Title: The Abbey of St. Albans from 1300 to the dissolution of the monasteries : The Stanhope essay, 1911
Author: Galbraith, Vivian H.
Language: English
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1300 TO THE DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES ***



The Abbey of St. Albans



                        The Abbey of St. Albans
                      from 1300 to the Dissolution
                           of the Monasteries


                           THE STANHOPE ESSAY
                                  1911

                                   BY
                          VIVIAN H. GALBRAITH
                         MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY
                       SCHOLAR OF BALLIOL COLLEGE


                                 Oxford
                     B. H. BLACKWELL, BROAD STREET

                                 London
                    SIMPKIN, MARSHALL & CO., LIMITED

                                 MCMXI



CONTENTS.


                                                                    PAGE
  INTRODUCTORY                                                        3

   I. THE REVIVAL WITHIN THE ABBEY DURING THE 14TH CENTURY           11

  II. THE NECESSITY FOR DISSOLUTION                                  35

        (_A_) SKETCH OF THE ECONOMIC HISTORY, 1300–1539              36

        (_B_) DECAY OF THE MONASTIC SPIRIT IN THE 15TH CENTURY       47

  APPENDIX. THE ACCOUNT OF WILLIAM WALLINGFORD   IN THE ‘LIVES
          AND BENEFACTIONS OF THE LATER ABBOTS’                      73

  LIST OF THE ABBOTS OF ST. ALBANS FROM 1300 TO 1539                 75

  A LIST OF THE CHIEF AUTHORITIES                                    76



Introductory.


In the later Middle Ages the Abbey of St. Albans was the most
brilliant, though by no means the wealthiest,[1] of the English
monasteries. There was ample reason for this pre-eminence. Proximity
to London kept its members abreast of the times and freed them from
the stain of provincialism, and its position on the Great North Road
ensured as its frequent guests the greatest men in the kingdom. Its
hospitality became proverbial, and Matthew Paris records that there
was room in the monastic stables for three hundred horses at one time.
Always, too, there was the glamour of literary greatness as well as
its association with St. Alban,[2] England’s proto-martyr, whose
genuine relics by universal consent it was admitted to possess. Besides
these special traits the Abbey bore the usual insignia of exempt
houses--royal foundation, a wide franchise with episcopal jurisdiction,
and a place for its abbot among the Lords in Parliament. The homage of
some twelve daughter houses or cells, while not increasing its material
prosperity, added considerably to its dignity.

[Sidenote: Growth of St. Albans Legend.]

The growth of the St. Albans legend is proof that it was no unconscious
greatness the members enjoyed. In the eleventh century, when the
monastery had become ‘the school of religious observance for all
England’ arose the idea of a miraculous origin; it received final
consecration in the narrative of Matthew Paris. Henceforth, it was
sober history that King Offa founded the Abbey on August 1st, 793,
when the ground opened miraculously, revealing the body of the martyr
himself with a golden band around his forehead inscribed with his name.
From this point its history was made to run on without a break; the
names of successive abbots were given with the dates of their reigns,
and the acquisition of existing possessions attributed to various of
them by a method hidden from us. From a great deal of tradition little
more can be deduced than that the Abbey was of royal foundation and
exempt from episcopal jurisdiction, that it was early endowed with a
wide franchise, and, by analogy, that morals and discipline would be by
no means strict in Anglo-Saxon times.

[Sidenote: Effect of the Conquest.]

With the advent of the Norman Conquest we are on surer ground. Under
Abbot Paul (1077–1097) the Abbey was purged of the abuses of the
Anglo-Saxon period and a stricter discipline enforced, although only
by the loss of exemption from episcopal control. The monastery was
now rebuilt on a more magnificent scale, and for nearly two centuries
St. Albans was a model house. Under the saintly John de Cella
(1195–1214), a stern ascetic, the House perhaps reached its zenith.
At no other time were feasts and vigils so strictly observed by the
monks, who for fifteen years gave up drinking wine in order that the
refectory and dormitory, then ruinous, might be rebuilt. During the
Norman period St. Albans had been endowed by many gifts of manors.
On some of these cells were founded,[3] but most of them were simply
absorbed into the monastic estates, and of course brought within the
Abbot’s jurisdiction. The effect of this territorial enrichment of
the monastery was twofold. First, it tended to subordinate religious
to secular functions: the Abbot became primarily a man of business
absorbed in the administration of the estates. Secondly, it attracted
the covetous glances of needy kings and popes. At the very commencement
of the thirteenth century the Abbot had to face a reorganised Papacy
intent upon obtaining funds for the realisation of its strong political
ambitions. The Abbey had scarcely escaped the jurisdiction of the
Bishop of Lincoln[4] (1163) when it fell under stricter subjection
to Pope Innocent III. For the future each abbot was to go in person
to Rome to secure confirmation of his election, that is to say to be
mulcted in a vast sum of money.[5] In a lesser degree the monastery
was menaced by the Crown. Every vacancy put the convent at the mercy
of the King’s escheator, who in practice could, and often did, exact
far more than the sums to which he was entitled. Indeed, both kings and
popes were coming to regard the Abbey as a sure source of wealth in any
emergency, and they did not scruple to multiply excuses for continual
exactions.[6] These dangers of papal and kingly oppression were
self-evident, but in the gradual disintegration of feudal society lay a
more subtle peril. The monastery’s failure to adapt itself to the new
system of relationships which were springing up on lay estates brought
upon it the further misfortune of unpopularity.

[Sidenote: Decay of the Monastery.]

The disfavour incurred by the attempt to retain the manorial system was
increased when the organisation itself began to show signs of decay.
The decline of religious fervour was followed by a gradual relaxation
of monastic discipline, and comparative luxury invaded the cloister.
After the death of John of Berkhamstead in 1301 the extent of the
falling off began to be apparent. For the next generation the convent
was in an unhealthy condition. But though weakened, the organisation
was far from being destroyed. At times like this the traditional
routine was invaluable. The writing of history, for instance, was
continued, and the period is still known to us by the works of John de
Trokelowe and Henry de Blaneford, contemporary chroniclers.

At this point our subject begins. The period may be broken up into two
parts, and a line of division is supplied by the year 1396, in which
Abbot Thomas de la Mare died. Taking our stand, first at 1396, and then
at the Dissolution of the Monasteries, we shall look back over the two
periods under review and summarize the chief tendencies by which they
are marked.[7]



I.

The Revival within the Abbey during the 14th Century.


The ‘fourteenth century revival’ is perhaps too dignified a name
for the feeble efforts at reformation in the majority of English
monasteries. Most houses failed utterly to arrest the decay that
had set in during the thirteenth century, and for the rest of their
existence underwent a slow internal dissolution which was merely
consummated by the measures of Henry VIII. To this rule there were
exceptions. At Bury St. Edmunds,[8] for instance, while John Tymworth
was abbot (1379–1390), there was a marked revival accompanied by a
little outburst of chronicle writing. More important was the recovery
of St. Albans, where a conscious effort towards reform is the main
thread of its history. The reigns of four abbots which cover the first
half of the century witnessed the restoration of discipline: the long
abbacy of Thomas de la Mare (1349–1396) was devoted to the repair of
the Abbey finances, which had been depleted by the frequent vacancies.
The steps by which first the rule, and then the finances, were
strengthened indicate considerable continuity of reforming purpose in
successive abbots.

[Sidenote: Reform of the Discipline.]

The regulations issued by John de Maryns[9] (1302–1308) for the
reform of the convent and cells reveal the extent of the decay. The
rule of silence, it appears, had been all but forgotten; swearing
had grown common, and monks, forgetful of their vow of poverty, were
found to possess private property. In the cells the state of affairs
was even more deplorable. Brethren were known to insult the priors,
whose authority had grown too weak to ensure adequate punishment of
offenders. Reference is made to the existence of immorality in the
convent. It was necessary to prohibit brethren from intercourse with
women, from wandering about singly, and from drinking in the town. The
possession of greyhounds for hunting was also forbidden.

Such was the condition of the convent and cells in the first years of
the century. Abbot Maryns, though willing and anxious to carry out
the necessary reformation, was not strong enough to enforce his will
upon the monks. Moreover, the penalties prescribed for offences in his
regulations were wholly inadequate, and to this must be attributed the
persistence of the evils which they were intended to cure.

The decline of discipline during the last years of the thirteenth
century had been accompanied by a loosening of the authority of the
mother abbey over its cells. It appears that some of them were not
prepared to admit even a nominal dependence on the abbot. Making as its
pretext the huge exactions of Hugh of Eversdon (Maryns’ successor), the
cell of Binham,[10] led by its Prior, William Somerton, and supported
by the local gentry, broke into open revolt. A long contest followed,
with appeals to both King and Pope, but in the end the abbot was
successful. The rebellious priory was brought back to its allegiance,
and Hugh of Eversdon proceeded systematically to extract formal
submissions from the several cells. A grave feature of the quarrel
with Binham was the influence exerted by Thomas of Lancaster, Sir Hugh
Despenser, and various notables who contrived more than once to force
the hand of the abbot. The interference of laymen in the affairs of the
monastery is a sure sign of its weakness.

Abbot Hugh was a poor creature to govern so great a House. Avaricious,
vain, extortionate, a pampered favourite of Edward II, he oppressed
the cells and exasperated the townsmen. On his death in 1327 the
latter broke into revolt. The whole of England was at this time in a
state of anarchy and wretchedness only too clearly reflected in the
condition of St. Albans. The House was desperately poor and burdened
with debt, and the moral condition of the monks is admitted by the
chronicler to have been very low. Degeneracy, in fact, had gone to
greater lengths than at the beginning of the century. The Constitutions
of Abbot Wallingford[11] deal with the most elementary rules of
conduct and morality, the frequent breach of which could be the only
reason for their publication. The Abbot, however, was a saintly man,
and made persistent efforts to correct abuses. In a formal visitation
of the cells he punished severely all cases of incontinence, and
having compiled two books of statutes, did his best to enforce them.
The monks, unused to so strict a master, grumbled at Wallingford’s
severity, but before his death matters had begun definitely to mend. In
his later years he even had leisure to turn his attention to the cells.
The Priory of Redburn was completely re-organised, and the government
of the dependent house of St. Mary de Prez systematised for the first
time.

Michael de Mentmore (1335–1349), who succeeded Richard Wallingford
as abbot, continued the work of reform on the lines laid down by
his predecessor, devoting much attention to the cells. He did what
he could to make the life of the leper brethren of St. Julian more
tolerable, and drew up a new rule for the nuns of Sopwell. A peculiar
interest attaches to the rule of this Michael Mentmore. His local
effort towards reform came into contact with the wider attempt of Pope
Benedict XII to improve the Benedictine Order. With the increasing
lethargy of the Black Monks, the intervals between General Chapters had
grown greater and greater. Benedict XII abolished the two provinces
into which hitherto the English Benedictines had been divided and
revived triennial General Chapters meeting at Northampton. To Abbot
Michael, significantly enough, the Pope entrusted the execution of
these measures. The abbot entered heartily into the work, exhorting
and encouraging individuals and actively helping in the restoration of
religion in places where it had altogether decayed.

[Sidenote: The Abbacy of Thomas de la Mare.]

Thus when Abbot Michael, having been struck down by the Black Death,
was succeeded by Thomas de la Mare, the foundations of reform had been
laid. It fell to the lot of the new abbot to complete and adorn the
work begun by his predecessors.

