Chapter 2

FOOTNOTES:[4]Harl.MS.6195 f. 7.[5]Poole,Coventry, 90. Elizabeth visited the city in 1565.[6]Polyolbion, xiii.[7]Some rough (?) Roman pavement was discovered in the Cross Cheaping during excavations at the end of the last century.Victoria County Hist.i. 246.[8]Rashdall,Universities, ii. pt. ii. 323.[9]Dugdale.Warw.i. 134.[10]Ibid.[11]A convent is properly abodyof monks or nuns; a monastery or nunnery their habitation. The etymology of Coventry is dubious; but the popular derivation from the Lat.conventusis now discredited. The earliest form in which the word occurs is Cofantreo. Here treo = tree, and Dr Hen. Bradley, to whom I am greatly indebted for information on this point, suggests a possible origin of the other syllables in a personal name, Cofa or Cufa;cf.Oswestry = Oswald's tree.[12]See Matt. v. 20. This translation mainly follows Birch.[13]Privilege of administering justice.[14]Obscure. Birch says privilege of vouching to warranty.[15]Power to punish for forcible entry.[16]Power to inflict punishment for waylaying.[17]Power to punish assault with bloodshed.[18]Power to punish assault.[19]Power to maintain watch.[20]Power to punish for breach of peace.[21]Add. MSS. Ch. 28657. Birch,Edward the Confessor's Charter to Coventry. "A most elegant specimen of eleventh century native palæography" (Birch).[22]On events which occur before 1154 (or 1188) the chronicler is dependent on some earlier unknown writer (Dict. Nat. Biography,s.v."Godiva").[23]They follow Higden, author of thePolychronicon, who was the first to mention the ride in this connection. As a monk of S. Werburgh's, Chester, a city which held frequent intercourse with Coventry, he may have had opportunities of hearing the tale from local sources.[24]In Coventry market the burgesses were free from toll, except for horses, in the time of Edward I. (Dugdale,Warw.i. 162).[25]Dugdale,Warw.i. 135. Some tiny fragments of this window yet remain in the Archdeacon's Chapel of Trinity Church. See alsoGent. Mag.(1829), pt. i. 120-1, for another account of the fragment.[26]Leet Book(E.E.T.S.), 567.[27]Rog. Wendover,Flores Historiarum, i. 497.[28]So an old sexton told Sharp, the antiquary. See alsoGent. Mag. Topography, xiii. 53.[29]Science of Fairy Tales.[30]Chambers,Mediæval Stage, i. 119.[31]Grant Allen,Evolution of the Idea of God, 110 (festival of the Pòtraj).[32]Hartland,op. cit., 77.[33]As a tyro in folk-lore I venture with some diffidence to put forward the theory that it may be by research in custom and belief as regards the horse that we may arrive at an explanation of some of the problems of this mysterious legend. See Grimm,Teut. Myth.(trans. Stallybrass), 47, 392; Frazer,Golden Bough, ii. 24, 64; Gomme,Ethnology and Folk-lore, 35; Chambers,op. cit., i. 131.[34]Rudder,Gloucestershire, 307 (quoted Hartland).[35]Camden,Britannia(Gibson), 67. I am indebted to Mr Addy for this reference;cf.the story of the Tichbourne dole, Chambers,Book of Days, i. 167.[36]Coventry Standard, Jan. 15-16, 1909. The MS. (1684-1833) has passed into private hands, and I have never been able to see it.[37]Sir Lawrence Gomme explains the black Godiva by a reference to Pliny's account of the woad-stained British women, but see Chambers,Mediæval Stage, i. 125.[38]Science of Fairy Tales, 71-92. Mr Hartland was the first folklorist to submit the story to scientific investigation. He gained his local knowledge of the Southam black Godiva from the late W.E. Fretton of Coventry.[39]SeeDict. Nat. Biog.,s.v."Godiva."[40]Hartland,op. cit., 77.[41]SeeDict. Nat. Biog.,s.v."Godiva."

FOOTNOTES:

[4]Harl.MS.6195 f. 7.

[5]Poole,Coventry, 90. Elizabeth visited the city in 1565.

[6]Polyolbion, xiii.

[7]Some rough (?) Roman pavement was discovered in the Cross Cheaping during excavations at the end of the last century.Victoria County Hist.i. 246.

[8]Rashdall,Universities, ii. pt. ii. 323.

[9]Dugdale.Warw.i. 134.

[10]Ibid.

