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2. The Cathedral Chapter in the Twelfth Century
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009
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- Type
- Introduction
- Information
- Camden Third Series , Volume 58: Early Charters of the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, London , July 1939 , pp. xvi - xxxix
- Copyright
- Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1939
References
page xvi note 1 The Introduction by Bishop Stubbs in his edition of the historical works of Diceto is the best available sketch of the history of the cathedral in the twelfth century. This work, Archdeacon Hale's Domesday of St. Paul's and the texts published by W. Sparrow Simpson, especially the Registrum Statutorum et Consuetudinum, and the slight essay on the London Lands and Liberties of St. Paul's, by H. W. C. Davis, are all well known and form the background of this study. For editions and: ull titles, see list below, pp. xlv seq.
page xvii note 1 No. 45.
page xvii note 2 No. 163.
page xviii note 1 Simpson, W. S.: op cit., pp. 38–43Google Scholar, Caps. 14–16 of Part III of Baldock's Registrum. The regula sancti Pauli exists also in a separate text of the late thirteenth century, St. Paul's MS., W.D.4, (Liber L) fo. 69r.
The rule as extant is probably a fragment of the original whole; it deals only with the commonplace principles of canonical discipline and behaviour in choir, and many of the provisions can be found verbatim, in the Rule of Chrodegang, as enlarged with decrees of the Council of Aachen, A.D. 816; cf. Napier, A. S.: Enlarged Rule of Chrodegang (Early English Text Society, 1916)Google Scholar. It was however compiled specifically for canons of St. Paul's, e.g.: “Si militare decreveris in ecclesia Lond' contentus esto stipendiis tibi probabili racione collatis … Paulum igitur omnibus superiorem vocacione magisterio predicacione consideres: et dum Paulus provideat in temporalibus, dum Pauli pane sustentaris et potu, regressus a capitulo Pauli salutaribus monitis omni reliqua parte diei pacienciam omnem omnimodis accomodare non cesses,” etc. It may not have been composed earlier than the eleventh century. Baldock's Registrum contains some incidental references to a book of Pauline customs which, before his time, served as the canons' rule of life and guide to ceremonial observances.
The primitive discipline of the clergy of St. Paul's was probably semimonastic, as in other newly founded cathedral churches. The founder of the congregation, Erkenwald, was, according to Bede, zealous for the best kind of regular discipline; and the charter of Ethelred of Mercia to Bishop Waldhere granting land “ad augmentum monasterialis vitae” carried with it a suggestion that the bishop's clergy still lived a strict canonical life: below, James Charters, No. 7. Nothelm, Bede's collaborator, who became archbishop of Canterbury, is described as religiosus Lund' ecclesie presbyter (c. 731). (Bede, : Historia Ecclesiastica, I. p. 6Google Scholar.) At the Council of Cloveshoe in 803 the person witnessing after the bishop of London was Heahstan, presbyter abbas (Birch, : Cartularium Saxonicum, I, p. 437Google Scholar). But, in the lack of good evidence, nothing definite can be written on this early period: the fragmentary facts which are known suggest that the church was in close contact with Canterbury. From the ninth and tenth centuries even less evidence has survived. On the subject of the early episcopal familia see Deanesly, M.: The familia at Christ Church, Canterbury in Essays presented to T. F. ToutGoogle Scholar; Robinson, J. A.: The early Community at Christ Church Canterbury (Journal of Theological Studies, 04 1926)Google Scholar; J. A. Robinson; St. Oswald and the Church of Worcester (British Academy Supplementary Papers, V).
page xviii note 2 The best evidence for this is the Exchequer Domesday; the canons held their lands not under the bishop, as for example Christ Church held of the archbishop of Canterbury, but of the king; see Round, J. H., in Victoria County Histories: Essex I. 338–9Google Scholar; Herts, , I. 279Google Scholar. It should be noted however that the division of 1086 concerned only manorial property; there is no evidence that the London property was then divided, and the bishop was partly responsible for the running expenses of the cathedral until the middle of the twelfth century; see below, pp. xxxv–vii, and the charters relating to Abberton, an estate given for the lights of the church, Nos. 61, 219.
