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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 February 2016
The canonist John of Ayton was described by Maitland as being ‘a little too human to be strictly scientific’. His best-known work, the commentary on the legatine constitutions of Otto (1237) and Ottobuono (1268), was dubbed a ‘grumbling gloss’, which often became ‘a growl against the bad world in which he lives, the greedy prelates, the hypocritical friars, the rapacious officials’. But this, while it may not make him the ideal canonist, is precisely what makes a study of his view of society rewarding.
I am grateful to the late Michael Willcs for his comments on an earlier draft of this paper, and to Robert Swanson for much constructive advice and help.
1 Maitland, F. W., Roman Canon Law in the Church of England (Cambridge, 1898), pp. 7–8.Google Scholar
2 CPL, 2, p. 290.
3 Graesse, , Orbis Latinas: Lexikon lateinischer geographischer Namen des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit, 1 (Braunschweig, 1972), p. 169.Google Scholar
4 VCH, Yorkshire: North Riding, 2, p. 442.
5 Emden, Oxford, 1, p. 11.
6 MS Lincoln Cathedral Di.20, 2, cited by Emden, , Oxford, 1 (Oxford, 1957), p. 11Google Scholar, from information provided by Canon E. W. Kemp.
7 CPL, 2, p. 290.
8 Emden, , Oxford, 1, pp. 11–12.Google Scholar
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid.
11 Register of William Melton, Archbishop of York, 1317-1340, 1, ed. Rosalind Hill, CYS, 70 (1977), no. 450, p. 140, ‘Mandate to Master John de Notyngham and John de Aton the archbishop’s commissaries, to exact payment for the repair of Eastrington church, imposed on the prior and convent of Durham … and to see that the repairs were carried out 24 Aug. 1329.’
12 Emden, Oxford, 1, p. 11.
13 On the development of the office see Thompson, A. Hamilton, The English Clergy and their Organization in the Later Middle Ages (Oxford, 1947), pp. 51–4, app. 1, pp. 187–200Google Scholar; Brentano, Robert, York Metropolitan Jurisdiction and Papal Judges Delegate (1279-1296) (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA, 1959), pp. 71–7Google Scholar; Smith, David, ‘The “Officialis” of the bishop in twelfth- and thirteenth-century England: problems of terminology’, in Franklin, M. J. and Harper-Bill, Christopher, eds, Medieval Ecclesiastical Studies in Honour of Dorothy M. Owen (Woodbridge, 1995), pp. 201–20Google Scholar, and for further bibliography.
14 See the appointment of John Nassington as Official, in May 1300: ‘… committentes vobis in omnibus causis, litibus et negociis nostre diócesis, quorum cognicio seu decisio vel diffinicio directe vel per viam appellacionis seu ex officio ad nos spectare noscuntur, ac eciam in causis appellacionum a suffraganeis nostris vel eorum officialibus seu quibus- cumque subditis nostris … necnon ad inquirendum de excessibus subditorum nostrorum et canonice corrigendum eosdem cum potestate cohercionis canonice, vices nostris…’: quoted by Brentano, York Metropolitan Jurisdiction, pp. 71-2.
15 Hamilton Thompson, English Clergy, p. 51. On the Official of the court of York’s probate jurisdiction see David Smith, ‘The exercise of the probate jurisdiction of the medieval archbishops of York’, below, pp. 123-44.
16 Brentano, York Metropolitan Jurisdiction, p. 75.
17 Owen, Dorothy M., The Medieval Canon Law. Teaching Literature and Transmission (Cambridge, 1990), p. 20.Google Scholar
18 Register of William Melton, Archbishop of York, 1317-1340, 3, ed. Rosalind Hill, CYS, 76 (1988), no. 268.
19 Register, 1, no. 370.
20 Ibid., no. 373.
21 Ibid., no. 371.
22 Register, 3, no. 278.
23 John of Ayton, Commentario ad Constitutiones Legatinae D. Othonis et D. Othoboni (Oxford, 1679), p. 150, cols a-b, ad v. ‘custodes hospitalium’. For other references see J. H. Baker, ‘Famous Canonists: III John Ayton (or Acton), U.J.D. (d.1349), Professor of Law, Cambridge University, Canon of Lincoln’, Ecclesiastical Law Journal, 2 (1991), pp. 159–63, at p. 160.