[11]A convent is properly abodyof monks or nuns; a monastery or nunnery their habitation. The etymology of Coventry is dubious; but the popular derivation from the Lat.conventusis now discredited. The earliest form in which the word occurs is Cofantreo. Here treo = tree, and Dr Hen. Bradley, to whom I am greatly indebted for information on this point, suggests a possible origin of the other syllables in a personal name, Cofa or Cufa;cf.Oswestry = Oswald's tree.

[12]See Matt. v. 20. This translation mainly follows Birch.

[13]Privilege of administering justice.

[14]Obscure. Birch says privilege of vouching to warranty.

[15]Power to punish for forcible entry.

[16]Power to inflict punishment for waylaying.

[17]Power to punish assault with bloodshed.

[18]Power to punish assault.

[19]Power to maintain watch.

[20]Power to punish for breach of peace.

[21]Add. MSS. Ch. 28657. Birch,Edward the Confessor's Charter to Coventry. "A most elegant specimen of eleventh century native palæography" (Birch).

[22]On events which occur before 1154 (or 1188) the chronicler is dependent on some earlier unknown writer (Dict. Nat. Biography,s.v."Godiva").

[23]They follow Higden, author of thePolychronicon, who was the first to mention the ride in this connection. As a monk of S. Werburgh's, Chester, a city which held frequent intercourse with Coventry, he may have had opportunities of hearing the tale from local sources.

[24]In Coventry market the burgesses were free from toll, except for horses, in the time of Edward I. (Dugdale,Warw.i. 162).

[25]Dugdale,Warw.i. 135. Some tiny fragments of this window yet remain in the Archdeacon's Chapel of Trinity Church. See alsoGent. Mag.(1829), pt. i. 120-1, for another account of the fragment.

[26]Leet Book(E.E.T.S.), 567.

[27]Rog. Wendover,Flores Historiarum, i. 497.

[28]So an old sexton told Sharp, the antiquary. See alsoGent. Mag. Topography, xiii. 53.

[29]Science of Fairy Tales.

[30]Chambers,Mediæval Stage, i. 119.

[31]Grant Allen,Evolution of the Idea of God, 110 (festival of the Pòtraj).

[32]Hartland,op. cit., 77.

[33]As a tyro in folk-lore I venture with some diffidence to put forward the theory that it may be by research in custom and belief as regards the horse that we may arrive at an explanation of some of the problems of this mysterious legend. See Grimm,Teut. Myth.(trans. Stallybrass), 47, 392; Frazer,Golden Bough, ii. 24, 64; Gomme,Ethnology and Folk-lore, 35; Chambers,op. cit., i. 131.

[34]Rudder,Gloucestershire, 307 (quoted Hartland).

[35]Camden,Britannia(Gibson), 67. I am indebted to Mr Addy for this reference;cf.the story of the Tichbourne dole, Chambers,Book of Days, i. 167.

[36]Coventry Standard, Jan. 15-16, 1909. The MS. (1684-1833) has passed into private hands, and I have never been able to see it.

[37]Sir Lawrence Gomme explains the black Godiva by a reference to Pliny's account of the woad-stained British women, but see Chambers,Mediæval Stage, i. 125.

[38]Science of Fairy Tales, 71-92. Mr Hartland was the first folklorist to submit the story to scientific investigation. He gained his local knowledge of the Southam black Godiva from the late W.E. Fretton of Coventry.

[39]SeeDict. Nat. Biog.,s.v."Godiva."

[40]Hartland,op. cit., 77.

[41]SeeDict. Nat. Biog.,s.v."Godiva."

CHAPTER II

The Benedictine Monastery

TheBenedictine house was built in part upon the northern slope of a low hill, in part in the hollow through which the river Sherbourne flows. This was a situation well adapted for the building of a monastery; there was rich soil in the neighbourhood, good roads—both the Watling Street and the Foss Way ran within a few miles from the spot—and running water. The Sherbourne is but a small stream nowadays, but it was a more important watercourse in earlier times, and in the fifteenth century many precautions had to be taken "in eschewing peril of floods." The monks could stock Swanswell Pool[42]with fish, and plant their orchards or vineyards in or near the hollow in which the monastery lay.

CATHEDRAL RUINS

Little remains of the minster save the bases of a few clustered pillars of the thirteenth century, the remains ofthe west end by the Blue Coat School at the north end of S. Michael's Churchyard, and the fragment of the north-west tower, now incorporated in a dwelling-house in New Buildings. Under the gardens and pleasant red brick eighteenth and nineteenth century houses of Priory Row, which give the churchyard the look of a cathedral close, diggers often come upon fragments of ancient masonry, showing how the cathedral stretched down the slope of the hill. Between the cathedral and the southern bank of the Sherbourne were the Priory buildings, with the cloister garth, locutorium or parlour, synodal chamber and grammar school,[43]which last had an endowed existence as early as 1303.

