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Plowshares and Swords: Clerical Involvement in Acts of Violence and Peacemaking in Late Medieval England, c. 1400–1536*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2014

Daniel E. Thiery
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Extract

“My men should use their swords and bucklers…but if John Stanshaw is in one alehouse then I will be in another.”

To historians of medieval and Reformation England, these lines should not be all that surprising. Throughout the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, the heyday of livery and maintenance, ritualized effrontery was in vogue among the affluent and they often employed large retinues of armed servants as signs of potency and prestige. However, it may surprise some to learn that the above statement was uttered by a priest, Geoffrey Elys, vicar of Thatcham (Berks.), around the beginning of the sixteenth century. Though the medieval Church tirelessly struggled to convince its flock of the wickedness of interpersonal aggression, its own servants were not immune to bouts of conflict and strife. As R. N. Swanson cautions in his study of parish priests, the clergy “can be considered as a group; but they were also individuals who created their own careers and had their own personal relations with their parishioners.” Indeed, the conduct of clerics in their parish communities, especially their violent conduct, can be quite baffling if one only evaluates it by the criteria of ecclesiastical proscription and fails to recognize that such proscription was just one thick strand of an intricate web of relations and expectations. In his examination of thirteenth-century parish priesthood, J. Goering has traced the transition of pastors from merely members of the village to semi-detached individuals who were compelled to abide by both village customs and the values of a more unified and doctrinally authoritative Church.

Type
Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 36 , Issue 2 , Summer 2004 , pp. 201 - 222
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 2004

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Footnotes

*

This article derives from my doctoral dissertation, “Polluting the Sacred: Violence and Religion in English Daily Life, c. 1400–1553” (University of Toronto, 2003), which explores clerical efforts to curb the laity's acceptance of violence as a legitimate way to resolve interpersonal conflicts. Also, I am most grateful to A. K. McHardy, M. J. Moore, and the external reviewers of this article for their valuable advice and suggestions.

References

1 Public Records Office, London [hereafter cited as PRO], STAC 1/9. This quotation is a first person recreation of the third person narrative found in the documents from Star Chamber.

2 Swanson, R. N., “Problems of the Priesthood in pre-Reformation England,” The English Historical Review 105 (1990): 845CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Most studies of the priesthood in late medieval England intend to prove whether society was anticlerical or proclerical, pro-reform or anti-reform, based on the supposed laxity or attentiveness of the clergy as religious leaders. There is little scholarship which explores the social history of priests and lay expectations of them without getting excessively caught up in general arguments about clerical reform. However, there are other very insightful studies of clerical behaviour and their role in social relationships by both medieval and early modern scholars. See, idem, “Angels Incarnate: Clergy and Masculinity from Gregorian Reform to Reformation,” in Masculinity in Medieval Europe, ed. D. M. Hadley (New York, 1999), pp. 160–77; A. K. McHardy, The Age of War and Wycliffe: Lincoln Diocese and Its Bishop in the Later Fourteenth Century (Lincoln, 2001), pp. 29–41; idem, “The English Clergy and the Hundred Years War,” in Studies in Church History: The Church and War, ed. W. J. Shiels 20 (1983), pp. 171–78; Cullum, P. H., “Clergy. Masculinity and Transgression in Late Medieval England,” in Masculinity, ed. Hadley, (New York, 1999), pp. 178–96Google Scholar; Kamen, H., “Clerical Violence in a Catholic Society: The Hispanic World, 1450–1720,” in SCH, ed. Shiels, 20 (1983), pp. 201–16Google Scholar; Meyerson, M., “Clerical Violence in Late Medieval Valencia,” unpublished paper presented at International Congress of Medieval Studies, 2001Google Scholar; Kaeuper, R., Chivalry and Violence (Oxford, 1999), pp. 41–88Google Scholar; Goering, J., “The Changing Face of the Village Parish II: The Thirteenth Century,” in Pathways of Medieval Peasants, ed. Raftis, J. A. (Toronto, 1981), pp. 323–34Google Scholar; Bossy, J., “Blood and Baptism: Kinship, Community and Christianity in Western Europe from the Fourteenth to the Seventeenth centuries,” Studies in Church History 19 (1973): 129–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar.; Christianity in the West (Oxford, 1985)Google ScholarPubMed; James, M., “English Politics and the Concepts of Honour,” Past and Present Supplement no. 3 (1978)Google Scholar; Aberth, J., Criminal Churchmen in the Age of Edward III (University Park, PA, 1996)Google Scholar.

3 Goering, , “Changing Face,” pp. 323–24Google Scholar.

4 Swanson, , “Problems,” p. 846Google ScholarPubMed.

5 The holy men of the Atlas mountains and other Islamic tribes derived sacredness based on descent from the Prophet. See, Gellner, E., Saints of the Atlas (London, 1969), pp. 74–80Google Scholar.