Thomas de la Mare, who ruled the Abbey for almost fifty years, has
perhaps left a deeper mark on the history of St. Albans than any
other abbot. He was no mere political prelate. For his age he was
what would be called a good man; but before all things he was an able
administrator and a stern though just ruler. Indefatigable in upholding
the convent’s rights against every outside power, he knew no compromise
in his exaction of full obedience from all within the House. To his
biographer, credulity, the employment of unworthy officers and his
lavish outlay as President of General Chapters were the only flaws
in an otherwise perfect character. No censure is passed upon his
craftiness in evading the Statute of Mortmain, nor are certain acts of
crude revenge adversely commented upon. Besides supreme ability, he
certainly possessed an exceptional personality, and towards the close
of his life was regarded almost as a saint by the brethren.[12] The
greatest of the later abbots, he has perhaps suffered unduly at the
hands of his editor, who conceived of him only ‘as that most litigious
of abbots ... Thomas de la Mare.’[13] His tenants do not appear to have
looked upon him as a tyrant. The orderly character of the revolt of
1381 at St. Albans was in marked contrast with the scenes of pillage
and murder at Bury St. Edmunds. The St. Albans tenants rose to assert
their rights--the men of Bury to avenge their wrongs.

Abbot Thomas displayed an astonishing activity in every department
of monastic life. The church services were entirely revised, and
particular care was bestowed upon the singing, for the regulation of
which the Abbot drew up a new ordinal. A series of practical reforms
followed; in monastery and cells the discipline was more strictly
enforced. The general raising of the monastic standard was exemplified
by his refusal to admit illiterate nuns into the house of St. Mary
de Prez, and by his careful provisions regulating the duties of the
Benedictine students at Oxford. At first, indeed, the rigidness of
his discipline caused many of the monks to grumble, and some even
to secede. But his method was effective. Before long the Abbey grew
famous, not only in England, but on the Continent, and monks were often
sent to St. Albans to be trained in monastic discipline for the benefit
of their own houses.

The position of St. Albans as the premier Benedictine house was
recognised by the election of the Abbot as president of the successive
General Chapters at Northampton. In these assemblies De la Mare issued
a comprehensive series of constitutions on the discipline of the
Order. Looking to the future of learning, he directed every abbot and
prior to maintain at Gloucester Hall[14] (Oxford) a number of students
proportionate to the size of his house. He himself supported many more
students than the number of his monks required. Edward III’s commission
to the Abbot to visit all the monasteries in the King’s presentation is
a striking tribute to his thoroughness. A visitation of Abbot Thomas
was far from being a mere formality, and shed a valuable sidelight
on the condition of many a great abbey.[15] ‘In them,’ says the
chronicler, ‘religion had well-nigh disappeared.’ The proper conduct of
the monastic rule had been forgotten, and serious abuses were rife. At
the Abbeys of Eynsham, Abingdon and Battle, De la Mare worked wonders
of reform; at Reading he composed differences between the Abbot and
the monks who had practically risen in rebellion; at Chester he took
the extreme step of deposing the Abbot. For these services he was
made a Privy Councillor, and henceforth stood in high favour with
Edward III. St. Albans, in fact, was at the height of its reputation.
The story seriously told in the chronicle of De la Mare, in a moment
of despondency, only being dissuaded from resigning his abbacy by the
repeated supplications of King John of France[16] and the Black Prince
sufficiently illustrates his social eminence. As for the Abbey, it
even eclipsed its old rival, the Abbey of Westminster. It was in vain
the Abbot of Westminster claimed the first seat among the abbots in
Parliament. So long as de la Mare lived, that seat was occupied by the
more important, more brilliant figure of the Abbot of St. Albans.

[Sidenote: Reform of the Finances.]

Its inability to resist kingly and papal extortion during the
thirteenth century left the Abbey in a state of miserable poverty.
Financial comfort could be restored only by regulating these exactions.
This the abbots appear to have realised, and John of Berkhampstead’s
(1290–1301) new arrangement[17] with the King is the first step towards
a remedy of the evil. The existing debt was cancelled, and the Abbey
secured possession of the revenues during a vacancy in return for a
payment of 1,000 marks. Any advantage which this exclusion of the
King’s escheator might have conferred upon the Abbey was nullified by
the unhappy occurrence of no less than five vacancies between 1290 and
1349. Each of these involved not only the payment of 1000 marks to the
King, but a far more serious expenditure to secure papal confirmation.
The financial embarrassment of the House surely increased.[18] As a
result of a special appeal to the Pope, Abbot Hugh secured a licence
to receive special subsidies from the cells in order to lighten the
debt.[19] But from papal exactions there was no escape. In vain the
Abbot begged to be excused from personal attendance at the Curia. His
presence was insisted on; the usual enormous fees were exacted, and a
licence to contract a loan to meet the expense thus incurred was the
only relief afforded him.[20] Abbot Hugh early became a favourite of
Edward II, and the King’s lavish endowments might well have served to
repair the Abbey’s fortunes but for the extensive building operations
which were necessary. The church fabric was in a ruinous condition;
walls were falling and roofs tumbling in, and Abbot Hugh had little
choice but to restore the south side of the church. Small wonder that
the debt which was 2,300 marks in 1308 was more than double that sum
twenty years later.

At the accession of Richard Wallingford the Abbey’s condition
attracted the notice of the Crown, and a commission was appointed[21]
in 1327 to ‘inquire by whose negligence the existing defects and
dissipation of the Abbey’s revenues had been brought about.’ Two
years later (perhaps as a result of the commission) Abbot Richard
received permission to live abroad for three years ‘to avoid the
burden of too great expense.’[22] In this unsatisfactory condition the
Abbey finances remained till 1349, when the Black Death visited St.
Albans with unusual severity. Abbot Michael and three-fourths of the
convent perished, and there is little doubt that the mortality among
the Abbey’s tenants was high.[23] This catastrophe must have further
impoverished the Abbey, and the 1000 marks due to the King on de la
Mare’s accession could only be paid by instalments.[24]

[Sidenote: The Financial Measures of de la Mare.]

De la Mare realised that the payment to King and Pope of large sums
at irregular intervals was fatal to any organisation of the Abbey’s
finances, and to him is due the credit of having conceived the more
workable system of annual contributions. Soon after the outbreak of
the Great Schism, a petition was addressed to the Pope, supported by
commendatory letters from the King, John of Gaunt, Princess Joanna,
and the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Abbot prayed that in return for
an annual payment of twenty marks the election of succeeding abbots
should receive confirmation without their personal attendance at
Rome.[25]

The arguments which the envoys to Rome were to employ in the hope of
winning the Pope’s consent to the proposed measure show clearly the
difficulties of the Abbey at this time. The whole annual revenue had
fallen to £1,053.[26] Of this, £465 was assigned to the Abbot--‘and
to the said Abbot pertains the entertainment of noble guests and
of all laymen, and the prosecution of pleas in the various royal
courts; which, inasmuch as laymen are more hostile to monks than they
were wont, are more expensive than formerly, and also occur more
frequently.’ The remaining £600 was considered inadequate for the
maintenance of the convent.

An objection to this plea of poverty, _viz._, that the Abbey was
really much richer than it represented, owing to the existence of its
numerous cells, was anticipated. The cells were said to be a charge on
the mother house, which at its own expense was continually involved in
litigation on their behalf.

Hospitality, it appeared, was the greatest burden the Monastery had
to bear. ‘Also the Lord Pope is to be informed that the Monastery of
St. Albans is near London, where the King’s Parliaments, Convocation,
and other assemblies of nobles and clergy are held. And the nobles
and magnates of the realm, both on their journey there and on their
return, are entertained at the Abbey, to its great expense and loss.’
The dearness of provisions, owing to the proximity of rich neighbours,
had also helped to impoverish the Abbey, and finally, the partial
felling of its woods to pay its debts to the King and Roman Court had
diminished a former source of income.

At this time the Pope stood in great need of English support, and might
therefore have been expected readily to grant Abbot Thomas’s requests.
Yet the desired privileges were secured only by lavish bribery among
court officials. William le Strete, one of the Abbey’s proctors at
Rome, writes to the Abbot[27]: ‘And I hope that the business will come
to a good end; but I do not know it at all for certain, seeing that
the Pope is very capricious.’ He goes on to say that the Pope has
not yet read a single letter from the Abbot, ‘and be pleased to know
that your business cannot be carried out here through letters from
anyone, but only through money.’ Negotiations were continued until
1396. In that year Richard II addressed a further appeal to Boniface
IX: ‘Whereas ... the Monastery of St. Albans[28],’ he wrote, ‘... has
its means grievously diminished by the heavy expenses of the visits
of the abbots-elect to the Apostolic See to obtain confirmation and
benediction.... It is situate in the uttermost parts of the earth, and
is in comparison with other monasteries of the realm over slenderly
endowed, and that too in a barren place; whereas therein beyond the
other monasteries of the realm the highest devotion, regular discipline
and daily hospitality flourishes; whereas if each abbot-elect were
bound to make such visit the number of monks would be minished, their
devotion chilled, and hospitality be not observed....’ This letter had
the desired effect, and the Abbot’s petition was granted forthwith.[29]

The weakness of the central power during Richard II’s minority had
offered a favourable opportunity for making a similar arrangement with
the Crown. In lieu of a payment of 1,000 marks in each vacancy, Abbot
Thomas had induced the Government to accept an annual tribute of fifty
marks.[30]

Half a century earlier such measures might have completely restored the
Abbey’s finances, and even during the fifteenth century they sensibly
lessened its embarrassment. More they could not do, for the decay of
the economic system was to make prosperity impossible.

[Sidenote: Political Attitude of Abbot and Convent in the 14th Century.]

Although the Abbot was a lay magnate as well as a spiritual peer, it
is remarkable how seldom the Monastery was involved in political and
party strife. The current of life in the cloister but rarely mingled
with the stream of national life. Occasionally a great noble, like
Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Lincoln, might be the Abbot’s enemy, and
try to do him hurt; more often the Abbey enjoyed the favour of nobles
of all parties, of Yorkist as of Lancastrian kings, and in return
offered indiscriminate hospitality. Such an attitude tended to deprive
the Abbey of all political or party value. A natural bias, it should
perhaps be added, was displayed in favour of the King, upon whose
goodwill the prosperity of the House in large measure depended. Abbot
Hugh of Eversdon, for instance, was one of Edward II’s ‘court party,’
and was richly endowed by that King. Again, Abbot Thomas was a close
friend and supporter of Edward III, as also of the Black Prince. But
this attitude was after all little more than the loyalty which they
owed to the King. Their support did not extend to party quarrels, to
‘loving those whom he loved, and shewing enmity towards such as were
his enemies.’

This detached political attitude is one reason why monastic chronicles
are often so intolerably dull. Yet politics were as keen and as
absorbing in the Middle Ages as they are now, and monks and Abbot
must have followed their course, and criticised the actors, with as
much freedom as the men of to-day. In favour of St. Albans it must
be said that, in comparison with other monasteries, its chronicles
are singularly living and human. In those written during the revival
of historical writing under the guidance of Thomas Walsingham, the
political sympathies of the convent during the critical period of
Richard II’s reign are fully revealed.

