Roc. Hampshire Field Club ArchaeoL Soc 58, 2003, 226-241 (Hampshire Studies 2003) EARLY HISTORIANS OF WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL By JOHN CROOK ABSTRACT Domitian A XTTT thereafter. The somewhat com­ plicated relationship between the two manuscripts The paper traces the way in which, during a period can be only briefly summarised here. CCCC 339 between the late twelfth and the mid-nineteenth century, is the earlier, and has been identified {Appleby Winchester's historians have sought to understand the 1963) as the autograph text of the late twelfth- architectural evolution of Winchester cathedral and its century St Swithun's monk, Richard of Devizes, precinct. The often naive observations of the city's early his­author of a history of King Richard I. It comprises torians still kelp today's students to understand the a series of annals down to 1139, after which it con­ development of cathedral and close. Successive generationstinue s as a more extended chronicle down to of historical writers gradually corrected the misconceptionsRichar d of Devizes's own day. Domitian A XIII of their predecessors and moved towards a more credible, was put together from several sources. As far as and, it is to be hoped, accurate version of architectural the annal for 1066 it is a copy of CCCC 339; history. thereafter it recycles historical material from a The paper begins with a reassessment of the relationshipvariet y of writers, notably William of between the various annals and chronicles compiled at St Malmesbury, down to 1202 (with a gap between Switkun 's priory, Winchester, and evaluates other docu­ 1190-96 where pages have been lost). Then from ments with historical implications produced within the 1202 until 1277 it continues in a different hand. cathedral priory, notably the writings of Thomas Noel Denham-Young (1934, 6-7) demonstrated Rudborne, the priory's most competent medieval historian. that this part of the Domitian annals was copied It then traces the emergence of historical scholarship in thedirectl y from another Winchester historical text, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and attempts to Bodley MS 91, a conclusion more recently arrived identify more accurately the authors of two key eigh­ at independently by the present writer. The teenth-century historical works. The contribution of "JohnDomitia n continuator seems, in fact, to have Milner is reviewed, and the survey finishes in 1845 with a copied - rather inexpertly at times - Bodley 91 discussion of the seminal paper of Professor Robert Willis, until the end of the most recent entry, for 1277, founder of cathedral archaeology'. which thus provides a precise date for the final section of that manuscript. Bodley 91 was then added to for three further years, and breaks off abruptly in 1280 at the death of Pope Nicholas HI EARLY MEDIEVAL SOURCES FOR and the pregnant words cui successit... WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL Noel Denholm-Young (1934) made a bold Before the fifteenth century the main historical attempt to insert Bodley 91 into the complicated source for Winchester cathedral is the Awnales stemma linking the Winchester Annals with those Wintonienses [henceforth annals], edited by Henry of Waverley, Worcester, and elsewhere, and Richards Luard for the Rolls Series (Luard 1865, followed Francis Madan (1953, 2.i, 101-2) in sug­ 3-125). Luard used two recensions: Corpus gesting that the Bodley manuscript emanated Christi College Cambridge MS 339, which he from Hyde Abbey. In the light of its close relation­ printed down to 1066, and BL Cotton MS ship with the St Swithun's manuscript Domitian A CROOK: EARLY HISTORIANS OF WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL 227 XHT this seems to us unlikely. Most tellingly, the (Goodman, 1927). One important entry, which foundation of New Minster, the parent church, is illuminates the comments of later historians singularly absent from Bodley 91, whereas material (WCL Cliartulary, fo. lv (item 4); printed in concerned with Old Minster and St Swithun's Franklin 1993, 89), relates how in 1158 (eight abounds; there is, in fact, little to link the Bodley years after the translation of saintiy relics men­ manuscript with Hyde apart from a post-Reforma­ tioned above) Bishop Henry of moved 'the bodies tion heading on the first page and the fact that it of kings and bishops' (corpora regum et pontificum) was later bound with some other Hyde Abbey doc­ into a new location. These human remains appear uments. already to have been translated from Old Minster More work needs to be done on the relation­ into the 'new church', presumably in 1093-4 - the ship between the three sets of annals, not to Latin is ambiguous on this point because the mention the related annals from other monastic sequence of tenses is incorrect. The bishop is said houses. Yet Luard's edition still provides a useful to have removed them from 'an unworthy place' framework of dates for early works on the cathe­ (ab indecenti loco), raising them up them 'around the dral fabric which