The division of land between bishop and chapter perhaps began early, as at Canterbury, and by much the same gradual process: see J. A. Robinson: The early community at Christ Church, Canterbury. The available evidence however is far from explicit. The first genuine extant charter booking land in monasterium sancti Pauli may be dated in the year 867 (James Charters, No. 4). Only one of the estates given by bishop Theodred (942–51) to the community of St. Paul's was in their possession at the time of the Domesday survey, although later grants made for the use of the community, and to bisceophamœ still held good; see Whitelock, : Anglo-Saxon Wills, Nos. 1, 2, 14, 15, 16Google Scholar. In the list of St. Paul's lands c. 1000 published by Liebermann(see above, p. viii), no distinction is made between bishops' and canons' lands; but the English writ of Ethelred II (below, J. 3) if genuine, sanctions, the canons' rights of jurisdiction. An estate held by the canons in Stepney, in the time of the Confessor, was taken back again into the bishopric after the Conquest; but an attempt in the early twelfth century to absorb a portion of the canons' land into an episcopal estate entirely failed. Domesday Book, I. 126b; below, No. 60.
page xviii note 1 Salter, H. E.: Cartulary of the Abbey of Eynsham, Vol. I, p. 29Google Scholar, (1053–5). The use of St. Paul's is now lost.
page xviii note 2 For these lists, see below, p. xxii.
page xviii note 3 Below, p. xxxiii.
page xviii note 4 Bradshaw, and Wordsworth, : Lincoln Cathedral Statutes, I, pp. 30Google Scholar seq.
page xx note 1 Nos. 224 and 225.
page xx note 2 Ibid. Cf. No. 308 when the dean calls his allowance of food and money elemosina; cf. also the bull of Lucius III forbidding the practice of the nonresidents of selling the daily rations of bread and ale to laymen and Jews (March 1185) (Holtzmann, : I, ii, p. 230).Google Scholar
page xx note 3 Below, p. xxxvii.
page xxi note 1 Round, J. H.: Feudal England, pp. 103Google Scholar seq. Note also the use of the word in the form sceolande in an early writ of Henry I, referred to below, p. xxiv.
page xxi note 2 e.g. the minor canons who held no estate were called clerici prebendarii de choro (Maxwell-Lyte, : Report, p. 12a).Google Scholar
page xxi note 3 No. 19.
page xxi note 4 No. 1; cf. Barraclough, G.: Papal Provisions, pp. 53–5.Google Scholar
page xxi note 5 Domesday Survey of the lands of the bishop's of London, under Essex and Herts. This fee, which included the castlery of Bishop's Stortford, seems to have been incorporated into the bishopric only after the accession of Maurice, in 1085: cf. Nos. 5, 12, 15.
page xxi note 6 No. 19.
page xxii note 1 B.M., MS. Harl., 6956, p. 117. “Hec est institucio psalterii,” etc. Dr. Hutton notes that the lists of canons were written in “the same ancient hand” up to a point which serves to date the manuscript as late thirteenth century; with later additions. The lists in St. Paul's MS. W.D.2, seem to be a copy, made in the fourteenth century. Newcourt printed the lists from the notes of Dr. Hutton; but without any indication that they had not been compiled by himself.
page xxii note 2 In 1104 Angerus and Ralph Gundram, the successors of the first holders of Kentish Town and Chamberlain's wood, were witnessing as canons. On the other hand Algar son of Dereman probably became the first prebendary of Islington after 1086; for we know that when the Domesday Survey was made Dereman still held the half hide at Islington which he gave to St. Paul's when his son was made a canon. (Maxwell-Lyte, : Report, p. 616Google Scholar; Round, J. H.: An Early Reference to Domesday, in Domesday Studies, II, p. 558.)Google Scholar
page xxii note 3 Foster, : Registrum Antiquissimum, I. xvii.Google Scholar
page xxiii note 1 For what follows, see Domesday Book, I. 1266.Google Scholar
page xxiii note 2 Hale, : Domesday of St. Paul's, pp. 93, 145.Google Scholar
page xxiii note 3 No. 178.
