Chantry

Abstract: When Thomas Beauchamp II, Earl of Warwick, was condemned and exiled for treason in 1397, the forfeiture of his property generated some detailed and informative paperwork. A list of his possessions in Warwick that year includes 'a bed of white damask embroidered with divers arms and bears', and 'a "dorser" and 4 "costers" of "aras" with the story of Guy of Warrewyk'.1 The embroidered cloth of arras went to Thomas Holland, Duke of Surrey, who also had custody of Thomas Beauchamp's young son Richard and Richard's wife Elizabeth.2 But these items evidently found their way back into the possession of the earl when he was restored by Henry IV, for, when he made his will on 1 April 1400, he included this bequest:to Richard, my son and heir, my blessing and a bed of silk embroidered with bears and my arms, with all thereto appertaining, also a * * * wrought with the arms and story of Guy of Warwick, and the sword and coat of mail, which was that worthy Knight's, likewise his harness and ragged staves; also I will that the said sword and coat of mail, with the cup of the swan, and the knives and salt-cellars for the coronation of a King, shall be, and remain to my son and his heirs after him.3With this extraordinary assemblage of accessories, therefore, the 19-year-old Richard began his career as the thirteenth Earl of Warwick, the fifth Beauchamp to hold that title, when his father died in 1401. When he wrote his own will, thirty-five years later, he had effectively reversed the disgrace of his father the Appellant and had become one of the foremost men of England: a celebrated soldier, statesman, poet, literary patron, and servant of the Crown. And he had done so partly by making use of his father's bequest. The salt-cellars and cup, the staves and sword, became for Richard Beauchamp tokens of a chivalric identity that linked him not only to the legends of his ancestors but also to the reputation that he deliberately and skilfully constructed for himself. And of these objects none may have proved more useful for his purposes than the bed of damask decorated with Beauchamp bears and with the arms of his family.The 'cup of the swan' and the Guy of Warwick paraphernalia represent the Beauchamps' long history of appropriating chivalric romance in the interests of self-promotion.4 The swan cup alludes to the legend of the Knight of the Swan, known throughout Europe, associated with more than one noble family, and represented in English literary tradition by the late fourteenth-century verse romance Chevekre Assigne.5 But the bears and ragged staves, the sword and armour of Guy of Warwick, were the peculiar property of the Beauchamp earls of Warwick.6 After the Beauchamps acquired the earldom in 1268, they evidently considered themselves heirs of the local legend: that of Guy of Warwick, whose exploits were the subject of a thirteenth-century AngloNorman romance and numerous later works in English, including the three-part romance preserved in the Auchinleck manuscript.7 William Beauchamp IV, the first Beauchamp Earl of Warwick (earl 1268-98), named his son and heir Guy, a name that had not previously been in the family, thus creating a historical Guy of Warwick in obvious imitation of his legendary predecessor. Guy Beauchamp I, Earl of Warwick 1298-1315, included, among a collection of books donated to Bordesley Abbey in 1305, 'Un Volum del Romaunce de Gwy, e de la Reygne tut enteremwzt'.8 An early fourteenth-century drinking bowl shows a knight killing a dragon in the presence of a lion, a reference to an episode in the romance of Guy of Warwick - but the knight on the bowl bears the Beauchamp arms.9 Thomas Beauchamp I, Earl of Warwick 1315-69, named his first son Guy, after the hero; his second son Thomas, presumably after himself; and his third son Reynbrun, after the son of the legendary Guy. His grandson Richard, therefore, was continuing family traditions when he established a chantry at Guyscliff in Warwickshire, where his legendary ancestor was supposed to have lived as a hermit in his last years, and placed in the chapel of St Mary Magdalene at Guyscliff a larger-than-life statue of Guy of Warwick, dressed not as a hermit but as a knight. …

Abstract: It has long been a truism that the chantry priest, rather than the monk, friar, or member of a large collegiate church, is the most significant figure if we wish to understand how organised religion affected the lives of most citizens of most medieval English towns. Miss Wood-Legh, in her recently published and long-awaited Perpetual Chantries in Britain, has however been the first to provide a detailed demonstration of the sustained interest taken by founders, prelates, parishioners, and corporate bodies in the effective administration and continued welfare of the perpetual chantry. Miss Wood-Legh justifiably describes her work as the ‘first detailed study in English of the chantry as an institution’ and its publication ought to lead to a long-overdue investigation of the exact social and economic, as well as religious, role of the medieval chantry. The hope expressed by Professor Hamilton Thompson almost sixty years ago, ‘that the student of chantry history may possess a more complete and compact apparatus for his work than is at present within his reach’, has been largely unfulfilled, not least in York itself.

Abstract: Introduction: in search of pre-Reformation English spirituality. Part 1 Theory: the Bible - the Latin Bible, the Wycliffite Bible, a modern version disseminating the faith - priestly instruction, John Drury's instructions, sermons, a sermon from John Mirk's "Festial", a sermon from the Lollard sermon cycle, a sermon the mass - preparation for the mass, behaviour during mass - the lay folks' mass book designs for living and dying - "The Abbey of the Holy Ghost", "Epistle of the Mixed Life", Walter Hilton, "The Book of the Craft of Dying". Part 2 Practice: parish celebrations - the parish accounts of Scarborough, 12-13 Henry VI, parish accounts of Yarmouth, parish accounts of Kings Lynn private religion - licences for private chapels, vows of chastity saints, shrines, miracles, and pilgrimage - shrines - the shrines in York Minster, offerings at Hereford cathedral, offerings at Ely cathedral, offerings made on behalf of Queen Elizabeth of York, miracles - miracles of St Osmund, miracles of Henry VI security for the living - indulgences - proctors for a bridge, proctors for a bridge, proctor for St Anthony's hospital, days of indulgence at the chapel of St Anne, Bristol, profits of indulgence for the hospital of St Anthony guilds and fraternities - mendicant confraternity, regulations of a trade fraternity - the carpenters of York, payment for membership of the Palmers' guild at Ludlow, receipts for payments of membership of the Palmers' guild at Ludlow, nationwide distribution of the Palmer's guild of Ludlow, benefits of membership of the confraternity of St Chad, Lichfield security for the dead - obits and anniversaries - guild trentals in a mendicant house, the obit of William Paston, an anniversary in St George's chapel, Windsor, chantries and almshouses. a chantry in a Dominican house at Bristol, a chantry by feoffment to uses, Hosyer's chantry, Ludlow distributions at death - wills, Thomas Kebell, Lady Jane Strangeways, Sir John Port complaint and opposition - anticlericalism? - complaints against the vicar of Saltash, complaints at visitation, heresy and Lollardy, the Bishop of Norwich's mandate for heresy detection at Bury, 1428, questions to identify heretics, Lollard confessions.