William de Shoreham

WILLIAM DE SHOREHAM HELEN WHEELER, M.A. Even in the village of Shoreham itself, few people realise that they possess their own pre-Chaucerian poet, William de Shoreham. If they do realise this they may find it difficult to learn much about him. The Dictionary of National Biography omits him altogether and the only English history of literature to give him more than a cursory reference is that of George Saintsbury (1898). However, his poems are utilised by the Oxford English Dictionary as a source for the meaning of a few words. The poems, which survive in the British Museum in one defective manuscript, have been published twice, first in the Percy Society series in 1849 and, secondly, by the Early English Text Society in 1902. The first is long out of print and for the second it is necessary to contact the publisher Kraus in New York. A few excerpts from his poetry appear in anthologies like Morris and Skeat's Specimens of Early English, vol. 11, [O.U.P.] and Carleton Brown's Religious Lyrics of the Fourteenth Century [O.U.P]. But not even the hunger for Ph.D. material seems to have tempted much further work on him. Over the last century, Well's List of Middle English Writings can only find one American essay on the poem to the Virgin Mary and a handful of papers by German philologists interested in the niceties of fourteenth-century Kentish dialect to add to the meticulous E.E.T.S. edition, itself the work of a German scholar, Professor Konrath. Nearly seven centuries ago, however, we must assume that his standing, at least in the Shoreham - Leeds - Chart Sutton triangle was considerable. We know he was a Kentishman from the dialect he uses, and very probably a native of Shoreham; until his appointment as Vicar of Chart Sutton he must have been a monk at the Augustinian convent at Leeds. His appointment could not have been before 1320, when Walter Reynolds, Archbishop of Canterbury (1313-27), appropriated the living of the Priory of Leeds on condition a vicar should be maintained there, and the strong probability is that William died before 1333, since that is when a later archbishop, Simon Mepham, died, and it was Simon Mepham who granted a 153 HELEN WHEELER quadragene (an indulgence for forty days) to all those who would pray for the soul of the poet. These scanty but useful facts derive from the lucky chance that the surviving manuscript of his poems contains four colophons, after the first, fourth, fifth and sixth poems. One of these asks for prayers for the soul of the great Robert Grosseteste (I 175-1253), an act of grateful piety that suggests that the preceding poem is either a translation of a Grosseteste original, or, and this may be more likely, an attempt to popularize it by versification. Two other colophons ask for prayers for William himself and usefully supply his exact status at the time. The longest colophon asks the reader to pray for the soul of ' . . . domini Wille/mi de Schorham quondam vicarii de chart iuxta /edes qui composuit istam compilacionem de septem mortalibus peccatis. Et omnibus dicentibus oracionem dominicam cum salutacione angelica XL dies uence a domino Symone Archiepiscopo centuarie conceduntur.' Shortly after William's death, for the great Dr Furnivall is sure that our existing manuscript cannot be later than 1350, a scribe copied out all his poems. These consist of seven separate texts: I. Seven Sacraments, with full description of the principal ceremonies and orders; 2. A rhyming version of some of the ceremonies of the sacraments; 3. Ten Commandments; 4. Seven Deadly Sins; 5. The Joys of The Virgin - a very popular subject; 6. Translation (?) of a hymn to the Virgin; 7. Dissertation on some of the mysteries of the Christian faith, specially the doctrine of original sin. William's poems are not the first entries in the manuscript. Of the 220 vellum pages of Add. Ms. in the British Museum, the first 149 are taken up with a prose version of the psalms, some canticles and the Athanasian Creed in Latin and in English. After this, perhaps, William's poems came as a refreshing change. Alas, both the Percy Society and the E.E.T.S. editors are highly critical of the efforts of his poor copying scribe: 'ignorant ... a text full of corruptions ... the sense sadly obscured or even perverted into nonsense' says Professor Konrath severely. The scribe it seems was unfamiliar with the Kentish dialect, and possibly he did yawn at times over the poems; the manuscript carries contemporary emendations in another hand by somebody who did speak the Kentish dialect, but Konrath dismisses these helpful suggestions as 'mere conjectures'. Certainly the resultant text leaves no easy task for the translator and some questions must remain unanswered. Why does the last poem end so 154 WILLIAM DE SHOREHAM abruptly? If the last pages have disappeared there may have been other poems as well, even secular ones, for the habit of rhyming tends to be a catching one. Nor can we be sure which, if any, are translations. Even so, from the surviving manuscript, quite a lot can be added to our ideas of life in this area of Kent in the early fourteenth century. William was surely a devoted and able parish priest, devoted in his desire to find methods of passing on some of his own learning to his parishioners by translating it into their common tongue, and by putting his teaching