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4. Wenlok's Quarrel with Prior Reginald de Hadham4
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 December 2009
Abstract
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- Type
- Introduction
- Information
- Camden Fourth Series , Volume 2: Documents Illustrating the Rule of Walter de Wenlok, Abbot of Westminister, 1283–1307 , July 1965 , pp. 17 - 24
- Copyright
- Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1965
References
page 17 note 5 W.A.M. 9508; see Pearce, , op. cit., pp. 202–3Google Scholar. This document is only a draft.
page 17 note 6 W.A.M. 9496. This is also the source for the events which follow, except the appeal to the General Chapter. On 25 Sept. 1307 the king appointed a commission of four to inquire into the disputes at the Abbey (C.P.R., 1307–1313, p. 361).Google Scholar
page 18 note 1 Snappe's Formulary and Other Records, ed. Salter, H. E. and Galbraith, V. H. (Oxford Hist. Soc., lxxx, 1924), pp. 367–68Google Scholar. See also ibid., pp. 349–50. There is no evidence that the General Chapter met (Chapters of the English Black Monks, i, p. 295)Google Scholar; the document was read to an informal gathering at Gloucester College on 21 Sept.
page 18 note 2 Hadham is said variously to have produced sixteen compurgators in all and seventeen monks with chaplains and priests as well (W.A.M. 9496). It seems clear that he tried to find twenty-four monks but failed, and then fell back on the claim that only sixteen were needed for a canonical purgation. The canonical rule was that the number of compurgators should vary according to the quality of the offence and the quality of the person. See Glossa Ordinaria (Parmensis) (Venice, 1498), and Henricus de Bartholomaeis (Hostiensis), In I–V Decretalium Libros Commentaria (Venice, 1581), comments on Decret. Greg. IX, lib. V, tit. xxxiv, cap. x; in this decretal fourteen compurgators were required for a clerk's purgation in a case of heresy. (I am grateful to Canon E. W. Kemp for these references and for a further reference below, p. 24, n. 1.)
page 18 note 3 III. 7.
page 19 note 1 W.A.M. 5670; see Robinson, J. Armitage, Gilbert Crispin, Abbot of West-minster (Cambridge, 1911), p. 41Google Scholar. The endorsement extenta conventus Westm' is in a later hand. Armitage Robinson suggested that this document was drawn up in the vacancy which followed the death of Abbot Gilbert in 1117 (ibid., p. 44); if so, the perpetual assignment to the kitchen had already taken effect.
page 18 note 2 Customary, ii, p. 149Google Scholar; Flete, p. 87Google Scholar. Henry III confirmed this grant in 1252 (W.A.M. 1497).
page 19 note 3 III. 1.
page 19 note 4 III. 2.
page 19 note 5 III. 3.
page 19 note 6 III. 4–5.
page 19 note 7 See below, p. 238, note.
page 19 note 8 See I. 167, note. In 1225 the farm of Denham (£15) had been allotted to the prior and convent (below, p. 217); after 1292 they continued to receive an equivalent sum (W.A.M. 19838, 19840–42).
page 19 note 9 See below, p. 239 and note.
page 19 note 10 I. 2, 9. These suggest that Brother Thomas de Lenton was warden of the walls early in Wenlok's abbacy; and in the minister's account for ‘Eye’ in 1302–3 there is a definite reference to a monk-warden of the walls (W.A.M. 26868). This official was distinct from the monk-warden of ‘La Neyte’.
page 20 note 1 Below, p. 235.
page 20 note 2 Below, p. 230; see also p. 221.
page 20 note 3 See I. 156 and note, 230; below, pp. 169, 212.
page 20 note 4 Below, p. 239. In 1288 the convent had been promised 20 marks from the rents of the fair after Wenlok's death to pay for his anniversary (Flete, p. 120).Google Scholar
page 20 note 5 W.A.M. 9499A; see Graham, R., English Ecclesiastical Studies (London, 1929), p. 304Google Scholar. In 1306 the prior and convent paid a ‘courtesy’ of £3 to papal nuncios (Lunt, W. E., Financial Relations of the Papacy with England to 1327 (Cambridge, Mass., 1939), pp. 557–58).Google Scholar
page 20 note 6 I. 241 and note; below, pp. 219, 230.
page 20 note 7 W.A.M. 5671; see Pearce, , Walter de Wenlok, p. 204.Google Scholar
page 20 note 8 In Aug. 1307 several monks testified that, after his blessing as abbot, Wenlok swore to observe the compositions (W.A.M. 9497). Presumably he had been present in chapter before his election, when all the monks swore to observe them (below, p. 232).
page 21 note 1 Below, pp. 218–19, 227.
page 21 note 2 Below, p. 230.
page 21 note 3 Below, p. 228.
