient to the Roman tradition after the Synod of Whitby in 664. The Durham story included the expulsion at the Conquest of married guardians of Cuthbert in favour of proper monks, a change corroborated by miracle stories and holy lives, such as that of Godric in the dependent cell of Finchale. Increasing possessions were given to the saint; miracle stories showed him punishing violators of his shrine. Relics, including the head of King Oswald and remains of Bede, linked the priory with these traditions. These ideas had penetrated the local identity; the notion of the Haliwerfolc, the community of the liberty of St Cuthbert, the lands belonging to the saint, remained strong in the late Middle Ages for people ‘between Tyne and Tees’. Nonetheless, in the 1570s Christopher Watson attempted a history which denigrated Cuthbert’s life and miracles and those of other Durham saints.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 47: Saints and Sanctity , 2011 , pp. 258 - 269
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2011

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References

1 Bonner, G., Rollason, D. and Stancliffe, C., eds, St Cuthbert, his Cult and his Community to A.D. 1200, (Woodbridge, 1989)Google Scholar; Symeon of Durham, Libellus de exordio atque procursu istius, hoc est Dunelmensis ecclesie, ed. and trans. Rollason, D. [hereafter LDE] (Oxford, 2000)Google Scholar, for edition and sources of main history; Rollason, D., ed., Symeon of Durham: Historian of Durham and the North (Stamford, 1998).Google Scholar

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10 Watson, as author of Briefe Principles of Religion Collected for the Exercise of Youth and Simpler Sort of People (London, 1578), is called ‘de’ (i.e. deacon).

11 Kew, TNA, PROB 11/62, fols 393v-394r. I must thank Dr Paul Botley for showing me this. Watson’s children, listed in the will, are also given in London, BL, MS Cotton Titus A II [hereafter Titus], last folio.

12 Book I: Th’istorye of Duresme now furst published Anno 1574 by C. W. Deira-grantus [a play on his Durham and Cambridge connections]; Vitellius, fols 105r— 126r.

13 Vitellius, fol. 107v; the allusion was to the Parable of the Sower in Matt. 13: 24–30.

14 Vitellius, fol. 64r. Watson derived the ‘Irish’ legend of Cuthbert from Nova Legenda (London, 1516), called ‘Capgrave’ in the sixteenth century; ed. C. Horstman, 2 vols (Oxford, 1901), 1: 216–44.

15 Vitellius, fol. 68r.

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39 His main manuscript covered the period from 635 to 1152, to ‘Sancta Barbara the bishoppe of Durham’. Titus (a Symeon manuscript of LDE with Coldingham and Graystanes among other items), has the rubric ‘Liber de statu Lindisfarnensis id est Dunelmensis ecclesie’; it includes a continuation ‘Tribus dehinc annis’: LDE, xxxi.

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42 Vitellius, fol. 93r. Scriptores Tres, 31, shows where Geoffrey ended.

43 Watson referred to Foxe’s work as ‘History Ecclesiastical’: Vitellius, fol. 66, citing ‘first tome, padge 165’; for other references, see fols 68, 69r-v, 70r-v; 89r-v, 92r-v. For editions of Foxe’s work, see J. Roberts, ‘Bibliographical Aspects of John Foxe’, in D. Loades, ed., John Foxe and the English Reformation (Aldershot, 1997), 36–51, esp. 46–8; D. Loades, ed., John Foxe: An Historical Perspective (Aldershot, 1999), Introduction. References to Foxe also in Titus, fols 10v, 39, 86, 87, 90, 114.

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53 See McKisack, Medieval History, 105–11, for Hall.

54 Vitellius, fols 102r-v.

55 Kesselring, Northern Rebellion, index under ‘Westmorland (sixth earl of)’.

56 See above, n. 22.

57 Rites, ed. Fowler, 26–7.

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59 Vitellius, fols 106v—107r; part verbatim, part summary from The Works of James Pilkington. B.D., ed. J. Scholefield, PS (Cambridge, 1842), 16–17.

60 Vitellius, fol. 84v.

61 Vitellius, fol. 63rNova Legenda, ed. Horstman, 2: 29–33.

62 Nova Legenda, ed. Horstman, 2: 102–4.

63 For his great-grandfather (Richardson), see Vitellius, fol. 89v; Records of the Borough of Crossgate, Durham, 1312–1531, ed. R. Britnell, SS 212 (2008), index, esp. no.493*.

64 For Christopher’s grandmother, see n. 69 below.

65 Durham, Cathedral Library, Hunter MS 32A, fols 60v—62r, a deposition from 1577. See also DCM, Dean and Chapter Register 2, fols 197r-v Dean and Chapter Register 3, fol. 81v.

66 Register, ed. Headlam, 25; for his will, see Wills and Inventories from the Registry at Durham, ed. J. C. Hodgson et al., SS 112 (1906), 84–5. See also DCM, Dean and Chapter Register 1, fols 168v-169r.

67 For John Watson, junior, see History of Newcastle and Gateshead, ed. R Welford, 3 vols (London, 1887), 3: 37; Extracts from the Records of the Merchant Adventurers of Newcastle upon Tyne, ed. J. R. Boyle and F. W Dendy, SS 93 (1895), 93 n.; DCM, Dean and Chapter Register 2, fol. 227.

68 William is mentioned as being at Cambridge in Roger’s will (n. 69 below); for his being a pensioner at Christ’s 1560, see Venn and Venn, Alumni, 4/1: 350. The Clergy of the Church of England Database (CCED) 1540–1835, <http://www.theclergydatabase>, ID 74706, accessed 27 April 2009, mentions William Watson as a schoolmaster with Walter Harlakenden at Tunstall in Kent in 1579. A Mr Harlakindon was another guardian in Christopher’s will.

69 Watson, Roger, Bell, alias, The Durham Liber Vitae, ed. D. and Rollason, L., 3 vols (London, 2007), 3: 423Google Scholar, C. 1329. This replaces all biographical material for Durham monks. See also A. I. Doyle, ‘Further Monastic Books’, The Durham Philobiblion, 1.7 (May 1952), 45–8. I thank Dr Doyle for all his help. For the will, see DUL, ASC, DPR 1/2/2, fols 17v—18r. See also The Royal Visitation of 1559, ed. C.J. Kitching, SS 187 (1975), 22–7, 28.

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73 Vitellius, fol. 93r (1573).

74 ODNB, s.n. ‘Watson, Anthony (d. 1605)’; for Anthony’s will, see Surtees, Durham, 3: 83 n.

75 Liber Vitae, ed. D. and L. Rollason, 3: 432, C 1369, under Maurice. For his will, see DUL, ASC, DPR 1/2/4, fol. 49v.

76 Depositions and Other Ecclesiastical Proceedings from the Courts of Durham Extending from 1311 to the Reign of Elizabeth, ed. J. Raine, SS 21 (1845), 147.

77 For John senior’s will, see n. 66 above; for Anthony’s, n. 74.

78 Crosby, B., ‘The Choral Foundation of Durham Cathedral 1350 — c. 1650’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Durham, 1992)Google Scholar, Appendix VI, 129. 79

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81 Durham, County Record Office, D/Sa/L 20.2, fols 1–15.

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86 Vitellius, fol. 104v.

87 Ibid.

88 Parish, Monks, Miracles, 92–105.

89 Vitellius, fols 69r, 72r, 72r-v.