Brotherhood and Confraternity at Canterbury Cathedral Priory in the 15th Century: the Evidence of John Stone's Chronicle

BROTHERHOOD AND CONFRATERNITY AT CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL PRIORY IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY: THE EVIDENCE OF JOHN STONE’S CHRONICLE

meriel connor

Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, Manuscript 417 is better known as the ‘Chronicle of John Stone, Monk of Christ Church, Canterbury, 1415-1471’. The preface of the manuscript declares it to be the ‘book of brother John Stone, a monk of Christ Church Canterbury, which was composed as a result of his great work in the year 1467 in his fiftieth year as a monk’.1 In 1906, W.G. Searle published a Latin edition of this manuscript, and since that time, Searle’s text has allowed easy access to this fascinating primary source for historians of Christ Church Priory in the fifteenth-century and monastic historians in general.2 Indeed, because the text has been so readily accessible in its printed Latin form, the tendency has been to extract items of interest to a particular scholar and, until recently, little attention has been given to the original manuscript or to the composition of the work as a whole.3

Stone describes himself as the compiler of ‘these chronicles’,⁴ but his work does not attempt to relate the history of Christ Church Priory from its foundation, as do more traditional monastic chronicles. The surviving manuscript (a fifteenth-century copy of a fifteenth-century original) is somewhere between an annal (a list of years with notices of events recorded alongside) and a selective history of events. It focuses principally on the internal life of the priory: the celebration of the liturgy; rituals and ceremonies; the election and enthronement of archbishops; the duties of their suffragans; and even the weather. A significant proportion of the manuscript is devoted to recording the obits of Christ Church monks. In general, it provides a unique insight into institutional life in an English Benedictine monastery in the fifteenth-century. However, Stone’s record is more than an account of the internal workings of Christ Church Priory. It provides, in addition, information concerning the frequent visits of some of the most powerful and influential men and women of the day, many of whom were linked to the priory through the bonds of confraternity. The principal function of a religious confraternity ‘was to confer the benefits of prayers for the dead upon its members’.⁵ Belief in the power of communal prayer was strong and the prime objective of confraternity was the offering of prayers for the living and the dead. The prayers of the living could benefit the souls in purgatory, and equally the saintly dead could intercede on behalf of the living. The daily singing of the office of the dead had been a feature of Benedictine monasticism from the mid-tenth century and monks and priests commemorated on a regular basis those from their ranks who had died, especially the lately dead.⁶ Those in association with Christ Church through the bonds of confraternity included major patrons and benefactors, motivated by a desire to benefit from the intercessory prayers offered up by the monastic community; members of the monastic community itself (and sometimes members of their families);⁷ members of other religious communities with which Christ Church was in confraternity, and lay brothers and sisters. Because of its importance and the size of its religious community, Canterbury Cathedral was, in the words of Professor Barrie Dobson, ‘the most efficacious prayer-house in the kingdom’.⁸

The Benedictine concepts of stability and order, and the organization of the monastic community according to rank and seniority, were important aspects of a monk’s life. ‘Stability’ was, and is, one of the three vows laid down in the Rule of St Benedict, whereby a monk ‘attaches himself to the monastery of his profession and makes himself a member of the monastic family there’.⁹ The Benedictine ‘family’, consists of the community of each individual monastery, whereas mendicant friars are members of an entire order. Much importance was given to the ideal of a fraternal relationship within this monastic ‘family’, bound together with ties of ‘mutual love, respect [and] forbearance’.¹⁰ Indeed, the term frater, or brother, occurs ninety-three times in the Rule of St Benedict.

In practice, a number of monks resident at Christ Church Priory during the period recorded by John Stone came from other Benedictine houses. Edmund Brenchley, who died in 1440, had transferred to Christ Church from Chester for reasons unknown.¹¹ John Stanys, a precentor of Christ Church, who died in December 1421, was originally a monk of Bermondsey Priory, probably transferring to Christ Church because of his exceptional musical ability, of which we learn in his obit recorded by Stone.¹² Canterbury Cathedral was renowned for the standard of its music in the fifteenth century, especially while it was under the direction of Lionel Power, one of the most eminent and prolific composers of the period. As precentor, Stanys was responsible not only for directing the daily ritual of the mass and offices, but also for maintaining and enhancing a high standard of music.¹³ Occasionally a monk left a monastery without permission, taking refuge in another community, or even leaving the religious life altogether. In such a case, an abbot or prior could often effect reconciliation with the house of origin, and indeed provision was made in the Rule for a brother to be reinstated. William Pouns, another monk with considerable musical talent, was received at Christ Church in 1422, but left in 1441, having been granted a post at St Nicholas Shambles in London.¹⁴ Prior Woodnesburgh procured a writ against him, but Archbishop Chichele interceded on his behalf and he was received back into the monastery and resumed his singing. Within a year though, having effectively been expelled from Christ Church, Pouns had transferred to the monastic house at Boxley, a Cistercian house with a stricter rule than that of the Benedictines.¹⁵

Despite such occasional deviations from accepted practice, the bonds of brotherhood were strong, reaching even beyond the grave. A Benedictine monk would, in normal circumstances, be returned to his own community in the event that he were to die while away from his monastery. The Monastic Constitutions of Lanfranc (Archbishop of Canterbury, 1070-1089) has long been recognized as one of the most important historical sources for medieval monastic life. These Constitutions decreed that any brother dying while away from the monastery should ‘be brought back on a hearse, which shall be sent for him’.¹⁶ Thus returned to his monastic ‘family’, the offices of the dead were performed for the deceased monk ‘and all else … done that is done for a monk of the house who dies at home’. It is clear from the record of John Stone that this decree was still being adhered to in the fifteenth century. In 1418 John Wye died at Oxford where he was a scholar, and Stone recorded that he was returned on a cart to Christ Church, and everything took place ‘as usual for a dead brother’.¹⁷ When Robert Lynstede died at the manor of Chartham in 1447, he too was returned to Christ Church for his funerary rites.¹⁸ In 1448, Robert Lynton died at Oxford, where he was warden of Canterbury College, and his death was followed the next day by that of William Richmond, a scholar there.¹⁹ Both were monks of Christ Church. They were buried together in one tomb before the high altar of the church of St Frideswide’s Priory in Oxford, but the monks of Christ Church celebrated their funerary rites in Canterbury the following Saturday as if their bodies had been present, and the subprior celebrated their requiem mass at the high altar the following day. This procedure may have been adopted because these monks had died of an infectious or contagious disease that necessitated immediate burial. Another scholar of Oxford and monk of Christ Church, Richard Queningate, was buried in St Frideswide’s Priory, where he died 28 July 1458.²⁰ On 2 August a letter was read out in chapter concerning his death, and on 4 August his exequies too were sung in the choir at Christ Church, with the prior celebrating his requiem mass the following day. Thomas Ashford died in Rome in 1452 and was buried in the Benedictine monastery of St Balbina, and William Chart died at Tintern in Ireland in 1458 and was buried at the Cistercian Abbey there. The exequies and requiem masses of both these members of the Christ Church community took place at Canterbury cathedral in the same manner as for Lynstede, Richmond and Queningate.²¹ The case of John Heath was different. Stone noted that he had left Christ Church Priory in 1416 to take up a benefice near Gravesend, by papal licence. However, when he died ‘a few years later’ Stone recorded that he received none of the spiritual benefits enjoyed by a member of the monastic community.²²

