Robert N. Swanson: Marginal Or Mainstream? the Hospitaller Orders

Robert N. Swanson: Marginal or mainstream? The hospitaller orders and their indulgences in late medieval England Schriftenreihe Ricerche dell'Istituto Storico Germanico di Roma Band 3 (2007) Herausgegeben vom Deutschen Historischen Institut Rom

Das Digitalisat wird Ihnen von perspectivia.net, der Online-Publikationsplattform der Max Weber Stiftung – Deutsche Geisteswissenschaftliche Institute im Ausland, zur Verfügung gestellt. Bitte beachten Sie, dass das Digitalisat der Creative- Commons-Lizenz Namensnennung-Keine kommerzielle Nutzung-Keine Bearbeitung (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) unterliegt. Erlaubt ist aber das Lesen, das Ausdrucken des Textes, das Herunterladen, das Speichern der Daten auf einem eigenen Datenträger soweit die vorgenannten Handlungen ausschließlich zu privaten und nicht-kommerziellen Zwecken erfolgen. Den Text der Lizenz erreichen Sie hier: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode Robert N. Swanson Marginal or mainstream? The hospitaller orders and their indulgences in late medieval England

The evidence for the history of indulgences and their distribution in medieval England is often fragmentary and incomplete, and much of the analysis must be based on inference rather than hard fact. One element in that history which suffers considerably from the gaps in the surviving primary material is an understanding of the involvement of the great international hospitaller orders and their representatives in such activities. From 1200 to the Reformation there are signs of involvement by bodies associated with the hospitals of Roncesvalles, St Anthony of Vienne, St James of Altopascio, St Mary of Bethlehem, and Santo Spirito at Rome, as well as military orders like the Lazarites and the Order of St John. This evidence rarely survives in sufficient quantity or depth to allow much detailed comment on how the collections were organised, or their results. This paper addresses some of that evidence, but it cannot provide a full picture. Its prime concern is with the ‘non-military’ orders, so little will be said about the orders of St Lazarus or St John of Jerusalem (or the specifically English military order of St Thomas of Acon).1 While the remaining institutions were active collectors, their precise role and significance within the overall pattern of indulgence collection in England cannot yet be established. Nor, more seriously, is it yet possible to indicate the significance of the English collections in the overall pattern of indulgence distribution by the individual orders across catholic Europe in the pre-Reformation centuries. The difficulties with the evidence for the indulgence distributions of these international institutions in England unavoidably impact on any attempt

1. On the Lazarites in England, D. M a r c o m b e, Leper Knights: The Order of St Lazarus of Jerusalem in England, 1150-1544, Woodbridge 2003; for the Order of St Thomas of Acon, A. J. F o r e y, The military order of St Thomas of Acre, English Historical Review 92 (1977) pp. 481-503 (although with little information about the involvement in the indulgence trade). There is no adequate survey of the Hospitallers in England for this period; the recent volume by Gregory O’ M a l l e y, The Knights Hospitaller of the English Langue 1460-1565, Oxford 2005, appeared too late to be consulted for this paper. 170 Robert N. Swanson to assess the international orders in terms of ‘centre and periphery’. The historical evolutions in fact suggest that that polarisation should perhaps be reversed: here the analysis focuses the telescope on England, so that, in a sense, it is the ‘centre’ – the continental mother house of the order – which becomes ‘peripheral’, and increasingly so as time passed. Adopting that Anglocentric approach, a major shift in the history of collecting for these orders in England occurs around 1400. Until then, the orders were (or so it seems) regularly collecting throughout the country on behalf of their continental mother houses. Thereafter, however, the pattern changed. Some of the orders seem to have withdrawn completely from En- gland, although not necessarily permanently. Others, meanwhile, continued, but what had formerly been outposts or ‘branch offices’ (from the perspective of the mother houses) now became houses which were effectively fully English institutions, whose ties with their continental parents were tenuous, limited to little more than a continuity of the spiritual privileges which they claimedtooffer. Such an evolution is traceable in other international religious institutions, where it occurred at different speeds. Within the monastic orders, the so- called ‘alien priories’ which survived in England into the fifteenth century were divorced from their continental parent houses; political considerations and general evolutionary trends also loosened the ties of the English Cluniacs, Premonstratensians and Cistercians to the orders’ central institutions, to varying degrees. The English branch of the Order of St Lazarus likewise gained autonomy from the Order’s continental administration.2 There are references to activities by the hospitaller orders in England in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, but the evidence is very limited, and certainly so when it comes to evidence for their collecting activities. Many of the hospitals had English bases. These were principally the three London hospitals of St Mary of Bethlehem (which eventually became Bedlam, surviving the Reformation to evolve into England’s most famous lunatic asy- lum), of St Anthony of Vienne, and of St Mary of Roncesvalles (or ‘Rounce- val’) at Charing Cross; there were also bases for Santo Spirito at Writtle in Essex, and for St James of Altopascio at Great Thurlow in Suffolk. What little can be recovered of the history of these houses is usually sketchy, and very incomplete.3

2. M. D. K n o w l e s, The religious orders in England, 3 vols., Cambridge 1948-1961: II, pp. 127-129, 140-143, 158-166; III, pp. 28-31, 34-35, 37-38; Joseph A. G r i b b i n, The Premonstratensian Order in late medieval England, Woodbridge 2001, pp. 14-19, 206-212; M a r c o m b e, Leper Knights, pp. 86-87. 3. For Writtle, see W. P a g e (ed.), Victoria History of the County of Essex, II, London Marginal or mainstream? 171

The lack of evidence makes it difficult to reconstruct a detailed picture of the collecting mechanisms used by the hospitals. While episcopal registers often (but by no means invariably) contain information about grants of questorial licences to those distributing indulgences on behalf of a range of individuals and institutions, the hospitaller orders appear irregularly. Neverthe- less, grants of licences to collect alms and disseminate the indulgence appear from the thirteenth century to the end of the fourteenth.4 However, not all such grants were formally registered, being perhaps considered by the ad- ministrations as too ephemeral to justify a permanent record.5 Some of the orders may also have advanced claims to exempt status, to relieve them of any obligation to obtain questorial licences from the diocesan bishops.6 Among the hospitaller orders as a whole, least evidence seems to survive for Santo Spirito and Altopascio, although both do offer evidence of collecting. Notably, material from the diocese of York in the early-fourteenth-century shows a pattern of collection by Santo Spirito which may have been common to all of the great national bodies at the time, and certainly was in the following centuries.7 While the links between the hospital’s diocesan representatives and its formal agents at Writtle are obscure, it seems clear that the hospital was farming out its indulgence distribution to local pardoners. These men were members of a group which seemingly monopolised much of the indulgence trade in the diocese of York at this time, carving up territories for

1907, pp. 200-201; for Great Thurlow, I d. (ed.), Victoria History of the County of Suffolk, II, London 1907, p. 155 – but even this brief note is marred by a serious misprint, giving ‘1312’ instead of ‘1382’ in the limited historical statement. See also below. 4. E.g. The Register of Walter Bronscombe, Bishop of Exeter, 1258-1280, ed. O. F. R o b i n s o n, 3 vols. (Canterbury and York Society 82, 87, 94), Woodbridge 1995-2003, nos. 22, 28, 47-48, 218, 223, 245, 295, 326, 329, 412, 457. 5. They are in the same category as other material mentioned in R. N. S w a n s o n, Speculum ecclesie? Sources for the administrative history of the late medieval English church, Richerche di storia sociale e religiosa, n.s. 48 (July-December 1995) pp. 19-20; see also the comments on recording indulgences for prayers for specific souls in I d., Indulgences for prayers for the dead in the diocese of Lincoln in the early fourteenth century, Journal of ecclesiastical history 52 (2001) pp. 198-199, 201, 204-206. 6. For one flare-up caused by such claims to exemption, Concilia Magna Britanniæ et Hiberniæ, ed. D. W i l k i n s, 4 vols., London 1737: III, pp. 84-85. The only reference to a questorial licence that I know of for the Order of St John appears in Lincoln diocesan records of 1533-1534, so it may have been issued after the abolition of papal supremacy in England: Lincoln, Lincolnshire Archives Office, Add. Reg. 7, f. 156r/3v. 7. Material from the printed episcopal registers is discussed in A. R e h b e r g, Nuntii, questuarii, falsarii: l’ospedale di S. Spirito in Sassia e la raccolta delle elemosine nel periodo Avignonese, Mélanges de l’École française de Rome. Moyen Âge 113 (2003) pp. 67-68; see also following note. 172 Robert N. Swanson themselves, and making private arrangements for the division of collecting responsibilities.8 However, there are also signs of some episcopal hostility to such farming, with restrictions being imposed in some of the collecting licences included in the registers of the early-fourteenth-century bishops of Lincoln.9 The York evidence for Santo Spirito stands out in the general obscurity of that order’s activities in England. The activities of Altopascio are equally obscure, apart from records of questorial licences.10 One document, however, is noteworthy. Issued in the name of Benedict de Luca as proctor for the hospital of Altopascio, and dated from Great Thurlow in May 1380,11 it is remarkable both as evidence of the hospital’s collecting activity within En- gland, and for being the earliest instance so far found of what became a common feature of indulgence distributions in the fifteenth century: the letter of confraternity or confessional letter.12 The document offers membership of the hospital confraternity, and participation in all of the spiritual privileges available to its members, including indulgences and remission of enjoined penance, and the power to choose a confessor to give plenary absolution in articulo mortis. Apart from being the first such letter known in England, the document is also notable because it is a form letter, mass produced either for distribution across the country or for sale at the hospital’s English base (it is impossible to know which at present). In such cases a blank space was left for names to be inserted when it was eventually bought; here the recipients are named as John Asheby and Emma his wife. The grammatical forms indicate that the document was drawn up to be acquired by at least two people; it is possible (as appears later with letters issued by other institutions) that