24 Emden, , Oxford, 1, p. 11.Google Scholar
25 Young, N. Denholm, “Richard de Bury (1287-1345)’, TRHS, ser. 4, 20 (1937), pp. 161–2Google Scholar. On the visitation see Richard d’Aungerville of Bury: Fragments of his Register and Other Documents, SS, 119 (1910), pp. 196-201, 204-8.
26 Emden, Oxford, 1, p. 11.
27 Boyle, L. E., ‘The Summa summarum and some other works of English canon law’, in Pastoral Care, Clerical Education and Canon Law, 1200-1400 (London, 1981), no. 15, p. 417.Google Scholar
28 Brundage, James A., ‘English-trained canonists in the Middle Ages: a statistical analysis of a social group’, in Harding, Alan, ed. Law-making and Law-makers in British History (London, 1980), pp. 73–4.Google Scholar
29 Boyle, ‘Summa summarum’, p. 41, quoting MS Cambridge, Gonville and Caius 282, fol. IV.
30 John of Ayton, Ad Const. Othob., p. 129, col. b, ad v. ‘quod habita possessione’.
31 Pennington, K., ‘Johannes Andreae’s additiones to the Decretals of Gregory DC’, Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte: Kanonistische Abt, 105 (1988), pp. 328–47, at p. 329.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
32 MSS Cambridge, Gonville and Caius 38, 87, 128, 588; Cambridge, Corpus Christi 84; Cambridge, Pembroke 131; Cambridge, Peterbouse 51, 84; Canterbury Cathedral Lit. B 4; Hereford Cathedral PVII.7; Oxford, Bodley 794; Oxford, Balliol 158, 301; Oxford, All Souls 47; Lincoln Cathedral 32 (A.2.1); London, BL Harleian 106; Eton College 30.
33 Ker, N. P., Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, 2 (Oxford, 1977), pp. 269–70Google Scholar, describing the fourteenth-century MS Canterbury Cathedral Lit. B 4 (13).
34 On this see Haren, Michael J., ‘Social ideas in the pastoral literature of fourteenth-century England’, in Harper-Bill, Christopher, ed., Religious Belief and Ecclesiastical Careers in Late Medieval England (Woodbridge, 1991), p. 48.Google Scholar
35 Ad Const. Othob., p. 131, col. a, ad v. ‘periculosias’.
36 Ad Const. Othonis, p. 44, col. a, ad v. ‘concubinas’.
37 Ibid., p. 9, col. b, ad v. ‘medicinale officium’: cf. Hostiensis, Commentaria in quinque Decretalium libros (Venice, 1581), ad X.5.12.7, fol. 49r, col. b; Johannes Andreae, Commentaria ad Decretales (Venice, 1581), ad X.1.14.7, fol. 165r.
38 Ad Const. Othob., preface, p. 77, col. a, ad v. ‘ecclesiae’. See also ibid., p. 75, col. b, ad v. ‘sanctae matris ecclesiae’: ‘Quae nos generavit per baptismum, ut 12. q.2, qui abstulerit, et hoc respectu omnes fideles dicuntur fratres…’. Cf. Gratian, C.12 q.2 c.6.
39 Ad Const. Othob., preface, p. 76, col. b, ad v. ‘summorum pontificum’; Andreae, Johannes, Glossa ordinaria ad Clementinas, in Corpus iuris canonici, 2 (Lyons, 1572)Google Scholar, col. 800, ad Clem. 5.10.4; William of Monte Laudunus, Commentaria ad Clementinas, in Repetitionem in universas fere iuris canonici, ed. L. A. Giunta (Venice, 1587), 6, fol. 167V, ad Clem. 5.10.4. For John’s views on the papacy see Wood, Diana, ‘Rule from Europe? Four English views on papal authority in the fourteenth century’, in Mitchell, John, ed., Proceedings of the Harlaxton Symposium 1996 (forthcoming).Google Scholar