The monks listed in the obituaries recorded by John Stone were professed monks of Christ Church Priory. From Lanfranc’s Constitutions it is clear that a professed monk of the community ‘may be allowed to enjoy confraternity with all common privileges of the house’.²³ To this end, a ceremony took place in chapter admitting the supplicant ‘to the company of the elect’. Interestingly, the name John Stone appears in the list of those admitted into confraternity with Christ Church priory for the year 1449 – many years after his profession. ²⁴ The names of other Christ Church monks also appear in these lists. Is it possible that there were degrees of confraternity? Was there a ‘particular form of individual confraternity … extended to some persons’ as seems to be suggested more generally by K.S.B. Keats-Rohan – ‘a small and select group of professed monks of the house’?²⁵ It may be that ‘the preservation of their memory as named individuals … had to be earned by a life of special merit, which could include the grant of a major benefaction to the community’.²⁶ John Stone’s ‘book’, composed ‘in his fiftieth year as a monk’, begins with ‘a thorough account, chronicling in detail the gifts and expenses which he is known to have given for various work and ornaments to the honour of the house of God, lest they be passed down to unending oblivion’.²⁷ Stone’s list of gifts includes decorated altar frontals and cloths; silks, satins, ribbons, fringes, and gold; payments ‘for making and embellishing’ of items from such materials, and payments for building works and repairs, including contributions to ‘the new work in the Martyrdom’, ‘the font of the church’ and the provision of a stove for a chamber in the infirmary. It would appear that these ‘gifts’ were personal donations, contributed out of Stone’s own resources over the course of his fifty years of service as a monk. The custom of paying monks ‘wages’ for duties and services (from the saying of chantry masses to practical work like book-binding) out of which they were required to make certain payments, became increasingly common in Benedictine monasteries during the later Middle Ages, and amounts accumulated could be significant.²⁸ It would be consistent in a system of confraternity, of gift and counter-gift, for a monk to donate what remained, after the purchase of necessities, to the house of God and the monastic community, in return for which both the gifts and the donor would be remembered in perpetuity and ‘the donor would benefit pro salute animae’.²⁹ Indeed, we know that Stone, in making his list, was following a precedent, for he records a similar list of ‘gifts and expenses’ donated by Thomas Herne, a monk who had held a number of senior offices, or obedientiaries, at Christ Church Priory during the course of his forty-two years as a monk, and whose death Stone records in 1433.³⁰ It is this list that Stone would appear to have used as a model for the setting out of his own donations.

From the time of the Conquest, individual Benedictine houses had agreed, sometimes by charter, to group together in association in order that, in the words of St Boniface:

a bond of brotherly charity may be established between us, so that a common prayer may be said for the living, and so that prayers and solemn mass may be celebrated for the dead ... when we send one another the names of our dead.³¹

This custom continued at Christ Church as elsewhere into the fifteenth century and beyond, and included not only Benedictine monks, but also canons, brothers and sisters of a considerable number of religious houses, both in England and also some in France.³² For example, in 1444, the master-general of the Dominicans admitted the prior of Christ Church to confraternity with the whole order of the Order of Preachers.³³ Many of these confraternity arrangements between religious houses were made at an early date, before the Conquest, and no complete lists survive of those in association with the Christ Church confraternity, but the number was sizeable.³⁴ By the twelfth century, the practice had been established in religious houses of reading out daily in chapter the names of all those entered in the martyrology on the anniversary of their death (although by the fifteenth century the large number of those listed would surely have made it impossible to name each individual in person). Martyrologies, as the name suggests, were originally a collection of notices of martyrs set out in the form of a calendar. Later these were amplified to include other saints, and to these calendars of martyrs and saints were added the names of those whom a religious establishment had undertaken to commemorate in prayer.³⁵ As at Durham, it was common for affiliation to the confraternity at Christ Church to be marked by the issue of individual letters.³⁶ Such letters were sent out from the prior and chapter and were often copied into the priors’ registers.³⁷ Although the Christ Church obituary lists usually recorded both the day and the year of the death of a monk, in the martyrology names were added under the appropriate day, without reference to the year, since after death the progress of the years was immaterial to the soul in the scale of eternity. For this reason it is not usually possible to establish the year of an individual’s death from martyrology listings. ‘Documents were not drawn up in the interests of administrative order and convenience but rather so that the names would be remembered for the purpose of commemorative prayer’.³⁸ Further information may sometimes be gleaned from other surviving records. For example, on 12 August 1421, during a temporary cessation of hostilities between France and England, the Christ Church chapter received a letter from the abbot of the monastery of St Bertin in St Omer, with whom the chapter had long been in confraternity.³⁹ The letter included a list of names of those monks of St Bertin who had died during the war with France, when communication with Christ Church had become difficult, if not impossible. The prior of Christ Church sent with his reply a list of obits of Christ Church monks, to be remembered in return by the monks of St Bertin.

The lists containing names of friends and benefactors of religious houses (who had not necessarily all entered into formal confraternity with that house) were often known as Libri Vitae, or ‘books of life’, a concept with biblical origins. In the book of the Apocalypse, the text which inspired the often disturbing apocalyptic imagery in the doom paintings of the fifteenth century, it is said that anyone whose name was not found written in the Book of Life would be thrown into the lake of fire.⁴⁰ It was the responsibility of the living to ensure that the dead were not forgotten. The highly developed awareness of the doctrine of purgatory in the fifteenth century was such that death was an integral part of daily life, particularly in a Benedictine monastery.⁴¹ The Rule specifically required a monk ‘to fear the day of judgement, to dread hell, to yearn for eternal life and to keep death daily before [his] eyes’.⁴² The reinforcement of the belief in purgatory emphasised the close relationship linking the living and the dead, for it was accepted that the prayers of the living could benefit the souls in purgatory, secure remission from sin and save the soul from the terrors of hell.⁴³ The Hyde Abbey Liber Vitae contains a passage that explains its purpose well:

Here follow in their appropriate order the names of the brethren and monks … and also of the friends and benefactors, whether living or dead, so that, by the making of a record on earth in this written form, they may be inscribed on the pages of the heavenly book, by whose alms-giving, through the bounty of Christ, this community is sustained from day to day. And may the names be entered here of all who commend themselves to its prayers and fraternity, in order that there may be a commemoration of them every day, in the solemnities of the mass, or in the harmonies of psalmody.⁴⁴

Periodically, precisely dated obituary notices or mortuary rolls were sent out from one religious institution to another, usually those linked by the bonds of confraternity. These mortuary rolls specified the name and date of death of the deceased, together with the name of the religious community and its dedication. They were designed for extensive circulation, and were carried from place to place by a carrier, known as a portitor rotuli or breviator, who was often a layman paid by the religious community initiating the distribution.⁴⁵ The journeys made were often of considerable length, and the carrier was granted hospitality on his travels by the houses he visited. At each house a response was added, either on the same sheet of parchment or on appended sheets or certificates attached to the end of the roll and known as tituli. These included the name of the dead individual religious and a prayer for his or her soul. The prayer was usually followed by the words Oravimus pro vestris, orate pro nostris or some similar form of wording evoking reciprocal prayer.⁴⁶ Sometimes names of deceased members or benefactors of the recipient institution would be added.⁴⁷ According to Lanfranc’s Constitutions, it was the duty of the guest master to receive incoming obit rolls in chapter.⁴⁸

Amongst the few such documents that survive is a fragment of a mortuary roll for William Molash, prior of Christ Church (1428-1438), who died on 19 February 1438. John Stone’s obit for Molash records only the detail of the hour and the day of his death. This was Stone’s usual practice when recording the death of priors or archbishops, who were accorded a fuller obit notice elsewhere.⁴⁹ Molash had held many offices in the priory before becoming prior, and some offices more than once. He had also been warden of Canterbury College, Oxford. He was (unusually) buried in the Cathedral crypt with his father and mother.⁵⁰ The surviving fragment of the Molash mortuary roll contains entries from twenty-one religious houses visited by the carrier in the counties of Stafford, Shropshire and Hereford, including four Benedictine houses, one Augustinian abbey, three priories of Austin canons and one of canonesses, and eight friaries, including Franciscans, Dominicans, Carmelites and Augustinians.⁵¹