8. York, York Minster Library, M2(1)a, ff. 40r, 41v. Unfortunately, while members of the group appear frequently in the records, the institutions for which they were working are not always identified. Some obviously acted for several institutions over the course of their careers. Several of the cohort appear as a group in a document setting out the spiritual privileges offered for donations to Beverley Minster: The Register of William Melton, Archbishop of York, 1317-1340, III, ed. R. M. T. H i l l (Canterbury and York Society 76), York 1988, no. 138. 9. See, for example, Lincoln, Lincolnshire Archives Office, Ep. Reg. V, f. 451v (a questorial licence for the hospital of Altopascio, 1331): ‘Inhibemus insuper ne dicte questua- cionis officium cuicumque dimittatur ad firmam’. The ban on farming could also apply to collections for English projects, the identical clause appearing for instance in a document of 1318 concerning a collection for Beverley Minster: ibid., Ep. Reg. III, f. 403r. 10. E.g., H i l l, Register of William Melton (see note 8) III, nos. 69, 167, 245. 11. Sheffield, Sheffield Archives, Bag.C 2186 (published below, no. 1 in the Appendix). Benedict was still proctor in 1382: Calendar of the Patent Rolls preserved in the Public Record Office: Richard II, A.D. 1381-1388, London 1897, p. 224. 12. See, in general, R. N. S w a n s o n, Letters of confraternity and indulgence in late- medieval England, Archives 25 (2000) pp. 40-57. Marginal or mainstream? 173 there were other versions whose wording would be applicable to single purchasers, or for other specialised uses.13 While this letter suggests national distribution, it is again impossible to be sure just how the system functioned. The proctor may have commissioned collectors to go out as salaried agents; alternatively collectorates may have been farmed, as happened with Santo Spirito. The negative evidence on the collections is perhaps the more striking. Here there is no need to comment on the pardoner in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales: although allegedly an agent of the hospital of Rounceval at Charing Cross, and thereby doubtless providing evidence of the general attitude to that hospital’s agents, it is impossible to say how much his supposed activities mirror reality. There are enough instances of false pardoners to leave open the possibility that he is in fact not a properly accredited pardoner; scholars still debate the reliability of the portrait.14 Unsurprisingly, complaints about the activities of agents of the major hospitals figure among the generalised hostility to fraudulent pardoners.15 In 1367, for instance, it was alleged that the master of the Bethlehem hospital had been colluding with his agents to collect on the basis of false bulls.16 By 1403, the hospital clearly faced a financial crisis, and a formal royal inquest investigated its governance and accounts. The evidence includes an estimate of the profits of the nationwide indulgence collections (that is, the amount received from the farmers, rather than the sums actually collected), set at 40 marks (£26 13s. 4d.) per year. In addition, further collections in London brought in additional sums.17 Evidence from around 1385 relating to Altopascio, if reliable, indicates serious problems there as well. William de Dene, as proctor, was accused in effect of leading a gang of miscreants whose illicit activities exploited the appeal of pardons. They included preachers who exceeded due limits in their

13. Ibid., p. 53. 14. L. D. B e n s o n (ed.) The Riverside Chaucer, Oxford 1988, pp. 34, 194-196, 201- 202; A. M i n n i s, The Construction of Chaucer’s Pardoner, in: R. N. S w a n s o n (ed.), Promissory Notes on the Treasury of Merits: Indulgences in Late Medieval Europe (Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition 5), Leiden-Boston 2006, pp. 169-195. 15. D. K. M a x f i e l d, St. Mary Rouncivale, Charing Cross: the hospital of Chaucer’s Pardoner, Chaucer Review 28 (1993) pp. 151, 153; references for St Anthony in D. K. M a x- f i e l d, St Anthony’s hospital, London: a pardoner-supported alien priory, 1219-1461, in: J. G i l l e s p i e (ed.), The Age of Richard II, Stroud-New York 1997, n. 12. 16. Calendar of the Patent Rolls preserved in the Public Record Office: Edward III, XIV: A.D. 1367-1370, London 1913, pp. 68-69. 17. W. P a g e (ed.), The Victoria History of London, I, London 1909, p. 496; London, National Archives, C270/20. 174 Robert N. Swanson preaching (one was even accused of heresy, but the charge is unspecific), and someone who forged episcopal and papal documents.18 No known additional evidence corroborates or substantiates these charges, and they cannot be taken at face value; but they cannot simply be dismissed. Even so, this evidence may not be of actual misbehaviour, but of hostility. It may be a continuation of a dispute over Great Thurlow church mentioned in 1382, or (perhaps more likely) an attempt by the royally-appointed English occupant of the hospital’s possessions to prevent Dene and his agents, as representatives of the mother house, from receiving any of the indulgence receipts. In June 1385 a royal order was issued to arrest collectors lacking authority from the royal appointee.19 This may also tie in with general hostility to the representatives of bodies with overseas connections in the context of the Hundred Years War. Even if not technically enemy aliens, the experience of the hospital orders in some cases matches that of the so-called ‘alien priories’, the English cells of French monasteries which were repeatedly confiscated by the English crown during the fourteenth century, and which in the fifteenth were either dissolved, transferred to the possession of English houses, or managed to break away and establish themselves as independent or ‘denizened’ houses.20 The branches of the international orders in England seem to have faced a collective crisis. For Santo Spirito and Altopascio this seems to have been resolved by a wholesale liquidation of their connections with England. In 1392 Santo Spirito received papal permission to sell up its properties, and apparently withdrew from the English scene, albeit temporar- ily. 21 Altopascio also seems to have abandoned – or been deprived of – its holdings at Great Thurlow, although just when and how seems to be unrecorded. It also withdrew from the collecting business in England. In the absence of detailed records, the overall role of the hospitaller bodies in the indulgence trade of fourteenth-century England is hard to assess. The proctor for Santo Spirito was reported to have exported £160 from

18. London, National Archives, C270/36/9. This is an undated fragment, but Dene also appears as proctor in C270/31/11, dated to 1385. 19. Calendar of the Patent Rolls, A.D. 1381-1388 (see note 11) pp. 224, 601. 20. A. K. M c H a r d y, The effects of war on the church: the case of the alien priories in the fourteenth century, in: M. J o n e s/M. V a l e (eds.), England and her Neighbours, 1066-1453: Essays in Honour of Pierre Chaplais, London 1989, pp. 277-288. For the effect on Rounceval and St Anthony’s see M a x f i e l d, St. Mary Rouncivale (see note 15) pp. 153-156; M a x f i e l d, St Anthony’s hospital, London (see note 15) pp. 228-237. 21. P a g e, Victoria History, Essex (see note 3) pp. 200-201; Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland: Papal Letters, IV: A.D. 1362-1404, ed. W. H. B l i s s/J. A. T w e m l o w, London 1902, p. 283. William of Wykeham sought the property for his foundation of New College at Oxford: Calendar of the Patent Rolls preserved in the Public Record Office: Richard II, A.D. 1388-1392, London 1902, p. 386. Marginal or mainstream? 175