page xxiv note 1 Nos. 8, 11, 16, 27. The special privileges given by the Norman kings to this area are of particular interest. Some of the privileges of the Londoners were thus extended far beyond the walls of the city: the land was to be free of danegeld, from suit to shire and hundred courts and from all customary payments and services. These liberties became the norm of the liberties of St. Paul rather than the exception. The first extant record of quo warranto proceedings show that then the only difference between the liberties of the twenty-four hides, and the St. Paul's sokes beyond, was the gallows at Finsbury. Placita de Quo Warranto (ed. Record Commission), pp. 475–6, (22 Ed. I).Google Scholar
page xxiv note 2 Cf. Steple, , in London and Middlesex Fines (ed. Hardy and Page), I, 3Google Scholar. The prebends of Holburn and Portpool, in the parish of St. Andrew were probably not assessed for geld. Holborn was later a suburban soke—cf. Placita de Quo Warranto, p. 456Google Scholar (14 Ed. II).
page xxiv note 3 No. 27. Prebendal land; see above, p. xxi.
page xxiv note 4 The dean's name is uncertain. It occurs on no other extant charter. In lists and memoranda of later generations he was referred to as Wlmanus, Wulmannus or Ulstanus: see Newcourt, , op. cit., I. 212Google Scholar; Hale, , op. cit., p. 152Google Scholar; Liber L, fo. 1.
page xxv note 1 No. 59.
page xxv note 2 No. 25.
page xxv note 3 Nos. 273, 274.
page xxv note 4 Simpson, : op. cit., pp. 13, 18.Google Scholar
page xxvi note 1 St. Paul's Statute of Residence, in Diceto, : Opera Historica, II, p. lxix.Google Scholar
page xxvi note 2 Simpson, : op. cit., p. 139Google Scholar. Cf. the bull of Urban VI (1378): “a loagis retroactis temporibus … tres gradus personarum ibidem deo famulantium: … personae primus gradus canonici majores, et personae secundi gradus, canonici minores, et personae tertii gradus huiusmodi vicarii perpetui nuncuparentur, et essent” (Wilkins, : Concilia, III, p. 134).Google Scholar
page xxvii note 1 e.g. No. 213.
page xxvii note 2 No. 128.
page xxvii note 3 No. 206.
page xxvii note 4 Simpson, : op.cit., pp. 48–9, 66, 69, 102–3, 106, 133, 186Google Scholar; Charter and Statutes of the Minor Canons, ibid., pp. 319 seq.
page xxvii note 5 op. cit., p. 330; cf. below, p. 50.
page xxviii note 1 Part III of Baldock's Registrum, in Simpson: op. cit., p. 50.
page xxviii note 2 Simpson, : op. cit., p. 23.Google Scholar
page xxviii note 3 Ibid., p. 182.
page xxviii note 4 No. 59.
page xxviii note 5 Levegarus the cantor was first prebendary of Holywell, and witnesses as such in 1104 (Maxwell-Lyte, : Report, p. 61b).Google Scholar
page xxviii note 6 Durand was probably master of the schools; see below, p. xxxi.
page xxviii note 7 Ailward Ruffus, first prebendary of Bromesbury, was called custos bracini in a memorandum in St. Paul's MS., W.D.4, fo. 1.
page xxviii note 8 For treasurer, chamberlain and almoner, see below, pp. xxxv seq.; the penitenciary of St. Paul's was appointed by the bishop (Simpson, : op. cit., p. 182Google Scholar). There are some references to a subdean before the formal constitution of this office late in the thirteenth century; e.g. in No. 149, below, Henry the subdean witnesses as first of the clerks of the choir, before Adam Scot, who was the almoner of the church (Registrum Eleemosynarie, p. ivGoogle Scholar). This may however be a scribal error. Similarly the letter addressed to the dean, subdean, and precentor of London, by Innocent III in 1205, is open to suspicion; for only the dean and the precentor responded (B.M., Wolley Charter, 4. 27).
page xxix note 1 No. 63.
page xxix note 2 Newcourt, : Repertorium, I, pp. 59–93Google Scholar; Frere, W. H.: Visitation Articles and Injunctions, I, pp. 71–2Google Scholar. Frere points out that such exemptions were forbidden by Alexander III (1159–81), and must therefore be early in date.
page xxx note 1 Simpson, : op. cit., p. 20.Google Scholar
page xxx note 2 Ibid., and above, p. xxviii.