Towards Richard II their feelings were hostile, if not contemptuous.
Walsingham, in his history of the reign, describes with unction the
King’s childish behaviour during his fits of ungovernable anger,[31]
his violent words on more than one occasion to his Parliaments, and his
absurd extravagance in dress. With righteous indignation he relates
how Richard, on his way to London, borrowed from the monastery a
palfrey, which he never returned. Another chronicler tells with scorn
of the King’s visit to the Abbey in 1394, when large concessions were
promised, but never fulfilled.[32] De la Mare’s successor, John Moote,
was apparently on equally indifferent terms with the King. ‘This
Abbot,’ says the chronicler, ‘gave to King Richard for the purpose
of preserving his good will and avoiding his malice, at different
times, one hundred and twenty-six pounds, thirteen shillings and four
pence.’[33]

The attitude of the convent towards Richard II seems reasonable
enough. The King, although he conferred more than one benefit upon St.
Albans, does not appear to have cherished any affection for the Abbey.
He was rather ‘an especial favourer and promoter of Westminster,’
whose interests he consistently supported in the disputes of the
reign between the two houses concerning Parliamentary precedence.
More difficult of explanation are the feelings St. Albans entertained
towards John of Gaunt. A contemporary manuscript--called, on account of
its bitterness, the ‘Scandalous Chronicle’[34]--reveals the existence
of strong hostility towards him, and repeatedly speaks of him in most
abusive terms. In the early years of the fifteenth century, when the
‘Scandalous Chronicle’ was utilised for a new edition of the history
of the time,[35] the worst of the slighting references to John of
Gaunt were erased and the remarks generally toned down, while in the
margin of the MSS. is inserted _cave quia offendiculum_. Plainly it
was unwise to have such remarks about the father of the living King,
and so the ‘Scandalous Chronicle’ was suppressed at the place where
it was written.[36] Many motives may be attributed to the Abbey for
its hostile attitude towards John of Gaunt. It had private grievances;
the Abbot, for instance, had resented (though he feared to refuse)
Lancaster’s demand for large supplies of timber for his castle at
Hertford.[37] Another reason, doubtless, was the Duke’s patronage of
the ‘Arch-heretic’ Wycliffe, whom the Abbot and convent regarded with
peculiar loathing. But the main cause of their hostility towards John
of Gaunt sprang almost certainly from his political action. From 1377
to 1386 Lancaster was most unpopular with almost all classes.[38] The
many misfortunes of these years--the French raids on the south coast,
the failure of the English arms in France and Flanders, and even the
unsuccessful government at home--were laid to his charge. From the
_Historia Anglicana_ it is evident that the monks shared this common
attitude towards John of Gaunt. Again and again responsibility for
failure is attributed to him, and he is branded as an incompetent
general and a disloyal, scheming and unsuccessful politician. It
is rather startling to find, however, that outwardly the most
friendly relations were maintained between the Duke and the Abbey,
while simultaneously such abuse was heaped upon him in its official
chronicles. The Duke acted continuously as a patron of the Abbey,
and conferred a long list of benefits upon it.[39] Evidently he was
unaware of the secret sentiments of the House which he patronised so
liberally.[40]

[Sidenote: Revival during de la Mare’s Abbacy.]

A growing movement towards reform and revival was thus the main trend
of events at St. Albans during the fourteenth century. The persistent
efforts of Maryns and the other short-lived abbots removed abuses and
restored the discipline. The long abbacy of Thomas de la Mare was
marked by able administration, and minute and unflagging attention to
the monastery’s interests. The Abbot shirked no contest to retain or
regain lands, services or jurisdiction upon which the Abbey had just
claims. His rule was necessarily marked by constant litigation with
high and low, from which, in a great majority of cases, he emerged
successful. This great labour, the details of which fill the chronicles
of his abbacy, had the effect of restoring in some measure the Abbey’s
material prosperity. Finally, by his statesmanlike measures with
regard to future vacancies he had done all in his power to ensure the
permanence of his work of financial restoration.

[Sidenote: Historical Writing.]

The effect of lessening the pressure of outside circumstances and
rendering more safe and easy the existence of the Abbey was to
promote a mild revival which bore its best fruits in a new outburst
of historical writing. The golden age of St. Albans’ historical
composition had been the early thirteenth century, and was associated
with the names of Roger Wendover and Matthew Paris. Then it was that
the St. Albans School grew famous. Its MSS. were frequently lent to
other houses for the writing up of their own chronicles,[41] and when
official information was required on a point of history it became usual
to refer to the St. Albans chronicles.[42] With so long a tradition
of annalistic composition[43] the Abbey developed a variety of script
unique in England, and experts can identify with considerable certainty
the products of the St. Albans scriptorium. The composition of history
never actually ceased after the time of Matthew Paris. The tradition
was maintained (though perhaps it languished somewhat) by the writings
of Rishanger, Trokelowe and Blaneforde. At the close of the fourteenth
century occurred the valuable revival under the guidance of Thomas of
Walsingham. The years 1370 and 1420 mark roughly the limits within
which it fell. The amount of work produced was considerable, and in
quality was hardly inferior to that of the thirteenth century. From
an historical point of view it is probably more important, since by
Walsingham’s time other sources of chronicle writings were beginning to
fail.[44]

[Sidenote: Unpopularity of Monasticism.]

In its revival under De la Mare, St. Albans was almost unique among
the English abbeys; in no other case was there any movement comparable
with it. Yet there is a grave danger of overrating the significance of
De la Mare’s abbacy. The monastic system cannot be said to have been
reinvigorated nor primitive fervour restored. The revival was confined
within narrow limits, and, on the whole, its fruits were small. It
was, however, sufficient to blunt the edge of much of the contemporary
criticism which in the fourteenth century was being applied to the
monastic system. Chaucer, for example, in his Prologue, described for
all time the typical monk of his day--

    A Monk ther was, a fair for the maistrye,
    an out-rydere, that lovede venerye;
    A manly man, to been an abbot able.
    Ful many a deyntee hors hadde he in stable:
    and, when he rood, men mighte his brydel here
    Ginglen in a whistling wynd as clere
    And eek as loude as doth the Chapel-belle,
    Ther as this lord was keper of the celle
    The reule of Seint Maure or of Seint Beneit,
    By-cause that it was old and somdel streit,
    This ilke monk leet olde thinges pace
    And held after the newe world the space.

    ... therfor he was a fricasour aright
    Grehoundes he hadde, as swifte as fowel in flight.
    Of pricking and of hunting for the hare
    Was al his lust, for no cost wolde he spare

    His head was balled, that shoon as any glas
    And eek his face, as he hadde been anoint.
    He was a lord ful fat and in good point

    He was nat pale as a for-pyned goost
    A fat swan loved he best of any roost.[45]

But Chaucer’s satire, once so true,[46] was a spent shot in De la
Mare’s time.

There was other contemporary criticism which was perhaps harder to
meet. Langland looked forward with certainty to the time when the
monastic system should be destroyed--‘shall have knock of a king and
incurable the wound.’ The criticism of Wycliffe was more severe.
His rejection of the Pope, with whose interests those of the exempt
monasteries were bound up, his doctrine of evangelical poverty,
and the practical proposal that the Government should disendow a
delinquent church undermined the very foundations of monasticism.
Wycliffe’s position rested upon the double argument of the decay of
the monastic life and the superiority of a life lived in the world.
Of this contention St. Albans could refute only the half. The vicious
handling which the reformer receives in its chronicles almost suggests
an anticipation of defeat, a tacit recognition of the weakness of the
writer’s position. Thomas Walsingham, in his _Historia Anglicana_,
dubs him ‘Wyk-believe’ and ‘disciple of anti-Christ’; speaks not of
his opinions, but of his ravings (deliramenta), and unhesitatingly
attributes to his inspiration such varied ills as the Peasants’ Revolt
and the profanation of the Sacrament by a Wiltshire knight. When he
chronicles the death of ‘that limb of Satan, idol of heretics, mirror
of hypocrites and fabricator of lies--John Wycliffe,’ it is only to
repeat cruel gossip about his last hours. The life of Wycliffe, in
fact, marks a fresh step in the growing unpopularity of the monastic
system, and with a sure instinct St. Albans recognised the fact, and so
far as it was able, dealt with him accordingly.



II.

The Necessity for Dissolution.


It remains for us, taking our stand at the year in which the Monastery
was dissolved, to survey the period that has elapsed since the death
of Thomas de la Mare. It was a time of stagnation, followed by rapid
decline. At the end of the fifteenth century the Abbey was financially
more embarrassed and morally even more depraved than in the first years
of our period. Without attempting a defence either of the motives of
Henry VIII or the methods of the Dissolution, no other conclusion
is possible but that the abolition of St. Albans was both just and
necessary. The Abbey had long since outlived its useful functions.

The necessity for the dissolution rests on a twofold argument. There
was first, the decay of religion, and even morality itself, within the
cloister; and secondly, there was the decay of the manorial system, the
economic basis of monasticism.


(A). _Economic History of the Abbey, 1300–1539._

[Sidenote: The Abbot as Landlord.]

A great spiritual peer who as a mitred abbot took his place in
Parliament among the magnates, the Abbot of St. Albans was a no less
important personage in virtue of his huge landed possessions. Indeed,
it has never been determined whether the right of such abbots to
sit in the Upper House rested upon their spiritual dignity or their
position as tenants-in-chief and great landlords. The Abbot of St.
Albans exercised a wide seignorial jurisdiction over the Hundred of
Cashio from early times, and later, over numerous manors in the eastern
counties,[47] monuments to the piety of wealthy donors through the
centuries. At the commencement of the fourteenth century the relations
existing between the Abbey and its tenants were solely those of the
manorial system, now fast decaying on all but monastic estates. The
symmetry of this arrangement had been broken at an early date by
the growth of the town at the very gates of the Abbey. The townsmen
were ruled with the same despotic power as the country tenants,
from whom they differed only in being more concentrated. As in the
closely parallel case of Bury St. Edmunds, St. Albans was governed
by a bailiff chosen by the Abbot and holding office during his
pleasure; the townsmen were tried in the Abbot’s court, and offenders
incarcerated in the monastic prison. The Abbot secured the profits
arising from his court--‘the court of St. Albans under the ash-tree
every three weeks’--and from fairs, as also the heavy tolls imposed
upon all merchandise passing through the town. This antiquated tyranny
contrasted ill with the wide municipal independence enjoyed by other
towns.

[Sidenote: Abbey and Town.]

There were thus substantial reasons why the townsmen should free
themselves at the first opportunity from the hated tutelage of the
Abbey, though it must be confessed that their civic disabilities
weighed less with them than the strict preservation of the Lord Abbot’s
warrens and fish ponds, the close fencing in of his estates, and a host
of galling and antiquated signs of subjection, the chief of which was
the obligation to full their cloth and grind their corn at the Abbot’s
mill.

It was typical of the monastery’s conservatism that each succeeding
abbot refused all concession. Discontent culminated in revolt. In 1274,
taking as their pretext the matter of the Abbot’s mill, the townsmen
inaugurated a mild rebellion by setting up handmills in their own
houses. Abbot Roger easily suppressed the rising, and an outbreak in
1314, provoked by the tactless, overbearing Hugh of Eversdon, collapsed
even more ignominiously. A more serious disturbance, which broke out
in 1327, was not finally crushed for seven years. Taking advantage of
the death of Abbot Hugh, and the temporary anarchy which followed the
death of Edward II, the townsmen rose again and blockaded the Abbey.
The affair was rendered the more serious by the existence among the
monks of a party in league with the malcontents. The internal danger
was averted by sending away the disaffected monks to distant cells,
but Abbot William was compelled to give verbal consent to the demands
of the townsmen for a charter embodying the right of choosing their
own members of Parliament, liberty to use handmills, to fish in the
Abbey waters, and to hunt its preserves, the privilege of executing
writs without the interference of the bailiff of the liberty, and
finally, the title of free burgesses.[48] By royal help the Abbot at
length crushed the rising; the old subjection was once more firmly
rivetted upon the townsmen, and the Abbey parlour was paved with their
handmills as a token of their defeat and a warning for the future.[49]
It is significant of the cruelty and selfishness of the Abbey that no
sort of concession was made to the defeated townsmen. At this time,
as subsequently, the Abbot showed himself incapable of appreciating
the real trend of events. For a moment the Abbey had triumphed and all
was well. Under the firm rule of Thomas de la Mare there was no hope
of success for an isolated rising, but the outbreak of the Peasants’
Revolt in 1381 gave the tenants their opportunity, and the Abbey reaped
the fruit of its foolish and short-sighted policy.