into neat and often catchy verse-forms, to arouse both interest and devotion. The poems divide into two kinds. There are four didactic poems which encompass what his flock should believe (7), what they should do (3), what they should not do (4) and where to find means of grace (1). The remaining three poems are devotional and lyrical; Poem 2 centres round the passion of Christ, each 'hour' of this being marked by an apostrophe to the Virgin, sharing her sorrow. For instance, at the nailing of Christ to the cross, William adds: 0 swete levedy wat thee was wo Thothy child was on honge ltached to the harde Ire Wyth nayles grete and longe. The gywes graddon corn a-down Hy reste wat y mende For thran hatholede to be do To deth for man kende. And ase he henge, levedy, rour ous Aheghe oppon the helle lsceld our wanne we deade bcn That we ne hangy in helle. 0 sweet lady, what woe was yours When thy child was hung Fastened to the cruel tree With nails great and long. The Jews derided 'Come on down!' They knew not what they did, For thereon he was suffering Even death to save mankind. And as he hung, lady, for us So high upon that hill. So guard us when we come to die From agony in Hell. The Joys of the Virgin (5) and the Hymn to the Virgin (6) are lyrical, seeming to reflect a genuine warmth of devotion. As in the innumerable Marian hymns of the time, the Virgin is saluted by a long series of allegorical images: she is successively David's sling, Queen Hester, and the gate of steel to which the Prophet Ezekiel witnessed. She is Queen of Paradise, the dove of Noah, the woman in the vision of St. John of the Apocalypse. She has tamed the unicorn (this is the only non-scriptural reference) and William alludes to the legend that: Ine the hys god bycome a chyld Ine the his wreche bycome myld That unicorn that was so wyld 155 In thee is god become a child In thee his wrath has grown so mild The unicorn that was so wild HELEN WHEELER Aleyd hys of a cheaste Thou hast y-tamed and i-styld Wyth melke of thy breste. Is subject to a maid Thou'st made it tame and reconciled With breast-milk is it paid. The poem ends with a favourite image to explain the difficult idea of the immaculate conception, that of sunlight passing through glass: Ase the sonne taketh hyre pas Wyth-oute breche thorgh-out that glas Thy maydenhad on-wemmed hyt was For bere of thyne chylde Nou swete levedy of solas To our senfolle be thou mylde. As the sun can easily pass Without a crack through glass Thy maidenhead unblemished was By bearing thy child Now lovely lady of solace, To our sins be mild. These three devotional poems bear the imprint of an individual language and style, but their tone is so different from the remaining four didactic poems that the suggestion seems not unreasonable that one of the two groups consists of translations from lost originals. The didactic poems also have their own individuality. What frequently resonates behind these verses is a vivid impression of the questions and the problems William must have encountered from worried parishioners. Could 'spousebreche' (divorce) ever be countenanced? What happened to a child who died unbaptised? How long elapsed between Adam's sin and Christ's arrival - and why did God wait so long after the fall of Adam to send the redeemer? These troubling (and persistent) questions William does his best to answer: And her mankende swalf and dalf Fyght thousand wynter and a half And yet wel mo Er thane the tyme of lyve come That god so Jong abod the skele Wei mey be thys that in of wele To mannes mende For death scholde hys mystryes kepe And man forsopie and forsethe In deathes bende And here mankind sweated and delved Five thousand winters and a half And yet many more Before the age of true life came ... That God delayed so long, the clue May well be this: his loving care To make man true First death might show his awful power Till man in suffering and despair Would death's force know. Some of the questions he ponders sound ageless: Ac some mey acsy war god was Tho nothyng of the \1/0rlde nas Ne grete ne smal And the answer is equally elusive: 156 Where was God, some men may ask When nothing of the world yet was Neither great nor small? WILLIAM DE SHOREHAM Ther the worlde hys nou was he And yet he hys and ever schal be lhole over al Where the world is now. was he And yet he is and ever shall be Complete over all. Much more down to earth and specific in its observation of the way people behave is William's account of the seven deadly sins. Pride he detects in many guises and in many places: his suspicion that this sin flourishes particularly in the clergy makes him very eloquent: Prede suweth in ftoures Of wysdom and of wyt Amang levedys in boures The foule prude syght; Thegh ma!) go gert wyd rope Get prede to hym swyth ... Nys non thagh som myt wene That some prede ne taketh Ne none so proud ich wene Ase he that al for-saketh. For who hys that nevere set hys thought And erthe to be hygh? Who hys hit that never y-thought Of pompe that he segh? Who yst that never was rebel Agenis hys soverayn Who hist that be-nome schel And nabbe non agayn? Who hyst that nevere godlich nas Wanne chaunce at wylle come Who yst that wanne he preysed was Never at hegh hyt nome? Pride sucks the flowers Of wisdom and of wit Among ladies in bowers Does foul pride sit; Though men go girt with rope Yet pride swells