Introduction

INTRODUCTION. THIS present volume, though bearing upon it the names of two bishops of English dioceses, Exeter and London, is rather secular than ecclesiastical in its character. As connected with the history of our Church and country it belongs to the first decade of the fourteenth century, 1300-1310, but it tells us little of what those prelates thought or did ; it is the account rendered by the executors of their wills of the wealth which they possessed, the sources from which it was derived, and the disposition which they made of it when they died. The two bishops are Thomas de Button, Bishop of Exeter, and Kichard de Gravesend, Bishop of London. How far they were contemporary in age does not appear. The Bishop of London was the senior Bishop, having been consecrated in 1280, the Bishop of Exeter in 1292. The Bishop of London held his see twenty-three years, dying in December, 1303. The Bishop of Exeter held his see only fifteen years, dying in 1307. The executors' account of Bishop Button had been already printed when the Council of the Camden Society consented to add to it the account of the executors of Bishop Gravesend, which otherwise would have occupied the first place in the volume. What is known of these bishops may be comprised in the fol- lowing brief memoirs:— The late Dean Milman, in his Annals of St. Paul's, has sketched the history of the time in which Richard de Gravesend lived, and drawn from his will, and the proceedings of his executors, some account of his character. Of him it may be said, as of his co- temporary Thomas de Button, that he was of a worshipful family, his brother being Sir Stephen Gravesend, and the residence of the family at Gravesend in Kent, the poor of Milton sharing with the poor of Gravesend a legacy of ten pounds. For his brother, his CAMD. SOC. a Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.33.14, on 29 Sep 2021 at 15:22:50, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S204217020000591X 11 INTRODUCTION. brother's wife, and their children, the bishop seems to have enter- tained a strong affection. To him he bequeathed all the armour which graced as furniture the garderobe, in which were deposited his valuable books, and of which the six saddles for his esquires indicated that he had as many persons of that rank in his suite. To his brother's wife and her daughters he gave his bedding, robes in his wardrobe, and linen; to his niece Alice, a hundred marks as a marriage portion; to his nephew Stephen, Eector of Stepney, after- wards Bishop of London, one of his executors, his best Bible in thirteen volumes, valued at ten pounds. Another nephew, Richard, apparently serving in the household, had a legacy of forty shillings. By his will he released his brother from the debt which was due: the amount is not stated, but that which was due from other debtors he estimated at three hundred pounds. It was evidence of warm and grateful feeling that he directed his body to be buried in St. Paul's by the tomb of one of his predecessors, Henry de Sandwich, whom he terms " Promotoris mei." Bishop Thomas de Button or Bitton,a as is related in the " Lives of the Bishops of Exeter," by the Eev. G. Oliver, D;D. (Exeter, 1861), was a native of Gloucestershire, and of a worshipful family. He was promoted from the deanery of Wells to the see of Exeter in 1292, and the temporalities were restored to him on the 2nd December in that year.b His parents were buried on the north side of the church of Bitton near Bristol, where he erected St. Catherine's Chapel," and endowed in it a perpetual chantry.d The former vicar * The family of Thomas de Bytton, alias Button, Bishop of Exeter, lived at Hannam, in the parish of Bitton, Gloucestershire. In 12 Edw. I. Plea Roll. Mic. (52), when Dean of Wells, he recovered a right of estover in Bitton, on the death of his mother, who had a life interest in it, as it had always been enjoyed by William de Bitton, his uncle, whose heir he was. b See his pedigree in Nichols's Herald and Genealogist, Jan. 1867. « Archdeacon Freeman, in his elegant book just published about Exeter Cathe- dral, proves, from the archives of the Cathedral, that from 1292 to 1307 he recon- structed and transformed the entire choir, with its aisles, in the Decorated style, as we now see them, and carried on the work which had been begun by his predeeessor Bishop Quivil. a See Copy of Ordinance of this Chantry in the Bristol Volume of the Archeeolo- Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.33.14, on 29 Sep 2021 at 15:22:50, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S204217020000591X