Of the individual churchmen from all levels of society appearing in the confraternity lists of Christ Church Priory, Cardinal Henry Beaufort, bishop of Winchester, was amongst the most notable. This distinguished, wealthy and well-connected prelate was a powerful ally to Christ Church. The priory records confirm his entry into confraternity, together with others of his household, and a continuing number of his servants and chaplains also became affiliates.⁵² The Cardinal was a regular visitor to Christ Church and his family connection with the priory was strong. His brother John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset (d.1410), first husband of Lady Margaret Holland (herself a generous benefactor to Christ Church), and his half-brother Henry IV (d.1413), were buried in the cathedral.⁵³ Lady Margaret’s second husband, Thomas, Duke of Clarence (d.1421), second son of Henry IV was also buried in the Cathedral. Lady Margaret’s second son, John Beaufort, first duke of Somerset, was a rich and influential patron to Christ Church as was Edmund Beaufort, her third son, who succeeded to his brother’s title. In 1431 Stone recorded the burial of Thomas Beaufort, Count of Perche, Margaret’s fourth son, in the cemetery at Christ Church, ‘close to the tomb of St Thomas the martyr’.⁵⁴ The expression of a desire to be buried in close proximity to the place where commemorative prayers were to be said, or to the shrine or altar of a particular saint, reflects the great importance given by the laity to the prayers of the religious house in question.⁵⁵ It is not always possible to know whether such a request was actually complied with, but the evidence of John Stone confirms that in the case of Thomas Beaufort it was indeed fulfilled. However, Lady Margaret Holland remodelled the chapel of St Michael in the Cathedral’s southwest transept as a Beaufort chantry chapel at the time of the construction of her magnificent tomb, and her husbands and son (Thomas Count of Perche), were moved post mortem to join her there following her death in December 1440.⁵⁶

Between 1430 and 1445, John Stone recorded a number of Cardinal Beaufort’s visits to Christ Church, often on his journeys to and from France where he was involved in negotiating peace. In December 1438, Stone recorded that the Cardinal’s choir provided the music for a mass celebrated in the prior’s chapel on the return of John, Earl of Somerset, from a long period of captivity in France.⁵⁷ In his later years, Cardinal Beaufort’s relationship with the priory became even closer. Indeed, he finally established a retirement home within the precincts of the cathedral in the house called Meister Omers, which he completely rebuilt to a high standard at his own expense.⁵⁸ Here he probably spent the winter of 1445-6, and in July 1446 Stone noted his presence again. On 17 September 1446, Queen Margaret spent the day in his company when she came to Canterbury on pilgrimage.⁵⁹ Although the Cardinal had had his vestments and ‘episcopal throne’ moved to Christ Church, he died at his palace in Winchester on 11 April 1447. Prior Elham rode to Winchester to attend his funeral, and a requiem mass was also said for him at the high altar in Canterbury Cathedral.⁶⁰ On 10 April 1455, Stone recorded that the Cardinal’s exequies were sung in the choir at Christ Church at the time of the anniversary of his death.

Christ Church Priory was amongst the major beneficiaries of Cardinal Beaufort’s will, and his coat of arms appears in the vaulting of Canterbury Cathedral with those of other benefactors. The Priory received from the Cardinal the sum of £1,000 for building and endowment and a set of his vestments.⁶¹ Stone noted that the vestments were worn by Richard Beauchamp, bishop of Salisbury, celebrating high mass on 11 May 1458, indicating that he was certainly being remembered by the community eleven years after he died.⁶² In view of the fact that Easter Sunday fell on 9 April that year, his anniversary mass may have been celebrated late because the Easter liturgy took precedence, or it may have been one of several masses being celebrated in commemoration of his soul. Stone recorded another occasion when the Cardinal’s vestments were worn by George Neville, bishop of Exeter and chancellor of England, celebrating high mass at Christ Church on the feast of the Assumption in 1463.⁶³ It cannot be known why Stone found this fact worthy of note: it could have been because it was unusual for the vestments to be worn other than at the anniversary of the Cardinal’s death or even simply because the vestments were particularly striking. What Stone’s record does indicate is that the use of the Cardinal’s vestments did ensure that his name was being remembered by the community long after his death.

An act of patronage to a religious house was regarded as a gift to God and was often associated with the patron saint of the house. Valuable items of liturgical plate and vestments, necessary for the celebration of the mass, were highly prized, both actually and symbolically, by the great Benedictine monastic communities, which had large and dazzling collections of ceremonial vestments.⁶⁴ A gift which was of artistic and monetary value was admired and appreciated, and reflected both the status of the donor and the reputation and continuing prosperity of the monastery. By endowing a community with these objects, a benefactor was not only providing them with the necessary appurtenances for the spiritual exercise of celebrating the mass; he or she was also donating items of worth which could, if the necessity arose, be sold in the interests of the convent’s temporal salvation. Last but not least, such readily identifiable gifts ensured that the donor’s name was easily called to mind every time they were used.⁶⁵

Other distinguished churchmen to be admitted into confraternity with Christ Church, Canterbury during the period of John Stone’s ‘chronicle’ were the venerable Matthew Thomas and Thomas Chandeler, graduates in theology, professed monks of St Mary’s York and chancellors of Oxford University. Their names were entered in the lists in April 1426 and April 1468 respectively.⁶⁶ William Waynflete, bishop of Winchester (1447-1486) was received into confraternity in 1433.⁶⁷ Thomas Rotherham, bishop of Rochester and later archbishop of York (1480-1500), served as a legal adviser to the convent for many years and was given confraternity in January 1465 in recognition of his services, together with his mother Alice.⁶⁸ Both these bishops feature in Stone’s work.⁶⁹ Richard Clerk, bishop of Ross and suffragan bishop of Canterbury (1439-65), a regular visitor to Canterbury and mentioned by Stone on a number of occasions, was received into confraternity in 1443.⁷⁰ Foreign churchmen of distinction were also in confraternity. Stone recorded the admission in the chapter house of the Archbishop of Tarento⁷¹ in December 1451, and in 1471 confraternity was bestowed on the bishop of Bayeux in anticipation of his help in persuading Louis XI of France to restore to the priory the annual gift of wine made in honour of St Thomas, originally granted by Louis VII in the twelfth century.⁷² Apart from such notable individuals, members of other religious communities, both at home and abroad were included in the confraternity and martyrology lists – for example, William Huberd, canon of Waltham Abbey and Erwald, monk of Saint Bertin.⁷³ Testamentary evidence of clerics and rectors of local churches shows that confrères like Master Ralph ‘our brother and benefactor’ gave to Christ Church ‘his library, Old Testament and New Testament glossed’; or the rector of Horsmonden, who ‘gave 40 shillings with a Bible and a [vessel] with a lid’.⁷⁴

From their beginning Benedictine monasteries undertook prayers and masses for the dead, and this involvement explains why so many had been endowed by wealthy and powerful patrons and benefactors. At the end of the eighth century, Ealdorman Oswulf gave land to a number of Kentish monasteries, including Christ Church, in exchange for the annual commemoration of his soul and that of his wife.⁷⁵ Oswulf stipulated the nature and number of religious offices that the community was to perform for the benefit of his soul.⁷⁶ This early agreement illustrates how anniversaries of lay patrons were being kept alongside those of monks, saints and kings well before the time of Lanfranc, and in the later Middle Ages the influential lay community was of increasing importance to the monastic economy.

