CHAPTER II

_The Benedictine Monastery_

The Benedictine house was built in part upon the northern slope of a low hill, in part in the hollow through which the river Sherbourne flows. This was a situation well adapted for the building of a monastery; there was rich soil in the neighbourhood, good roads--both the Watling Street and the Foss Way ran within a few miles from the spot--and running water. The Sherbourne is but a small stream nowadays, but it was a more important watercourse in earlier times, and in the fifteenth century many precautions had to be taken "in eschewing peril of floods." The monks could stock Swanswell Pool[42] with fish, and plant their orchards or vineyards in or near the hollow in which the monastery lay.

Little remains of the minster save the bases of a few clustered pillars of the thirteenth century, the remains of the west end by the Blue Coat School at the north end of S. Michael's Churchyard, and the fragment of the north-west tower, now incorporated in a dwelling-house in New Buildings. Under the gardens and pleasant red brick eighteenth and nineteenth century houses of Priory Row, which give the churchyard the look of a cathedral close, diggers often come upon fragments of ancient masonry, showing how the cathedral stretched down the slope of the hill. Between the cathedral and the southern bank of the Sherbourne were the Priory buildings, with the cloister garth, locutorium or parlour, synodal chamber and grammar school,[43] which last had an endowed existence as early as 1303.

Another relic of the monastery, a beautiful old timbered hostry or guest house in Ironmonger Row, was only cleared away in 1820. The inn known as the "Palmers' Rest" now occupies a portion of this site, and carvings of hunting scenes, and grotesques worked into the window frames, and now painted a dreary brown, were taken from the ancient guest house of the monks. Some of the obligations of hospitality were lifted from the monks by the foundation in the twelfth century of the hospital of S. John the Baptist, whereof only the church is left. Here poor wayfarers had food and lodging and the sick poor of the place were nursed and tended. The brethren were clothed in a black or dark brown garb, ample and flowing, and marked with a black cross, and the sisters wore a white veil and long closed mantles or cloaks. Another foundation for the nursing of the sick was the lazar-hospital at Spon, dedicated to S. Mary Magdalen, of which not a trace remains.

The main feature of a monk's life was its well-ordered monotony, so congenial to many minds; but as a class monks were not specially addicted to idleness or solitude. Neither were they in most cases entirely devoted to spiritual things, for although the salvation of the individual soul was the primal object of monasticism, members of the religious orders were adepts at secular business, and did not suffer their houses to decay from neglect of the affairs of this world. There was always plenty of work for any monk possessing a clear head and a faculty for administration. The various officers of the convent, _obedientiarii_ as they were called, had each his appointed task. Every one was allowed a certain proportion of the convent revenue to devote to the expenses connected with his office.[44] In return he presented his accounts at the annual audit, keeping them carefully and exactly, recording everything, down to the receipt of a pot of honey, "or the price of the parchment on which the various items were written." In the case of Coventry the rents of certain tenements in S. Nicholas Street, Bailey Lane, Well Street (_super corneram Vici Fontis_), among others, were assigned to the cellarer;[45] those coming from land in Keresley to the treasurer; the same forms being observed with regard to the pitancier and sacristan. The rents paid in kind--butter, honey, eggs, etc.--were probably entered among the kitchener's receipts; while the accounts, compiled from daily entries, must have given many clerks almost unceasing labour.

We have, unfortunately, no local chronicles,[46] such as those kept within the cloisters of S. Alban's, giving us particulars concerning the lives of the Coventry monks. But no doubt, in essentials, the management of various houses differed little. At Evesham, for example, the prior was bound to furnish the parchment required for the scriptorium, and all other writing materials except ink, out of the sum allotted to him. The manciple provided the wine, mead, oil and lamps, and kept up the stock of earthenware, jugs, basins, and other vessels required for the convent use. The precentor--as befitted one whose office was to train the choir--was bound to keep the organ in repair, and over and above to find all the ink and colour required for illumination, together with all materials for binding books. While to the chamberlain a certain revenue was assigned to provide for the clothing of the monks.[47] All these matters gave the convent officers daily occupation, and must have absorbed much thought and interest.

