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Some Developments in English Monastic Life, 1216–1336

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

Extract

The history, as distinct from the antiquities, of English monastic life in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries has received far less attention than has the story of the earlier times or that of the Dissolution. The reasons for this neglect are not far to seek: it is enough to mention the lack of personalities of outstanding influence or sanctity and the absence of literary records at all comparable in number and interest to those of the Anglo-Norman or Angevin periods. As a result, the whole sweep of time between Magna Carta and the accession of Henry VIII is often treated in handbooks and essays as one long slow decline unrelieved by developments or changes of any kind.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1944

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References

page 37 note 01 This paper is a summary of the findings of research still in progress, which will, it is hoped, issue in a larger work on later medieval monasticism in England. Since the topics touched upon will then find more detailed treatment, with full reference to the sources, footnotes have here been restricted to the minimum, and no attempt has been made to give complete documentation.

page 38 note 01 For the circumstances of the Lateran decree, v. Knowles, D., The Monastic Order in England, 370–4Google Scholar; its principal clauses are there cited from Mansi, vol. xxii, but the full text has often been printed, most recently by Mr. W. A. Pantin in an appendix to vol. i of his Chapters of the black monks. For a fuller discussion v. Berlière, Dom U., ‘Innocent III et la réorganisation des monastères bénédictins’, in Revue Bénédictine xxxii, 1920Google Scholar, and ‘Honorius III et les monastéres bénédictins, in Revue Belge de Philologie et d'Histoire, tome 2, 1923.Google Scholar

page 39 note 01 Chapters of the English black monks, 1215–1540, ed. W. A. Pantin (Camden Soc., 3rd ser., nos. 45, 47, 54). See also his paper in Trans. R. Hist. S., 4th ser., vol. x, p. 195.Google Scholar

page 40 note 01 Cheney, C. R., Episcopal visitation of monasteries in the thirteenth century (Manchester, 1931)Google Scholar, with its valuable bibliography. Cf. also Bishops and reform, 1215–1272 by M. Gibbs and J. Lang (Oxford, 1934).Google Scholar

page 41 note 01 Pantin, , Chapters, i. 3445.Google Scholar

page 41 note 02 Ibid., i. 64 ff.

page 42 note 01 For this conservative opposition v. documents in Chapters, i. 93–4, 106–7.Google Scholar The two presidents were the abbots of St. Augustine's, Canterbury, and Glastonbury.

page 42 note 02 For this episode v. Knowles, D., ‘Some aspects of the career of Archbishop Pecham’, part ii, in English Historical Review, lvii, 1942, pp. 196–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 42 note 03 For the daily lecture v. Chapters, i. 28, 75.Google Scholar The fullest account of the origins of Gloucester College is ProfessorGalbraith, V. H.'s New documents about Gloucester CollegeGoogle Scholar in Snappe's Formulary, ed. H. E. Salter (Oxf. Hist. Soc. lxxx, 1924), pp. 336–86bGoogle Scholar, where a number of the sources are printed.

page 42 note 04 Cf. Pecham, , Registrum epistolarum (Rolls Series), ep. cxxvi.Google Scholar If the abbots president are tp be believed (Chapters, i. 133)Google Scholar Pecham wished to have it both ways against the monks, calling them ignorant dunces in his visitations while opposing their scheme of university education as being unmonastic.

page 43 note 01 For Durham College v. Some Durham College rolls, ed. H. E. D. Blakiston, in Oxf. Hist. Soc. Collectanea, iii. 376.Google Scholar

page 43 note 02 Mr. W. A. Pantin has in the press for the Oxf. Hist. Soc. a collection of documents bearing on Canterbury College.

page 44 note 01 These have been printed by Sir E. M. Thompson at the end of the Customary of St. Augustine's, Canterbury (Henry Bradshaw Soc. xxiii, 1902), i. 399429.Google Scholar

page 45 note 01 For the beginnings of the corn trade v. Gras, N. S. B., The evolution of the English corn market (Cambridge, Mass., 1915, repr. 1926)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for the wool trade Power, Eileen, The medieval English wool trade (Oxford, 1941).Google Scholar

page 45 note 02 For monastic methods and food-farms in the eleventh and twelfth centuries v. The Monastic Order, pp. 441–4Google Scholar, and note on p. 447 with authorities there quoted.

page 46 note 01 Kosminsky, E. A., ‘Services and money rents in the thirteenth century’, in. Economic History Review, I (1935), 2445CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Postan, M. M., ‘The chronology of labour services’ in Trans. R.Hist.S., 4th series, xx (1937), PP. 109–93.Google Scholar

page 46 note 02 For Glastonbury the printed sources are Adam of Domerham, 's HistoriaGoogle Scholar, ed. Hearne, T. (1727)Google Scholar, the Liber Henrici de Soliaco, ed. Jackson, J. E. (Roxburghe Club, 1882)Google Scholar and Rentalia et custumaria abbatiae … Glastonie (Somerset Rec. Soc., v, 1891).Google Scholar

page 47 note 01 For Peterborough v. Historia Walteri de Whitlesey, ed. Sparke, J. in Hist. Anglic. Scriptores (1723).Google Scholar Miss Elizabeth Crittall, under the supervision of Professor Postan, has in progress a thesis on the Peterborough estates which has been interrupted by the war.

page 47 note 02 This work, Canterbury Cathedral Priory (Cambridge, 1943)Google Scholar had not been published when this paper was read and prepared for press, but Mr. Smith kindly permitted me to read and make use of his manuscript.

page 47 note 03 Brit. Mus., Cott. MS. Galba E iv, fo; 101r ff.

page 47 note 04 MissPage, F. M., ‘Bidentes Hoylandiae’, in Economic Journal (Economic History), 1929Google Scholar, and The estates of Crowland Abbey (Cambridge, 1934).Google Scholar

page 47 note 05 There are many details of Westminster administration in Pearce, Bishop's William de Colchester (1915)Google Scholar and Walter de Wenlok (1920).Google Scholar

page 47 note 06 Mr. R. A. L. Smith has investigated the Pershore estates in an unpublished thesis for a London University degree.

page 48 note 01 The administration of John de Rutherwyk has been described by Miss Elsie Toms in an unpublished thesis for London University, The manors of Chertsey Abbey, and less fully in her introduction to a Chertsey Cartulary for the Surrey Record Society.

page 48 note 02 Nevertheless, the practice afforded such an easy escape from so many personal and financial difficulties that it continued sporadically all through the middle ages; for the twelfth century v. The Monastic Order, p. 451.Google Scholar Pecham did his best to stop it at Christ Church and elsewhere at the end of the thirteenth century, v. Regist. Epistolarum (Rolls Series), i. 8990; 342–3; ii. 545–6Google Scholar, and a little later it occurs among Winchelsey's interrogatories at visitation.

page 49 note 01 For this, see the two articles of Dom Berlière referred to in note on p. 38.

page 49 note 02 For the Canterbury practice Mr. R. A. L. Smith's book may be consulted passim, as also the same author's ‘The regimen scaccarii in English monasteries’, in Trans., Royal Hist. S., 4th series, xxiv (1942), pp. 7394.Google Scholar

page 50 note 01 The Benedictine Constitutions or Bull Summi Magistri are printed in Wilkins, , Concila, ii. 588 ff.Google Scholar, whence they have been recently summarised by Pantin at the end of vol. ii ff. of Chapters.

page 51 note 01 This can be seen particularly clearly at Christ Church, Canterbury, where the change-over, tentatively begun, was rapidly completed during the rule of the great building prior Chillenden in the last decade of the fourteenth century.