There were a number of ways in which the laity could be associated with monasteries in the later Middle Ages, including through the receipt of corrodies, the granting of liveries, the establishment of chantries and association with a religious house through its confraternity. A corrody was originally the right possessed by some benefactors of a religious house, or their nominees, to be granted board and lodging within that house. The term also came to be applied to a form of annuity, which ‘might include a cash allowance, but its distinctive feature was an allowance in kind’.⁷⁷ A livery had its origin in the distribution of food and clothing by a lord to his retainers. In the fifteenth-century livery lists of Christ Church Priory, the term ‘livery’ referred normally to an annual supply of clothing, or to material for the making of clothing, in the appropriate colours and quality according to rank.⁷⁸ A chantry was an endowment of masses for the soul of a patron or benefactor for a particular period or in perpetuity, and often for others nominated by him or her, and/or for the souls of all the faithful departed. The founding of a chantry chapel in the later Middle Ages required the establishment of an endowment for its construction and upkeep but, in return, a benefactor had greater influence over the terms and conditions of their commemoration and a greater personal freedom in the ordering of the liturgical practices to be celebrated in that chapel. The term ‘confraternity’ when associated with a religious house, was used to mean a formal association with that establishment whereby, put simply, a gift or donation was given, or services were rendered, in the expectation that prayers and masses would be said for the benefit of the donor’s soul following death. It should not be confused with a craft guild or a parish fraternity, the purposes of which were more diverse.⁷⁹ (Although, there is some suggestion from the St Albans Abbey register that the confraternity there was an active association and it is just possible that it bore more resemblance to secular confraternities than has, in the past, been thought likely.)⁸⁰ It was not uncommon for public figures to enter into close social and/or spiritual association with a variety of religious house. For example, the Beaufort and the Holland families were prominent not only at Christ Church but also at St Albans Abbey, with their names appearing in the St Albans Liber benefactorum.⁸¹ Nonetheless, a decision or request to be associated with a confraternity reflected a desire to establish a link with that particular religious house, and to be received into a monastery’s confraternity was still regarded, in the fifteenth century, as an important privilege.⁸²

Surviving records at Christ Church do not provide any comprehensive list either of those in confraternity with the priory or of its benefactors. There is no complete register of the Christ Church confraternity, as is the case for St Albans.⁸³ For the Cathedral Priory at Canterbury, no Liber Vitae survives of the kind exemplified by the Durham or Hyde Libri Vitae, or the St Albans Liber benefactorum. There remain only ‘rough’ lists of names of those received into confraternity, letters of confraternity, and names entered in the martyrologies, preserved somewhat at random, mostly in the folios of British Library Arundel 68 and Lambeth Palace Manuscript 20, and in the Priors’ Registers of Christ Church in Canterbury Cathedral Archives, without reference to the origin or status of the people named, and in no particular order.⁸⁴ However, these lists do provide a considerable amount of information despite their haphazard nature. The names of English kings and queens are to be found, as are those of foreign kings.⁸⁵ Individuals and groups are listed, sometimes representing family, kin or household groups. But, in the fifteenth century, it was the priory’s links with the aristocracy and wealthy gentry in general which were of particular importance to Christ Church, which had as much or more to gain from their influence and support as from their generosity as benefactors.

The guest list for the enthronement of Archbishop Bourchier on 26 January 1454 illustrates well the priory’s connection with such families.⁸⁶ The powerful Humphrey Stafford, Duke of Buckingham was present, one of the wealthiest and best-connected landowners in the realm and the most influential of Kent’s magnates. Buckingham held the important post of Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. He was invited not least as the half-brother of the new archbishop, and was accompanied by a number of his kinsmen. Buckingham was to remain faithful to his oath of allegiance to Henry VI until his death at the Battle of Northampton in 1460, which was reported by Stone.⁸⁷ Archbishop Bourchier himself was finally to declare for the Yorkist cause in the mid 1450s. Richard, Duke of York, was admitted to confraternity in 1436.⁸⁸ His wife Cecily, youngest sister of Anne, Duchess of Buckingham, and mother of Edward IV, was admitted to confraternity in December 1462, together with Edward’s sister Margaret. Anne’s brother Richard, Earl of Salisbury, and nephew Richard, Earl of Warwick were frequent visitors to Christ Church, and were also received into confraternity.⁸⁹ Relationships must have become increasingly strained in this family split by political allegiances, a situation that would also have had implications for Christ Church. The community had the responsibility of remembering in prayer all those in confraternity with them, which included the dead from both sides of the hostilities during the Wars of the Roses.⁹⁰

By the fifteenth-century, Christ Church Priory, like other great monasteries, could no longer depend exclusively on its traditional benefactors. The idea of confraternity had long since spread to the mendicant orders and to secular cathedrals and, ‘in an increasingly crowded spiritual market place’, the services which could be offered to the laity were available at a greater number of religious institutions.⁹¹ The names which appear in the Christ Church confraternity and livery lists, and in the pages of Stone, indicate the extent of the priory’s involvement with people of influence at all levels of society, both ecclesiastical and secular, who might use their influence to good effect on behalf of the priory. James Fiennes and John Cheyne were two of these. Fiennes (1395-1450) had established links with the Beaufort family throughout the 1440s, and his connections with Christ Church would have strengthened after he acquired the stewardship of the archbishop’s lands in 1443. Archbishop Stafford notified the Prior that Fiennes’ appointment had been made ‘havyng consyderacion how the seid James stond aboute the kyng as he dooth, may dayly proufyte our church and us’.⁹² James Fiennes held manors in Kent and served as sheriff of the county on a number of occasions. He represented Kent in parliament from 1439 until his elevation to the peerage as Lord Saye and Sele in 1447, when he became Chamberlain of the Household and also Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, a post that he held until 1449 when he became Lord Treasurer of England. The positions of Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports and Steward of the archbishop of Canterbury’s lands were the most important and influential offices in Kent, and Fiennes held both. He had a strong affinity in Kent and played a significant part in Kentish affairs before his ignominious death in 1450, when he was beheaded in London during Cade’s rebellion.⁹³

The Cheyne family was one of the seven wealthiest families in the county of Kent, all of which were independent of the control of magnates.⁹⁴ Sir John Cheyne was a well-connected local landowner. His name appears in the general accounts of priors Salisbury (1437-1446) and Elham (1446-1449) and, in 1444, he was received into confraternity.⁹⁵ Cheyne was a Kentish kinsman of John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, and of James Fiennes. After Fiennes’ death, he was a leader of the royal affinity in Kent.⁹⁶ Like Fiennes, Cheyne was typical of those members of the Kentish gentry who could use their influence to good effect on behalf of Christ Church. John Cheyne had served as member of parliament for Kent and by 1445 was a royal sergeant-at-arms. By 1452 he was victualler of Calais and in 1455, sheriff of Kent. A sheriff was appointed from the senior ranks of the gentry and, by 1461 at least, the prior of Christ Church played a part in the appointment of a new sheriff, being required to administer the oath of office.⁹⁷ Twice a year the sheriff toured the county to preside over the hundred courts. He appointed bailiffs in the hundred and supervised the election of knights of the shire. He was also the presiding official in the county court and the shire’s chief financial officer.⁹⁸ From 1450-1460, Cheyne was deputy constable of Dover Castle, second in command to the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. In 1457, he was involved in the defence of Kent following the French raid on Sandwich, an event reported by Stone.⁹⁹ These activities gave Cheyne a position of influence at the heart of local and national affairs that, together with his wide circle of contacts, would have made him a valued adviser both to the archbishop and to the priory. He received a livery from successive priors as a token of mutual aid and respect and his cordial relationship with the priory is suggested by his regular gifts of deer and fish.¹⁰⁰ Both Cheyne and Fiennes were present at Thomas Bourchier’s enthronement and banquet, together with Sir Thomas Kyriell, Sir Thomas Browne and ‘other knights of Kent’.¹⁰¹