For those of fervent spirit the daily religious exercises were the salt of life, but for others--possibly the greater number--they were merely part of the daily routine, and repetition had increased monotony. Many hours of the day were passed in these regularly recurring services of the Church. At midnight the brethren rose and went to Matins and Lauds. Prime was celebrated at six, Tierce at nine, Sext at twelve, Nones at two or three, Vespers at four, and Complin at seven. After Tierce the duties of the day began; and the different obedientiaries went each to fulfil his appointed task. The rest sat in the cloisters, taught the children in the school, or copied manuscripts. There were frequent consultations in the chapter-house, and on Sundays, before Prime or Tierce, the abbot sat in the cloisters to hear the monks' confessions, and appointed to each the penance due for his fault. Now and then the coming of an important stranger--a royal guest, perhaps, such as William the Conqueror, who passed, it is supposed, through Coventry on his way from Warwick to Nottingham in 1068--would furnish the brethren with a topic for many weeks' conversation.

Sometimes the brethren were suffered to have a glimpse of the great world without the convent with their own eyes. The prior, who was of the company of mitred abbots, was frequently forced to journey to whatever place the King might appoint for the meeting of the parliament. The rank and file of the convent had now and then opportunities of seeing life in travel. They might undertake a pilgrimage; or, when a dispute was on hand, and appeal had been made to the Holy Father, one of the brethren would journey Rome-wards, with well-lined pockets, to look after the convent's interest at the papal court. These lawsuits were not infrequent, as may be shown by the career of Geoffrey, Prior of Coventry during the reign of Henry III.[48] In 1224 the monks tried to raise him to the episcopal throne, but the election was quashed by the archbishop, and the usual appeal to Rome only brought another--a papal--candidate to fill the vacant seat. This occurrence did not in all probability predispose the minds of the actual and would-be bishop to mutual goodwill. In 1232 the prior was suspended for resisting the episcopal visitation, and, together with the abbot of Westminster, set out hot-foot to Rome, to lay his grievances before the Pope. A year or two later we find him involved in a quarrel with the Abbot of S. Augustine's, Bristol. What heart-burnings these obscure disputes must have occasioned, what journeyings to and fro, and, above all, what wealth was lost to the monastery to satisfy the Roman greed of gold!

It is the record of these disputes that forms the bulk of the history of the monastic houses of England, and the priory of Coventry is no exception to the general rule. Placed in a somewhat dependent position--for during the episcopate of Robert de Limesey (1086-1121) the bishop's seat had been transferred from Chester to this place--the monks were, earlier or later, bound to realise the dangers of episcopal tyranny and encroachment. Limesey, the first bishop in whom the abbacy was vested--the superior of the convent being henceforward called a prior--soon made the monks feel his heavy yoke. Bitter were the complaints they made concerning his conduct. On the death of the last abbot he obtained leave to farm the convent revenue, and, using the permission to serve his own ends, wrought much harm to the estates of the monastery, pulling down houses thereon, and carrying off the materials to his own manors, seizing horses and other monastic property. But the crying instance of his greed, one which the chroniclers have carefully and tremblingly noted, was his plunder of the magnificent minster. He scraped off the silver coating of a beam--worth 500 marks--most likely from a shrine in that goodly treasure-house![49] It was little wonder that the indignant monks turned to Rome for aid against this devourer of their substance.[50]

Nor was this the only bishop who, from his fair palace in S. Michael's Churchyard, caused his neighbours of the priory to tremble for the safety of their possessions. Hugh of Nunant, a monk-hater, who vowed, it is said, that "if he had his own way he would strip every cowled head in England," was nominated to the see in 1188. He is variously described as a man of piety and eloquence or as one desperately wicked.[51] Politically he was a follower of Prince John, who, during his brother King Richard's imprisonment in Germany, was endeavouring to strengthen his own position by forming a rebel party in the Midlands. Nunant obtained licence to incorporate the prior's barony with his own episcopal one, and by his accusations so enraged the monks that they fell on him during a synod in the cathedral church, and broke his head with a crucifix. The bishop, indignant in his turn, applied to Longchamp, the absent King's representative, for licence to punish the outrage. And he was allowed to expel the brethren, "contaminated," so he said, "with secular pollution," from the monastery, and appoint secular canons, who probably came from Lichfield, in their stead. Appeal was made to Rome, but the monks were now too impoverished to obtain a favourable hearing of their suit at the papal court. So they remained in exile for several years.