page xxx note 3 In 1254 the archdeaconry of London was endowed with the church of Shoreditch and that of Colchester with the residue of the church of Ardleigh (Simpson, : op. cit., p. 24Google Scholar; No. 87 below). Cf. below, p. xxxiv n. 2.
page xxx note 4 Simpson, : op. cit., p. 20.Google Scholar
page xxx note 5 Robinson, J. A.: Somerset Historical Essays, pp. 134–6Google Scholar; Powicke, F. M.: Stephen Langton, p. 84.Google Scholar
page xxx note 6 Simpson, : op. cit., p. 16.Google Scholar
page xxx note 7 Maxwell-Lyte, : Report, pp. 61, 67.Google Scholar
page xxxi note 1 B.M., MS. Harl. 6956, p. 162. The suggestion that the English record of a recognition of the rights pertaining to the church of Lambourne, in St. Paul's MS., W.D.14, fo. 36r, was a charter by King Canute appropriating the church to St. Paul's, was due to a misreading of the text; the error in the first place was due to Ralph of Baldock, the dean of St. Paul's.
page xxxi note 2 Ibid., fo. 39.
page xxxi note 3 Nos. 299–300, 329–33.
page xxxi note 4 Nos. 273, 274.
page xxxi note 5 No. 275.
page xxxi note 6 Simpson, : op. cit., p. 23.Google Scholar
page xxxii note 1 Miss Eleanor Rathbone in a Ph.D. thesis for the University of London: The Influence of Bishops and Cathedral Chapters in the Intellectual Life of England, 1066–1216, has collected together details about the schools of St. Paul's, the magistri connected with it, and the books written at the cathedral. The subject of the law schools of London is also touched upon. Note that in the time of Gilbert Foliot, Master Ralph witnesses after the Magister scolarum as theologus (No. 72).
page xxxii note 2 Smalley, B.: Gilbertus Universalis, pp. 240, 242Google Scholar, in Recherches de théologie ancienne et mediévale, Louvain, 1935. It has been suggested that the opposition to the feast centred in William, the dean; cf. The Letters of Osbert of Clare (ed. E. W. Williamson), p. 14.Google Scholar
page xxxii note 3 Diceto, : Opera Historica (ed. Stubbs), I, pp. 248–9Google Scholar. For Anselm of Bury see Douglas, D. C.: Feudal Documents, etc., pp. cxxxv–cxxxvii.Google Scholar
page xxxiii note 1 Robert de Sigillo had been magister scriptorii in the chancery of Henry I (Hall, : Red Book of the Exchequer, III. 887Google Scholar), and was a frequent witness of charters of Henry I. At the time of his appointment by Matilda to the bishopric of London he was a monk at Reading, and after he acted as her chancellor (cf. Gervase of Canterbury: I, 119; Calendar of Charter Rolls (1320), p. 420Google Scholar). He was a friend of Osbert of Clare, who was closely associated with Anselm of Bury (Letters of Osbert of Clare, pp. 75, 207).Google Scholar
page xxxiii note 2 Nova Legenda Anglie (ed. Horstmann), pp. 391Google Scholar seq. The nephew of Gilbert the Universal, Arcoidus, a canon of St. Paul's (c. 1132–45), wrote the life and miracles of St. Erkenwald (see Smalley, : op. cit., p. 238).Google Scholar
page xxxiii note 3 The early part of St. Paul's MS., W.D.4 (Liber L), which contains these charters, was written at this time.
page xxxiii note 4 Simpson, : op. cit., p. 176.Google Scholar
page xxxiii note 5 Nos. 154, 156.
page xxxiii note 6 For this and what follows see the references to the letters of Foliot and John of Salisbury, and the Historia Pontificalis of the latter, quoted by Stubbs in his introduction to Diceto, : Opera, Historica, I, pp. xxiv–v, xxvi seq.Google Scholar
page xxxiv note 1 See the preamble to the ordinance of Richard de Beimeis: below, No. 192.
page xxxiv note 2 Above, p. xxxi, and No. 58 below. Note the preamble. Before the Taxation of Norwich was compiled, this appropriation had been revoked; the church of Bishop's Stortford was appropriated to the office, while the archdeacon of London enjoyed the fruits of the church of Shoreditch.