The goodwill and allegiance of local landowners and office holders was undoubtedly of great value to the priory. Some used their influence in high places; others offered advice and assistance in many practical ways as administrators, lawyers and clerks.¹⁰² Between 1450 and 1453, amongst the justices of the peace in Kent were included John Fogge, John Scott, Gervaise Clifton, Robert Horne, Thomas Kyriell, John Cheyne, James Fiennes, Thomas Browne, William Brenchley, Thomas Etchingham and William Septvans.¹⁰³ All these men belonged to families prominent amongst the Kentish gentry. Many were related to each other through marriage. All had links with Christ Church and are mentioned by Stone.¹⁰⁴

Sir William Brenchley’s wife, Joanna, was granted permission to found a chantry chapel for her late husband, a justice of the Common Pleas, who died in 1446. The chapel, on the south side of Canterbury Cathedral nave, was dedicated in December 1448.¹⁰⁵ Lady Joanna had been admitted to confraternity in 1441, and Stone recorded her death on 8 August 1453 as Lady Joanna de Bucholte (she had presumably remarried).¹⁰⁶ Her body was carried to Canterbury where her exequies and burial took place. Typical of the reciprocal nature of the agreements entered into on the founding of a chantry chapel is that of Lady Joan de Mohun, who died in 1404.¹⁰⁷ In 1395, she drew up an agreement with Christ Church that, in return for donations of money and property, a perpetual chantry would be founded and a tomb prepared and maintained at her own expense in the cathedral crypt, close to the altar of Our Lady Undercroft.¹⁰⁸ Her name was to be entered in the martyrology and read out annually at the anniversary of her death when, amongst other provisions, a payment was to be distributed to one hundred poor persons.¹⁰⁹

John Stone refers only once to the admission of laymen into the Christ Church confraternity, though this must have been typical of many such whose names appear in the confraternity lists. Sir Thomas Tyrell, an official of the royal household, was received in April 1467, together with ‘other servants of the Archbishop of Canterbury, as shown in the martyrology’.¹¹⁰ Stone adds that they donated a large silver saltcellar to the refectory the following January. Such highly visible gifts were often engraved with the identity of the donor. A large valuable item like a saltcellar, donated to the refectory, would have been regularly on display on festal occasions, bringing the donors to mind during their lifetime and long after their death.

The St Albans register of confraternity records details concerning more than three hundred individuals admitted to confraternity – the extent of their relationship with the Abbey; the gifts they gave; the nature of their devotion to the shrine; even accounts of the some of the confraternity’s admission ceremonies.¹¹¹ Sadly Stone gives us no such information concerning the ceremony surrounding Tyrrell’s admission to confraternity but, if confraternity at Christ Church bestowed the same benefits as that of St Albans, the entitlements included ‘participation in all the observances of the monastic community, all prayers, fastings and other special rites, and personal commemorations at the point of death in the manner usually reserved for a monk of the house, with continued celebration of the obit in perpetuity’. As Dr James Clark has observed:

it remains to be investigated how much, if any, of the features of the [St Albans] confraternity can be paralleled in houses elsewhere. But the evidence of the register should at least convince us to be wary of dismissing confraternity in the monastic context as nothing more than another form of petty indulgence. For the monastic community at St Albans the confraternity appears to have been a central axis in their relationship with the secular world, one which brought them significant benefactions … and which, even more importantly, helped them to secure patronal and even political alliances.¹¹²

People of every social level sought close association with Christ Church. Increasingly in the fifteenth century the prior relied upon a group of councillors, both clerical and lay, to advise him about the systems of royal and archiepiscopal administration which grew ever more complex, and where necessary, to represent the interests of Christ Church.¹¹³ The priors’ account rolls list fees paid to numerous lawyers, who were not part of the prior’s household but who were regularly employed by the convent, such as Richard Carpenter,¹¹⁴ attorney at law in the Canterbury Guildhall and also at the ‘court at the monks’ gate’, John Elyot,¹¹⁵ attorney at law on the king’s bench, and Master Clement,¹¹⁶ who served as the prior’s legal representative in the Roman Curia. Lawyers were important to the smooth running of the monastic community, and included Robert Wymbytt and Richard Byrde, admitted to confraternity in 1467 and 1470 respectively, and John Blyton, attorney of London, who was granted a livery in 1428.¹¹⁷ Numerous members of the priory’s household received liveries and some were also received into confraternity, probably many more than can be identified from the lists. The master mason Richard Beke was received into confraternity in 1423 and was appointed master of works at Canterbury Cathedral for life in 1435. He received a livery from the prior from 1432-1437.¹¹⁸ In 1458 he died, and Stone recorded that he left the sum of £2 for work on the cathedral and donated a silver cup to be used in the refectory.¹¹⁹

Testamentary evidence from a few surviving late medieval wills indicates that at least some local people of more modest means were admitted to the confraternity until shortly before the Dissolution. Stone himself made reference to Richard Barnes, ‘our brother’, who was received into confraternity in 1440 and died in April 1461.¹²⁰ Barnes was a brazier in the city of Canterbury, who gave eight marks to Christ Church – five marks for the work of the church, 20s. for the prior, and 26s. 8d. for the convent. In 1479 Agnes Tyll received a letter of confraternity, with the granting of the privilege of burial in the crypt.¹²¹ In 1486, Christine William of the parish of St Mary Northgate, a sister of the confraternity, bequeathed a tenement in return for the celebration of certain masses, and in 1518, Agnes Vyncent of St Alphege parish left her best girdle to the prior and convent in order that she might be admitted as a sister to the chapter. In 1533, John Barbett, of Holy Cross parish, gave a wax taper to place before the shrine of St Thomas in return for admission to the confraternity.¹²² The variation in the value and type of gifts and bequests made by this small selection of confrères reflects their social diversity, and indicates that the benefaction of an individual was made according to their means.

There were normally two anniversarians at Christ Church whose duty it was to ensure the commemoration of the dead enlisted in the rolls of the martyrology on the anniversary of their deaths. They were required to account for receipts and expenditures, and to provide pittances, usually in the form of food and delicacies given at particular seasons or on particular feast days, especially to those in the infirmary. The number and quality of pittances varied but were normally of superior quality to the usual fare – rather in the nature of ‘treats’. For the monks themselves, anniversaries might mean the receipt of small payments, or extra delicacies, to be enjoyed in the refectory, the deportum¹²³ or the infirmary. Benefactors, religious and secular, wealthy and less wealthy, made provision for payments and pittances to be issued immediately following their death and/or annually on the anniversary of their death – both to the monastic community and to the poor.¹²⁴

It was the duty of the anniversarians, working from the martyrology and other records, to administer the distribution of all charitable bequests made by benefactors great and small. The scale and number of anniversaries, and the complexities of the endowments, not to mention the saying of masses and the distribution of alms, must have made considerable demands on the administrative and organizational skills not only of the anniversarians but also of other senior obedientiaries. It was the sacrist’s duty to provide the appropriate altar furnishings, vestments for masses, altar lights and candles in accordance with the confrères or benefactors’ requirements. The cellarer, refectorer and infirmarer there were also concerned with the allocation of pittances. The almoner was charged with the distribution of alms, including those charitable bequests specified in wills. No doubt there were benefits to be derived by the local poor from becoming familiar with the calendar of anniversaries, in Canterbury as elsewhere, and in being ready and willing to attend funerals at short notice in order to take advantage of the distribution of doles.

