During Richard III’s short reign there were only three vacancies for bishops, and it is remarkable that two of these went to Thomas Langton.  Langton ticked all the right boxes with Richard:  Richard preferred Cambridge men to those from Oxford – Langton had studied at Pembroke Hall in Cambridge, though he also was provost of Queen’s College in Oxford; Langton had studied further in Italy, in Padua and Bologna, and shared Richard’s interest in learning and humanistic scholarship.

St David’s Cathedral (© Isolde Martyn)

In May 1483 the Bishop of St David’s, Richard Martin, died and Richard as protector suggested Thomas Langton for the vacancy.  He must have proved a very able man and, when in February 1485 the see of Salisbury fell vacant, it was again Thomas Langton who was promoted [1]. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Cambridge, Church, Contemporaries, Richard III

Richard and his family (from The Rous Roll)

We have recently looked at a few of the collegiate churches founded by Richard while Duke of Gloucester or later as Richard III and will continue with a few others.

One chronicler who tells us about this is John Rous (1411-1491). Rous spent most of his life under the patronage of the Beauchamps and – after the marriage of Anne Beauchamp to Richard Neville (the “Kingmaker”) – the Nevilles.   During Richard’s reign Rous wrote The Rous Roll, a history of the Earls of Warwick, which is full of praise of Richard, the son-in-law of Richard Neville.

Once Henry Tudor was king he changed his tune completely and went on all out attack in his Historia Regum Anglie (History of the Kings of England).  This is origin of the legend that Richard’s mother was pregnant with him for two years and when he was born he had teeth and shoulder-length hair.  He also accuses him of personally killing Henry VI and poisoning his wife.

Unfortunately for Rous, copies of both texts have survived, which brought him “the distinction of being the most despised of the chroniclers”.  However, even among all the accusations of his later work, he sometimes can’t help himself and praises Richard, like in this passage where he talks about Richard’s building programmes:

This King Richard was praiseworthy for his building, as at Westminster, Nottingham, Warwick, York, and Middleham, and many other places, which can be viewed. He founded a noble chantry for a hundred priests in the cathedral of York, and another college at Middleham. He founded another in the church of St. Mary of Barking, by the Tower of London, and endowed the Queens’ College at Cambridge with 500 marks annual rent. The money which was offered him by the peoples of London, Gloucester, and Worcester he declined with thanks, affirming that he would rather have their love than their treasure.

I would not have thought that a Richard who would rather have his subjects’  “love than their treasure” fitted in well with the Tudor world view.  This is hardly a sentiment that Henry VII, with whom Rous wanted to ingratiate himself at that time, would have shared.

Bibliography:

Antonia Gransden, Historical writing in England, Volume 2. Routledge, 1982.  ISBN 978-0-415-15125-2, pp.309-316

Jeremy Potter, Good King Richard?  An Account of Richard III and his Reputation.  Constable, London, 1994 (pbk).  ISBN 0 09 468840 0, p.88 (incl. quote from History of the Kings of England)

Tags: Church, Contemporaries, Middleham, Richard III

Hatfield, Hertfordshire – History in Reverse

This continues my quest to discover a Ricardian or Yorkist connection to places in Hertfordshire.  Hatfield was fairly high on my agenda as I spent a year as a foreign language assistant teaching German at two schools, one of which was in Hatfield, in 1980/81.

After arriving on a Saturday evening in late August 1980, our first visit the next day was to Hatfield House.  As the first thing you see is the latest building on the site, this story will be going chronologically backwards. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Church, Family, Hertfordshire, Yorkshire

It is amazing how sometimes strands of seemingly unrelated interests come together.  This happened when I was planning a trip to Europe for next year to attend the “Blood and Roses” Special Interest Weekend in Oxford in March, an event at Christ Church College in association with the Richard III Society.  Afterwards I was thinking of spending a few days in Germany visiting sites of personal interest, after all I would be in the area, so to speak.

During my recent research into St Albans I had read that a church in Cologne is said to hold relics of St Alban.[1]  At the time I didn’t pursue this any further, but now that a visit to Cologne is on the cards I decided to find out more. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Church, St Albans

Today is Michaelmas, or the day of St Michael and All Angels.  This is one of the feast days which are often mentioned in medieval sources as it used to be one of the quarter-days in England.  By Michaelmas the harvest had to be completed, so it became the day when rents had to be paid, magistrates and councils were elected and on manors the peasants elected a reeve.  It was also a Holy Day of Obligation, meaning the faithful were obliged to attend mass.

The date of Michaelmas, 29 September, is about the time of the (northern hemisphere) autumn equinox, when the nights were getting longer and Michael came to be seen as the protector against the forces of the dark.  Many monasteries and churches, often near the sea, were dedicated to him.

Michael is one of the archangels and his name means “Who is like God?”.  St Michael is said to be the captain of the heavenly armies and is therefore generally pictured in full armour, carrying a lance and with his foot on the neck of a dragon (based on Revelation 12, 7).  You can distinguish him from St George, who is often shown in a similar pose, by his wings.