inside ... Not a soul, think what you will, That some pride does not take, Nor none so proud, r know, As he that all forsakes. For who is there that never set his heart On power in this world? And who never yearned For the pomp seen around? Who was never a rebel Against lord and master. Takes reproof with patience And does not back-answer? Who was never tempted By a chance of glory, Or when praises came his way Did not make much of the story? ... Envy is dealt with more briefly, in 23 lines; his chief weapon is 'backbyty' - backbiting, scandal - and his object to destroy affection: Wanne love hys here preye Al for to confundy And wyl het to betraye That wolde gode by. For love is his prey He hopes all to destroy And will them betray Who follow the good. Gluttony is neatly characterised under the four headings which had been laid down in the popular and didactic Cursor Mundi (c. 1300): Ac glutonye entyceth To lecherye her Ase that by norysseth Hote brandes that fere. Of glotonyes foure The boke speketh openlyche: To meche fode devoury 157 But gluttony entices To low desire As nourishes Dry brands the fire. Of four types of gluttony Speaks the book plain and just: Too much food devouring HELEN WHEELER And to lykerouslyche; And to freche to fretene Wanne man hijs tymeheth And out of tyme to hetene That none siknesse neth. And consumed with too much lust; To gluttonize at table Wasting time at will And to eat between mealtimes When one is not ill. In his poem on the Sacraments, William shows he has high expectations of the matrimonial state: Her longeth nou to thys sarmon Of spousynge for to werche, Thet hys the tokne of the joyning of Gode and holy cherche; And wosle Ryght holy cherche y-cleped hys That holy folke ine goste. And as ther mot alter spousyng Be ryght asent of bothe Of man and of ther woman eke Yn love and naught y-lothe Y-lyche By-twixe God and holy folke Love hys we! tyre and ryche. Thanne aghte men here wyves love Ase God doth holy cherche And wyves naught agens men Non unwrestnesse werche Ac tholye And naught onwrost opsechem hy Ne toungue of hefede holye. It is fitting now in this sermon On weddings to work, Which image the betrothal of God and Holy Church; And remember Holy Church has got its name Because good people enter. And when the wedding day arrives There must be no debate Both husband and the wife-to-be Must act in love not hate Just like Between great God and holy folk Love is the richest rate. Then ought men to love their wives As God does Holy Church, And wives against their husbands No wickedness should work But bear all things Nor question much Nor be with tongue too ready. William is very precise as to who may marry whom - a widow for instance is allowed to marry the godparents of her stepchildren - and this may well reflect a type of recurring problem in small, static communities. He also gives exact instruction (based on the Decretals of Gregory IV) about the marriage of lepers: was William just being careful to cover all eventualities or were there many lepers in early fourtheenth-century Kent? A 'meseles' might marry a non-leper but then they had to stay together even if the latter contracted the disease (hardly surprising, surely): the only approved condition of parting was for the 'meseles' to enter a 'spytel hous'. He is also very clear about the ages of those to be married and the requirements here of canon law: Of ham that scholde y-wedded be Her the age thou myght lerne, That knave childe fortene ger 158 Of them that would be wedded Here the age you can learn, The boy child fourteen years must have WILLIAM DE SHOREHAM Schei habe ane tuel thetherne; Spousynge At seve ger me maketh may, Ac none ryght weddynge. For thegh hy were by assent Ryght opelyche y-wedded, And ase these childre ofte beth To-gadere ryght y-bedded, By ryghte Bot gef hy gyve ine tyme assent Departed by y-myghte. And the tyme is wane ather can Other fleschyche y-knowe For wanne hy habbeth thet y-do, Ne mowe hy be to-throwe, And just twelve the girl; Betrothals May at seven years be made, But not a proper wedding. For though they were by clear assent In public seen to wed And as these children often are Together put to bed, Yet by law Unless they in due course agree They can be separated. And that time comes when either one Can carnally encounter, For when they have accomplished that They cannot be put asunder. Only in two ways can marriage be invalidated: Ne beth no thynges bote two That oundeth the weddynge. That on hys wanne he weddeth the thrall, And weneth the frye take; That other, wanne he weddeth one other Thane hys ryghte make, By-gyled; The lawe of god ne senteth nought That man be so by-wyled. There are no things but only two That can undo the wedding. One is when he weds a slave, Thinking she is free; The second, when he weds another And not his real lady - Beguiled! The law of God does not allow Man be so tricked by wiles. The imagination boggles at the situation suggested by this second condition - does it reflect sharp-dealing over dowries? Surely there can not often have occurred such melodramatic post-nuptial discoveries in the neighbourhood of Chart Sutton or of Shoreham. And one cannot help feeling sorry for the 'thrall' whose legal status is so embarrassingly discovered. Perhaps one of the more surprising aspects of village life emerges accidentally in William's lengthy account