England in 1366, but what that sum actually represented is unclear.22 For the hospital of St Anthony, scattered figures suggest revenues up to £400.23 While other collections would probably have produced less, it is likely that these orders and hospitals were among the leading bodies engaged in the indulgence trade. These bodies all distributed spiritual privileges, and received donations. Most of the donations would have been gifts made by the living, but some were bequests, like the 12d. left to the pardons of Santo Spirito and St Anthony by Thomas Fort of Llanstephan in 1383.24 Their only significant competitor was probably the Order of St John (which also received 12d. in the same will). Its national ‘frary’ structure may have been the real leader, but likewise leaves little solid evidence.25 (A remark in a late-fourteenth- century text rather suggests in fact that the first place among these institutions as collectors was shared between St Anthony and the Order of St John of Jerusalem: it criticised the large amounts of money exported from England for þe maister of Rodis or Vien).26 Intermittent national collections for other purposes, notably for crusades,27 doubtless also affected the receipts from time to time, but there is no evidence for serious rivalry from the mendicant orders or similar bodies at this time. (The Trinitarians may have been rivals, but again evidence is elusive).28 Just why the appeal of the hospital indulgences declined in the late fourteenth century – always assuming that it did

22. B l i s s/T w e m l o w, Calendar of Papal Letters, 1362-1404 (see note 19) pp. 119- 120. 23. D. K. M a x f i e l d, A fifteenth-century lawsuit: the case of St Anthony’s hospital, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 44 (1993) p. 200 and n. 6. 24. R. G. G r i f f i t h s, The cartulary and muniments of the Fort family of Llanstephan, Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies 24 (1970-1972) p. 336. St Anthony also received pigs, whose collection is often mentioned in leases and other documents; for such a gift, in 1351-2, see Winchester, Winchester College Muniments, 15383 (I owe this reference to Dr David Postles). Questorial licences sometimes refer to the St Anthony pigs: The Register of John Kirkby, Bishop of Carlisle, 1332-1352, and the Register of John Ross, Bishop of Carlisle, 1325-32, ed. R. L. S t o r e y, 2 vols. (Canterbury and York Society 79, 81), Woodbridge 1993-1995, I, no. 707. 25. Information to provide the fullest sense of the national structure is scattered through the pages of The Knights Hospitallers in England, being the Report of Prior Philip de Thame to the Grand Master Elyan de Villanova for A.D. 1338, ed. L. B. L a r k i n g (Camden Society, 1st ser. 65), London 1855. 26. Oxford, New College MS 95, f. 32v. 27. W. E. L u n t, Financial Relations of the Papacy with England, 1327-1534 (Publica- tions of the Mediaeval Academy of America 74), Cambridge MA 1962, pp. 525-557: passim. 28. As usual, most evidence for the activity of the Trinitarians derives from the fifteenth century, with limited earlier sources. For an early questorial licence, R o b i n s o n, Register of Bronscombe (see note 2) no. 207; for hints of leasing of the collection for their house at Knaresborough in the 1330s, York, York Minster Library, M2/4, ff. 15v, 18v. 176 Robert N. Swanson

– is hard to determine. The impact of the Hundred Years War may have been a significant factor; another possibility is that there was a shuffling in the relative appeal of individual houses, so that some became less attractive. The hospital of St Anthony of Vienne may already have been as prominent as it later appears, but how it gained the position is impossible to explain, or to trace. With the fifteenth century, the pattern changed considerably. Between 1400 and 1540 the distribution of indulgences in England became an increasingly competitive and complex business. The remaining London-based hospitals with continental affiliations (St Anthony of Vienne, Bethlehem, and Rounceval) were challenged for their national role by an ever-growing number of rivals. The first real signs of this appear in the 1390s, when the Roman hospital of the Holy Trinity and St Thomas of Canterbury – the specifically English hospice which was the ancestor of the present English College – began to distribute confessional letters in England. Thereafter, it had a significant, if elusive, national role.29 Numerous other bodies also entered the field (although some of them may have been active previously without leaving any traces), and likewise began to distribute letters. These included the hospital of St Thomas of Acon in London (which had by now abandoned its role as a military order), and the Order of St Lazarus based at Burton Lazars; while if the survival of their letters is a measure of activity, the various Trinitarian houses also became prominent. Among English institutions, Walsoken hospital in Norfolk and St Mary’s chapel at Newton in Cambridgeshire (‘St Mary in the Sea’) also set up national distribution mechanisms.30 There were, of course, still occasional one-off nation-wide collections under papal auspices, to defend catholic Europe against the Turkish advance, to fund the negotiations with the Greeks in 1439, and for other

29. M. H a r v e y, The English in Rome, 1362-1429: Portrait of an Expatriate Commu- nity, Cambridge 1999, pp. 74-75. London, British Library, MS Harl. 3300, ff. 59v-60r (aut- horisation for collections issued in 1392). The hospital’s letters are (apart from that of 1380 for Altopascio) the earliest so found in England: Shrewsbury, Shropshire Archives, 465/68 (dated 8 June 1394); Trowbridge, Wiltshire and Swindon Record Office, 1332/1/42 (issued in 1398). 30. A preliminary list of documents is in W. G. C l a r k - M a x w e l l, Some further letters of fraternity, Archaeologia 79 (1929) pp. 206-216, but this does not adequately distin- guish between letters associated with indulgence distribution and those issued more formally to individuals by religious institutions and orders. See also the records of grants of questorial licences scattered in York, York Minster Library, H2/3, H3/1; A. H. T h o m p s o n, The register of the archdeacons of Richmond, 1442-1477, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal 30 (1931) pp. 79, 85, 97-99, 106, 108-110, 113-114, 117-118, 120-121, 123, 126-127, 131-132; 32 (1936) pp. 112-113, 115-117, 120, 122-125, 132, 134, 137, 141-142. The mendicant orders also became involved, but they definitely fall outside the scope of this paper. Marginal or mainstream? 177 purposes.31 In the sixteenth century, the pattern was further disrupted with the emergence of the guild of Our Lady at Boston and the guild of the Name of Jesus at St Paul’s cathedral, London, as dynamic new participants in the trade. The surviving evidence for the Boston guild (including some accounts, and several confessional letters) suggests that it may have become the market leader by the 1520s.32 The guild of the Name of Jesus does not seem to have distributed letters, but was certainly a major player.33 Other groups and institutions, even individuals, also acted nationwide, including the guild of St Christopher and St George of York, collectors for the rebuilding of York bridges in 1527-8, and assorted people seeking alms to pay off ransoms owed to their Turkish (or other) captors.34 Against this changing background, the role of the old hospitaller institutions is at times hard to define. While international ties were being diluted and severed, whether the English people in general knew of these changes – and whether they really mattered to them – are unanswerable questions. Nor is it clear, in the early 1400s, how much of their former prominence these hospitals retained. When Canterbury Convocation in 1424-5 identified the bodies allowed to distribute indulgences across the province (and so, implic-

31. L u n t, Financial Relations (see note 27) ch. XII. 32. The Boston guild has attracted surprisingly little attention so far, despite the surviving sources. The accounts in London, British Library, MS Egerton 2886, give considerable detail about the indulgence distribution process. 33. The surviving accounts are in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Tanner 221; for short discussion see E. N e w, Fraternities in English cathedrals in the later medieval period, in: T. T h o r n t o n (ed.), Social Attitudes and Political Structures in the Fifteenth Century (The Fifteenth Century Series 7), Stroud 2000, pp. 42-45. London, National Archives, Prob 11/20, f. 181v (will of John Thurston of London) mentions the Jesus guild among the places that I have writinges of, so that I may [have] the prayers and suffrages of the places and gyldes aforsaid as a brother ought to have, which suggests that the guild did issue confraternity letters, but there is no clear evidence for them in the accounts, or as far as I know in any other sources. 34. I am currently working on the limited evidence for the collections for the St Christo- pher and St George guild, which is too widely scattered to list here in full; for references which indicate activity outside York diocese, N. O r m e, Indulgences in the diocese of Exeter, 1100-1536, Report and Transactions of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, Literature, and Art 120 (1988), pp. 5-32: 25; Registrum Caroli Bothe, episcopi Herefordensis, A.D. MDXVI-MDXXXV, ed. A. T. B a n n i s t e r (Canterbury and York Society 28), London 1921, p. 356. The guild’s involvement in the indulgence trade is not considered in E. W h i t e, The St Christopher and St George Guild of York (Borthwick Papers 72), York 1987. On the collection for the York bridges see (briefly), S. G e e, The coming of print to York, c.1490-1550, in: P. I s a a c/B. M c K a y (eds.), The Mighty Engine: the Printing Press and its Impact, Winchester-Newcastle DE 2000, p. 83. For publicity leaflets for indulgences offered for contributions towards ransoms, W. E. A. A x o n, On Christian captive indulgences in the British Museum, Lambeth Palace, and John Rylands Library, The Library, n.s. 7 (1906) pp. 275-286. 178 Robert N. Swanson itly, across the country), only three were first named (the Order of St John, the hospital of St Thomas in Rome, and the London hospital of St Antony of Vienne), with the London-based hospital of St Thomas of Acon being added almost immediately after.35 While this shows that St Anthony’s still had national status, and perhaps retrospectively confirms its fourteenth-century eminence, the house was becoming firmly identified as a London body – although its continental mother-house struggled to maintain tenuous links in the early fifteenth century, and rival would-be English holders of the London hospital exploited those connections in their own interests.36 The other two remaining houses, Bethlehem and Rounceval, were also gradually changing, although the evidence for this is more elusive. The evidence for the integration of these institutions into the indulgence market of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century England is incomplete, but is much more informative than for the fourteenth century. At least, it is greater for St Anthony and Rounceval; for Bethlehem it remains very limited, in fact little more than scattered notices of the issue of collecting licences.37 Only the 1520s provide solid evidence for distribution of confessional letters. The house clearly remained an active collector, and around 1530 was listed among the leading institutions regularly licensed in the province of York; but there is no surviving evidence for the scale of its receipts or the organisation of its practices.38 With the other two bodies the evidence is patchy, and for the most part confined to the immediate pre-Reformation years. Their histories diverged greatly: while the Rounceval hospital seemingly declined, and by the 1520s was probably towards the bottom of the league of national bodies, the hospital of St Anthony seems to have retained its status, clearly being one of the most important players in the field, if not actually the leader. From being an offshoot of a northern Spanish institution, the hospital of Rounceval at Charing Cross in the fifteenth century developed as a firmly

