Abbot Feckenham and Bath

ABBOT F&&K&N HAM AN D BATH& ATH c ities alwa s , perhaps more than most other , has y been pleased to recognise and do hon our to its worthies . To me , the very streets of the city appear to be I peopled by the ghosts of bygone generations . If shut my eyes upon electric tramways and such like evidences of a l ’ what is c lled modern civi isation , the beaux and belles of ancient days seem to come trooping from their hiding places and appear tripping along the streets as of old ; the footways are at once all alive with the gentry occ ked of the hat and full bottomed wig period , with m their knee breeches and small clothes to atch . Ladies , too, are there , with their hooped and tucked - d dresses , their high heeled shoes , and those won erful creations of the wigmaker ’ s art upon their heads whilst sedan chairs of all sorts and kinds are borne quickly along the roadways , now desecrated by every kind of modern conveyance . It was in the eighteenth and early nineteenth t & /d centuries , of course , tha the city rose to the enith and I of its renown , the crowd of notabilities who then came to seek for rest , health and pleasure in this queen - B t of watering places , has served to make ath almos a synonym for a city of gaiety , diversion and life . Indeed the memories of that period of prosperity and glory almost seem to have obliterated the thought of one persons and of incidents of earlier days. It is such - person that I would recall to your memory to night . When honoured , by the request of your President , 1 A a e r read before th e memb ers of th e &iterar and Sc ientific Institution p p y , Bath Dec mb r 1 190 , e e 4, 6 . 2 Abbot Fec kenh an and Bath y t to read a paper before this learned Societ , my houghts A F nh a almost immediately turned to bbot ecke m , of n Westmi ster , who is one of the personages my imagination has often conjured up whilst passing along the streets of this city . Most of those who listen to me probably know very little of this grave and kindly B t . u h ecclesiastic , but the name in the sixteent and c century , he was a generous true benefa tor to a the poor of this pl ce , and that at a time when he was himself suffering grievous trials for conscience A t sake . the outset I should like to disclaim any pretence of originality in my presentment of the facts of h m ’ A bbot Fec k en a s life . I have merely taken what R I find set down by others and chiefly by the evd . hi s Blac k Monks E . Taunton in history of the English . He has been at great pains to collect every scrap of information in regard to the last Abbot of Westminster and I borrow freely from the resul t of his labours . ’ F c kenh am s e real name was Howman , his father and mother being Humphrey and Florence Howman of ll F . the vi age of eckenham , in the county of Worcester They appear to have been of the yeoman class , and to have been endowed with a certain amount of worldly wealth : at any rate they se em to have sent their son b u John , who was born somewhere a o t the first decade m of the sixteenth century , to be trained in the onastery hi was . of Evesham , w ch near their home Here , the boy , who had probably received an elementary education from the parish priest of his native village , would have been taught in the claustral school of the great abbey . In time he j oined the community as a i nov ce , and in accordance with the very general custom a of those d ys , became afterwards known by the name of F . his birthplace , as John eckenham From Ev esham the young monk proceeded to Oxford A bbot Fec kenh am and Bath 3 ’ ll to study at Monk s College , or Gloucester Ha , now kn own as Worcester College . It is not important here to determine th e actual date when he commenced his studies at Oxford ; probably he went to college about 1530 t , when we are told definitely that he was eigh een h years of age . His Prior at the ouse at Oxford was a h R monk of his own abbey of Eves am , named obert Joseph , and an accidental survival of a manuscript letter-book gives us not only the information that it was u this religious who ta ght the classics , but shows in some way at least how a professor lectured to his students in those bygone days . The MS . in question 18 l d a col ection of Latin letters and addresses , ma e by this R s Prior obert Jo eph . It was , as you are all aware , the fashion in those times for scholars to send Latin epistles ll to their friends , and then to co ect them into a volume . We have many printed books of Latin epistles of this kind . Prior Joseph , though his elegant letters were never destined to see the light in all the glory of a m printed dress , still made his collection , which so ehow MS — or other got bound up with a Welsh . , one of — Peniarth to the MSS . and so was preserved tell us something more than we knew before about the work of a professor at Gloucester Hall , when the monks were A students there . mongst other interesting items of R information afforded in this MS . we have Prior obert ’ J n u e an d oseph s i augural lect re on a play of Terenc ; , by the way , very practical and good it is . There is also ff r another lecture of a di e ent character , which was carefu lly prepared for delivery to the young Benedictine students at Gloucester Hall . It seems that one of & ’ ” u the monks had been p lling his old professor s leg , u t as we sho ld say , by telling him hat many of them thought that as a teacher he was getting a little past his prime , and that it might perhaps be a good thing if B 4 A bbot Fec kenh am and Bath he were to give place to a younger man more in touch w R ith modern scholarship . Prior obert was deeply s wounded , and his carefully prepared addres upbraids his pupils for their ingratitude , and practically calls upon those amongst them who considered that he ought : to retire , to come forward boldly and say so an i A t invitat on which it is hardly likely was accepted . any rate , the old professor certainly continued to occupy hi s chair for some time longer . l In specia regard to the young monk , John F eckenham , this same collection of letters is of some interest , since it contains a Latin epistle addressed to him on the occasion of his ordination to the priesthood . It is a dignity , the writer says in the course of a long letter , which in our days can never be F despised or held in little regard . rom this time forth you r very carriage and countenance must be changed ; from this time forth you are to live f after a fashion dif erent to what you did before . & Now have to be given up the things of youth and the ways of a child , for now you take up the sword ” l of the Spirit , which is the Word of God . This wou d 1536 have been written probably about the year , and in t the following year Feckenham was cer ainly at Oxford . ” & & h im A a 15 37 I find , writes nthony Wood , there in , b in which year he subscribed , y the name of John F eckenham , to a certain composition then made between Robert Joseph , prior of the said college (the writer - of the Latin letters) , and twenty nine students thereof on one part (of which number Feckenham was one of the senior) and three of the senior beadles of the ” univ ersity on the other . In 1538 Feckenham supplicated for his degree as 1 11th 539 . Bachelor of Divinity and took it on June , be Previo u sly he had , in all probability , en for some time A bbot Fec kenh am and Bath 5 teaching in the abbey school at Evesham , as he had l 27th himse f been taught , and he was there on January , ' 1540 u , when the monastery was s rrendered to Henry V III . In the pension list his name appears as receiving 15 marks in place of the usual pension (10 marks) for the younger monks ; probably because of his A university degree . fter the dissolution of his religious Fe c k e nh am rav itate d . b ac k home , John at first g \ to his old college at Oxford to continue his studies ; he was e u B soon , how ver , ind ced to become chaplain to ishop B u ell of Worcester . This office he held ntil the 1543 h e resignation of that prelate in , when joined B B m ishop Edmund onner in London , re aining with him un til that prelate was committed as a prisoner to the 1549 Tower of London in , for his opposition to many VI religious changes dur ing the reign of Edward .

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