CARVED MISERERE SEAT, S. MICHAEL'S CHURCH

Another relic of the monastery, a beautiful old timbered hostry or guest house in Ironmonger Row, was only cleared away in 1820. The inn known as the "Palmers' Rest" now occupies a portion of this site, and carvings of hunting scenes, and grotesques worked into the windowframes, and now painted a dreary brown, were taken from the ancient guest house of the monks. Some of the obligations of hospitality were lifted from the monks by the foundation in the twelfth century of the hospital of S. John the Baptist, whereof only the church is left. Here poor wayfarers had food and lodging and the sick poor of the place were nursed and tended. The brethren were clothed in a black or dark brown garb, ample and flowing, and marked with a black cross, and the sisters wore a white veil and long closed mantles or cloaks. Another foundation for the nursing of the sick was the lazar-hospital at Spon, dedicated to S. Mary Magdalen, of which not a trace remains.

The main feature of a monk's life was its well-ordered monotony, so congenial to many minds; but as a class monks were not specially addicted to idleness or solitude. Neither were they in most cases entirely devoted to spiritual things, for although the salvation of the individual soul was the primal object of monasticism, members of the religious orders were adepts at secular business, and did not suffer their houses to decay from neglect of the affairs of this world. There was always plenty of work for any monk possessing a clear head and a faculty for administration. The various officers of the convent,obedientiariias they were called, had each his appointed task. Every one was allowed a certain proportion of the convent revenue to devote to the expenses connected with his office.[44]In return he presented his accounts at the annual audit, keeping them carefully and exactly, recording everything, down to the receipt of a pot of honey, "or the price of the parchment on which the various items were written." In the case of Coventry the rents of certain tenements in S. Nicholas Street, Bailey Lane, Well Street (super corneram Vici Fontis), amongothers, were assigned to the cellarer;[45]those coming from land in Keresley to the treasurer; the same forms being observed with regard to the pitancier and sacristan. The rents paid in kind—butter, honey, eggs, etc.—were probably entered among the kitchener's receipts; whilethe accounts, compiled from daily entries, must have given many clerks almost unceasing labour.

Priory Row Coventry

We have, unfortunately, no local chronicles,[46]such as those kept within the cloisters of S. Alban's, giving us particulars concerning the lives of the Coventry monks. But no doubt, in essentials, the management of various houses differed little. At Evesham, for example, the prior was bound to furnish the parchment required for the scriptorium, and all other writing materials except ink, out of the sum allotted to him. The manciple provided the wine, mead, oil and lamps, and kept up the stock of earthenware, jugs, basins, and other vessels required for the convent use. The precentor—as befitted one whose office was to train the choir—was bound to keep the organ in repair, and over and above to find all the ink and colour required for illumination, together with all materials for binding books. While to the chamberlain a certain revenue was assigned to provide for the clothing of the monks.[47]All these matters gave the convent officers daily occupation, and must have absorbed much thought and interest.

For those of fervent spirit the daily religious exercises were the salt of life, but for others—possibly the greater number—they were merely part of the daily routine, and repetition had increased monotony. Many hours of the day were passed in these regularly recurring services of the Church. At midnight the brethren rose and went to Matins and Lauds. Prime was celebrated at six, Tierce at nine, Sext at twelve, Nones at two or three, Vespers at four, and Complin at seven. After Tierce the duties of the day began; and the different obedientiaries went each to fulfil his appointed task. The rest sat in the cloisters, taught the children in theschool, or copied manuscripts. There were frequent consultations in the chapter-house, and on Sundays, before Prime or Tierce, the abbot sat in the cloisters to hear the monks' confessions, and appointed to each the penance due for his fault. Now and then the coming of an important stranger—a royal guest, perhaps, such as William the Conqueror, who passed, it is supposed, through Coventry on his way from Warwick to Nottingham in 1068—would furnish the brethren with a topic for many weeks' conversation.