35. The Register of Henry Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1414-1443, 4 vols., ed. E. F. J a c o b (Canterbury and York Society 42, 45-47), Oxford 1938-1947: IV, pp. 256-262. The provision was reaffirmed in 1449: W i l k i n s, Concilia Magna Britanniæ et Hiberniæ (see note 6) III, p. 557. 36. For the hospital’s evolution, see M a x f i e l d, St Anthony’s hospital (see note 15) pp. 225-227; more specifically on the early fifteenth century, M a x f i e l d, A fifteenth- century lawsuit (see note 23) pp. 199-223. 37. For Bethlehem licences, e.g. York, York Minster Archives, H3/1, ff. 101r, 171r, 171v; B a n n i s t e r, Registrum Caroli Bothe (see note 34) pp. 355-358. 38. London, British Library, C.18.e.2/12, 12*, 13, 14; London, Society of Antiquaries, Broadsides 4; Oxford, Bodleian Library, Arch.A.b.8 (8-9); York, Borthwick Institute for Ar- chives, D/C R.Reg., ff. 35v-36r. Marginal or mainstream? 179

English body. No longer were there foreign proctors running the house; instead it was organised under an English master. Its precise organisation is elusive, and the general impression is that it continued to decline in significance. In the fifteenth century it was transformed with the emergence of a lay fraternity as the ruling body, which assumed control of the indulgence distribution.39 This included, possibly for the first time, the production of confessional letters: the first known Rounceval letters date from around 1480, being issued both as hand-written copies and as products of William Caxton’s printing press. The house still drew on its fourteenth-century heritage at this stage: the indulgence cited in the letters was that issued by Clement VI.40 The two Rounceval confessional letters extant from this point are apparently the only known surviving letters issued by the house. However, such letters were being issued later, with references to them (and to associated publicity leaflets) appearing in the surviving Rounceval fraternity accounts from the reign of Henry VIII. These accounts throw some light on the organisation of the distribution. They reveal a practice of farming, with collectorates being leased to agents at an annual rate.41 (This system may have operated earlier, and is perhaps suggested by the earlier letters, but there is no conclu- sive evidence). Exact marketing arrangements are unclear, at least outside London. Within the city, notification of the availability of pardons at the chapel at Charing Cross was posted on church doors twice each year, and it is probable that confessional letters were available to visitors to the hospital, but little more of the practice can be reconstructed.42 No confessional letters – or publicity leaflets – are known to survive from this period. For the hospital of St Anthony, the evidence is more extensive, yet in some respects less revealing. The hospital accounts provide clear evidence of the practice of farming the receipts, with the country being carved up into collectorates of varying size, sometimes by archdeaconry, sometimes by diocese. Some lease agreements survive, but they give very little detailed

39. G. R o s s e r, Medieval Westminster, 1200-1540, Oxford 1989, pp. 312-316. 40. P. N e e d h a m, The Printer and the Pardoner: an Unrecorded Indulgence printed by William Caxton for the Hospital of St. Mary Rounceval, Charing Cross, Washington DC 1986, pp. 42-43, 62-63; R. N. S w a n s o n, A Rounceval pardon of 1482, Archives 30 no. 113 (Oct. 2005) pp. 51-54. 41. The accounts themselves are among the Westminster Abbey Muniments. For some discussion, N e e d h a m, The Printer and the Pardoner, pp. 44-45. 42. Ibid., pp. 44-45. For an offering to Our Lady of Rounceval, which possibly includes a donation to obtain the pardon, see H i s t o r i c a l M a n u s c r i p t s C o m m i s s i o n, Report on the Manuscripts of Lord Middleton Preserved at Wollaton Hall, Nottingham, London 1911, p. 356. 180 Robert N. Swanson information.43 Sometimes the farmers appear in the dioceses, being authorised by the bishops to carry out their collections.44 Although most of the evidence survives from late in the period, the system of farming must have existed at least in the early fifteenth century, leases being registered in the royal courts at Chester under Henry IV and Henry V.45 Throughout the period, the St Anthony collection was probably one of the English market leaders. In 1403 the hospital had sufficient influence to respond effectively against a perceived challenge to its status, engaging in what might now be seen as defence of its brand image by procuring the quashing of the grant of a papal indulgence to a chapel of St Anthony at York.46 Later, when accounts survive, the nominal total of the annual farming receipts is around £500.47 This was easily among the highest known indulgence receipts in England, especially as regular annual income. Moreover, this was only the sum received by the hospital: as the pardoners would have had to meet their own costs, and maintain their profit margins, the total collected across the country must have been much higher. By this stage, however, none of the income was going to Vienne: in 1447 Pope Nicholas V had broken the link to Vienne, and in 1475 the London hospital was taken over by St George’s chapel, Windsor.48 Solid information about St Anthony’s collections in the localities is scarce. Visits by its pardoners (and of those of other institutions) are noted in the parish accounts of Hornsea in Yorkshire in the 1480s, and pardon pur- chases appear in the private accounts of the Willoughby family.49 However, the hospital seems to have eschewed extensive documentation, and did not generally offer formal letters of confraternity. Yet the hospital did not totally avoid such letters. For a brief period in the 1440s they were distributed. Pope Eugenius IV in 1441 issued an indul-

43. R. N. S w a n s o n (ed.), E.g. Catholic England: Faith, Religion, and Observance Before the Reformation, Manchester 1993, pp. 205-206. 44. For instance, Thomas Ipers, in the diocese of Hereford: Registrum Ricardi Mayew, episcopi Herefordensis, A.D. MDIV-MDXVI, ed. A. T. B a n n i s t e r (Canterbury and York Society 27), London 1921, p. 288 (and at p. 289 as one of a consortium); S w a n s o n, Catholic England (see note 43) pp. 207, 209. 45. London, National Archives, CHES 2/82, m.7d, CHES 2/93, m.9. A St Anthony’s lease – or sublease – is mentioned at York in 1332: York, York Minster Library, M2(1)a, f. 43r. 46. Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland: Papal Letters, V: A.D. 1396-1404, ed. W. H. B l i s s/J. A. T w e m l o w, London 1904, pp. 549-550. 47. S w a n s o n, Catholic England (see note 43) pp. 207-210. 48. P a g e, Victoria History of London (see note 17) I, p. 583. 49. P. H e a t h, Medieval Clerical Accounts (St Anthony’s Hall Publications 26), York 1964, pp. 28-30, 35-36, 42-43; Manuscripts of Lord Middleton (see note 39) pp. 327, 332, 338 (St Anthony), 342, 345, 348, 354, 359-360, 365-368, 384-385. Marginal or mainstream? 181 gence for the house, to support a collecting campaign authorised to last for five years, with donors being allowed to choose a confessor to grant plenary remission at death. Only one original letter seems to survive, a mass produced document with names added by hand in the by-now expected form; but two further transcribed copies suggest a fairly extensive campaign. As no records survive from the house itself at this date, the outcome remains obscure, although it appears that the distribution provoked adverse comment, and charges that the pope’s privilege had been abused. In June 1444 a further bull ordered that the grants of confessional privileges should be limited to the city and diocese of London.50 One other institution must be mentioned before drawing this paper to a close. Although the Roman hospital of Santo Spirito liquidated its English operations in 1392, its links with England were not permanently severed. With the re-establishment of the hospital confraternity by Pope Sixtus IV, its am- bitions apparently revived. The existence of the confraternity clearly made the hospital a body worth supporting, and it attracted membership from across Europe. The surviving register includes many English names, of people often admitted by proxy when entered by English visitors to Rome.51 Avisitto Rome was not necessary to secure the spiritual privileges. Here, perhaps, Santo Spirito borrowed from the experience of the hospital of St Thomas, which both maintained a register of members at Rome, and distributed confraternity letters in England from the late 1300s.52 Santo Spirito certainly marketed its confraternity privileges in England, but the full scale and impact of that activity eludes complete assessment.