But the adversary's triumph was, after all, short-lived. In 1194 King Richard, ransomed from prison, returned to England, and the scheme of Prince John and Bishop Nunant fell to the ground. The latter was deposed from his bishopric, and the monks he had oppressed took heart of grace, and bethought them how they might return to their old home. The story goes how one of their number put an end to the brethren's exile by his intercession with the Pope. Although often forced to beg his bread, brother Thomas tarried long at Rome, and offered to each fresh occupant of S. Peter's chair the petition of the monks of Coventry. On one occasion his Holiness in an angry mood bade the monk withdraw, telling him that other petitions to the same purpose had been exhibited to Clement and Celestine, his predecessors, but rejected, and therefore his expectations were vain. Unto which the monk, with bitter tears, replied: "Holy Father, my petition is just and altogether honest, and therefore my expectation is not vain; for I expect your death, as I have done your predecessors', for there shall one succeed you who will hear my petition to purpose." Then said the Pope to the cardinals: "Hear ye not what this devil hath spoken?" And immediately turned to him and said: "Brother, by S. Peter, thou shalt not expect my death; thy petition is granted."[52] So the monks returned joyfully to their old home; but Hugh of Nunant, so the chroniclers tell us, died in remorse and torment of mind, deploring the injuries he had done to the Coventry brethren "with abundant sighs and tears," and praying that he might die in a frock of the order he had in life despised.

But grasping bishops were not the only enemies known to the monks. There was a long-standing feud between the brethren of Coventry and the canons of Lichfield, dating from the time when Stephen gave them, together with the canons of Chester, permission to elect the bishop of the diocese.[53] The monks frequently defeated their object by nominating a candidate of their order, usually the prior, whom the canons would in nowise be induced to accept. Appeals to Rome would follow; and the Pope, seizing the opportunity, would set aside previous nominations, and impose his own candidate upon the contending parties.

At the first election we hear of, the Coventry brethren were able to secure the bishopric for one of their order, the prior of Canterbury, in spite of the canons' protests and appeal to Rome. But when, after his enthronement at Coventry, bishop Durdent came to Lichfield, the canons barred the gates of their fortified close against him, and, in the face of the episcopal excommunication, denied him entrance. They also refused to enthrone Gerard la Pucelle, elected by the sole voice of the monks in 1183. "Unica est sponsa mea, nec habeo duo cubicula,"[54] said the bishop in his discouragement. And this learned and righteous prelate died four months later, not without suspicion of poison. Nunant was appointed by the Crown; but on his death in 1199 the passions of the rivals, strengthened by political antagonism--for the canons were partizans of John while the monks clave to King Richard--again broke loose. On the nomination of Richard's candidate, one of the monks led off the _Te Deum_, as a signal that the proceedings were over, though the canons had taken no part in the election. "Who made thee cantor here?" cried the Archdeacon of Stafford, a member of John's party, in great wrath, for the cantor on these occasions conducted the singing. "I am cantor here, and not thou," was the reply, and as King Richard's party was then predominant the monks had their will.[55]

At the next election[56] the brethren were brought face to face with King Richard's successor, and John found it a hard thing to subdue the Coventry monks, though he had at his back the entire company of the canons of Lichfield. When England was under an Interdict, the King sent to them the Abbots of Oseney and Waltham, proposing the Archdeacon of Stafford as a candidate for the vacant See of Coventry. But the monks would have none of him. They elected their prior, Joybert of Wenlock, and purposed to send the nomination oversea to the incoming archbishop, Stephen Langton. At Tewkesbury, John proposed the Abbot of Bindon. The monks refused utterly. "None whom I love wilt thou choose," cried the angry King. Then to the justiciar said the prior, afraid: "If it suits the lord king well, I will elect his chancellor." The chancellor was Walter de Grey, who was subsequently raised to the See of York. This proposal found no favour then, and the King appointed another meeting with the monks at Nottingham. On their return home they held a consultation in the chapter-house, and determined that they would elect neither of the King's candidates, Richard de Marisco nor the Abbot of Bindon. At Nottingham Castle Joybert and six monks besought the King that he would allow them to elect freely and canonically the prior or some other fitting man. Meanwhile all manner of threats and blandishments were used to make them give their voice for one of the royal nominees, but they held firm. Next morning, however, when the prior and two monks tarried long in the King's chamber, the four remaining brethren, fearing that their superior would at last give way, determined to go home and reserve their vote; but Fulk de Cantilupe shut the castle gate in their faces, vowing "by the tongue of God" that they should not leave ere they had made a bishop to the King's liking, "and other things he uttered," the record continues, "not meet to be said."

At last Prior Joybert began to waver, for the King promised him great rewards and honours if he would do his will, and urged him, saying: "Speak, prior, speak!" Then Joybert fell on his knees. "By the soul of thy father the King," he said, "and of thy brother the King, and by the honour of thy life, who art King, if it be not possible for us to have any other than one of these two, give us the Abbot of Bindon." "Never while I live shall this be," cried one of the monks, named Thomas, "and never shall he be my bishop." A bystander reproved him for this outburst towards his superior. "In the cloister I am but a monk," the fearless brother answered, "but here at the election of the bishop, I am the prior's fellow." Then John, looking about him in great anger left the room, and many nobles gathered about the monks, and urged them to fulfil the King's will. "Verily ye have much to fear," they said, "if you bring down his wrath upon your heads."

