1190. into the Abbey, where he found the King and denounced to him the two prelates of Canterbury and Ely. At last the feud was reconciled, on the Bishop of Ely's positive denial of the outrage, and the two Primates were bound by the King to keep the peace for five years. It led to the final settlement of the question, as it has remained ever since, by a Papal edict, giving to one the title of the Primate of All England, to the other of the Primate of England. At another council, held apparently in the Precincts, the less important precedence between the bishops of London and Winchester was settled, London taking the right, and Winchester the left of the legate. Here, in the presence of Archbishop (afterwards Saint) Edmund, Henry III., with the Gospel in one hand and a lighted taper in the other, swore to observe the Magna Charta. The Archbishop and Prelates, and Excommunithe King himself, dashed their candles on the ground, transgressors whilst each dignitary closed his nostrils and his eyes Charta, 1252. against the smoke and smell, with the words, So go out, with smoke and stench, the accursed souls of those who break or pervert the Charter.' To which all replied, Amen and Amen; but none more frequently or loudly than the King.' Yet he took not away the High Places,' exclaims the honest chronicler, and again and again he collected and 'spent his money, till, oh shame! his folly by constant repetition came to be taken as a matter of course.' Perhaps of all the councils which the Precincts witnessed (the exact spot is not mentioned) the most important was that which sanctioned the expulsion of the Jews from England.^ 6 6 cation of of Magna 1290. We have now traversed the monastic Precincts. We would fain have traced in them, as in the Abbey itself, the course of English history. But it has not been possible. Isolated incidents of general interest are interwoven with the growth of the Convent, but nothing more, unless it be the Growth of gradual rise of the English character and language. English. It was at first strictly a Norman institution. As a general rule, So in France the Archbishop of Lyons was styled by the Pope Primate of Gaul,' and the Archbishop of Vienne Primate of Primates.' A like rivalry existed in the Irish Church, between the Archbishop of Armagh and the Archbishop of Dublin. In the Protestant Church the question has long been determined in favour of the Lord Primate of Armagh.' But in the Roman Catholic Church even the See of Rome has not ventured to decide between the two rivals. (Fitzpatrick's Doyle, ii. 76.) 2 Diceto, 656. Another was held in 1200. (Ibid. 707.) 3 Matt. Paris, p. 742. Grossetete, Letters, 72, p. 236, ed. Luard. Hardouin's Concilia, A.D. 1290. Pauli, iv. 53. English was never to be spoken in common conversation--nor even Latin-nothing but French. And the double defeat of the Saxons, first from the Danes at Assenden, and then from the Normans at Hastings, was carefully commemorated. But still the tradition of the English Saxon home of St. Edward lingered. It is expressly noted that the ancient Saxon practice of raising the cup from the table with both hands, which had prevailed before the Norman Conquest, still continued at the monastic suppers. One of the earliest specimens of the English language is the form of vow, which is permitted to those who cannot speak French, Hic frere N. hys hole stedfastness and chaste lyf, at fore God and alle hys halewen, and pat hic sallen bonsum' liven withouten properte all my ' lyf tyme.' Neither can we arrive at any certain knowledge of their obedience or disobedience to the rules of their order. Only now and then, through edicts of kings and abbots, Discipline. we discern the difficulty of restraining the monks from galloping over the country away from conventual restraint, or, in the popular legends, engaged in brawls with a traditionary giantess and virago of the place in Henry VIII.'s reign-Long Meg of Westminster.3 Special devotions. We ask in vain for the peculiarities of the several Chapels which sprang up round the Shrine, or for the general appearance of the worship. The faint allusions in Abbot Ware's rules reveal here and there the gleam of a lamp burning at this or that altar, or at the tomb of Henry III., and of the two Saxon Queens, or in the four corners of the Cloisters or in the Chapter House. We see at certain times the choir hung with ivy, rushes, and mint. We detect at night the watchers, with lights by their sides, sleeping in the Church. A lofty Crucifix met the eyes of those who entered through the North Transept; another rose above the High Altar; another, deeply venerated, in the Chapel of St. Paul. We catch indications of altars of St. Thomas of Canterbury, of St. Helena, of the Holy Trinity, and of the Holy Cross, of 5 This is a translation of the French 'à ki je serai obedient.' Ware, c. 26. 2 Archives. Tract on Long Meg of Westminster, in Miscellanea Antiqua Anglicana. See Ben Jonson's Fortunate Isles: • Or Westminster Meg, With her long leg, As long as a crane, She is introduced as a character on the Ware. 5 Chapter IV. and Islip Roll. which the very memory has perished. The altar of St. Faith 1 stood in the Revestry; the chapel and altar of St. Blaize in the South Transept. The relics 2 given by Henry III. Relics. and Edward I. have been already mentioned; the 3 Egelric, Phial of the Sacred Blood, the Girdle of the Virgin, the tooth of St. Athanasius, the head of St. Benedict. And we have seen their removal from place to place, as the royal tombs encroached upon them; how they occupied first the place of honour eastward of the Confessor's shrine; then, in order to make way for Henry V.'s chantry, were transported to the space between the shrine and the tomb of Henry III., whence they were again dislodged, or threatened to be dislodged, by the intended tomb of Henry VI. A spot of peculiar sanctity existed from the times of the first Norman kings, which perhaps can still be identified on the south-eastern side of the Abbey. Egelric, Bishop of Durham in the time of the Grave of Confessor, was a characteristic victim of the vicissi- 1072. tudes of that troubled period. Elevated from the monastery of Peterborough, in 1041, to the see of York, he was driven from his newly-acquired dignity, by the almost natural' jealousy of the seculars, and degraded in 1042, if such an expression may be used, to the hardly less important see of Durham. From Durham he was expelled by the same influence in 1045, and again restored by the influence of Siward of Northumberland.1 In 1056 he resigned his see and retired to his old haunts at Peterborough. There, either from suspicion of malversation of the revenues of Durham, or of treasonable excommunications at Peterborough, he was, in 1069, arrested by order of the Conqueror, and imprisoned at Westminster. He lived there for two years, during which, by fasting and tears, he so ' attenuated and purged away his former crimes as to acquire a reputation for sanctity,' and, on his death in 1072, was buried in the porch of the Chapel of St. Nicholas," ordering his fetters to be buried with him, to increase his chance of a martyr's glory. This is the earliest mention of that Chapel. 