Sometimes the brethren were suffered to have a glimpse of the great world without the convent with their own eyes. The prior, who was of the company of mitred abbots, was frequently forced to journey to whatever place the King might appoint for the meeting of the parliament. The rank and file of the convent had now and then opportunities of seeing life in travel. They might undertake a pilgrimage; or, when a dispute was on hand, and appeal had been made to the Holy Father, one of the brethren would journey Rome-wards, with well-lined pockets, to look after the convent's interest at the papal court. These lawsuits were not infrequent, as may be shown by the career of Geoffrey, Prior of Coventry during the reign of Henry III.[48]In 1224 the monks tried to raise him to the episcopal throne, but the election was quashed by the archbishop, and the usual appeal to Rome only brought another—a papal—candidate to fill the vacant seat. This occurrence did not in all probability predispose the minds of the actual and would-be bishop to mutual goodwill. In 1232 the prior was suspended for resisting the episcopal visitation, and, together with the abbot of Westminster, set out hot-foot to Rome, to lay his grievances before the Pope. A year or two later we find him involved in a quarrel with the Abbot of S. Augustine's, Bristol. What heart-burnings these obscure disputes must have occasioned, what journeyings to and fro, and, above all, what wealth was lost to the monastery to satisfy the Roman greed of gold!

It is the record of these disputes that forms the bulk of the history of the monastic houses of England, and the priory of Coventry is no exception to the general rule. Placed in a somewhat dependent position—for during the episcopate of Robert de Limesey (1086-1121) the bishop's seat had been transferred from Chester to this place—the monks were, earlier or later, bound to realise the dangers of episcopal tyranny and encroachment. Limesey, the first bishop in whom the abbacy was vested—the superior of the convent being henceforward called a prior—soon made the monks feel his heavy yoke. Bitter were the complaints they made concerning his conduct. On the death of the last abbot he obtained leave to farm the convent revenue, and, using the permission to serve his own ends, wrought much harm to the estates of the monastery, pulling down houses thereon, and carrying off the materials to his own manors, seizing horses and other monastic property. But the crying instance of his greed, one which the chroniclers have carefully and tremblingly noted, was his plunder of the magnificent minster. He scraped off the silver coating of a beam—worth 500 marks—most likely from a shrine in that goodly treasure-house![49]It was little wonder that the indignant monks turned to Rome for aid against this devourer of their substance.[50]

Nor was this the only bishop who, from his fair palace in S. Michael's Churchyard, caused his neighbours of the priory to tremble for the safety of their possessions. Hugh of Nunant, a monk-hater, who vowed, it is said, that "if he had his own way he would strip every cowled head in England," was nominated to thesee in 1188. He is variously described as a man of piety and eloquence or as one desperately wicked.[51]Politically he was a follower of Prince John, who, during his brother King Richard's imprisonment in Germany, was endeavouring to strengthen his own position by forming a rebel party in the Midlands. Nunant obtained licence to incorporate the prior's barony with his own episcopal one, and by his accusations so enraged the monks that they fell on him during a synod in the cathedral church, and broke his head with a crucifix. The bishop, indignant in his turn, applied to Longchamp, the absent King's representative, for licence to punish the outrage. And he was allowed to expel the brethren, "contaminated," so he said, "with secular pollution," from the monastery, and appoint secular canons, who probably came from Lichfield, in their stead. Appeal was made to Rome, but the monks were now too impoverished to obtain a favourable hearing of their suit at the papal court. So they remained in exile for several years.

But the adversary's triumph was, after all, short-lived. In 1194 King Richard, ransomed from prison, returned to England, and the scheme of Prince John and Bishop Nunant fell to the ground. The latter was deposed from his bishopric, and the monks he had oppressed took heart of grace, and bethought them how they might return to their old home. The story goes how one of their number put an end to the brethren's exile by his intercession with the Pope. Although often forced to beg his bread, brother Thomas tarried long at Rome, and offered to each fresh occupant of S. Peter's chair the petition of the monks of Coventry. On one occasion his Holiness in an angry mood bade the monk withdraw, telling him that other petitions to the same purpose had been exhibited to Clement and Celestine, his predecessors, but rejected, and therefore his expectations were vain. Untowhich the monk, with bitter tears, replied: "Holy Father, my petition is just and altogether honest, and therefore my expectation is not vain; for I expect your death, as I have done your predecessors', for there shall one succeed you who will hear my petition to purpose." Then said the Pope to the cardinals: "Hear ye not what this devil hath spoken?" And immediately turned to him and said: "Brother, by S. Peter, thou shalt not expect my death; thy petition is granted."[52]So the monks returned joyfully to their old home; but Hugh of Nunant, so the chroniclers tell us, died in remorse and torment of mind, deploring the injuries he had done to the Coventry brethren "with abundant sighs and tears," and praying that he might die in a frock of the order he had in life despised.

