St George's College, Windsor Castle, in the Late- Fifteenth and Early
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St George’s College, Windsor Castle, in the Late- Fifteenth and Early-Sixteenth Centuries Euan Cameron Roger Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of the University of London, September 2015 Department of History, Royal Holloway, University of London 1 I, Euan Cameron Roger, confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. Euan Cameron Roger Signed: Date: 2 Abstract This thesis examines the royal college of St George, Windsor Castle, in the late- fifteenth and early-sixteenth centuries. The thesis considers specific groups of individuals within the college, including canons, vicars, clerks and poor knights that resided within, and assesses how these groups interacted with one another. This discussion includes problems of individual wages, the college’s collective income, personal interactions and liturgical change. The thesis provides a community study of the college, and questions the extent to which St George’s was a coherent community. It argues that the college was a distinctive institution, which was able to adapt as fashions changed, but which was not perfect. The thesis makes use of the college’s extensive medieval archive at Windsor, supported by manuscripts from The National Archives and other repositories, and fills a substantial gap in the historiography of the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century college. After setting out the college’s fourteenth-century foundations and historiography, five chapters consider different groups within the community. Chapters 1 and 2 investigate the secular canons who ran the college under the supervision of the dean or warden. The chapters first assess the composition of this group and then use a series of case studies to examine how the canons dealt with problems throughout the late-fifteenth and early-sixteenth centuries. Chapter 3 considers the college’s vicars, lay clerks and choristers and the ways in which their roles changed during the fifteenth century. Chapter 4 discusses a charitable element of the college’s constitution, the poor knights (a group of royal pensioners unique to St George’s and not found in other collegiate foundations), and assesses the burden these individuals placed on strained finances. The final chapter examines commemoration within the college, who was commemorated and how. Overall, the thesis sheds new light on an important and peculiar late-medieval collegiate institution. 3 Abbreviations Bowers, ‘Musical Establishment’ R. Bowers, ‘The Music and Musical Establishment of St George’s in the 15th Century’ in St George’s Chapel, Windsor, in the Late Middle Ages (Windsor, 2001), pp. 170-214 BL British Library, London Bond, Inventories M. F. Bond, The Inventories of St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, 1384-1667 (Windsor, 1947) BRUC A. B. Emden, A Biographical Register of the University of Cambridge to A.D. 1500 (Cambridge, 1963) BRUO A. B. Emden, A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford to A.D. 1500, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1957-9) BRUO 1501-40 A. B. Emden, A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford A.D. 1501 to 1540 (Oxford, 1974) CCR Calendar of Close Rolls, 1227-1509, 61 vols. (London, 1892-1963) Cal. Pap. Reg. Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers Relating to Great Britain and Ireland: Papal Letters, 1198- 1492, 14 vols. (London, 1893-1960) CPR Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1216-1509, 53 vols. (London, 1891-1916) Chrimes, Henry VII S. B. Chrimes, Henry VII (London, 1972) Dalton, Manuscripts J. N. Dalton, The Manuscripts of St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle (Windsor, 1957) English Clergy A. Hamilton-Thompson, The English Clergy and their Organization in the Later Middle Ages (Oxford, 1947) ‘English Students at Bologna’ R. J. Mitchell, ‘English Students at Bologna in the Fifteenth Century, The English Historical Review, 51, (1936), pp. 270-87 4 ‘English Students at Padua’ R. J. Mitchell, ‘English Students at Padua, 1460- 75’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Fourth Series, 19 (1936), pp. 101-17 ‘English Students at Ferrara’ R. J. Mitchell, ‘English Students at Ferrara in the XVth Century’ in Italian Studies, 1 (1937), pp. 75- 82 Evans, ‘Years of Arrears’ A. K. B. Evans, ‘The Years of Arrears: Financial Problems of the College of St George in the 15th Century’, St George’s Chapel, Windsor, in the Late Middle Ages, ed. C. Richmond and E. Scarff (Windsor, 2001), pp. 92-106 Fasti Wyndesorienses S. L. Ollard, Fasti Wyndesorienses: The Deans and Canons of Windsor (Windsor, 1950) Fellowes, Military Knights E. H. Fellowes, The Military Knights of Windsor, 1352-1944 (Windsor, 1944) Fellowes, The Vicars or