50. For the confessional letters, Chester, Cheshire Record Office, DLL3/76; London, British Library, MS Add 7096, f. 116v; The Official Correspondence of Thomas Bekynton, ed. G. W i l l i a m s, 2 vols. (Rolls Series), London 1872: II, pp. 357-358. For the papal bulls, Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers Relating to Great Britain and Ireland: Papal Letters, IX: A.D. 1431-1447, ed. J. A. T w e m l o w, London 1912, pp. 214-215; Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers Relating to Great Britain and Ireland: Papal Letters, VIII: A.D. 1427- 1447, ed. J. A. T w e m l o w, London 1909, pp. 296-297. 51. The Santo Spirito confraternity register up to 1500 is published in Necrologi e libri affini della provincia romana, ed. P. E g i d i, 2 vols. in 3 (Fonti per la storia d’Italia 44-45), Rome 1908-1914: II, pp.107-446, and also in P. d e A n g e l i s, L’Ospedale di Santo Spirito in Saxia, 2 vols. (Collana di studi storici sull’ospedale di Santo Spirito in Saxia e sugli ospedali romani), Rome 1960-62: II, pp. 111-302. 52. The confraternity register is abstracted in The English Hospice in Rome: the Venera- bile Sexcentenary Issue (Venerabile 21), Exeter 1962, 2nd ed. Leominster 2005 (with same pagination), pp. 68-81, 188-192 (I am grateful to Dr Margaret Harvey for lending me her copy of this volume). For the early letters see above, note 29; some of the later letters are listed in C l a r k - M a x w e l l, Some further letters (see note 30) p. 214, but this list can be expanded. 182 Robert N. Swanson

The earliest evidence, indeed, consists of just two letters. One was sold in Chester in February 1471/2, preceding the reinvigoration of the fraternity by Sixtus IV; the other was issued in 1478.53 The first bears a note that the name of the purchaser should be entered in a register, but little more can be said about it. The second letter, issued to Sir Robert Plumpton, survives only as a later transcript, and is even less informative. Thereafter, there is silence in the English records (or, at least, no evidence for the intervening period has yet been found) until around 1515-20. Then there was a deliberate and active distribution campaign, with Philip Mulart as the hospital’s chief agent. The evidence is firm, but limited. The collection was clearly national: special confessors were appointed in certain religious houses to hear confessions of those wishing to obtain the privileges (a printed advertisement declares that such confessors were available at the Franciscan house at Ipswich, and they were presumably to be found elsewhere).54 It is possible that there a special register was maintained of those who procured the pardon (as may have happened also for the collections of the 1470s), but any such record has now been lost.55 Mulart received permission to collect within the province of York in 1520 (the only record of the issue of such licences).56 More impressively, several printed confessional letters survive, dated to these years, as relics of a sustained and clearly widely publicised campaign.57 The precise benefits are catalogued in publicity schedules which gave an exhaustive list (in En- glish) of the indulgences and other spiritual privileges offered by successive popes to members of the hospital confraternity.58 After this brief intrusion into the records, the hospital seems to have again withdrawn, or at least become much less visible. There is a hint of later

53. Chester, Cheshire Record Office, CR 63/2/681; London, British Library, MS Add. 32113, f. 167v. 54. Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, Crawford indulgences, Box 6 no. 2; London, British Library, G.11899 (for text, see below, no. 3 in the Appendix). 55. Registration is mentioned in the publicity leaflet (see note 58). An Irish agent of Santo Spirito in the late fifteenth century was instructed to maintain a local register: Calendar of entries in the papal registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland: Papal Letters, XVI: Alexander VI (1492-1503), Lateran registers, part one: 1492-1498, ed. A. P. F u l l e r, Dublin 1986, pp. 147-148. 56. York, York Minster Library, H3/1, f. 97r. 57. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Arch.A.b.8 (17-20); London, British Library, C.18.e.2/15, 123 (for text, see below, no. 2 in the Appendix). 58. Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, Crawford indulgences, Box 6 no. 3 (published below as no. 4 in the Appendix). Fragments of a different version are at London, British Museum, C.18.e.1(48), reproduced in K. W. C a m e r o n, The Pardoner and his Pardons: Indulgences Circulating in England on the Eve of the Reformation, with a Historical Introduc- tion, Hartford CT [1965], pp. 31-33. Marginal or mainstream? 183 activity when a priest from English-held Calais was left, after England’s break with Rome, holding a bundle of unsold pardons which he had received in the late 1520s.59 Even if Santo Spirito’s agents no longer acted in England itself, they were still distributing pardons in her last remaining continental outpost, to English men and women, with the approval of the archbishop of Canterbury. *** Between 1200 and the English Reformation, the major continental hospitaller bodies were actively involved in the indulgence trade in the kingdom. How important this participation was to these Orders’ continental headquar- ters cannot be determined, and cannot be a concern here. What can be discussed is the role of the orders in the overall pattern of indulgence distribution in England. The thirteenth-century evidence is too meagre to permit comment; in the 1300s, despite deficiencies, the hospitals were clearly among the leading players, and possibly the leading collecting bodies in England as a whole. How they fared in comparison with major local competitors – cathedral fabric funds, English hospitals (like that of St Thomas Eastbridge, Canterbury), and major pilgrimage sites – cannot be determined; but they seem to have been the most consistently active national collectors in the early fourteenth century.60 Their position may have been undermined in later decades, but the continuity in the overseas ties, reflected in the presence of proctors sent to England by the mother houses, suggests that the English indulgence trade remained an economic and profitable venture. With the significant changes of the late fourteenth century, exemplified in the withdrawal of the hospitals of Santo Spirito and Altopascio, and the transformation of the remaining London bases into essentially English institutions no longer (it seems) accountable to their overseas parents, the situation

59. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII, XV, ed. J. G a i r d n e r/R. H. B r o d i e, London 1896, no. 37. 60. E.g. The Accounts of the Fabric of Exeter Cathedral, 1279-1353, ed. A. M. E r s k i n e, 2 vols. (Devon and Cornwall Record Society n.s. 24, 26), Torquay 1981-1983: I, pp. 155, 164; II, pp. 214, 234, 243, 252, 259, 266, 278, 283, 285, 288, 290 (these are not stated to be indulgences receipts; but from comparison with other cathedrals, that is clearly what they are); O r m e, Indulgences in the diocese of Exeter (see note 31) pp. 22-23; R. N. S w a n s o n, Contributions from parishes in the archdeaconry of Norfolk to the shrine of St. Thomas Cantilupe at Hereford, ca.1320, Mediaeval Studies 62 (2000) pp. 189-218. The hospital of St Thomas Eastbridge in Canterbury received questorial licences in Lincoln diocese in the first decades of the fourteenth century: Lincoln, Lincolnshire Archives Office, Ep. Reg. III, ff. 48r, 329r, 372r; Ep. Reg. V, ff. 549r-v. 184 Robert N. Swanson changed. In the ever more complex market of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, what is most striking is the dominance of the hospital of St Anthony. Its annual farming rents of £500 place it almost in a league of its own, the figure being so large as to be almost incredible. Meanwhile, the other hospitals seemingly dropped down the table, but no proper ranking can be established. It may be that their receipts did not actually drop much (but that would be unlikely), as other institutions entered the market and took more of it. It certainly seems more likely that total receipts did drop, as the hospitals had to be content with a declining share of an increasingly crowded market. Among the indulgences acquired by the Cheshire gentleman Humphrey Newton under Henry VII and Henry VIII, the pardons of St Anthony and Bethlehem appear with those of many other institutions, including the churches of Lichfield and Chester, the guild of the Name of Jesus in St Paul’s cathedral, London, and the hospital of St Thomas in Rome.61 Whether Newton valued some more than others cannot be said; his lack of discrimination is perhaps more striking. This was a crowded market, but still one perhaps worth gaining a share in. The efforts of Santo Spirito to re-enter the English indulgence trade in the 1470s may not have been successful; but the assault was clearly considered worth repeating in the 1510s, and continued for at least a few more years. Whether the investment was worth while, and paid off, is unknown. The value of the indulgence distributions in England to the continental ‘head offices’ of these international orders, and with that, the sense of just how ‘peripheral’ the English offshoots were to the ‘centres’ of the orders, cannot be determined. The few figures available from the fourteenth century do not suggest that the income was of merely marginal value, worth so little that these outposts could be abandoned without real loss.62 However, how much left England and actually reached the head offices is unknown; and the insecurities resulting from the campaigns against alien priories would doubtless affect attitudes. Within England, the collections clearly were significant, as nationwide phenomena which were perhaps among the most obvious and pervasive of England’s indulgence distributions. Even as their continental affiliations weakened to the point of non-existence, the break-away bodies retained their mainstream role throughout the fifteenth century, and through to the Reforma- tion; although they had to share the market with ever more competitors as time passed. The successors to the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century agents of the continental hospitals, now acting for their own, English-based, institututions,

61. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Lat Misc. c.66, f. 17v. 62. Above, pp. 174-175. Marginal or mainstream? 185 remained actively involved in the distribution of pardons until indulgences, and the indulgence trade, became one of the main casualties of Henry VIII’s Reformation. Then indulgences – with in due course most of the institutions which exploited them – were consigned to oblivion. Appendix

1 Great Thurlow (Suffolk), 1380 May 4th Manuscript confessional letter issued by the English proctor for the Hospital of St James of Altopascio. Sheffield Archives, Bagshawe Collection 2186, published by permission of the Head of Libraries, Archives, and Information, Sheffield City Council.

Frater Benedictus de Luca, preceptor hospitalis sancti Jacobi de Alto Passu per totum regnum Anglie et Wallie, dilectis in Christo sibi Joanni Asheby et Emme uxori eius a salutem in domino. Propter devocionem quam nostro geritis ordini ob rever- entia Dei beatique Jacobi eius apostoli patroni nostri, idcirco vos in confraternitatem ordinis nostri in vita pariter et in morte recipientes facimus vos participes omnium divinorum officiorum, vigiliarum, ieiuniorum, abstinentiarum, laborum, et vij operum misericordie necnon indulgenciarum a summis pontificibus dicto hospitali con- cessarum omniumque bonorum spiritualium que in dicto hospitali et in cellis eius fiunt et fient inperpetuum. Preterea, auctoritate privilegiorum dicti hospitali liceat semel annuatim ydoneum et discretum presbiterum in confessorem eligere, qui super peccatis, que sibi confitebuntur (nisi talia sint propter que merito sit sedes apostolica consulenda), vobis auctoritate predicta provideat de debite absolucionis beneficio et penitencia salutari. Addantes insuper de gracia speciali ut, cum obitus alicuius vestrum in capitulo nostro fuerit nunciatus, id pro vobis d[…]b fieret per totum ordinem nostrum quod pro fratribus et sororibus nostris defunctis in eodem ibidem fieri consuevit. Dat’ apud Magnam Trellowe, sub sigillo officii nostri, iiijo non’ Maii, anno domini millesimo CCCo LXXXo. a. Names inserted in a different hand b. MS illegible Marginal or mainstream? 187

2 1520 Printed confessional letter distributed in England by Philip Mulart as commissary general for the Hospital of Santo Spirito in Saxia. Based on the text in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Arch.A.b.8(20), published by permission of the Library. The text is damaged; occasional gaps and one obvious printing error are remedied (without indication) from comparison with the text of ibid., Arch.A.b.8(18), which is a similar letter of 1518, identical in wording (apart from date), but not always in layout or spelling. Punctuation, capitalisation, and use of v/u have been modernised. ‘*’ is used at the end of words where a space is left for the correct grammatical ending to be inserted by hand. Other spaces awaiting insertions are indicated.

Frater Philippus Mulart, decretorum doctor, sacri et apostolici hospitalis sancti spiritus in Saxia de urbe Romana ac totius eiusdem ordinis ad regna Anglie, Ibernie etcetera generalis commissarius et vicarius tam auctoritate apostolica quam hospitalis et ordinis predictorum specialiter deputatus Universis et singulis nostras presentes testimoniales litteras intuentibus fidem facimus, quod sanctissimus in Christo pater et dominus noster dominus Leo divina providentia papa .x. ut concessis spiritualium gratiarum muneribus pro salute animarum invitaret Christifideles ad misericordie et caritatis opera, confirmavit, ampliavit et extendit omnes gratias, facultates, plenissimas indulgentias et peccatorum remissiones concessas apostolico hospitali sancti spiritus in Saxia de urbe et eius membris tam per felicis recordationis Sixtum papa .iiii. quam alios suos predecessores Romanos pontifices. Et inter cetera, quicumque devotione motus in sanctam confraternitatem dicti hospitalis a Sixto quarto institutam et a prefato sanctissimo domino nostro Leone papa .x. extensam intraverit et de bonis suis pro pietatis, caritatis et misericordie operibus dicti hospitalis et totius ordinis manus adiutrices iuxta suas facultates et devotionem porrexerit, consequeretur gratiam et facultatem a sancta sede apostolica, ut presbiterum secu- larem vel regularem in suum confessorem elegere possit, qui eius confessione dili- genter audita semel vita comite ab omnibus criminibus et peccatis, necnon excommunicationis et aliis censuris et sententiis ecclesiasticis (etiam occasione symonie ubicumque contracte) et ab aliis casibus specialiter vel generaliter Romano pontifici et sedi apostolice quovismodo reservatis, et propter que sedes ipsa merito esset consulenda, preterquam heresis, rebellionis aut conspirationis in personam vel statum Romani pontificis et offense personalis in sancte Romane ecclesie cardi- nalem, patriarcham, archiepiscopum et episcopum, ac presbitericidii, eum absolvat; necnon ab irregularitate quovismodo contracta, etiam in casibus in iure expressis vel non expressis (bigamia et homicidio voluntario dumtaxat exceptis), tam super or- dinibus sacris quam beneficiis retinendis vel recipiendis in foro conscientie libere et licite dispensare possit et valeat; et etiam in mortis articulo plenarium omnium peccatorum suorum etiam supra exceptorum remissionem ei impendere possit. Ita quod si tunc non obierit, quotiens in tali mortis articulo fuerit constitutus idem vel alius sacerdos eandem reiterare possit; in aliis vero casibus, totiens quotiens opor- tunum fuerit, eum absolvat et penitentiam iniungat salutarem. Et si tempore interdicti 188 Robert N. Swanson ecclesiastici quovismodo, etiam a sede apostolico, impositi eum decedere contigerit, dummodo causam non dederit interdicto, ecclesiastice sepulture tradi debeat, absque, tamen, funeris pompam sicut solutum est fieri de corporibus clericorum interdictum servantium. Atque, in dedicationibus et stationibus sancte Romane ecclesie et pon- tificalibus benedictionibus indulgentias quascumque (etiam plenarias) consequatur in forma ecclesie consueta, dando illam elemosinam pro subventione dicti hospitalis quam in prefatis stationibus et indulgentiis ex devotione contulisset, si eas person- aliter visitasset, efficiturque particeps tam vivus quam defunctus omnium indulgen- tiarum, que sunt Rome a pena et culpa, quinquagenarie et peregrinationis terre sancte ac omnium missarum, orationum, vigiliarum, ieiuniorum, elemosinarum et aliorum quorumcumque bonorum operum, que fiunt et fient in toto ordine sancti Spiritus imperpetuum. Item, multe gratie, indulgentie et peccatorum remissiones certis anni diebus et temporibus eidem sunt concesse, que hic brevitatis causa omittuntur, que quidem continentur et legi possunt in summario a vera bulla fideliter extracto; et precipue concessa est in secunda feria Penthecostes singulis annis eadem die ob reverentiam sancti spiritus eidem confratri vere penitenti et confesso omnium peccatorum suorum plenaria remissio et absolutio demptis casibus superius exceptis. Nos itaque Philippus dicti hospitalis de urbe ac totius ordinis eiusdem generalis commissarius per presentes litteras fidem facimus qualiter die infrascripta devo* [space to insert name] devotione mot* in dictam sanctam confraternitatem intrav* et de bonis suis iuxta decretum summi pontificis solv* et ded*. In quorum testimo- nium presentes litteras sub sigillo dicti hospitalis ad hoc ordinato tradi concessimus. Datum [space] anno salutis nostre M.CCCCC.XX. mensis [space]die[space]. Forma absolutionis et plenarie remissionis semel in vita: a Misereatur tui deus, etc. Dominus noster Ihesus Christus te absolvat; et ego auctoritate ipsius et apostolica michi commissa et tibi concessa, absolvo te ab omni sententia et vinculo excommunicationis necnon irregularitate et ab omnibus peccatis tuis et casibus etiam summo pontifici et sedi apostolice reservatis secundum tenorem superius insertum, dando tibi plenariam omnium peccatorum tuorum remissionem. In nomine patris, etc. Forma absolutionis ab aliis casibus totiens quotiens: Misereatur tui deus, etc. Dominus noster, etc. Et ego absolvo te ab omnibus peccatis tuis, etc. Forma plenarie absolutionis in mortis articulo et quotiens in tali articulo con- stituto fueritis: Misereatur tui deus, etc. Et ego absolvo te ab omni sententia et vinculo excommunicationis necnon irregularitate et ab omnibus peccatis tuis et casibus etiam sedi apostolie et summo pontifici quovismodo reservatis, dando tibi omnium peccatorum tuorum plenariam remissionem, etc. a. All of the absolutions share the same large printed initial ‘M’ Marginal or mainstream? 189