[Sidenote: The Country Tenants.]

So much for the townsmen. The bulk of the Abbot’s subjects, however,
were country tenants, living on his various manors. Under the manorial
system rural tenants lived in a state of political and economic
subjection to their lord. Of such tenants a certain number were free
labourers, but the large majority were bound to the lord by varying
degrees of servile tenure. The serfs or villeins divided their time
between cultivating their own patches of land and rendering labour
services on that part of the manor which was cultivated by the lord
or his bailiff for the supply of his own granaries. On many of the
St. Albans manors a small money rent was also paid by the serf for
his land.[50] By long tradition, though scarcely by law, the villein
could not be evicted; on the other hand, he was bound to the soil, owed
many feudal dues to his lord, and so many days’ work per year on the
lord’s domain. A series of regulations of the close of the thirteenth
century[51] discloses the harsh policy of St. Albans with regard to
its villeins. Freemen were forbidden to buy villein lands; villeins
were forbidden to sell to anyone either lands or produce;[52] money
payments and labour services were rigorously exacted, and the huge
warrens in possession of the Abbey were strictly preserved. The effect
of these regulations was to prevent the serf increasing his holding,
and to maintain the distinction between free and unfree tenants. By
this means alone could the Abbot combat the general tendency towards
fusion of the two classes.[53]

While the Abbey was thus fighting to continue the old tyranny
manumissions were becoming frequent on lay lands, and all over the
country labour services were being given up in favour of money
payments. Further, the practice of letting out lands in farms to
rent-paying tenants was growing more general. By diminishing the
population the Black Death (1349) hastened this process,[54] for
landlords were compelled to offer high wages to secure the cultivation
of their demesnes, and they had perforce to bring in rent-paying
tenants to till the lands of such of their villeins as had succumbed.
Nor was the break-up of the old system retarded by the Statute of
Labourers (1352). The Act, which provided that food prices as well as
wages should remain fixed, was not so much a blow aimed at the poorer
classes as an attempt to restore the state of affairs existing before
1349. The process of manumission continued; the numbers of freemen
steadily increased, and, in spite of the Statute, wages and prices rose
higher than ever before. This increase in the numbers of free labourers
inspired those who were still in villeinage with the ambition to become
themselves free and to cease rendering labour services which, as the
token of their servile tenure, were regarded as degrading.

Such were the grievances of the peasants who in 1381 formed the
backbone of the Revolt. The unwillingness to allow manumission which
has been seen to exist towards the end of the thirteenth century at
St. Albans, and the harsh provisions made to retain labour services,
continued in full force.[55] In the case of one manor,[56] it is true,
the two systems appear to have existed side by side about 1340, but
the rest of the evidence points to the retention in full of the old
system both on the St. Albans estates and on the estates of its cells.
Thus in 1381 the rural tenants of St. Albans were ready to join in the
general revolt. Simultaneously the townsmen made a final attempt to win
from the Abbot privileges identical with those demanded in 1327.

[Sidenote: The Revolt of 1381.]

There is little reason to linger over the details of the Revolt. The
townsmen rose in a body and set themselves to destroy all visible
tokens of their subjection. The fences of the Abbot’s woods were pulled
down, his game was killed freely, and a show was made of dividing his
domain into small individual holdings. Many houses were burnt, and the
Abbey itself was mildly raided; but from first to last there was no
wish to take life. The leader of the insurgents was William Grindcob,
who appears to have been something of an enthusiast, and the most
disinterested of all the leaders in this revolt. In compliance with his
demands the Abbot was compelled to deliver up all the Abbey charters,
and then to draw up a new charter granting to the townsmen (1) rights
of pasturage on his common, (2) permission to use private handmills,
(3) entire freedom to hunt and fish over the monastic estates, and (4)
self-government by freely-elected officials. These were a repetition
of the demands of 1327, except that in the interval the notion of
self-government had become more clearly defined.

In spite of the townsmen’s boast that they were in alliance with the
country tenants, the two bodies seem to have acted independently. Each
had its own grievances to redress. Indeed, the country tenants were
still further divided, but the Abbey was powerless to resist even
such small bodies as the villeins of individual manors. The villeins
on most of the Hertford manors--Tittenhanger, Northaw, Watford,
Berkhamstead--marched to the Abbey and in a curiously restrained spirit
secured charters satisfying their various local grievances. The tenants
of the manor of Redburn, for example, extracted charters containing the
abolition of serfdom, of villein services (in favour of money rents),
and also, in common with the townsmen, the rights of the chase and of
fishing. Those of Rickmansworth obtained all these privileges and the
right besides of disposing freely of lands and movables; and so it was
done by most other manors in the county.

But the privileges were secured only to be lost almost immediately. The
King’s officers arrived at St. Albans, no attempt at resistance was
made, and the trouble subsided as quickly as it had arisen. The fifteen
executions that followed (Grindcob being the most notable victim and
dying finely) were, for the age, mild enough retaliation on the part
of a panic-stricken government. As a matter of course, the Abbey was
restored in its privileges, and the town subjected to it until the
Dissolution.

[Sidenote: After 1381.]

In this way the Abbey was officially confirmed in its retention of an
economic system which had become both unjust and unprofitable. Yet
economic change was inevitable, and received a grudging recognition.
In 1424 the Abbot secured a papal bull[57] allowing the Abbey complete
freedom to let out its lands in farms to rent-paying tenants--the
system long since in vogue on lay estates. Later in the century
manumissions of bondmen become more and more frequent. At first
manumission is regarded as a privilege by the serfs, and the price paid
for it is commonly entered in the margin of the document; but gradually
examples grow more common; no more money entries occur, and it seems
that the Abbot was only too happy ‘to be rid of the presence of persons
who had claims upon him as a landowner without any power on his part to
exact a return to himself of commensurate advantage.’[58] Thus the old
agricultural system slowly broke up, despite the monks who to the last
retarded the transition to the new order.

Towards the town the Abbey remained to the last unbending, though
not on account of any diminution in the resentment with which it was
regarded by the inhabitants. In 1424 a large crowd appeared at the
gate of the Abbey, armed with swords, to demand concessions similar to
those of the extorted charter of 1381; but they were still cowed by the
recollection of their late rising, and the affair came to nothing.[59]
The last mention of open resistance occurs in 1455 when John Chertsey
erected a private mill, and so withdrew corn from that of the Abbot.
To such an act of daring he seems to have been inspired by his wife,
a woman of spirit. Chertsey, however, was a timid creature; his heart
failed him, and he was induced to make humble apology to the Abbot and
to destroy the mill.

There can be little or no doubt that in the sixteenth century monastic
lands were far behind lay estates in economic development. According to
M. Savine, the agricultural revolution had scarcely affected the lands
of the monks at the time of the Dissolution.[60] ‘Arable land occupies
... a very considerable part of the area that the monks kept in their
own hands; it was very little, if at all, less than the area of the
several pastures. As agriculturists the monks carried on a large, or
at any rate, a fair-sized business. Now if the conversion of arable
land into pasture land had become general under the first two Tudors,
then in these thriving monastery farms it ought to be in much greater
evidence than in the small homesteads of the peasants, who tilled the
land for their own subsistence, and were fettered on all sides by
communal regulations.’ But that the revolution was in full swing on lay
estates we know from More’s _Utopia_, which was written as early as
1516.[61] Even at this date agriculture was being widely abandoned by
lay farmers who were converting what was formerly arable into pasture
land, the growing woollen industry being found more profitable.[62]

[Sidenote: Summary.]

To the last St. Albans strove to check economic development. At what
was perhaps the great crisis in its history--the revolt of 1381--it
had definitely refused to adapt itself to altered conditions. By that
refusal it ensured its economic decay, and finally its ruin. For while
it was highly desirable that religion should flourish within the
monastery, it was absolutely essential that such a huge establishment
should rest on a sound economic basis if it was to continue. In the
sixteenth century, or even earlier, this condition was no longer
fulfilled. It is, however, scarcely a matter for which blame attaches
to the House. The mediaeval ideal, which in one aspect was the monastic
ideal, was stability, not progress. St. Albans was identical in its
attitude with the other great monasteries; it was neither more nor
less conservative. Its inability, rather than its refusal, to change
or admit change was its condemnation. Such a splendid immobility has
something of grandeur about it. At the same time the picture of a
town deprived of its ‘natural right of self-government,’ and hindered
accordingly in its prosperity, and of the mass of the Abbey’s country
tenants living unprosperously under an antiquated agricultural system,
constitutes a crushing argument for the necessity of its dissolution.


(B). _The Decay of the Monastic Spirit in the 15th century._

[Sidenote: St. Albans in the 15th Century.]

The task of interpreting the Abbey’s history during the fifteenth
century is difficult in the extreme. The confusion, the aimlessness
which characterised political history are reflected in the records of
St. Albans. Although the material is at least as plentiful as before,
the impression conveyed by the facts is blurred and uncertain. With
the death of De la Mare the lines of development become obscured. The
fourteenth century had witnessed a steady upward movement culminating
in the Abbacy of De la Mare. There is a temptation to see in the
fifteenth century a consistent, growing degeneracy: the more as it
is beyond question that by the year 1490 the Convent had sunk into
deeper degredation than ever before. In one sense such a theory is
true. The tide of economic decline and growing material decrepitude,
stemmed by De la Mare’s careful administration, proceeded unchecked
after his death. Within the convent the decay of the monastic spirit
was everywhere apparent. Living became inevitably more luxurious, and
the religious life grew cold and formal.[63] Yet the reputation of St.
Albans was as great in 1460 as in the days of Abbot Thomas. Up to 1464
(the year in which Whethamstede died) no flagrant abuses appear to have
invaded the cloister, nor was there any considerable slackening of the
discipline. The problem, of which we can offer no adequate solution,
is to account for the extraordinary rapid decay between 1464 and 1489,
by which time the Abbey had become publicly scandalous. The history of
these twenty-five years is quite obscure.

[Sidenote: Whethamstede’s first Abbacy.]

The first half of the century was singularly barren of incident. The
best known Abbot of the time was John Whethamstede (circa 1420–1440),
a famous scholar and churchman. Significantly enough he was one of
those chosen to represent the English nation at the Councils of
Pavia and Basle. He was popular with the convent, perhaps on account
of his ardent orthodoxy. The singularly bitter attitude adopted
towards Lollards in de la Mare’s time was carefully maintained, and
Whethamstede, by means of synods and commissions, extirpated heresy
within the Liberty.[64] The Abbot was regarded by the monks as having
conferred notable benefits upon them; the chief of these were his
acquisition of the Priory of Pembroke (1439), his generosity to the
Abbey’s students at Oxford and certain financial innovations.[65]
To-day, as one digs him out of the very inferior chronicle of the
time, he seems rather wanting in purpose, and somewhat vain and
foolish; nevertheless, he certainly had the confidence of the convent,
who, after his voluntary retirement for some years insisted upon
re-electing him Abbot in 1452. The reason was probably that he was old,
experienced, and cautious. At the time these qualities were invaluable;
the Abbey was acquiring a political significance, and skilful guidance
was necessary to avoid disaster amid the intrigues of Henry VI’s reign,
which were threatening to culminate in Civil War. The second abbacy of
Whethamstede, within which fell the Wars of the Roses, was therefore an
anxious and, as it proved, disastrous time for the monks.