But grasping bishops were not the only enemies known to the monks. There was a long-standing feud between the brethren of Coventry and the canons of Lichfield, dating from the time when Stephen gave them, together with the canons of Chester, permission to elect the bishop of the diocese.[53]The monks frequently defeated their object by nominating a candidate of their order, usually the prior, whom the canons would in nowise be induced to accept. Appeals to Rome would follow; and the Pope, seizing the opportunity, would set aside previous nominations, and impose his own candidate upon the contending parties.

At the first election we hear of, the Coventry brethren were able to secure the bishopric for one of their order, the prior of Canterbury, in spite of the canons' protests and appeal to Rome. But when, after his enthronement at Coventry, bishop Durdent came to Lichfield, the canons barred the gates of their fortified close againsthim, and, in the face of the episcopal excommunication, denied him entrance. They also refused to enthrone Gerard la Pucelle, elected by the sole voice of the monks in 1183. "Unica est sponsa mea, nec habeo duo cubicula,"[54]said the bishop in his discouragement. And this learned and righteous prelate died four months later, not without suspicion of poison. Nunant was appointed by the Crown; but on his death in 1199 the passions of the rivals, strengthened by political antagonism—for the canons were partizans of John while the monks clave to King Richard—again broke loose. On the nomination of Richard's candidate, one of the monks led off theTe Deum, as a signal that the proceedings were over, though the canons had taken no part in the election. "Who made thee cantor here?" cried the Archdeacon of Stafford, a member of John's party, in great wrath, for the cantor on these occasions conducted the singing. "I am cantor here, and not thou," was the reply, and as King Richard's party was then predominant the monks had their will.[55]

At the next election[56]the brethren were brought face to face with King Richard's successor, and John found it a hard thing to subdue the Coventry monks, though he had at his back the entire company of the canons of Lichfield. When England was under an Interdict, the King sent to them the Abbots of Oseney and Waltham, proposing the Archdeacon of Stafford as a candidate for the vacant See of Coventry. But the monks would have none of him. They elected their prior, Joybert of Wenlock, and purposed to send the nomination oversea to the incoming archbishop, Stephen Langton. At Tewkesbury, John proposed the Abbot of Bindon. The monks refused utterly. "None whom I love wiltthou choose," cried the angry King. Then to the justiciar said the prior, afraid: "If it suits the lord king well, I will elect his chancellor." The chancellor was Walter de Grey, who was subsequently raised to the See of York. This proposal found no favour then, and the King appointed another meeting with the monks at Nottingham. On their return home they held a consultation in the chapter-house, and determined that they would elect neither of the King's candidates, Richard de Marisco nor the Abbot of Bindon. At Nottingham Castle Joybert and six monks besought the King that he would allow them to elect freely and canonically the prior or some other fitting man. Meanwhile all manner of threats and blandishments were used to make them give their voice for one of the royal nominees, but they held firm. Next morning, however, when the prior and two monks tarried long in the King's chamber, the four remaining brethren, fearing that their superior would at last give way, determined to go home and reserve their vote; but Fulk de Cantilupe shut the castle gate in their faces, vowing "by the tongue of God" that they should not leave ere they had made a bishop to the King's liking, "and other things he uttered," the record continues, "not meet to be said."

At last Prior Joybert began to waver, for the King promised him great rewards and honours if he would do his will, and urged him, saying: "Speak, prior, speak!" Then Joybert fell on his knees. "By the soul of thy father the King," he said, "and of thy brother the King, and by the honour of thy life, who art King, if it be not possible for us to have any other than one of these two, give us the Abbot of Bindon." "Never while I live shall this be," cried one of the monks, named Thomas, "and never shall he be my bishop." A bystander reproved him for this outburst towards his superior. "In the cloister I am but a monk," the fearless brother answered, "but here at the election of thebishop, I am the prior's fellow." Then John, looking about him in great anger left the room, and many nobles gathered about the monks, and urged them to fulfil the King's will. "Verily ye have much to fear," they said, "if you bring down his wrath upon your heads."

The unhappy monks were again summoned into the King's presence. "Lord prior," the tyrant began, "I have always loved thee, and thou wilt not do my will. What sayest thou to my chancellor, whose name thou didst propose to me at Tewkesbury?" The prior signified that he willingly accepted this candidate, and the King gave orders that the canons should be summoned to ratify the election. At this the smouldering jealousy between monks and canons burst into flame. "By S. Milburg," cried the prior, "they shall not come; never shall they be present at our election!" But John swore "by the tooth of God" that they should come in. "I would rather die," Joybert answered, "than be the cause of the destruction of my order." The nobles, who were present, gathered round the monks, and falling upon their necks entreated them to submit. Then the prior, vanquished, said: "Because nothing else is pleasing to you, and it is not possible to do other, do your will." ATe Deumwas then sung by the company of monks and canons, although the former murmured greatly at the constraint laid upon them.

