20 OCTOBER 2014 H1 BEVERLEY MINSTER 1 Release date Version notes Who Current version: H1-Beverley StJohn-2014-1 20/10/14 Original version RS Previous versions: ———— This text is made available through the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivs License; additional terms may apply Authors for attribution statement: Charters of William II and Henry I Project Richard Sharpe, Faculty of History, University of Oxford BEVERLEY MINSTER Collegiate church of St John the Evangelist and of St John of Beverley County of Yorkshire : Diocese of York Said to have been refounded 937 × 939 The minster of St John was the principal church in the East Riding of Yorkshire in the eleventh century, enjoying the benefits of its own saint, John of Beverley, bishop of York in the early eighth century. The canons of St John, though not as richly endowed as those of St Peter at York minster, enjoyed a close relationship with the archbishop, to whose estate the town of Beverley belonged. Archbishop Thomas I organized the chapter under a provost and may have established some individual prebends in William II’s reign. Six acts from the reign of Henry I are printed here. In only one case is the beneficiary named as a person, and that is Archbishop Thurstan ({4}); otherwise the beneficiary is the church of St John of Beverley. It is likely that in seeking the king’s seal the church was represented by the archbishop. From King Stephen’s reign there are four royal acts, one of them surviving as an original in the hand of Scribe xiii at Beverley (Ste/99), where it is now among the borough charters. In two of these the beneficiary is personalized, ‘God and the church of St John of Beverley and Thurstan the provost and his successors’ (Ste/101, with no place-date), ‘God and the church of St John of Beverley and the provost and canons serving God there’ (Ste/102, place-dated at Beverley); these may be slender evidence that by 20 OCTOBER 2014 H1 BEVERLEY MINSTER 2 then the provost and canons were less dependent on the archbishop, though, if both were obtained when King Stephen was in Beverley, it may represent no more than the opportunity to make a direct request. While one of the two acts of Henry II for Beverley (H2/223) follows closely the precedent of Henry I’s ({5}), the other (H2/224) extends the duration of the Ascensiontide fair at the request of Archbishop Roger. The comparatively rich survival of royal documents for the church of Beverley from the early twelfth century is due in large part to the compilation of a collection of charters to accompany an abridgement of the Life and Miracles of St John of Beverley. These are now preserved in a handsome fourteenth-century copy, BL MS Add. 61901, in which the dossier on the saint (fols. 1r–60v) is followed by an account of the privileges of the church of Beverley: ‘Libertates ecclesie sancti Iohannis de Beuerlik cum priuilegiis apostolicis et episcopalibus quas magister Alueredus sacrista eiusdem ecclesie de anglico in latinum transtulit’ (BL MS Add. 61901, fol. 60v–69r).1 Alfred’s tract was printed by Temple Chevallier, Sanctuarium Dunelmense et Beuerlacense, Surtees Society 5 (1837), 97–108. The opening words indicate that Master Alfred compiled the tract, ‘sicut a predecessoribus suis audierat et uiderat’. The title of the work includes the tract itself and the priuilegia of popes and bishops: there is an account of how Archbishop Thurstan obtained a privilege from Pope Honorius II and the privilege itself (fol. 78r–v). This bull was dated at the Lateran and can be assigned to 25 January 1126 (JL 7396). Other privileges belong to a date later than Alfred’s tract. That of Honorius was renewed at Archbishop Roger’s request by Pope Adrian IV, 1 March 1155, copied here among later papal privileges (Holtzmann, iii. 145–6, 230–31, nos. 24, 97; Farrer, Early Yorkshire Charters, i. 105, nos. 112–13). Between the tract on liberties and the papal privilege, there is a collection of royal charters from Athelstan, Edward the Confessor, William I, and then ten acts from the early twelfth century, Henry I and Stephen (fols. 69r–73v). The inspeximus of 4 Edward II intrudes before the account of Thurstan and Honorius. Other thirteenth- and fourteenth- century documents are added after the bull of Honorius (fols. 78v–90v). The privilege of Adrian IV is copied between two thirteenth-century bulls and must therefore belong to the additions. The writ of Henry II concerning the thraves (H2/223) appears here only through the charter of 1 He is otherwise known for his Annales de gestis regalibus regum Britanniae, printed by Thomas Hearne (Oxford, 1716); this very derivative work ends in 1129; its composition may be dated after the publication of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia and soon after a council held in London, presumed to be that of Lent 1143. 