40 Ad Const. Othonis, p. 55, col. b, ad v. ‘archiepiscopos’.
41 Ad Const. Othob., p. 76, col. b, ad v. ‘summorum pontificum’.
42 Ad Const. Othob., p. 122, col. a, ad v. ‘a praelatis regni’: ‘Nota discretam et ordinaram provisionem in parliamento regni debere primarie incipere a praelatis, maxime super contingentibus opera pietatis, cum hic provisio fuerit parliamentalis.… Nam et gladius terrenus gladio cadesti necessarie habet subici Patet in Extravag. Bonifac. 8, unam sanctam [Extrav. Comm., 1.8.1]. Nam et episcopi principes vocari possum propter temporalitates quas obtinet’ Maitland, Canon Law, p. 14, pointed out that Unam sanctam was deliberately omitted from the Clementines because of its extreme nature, thus making John’s reference all the more interesting. In referring to the two swords, John is using the bull in its traditional way, as highlighted in the gloss of Johannes Monachus, rather than the approach, concentrating on dominion, suggested by Ayton’s contemporary Pierre Bertrand (1280-1349): see Muldoon, James, ‘Boniface VIII as defender of royal power: Unam sanctam as a basis for the Spanish conquest of the Americas’, in Sweeney, James Ross and Chodorow, Stanley, eds, Popes, Teachers, and Canon Law in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY, and London, 1989), pp. 62–73Google Scholar: I am grateful to Robert Swanson for drawing my attention to this.
43 Ad Const. Othob., p. 88, col. a, ad v. ‘ridiculosas’.
44 Ad Const. Othob., p. 87, col. b, ad v. ‘coaptetur’.
45 Ibid., p. 141, col. a, ad v, ‘Extra mundi contagia’.
46 Ibid.
47 Ibid., p. 141, col. b.
48 Ibid.
49 Ibid.
50 Ibid., p. 131, col. b, ad v. ‘periculosius’.
51 Ad Const. Othob., p. 79, col. a, ad v. ‘ad utriusque potestatis’. Cf. Gratian, D 56, c. 10, col. 222. For translation see EHD, 1, no. 177, p. 754.
52 Ad Const Othonis, p. 42, col. b, ad. v. ‘ingerat’.
53 Ibid., p. 42, col. a, ad v. ‘contagium’.
54 Ibid.
55 Ibid, glosses in margin of p. 41, col. b.
56 Ad Const. Othob., p. 78, ad v. ‘justitiam favor expellit’.
57 Ibid., p. 77, col. a.
58 For a summary of the idea see Georges Duby, The Three Orders. Feudal Society Imagined, tr. Arthur Goldhammer (London and Chicago, 1980); Jacques Le Goff, Medieval Civilization, tr. Julia Barrow (Oxford, 1988), pp. 255-64.
59 Ad Const. Othonis, p. 5, col. a, ad v. ‘cum reverentia’.
60 Ad Const. Othob., p. 77, col. b, ad v. ‘justiciara favor expellit’.
61 Ibid.
62 Ibid., p. 78, col. a. Ibid.
64 Ibid.
65 Ibid.
66 Ibid., ad v. ‘justitiam favor expellit’. Cf. Guido de Baysio, Rosarium seu in Decretorum commentario (Venice, 1601), fol. 141, col. b, ad C.2 q.3 c.4, fol. 14IV, col. b: ‘Omne malum, dicit canon, processit a sacerdotibus 24 q.3 transferuntur.’ Gratian C.33 q.3 c.33 does not appear to contain the statement.
67 Ad Const. Othob., p. 78, col. a, ad v. ‘justitiam favor expellit’.
68 Ibid.
69 Ibid., p. 78. col. b.
70 Ibid., p. 78, cols a-b.
71 Ibid., p. 122, col. a, ad v. ‘baronum’: ‘… cum legatur Ecclcs. II quod Regina omnium est pecunia, ut bene videtur de facto.’ Ecclesias. 10.19 contains the famous words that all things obey money. The Regina/pecunia idea seems to have originated with Horace: see The Epistles of Horace, ed. A. S. Wilkins (London, 1899), p. 15, bk 1, ep 6, lines 36-7.
72 Ibid., p. 78, col. a, ad v. ‘justitiam favor expellit’.
73 Ibid.
74 Ibid., p. 122a, ad v. ‘baronum’.
75 Hostiensis, In Decretalium libris commentario (Venice, 1581), ad 3.5.37 (Venerabilis), p. 29r, col. a; ad 4.14.7 (Tua nos), p. 28v, col. a.