It was maintained by Hallam that the sympathies of Abbot Whethamstede
were wholly Lancastrian during the Wars of the Roses. Riley, after a
more careful study, affirmed that the reverse was the case,[66] and
without doubt he was nearer the mark than Hallam. The great affection
consistently displayed for Humphrey Duke of Gloucester (a lavish patron
of the Abbey), and the attempt in the chronicle to clear his memory,
in themselves indicate with which party the Abbot’s sympathies lay.
Further proof is supplied by florid verses, strongly Yorkist in tone,
from the Abbot’s own hand; and finally, there is the fact that the
Abbey was pillaged by the Lancastrian troops in 1461. But the question
is of the slightest importance.[67] As a matter of fact, the Abbey
enjoyed the full favour of Henry VI. as much as of Edward IV; it was
only in the actual fighting that its political proclivities affected
its fortunes.

Henry VI was a frequent visitor at St. Albans, and bestowed, among many
other marks of his favour, a notable extension of the franchise. The
seignorial jurisdiction of the Abbot over the Hundred of Cashio, which
was based on a charter of Henry II, had gradually been diminished by
the encroachments of neighbouring Lords. In 1440 the King granted a
new interpretation of the words of Henry II’s Charter, by which the
Abbot’s authority was restored to its full limit, if not rendered
greater than ever before.[68] In order to obtain such a grant it is
obvious that the Abbot must have been in high favour with Henry VI, who
indeed is always mentioned in these chronicles in terms of respect.

Nevertheless, when in 1455 the Yorkist party triumphed at the first
battle of St. Albans, only the fact that the direction of the Abbey’s
sympathies was well known can have saved it from being plundered.[69]

[Sidenote: Second Battle of St. Albans.]

The continual fighting in its neighbourhood reduced the Abbey to
dire straits, and the next six years were among the darkest in its
history. Its troubles culminated in the disaster of 1461, when, after
a Lancastrian victory at the second battle of St. Albans, the Northern
troops plundered the Abbey and horribly ravaged the surrounding
country. The Queen even condescended to rob the Abbey of its most
precious jewels and treasures.[70] The result was sheer famine; the
convent were dispersed, and the Abbot retired to his native town. Thus
for the only time in its history the continuity of conventual life at
St. Albans was broken. The final triumph of Edward IV in the same year
ensured such amelioration of the Abbey’s fortunes as was possible.
The battle had taken place in February, and by November the convent
had re-assembled, to enter upon the last stage of its existence with
a fresh grant of privileges. A complicated jurisdiction, which far
exceeded the grant of 1440, was bestowed upon the Abbey.[71]

[Sidenote: Hostility of Bishops in 15th Century.]

The unsoundness of the Abbey’s economic practice and the consequent
increasing financial embarrassment were at the root of all its troubles
in the fifteenth century. Its poverty weakened its independence, and
was at once the cause of the decline of its hospitality and the reason
for its growing obsequiousness toward the great. The bishops especially
were quick to realise the weakness of the Abbey.[72] Always jealous of
exempt houses, they exhibited in the fifteenth century an unusually
bitter hostility towards St. Albans. In 1399, Henry Bishop of Lincoln
had formally notified the Abbot that he claimed no jurisdiction over
the Abbey[73]; this was nothing more than an acknowledgment of an
old and undoubted privilege pertaining to St. Albans as an exempt
monastery. Only twenty years later, at the Council of Pavia, a new
Bishop of Lincoln claimed full jurisdiction over St. Albans, and called
for the reform of exempt houses. This was followed by the revival of
the Archbishop of Canterbury’s claims to jurisdiction, but these the
Abbot was still strong enough to resist. A few years later a dispute
concerning the Bishop of Norwich’s jurisdiction over the Cell of Binham
broadened out into an organised attack by the English bishops upon the
privileges of St. Albans. This was evidently regarded as a test case.
Exactly how the struggle ended is not recorded, but probably it left
matters in the old uncertain condition. These attempts mark a fresh
stage in the growing unpopularity of the Abbey, and it is worthy of
notice that the increasing hatred towards exempt houses on the part of
the bishops might well of itself have led to the fall of the monastic
system in England. As it was, the support of the bishops made it more
easy for Henry VIII to carry through the Dissolution.

[Sidenote: Decay of the Monastic Spirit (1396 to 1464).]

Even during the fourteenth century there had been a natural and almost
inevitable growth of luxury in the monastic life: in the course of the
fifteenth it progressed by leaps and bounds. A host of insignificant
facts illustrate the tendency. The food of the novices was rendered
more sumptuous on the plea that the youths had not such strong
constitutions as their fathers. Papal Bulls were secured remitting
fasts, and the allowance of spices was doubled. As with the convent,
so was it with the Abbots themselves. William Heyworth (1401–1420),
who was considered so excellent a cleric as to be raised to episcopal
dignity as Bishop of Lichfield, spent large sums of money on the
completion of a splendid Abbot’s mansion at Tittenhanger, contrary,
needless to say, to all Benedictine precedent. A parallel tendency was
a perceptible decline of zeal and interest in the religious life. In
1428, for instance, owing (as the Abbot confessed) to its uselessness,
the ancient cell of Beaulieu[74] was abandoned, and twenty years later
the Priory of Wymondham, as the result of a trifling dispute broke away
from the mother house, and was erected into an Abbey. The tendency is
further illustrated by the Constitutions published by Whethamstede
after a formal visitation of the convent.[75] No gross abuses were
discovered, but a certain laziness and indifference towards religious
services and observance was found to have pervaded the convent. It was
much the same in the cells which the Abbot visited a little later. It
appeared that the monks were lazy, and slept too long; just correction
for offences had not always been inflicted; services were apt to be
carried out indifferently, and sometimes to be omitted altogether. It
was slothfulness, not positive vice, that had to be fought against.
A subtle illustration of this is unconsciously supplied by the
chronicler. The Abbot had promulgated a set of rigorous constitutions
which went to the root of the trouble more than was usual; but the
convent murmured, refused to accept them, and finally carried their
will against the Abbot; as for the Constitutions they became a dead
letter. When Whethamstede was re-elected in 1452[76] he was informed
that three great defects existed in the Monastery. Scarcely one in the
Abbey, it appeared, could be found competent to teach grammar; there
were hardly any students from St. Albans at Gloucester Hall; and it was
only with difficulty that persons could be found prepared to undertake
the burden of preaching.

These facts point to a rapid raising of the standard of comfort, to
growing indifference, and a sad decay of the monastic spirit. But in
view of the dreadful condition of the convent in 1490 it is important
to observe that they give us no reason to suppose the existence of
immorality in the cloister or even of any serious relaxation of the
discipline.

[Sidenote: Abbot Wallingford.]

Abbot Whethamstede’s successor was a certain William Albon (1464–1476),
‘who,’ says the chronicler, ‘followed diligently in the footsteps of
his predecessor. During all the time he was Abbot he strove after the
good of his Church in things temporal and spiritual.’[77] His reign and
that of William Wallingford (1476-?1490) carry us to the year 1490,
when a letter of Cardinal Morton reveals the monastery in a state
of utter degradation. The decay must be placed entirely between the
years 1476 and 1490, and it is impossible to account for its rapidity.
Perhaps it was due to the bad influence of William Wallingford, but the
whole matter is not a little mysterious. In 1451 Wallingford is found
holding the joint offices of Archdeacon, Cellarer, Bursar, Forester
and Sub-Cellarer of the Abbey, and in some of these offices he was
continued during Whethamstede’s second abbacy (1452–1464). During this
same period he was to all intents and purposes convicted of having
laid hands upon the moneys of the previous Abbot. The matter is dealt
with at length in the chronicle, and in most violent terms Wallingford
is accused again and again of habitual perjury.[78] Yet on the death
of Whethamstede he was elected prior, and in 1476 Abbot.[79] Finally,
in an account of _The Lives and Benefactions of the Later Abbots_[80]
he is spoken of in terms of the most extravagant praise. On the whole
the general impression of this difficult character derived from the
Chronicle is that of a bad man but a vigorous Abbot, who, however evil
his influence upon the convent, nevertheless rendered it important
services. The monks, perhaps, forgot his vices in their admiration
of what was to them the first of virtues--his strenuous efforts to
preserve the independence of the house. For it was during his rule
that the most determined, and, as it proved, successful attacks were
made upon the Abbey’s highly-prized exemption from archiepiscopal
visitation.

[Sidenote: Traffic in Patronage.]

In the register of Wallingford’s abbacy there is only one indication
of the bad turn conventual life was taking. This is the record of an
enormous traffic in patronage, a new and bad feature at St. Albans,
confined for the most part to Wallingford’s abbacy.[81] Economically
bankrupt, the Monastery was reduced at last to bartering the livings in
its gift, and even to trafficking in the monastic offices.[82] In the
register of William Wallingford there is a long list of entries noting
the gift by the Abbot to all sorts of important persons of the right
to present to the next vacancy in many of the Abbey’s livings. These
transactions, whether accompanied by a money consideration or simply
to gain the support and protection of persons of high rank, indicate a
willingness on the part of the Abbot to trifle with some of his most
sacred responsibilities. More sinister still are the frequent changes
of the vicars in the various livings. At Elstree, for example, there
were as many as nine rectors in sixteen years; at Shephale five occur
in six years.[83]

[Sidenote: Morton’s Commission.]

The case of St. Albans may have been exceptional. In the general decay
of English monasticism the Abbey incurred an unenviable notoriety,
which indeed still clings to it. But that the English monasteries as
a body were in a depraved condition was fully realised by the heads of
Church and State. In 1490 Archbishop Morton applied for and received
from Innocent VIII the special powers necessary for a visitation
of Cluniac, Cistercian and Premonstratension Houses with foreign
heads.[84] Armed with the Papal commission Morton wrote letters to the
heads of the various monasteries, in which he imperatively called upon
them to reform.

In a letter which he addressed to the Abbot, Morton wrote[85]: ‘It has
come to our ears, being at once publicly notorious and brought before
us on the testimony of many witnesses worthy of credit, that you the
Abbot aforementioned have been of long time noted and diffamed, and do
yet continue so noted, of simony, of usury, of dilapidation and waste
of goods, revenues and possessions of the said monastery and of certain
other enormous crimes and excesses hereafter written.... You and
certain of your fellow monks and brethren ... have relaxed the measure
and form of religious life; you have laid aside the pleasant yoke of
contemplation and all regular observances, hospitality, alms[86] ...
and the ancient rule of your order is deserted ... you have dilapidated
the common property; you have made away with the jewels and the woods
to the value of 8,000 marks or more.’ The letter goes on to specify
‘the enormous crimes and excesses’ in a most complete manner; names
and details are given in every case, and the Abbot and Thomas Sudbury,
a monk, are accused of the most disgusting offences. The nunneries of
Prez and Sopwell--cells of the Abbey--are stated to be little better
than brothels. ‘The brethren of the Abbey, some of whom, as it is
reported, are given over to all the evil things of the world, neglect
the service of God altogether. They live with harlots and mistresses
publicly and continuously within the precincts of the monastery and
without.’

The Archbishop adds that he had warned the Abbot to cure these abuses
before securing the papal commission. The Abbot and the Prioresses of
Prez and Sopwell are strictly enjoined to correct these enormities
within thirty days, and the Priors of the more distant cells within
sixty days. Unless they comply the Archbishop himself will be compelled
to make a personal visitation and to carry out the necessary reforms.