of all the liquids with which even an emergency christening may on no account be performed: Nau ferst ich wille te!le you Wet may be the materie Wer inne cristning may be mad That bringeth ous so merie To honoure. Hit moght be do in kende water And non other licoure. Therfore ine wine me ne may 159 Now first I will tell you What you may employ To use in christening That brings us with such joy To highest rank. It must be done in natural water And in liquid no other. So wine's no use for christening HELEN WHEELER Inne sithere ne inne pereye Ne ine thing that nevere water was. Thorgh cristning man reneye Ne inne ale, For, thie hight wer water ferst Of water neth hit tale. Nor is cider, nor is perry thick Nor liquids that aren't water. By christening we renounce Old Nick Not in beer, For though these things were water first That's not how we see them here. The poet explains carefully that heating water does not alter its nature, so christenings can take place even in times of frost - but on no account may 'ewe ardaunt' (fiery spirits) be used. This is of course in line with sound doctrine as promulgated by St. Thomas Aquinas. He had laid down that for baptism to be valid the water must not have lost its properties by any transmutation. However, the thought of what liquids might be mistakenly employed by careless priests or hasty midwives is suggestive, as, in this inland area, are William's instructions about sea-water: Al-so me nay inne selte se Cristny wel mine beste; And eke inne othere sealte watere Bot me in to moche keschte Of sealte, For gef that water his kinde lest That cristning slant te tealte. And you can use the salty sea For christening - it will last; Or any other salted water, But keep in reason - do not cast Too much of salt, For if that water lose its kind The christening must halt. Any reader who has accompanied William de Shoreham so far will have noticed his ambitious fondness for complex metrical forms. For instance, this seven-line stanza form for the lecture on christening has an x a x a b x b rhyme scheme, x standing for unrhymed endings; it also uses an adaptation of the so-called bob and wheel, i.e. a very short, ideally one-stress line, followed here by two longer, but more commonly by four rhyming ones. The best-known use of this occurs in the slightly later, northern, anonymous and superbly successful Gawayne and the Green Knight. To modern ears this metre, like some other of William's rather jaunty verses, is more proper for secular themes and for lyric rather than doctrinal exposition. Medieval writers and listeners, however, seem to have been untouched by such rigid preconceptions. Even the Athanasian Creed, no lighthearted reading, had been paraphrased into six-line stanzas and, on the other hand, the enchantingly bobbish Dancers of Colbek (c. 1320), also by a cleric, Robert Manning of Brunne, carries a chillingly moral tale in support of edicts against secular goings-on in churchyards. William de Shoreham, however, is not in the same league as Robert Manning and certainly not as the Gawayne poet. Even 160 WILLIAM DE SHOREHAM allowing for the 'ignorant' scribe, for the difficulties of catching the proper stresses and rhymes of a dialect which was not going to feed in to central modern English, William, for all his diligent experimentation with verse forms cannot be considered as 'a poet in the higher sense of the word' - a judgement passed by the Danish linguist, ten Brink, many years ago. Yet it would be ungrateful to wish that, like Chaucer's·Parson, he had opted for prose. His delight in versifying is endearing; besides it does indicate how the intellectual interests of a vicar of Chart Sutton at this time extended well beyond the local parishes, that he had the opportunity to read or hear contemporary verse and the incentive to try out recent literary trends. And perhaps the most fascinating problem connected with the poems written by this enterprising son of Shoreham over six and a half centuries ago is this: how did they reach their public? Few if any of his parishioners would have been able to read and in any case the copies would be rare; like all poems of the time they are clearly meant to be read aloud. Were they read to the captive audience provided by his congregation? Were they offered as a sermon or in addition to a sermon? Did William ride over to Shoreham to try them out there, too? Chaucer would reassure us that a ride of twenty miles would be nothing to that pilgrimage-loving age. Besides - and I am most indebted to Malcolm White for this information - there were almost certainly continuing family connections. In 1284, there was a William who was a tenant of the Church Yoke in Shoreham. The son who lived with him was called John - the dating would allow our William to be his elder brother, perhaps carrying his father's name, and the ecclesiastical connection of the tenancy is suggestive. We shall never know whether the villagers were impressed by their clever parson's poems or whether the intention of the metrical form to aid memory was ever rewarded by the hearers, as William hoped, remembering them as they walked out to a day's work, or to a night's work on the hills above Shoreham in lambing time. One wonders how long he and his poems were remembered and whether the thricerepeated request was honoured: 'Oretis pro anima Wille/mi de Schorham'. 161