The case was afterwards laid before the papal legate, and the election of Walter de Gray annulled. The long dispute between monk and canon was temporarily allayed in 1227, when it was ordained that the election should take place alternately at Coventry and Lichfield, the prior having first voice and the dean second.[57]The quarrel gradually died away, and, well tutored by Pope and King, the electors peacefully met to choose the particular candidate designated by those in authority. Other quarrels brought the house low. In 1248 theresources of the convent had become so impoverised by lawsuits concerning the Bishop of Coventry's right of visitation[58]that it was feared some of the monks would be compelled to disperse, a disaster the monks of Derley averted by receiving divers inmates of the Coventry Priory for a time into their hospitable house. When trouble again arose, the convent of S. Mary found that the enemy had sprung up under the very shadow of the monastery itself, and that the men of Coventry were even more implacable foes than the canons of Lichfield had been in times past. These quarrels between ecclesiastical bodies and their burgher tenants were of common occurrence in mediæval life. The strong corporate feeling which flourished amongst the monks, the zeal they bore for their order in general and their house in particular, which involved them in endless quarrels, caused them to play a notable part in municipal history. As a body they were opposed to the growth of free institutions among the townsfolk. They never rightly understood their tenants' desire for increase of municipal liberty, and feared by giving way to their demands to forego the rights of the Church, and bring their souls in peril thereby.[59]

FOOTNOTES:[42]Guy of Warwick also freed Coventry from a fabulous monster. In the last century there was still shown there "a great shield-bone of a bore (sic) which "he" slew in Hunting, when he (i.e.the boar) had turned with his Snout a great Put or Pond which is now called Swanswell, but Swineswell in times past." Gough,Collect. Warw.(Bodleian Library).[43]Vic. Count. Hist. Warw., ii. 319.[44]For a popular account of a monasteryv.Jessopp,Coming of the Friars, 113-165.[45]Leet Book, 448-9.[46]The chronicler, whose name—Walter of Coventry—seems to attest some local connection, was not a monk of this house. Stubbs,Pref.to Walter of Coventry (Rolls), I. xxii.-xxxiii.[47]Jessopp, 138.[48]Luard,Annales Monastici, iii. 90; i. 89-90.[49]Dugdale,Monasticon(1846), iii. 178.[50]Beresford,Diocesan Hist. Lichfield, 54.[51]Beresford,Diocesan Hist. Lichfield, 78.[52]Dugdale.Warw., i. 161. Rather an improbable story. More likely after Nunant's fall the monks found some one to plead their cause with the King.[53]Beresford, 69.[54]Which may be paraphrased: "I have but one diocese, and must I have but one cathedral?" (Beresford, 76).[55]Cott. MS, quoted Dugdale,Monasticon, VI. iii. 1242.[56]Ibid.1242-3.[57]Luard,op cit., iii 104.[58]Vict. County Hist., ii. 55.[59]For the disputes between ecclesiastics and their tenants see Mrs Green,Town Life, i. 333-383; Thompson,Municipal History,passim. This feature is not confined to England. For the disputes between the men of Rouen and the chapter see Giry,Établissements de Rouen, 34.

FOOTNOTES:

[42]Guy of Warwick also freed Coventry from a fabulous monster. In the last century there was still shown there "a great shield-bone of a bore (sic) which "he" slew in Hunting, when he (i.e.the boar) had turned with his Snout a great Put or Pond which is now called Swanswell, but Swineswell in times past." Gough,Collect. Warw.(Bodleian Library).

[43]Vic. Count. Hist. Warw., ii. 319.

[44]For a popular account of a monasteryv.Jessopp,Coming of the Friars, 113-165.

[45]Leet Book, 448-9.

[46]The chronicler, whose name—Walter of Coventry—seems to attest some local connection, was not a monk of this house. Stubbs,Pref.to Walter of Coventry (Rolls), I. xxii.-xxxiii.

[47]Jessopp, 138.

[48]Luard,Annales Monastici, iii. 90; i. 89-90.

[49]Dugdale,Monasticon(1846), iii. 178.

[50]Beresford,Diocesan Hist. Lichfield, 54.

[51]Beresford,Diocesan Hist. Lichfield, 78.

[52]Dugdale.Warw., i. 161. Rather an improbable story. More likely after Nunant's fall the monks found some one to plead their cause with the King.

[53]Beresford, 69.

[54]Which may be paraphrased: "I have but one diocese, and must I have but one cathedral?" (Beresford, 76).