20 OCTOBER 2014 H1 BEVERLEY MINSTER 3 inspeximus, and that concerning the fair (H2/224) has reached us only through the archives of York minster. Even the latest of Stephen’s acts for Beverley (Ste/101, c. 1147 × 1154) is missing from this dossier. It may be inferred from this overall profile, therefore, that the fourteenth- century compiler made use of documents selected by Master Alfred while King Stephen was alive, adding to them only a few later items. The verse-act in the name of King Athelstan, at fol.69r–v, which can hardly be earlier than the fourteenth century, must be counted as one of the late additions.2 The contents of this collection, nowhere published together, are itemized, mostly without indicators of date, in R. K. Morris, E. Cambridge, & A. I. Doyle, ‘Beverley minster before the early thirteenth century’, in Medieval Art and Architecture in the East Riding of Yorkshire, BAA Trans (1989), 9–32 (at pp. 22–7). If this interpretation of the dossier is correct, then the documents brought together by Alfred include two writ-charters of Edward the Confessor (S 1067 for Beverley minster, S 1160 for York minster), two writ-charters of William I (W1/31–2), seven acts of Henry I (six printed here, and also 000, Regesta 923, for Archbishop Thomas II of York), and three acts of Stephen (Ste/100–102). These were almost all printed by Farrer, Early Yorkshire Charters, i. 87–107, from a seventeenth-century transcript, now BL MS Harley 560, fols. 23v–26v, at a time when the medieval manuscript was inaccessible among the residue of the Phillipps manuscripts then awaiting sale. In 1586 it belonged to William Wray of Ripon, and a little later a transcript was made, which belonged to Sir Robert Cotton, the burnt residue of which is now BL MS Cotton Otho C. XVI, fols. 65–102; some leaves are entirely lost and what remains is damaged. The copyist was cautious about the reading of abbreviated names, sometimes imitating the appearance of the exemplar. This copy was used by John Selden, who prints {2} from it in his Historie of Tithes (1618). A copy made from the Cotton transcript in the early seventeenth century was acquired by Simonds D’Ewes in 1634; this is now BL MS Harley 560, the source from which Master Alfred’s tract was printed in 1837 and from which Farrer printed the charters. This material apart, the cartularies of Beverley are late and deal only with the modest endowments of individual chantries. None the less, one original document ({6}) has survived among a collection of deeds relating to Beverley, Otrington, and other places, now BL Lansdowne 2 S 451; Woodman, Northern Houses, 208–220, no. 12. First printed by Dugdale in 1655, this act was already quoted by John Selden, The Historie of Tithes (London, 1618), 272 [from MS Cotton Otho C. xvi]. 20 OCTOBER 2014 H1 BEVERLEY MINSTER 4 Ch. 193–557, 693–4. From here Leach, Memorials of Beverley Minster, ii. 91–7, printed seven documents in favour of the minster, but other deeds from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries have been used in VCH East Riding xi The borough and liberties of Beverley (1989). The collection was formed by the local antiquary John Warburton (1682– 1759), and the Lansdowne manuscripts also include ten volumes of his notes relating to Yorkshire, including a volume of notes on Beverley itself (BL MS Lansdowne 896). Enrolled copies add a little. The original English of one of Edward’s acts and one of William I’s has been preserved by charters of inspeximus, beginning with that of 4 Edward II, dated 7 September 1310, which brought together a selection of the most important royal acts in the archive, Edward the Confessor (S 1067), William I (W1/32), Henry I’s writ confirming exemption from geld ({2}), a charter of King Stephen (Ste/99), surviving as an original now among the records of Beverley corporation (BC/i/2), and charters of Henry II (H2/223), John, and Edward I (CalCh, iii. 140–42). King Stephen’s charter, dated by Bishop’s Scribe xiii at York in the first year of the reign (February 1136), renews privileges given by King Edward and King William and refers to the privileges of the church of Beverley in their reigns and in the time of William II and Henry I, ‘sicut eorumdem carte regum testantur’ (Ste/99). No acts survive for William II, and it is not certain which acts of Henry I were produced as precedents in 1136. * The six documents printed here are concerned with the customs and liberties of the church, and in particular exemption from gelds; receipt of tithes; the collection of the thraves owed from each plough in the East Riding; and the fair at midsummer.