The Abbot, making no attempt to answer the charges, instantly appealed
to the Pope against the authority of the Archbishop to hold a
visitation.[87] The Pope consented to prohibit any action on Morton’s
part pending the hearing of the appeal by two papal chaplains. Abbot
Wallingford must now have won his case but for the intervention of
Henry VII. The combined pleadings of King and Archbishop prevailed with
the Pope. On July 30th, 1490, Innocent VIII, without pronouncing on the
question of exemption, granted special faculties to the Archbishop for
this particular visitation notwithstanding all rights and privileges.
And there can be little doubt but that the visitation was in due course
carried out.[88] Whether all these charges were substantiated we do not
know; but it is impossible to doubt that the bulk of them was true.
St. Albans was too large, too famous a house, and too near London, for
Morton to have been misled by idle rumour. The outcome of Morton’s
letter is unrecorded; probably the reforms were effected, though the
Abbot, it would appear, was not deposed. It is in the Abbey’s favour
that no further trace of immorality is to be found in the history of
the fifty years of life which lay before it.

[Sidenote: Events 1489–1539.]

It seems strange that the Abbey should have gone on after this shock
without a suspicion of coming destruction. Such, however, was the
case; and even Henry VII is found to endow the monastery in return
for certain prayers for his soul to be rendered ‘for ever and ever.’
As late as 1530, indeed, there is mention of a grant to the Abbey of
an annual fair. Of these last years a wealth of detail has survived,
albeit in unlikely places. In 1511 the House had fallen into the King’s
debt; in 1515 Abbot Ramrygge, Wallingford’s successor, refused to pay
Peter Pence,[89] and in 1519 the Prior of Rochester was appointed
coadjutor to the old Abbot.[90] Monastic affairs, it appears, were in
complete disorder, and a large debt (4,000 marks) had been accumulated.
In the same year the Prior of Tynemouth was freed from the jurisdiction
of St. Albans,[91] a measure which illustrates the enfeebled condition
of the Abbey.

The first hint of the final catastrophe occurred upon the death of
Ramrygge in 1521. By a dispensation of Adrian VI, Wolsey was commended
to the vacant abbacy,[92] the convent apparently allowing this
infringement of its rights without protest. Perhaps, as Abbot Gasquet
has said, the motive for this action was in part a desire to reward
the cardinal for secular services. If so, it was a poor compliment
to Wolsey to receive an abbey so loaded with debt as to be unable to
pay its contribution to Convocation.[93] It is far more likely that
he secured it, knowing that the House was bankrupt, and that strong
measures were required to save it.[94]

The death of Wolsey necessitated a fresh election. No interference was
attempted by Henry VIII, who confirmed the convent’s choice in the
person of Robert Catton. It was during his abbacy the Visitation of the
monasteries was carried out.

[Sidenote: Social Influence of the Abbey.]

Owing to the disappearance of the Hertfordshire surveys, St. Albans
can furnish no certain evidence upon the numerous questions arising
out of the Dissolution.[95] Such facts as we have tend to confirm the
conclusions of M. Savine.[96] There is no doubt, for example, that the
social sympathies of the Abbey were pre-eminently aristocratic. Most
of the monks do not themselves appear to have come from the lower
strata of society. The Abbey bestowed its corrodies for the most part
upon persons of the well-to-do classes. Moreover, a close connection
existed between the Abbey and the neighbouring gentry, whose sons it
had long been wont to board and educate. On members of the same class
many of the lay offices of the monastery were conferred.[97] Even the
apparently democratic practice of alms-giving was a perfunctory duty,
a mere compliance with the wishes of donors who had in times past
liberally endowed the Abbey. At a wealthy House like St. Albans, which
relied so completely on the patronage of the great, it could scarcely
have been otherwise.

In fact, evidence compels us to reduce the generally accepted estimates
of the Abbey’s social and economic importance. Such social services as
it did render were chiefly on the side of hospitality and education. Of
these, hospitality[98]--which had always been at least as aristocratic
as otherwise--had seriously diminished by the sixteenth century.[99]
Nevertheless, after the Dissolution this common shelter for rich and
poor must have been deeply regretted.[100]

[Sidenote: Education.]

The Abbey perhaps did its best work in the sphere of education; from
first to last during our period particular care was expended upon the
education of the monks, within the monastery and at the University.
The Abbey deserves still greater credit for creating and maintaining
St. Albans Grammar School. The first mention of the School occurs in
1100, when it was ruled by a secular head master and received fees from
scholars. In the thirteenth century arose the practice of boarding
within the monastery and teaching the sons of neighbouring lords;
for the future no fees were to be received from the sixteen poorest
scholars; the master was given the rare privilege of excommunicating
the disobedient, and allowed, after an examination, to confer degrees
upon the scholars after the manner of the Universities. All illicit
or adulterine schools were to be rooted out of the Liberty. Towards
the end of the century the Abbey began to board and educate a number
of poor scholars; this custom, as a charity, fell to the Almoner, who
soon devolved his duties upon a serjeant, who, like the schoolmaster,
was not a monk. The school was thus in no sense ‘an avenue to the
monastery’; on the contrary, there was an entire separation of the
school from the Abbey. It was, perhaps, for this reason that the
institution flourished when the Abbey itself was in decay[101] till,
by a wide interpretation of terms, it was dissolved in 1539 as a part
of the Abbey. This continuous interest in secular education for four
centuries was perhaps the best word that could be said for the Abbey at
the Dissolution.[102]

The Visitation of the monasteries was carried out by Cromwell, as
Vicar-General, in 1535.[103] John ap Rice, the commissioner at St.
Albans, wrote to his master: ‘At St. Albans we found little although
there was much to be found.’[104] The commissioner spoke the simple
truth if it was disorder and faction to which he referred. In the same
year the prior and about half of the monks petitioned Sir Francis
Brian[105] to save them from their own Abbot, who had contracted
large debts, had sold the woods belonging to the convent, and had
compelled the convent to affix their seal to transactions of which they
disapproved, threatening to expel anyone who should inform against
him. Within a year there was civil war within the Abbey, and the same
section of the convent wrote a second desperate appeal to Sir Brian,
saying that the Abbot would surely take vengeance upon them unless Sir
Brian secured the appointment of a coadjutor.[106] ‘Our monastery is
in much decay and misery,’ they confess sadly, and their words obtain
confirmation from another extraordinary incident of that year, the
trial of the third Prior for making various treasonable remarks, as for
example, that the King intended to leave only four churches in England.
Other monks of the Abbey had informed against him to ‘avoid guilty
participation.’ The result was indecisive, but the whole matter is an
indication of the complete demoralisation of the convent.[107]

By this time it was becoming known to the world that St. Albans
must fall.[108] Robert Catton was deprived of the Abbacy in the
early days of 1538. The convent was induced to renounce its right
to elect a successor in favour of Thomas Cromwell, who appointed a
certain Richard Boreman (or Stevynache) to the vacancy. According
to Abbot Gasquet, Boreman was chosen simply to effect a voluntary
surrender of the Abbey, and it certainly is true that in December,
1537, Cromwell’s commissioners had tried in vain to induce Catton to
resign the Abbey into their hands. He had declared himself ready,
they wrote to Cromwell, ‘to beg his bread all the days of his life
rather than surrender, although by the confession of the Abbot
himself there is just cause of deprivation, not only for breaking the
King’s injunctions, but also for the manifest dilapidation, making
of shifts, negligent administration, and sundry other causes.’[109]
It seems plain, in fact, that Catton’s deprivation was in large part
due to his own misdeeds,[110] a conclusion which is supported by the
fact that Boreman himself was soon involved in difficulties with the
Government which appointed him. He was sent for a time to gaol, which
is difficult of explanation on the assumption that he was a Government
tool appointed only to effect a quiet surrender. Eventually the Act
of Surrender was signed on December 5th, 1539. Some forty signatures
were appended, indicating a decrease of one-third in the normal numbers
of the convent.[111] The net monastic income was estimated at £2,102,
the fourth highest in the Kingdom.[112] It only remained to divide
the spoils, which was done with astonishing quickness. By the year
1544 every acre of the St. Albans estates was disposed of. The Abbey
buildings were acquired by the townsmen (and so saved from destruction)
at a cost of £400.

The history of St. Albans is sufficient proof that the time is past
when we can rest content with generalisations about monasticism in the
later Middle Ages. During the fourteenth century the trend of events in
the Abbey was entirely contrary to that in most English Houses. While
they decayed, St. Albans revived. A century later it is probable that
the monasteries as a whole were in a far less degraded condition than
St. Albans. Perhaps similarly startling differences will be revealed
when the history of other abbeys has been worked out in detail. Many
loose generalisations on the subject of the monasteries are due to
the assumption that decay or reform proceeded at an equal pace in
different abbeys. Froude, for example, sought to trace a growing
corruption of monasticism from Norman times. His view was founded
simply on his study of St. Albans records, and even here his account
was worthless. The decadence, the immorality of which he spoke was
largely confined to the early years of the fourteenth century, and the
Abbacy of William Wallingford (1476–1490). To see in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries a consistent, uniform process of decay is largely
to misunderstand St. Albans’ history.

It is true, nevertheless, that the best days of the Abbey were already
past at the beginning of the fourteenth century. The evolution of
modern from mediaeval society, which was effected during our period,
was fatal to monasticism. The country grew more and more out of
sympathy with the monasteries; amid uncongenial surroundings, St.
Albans, in common with other abbeys, became increasingly unpopular.
By its unintelligent conservatism St. Albans alienated the sympathies
of section after section of the community, until at the Dissolution it
stood well-nigh in isolation. Recent defence of the monastic system
has failed as completely as Froude’s indictment. In the Dissolution of
St. Albans we may not, like Froude, ‘see the workings of the ineffable
Being,’ but we are no less unable to regret it, to look upon it as a
great social calamity.



Appendix:

_See Note 88, p. 60._


The account of William Wallingford’s abbacy in the _Lives and
Benefactions_[113] ... is inconsistent with all that is known of him
from other sources. The Abbot is described in a tone of excessive
admiration which cannot be reconciled with the account of him supplied
by Morton’s letter. In the _Lives and Benefactions_ ..., for instance,
he is stated to have left the Monastery entirely free of debt. This
is not only intrinsically improbable, but is directly contradicted by
Morton’s statement. Again, it is difficult to imagine any adequate
reason why the convent should solemnly fix its seal as a testimony
to the proof of the narrative, especially when the Abbot was, as it
seems, still living. Indeed, considered apart from other evidence, this
last passage, without explicitly stating it, distinctly implies that
Wallingford did die in 1484. Doubtless the error of Newcome (followed
by the editors of Dugdale’s _Monasticon_), who states that Wallingford
died in 1484, is to be explained in this way.

It may be well, therefore, to repeat that the folio of the Register
containing the account of Wallingford’s election is missing, having
been apparently torn from the MS.; that he had been convicted of
appropriating Abbot Stoke’s treasure in 1451; that in the ‘Register
of John Whethamstede’ he is continually mentioned in terms of extreme
disgust; and finally, that the Register of his own abbacy breaks off
abruptly the year before Morton’s Commission.

In view of these facts we must regard the story of his abbacy, as
told in the _Lives and Benefactions_, with extreme mistrust. It is
not improbable that this account was written by a convent fearful of
offending a tyrannical Abbot; it is by no means impossible that the
Abbot himself caused the narrative to be written as an answer to the
charges contained in Morton’s letter.