[55]Cott. MS, quoted Dugdale,Monasticon, VI. iii. 1242.

[56]Ibid.1242-3.

[57]Luard,op cit., iii 104.

[58]Vict. County Hist., ii. 55.

[59]For the disputes between ecclesiastics and their tenants see Mrs Green,Town Life, i. 333-383; Thompson,Municipal History,passim. This feature is not confined to England. For the disputes between the men of Rouen and the chapter see Giry,Établissements de Rouen, 34.

CHAPTER III

The Chester Lordship

Theplace where the monks settled was probably little better than a village. We may picture it as a couple of straggling streets intersecting one another, with small wooden houses on either side of the highway, which was comparatively empty of people except on market days when country folk would come in to sell their wares in the "Cheaping" at the monastery gates. Domesday records that there were only sixty-nine heads of families living in Godiva's estate at Coventry in 1086,[60]though Leicester and Warwick were fair-sized towns, as towns were accounted then. Of the two parish churches, existing probably at the Conquest, S. Michael's served maybe for the tenants of the lay lord, and Trinity for those of the ecclesiastical estate. For from the beginnings of its history the town had been divided into two lordships, whereof the convent held the northern part or Prior's-half, not mentioned in Domesday, as the gift of their founder, Earl Leofric; while the southern portion, the Earl's-half, which Leofric retained, became a part of the Earl of Chester's vast inheritance.

After the Conquest the convent retained their estate, receiving a gracious charter of confirmation from William, who, no doubt, was willing to link his name with that of his kinsman, the Confessor, as patron of this famed foundation.[61]The Earl's-half, however, passed to other masters. Probably Godiva held it during her lifetime; but at her death the Conqueror took it, as the lady's grandchildren and direct heirs were, as rebels, naturally shut out from the inheritance. How it was that the estate passed into the hands of Ranulf Meschines, Earl of Chester, we can only conjecture. He had probably deserved well at the King's hand and had his reward. Though not, it is true, so disturbing an element in the burghers' lives as his continental brethren, an English feudal lord had much power for good or evil over his dependents. His castle—with its fortifications, often breaking into the line of the city wall, as Rougement did at Exeter, or the Tower, built by the Conqueror to overawe the men of London—was a perpetual menace to the citizens. His officers or deputies could annoy and terrify the tenants in various ways. Thus one Simon le Maudit, who held in farm the reeveship of Leicester, went on to collect gravel-pennies, which he said were due to the lord from the townsfolk, long after these payments had been remitted by charter. But this document having been destroyed by fire, the burghers had no evidence wherewith to support their claim, and Simon "the Accursed" had his will.[62]Instances of feudal oppression seem, however, to have been comparatively rare, though warlike lords by involving their tenants in their quarrels frequently brought trouble upon them.

CHEYLESMORE MANOR HOUSE

Earl Ranulf came of a strong race. The founder of the family—whom the Welsh called Hugh "the Fat" by reason of his great girth, but the Normans "the Wolf" by reason of his fierceness—held manors of the Conqueror in twenty shires of England. Lord of the county palatine of Chester, the special privileges granted to him for the purpose of strengthening his hand against the Welsh made him almost independent of royal authority.[63]Meschines himself is an obscure figure, but the fame of his successor, Ranulf Gernons, whose doings were accounted terrible even in Stephen's time, when every man's hand was against his fellow, spread far and wide. In 1143 Coventry became the battle-ground of this earl and Marmion of Tamworth, King Stephen's ally. That was an evil time for the monks, as Marmion seized and fortified the priory, and for the townsfolk, asthey were between Marmion and Ranulf, the hammer and the anvil. The Tamworth lord died early in the struggle, for falling into one of the trenches he had made to enclose the monastery, he was killed by a common soldier. No doubt the monks reminded one another that their sacrilegious oppressor, who so justly came to this evil end, was of an impious stock. Did not his ancestor, one Robert Marmion, expel the nuns of Polesworth from their dwelling, until, warned in a vision by S. Edith, their foundress, and sorely smitten by the staff of the saint, he repented and caused the sisterhood to return?[64]

Ranulf lived on to find a reverse of fortune at Coventry. Four years after the fight with Marmion, the earl, finding the King's forces were possessed of the castle there, laid siege to the stronghold, but Stephen appearing, Ranulf's army was put to flight. It was a fitting end to this lawless life that he should die by poison and excommunicate; and his widow gave to Walter, Bishop of Coventry, under whose curse her husband lay, the hamlet of Stivichall, so that his soul might have peace.[65]