are unknown from other high altar' (circa ?nagnum altare) of the cathedral. It is sources. The other, as yet unpublished annals, possible that the 'unworthy place' was the Roman­ add htde further. There are some discrepancies esque crypt of the present cathedral, which was with other versions. Richard of Devizes' pre-1139 subject to periodic flooding by the mid-twelfth annals, for example, place the start of work on century (Crook 1989, 5-8). The anonymous royal Walkelin's cathedral in 1080 (CCCC 339, fo. and episcopal bones mentioned in the document 22v), rather than the generally accepted 1079; may be identified with reasonable probability as however, he places the death of the Conqueror in being amongst those still lying in the mortuary 1088 and may consistendy have been a year adrift chests either side of the presbytery, and their early in this part of his annals. Like the Vespasian movements were also recorded in the lost late annals, Bodley 91 refers to a translation of relics of twelfth-century acta of Bishops Giffard and Henry St Swithun and odier local saints in 1150, stating of Blois, discussed below. Martin and Birthe (fo. 109r) that Henry of Blois raised them into a Biddle (forthcoming) have argued that the bones 'more worthy place' (in locum decentiorem). Without in question were those of a group of early kings the annals many other crucial events in the cathe­ and bishops of Wessex, which in the mid-twelfth dral's architectural development would have to be century thus rejoined a second group comprising dated by style alone: the collapse of the tower in more recent members of the Anglo-Danish royal 1107 (Luard 1865, 43), the heightening of the house whose sarcophagi had been brought from tower parapet in 1200 (ibid., 73, cf. Crook 1992), Old Minster to the Romanesque choir in 1093-4. the beginning of the remodelling of the eastern arm of the cathedral three years after that (Luard 1865, 78). DESTRUCTION AND SURVIVAL OF Apart from the Winchester annals there is very WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL'S little documentation for Winchester cathedral and MUNIMENTS its close from the high medieval period. Although it cannot qualify as an 'historical' text, the miscel­ The chartulary, and other documents - above all lany rather inaccurately called the 'Winchester the supremely important series of obedientiary Cathedral Chartulary', compiled in its present rolls (Kitchin 1892) - compensate in some form in the early fourteenth century (WCL, Char­ measure for the lack of Winchester medieval texts tulary), contains a few pieces of information about which can truly be described as historical writings. the cathedral. Appropriately, the chartulary was It is highly likely that other early material which first brought to the wider attention of scholars by might fall into this category has been lost. Win­ a twentieth-century Winchester scholar, Canon chester's muniments are sadly fragmentary. Arthur W. Goodman, librarian to the dean and Significant losses occurred at the time of the civil chapter of Winchester from 1933 to 1948 wars of the mid-seventeenth century. As the 228 HAMPSHIRE FIELD CLUB AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY pamphleteer 'Mercurius Rusticus' (Bruno Ryves, or cubbord' in the audit house containing the later dean of Windsor) reported (Ryves 1644, court rolls of that manor (WCL, LB 2, fo. 138). 167), during their incursion into the cathedral The cathedral's muniments scarcely fared close in 1642 Waller's parliamentarian soldiers better in more recent times: in his edition of the 'brake up the Muniment house [ ...] They teare the former priory's obedientiary rolls, Dean Kitchin Evidences of their Lands, and cancell their (1892, 3-4) relates how those manuscripts were Charter'. After this disaster the chapter clerk, rejected by one of the cathedral canons as 'useless John Chase, began to set the documents in order rubbish' and condemned to be burnt - a fate and to calendar them in the form of a 'Remem­ which they escaped only through the timely inter­ brance' (WCL, Chase's Calendar of Muniments). vention of a local antiquary Francis Joseph Within four years the cathedral's muniments Baigent. were again ransacked, this time by Cromwell's Against this background the survival of frag­ troops, who on 1-2 October 1646 invaded 'not ments of any medieval historical writings from onlie the Chapter house 8c myne office but also the Winchester cathedral priory must be regarded as minumt. house' (ibid., fo. 84). After the second fortunate indeed. It seems probable from the incursion Chase personally recovered many of writings of the fifteenth-century Winchester monk the documents from the streets of Winchester, as and chronicler Thomas Rudborne that various he recorded in a wistful memorandum (ibid., fo. pseudo-historical texts were in his day available at 84): the priory, including confections attributed to 'Vigilantius' and 'Moratius' which so late as the mid-nineteenth century were still accepted as And all my lidger Register books [were] taken genuine by some historians.