b Visum est presens confessionale per me Walterum Stone legum doctorem. Impressum per me Richardum Pynson regium impressorem. Per me Philippum, commissarium generalem. b. An impression of the hospital seal is printed at the bottom of the document. The note of the inspection by Walter Stone is printed to the viewer’s left; the note of the printer to its right. The bottom line is printed to either side, the seal placed between ‘Philippum’ and ‘commissarium’

3 [1513-1521] Printed flier advertising the availability of the indulgence for Santo Spirito. Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, Crawford Indulgences, Box 6 no.2, published by permission of the Crawford (Bibliotheca Lindesiana) Collections in the National Library of Scotland. Abbreviations extended.

The holy and great indulgence and pardon of plenary remission a pena et culpa graunted by dyuerse popes and newly confirmed with many amplycacions of our most holy father godes vycar vpon erth pope Leo the .x. that nowe is vnto the holy hospytall of the holy ghost otherwyse called the hospytall of Seynt Spiryte within the holy cytie of Rome, at the commaundement of our moost drede soueraygne lorde kyng Henry the .viii. ben examyned by the most reuerend father in god my lord archebysshop of Caunterbury, prymat of all England and Legate of the see apostolyke of Rome, with dyuerse other doctours of both the lawes, is institute, publysshed, and erected in the conuentuall howse of the Graye Freers within the towne of Ypswiche, in the which howse be deputed confessours lawfull for the same.

4 [1513-1521] Printed publicity schedule detailing the spiritual privileges of membership of the confraternity of the Hospital of Santo Spirito, Rome. Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, Crawford Indulgences, Box 6, no.3; published by permission of the Crawford (Bibliotheca Lindesiana) Collections in the National Library of Scotland. All abbreviations and contractions have been extended. Punctuation and capitaliza- tion have been standardized, and in some cases modernized; the paragraph sign used here also differs from that in the original document. Marginal notes printed against some of the para- graphs have been incorporated as headings to the section to which they relate; occasionally this means that where multiple marginalia appear against the same paragraph some are now 190 Robert N. Swanson

displaced from the precise words against which they are set in the text. It seems likely that the text is not quite complete, and has lost a heading which would have identified the hospital.

The discripcion of the fraternite of this holy Hospital. Our holy father pope Leo the .x. that now is (considerynge the infinite charite of our lorde Jesu christe, which for the loue and redemption of al mankynde dyd suffer his moste dolorous passion) doth exorte all Christen people to charitable warkes, gyuynge to them in recompence of theyr charite the moste habundant indulgences of the treasour of our mother the holy churche. And where as dyuers and many holy faders, popes of Rome, haue gyuen indulgence and plenary remission moste habundantely to euery man and woman whiche shal writte his name in the boke of the sayd hospital, where as the deputies of the same hospital shall erecte the confraternite of the sayd hospital, and to become a brother or syster of the sayd hospital, puttynge theyr helpynge handes (after theyr habilite, and the arbiterment and discretion of the sayd deputies) to the cheste or boxe lymyted to the vse of the foresayde Hospitall, for the maynteynynge of the charitable warkes of mercy done in the sayd Hospoital and in the membres of the same, as in cristenynge and fyndynge of pore childen caste out vncristened, tyll suche tyme they be of sufficient age and able to some crafte or seruyce, or to be married; and also as in receyuynge of pore orphans and women lyenge in childe bedde; also syke men and women, and those that be impotent by age; and also pylgryms passynge by dyuers countres, and there to nourisshe and susteyne them, and if it fortune them to dye to bury them in christen burial. Wherefore our sayd holy father hath confirmed these indulgences and plenary remissions, and in effecte hath graunted the same of newe, as doth folowe:

To chose a confessour. Plenary remyssion ones in the lyfe and in article of dethe. Absolucyon in the bysshops power. ¶ Fyrste, our sayd holy fother hath graunted auctorite to euery of the sayd brothers whose names (as is aforesayd) be writen in the boke of the sayd confraternite, gyuynge to the sayd Hospital or to the deputies, or to the boxe or cheste lymyted for the use of the same, accordynge to theyr habylyte and arbiterment of the sayd deputies that they may chose to theyr confessour a secular or a regular preste, whiche confessour so chosen (herynge diligently theyr confessions) may assoyle them ones in theyr lyfe from all and euery theyr crymes and synnes, and frome all sentences of excommunicacion and other sentences and censures of the churche contracted, in commyttynge symonie in takynge any orders or benefices, and in all speciall and general cases reserued vnto our holy father the pope, except heresy and rebellyon or conspiricy ageynste the parsone or state of our holy fader or of the See of Rome, and parsonall offence ageynste any cardynal of the churche of Rome, or ageynst any patriarke, archebyssop and bissop; and also murder of any preste. And this confessour may also gyue vnto them in the article of deth plenary remyssion of all theyr synnes, though they be suche as before be excepte. And if it fortune them nat to dye at that tyme, that the sayd confessour or any other confessour (so chosen) may reiterate the sayd plenary remyssion as oftentymes as they shalbe in the article of dethe. Also the Marginal or mainstream? 191 sayde confessour in other cases (nat reserued to our holy father) may assoyle them as often tymes as nede shall requyre, and to enioyne them penaunce conuenient.

To assoyle in the courte of conscience with cases of irregularite. And this artycle and other be extended to all places where the Commissary shall declyne. ¶ Item, where as it was fyrste graunted by our holy father pope Sixte the .iiii. to the brothers beynge onely at Rome to opteyne the dispensacions folowynge, our holy father pope Leo that nowe is hath extended it to other places, as it doth appere hereafter in the laste article, so that the confessour so chosen may out of Rome dispence only in the court of conscience (videlicet in foro conscientie dumtaxat)with all those of what estate, degre, ordre, condition, or preemynence they be, whether they be secular prestes or religious ment a whiche opteynynge any ecclesiasticall benefice and beynge accursed by any sentence aforesayd, and so standynge haue songe or celebrate masse or any other dyuyne seruyce, or otherwyse hath mynystred the same, and by reason of that, or any other case expressed in the lawe or nat expressed, hath contracte and ronne into irregularite (excepte only bygamy and voluntary murder), so that they (so dispensed with) may be promoted to all maner orders of preesthode, and may mynyster in the same whether that these orders were taken before that this irregularite was contracted or after. And also in the sacrament of the aultre, and may receyue and reteyne any dignyte or benefice ecclesiasticall, and may be promoted in monasteries and churches, cathedrals, also metropolics and patriarcals, and freely and laufully to haue the rule of the same. And also the sayd confessour may prouyde to them only in the court of conscience, as concernynge such dignities and benefices whiche they at that tyme dyd reteyne; and also with churches and monasteries whiche they dyd holde contrarye to the canons of the churche. ¶ Item, our sayd holy father hath graunted that the bodies of euery brother as is a fore sayd, both of spiritual and secular men and women (hauynge theyr names written in the foresayd boke) may be buryed in Christen burial (without funerall pompe) in tyme of any interdiction made by any auctorite, so that they gaue nat the cause of the interdiction.

For bequestes to the sayd hospitall. ¶ Ferthermore, that these charitable warkes may be more commune to Christen people, and that these remyssions more lyghtly may be receyued of them, our sayd holy fader to all and euery Christen man and woman sendynge of theyr goodes to the sayd Hospitall (after theyr deuocion, for the mayntynynge of the charges of the same, or elles in theyr testamentes and laste wylles haue made any bequestes for the supportation of the sayd Hospitall, hath graunted auctorite in article of dethe to chose a sufficient confessour wiche (so chosen, herynge diligently theyr confessions) may gyue vnto them plenary remission of all theyr synnes. a. Sic, should be ‘men’ 192 Robert N. Swanson

T h e st a c i o n s o f R o m e . ¶ Item, that Christen people may knowe them selfe more plentefully to be refresshed with the gyftes of this grace, our sayd holy father hath decreed that euery man and women within the cyte of Rome, letted by any laufyll cause, as by age, sykenes, or any other lyke impediment to visite the stacions or any other indulgences of Rome, or letted there to be present at the blessynge of our holy father the pope, gyuynge theyr almes to the foresayd Hospitall, shall opteyne lyke indulgences and blessynges and plenarye remyssions, as they shulde haue opteyned if they had personally visited the foresayd stacions.