LIST OF THE ABBOTS OF ST. ALBAN’S

FROM 1291 TO 1539.


    John de Berkhamstede           1291–1302.
    John de Maryns                 1302–1308.
    Hugh de Eversdon               1308–1326.
    Richard de Wallingford         1326–1335.
    Michael de Mentmore            1335–1349.
    Thomas de la Mare              1349–1396.
    John Moote                     1396–1401.
    William Heyworth               1401–1420.
    John Whethamstede              1420–1440.
    John Stoke                     1440–1452.
    John Whethamstede (2)          1452–1464.
    William Albon                  1464–1476.
    William Wallingford            1476–1491(?).
    John Ramrygge                  1492–1521.
    Thomas Wolsey                  1521–1530.
    Robert Catton                  1530–1538.
    Richard Boreman (Stevynache)   1538–1539.



Chief Authorities.


A.--PRIMARY [PRINTED].

  _Gesta Abbatum Monasterii St. Albani._ 3 vols. Ed. H. T. Riley.
      _Rolls Series._

  _Historia Anglicana: Thomas Walsingham._ 2 vols. Ed. H. T. Riley.
      _Rolls Series._

  _Johannis de Trokelowe et H. de Blaneforde Chronica et Annales._ Ed.
      H. T. Riley. _Rolls Series._

  _Chronicon Angliae._ Ed. E. M. Thompson. _Rolls Series._

  _John Amundesham: Annales Monasterii S. Albani._ 2 vols. Ed. H. T.
      Riley. _Rolls Series._

  _Registrum Abbatiae Johannis Whethamstede._ 2 vols. Ed. H. T. Riley.
      _Rolls Series._

  _Calendar of the Patent Rolls_ (from the beginning of the period up
      to 1485).

  _Calendar of the Close Rolls_ (from the beginning of the period up to
      1364).

  _Calendar of Papal Registers: Papal Letters and Papal Petitions._

  _Calendar: Letters and Papers Foreign and Domestic._ Ed. Brewer and
      Gairdner. 1509–1545.

  _Wilkins: Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae._ Vol. III.

  _Monasticon: Dugdale._ Vol. II. 1819.

  _Catalogue: Materials for British History._ Ed. Duffus Hardy. Vol.
      III. _Rolls Series._


B.--SECONDARY.

  _The History and Antiquities of the County of Hertford._ Robert
      Clutterbuck. 3 vols. London. 1815–27.

  _History of Hertfordshire._ J. E. Cussans. 3 vols. 1870–81.

  _Historical Antiquities of Hertford._ Henry Chauncey. 1700.

  _The History of the Abbey of St. Albans._ Peter Newcome. 1795.

  _History of the Monastery of Tynemouth._ W. S. Gibson. 2 vols. 1846–7.

  _The Victoria History of the English Counties._ Hertford. Vol. II.

  _Constitutional History._ Stubbs. Vol. II. 1906.

  _Le Soulèvement des Travailleurs d’Angleterre en 1381 par André
      Réville._ Ed. Petit Dutaillis. Paris, 1898.

  _John of Gaunt._ Armitage Smith. 1904.

  _An Essay on English Municipal History._ James Thompson. 1867.

  _Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History._ Ed. Vinogradoff.
      I.--The English Monasteries on the Eve of Dissolution. Savine.

  _Henry VIII and the English Monasteries._ Gasquet. 1899.

  _Short Studies: Third Series._ J. A. Froude. 1877. ‘Annals of an
      English Abbey.’

  _Lollardy and the Reformation._ 3 vols. James Gairdner. 1908–1911.

  _History of England._ Froude. Vol. II. 1877.

  _The English Historical Review_ (E.H.R.), Vol. XXIV.

Among these authorities the material is derived primarily from _Gesta
Abbatum_, Vols. II and III, _Annals of John Amundesham_, and _Register
of John Whethamstede, 1422–1488_. Where no authority is given for a
statement it is from one of these volumes. Reference to these for every
fact cited would have unduly encumbered the essay with notes.


HOLYWELL PRESS, OXFORD.



FOOTNOTES


[1] In view of the fact that the Abbey contained sixty monks, St.
Albans was relatively slenderly endowed. _Cf._ below, p. 23.

[2] The shrines of St. Osyth and St. Amphibalus, also at St. Albans,
were scarcely less famous.

[3] About twelve cells were founded; the most important being Tynemouth
and Wymondham, in Northumberland and Norfolk respectively.

[4] _Gesta Abbatum I_, p. 489.

[5] _Gesta Abbatum I_, p. 307; _II_, p. 3. Still more oppressive was
the enactment of a General Lateran Council under Innocent IV, by
which the Abbot had to visit Rome, either in person or by proxy, once
every three years. The cost of such journeys and the extortion of the
Holy See were regarded as a heavy grievance. ‘Iste quoque Abbas,’
says the chronicler (_Gesta Abbatum I_, p. 312), referring to Abbot
John of Hertford (elected 1235), ‘in novitate sua multis exactionibus
fatigabatur et expensis, sed prae omnibus Romanorum oppressionibus
novis et inauditis coepit molestari.’

[6] See for example, _Gesta Abbatum I_, p. 397.

[7] The economic history of the Abbey cannot fairly be so divided, and
will therefore be treated in Section II from 1300–1539.

[8] _Mems. of St. Edmundsbury._ Arnold. Vol. III, passim.

[9] _Gesta Abbatum II_, p. 95.

[10] _Gesta Abbatum II_, appendix, p. 469.

[11] _Gesta Abbatum II_, p. 130.

[12] _Gesta Abbatum III_, pp. 396–423.

[13] _Gesta Abbatum III_, p. x.

[14] St. Albans probably kept a ‘studium’ at Gloucester Hall from
1337. De la Mare, John Moote, Hethworth and Whethamstede were all
considerable benefactors of the College, among their gifts being a
chapel, library, and the rebuilding of the old wooden house in stone.
For the relations of the Abbey and Gloucester Hall, see Daniel and
Barker’s _History of Worcester College_, chapter III.

[15] _Gesta Abbatum II_, 406.

[16] Living in England in captivity. He was a close friend of the
Abbot, and spent much of his time at St. Albans.

[17] The need of it had long been felt: the privilege had, in fact,
been bought in two particular cases, _viz._, in 1235 for 300 marks,
and in 1260 for 600 marks. The figures (as well as the new arrangement
to pay 1000 marks in the future) indicate the growth of governmental
extortion.

[18] The almost chronic dearth at St. Albans in the early fourteenth
century was a further misfortune. In 1314 the price of provisions in
the town was excessive, and Edward endeavoured to fix it by Ordinance
(_Trokelowe_, p. 89).

[19] _Cal. Papal Registers: Papal Letters II_, 1305–1342, p. 75.

[20] _Cal. Papal Registers: Papal Letters II_, 1305–1342, p. 75.

[21] _Cal. Pat. Rolls_, 1327–1330, p. 84.

[22] _Cal. Pat. Rolls_, 1327–1330, p. 362.

[23] _Gesta Abbatum III_, p. 147, ‘per epidemias hominum et
mortalitatem bestiarum facultates monasterii redditae sunt exiles.’
Also Walsingham, _Hist. Ang. I_, 273. ‘At that time,’ says Walsingham,
‘villages formerly very populous were bereft of inhabitants, and so
thickly did the plague lay them low that there scarcely survived enough
to bury the dead.... Many were of opinion that scarce a tenth of the
population survived.’

[24] _Cal. Pat. Rolls_, 1348–1350, p. 476.

[25] _Gesta Abbatum III_, p. 146. A minor demand was liberty for the
abbot-elect to receive benediction at the hand of whatever bishop he
chose.

[26] _Gesta Abbatum III_, p. 148. Summa taxae omnium bonorum.

[27] _Gesta Abbatum III_, p. 171.

[28] _Cal. Papal Letters IV_, p. 293. Sep., 1396.

[29] The grant of the same privilege to the Abbey of Evesham in 1363
was used as a strong argument by de la Mare during negotiations.

[30] _Gesta Abbatum III_, p. 143. In 1396, Bury St. Edmunds made a
similar arrangement, the annual payment being fixed at £40 (_Cal. Pat.
Rolls_, 1396–99, p. 21). About a year later, following the example of
St. Albans, Abbot Cratfield, of Bury St. Edmunds, made an agreement
with Boniface IX identical with that of de la Mare (_Cal. Pat. Rolls_,
1396–99, p. 406).

[31] He tells, for instance, how in 1384, in the midst of an argument
with the Duke of Lancaster, he threw his shoes and cap through the
window. In 1387 a judge made difficulties about signing a document
presented to him. His son said, according to Walsingham, that his
father was knocked down and kicked as he lay.

[32] _Trokelowe_, p. 167.

[33] _Gesta Abbatum III_, lxxii.

[34] The chronicle has survived in two forms, _viz._, Cotton MSS., Otho
Cii (British Museum), and Bodleian MSS. 316 ff, 150–1, plus Harleian
MSS. 6434. It has been printed in _Chronicon Angliae_ (Rolls Series).

[35] The Royal MSS. E. ix (B.M.)--the basis of Walsingham’s _Historia
Anglicana_.

[36] See Maunde Thompson. Intro. to _Chronicon Angliae_ (Rolls Series).

[37] _Historia Anglicana I_, p. 339.

[38] The peasant armies in 1381 are said to have taken as their cry:
‘We will have no King named John.’

[39] See Armitage Smith, John of Gaunt, pp. 169–171.

[40] This is sufficient proof--if proof were needed--of the
‘independence’ of English chroniclers, _i.e._, they did not merely
write what they were told.

[41] _Tout. Polit. Hist. of England_, 1216–1377, p. 452: ‘The monks
were jealously proud of their library to which almost every abbot
found it expedient to contribute largely.’ In 1326 there was great
indignation when Abbot Richard gave or sold nearly forty volumes to
Richard de Bury, a famous lover of books, to promote the interests of
the abbot at Court. The incident was not forgotten, and after de Bury’s
death the books were bought back by the new abbot.

[42] _E.g._ Higden’s _Polychronicon_, viii. 278.

[43] The Scriptorium had been founded by Abbot Paul, circa 1077.
Owing to the ignorance of his own monks he was compelled to fill
it with hired scribes. Towards the end of the twelfth century a
‘historiographer’ was appointed, and from that time the systematic
compilation of annals may be taken to date. From the peculiar character
of the St. Albans script Sir T. Duffus Hardy concluded that Matthew
Paris learnt the art of writing from a foreign schoolmaster. See
Catalogue: _Materials for History of Great Britain and Ireland III_,
xxv, xxxiv, cxxiii.

[44] The same epoch left its impress upon the Abbey fabric. Much of it
was rebuilt by Abbot Thomas, though unfortunately lapse of time and the
restoration by Lord Grimthorpe’s munificence have left little except
the great Abbey gateway. Some stained glass, wall-paintings and a rood
screen of this date still remain, and in Abbot Whethamstede’s chapel
there is a beautiful brass of De la Mare.

[45] Chaucer: Prologue, &c. (Morris), lines 165–206.

[46] _Cf._ p. 12 ante.

[47] _Viz._ Essex, Hertford, Bedford, Bucks, Cambridge, Kent,
Middlesex, Yorkshire, Norfolk, Northampton, Berks, Lincoln, and in
London.

[48] _Gesta Abbatum II_, pp. 157–8.