page xxxiv note 3 This probably took place after the retirement of Master Richard of Bishop's Stortford, c. 1204; for his successor, Master John of Kent, a royal justice, witnessed as cancellarius in March, 1204 (No. 58). The chancellor, at the time of Baldock, had a working deputy, the Master of the Grammar School; and (as is evident from Baldock's episcopal act appropriating the church of Ealing to the office) recent chancellors had not been theologians. Registrum Radulphi Baldock (Canterbury and York Society), pp. 88–9.Google Scholar
page xxxv note 1 See Subject Index, under Courts: of dean and chapter.
page xxxv note 2 Nos. 47, 187–8, 192–3, 225.
page xxxvi note 1 Maxwell-Lyte, : Report, p. 62b.Google Scholar
page xxxvi note 2 No. 273.
page xxxvi note 3 St. Paul's MS. W.D.4, fo. 57v. The context is interesting enough to quote, The particular passage referred to is in italics. “Anno incarnationis dominice m.c.lxxxi0 Magister Henricus de Norhamton' querelam instituit in capitulo aduersus fratres suos de eo scilicet quod negocium quoddam quod in presencia eius inchoatum est in absencia eius terminatum sit.” He pointed out that he had been in the city; that the procedure had consequently been contrary to the custom; that the outcome was injurious to the church. The matter was ventilated; the custom of the church was recognized and declared with the assent of all present, [ “scilicet [assensu] domini decani et quatuor archidiaconorum et sacerdotum et diaconorum et subdiaconorum et aliorum plurimum]: cum negocium tale emergit quod presenciam fratrum tractatum et consilium exposcit convocandi sunt fratres qui in civitate sunt per camerarium ex precepto domini decani ut conveniant in capitulo ad examinandum quod emersit.” The business was then to be terminated notwithstanding the absence of any member of the chapter. The reading in St. Paul's MS., W.D.19, fo. 2a (the other extant copy of this document), is also camerarium. For the relation of the chamberlain and the notaries, see below. In this case the business of the church may have been financial. See the papal ruling on another point of procedure in connection with this, No. 226.
page xxxvii note 1 There is much material in the registers of St. Paul's for illustrating the work of the camera, most notably in the later parts of St. Paul's, W.D.4. Diceto's survey of the property of the cathedral, starting in 1181, had among its incidental purposes that of separating the profits of manorial churches from the other profits of the manors. Hale's important work on the Domesdays of St. Paul's, dealing only with manorial property, tends to obscure the fact that Diceto's survey took in also the churches of London and the chapter lands and houses. The copy or abridgement of the latter has not yet been published. Together with other “digests” of the contents of Diceto's Domesday, it is in the third part of W.D.4, fos. 101–12. For the office of chamberlain see Simpson, : op. cit., pp. 74–5, 78, 132, 189Google Scholar, especially Diceto's statutes on pp. 132–4. Lunt, : Taxation of Norwich, p. 464.Google Scholar
page xxxvii note 2 The assignment of specific tithes and rents to an almonry, administered by an almoner, was a parallel but subordinate movement to the re-organization of camera business. See Subject Index under Almonry; Registrum Eleemosynarie (ed. Maria Hackett), passim. It should be noticed that the conversion of the houses of Master Henry of Northampton into a hospital for the poor, which was the central feature of Diceto's scheme, did not materialize; the houses were let, within a few years of the original foundation deeds, although the rent still pertained to the almonry in the fourteenth century.
page xxxviii note 1 Simpson, : op. cit., p. 78.Google Scholar
page xxxviii note 2 Ibid., p. 23. There is a reference to a chancellor of St. Paul's in the time of Stephen: see Round, : Commune of London, p. 101Google Scholar. Possibly he was an official appointed by the bishop, like the contemporary treasurer. Among the statutes approved in the time of Diceto is one touching the custody of the seal: “item quia sigillum parvum ad causas et negocia est plus notum quam sigillum magnum, ideo de cetero fiat custodia consimilis illius sigilli sicut alterius, nec fiat sigillacio cum eo nisi in presencia duorum vel trium canonicorum” (op. cit., p. 132).