E. H. Fellowes, The Vicars or Minor Canons of His Minor Canons Majesty’s Free Chapel of St George in Windsor Castle (Windsor, 1945) History of Eton College H. C. Maxwell Lyte, History of Eton College, 1440- 1884 (London, 1889) History of the King’s Works H. M. Colvin, D. R. Ransom and J. Summerson, The History of the King’s Works, 3 vols. (London, 1975) Hope, Windsor Castle W. H. St John Hope, Windsor Castle: An Architectural History, 3 vols. (London, 1913) Kleineke, Edward IV H. Kleineke, Edward IV (Oxford, 2009) Kleineke, ‘Lobbying and Access’ H. Kleineke, ‘Lobbying and Access: The Canons of Windsor and the Matter of the Poor Knights in the Parliament of 1485’, in Parliamentary History, 25 (2006), pp. 145-59 Letters and Papers Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII, 23 vols. (London, 1862-1932) MSD AHRC-funded 'The Soldier in Later Medieval England Online Database', www.medievalsoldier.org, accessed 09/09/15 5 ODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 61 vols. (Oxford, 2004) PROME The Parliament Rolls of Medieval England 1275- 1504, ed. by C. Given-Wilson et al., 16 vols. (Woodbridge, 2005) Roberts, Saint George’s, 1348-1416 A.K.B. Roberts, St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, 1348-1416: A Study in early Collegiate Administration (Windsor, 1947) Ross, Edward IV C. D. Ross, Edward IV (London, 1974) Ross, Richard III C. D. Ross, Richard III (Yale, 1981) SGC St George’s College Archives, Windsor Castle Saul, ‘Servants of God and Crown’ N. Saul, ‘Servants of God and Crown: the Canons of St George’s Chapel, 1348-1420’, in St George’s Chapel, Windsor, in the Fourteen Century, ed. N. Saul (Suffolk, 2005), pp. 97-116 Statutes and Injunctions J. N. Dalton, ed., The Statutes and Injunctions of St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle (unpublished galley proof) Tatton-Brown, ‘College Buildings’ T. Tatton-Brown, ‘The Constructional Sequence and Topography of the Chapel and College Buildings at St George’s’, in St George’s Chapel, Windsor, in the Late Middle Ages, ed. C. Richmond and E. Scarff (Windsor, 2001), pp. 3-38 Tatton-Brown, ‘New Chapel’ T. Tatton-Brown, ‘The Building of the New Chapel: The First Phase’, in St George’s Chapel, Windsor: History and Heritage, ed. N. Saul and T. Tatton- Brown (Stanbridge, 2010), pp. 69-80 TNA The National Archives, Kew 6 Contents The College of St George, Windsor: Foundations and Composition .......................................... 13 Windsor Castle and the Round Table ..................................................................................... 14 The Order of the Garter .......................................................................................................... 16 The Foundation of St George’s College ................................................................................... 18 Collegiate Institutions ............................................................................................................. 21 Statutes ................................................................................................................................... 24 Steward and Treasurer ......................................................................................................... 24 Precentor ............................................................................................................................. 26 The Chapter .......................................................................................................................... 27 Archive and Historiography .................................................................................................... 27 Methodology ........................................................................................................................... 31 Chapter 1 - Canons in the Cloister I: 1468-79 ............................................................................. 33 Evidence .................................................................................................................................. 34 Attendance .............................................................................................................................. 35 Duration of Service ................................................................................................................. 41 Education ................................................................................................................................ 42 Constitution ............................................................................................................................ 49 Residents (1) - ‘Feathering their nests’ ................................................................................ 52 Residents (2) - Additional Earnings .....................................................................................