[49] Another small outbreak in 1356 has escaped the notice of writers
on St. Albans municipal history. See _Cal. Pat. Rolls_, 1354–1358, p.
493. It was perhaps as a consequence of this that the Convent secured
a licence (1357) to crenellate the dwelling-place of the Abbey. _Cal.
Pat. Rolls_, 1354–1358, p. 574.

[50] _Whethamstede II_, p. 324–5; for such services the villein
commonly received besides his food a small wage.

[51] _Gesta Abbatum I_, p. 453–455.

[52] An unusually severe regulation.

[53] It was highly desirable for the Abbot to maintain this
distinction. In the King’s courts the villein had no case against his
lord save for bodily injury. In practice it appears that the Abbot
of St. Albans could inflict even bodily injury with impunity. See,
for instance, the case of Nicholas Tybson, who, having been stripped,
thrashed and wounded by the Abbot’s servants, brought an action for
redress. The case was at once dismissed as a false appeal on the ground
that Tybson was the born villein of the Abbot (_Gesta Abbatum III_, p.
39).

[54] T. W. Page: ‘End of Villeinage in England’ passim. See, too,
Petit-Dutaillis’ introduction to Réville, where the views of Stubbs
and Thorold Rogers on this subject are exploded. The period 1349–1381,
it is proved, was not marked (as they believed) by the reduction to
serfdom of men emancipated before the Black Death, or the re-assertion
on the part of landlords of labour services already commuted for money
payments. On the contrary, the process of commutation (which had not
advanced nearly so far by 1349 as Stubbs thought) proceeded at an
increasing rate after 1349.

[55] No manumissions occur in the records until more than a generation
after the revolt: evidently the old system remained unprosperous but
intact at St. Albans in 1381.

[56] Réville: _Le Soulèvement des Travailleurs d’Angleterre en 1381_,
p. xxv. See also _Gesta Abbatum II_, p. 123 and _III_, pp. 39–41,
_Whethamstede II_, pp. 324 and 333. At the cell of Tynemouth in 1378
there is no trace of commutation in the manor rolls; the old system
still exists in its entirety; see Gibson: _History of Tynemouth_, Vol.
II, Appendix, p. cxxi.

[57] _Amundesham I_, 163.

[58] _Whethamstede II_, Intro., p. xxxv.

[59] A few years earlier Abbot Heyworth had suppressed a similar rising
at Barnet (_Whethamstede I_, 451–2).

[60] _Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History_, Vol. I, p. 177.

[61] See _Utopia_ (Clarendon Press Edition), pp. 13–20.

[62] It is unfortunate that the surveys of the Commissioners in 1535
for Hertford have perished. At the same time the condition of monastic
estates was wonderfully similar, and St. Albans was probably no
exception.

[63] On the other hand classical learning became more esteemed. It is
impossible not to see in the florid verses of Whethamstede and in his
prose (loaded with classical allusion and metaphor) an early appearance
of the Renaissance spirit in England. Verse and prose are alike
worthless, but show a striving after something better than mediaeval
monastic writing. The tendency becomes more marked in his work after
his visit to Italy in 1423, where he was certainly influenced by the
early Humanist movement.

[64] The town of St. Albans was apparently something of a Lollard
centre. Sir John Oldcastle lay in hiding there, and when in 1414
William Murlee (one of his followers) was hanged and burnt, the convent
firmly believed that he had planned to put them every one to death
(Walsingham: _Hist. Angl. II_, 298–299). See, too, the account of the
proceedings at the Synod held by Whethamstede in 1429 (_Amundesham I_,
222–3): for commission to put down heresy (_Amundesham II_, 23). The
Abbot’s bitterness extended to any departure from orthodoxy, and Pecock
was an object of his special dislike.

[65] _E.g._ He instituted and endowed ‘a common chest,’ to which
resort was to be made only at times of great financial necessity. He
also created the office of ‘Master of the Works,’ to whom he assigned
regular funds with which the Master was to keep the Abbey buildings in
repair and put up new structures when required.

[66] Riley, for instance, thought it probable that Whethamstede was
the Duke of Gloucester’s political adviser, and that his resignation
of the abbacy in 1440 was due to the waning of ‘Good Duke Humphrey’s’
popularity before the rising star of Beaufort. ‘When ... the contending
rivals had been alike removed by the impartial hand of death, we find
him emerging from his comparatively obscure position as a pensioned
monk of the Abbey, and on the first opportunity attaining the Abbacy
once more’ (_Amundesham II_, liv).

[67] ‘His (Whethamstede’s) counsels,’ says Riley, ‘seem to have been
sought with equal eagerness by the two great heads of the antagonistic
parties of the politics of the times, the intriguing and ambitious
Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, and his ... nephew, the Duke of
Gloucester’ (_Amundesham I_, xv).

[68] _Cal. Pat. Rolls_, 1436–1441, p. 422.

[69] The King is found nevertheless in 1549 spending Easter at the
Abbey and lavishing gifts upon the Abbot.

[70] _Whethamstede I_, 396. The St. Albans chronicles make a valuable
contribution to political history for the years 1450–1461. For this
the coincidence of two decisive battles being fought at St. Albans is
responsible.

[71] _Newcome_, p. 374. Clutterbuck: _History and Antiquities of the
County of Hertford I_, Appendix I, pp. 527–46, for a copy of Edward
IV’s charter.

[72] For the growth of Episcopal hatred, see _Amundesham I_, p. 73–82,
142–195, and 300–408.

[73] _Gesta Abbatum III_, p. 472.

[74] _Amundesham I_, 29, 31.

[75] _Amundesham I_, 101.

[76] _Whethamstede I_, p. 25.

[77] _Whethamstede I_, p. 475.

[78] _Whethamstede I_, XV.

[79] It is a curious circumstance that the folio containing the account
of his election has been torn out of the register.

[80] MS. Cotton: _Nero D.VII_ (British Museum), folios 25A-48A.
_Whethamstede I_, 451. A different MS. from that of his Register
(_viz._ MS. Arundel III, College of Arms), which contains the charges
against him.

[81] There are a few instances, however, during Albon’s rule.

[82] _E.g._ Office of Seneschal of the Liberty bestowed upon several
prominent political figures between 1474 and 1482 (see _Whethamstede
II_, xxx).

[83] _Whethamstede II_, xxxii. Riley has examined such cases in detail.
It appears that even his right of presentation of a Prior to the Cell
of Tynemouth was alienated by Wallingford.

[84] E.H.R. xxiv. 319–321: the Bull was promulgated in March, 1490.
Mr. James Gairdner believes the curious omission in the Bull of any
mention of Benedictine Houses due to the fact that there were so few
exempt in England. More probably, I think, the omission was due to the
Pope’s unwillingness to reverse a brief he had issued less than two
months previously. In February, 1490, at the solicitation of Abbot
Wallingford, Innocent VIII had addressed a brief to the Archbishop
bidding him defend St. Albans against all attacks as an exempt House.
Evidently Wallingford had an inkling of the impending reform and strove
to anticipate Morton.

[85] _Wilkins Concilia III_, p. 632; the translation is from Froude.

[86] In 1484 Wallingford formally allowed Thomas Hethnes, keeper of the
George Inn, to have a chapel for the celebration of the Mass by the
Chaplains of ‘such great men and nobles and others as should be lodging
at this hostelry’ (_Whethamstede II_, xxxiii; also p. 269), a clear
indication of the decline of the one-time famous hospitality.

[87] The history of these transactions is taken from an article by Mr.
Gairdner (E.H.R. xxiv. 319–321) based upon Abbot Gasquet’s researches
in the Papal archives.

[88] Mr. Gairdner gives it as his opinion that the visitation was
not carried out (see _Lollardy and the Reformation_, Vol. I, pp.
269–272, Vol. III, p. xxxi). He bases his view on a passage in the St.
Albans obit book (_Whethamstede I_, p. 478), recording a victory of
Wallingford over the Archbishop. This passage, it appears from what
follows, was written not later than 1484 (see _Whethamstede I_, p.
479), the convent solemnly affixing its seal to the narrative under
the date ‘anno domini millesimo quadringentesimo octogesimo quarto,
die, videlicet, mensis Augusti octava.’ Probably therefore the account
refers to an earlier and unsuccessful attempt of the Archbishop to
carry out a visitation (see Appendix).

[89] _Letters and Papers I_, No. 71.

[90] _Letters and Papers_, 1519, No. 487.

[91] _Letters and Papers_, 1519, No. 510.

[92] _Letters and Papers_, 1521, No. 1843.

[93] _Letters and Papers_, 1523, No. 3239.

[94] Gasquet: _Henry VIII and the English Monasteries_, p. 27; the
appropriation of the revenues of Prez and Tenby to his colleges at
Oxford and Ipswich is natural; the revenues of the suppressed houses
were too small to have been of any real assistance to St. Albans.

[95] Savine: _English Monasteries on the Eve of the Dissolution_, p.
24 (Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History). The surveys of six
counties are missing from _Valor Ecclesiasticus_.

[96] _Ibid._, pp. 263–267. _Cf._ His conclusion that the monks
maintained a population not more than four times their own number.
Abbot Gasquet had stated it to be at least ten times as great. _Cf._,
too, Hibbert’s _The Dissolution of the Monasteries_, p. 210.

[97] _E.g._ _Whethamstede II_, xxxi.

[98] _Cf._ Morton’s letter to the Abbot, 1490. _Whethamstede II_,
xxxiii.

[99] _Cf._ Morton’s letter to the Abbot, 1485 (_Whethamstede II_,
xxxiii).

[100] _Cf._ Robert Aske’s remarks in 1536 with regard to the blessings
the abbeys conferred upon the ‘poor commons’ (Gasquet’s _Henry VIII and
the English Monasteries_, p. 225).

[101] The printing press generally said to have existed within the
Abbey was probably set up in the town by an anonymous master of the
Grammar School about 1480. See an elaborate article in the _Victoria
History of English Counties_ (Hertford), Vol. II, pp. 47–56.

[102] The school was refounded 1549; probably it never ceased actually
to exist.

[103] Already in 1528 Wolsey had suppressed a number of the smaller
monasteries, among them the nunnery of St. Mary de Prez (on the ground
that the inmates did not preserve good discipline) and the cell of
Pembroke.

[104] Adding ‘It were well to suppress the nunnery of Sopwell as you
may see by the comperts’ (_Letters and Papers_, 1535, No. 661). The
state of affairs would thus really seem to have been worse in the
smaller houses than at St. Albans; but of Binham, on the other hand,
there is direct evidence that, except that its numbers had grown
smaller, it was in good condition (_Letters and Papers_, 1534, No. 574).

[105] _Letters and Papers_, 1535, No. 1155.

[106] _Letters and Papers_, 1536, No. 642.

[107] _Letters and Papers_, 1536, No. 354.

[108] _Letters and Papers_, 1537, No. 1209.

[109] _Monasticon II_, p. 207.

[110] From one of his letters to Cromwell it would appear that as
early as January, 1536, Catton felt his position insecure owing to
the complaints of his own monks. ‘Trusts greatly to Cromwell his
position here being so intrikyd with extreme penury ... and most of
all encumbered with an uncourteous flock of brethren.’ (_Letters and
Papers_, 1536, No. 152).

[111] The average decline in numbers has been calculated by Savine as
one-fifth; so the proportion at St. Albans was high.

[112] The three greater were: Canterbury (£2,423); Westminster
(£2,409); and Glastonbury (£3,311) (Savine Appendix, p. 270–288).

[113] _Whethamstede I_, p. 475–479.



Transcriber’s Notes


Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation
marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left
unbalanced.

This book contains archaic spellings of many words.

Pages containing only chapter titles were deleted, as the same
information appeared at the top of the next page.



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