The number and variety of obit prayers, foundations and chantry chapels were greater at Christ Church priory than at any other monastic cathedral, and must sometimes have placed a considerable burden on the institution both in time and resources.¹²⁵ In terms of prayer, the major burden of this corporate act of remembrance must have fallen to the conventuales, those monks in the community who held no regular office or ‘obedience’. It is hardly surprising that, as far as the financial implications were concerned, the endowments made to provide for the organization of commemorative rites and rituals were not always sufficient to cover the cost of the enterprise. It is known, for example, that the most celebrated of Canterbury Cathedral’s chantry foundations, that of the Black Prince, founded before his death in 1377 and endowed with the manor of Vauxhall, was by 1472 running at a loss to the priory.¹²⁶ But whatever the financial benefits or losses, or the duties imposed by the system of confraternity, Benedictine monks would have been expected to honour their obligations with the spirit of ‘good zeal’ and ‘fraternal charity’ demanded of them by the Rule.¹²⁷ In general, people are unwilling to invest in a failing enterprise, and the fact that throughout the fifteenth century people of diverse rank and means were entrusting the safety of their souls to the monks of Christ Church in significant numbers suggests that they were confident that they would be remembered faithfully in the constant round of monastic prayer.

acknowledgements

The author is indebted to Professor Caroline Barron, Dr James Clark and Dr Joan Greatrex for their encouragement and for their most helpful ideas and comments on a draft of this paper. Thanks are also due to Professor Barbara Harvey for her invaluable help in earlier discussions, for her expertise and for her example; and to Dom Stephen Ortiger, former Abbot of Worth, for his insight into Benedictine life.

endnotes

¹ Fol. 1. Folio numbers refer to Corpus Christi College Cambridge Manuscript 417, ‘The Chronicle of John Stone’.

² The Chronicle of John Stone: Monk of Christ Church Canterbury, 1415-1471, ed. W.G. Searle (Cambridge, 1902).

³ For a translation of the text of this manuscript with an extended introduction and notes, see Meriel Connor, ‘John Stone, Monk of Christ Church Canterbury and his Chronicle, 1417-1472’ (unpubl. M.Phil dissertation, University of London, 2001).

⁴ Fol. 85v.

⁵ K.S.B. Keats-Rohan, ‘Testimonies of the Living Dead: the Martyrology-Necrology and the Necrology in the Chapter Book of Mont Saint Michel (Avranches, Bib. Municipale MS214) in The Durham Liber Vitae and its Context, eds D. Rollason, A.J. Piper, M. Harvey, L. Rollason (Woodbridge, 2004), 165-189, p. 176. For a recent discussion of confraternities, their origins, significance and rituals, see Arnold Angenendt, ‘How Was a Confraternity Made? The Evidence of Charters’, ibid., 207-219

⁶ F.S. Paxton, Christianizing Death: the Creation of a Ritual Process in Early Medieval Europe (London, 1990), p. 136.

⁷ For example, members of the family of Laurence Newnham, a monk of Christ Church professed in 1521, were received into confraternity with Christ Church in 1525, London British Library Manuscript Arundel 68, fol. 11v.

⁸ B. Dobson, ‘The Monks of Canterbury in the Later Middle Ages, 1220-1540’, in A History of Canterbury Cathedral, eds P. Collinson, N. Ramsay and M. Sparks (Oxford, 1995), 69-153, p. 143.

⁹ Dom C. Butler, Benedictine Monachism: Studies in Benedictine Life and Rule (London, 1924), p. 200.

¹⁰ Ibid., p. 205.

¹¹ Fol. 25.

¹² Fol. 12.

¹³ R. Bowers, ‘The Liturgy of the Cathedral and its Music, c.1075-1642’, in A History of Canterbury Cathedral, eds P. Collinson, N. Ramsay and M. Sparks (Oxford, 1995), 408-450, pp. 419-420.

¹⁴ J. Brigstocke Sheppard, ed., Literae Cantuarienses: The Letter Books of the Monastery at Christ Church Canterbury (3 vols., RS 1887-89, London, 1887), iii, pp. 172-176. Pouns was not rector of St Nicholas Shambles church. It is possible that he served there as a chantry priest. The writer’s thanks are due to Professor Caroline Barron for this information.

¹⁵ F. D. Logan, Runaway Religious in Medieval England c.1240-1540 (Cambridge, 1996), p. 64.

¹⁶ The Monastic Constitutions of Lanfranc, ed. Dom D. Knowles and C.N.L Brooke (Oxford, 2002), pp. 193-95.

¹⁷ Fols 10, 61.

¹⁸ Fol. 35v.

¹⁹ Fol. 36v.

²⁰ Fol. 61v.

²¹ Fols 44v, 61. Lit. Cant., iii, p. xliv.

²² Fol. 8. Presumably because he had left Christ Church.

²³ Knowles, Monastic Constitutions, p. 168.

²⁴ BL MS Arundel 68, fol. 61v.

²⁵ Keats-Rohan, ‘Testimonies of the Living Dead’, 180; 171.

²⁶ Ibid., p. 174.

²⁷ Fols 4-5v.

²⁸ For the wage-system in Benedictine monasteries, see David Knowles, The Monastic Orders in England : The End of the Middle Ages (2nd edn, Cambridge, 1963), ii, pp. 240-244. For an example of payment for chantry masses, see Canterbury Cathedral Archives DCc Feretrarian 1, 1397 ‘paid to various brothers for prayers for 2 earls Rutland and Nottingham £17.6.8’.

²⁹ For the salvation of the soul. See Arnold Angenendt, ‘How was a Confraternity Made’, p. 213.

³⁰ Fols 17v-18; fol. 16v.

³¹ D. Knowles, The Monastic Order in England: A History of its Development from the Times of St Dunstan to the Fourth Lateran Council 943-1216 (Cambridge, 1950), p. 473.

³² See, for example, Lynda Rollason, ‘The Liber Vitae of Durham and Lay Association with Durham Cathedral Priory in the Later Middle Ages’, in Monasteries and Society in Medieval Britain: Proceedings of the 1994 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. Benjamin Thompson (Stamford, 1999), 277-295, p. 283.

³³ Historical Manuscripts Commission: Appendix to Ninth Report (London, 1883), p. 104.

³⁴ Including the religious communities of St Augustine’s Abbey and St Gregory’s Priory in Canterbury, and abbeys and priories in Battle; Bristol; Charterhouse, Somerset; Cirencester; Dover; Ely; Folkestone; Glastonbury; Lincoln; Norwich; St Albans; St Edmunds; Salisbury; Tintern, County Wexford; Waltham; Wells; Winchester; and St Bertin in St Omer, France. See, for example, BL MS Arundel 68, fols 10, 25, 23, 25v, 52v, 55, 61v. An example of a notice of confraternity, between Christ Church and the conventual church of Holy Cross, Waltham, is to be found in BL MS Arundel 68, fol. 31v.

³⁵ R.W. Pfaff, ‘Martyrological Notices for Thomas Becket’, in Liturgical Calendars, Saints and Services in Medieval England (Aldershot, 1998), VIII, pp. 1-10 (p. 2).

³⁶ See L. Rollason, Liber Vitae, p. 283, where it is suggested that when the letters were returned to the monastery on the death of a confrère, note was taken, and the ceremonies for the deceased brother activated.

³⁷ See, for example, Canterbury Cathedral Archives DDc. Reg. S, fols. 217v, 218v, 222v.

³⁸ J. Rollo-Koster, ‘For Ever After: the dead in the Avignonese Confraternity of Notre Dame la Majeur (1329-1381)’, Journal of Medieval History, 25 (June, 1999), 115-141, p. 125.

³⁹ Lit. Cant. iii, pp. 140-141.

⁴⁰ The Apocalypse 20.15. See also Philippians 4.3, Exodus 32.23, Psalm 68.29.