There was trouble also in the days of Earl Hugh, Ranulf's successor. He joined in the great feudal rising of 1173, when all England was a scene of strange confusion, and only the energy and promptitude of Henry II. and a few faithful followers saved the King's throne. Henry's sons were arrayed against him, supported by the arch-enemy, the King of France, the Scotch, the Flemings, and many nobles both in England and Normandy, whose power and lawless ways the King had sought continually to restrain. Such were the Earls Ferrars, Bigod of Norfolk, Robert of Leicester, and Hugh. The men of Coventry lent the Earl ofChester aid in this rebellion, as the men of Leicester did to their lord, Robert Blanchmains, for those tenants who held land by military service were bound to follow their feudal superior to battle. But one by one the King's enemies were defeated. Earl Hugh was taken prisoner at the siege of Dol in Britanny quite early in the struggle, and suffered a short imprisonment in the Castle of Falaise.[66]Swift destruction—siege and fire—came upon Leicester for the share the townsfolk had taken in this rebellion, and the inhabitants for a time forsook the place.[67]Coventry, as a place of less note, suffered less; but what liberties the townsmen possessed were confiscated, not to be redeemed until after Hugh's death, eight years later, by a payment of twenty marks. The men of Norwich had also cause to regret the part they took in the celebrated rising, but it was Bigod who dealt them their punishment, burning the city out of revenge because his men had declared for the King's party.

The men of Coventry had, it is true, one reason to dwell with gratitude on the memory of Earl Hugh. Dugdale tells us that among this lord's following was a leper. And it may have been for the sake of this man that Hugh built the lazar-house and chapel of S. Mary Magdelene at Spon in the fields on the western side of the city.[68]All traces of this chapel have now disappeared, but the name Chapel Fields still serves to commemorate the place, with which the chapel of S. James and S. Christopher,[69]whereof there are remains in Spon Street, is sometimes—but quite erroneously—identified. Leprosy, brought from the East by the Crusades, took terrible hold on the people of western Europe, and few towns of any note in those days were without their lazar-houses or hospitals for these sorely afflicted folk. The chief of these leper hospitals was at Burton Lazarsin Leicestershire, but the one that is best remembered nowadays is that of S. Giles, once "in the Fields," now in the heart of London.

The most famous among the Earls of Chester was Ranulf, surnamed Blondvil, who succeeded to the earldom on Hugh's death. This befell in 1181. Ranulf was the last of the old order, the race of the feudal barons of the Conquest, who, by reason of their vast estates and almost princely power, were a constant source of anxiety to the kings of England. Men sang songs of Earl Ranulf,[70]either of his loyalty to his master John, or of his feats in warring with the Welsh at home or the heathen abroad, for he joined the Crusades, and was present in 1219 at the siege of Damietta. He was as much of a popular hero as Robin Hood during the fourteenth century. The Church knew him as the benefactor of the monastic house of Pulton, whence he removed the monks, its inhabitants, to Dieulacres in Staffordshire. And his pious deeds availed to save him after death, people said, in spite of many offences. For at the time of his dying, a solitary man at Wallingford saw a company of demons hurrying past, and learnt from one of them that they were hastening to the earl's death-bed to accuse him of his sins. Adjured to return within thirty days, the demon came back and told the hermit what had befallen. "We brought it about," he said, "that Ranulf for his ill deeds was adjudged to the pains of infernal fire; but the mastiffs of Dieulacres, and many others with them, without stinting barked so that they filled our habitation with a loud clamour whilst he was with us; wherefore our prince, disgusted, orderedto be expelled from our territories him who now proved so grievous an enemy to us."[71]In this manner was the earl's soul delivered from the evil place. In 1232 he died childless, and his vast lands were divided among his sisters and their issue. The Earl's-half of Coventry fell to the lot of Hugh of Albany, and then passed to his daughter Cicily, wife of Roger de Montalt. This family continued to hold it until the days of Edward III., when by some arrangement with Queen Isabel, the King's mother, it was vested in the royal line, ultimately becoming part of the duchy of Cornwall, heritage of successive princes of Wales.

GABLE OF CHEYLESMORE MANOR HOUSE

The only relic of the associations of the earls of Chester's family with Coventry lie in the Cheylesmore manor house, to the south-east of the city. The house itself is mostly modern, but there are fragments of ancient buildings—a chimney-shaft—incorporated with it. It is most likely that the Black Prince, who gave—say the annals—the ostrich feathers to Coventry, and prince Henry, afterwards Henry V., sojourned in the ancient dwelling at Cheylesmore.

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