6 1 This had already been conjectured by Sir Gilbert Scott from the fresco of a female saint with the emblems of St. Faith, a book and an iron rod; and the statement in Ware that the Altar of St. Faith was under the charge of the Revestiarius, puts it beyond doubt. (See Old London, p. 146; Gleanings, p. 47.) 2 For the whole list see Flete, c. xiv. Occasionally they were lent out by the monks. See Appendix. 4 Simeon of Durham; (Hist. Eccl. Dur. iii. 6;) Worcester Chron. A.D. 1073; Peterborough Chron., A.D. 1972; Ann. Wav., A.D. 1072; Flor. Wig., A.D. 1072; Hugo Candidus, p. 45. iii. 5 Malmesbury, De. Gest. Port. Hiq. The grave which, seventy years after, was honoured by the vows and prayers of pilgrims,' is therefore probably under the southern wall of the Abbey; and it is an interesting thought that in the stone coffin recently found near that spot Pilgrimages. we may perhaps have seen the skeleton of the sanctified prisoner Egelric. The Confessor's shrine was, however, of course the chief object. But no Chaucer has told us of the pilgrimages to it, whether few or many: no record reveals to us the sentiments which animated the inmates of the Convent, or the congregations who worshipped within its walls, towards the splendid edifice of which it was the centre. The Bohemian travellers in the fifteenth century record the admiration inspired by the golden sepulchre of St. Keuhard,' or St. Edward,' the ceiling more delicate and elegant than they had seen elsewhere ;' 6 the musical service lovely to hear;' and, above all, the unparalleled number of relics, 'so numerous that two scribes writing for two weeks, could hardly make a catalogue of 'them.' In the close of the fifteenth century we can see the conventual artists hard at work in beautifying the various Chapels. Their ceilings, their images, were all newly painted. Painters. An alabaster image of the Virgin was placed in the Chapel of St. Paul, and a picture of the Dedication of the Abbey. Over the tomb of Sebert were placed pictures, probably those which still exist. Then was added the Apocalyptic series round the walls of the Chapter House. Then we read of a splendid new Service Book, highly decorated and illumninated, and presented, by subscriptions from the Abbot and eight monks. As the end draws near, there is no slackening of artistic zeal. As we have seen, no Abbot was more devoted to the work of decoration and repair than Islip, and of all the grand ceremonials of the Middle Ages in the Abbey, there is none of which we have a fuller description than that one which contains within itself all the preludes of the end. Reception of Wolsey's For it was when Islip was Abbot that there arrived for Wolsey the Cardinal's red hat from Rome. He thought it for 'his honour meet' that so high a jewel should not be Ilat, 1515. conveyed by so simple a messenger as popular rumour had imagined, and accordingly 'caused him to be stayed by the way, and newly furnished in all manner of apparel, with all Cavendish's Wolsey, 29, 30. 1 Cartulary. 6 1515. Νον. 15. 'kinds of costly silks which seemed decent for such high ambas'sador.' That done, he was met at Blackheath, and escorted in pomp to London. There was great and speedy provision ' and preparation made in Westminster Abbey for the confir'mation of his high dignity . . . which was done,' says his biographer, 'in so solemn a wise as I have not seen the like unless it had been at the coronation of a mighty prince or 'king.' We can hardly doubt that he chose the Abbey now, as, on a subsequent occasion, for the convocation of York, in order to be in a place beyond the jurisdiction of the rival primate. What follows shows how completely he succeeded in establishing his new precedence over the older dignity. On Thursday, Nov. 15, the prothonotary entered London with the Hat in his hand, attended by a splendid escort of prelates and nobles, the Bishop of Lincoln riding on his right, and the Earl of Essex on his left, having with them 'six horses or above, and they all well becoming, and keeping a good order in their proceeding.' 'The Mayor of London and the Aldermen on horseback in Cheapside, and the craft 'stood in the street, after their custom.' It was an arrival such as we have seen but once in our day, of a beautiful Princess coming from a foreign land to be received as a daughter of England. At the head of this procession the Hat moved on, and when the said Hatt was come to the Abbey of 'Westminster,' at the great north entrance, it was welcomed by the Abbot Islip, and beside him, the Abbots of St. Albans, Bury, Glastonbury, Reading, Gloucester, Winchester, Tewkesbury, and the Prior of Coventry, all in pontificalibus.' By them the Hat was honourably received, and conveyed to the 'High Altar, where it was sett." On Sunday the 18th the Cardinal, with a splendid retinue on horseback, knights, barons, bishops, earls, dukes, and archbishops,' came between eight and nine from his palace by Charing Cross. They dismounted at the north door, and went to the high 'altar, where, on the south side, was ordained a goodly traverse for my Lord Cardinal, and when his Grace was come into it,' then, as if after waiting for a personage more than royal, 'immediately began the mass of the Holy Ghost, sung by the 'Archbishop of Canterbury (Warham). The Bishop of Rochester (Fisher) acted as crosier to my Lord of Canterbury.' The ous narrative in Hook's Archbishops of Canterbury, v. 250. 6 6 6 After its long and fatiguing journey from Italy.' See the humor Nov. 18. |