The unhappy monks were again summoned into the King's presence. "Lord prior," the tyrant began, "I have always loved thee, and thou wilt not do my will. What sayest thou to my chancellor, whose name thou didst propose to me at Tewkesbury?" The prior signified that he willingly accepted this candidate, and the King gave orders that the canons should be summoned to ratify the election. At this the smouldering jealousy between monks and canons burst into flame. "By S. Milburg," cried the prior, "they shall not come; never shall they be present at our election!" But John swore "by the tooth of God" that they should come in. "I would rather die," Joybert answered, "than be the cause of the destruction of my order." The nobles, who were present, gathered round the monks, and falling upon their necks entreated them to submit. Then the prior, vanquished, said: "Because nothing else is pleasing to you, and it is not possible to do other, do your will." A _Te Deum_ was then sung by the company of monks and canons, although the former murmured greatly at the constraint laid upon them.

The case was afterwards laid before the papal legate, and the election of Walter de Gray annulled. The long dispute between monk and canon was temporarily allayed in 1227, when it was ordained that the election should take place alternately at Coventry and Lichfield, the prior having first voice and the dean second.[57] The quarrel gradually died away, and, well tutored by Pope and King, the electors peacefully met to choose the particular candidate designated by those in authority. Other quarrels brought the house low. In 1248 the resources of the convent had become so impoverised by lawsuits concerning the Bishop of Coventry's right of visitation[58] that it was feared some of the monks would be compelled to disperse, a disaster the monks of Derley averted by receiving divers inmates of the Coventry Priory for a time into their hospitable house. When trouble again arose, the convent of S. Mary found that the enemy had sprung up under the very shadow of the monastery itself, and that the men of Coventry were even more implacable foes than the canons of Lichfield had been in times past. These quarrels between ecclesiastical bodies and their burgher tenants were of common occurrence in mediæval life. The strong corporate feeling which flourished amongst the monks, the zeal they bore for their order in general and their house in particular, which involved them in endless quarrels, caused them to play a notable part in municipal history. As a body they were opposed to the growth of free institutions among the townsfolk. They never rightly understood their tenants' desire for increase of municipal liberty, and feared by giving way to their demands to forego the rights of the Church, and bring their souls in peril thereby.[59]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 42: Guy of Warwick also freed Coventry from a fabulous monster. In the last century there was still shown there "a great shield-bone of a bore (_sic_) which "he" slew in Hunting, when he (_i.e._ the boar) had turned with his Snout a great Put or Pond which is now called Swanswell, but Swineswell in times past." Gough, _Collect. Warw._ (Bodleian Library).]

[Footnote 43: _Vic. Count. Hist. Warw._, ii. 319.]

[Footnote 44: For a popular account of a monastery _v._ Jessopp, _Coming of the Friars_, 113-165.]

[Footnote 45: _Leet Book_, 448-9.]

[Footnote 46: The chronicler, whose name--Walter of Coventry--seems to attest some local connection, was not a monk of this house. Stubbs, _Pref._ to Walter of Coventry (Rolls), I. xxii.-xxxiii.]

[Footnote 47: Jessopp, 138.]

[Footnote 48: Luard, _Annales Monastici_, iii. 90; i. 89-90.]

[Footnote 49: Dugdale, _Monasticon_ (1846), iii. 178.]

[Footnote 50: Beresford, _Diocesan Hist. Lichfield_, 54.]

[Footnote 51: Beresford, _Diocesan Hist. Lichfield_, 78.]

[Footnote 52: Dugdale. _Warw._, i. 161. Rather an improbable story. More likely after Nunant's fall the monks found some one to plead their cause with the King.]

[Footnote 53: Beresford, 69.]

[Footnote 54: Which may be paraphrased: "I have but one diocese, and must I have but one cathedral?" (Beresford, 76).]

[Footnote 55: Cott. MS, quoted Dugdale, _Monasticon_, VI. iii. 1242.]

[Footnote 56: _Ibid._ 1242-3.]

[Footnote 57: Luard, _op cit._, iii 104.]

[Footnote 58: _Vict. County Hist._, ii. 55.]

[Footnote 59: For the disputes between ecclesiastics and their tenants see Mrs Green, _Town Life_, i. 333-383; Thompson, _Municipal History_, _passim_. This feature is not confined to England. For the disputes between the men of Rouen and the chapter see Giry, _Établissements de Rouen_, 34.]