⁴¹ For the doctrine of purgatory in the late Middle Ages see Clive Burgess, ‘A fond thing vainly invented: an essay on Purgatory and pious motive in later medieval England’, in Parish, Church and People: Local Studies in Lay Religion 1350-1750 , ed. S.J. Wright (London, 1988), 56-84.

⁴² The Rule of St Benedict, ed. J. McCann (London, 6th impression, 1995), Chapter 4.

⁴³ M. Aston, ‘Death’, in Fifteenth-century attitudes: Perceptions of Society in Late Medieval England, ed., Rosemary Horrox (Cambridge, 1994), 202-28 (pp. 202-203).

⁴⁴ The Liber Vitae of the New Minster and Hyde Abbey Winchester, ed., S Keynes, Early Manuscripts in Facsimile 26 (Copenhagen, 1996), pp. 82-83.

⁴⁵ Obituary notices are still exchanged between Benedictine houses, now often by fax or by e-mail. The Benedictine Yearbook includes an annual obituary list.

⁴⁶ ‘We have prayed for yours, pray for ours’.

47 C. Cheney, ‘Two mortuary rolls from Canterbury: devotional links of Canterbury with Normandy and the Welsh March’, in Tradition and Change, eds D. Greenaway, C. Holdsworth and J. Sayers (Cambridge, 1985), 104-105.

⁴⁸ Knowles, Constitutions, p. 131.

⁴⁹ Fol. 19v. For example, for the obit of Thomas Goldstone, see BL MS Arundel 68, fol. 63.

⁵⁰ C. Wilson, ‘The Medieval Monuments’, in Canterbury Cathedral, 451-510, p. 492.

⁵¹ Cheney, ‘Mortuary rolls’, pp. 111, 114. Most monks were buried in the Monastic cemetery or sometimes in the infirmary chapel.

⁵² For Cardinal Beaufort’s confraternity, see BL MS Arundel 68, fol. 58; Reg. S, fol. 115. See also G.L. Harriss, Cardinal Beaufort (Oxford, 1988), p. 366.

⁵³ For confraternities, see BL MS Arundel 68, fol. 53v, John Beaufort; fol. 60v, Henry IV, dated 1417, i.e. posthumously. For Beaufort burials at Canterbury Cathedral, see Mark Duffy, ‘St Michael’s Chapel, Canterbury Cathedral: a Lancastrian Mausoleum’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 123 (2003), 309-331.

⁵⁴ Fol. 19v. Stone’s ‘chronicle’ provides the only known record of the place of burial of Thomas Beaufort. His entry leaves a space for Thomas Beaufort’s title to be inserted, though this was never done.

⁵⁵ K. Stöber, Late Medieval Monasteries and their Patrons, p. 115. A chantry was an endowment of masses for the soul of a patron or benefactor for a particular period or in perpetuity. In founding a chantry chapel, a benefactor had greater influence over the terms and conditions of their memorialization and a greater personal freedom in the ordering of the liturgical practices to be celebrated in that chapel.

⁵⁶ Fols. 23v-24. Wilson, ‘Medieval Monuments’, in Canterbury Cathedral, p. 505, n. 240.

⁵⁷ Fol. 20v. See G.L. Harriss, Cardinal Beaufort: A Study of Lancastrian Ascendency and Decline (Oxford, 1988), pp. 203 and 366. For other visits see fols 21v, 22v, 23v, 33-33v; see also Griffiths, Henry VI, pp. 117, 192, 215, 278, etc.

⁵⁸ Harriss, Cardinal Beaufort, pp. 359, 367-8. In 1452, his nephew, Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, also rented Meister Omers (Lit. Cant. iii, p. 214). Edmund’s daughter Isabella was buried in St Michael’s chapel in 1453, J. Brigstocke Sheppard, ‘The Meister Omers, Canterbury’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 13 (1880), 117.

⁵⁹ Fol. 34.

⁶⁰ Fol. 35. Elham’s journey cost £12 13s. 4d. £4. 9s. was also spent on providing mourning for the servants who accompanied him. C.E. Woodruff, ‘Notes on the Inner Life and Domestic Economy of the Priory of Christ Church Canterbury in the Fifteenth Century’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 50 (1941), 1-16 (p. 10).

⁶¹ Fol. 53.

⁶² Fol. 60. William of Malmesbury notes that ‘On the anniversaries of kings, bishops, abbots and ealdormen … the brethren were obliged to celebrate mass for their souls … and do so respectfully using the ornaments that they had given to the church’. William of Malmesbury, De antiquitate Glastonie ecclesie, cited by M. Blows, ‘A Glastonbury Obit List’, in The Archaeology and History of Glastonbury Abbey: Essays in Honour of C.A. Ralegh Radford, eds L. Abrams and J.P. Carley (Woodbridge, 1991), 257-269 (p. 257).

⁶³ Fol. 72v.

⁶⁴ See, for example, Legg, J., Wickham, A. and W.H. St J. Hope, Inventories of Christchurch, Canterbury (London, 1902).

⁶⁵ J. M. Luxford, The Art and Architecture of English Benedictine Monasteries, 1300-1540 (Woodbridge, 2005), pp. 36, 72-73. A catalogue of Winchester liturgical vestments includes amongst vestments given by Cardinal Beaufort an embroidered cope ‘wrought with gold and pearles’ (p. 73).

⁶⁶ BL MS Arundel 68, fol. 1v.

⁶⁷ Ibid., fol. 58v. For William Waynflete, see Virginia Davis, William Waynflete: Bishop and Educationalist (Woodbridge, 1993).

⁶⁸ Ibid., fol. 1. See also Lit. Cant., iii, p. xviii.

⁶⁹ For Waynflete, see fols 46, 52, 71v; Rotherham, fols 87, 89v, 90.

⁷⁰ Fols 24-74. For Confraternity see BL MS Arundel 68, fol. 61.

⁷¹ Marino Orsini, Archbishop of Tarento, became archdeacon of Wiltshire in 1451, probably to gain his support for the canonisation of St Osmund. He undertook to use his influence in Rome, M. Harvey, England, Rome and the Papacy, pp. 96-97, 116.

⁷² Fol. 44v. Reg. S fol. 524, Lit. Cant., iii, pp. 255-262. For origins of the gift of wine, see Lit. Cant., i, pp. lxxvi-lxxxiii; iii, pp. xix-xxiv.

⁷³ London Lambeth Palace Manuscript 20, fol. 161.

⁷⁴ Ibid. fol. 212. See also for example BL Arundel MS 68, fols 20, 23, 55v, 57v, 60, 61v.

⁷⁵ P.H. Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon Charters: An Annotated List and Bibliography, Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks (London, 1968), nos. 153, 1188.

⁷⁶ R. Fleming, ‘Christchurch’s Sisters and Brothers: An Edition and Discussion of Canterbury Obituary Lists’, in The Culture of Christendom: Essays in Medieval History in commemoration of Dennis L.T. Bethell, ed. M.A. Meyer (London, 1993), pp. 115-53 (p. 115).

⁷⁷ For a full explanation of corrodies, see Barbara Harvey, Living and Dying in England 1100-1540: The Monastic Experience (Oxford, 1993), pp. 179-209.

⁷⁸ See, for example, Oxford Bodleian Library MS Tanner 165.

⁷⁹ See C. Barron, ‘The Parish Fraternities of Medieval London’, in The Church in Pre-Reformation Society: Essays in Honour of F.R.H. Du Boulay, ed. Caroline Barron and C. Harper-Bill (Woodbridge, 1985), pp. 14-18.

⁸⁰ J.G. Clark, ‘Monastic Confraternity in Medieval England: the Evidence from the St Albans Abbey Liber Benefactorum’, in Religious and Laity in Western Europe 1000-1400: Interaction, Negotiation and Power, eds E. Jamroziak and J. Burton (Brepols, 2006), 315-331, p. 321.