Composicions. Restitucions. ¶ Item, our holy father pope Innocent, confirmynge the bulle of Honorius the thirde, hath graunted to the maistres and the brothers of the same Hospitall auctorite to compounde with vsury and goodes taken by violence; also with brennynge (except brennynge of churches) and with hurtes done and other goodes yuell gotten, yf they can nat be founde to whom restitucion ought to be made.

Redempcion of vowes. ¶ Also they may compounde indistinctly with all maner of bequestes in deed mennes testamentes or wylles, bequested to any charitable vse, so that they may turne the same into the vse of the pore people of the sayd Hospitall. And they may also compounde for the redemption of vowes, excepte onely the vowe to Jerusalem, and with all maner of othes indiscreately attempted, and may dispence with them that haue lefte vnsayd theyr deuyne seruyce, and with many other cases touchynge the sayde compositions vnto the vse of the pore people of the sayd Hospitall. ¶ Item, to euery Christen man and woman helpynge the sayd brothers with theyr goodes he hath released the .vij. parte of penaunce enioyned and graunted plenary remyssion in article of deth to these that shall gyue or sende any of theyr goodes to the sayd Hospitall. ¶ Also our holy father pope Bonyface the .viij. hath graunted to all the benefactours of the sayd hospitall in euery of these festis here after folowynge; that is to say on Cristemas day, Epiphany day, Ester day, Ascencion day, and Penthecost, .iij. yeres and .iij. lentes of pardon; and in lykewyse in the .iiij. festes of our lady (that is to saye the Natiuite, Purification, Annunciation, and Assumption). Item, by the octaues of these festes, and in euery day of Lent and euery Fryday in the yere, one yere and .xl. dayes of pardon.

Plenary remyssion a pena et culpa. ¶ Item, he hath graunted to them that gyue or sende of theyr goodes to the sayd Hospitall for the sustentacion of the poore people plenary remyssion a pena et culpa in article of dethe, and to men and women that haue left vnsayd any thynge of theyr deuyne seruyce hath remytted theyr defawtes. Also our sayd holy father wylleth whan the maisters and brothers of the sayde Hospitall shall come to places inter- dicted, that the churches shall be opened and so openly deuyne seruice shall there be songe and celebrate, and the bodies of deed men shall be buried in Christen buriall, Marginal or mainstream? 193 and those that be written in the boke of the confraternite of the sayd Hospitall (dyenge in tyme of interdiction) shalbe buried in Christen buriall. ¶ Also pope Urban the .v. hath graunted to all the benefactours of the sayd Hospitall, that it shall be laufull to them to chose a sufficient confessour, wiche confessour (so chosen) may assoyle them ones in their life in all maner cases reserued vnto the see apostolike of Rome.

Extenciontothemthatbedeed. ¶ Item, pope Nicholas (as it doth appere in a transumpt of his bulle): that if any man doth gyue after his habilite as is aforesayd to the foresayd hospitall for the soules of his father and mother and of other deed men, whiche deceased in the sincerite of the feith, and in the vnite and obedience of our mother the holy churche of Rome, contrited and confessed (orels wyllynge to be confessed if they had had opportunite) hath released al the peynes of purgatory whiche they shulde suffer after theyr dethe for theyr synnes ¶ Item, Innocent the thyrde to all them that visite the sayd Hospitall and all the membres of the same, from the feste of the Natiuite of our lorde Jesu Christe on euery daye vnto the octaues of the same hath graunted .ij.M.iiij.C. yeres of pardon. Item, in euery feste of the Apostles, .ij.M. yeres of pardon. Item, in euery day of the hole yere, one yere and .xl. dayes of pardon.

Certayn festes of indulgence. ¶ Item, Alexander the .iiij. hath graunted to the sayd Hospitall and the membres of the same, from the feste of the Holy Goost in the moneth of January euery day vnto the octaues of the same .iiij.M. yeres and .iiij.C. lentes of pardon, releasynge the .vij. parte of penaunce enioyned; and on the Sondaye on whiche is songe the masse that begynneth Omnis terra, and the firste Sonday of euery moneth in the holy yere, .iij.M. yeres and as many lentes of pardon, remittynge the thirde parte of penaunce enioyned. Item, he hath graunted to the sayd Hospitall and to the membres of the same from the feeste of Corpus Christi euery daye to the octaues of the same, .ij.M yeres of pardon, remittynge the .vii. parte of penaunce enioyned. ¶ Celestine the .v. hath graunted to the sayd Hospitall and to the membres of the same from the feste of the Epiphany vnto the octaues of the same, euery day .C.M. yeres of pardon. ¶ Item, from the feste of the Natiuite of our lady and by the octaues of the same euery day .xxx.M. yeres of pardon. Item, from the feste of the Resurrection of oure lorde Jesu Christe vnto the octaues of the same, euery day .ij.M.iiij.C. yeres of pardon. ¶ Item, pope Boniface the .viij. hath graunted to the sayd Hospital and to the membres of the same, from the feste of the Ascention of our lorde Jesu Christe euery day to the octaues of the same, .M.iiij.C. yeres of pardon. ¶ Item, Clemens the .vj. hath graunted to the sayd Hospitall and to the membres of the same, from the feste of Penthecost vnto the octaues of the same, euery day .viij M. yeres and .viij.M. lentes of pardon, and plenary remyssion of all theyr synnes. ¶ Item, Innocent the .vj. hath graunted to the sayd Hospitall and to the membres 194 Robert N. Swanson of the same, from the feste of the Assumption of our lady vnto the octaues of the same, euery day .ij.M. yeres and .ij.M. lentes of pardon. ¶ Item, Benedictus the .xij. hath graunted to the sayd Hospitall and to the membres of the same, from the feeste of All Sayntes vnto the feeste of saynte Leonarde, iij.M. yeres and as many lentes of pardon.

T h e st a c i o n s o f R o m e . ¶ Item, pope Boniface hath graunted to all the bretherne and benefactours of the sayd Hospitall, both beynge alyue and deed, to be parteners of the stacions of Rome and the Holy Lande for euermore. Item, pope Urban hath graunted to euery brother and benefactours of the sayd hospital to be parteners of theyr remyssion whiche be at Rome a pena et culpa, and the Quinquagenarie.

Thesummeofthemasses. ¶ The summe of the masses of the hole ordre by the yere extendeth to .xxxij.M. and as many psaltres sayd of the brothers of the sayd ordre.

Parteners of al good dedes. ¶ Also it is graunted to the benefactours of the sayd confraternite to be parttakers and parteners of the masses, matins, vigils, fastynges, and almes dedes, whiche be done in all the sayd ordre for euer.

A confirmacion Item, these grauntes and indulgences a forsayd be confirmed by many other holy fathers, as by pope Sixte the .iiij., pope July the .ij., and by our holy fader pope Leo that now is.

Thenlarginge and confirmynge of our holy fader that nowe is ¶ Fynally, our sayd holy father pope Leo, of his more speciall grace enlargynge the sayd confraternite with all the grauntes, faculties, indulgences and remissions of synnes of the same, hath graunted, amplified, and extended the same to all and euery membre churche and places for the tyme dependynge of the sayd hospitall, and hath extended it also to other places, where it shall fortune the preceptor and maister generall of the sayd hospitall, and the messangers of the same for the tyme beynge to declyne. In the whiche places the preceptor afore sayd (for the tyme beynge) may institute and ordeyne a like confraternite, with all the grauntes, faculties, pryuyleges, indulgences, and remyssion of synnes a foresayd. ¶ Abbreuiatio translationis bulle Leonis .x. pape moderni, alias translate in vulgare nostrum, non de verbo ad verbum, sed quatenus indulgentias continent, adiectis quibusdam clausulis excerptis a certis transumptis autenticis, nihil addito, mutato, aut deleto quod alteret aut mutet effectum prioris translationis facte. b Per me Walterum Stone, legum doctorem. Per me Petrum Potkyn, legum doctorem. Impressum per me Richardum Pynson, regium impressorem. b. These subscriptions are printed in a single line across the bottom of the document