76 See, for example, McFarlane, K. B., The Nobility of Later Medieval England (Oxford, 1973), pp. 84–5.Google Scholar
77 Richmond, Colin, ‘The Pastons revisited: marriage and the family in fifteenth-century England’, BIHR, 58 (1985), pp. 25–36, at pp. 32–3.Google Scholar
78 Finberg, H. P. R., Tavistock Abbey: a Study in the Social and Economic History of Devon (Cambridge, 1951), p. 79Google Scholar. Cf. Rotuli Parliamentorum, 3, 17 Richard II, 1393-4, p. 319, col. a, no. 32.
79 Ad Const. Othob., p. 78b, ad v. ‘justitiam favor cxpellit’. ‘Glove-money’, according to the O.E.D., was ‘a gratuity given to servants ostensibly to buy gloves with’.
80 Ibid.
81 This was originally suggested by Professor M M. Postan. For more recent contributions to the debate see Kershaw, I., ‘The Great Famine and agrarian crisis in England, 1315-22’, P&P, 59 (1973), pp. 3–50Google Scholar; Barbara F. Harvey, ‘Introduction: the “crisis” of the early fourteenth century’, and Smith, Richard M., ‘Demographic developments in rural England, 1300-48: a survey’, in Campbell, Bruce M. S., ed., Before the Black Death: Studies in the ‘Crisis’ of the Early Fourteenth Century (Manchester, 1991), pp. 1–14, 25–77, respectively.Google Scholar
82 Ad Const. Othob., p. 122, col. b, ad v. ‘baronum’: ‘Non nego tamen proverbium Senecae quo dicitur “Generositas non est nisi inveteratae divitiae”, cum Natura nos omnes fecit acqualcs.’
83 Ibid.
84 Ibid.
85 See Murray, Alexander, Reason and Society in the Middle Ages, rev. edn (Oxford, 1985), pp. 270–81, 333–7.Google Scholar
86 Ibid., pp. 319-22.
87 Ad Const. Othob., Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 794, fol. 111ra: ad v. ‘baronum’. I have preferred the wording of the manuscript to that of the 1679 printed edition, but the final verse is illegible, and is therefore taken from p. 122, col. b. Cf. Hostiensis, ad X 3.5.37, p. 29rb: ‘Nobilitas sola est animum, quae moribus ornat unde et beatus Severus ex lanificio in archiepiscopu est assumptus… et Saul in Regem de post asinas i reg. ix. [I Reg. 9, 3-20] ct David nobilissimus de post fetantes, i reg. x [I Reg. 16, n-13] unde psal. [77(78).7o] De post fetantes accepit eum.’
88 Murray, , Reason and Society, p. 351, n. 2.Google Scholar
89 Ibid., pp. 270-81, 331-7: Keen, M., ‘Some late medieval ideas about nobility’ and ‘The debate over nobility: Dante, Nicholas Upton, and Bartolus’, in his Nobles, Knights, ana Men-at-Arms in the Middle Ages (London and Rio Grande, TX, 1996), pp. 187–207, 209–22, respectively.Google Scholar
90 Chaucer, , Wife of Bath’s Tale, 11. 1162-4: The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Benson, Larry D., 3rd edn (Boston, MA, 1987), p. 120.Google Scholar
91 Keen, ‘The debate’, pp. 217-18.
92 Bromyard, John, Summa praedicantium, 2 vols (Venice, 1586)Google Scholar, Nobilitas, 2, p. 108.
93 Fasciculus morum. A Fourteenth-century Preacher’s Handbook, ed. and tr. Siegfried Wenzel (University Park, PA, 1989), pt I, ch. 5, p. 57.
94 Ad Const. Othonis, p. 44, col. a, ad. v. ‘concubinas’: cf. Baker, ‘John Ayton’, p. 162.
95 Pantin, W. A., The English Church in the Fourteenth Century (Cambridge, 1955), pp. 205–9Google Scholar. For a brief description of William of Pagula’s Oculis sacerdotis, see ibid., pp. 195-202.
96 Ad Const. Othob., p. 86, col. b, ad v. ‘sociantes’.
97 Ad Const. Othob., p. 147, col. b, ad v. ‘periculosis’. Seneca, Cf., Ad Lucilium epistulae morales, ep. 6, 4, ed. Gummere, Richard M., Loeb Classical Library (London and Cambridge, MA, 1914), 1, pp. 26–7.Google Scholar