page 21 note 4 Below, p. 238 and note.
page 21 note 5 W.A.M. 9496, 9508; see Pearce, , Walter de Wenlok, pp. 202–3.Google Scholar
page 21 note 6 Flete, p. 118.Google Scholar
page 21 note 7 W.A.M. 5415 (see Pearce, , op. cit., p. 225Google Scholar); below, pp.235, 238. If it was intended that the sub-prior should count as a deputy-obedientiary and be appointed by the prior, the appointment of Brother Henry Payn as sub-prior in 1307 (below, p. 27 and note) becomes significant, for he was the abbot's receiver and, in the final crisis, his strong supporter.
page 22 note 1 Below, pp. 229, 230.
page 22 note 2 W.A.M. 9496. See also Pearce, , Walter de Wenlok, pp. 202–3.Google Scholar
page 22 note 3 This account has been reconstructed from the acta of the judges delegate in Aldenham's case (W.A.M. 9494–95) and in Hadham's case (W.A.M. 9496) and from the record of the examination of witnesses hostile to Wenlok in Aug. 1307 (W.A.M. 9497). None of these sources gives the exact stage at which Aldenham was excommunicated; it seems likely that this followed his exit from the house under licence from the suspended prior. Excommunication was the canonical penalty for a recalcitrant fugitive (Corpus Juris Canonici, ed. Friedberg, (Leipzig, 1879–1881)Google Scholar, ii, Decret. Greg. IX, lib. III, tit. xxxi, cap. xxiv). Pearce, (op. cit., pp. 198–201)Google Scholar gives a short account of Aldenham's appeal.
page 22 note 4 W.A.M. 9494–96. We learn of the banishment from W.A.M. 9496.
page 22 note 5 His sentence may have had the king's support, for on 2 Sept. Wenlok referred to a royal mandate about Aldenham of which Hadham had impeded the execution (W.A.M. 9496).
page 22 note 6 Brothers William de Almaly, Walter de Arkesden, Gwydo de Aswell, Henry de Bircheston, Robert de Blith, Robert de Bures, William de Glastingber', John de London, Ralph de Morton, John de Nottele, Robert de Reding, Robert de Sancto Martino, Richard de Waltham, Thomas de Woburn deposed against Wenlok and supported Hadham on 2 Sept. (W.A.M. 9496–97). Brother Jordan de Wratting deposed but is not named as a compurgator. Brothers Richard de Coleworth and Richard de Fanelore did not depose but are named as compurgators. Brother Jordan may have been the seventeenth compurgator whose existence Hadham later concealed (above, p. 18, note).
page 23 note 1 Fanelore, Waltham, Wratting (Monks, pp. 55, 56).Google Scholar
page 23 note 2 Bures, de Sancto Martino (ibid., pp. 57, 58).
page 23 note 3 Arkesden (treasurer, chamberlain); Bircheston (chamberlain); Coleworth (treasurer); Fanelore (almoner, infirmarer, ? treasurer); Morton (cellarer); Wratting (chamberlain, treasurer, pittancer; also granger, sub-prior and warden of Queen Eleanor's manors). For Morton's cellarership see Antient Kalendars [and Inventories of the Treasury of His Majesty's Exchequer], ed. Palgrave, F., i (Record Comm., 1836), p. 269Google Scholar; references to the obediences held by the other monks in this list will be found in Monks, pp. 55 ff.Google Scholar
page 23 note 4 Bircheston (steward); Fanelore (receiver); Morton (chaplain and steward). See below, pp. 24–27. Hadham and Aldenham also were at one time receivers for the abbot.
page 23 note 5 Fifty professed monks received spice money in Dec. 1307 (below, p. 212).
page 23 note 6 Below, p. 236.
page 24 note 1 Esmein, A., History of Continental Criminal Procedure (trans. Simpson, J., London, 1914), p. 89.Google Scholar
page 24 note 2 Antient Kalendars, ed. Palgrave, , i, p. 266Google Scholar. He was imprisoned, however, for a short time (below, p. 43 and note).
page 24 note 3 Antient Kalendars, ed. Palgrave, , i, pp. 253 ff.Google Scholar
page 24 note 4 On 14 July 1308 the king appointed a commission of five to enquire into the dissensions at the Abbey (C.P.R., 1307–1313, p. 124Google Scholar); on 23 May 1310 he addressed to the prior of Westminster a letter strongly critical of the lax discipline of the monastery (W.A.M. 12786, quoted in V.C.H. London, i (London, 1909), p. 442).Google Scholar
page 24 note 5 Above, p. 16.
page 24 note 6 Pearce, , Walter de Wenlok, pp. 168–69, 202–3.Google Scholar
page 24 note 7 Monks of Westminster (Cambridge, 1916).Google Scholar