The traditional meal for Michaelmas would be roast goose.  The geese had fed on the stubble of the fields after the grain had been harvested.  In some places there was also a tradition of special large loaves of bread just for this day.  Carrots were a traditional accompaniment to the goose.

Michaelmas Term is still the name of the first term of the academic year at many British universities and some schools.

As an illustration for this day I simply couldn’t resist the photo of a statue by Wilhelm Rottermondt (1701 – 1755) of the Archangel Michael at my alma mater,  Bonn University, and therefore is of personal significance.

Bibliography:

“Michael and All Angels”, The Mission of St. Clare, accessed 21 Sept.2010
“Michaelmas”, Alice’s Medieval Feasts & Facts, accessed 21 Sept. 2010
“Michaelmas Day”, The Old Foodie, accessed 21 Sept. 2010
“September, 29th”, Hillman’s Hyperlinked and Searchable Chamber’s Book of Days, accessed 21 Sept. 2010

Photograph of St Michael at Bonn University taken by Michael Jaletzke; obtained through Wikimedia Commons.

Tags: Church, Holiday, Medieval Life, September

The following article  was originally published in The Plantagent Chronicle, newsletter of the Plantagenet Society of Australia, Vol.12, No.4, August 2010.  You can find out more about Isolde Martyn here.

St David’s Cathedral (© Isolde Martyn)

Some of you may have recently seen the Terry Jones TV documentary series on a seventeenth century road map which showed a route through Wales to Holywell via the village of St David’s. We had the opportunity to visit St David’s in the English spring this year and discovered it to be a very picturesque area, steeped in history and as pretty as Cornwall but without the hordes of tourists. But for me, there were three surprises, which I’ll share with you shortly. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Church, Margaret Beaufort, Ricardian Authors, Tudors

Another gem from Sir Frederick Treves’ Highways and Byways of Dorset .

Wimborne Minster – Church of St Cuthburga (© Copyright Mike Searle and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.)

Not so far from Bloxworth (about 12 kilometres east)  is the much larger town of Wimborne Minster, and it is here in the impressive ecclesiastical building that Sir Frederick remarks on the many interesting tombs. It seems his favourite is “the beautiful monument to John Beaufort and his wife, Margaret”.

John was the grandson of John of Gaunt, and his wife was Margaret Beauchamp. “The effigies,” writes Sir Frederick, “were prepared by the direction their daughter, Lady Margaret Tudor, mother of Henry VII. The two lie side by side, he a burly fighting man in full armour, she a slender and pretty woman, in robes of state. She wears a veil under her coronet and a jewel on her breast. Their two right hands are firmly clasped together, and so natural is the action that the impression remains that it was thus they died. He has taken off his gauntlet the better to hold her hand , while the empty glove is pressed to his cuirass.”

It seems that their daughter, who – as we all know became Lady Stanley a couple of husbands down the track – was anxious to portray her parents in the best possible light. If only they were as serenely happy as portrayed in Wimborne Minster.

Bibliography:

Sir Frederick Treves, Bart. GCVO, CB, LL.D, Highways and Byways of Dorset.  Macmillan & Co. Ltd, 1906. No ISBN.

You can find a photograph of the grave here (scroll down to the bottom of the page).

Tags: Church, Margaret Beaufort

Cerne Abbas is a small village in central Dorset. In 1998 it had a population of 780, that had fallen to 732 by 2001. The peace of such a small settlement could have been why it was voted Britain’s Most Desirable Village in 2001. (As my mother’s family comes from Cerne, it has always been a most desirable place for me!)

Abbot’s Hall Porch, Cerne Abbey (© Copyright Chris Downer and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence)

From earliest times, Cerne Abbey, founded in AD 987, was the cornerstone around which the village grew. The Domesday Book (1087) tells there was enough cultivated land for 20 ploughs and 26 villeins. The Abbey remained the focal point of the area for over 500 years until Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539 brought about its surrender. Most of the buildings were destroyed, but the Abbot’s Porch and the Guesthouse still remain, as does St Augustine’s Well, blessed allegedly by the saint himself. The parish today is centred on St Mary’s Church which was built in the late 13th century by the Abbey for the local people. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Anne Neville, Church, Margaret of Anjou

The following was presented as a PowerPoint presentation as a Scrabble talk for the letter – yes, you guessed it! – “H”.

Questions?
•    What did the church have to say about those concepts?
•    How did the laity imagine heaven and hell?
•    How the great schism influenced the system of beliefs?
•    Who went to heaven and who went to hell?
•    How did those concepts influence political decisions?
•    What other concepts were available?
•    Should Richard III have been afraid to where he would end up in the after life?
•    Should Henry the VII have been afraid to where he would end up?
•    Could you choose where you ended up? Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Church, Medieval Life