⁸¹ The writer is grateful to Dr James Clark for this information.

⁸² See K. Stöber, Late Medieval Monasteries and their Patrons: England and Wales, c.1300-1540 (Woodbridge, 2007), p. 66.

⁸³ For the St Albans Abbey register of confraternity and Liber Benefactorum, see J.G. Clark, ‘Monastic Confraternity in Medieval England’ (p. 317).

⁸⁴ The entries in the calendar in BL MS Arundel 68, fols 10-52v, were probably transferred subsequently into the official martyrology, as at Durham, see Rollason, Liber Vitae, p. 282.

⁸⁵ See, for example, Peter of Portugal, BL MS Arundel 68, fol. 57v, 1425; Louis XI of France, Arundel 68, fol. 47v, 1477.

⁸⁶ Fol. 52v. Guests recorded as being in attendance at Bourchier’s enthronement include the following listed in the Christ Church confraternity lists in BL MS Arundel 68: John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury (fol. 58v), who also received a livery from Christ Church (Bodl. MS Tanner 165, fol. 122); William Bourchier, Lord Fitzwarin (fol. 60v); John Bourchier, Lord Berners (fol. 60v); William Bourchier, Count of Eu (fol. 58v), together with other family members. For the Stafford family, see C. Rawcliffe, The Staffords, Earls of Stafford and Dukes of Buckingham, 1394-1521 (Cambridge, 1978). For John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, see A.J. Pollard, John Talbot and the War in France, 1427-1453 (London, 1983). For the political influence of these families, see M. Mercer, ‘Kent National Politics, 1437-1534: the Royal Affinity and a County Elite’ (unpubl. doctoral thesis, University of London, School of Economic and Political Science, 1994). Members of the nobility were frequently in confraternity with more than one religious house, see L. Rollason, ‘The Liber Vitae of Durham and Lay Association with Durham Cathedral Priory in the Later Middle Ages’, in Monasteries and Society in Medieval Britain: Proceedings of the 1994 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. Benjamin Thompson (Stamford, 1999), pp. 277-295.

⁸⁷ Fol. 65v.

⁸⁸ Richard Duke of York was received into confraternity in 1436, BL MS Arundel 68, fol. 61; Cecily, Duchess of York and her daugher Margaret in 1462, fol. 1.

⁸⁹ Ibid., the earl of Salisbury and his wife Alice, fol. 58; fol. 55, the earl of Warwick, fol. 55.

⁹⁰ See M. Connor, ‘The Political Allegiances of Christ Church Priory 1400-1472: the Evidence of John Stone’s Chronicle’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 127 (2007), 383-406.

⁹¹ J.G. Clark, A Monastic Renaissance at St Albans: Thomas Walsingham and his Circle c.1350-1440 (Oxford, 2004), p. 31. See also Swanson ‘Mendicants and Confraternity in Late Medieval England’, p. 121.

⁹² Lit. Cant., iii, p. 182.

⁹³ Stone recorded this event, fol. 42v. See also Lit. Cant., iii, pp. 182-183; Mercer, ‘Kent National Politics’, 1437-1534’, 34, 48. For Fiennes’ livery, see Bodl. MS Tanner 165, fol. 155v. Fiennes was on every commission of the peace between 1436-1447, see CPR, 1436-41, p. 584; CPR, 1441-6, p. 472; CPR, 1446-1452, p. 590.

⁹⁴ B. Webster, ‘The Community of Kent in the Reign of Richard II’, in Archaeologia Cantiana, 100 (1984), 217-229 (p. 219).

⁹⁵ CCA MA 4, fols. 42v, 42, 189, 226. BL MS Arundel 68, fol. 61.

⁹⁶ Mercer, ‘Kent National Politics’, 68.

⁹⁷ Lit. Cant., iii, p. 237.

⁹⁸ Mercer, ‘Kent National Politics’, 8-10.

⁹⁹ Fol. 57.

¹⁰⁰ For liveries, see Bodl. MS Tanner 165, fols 135v, 140v, 155v, 158v, 166v, 169v, 171v, 174v; for gifts, see for example Canterbury Cathedral Archives MA 4, fols 42v, 142, 226v.

¹⁰¹ Fol. 52v.

¹⁰² Payments made to lawyers are recorded regularly in the Christ Church priors’ accounts, see CCA DCc Priors’ Rolls, 6-11.

¹⁰³ Mercer, ‘Kent National Politics’, 70.

¹⁰⁴ For confraternity see BL MS Arundel 68, fol. 60v (Cheyne); fol. 61 (Browne); fol. 63v (Etchingham); fol. 55v (Septvans); and Reg. S, fol. 250v (Fogge). For liveries, see Bodl. Tanner MS 165, fol. 171v (Fogge); 174v (Horne), fols. 155v, 158v (Septvans). Stone recorded the death of Sir Thomas Etchingham in 1444, fol. 31.

¹⁰⁵ Fol. 38v. A chantry was an endowment of masses for the soul of a particular patron for a particular period or in perpetuity. For the founding of the Brenchley chantry, see Lit.Cant., iii, p. 193.

¹⁰⁶ Fol. 48. For Joanna Brenchley’s obit, ‘our sister and benefactor’, see BL MS Arundel 68, fol. 35.

¹⁰⁷ For Joan de Mohun’s obit, see BL MS Arundel 68, fol. 61. Also Lambeth MS20 fol. 227v.

¹⁰⁸ BL MS Arundel 68, fol. 59.

¹⁰⁹ See C.E. Woodruff, ‘The Chapel of Our Lady in the Crypt of Canterbury Cathedral’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 38 (1926), 153-171 (p. 157). For the 1395 agreement, see 169-171.

¹¹⁰ Fol. 78v.

¹¹¹ J.G. Clark, ‘Monastic Confraternity in Medieval England’, pp. 320-321.

¹¹² Ibid., p. 329.

¹¹³ See Smith, Canterbury Cathedral Priory, pp. 68-82; Dobson, ‘Monks of Canterbury’, in Canterbury Cathedral, pp. 94-97.

¹¹⁴ DCc Prior’s Roll 10 (1455-6).

¹¹⁵ Priors’ Roll 10 (1455-6).

¹¹⁶ Priors’ Roll 9 (1453-4), 10 (1455-6).

¹¹⁷ BL MS Arundel 68, fols 1v, 3v; Oxford Bodl. Tanner MS 165, fol. 155v.

¹¹⁸ Ibid., fol. 155v, etc.

¹¹⁹ Fol. 62. John Harvey, English Medieval Architects: a biographical dictionary down to 1550 (Gloucester, 1987), p. 17. BL MS Arundel 68, fol. 61v.

¹²⁰ Fol. 69; BL MS Arundel 68, fol. 61.

¹²¹ Lit. Cant., iii, p. 315; Priors’ Register S363v.

¹²² Centre for Kentish Studies, PRC 17/6/29; PRC 32/12/132; PRC 17/19353. The writer’s thanks are due to Dr Sheila Sweetinburgh for providing references to testamentary bequests.

¹²³ The deportum (often referred to as a misericord in other monasteries) was a ‘common room’ where the serving of meat was allowed.

¹²⁴ For the keeping of anniversaries at Westminster Abbey, see B. Harvey, Living and Dying in England 1100-1540 (Oxford, 1993), pp. 29-30.

¹²⁵ Dobson, ‘Monks of Canterbury’, in Canterbury Cathedral, p. 145.

¹²⁶ Reg. N., fols 182v, 239v; Lit.Cant., iii, pp. 210-121, 257.

¹²⁷ Rule, Chapter 72.