INTRODUCTION. Ill of that parish, Henry Thomas Ellacombe (at whose instance the account of the executors of the bishop is now printed by the Camden Society in this volume), in making further alterations in the church of Bitton in 1826, discovered a sepulchral slab with the incised effigies of a Crusader bearing the family arms of Bitton8 (Ermine, a fess gules),b with other early sepulchral remains and a stone coffin of rude type, on the SOUTH side of Bitton Church: these, no doubt, were the ancestors of our bishop—one of the ROBERTS (see pedigree). From foundations and other traces there evidently must have been a transept, the very situation in which it is supposed to have been usual in early times for the founders of churches to have their mortuary chapels. (See a paper by Mr. Lethullier, in Archseologia, vol. ii. p. 292. See also Archajologia, vol. xxii. p. 437, as to these discoveries). After the foundation of the Chantry of St. Catherine on the NORTH side by our bishop, in the course of years this transept on the SOUTH side would fall into decay—especially as the charge of upholding the new one was to be borne by the family, as by the Ordinance is agreed—and it became hidden and overgrown with grass, till the foundation and contents were discovered in 1826. The Episcopal Eegister of Bishop Bitton having perished, little is known of his proceedings. One document, however, exists in the archives at Exeter, which is in such full accordance with the extensive provision made subsequently in his will for masses and prayers for the repose of his soul as to deserve special notice. It is an indulgence of forty days by three archbishops and five bishops, granted at Rome A.D. 1300, and in the sixth year of the Pontificate of Boniface VIII. to all true penitents who should avail themselves gical Institute, 1851, p. 260. It is dated May, 1290. In 1822 a stone coffin was discovered at the foot of the altar-steps. Views of the beautiful triple sedilia are represented in Collings' " Details of Gothic Architecture," vol. ii. pi. 52, 53. a See engraving of this tomb at the end. b The same arms are in the east window of Exeter Cathedral, the choir of which was the work of this eminent bishop. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.33.14, on 29 Sep 2021 at 15:22:50, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S204217020000591X IV INTRODUCTION. of the bishop's ministry, or pray for his prosperity during his life, or for the repose of his soul after his death, and for the departed souls of his parents, brothers, and sisters. Three of the eight seals attached to this document, those of Basil, Archbishop of Jerusalem, Adenulphus, Archbishop of Cosenza, and Manfred, Bishop of St. Mark's, Venice, are said by Dr. Oliver to have been in fair preser- vation. A purchase deed remains in Bishop Bromscombe's register, dated in 1302, which shows that the bishop bought an estate in the parish of St. Alun in Cornwall of William de Roustwick for ten pounds of silver. No reference to this property occurs in the executors' account, nor any other indication of the bishop's possessing any landed estate but the receipt by the executors of 40s. for Robert Patrice's admission to land at Farndon, said to be " de feodo Domini," and of 45s. for rent at Inwardugh, due during the minority of the heir whose " Maritagium" the bishop had sold to Richard de Merton. Different statements have been made respecting the date of the bishop's death in 1303, but the question is set at rest by the executor's account in which (p. 25) it is distinctly stated that on Thursday 21st of September " Dominus diem suum clausit ex- tremum." He was buried before the lowest step of the high altar in his cathedral, and according to Leland (Itin. vol. iii. p. 57) the gravestone was inscribed " Tho. Bytton, Epis. Exon." All the expenses in making the coffin of lead, digging the grave, providing stone and marble for the tomb, decorating it with tabernacle work, images, and letters in metal, are fully detailed in the executors' account (p. 22). In August 1763 the grave was opened, and its construction found to tally with these statements; the silver chalice also was found (now preserved in the Chapter House at Exeter), which the executors bought to place with the body in the tomb, and for which they paid nine shillings and four pence.8 The only relative mentioned in the executors' accounts as having the same name is John de Button: he was married, and to his wife * See engraving annexed.

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