6 Heath, P., The English Parish Clergy on the Eve of the Reformation (Toronto, 1969), p. 8Google Scholar.

7 Seeking to offer a qualitative study and knowing the laconic nature of most court rolls, I have cast my net as widely as possible into many upper level court systems that tend to contain some amount of description besides legal formulae. In general, I have used royal and ecclesiastical court records. Without a doubt, significant information remains to be culled from other sources, such as manorial courts, as well as from earlier or later time periods.

8 Duffy, Eamon, Stripping of the Altars (New Haven, 1992), p. 57Google Scholar; Heath, , English Clergy, p. 3Google Scholar; Kumin, B., Shaping of a Community: The Rise and Reformation of the English Parish, c. 1400–1560 (Brookfield, 1996), p. 225Google Scholar.

9 Middle English Sermons, ed. Ross, W. O., (EETS, o.s. 209, 1940), pp. 280–83Google Scholar.

10 Speculum Christiani, ed. Holmstedt, G. (EETS, o.s. 182, 1933), p. 174Google Scholar. Priests “conteyn the prive thynge of god.”

11 Swanson, , “Problems,” pp. 855–59Google ScholarPubMed.

12 See in particular Canons 15, 16, and 18 from the Fourth Lateran Council, in The Disciplinary Decrees of the General Council, trans. Schroeder, H. J. (St. Louis, 1937), pp. 252–53, 256–60, 262Google Scholar. For laws regulating attire, involvement in secular affairs, and conflict see, Councils and Synods with Other Documents Relating to the English Church AD. 1205–1313, eds. Powicke, F. M. and Cheney, C. R. (Oxford, 1964), pp. 63, 110, 116, 151, 188, 230, 251–52, 272, 348–49, 405–07, 431, 519, 602, 647, 696–97, 751–53, 805, 852, 944, 949Google Scholar. See also: Cullum, “Clergy;” Swanson, “Angels Incarnate.”

13 James, , “English Politics,” p. 8Google ScholarPubMed.

14 Swanson, , “Problems,” pp. 855–59Google ScholarPubMed; Duffy, , Stripping of the Altars, pp. 109–10Google Scholar.

15 Gratian, , Decretum, ed. Merlin, G., Nesbois, G., and Nivellium, S. (Paris, 1561), pp. 453–57Google Scholar.

16 Dives and Pauper, ed. Barnum, P. H. (EETS, o.s. 280, 1976–1980), 2: 37–40Google Scholar. This argument seems to lean close to Donatism but it does use the word “irregular,” which was the traditional orthodox term for the state of priests who had shed blood. The Church taught that irregular priests were not supposed to say the mass—however, it also instructed that if an impure priest still had the temerity to administer the sacraments, his rituals were valid vehicles of God's grace.

17 Ibid., pp. 18–21.

18 Speculum Christiani, p. 178. Mirk also counseled the avoidance of sin in order to celebrate the mass. See, Instructions, p. 54.

19 Councils and Synods, pp. 75–272, 307, 349, 407, 431, 519, 602, 657, 696-97, 752, 944, 949.

20 Mirk, J.. Instructions for Parish Priests, eds. Peacock, E. and Furnivall, F. J. (EETS, o.s. 31, 1969), p. 2Google Scholar. “Swords and bucklers you should not have.”

21 Dives, 2: 40–46Google ScholarPubMed.

22 Mirk, , Instructions, pp. 60–61Google Scholar. With candles, bells and a parish packed with parishioners, the priest read aloud the list of prohibitions. For discussion of the penance for striking a cleric, and for a detailed list of the exceptions to the rule, see, Speculum Christiani, pp. 80–82.

23 Cullum, , “Clergy,” p. 182Google ScholarPubMed; Swanson, , “Angels,” p. 168Google Scholar; Meyerson, “Clerical Violence.”

24 PRO STAC 2/8/83. G. R. Elton has woven together a nice account of this incredibly detailed (and extremely well documented though scattered) conflict. See, Elton, G. R., Star Chamber Stories (New York, 1958), pp. 174–220Google Scholar.

25 Cutts, E., Parish Priests and their People in the Middle Ages (London, 1898), pp. 164–66Google Scholar.

26 Swanson, , “Angels,” p. 168Google Scholar.

27 Cullum, , “Clergy,” p. 187Google ScholarPubMed.

28 Visitations and Memorials of Southwell Minster, ed. Leach, A. F. (Camden Society, 48, 1891), pp. 39–40Google Scholar. Prior to his decree, an affray between two dagger carrying clerics had occurred in the churchyard during the Archbishop's residency there. He was not pleased and therefore, issued his angry injunction barring the carrying of arms.

29 Visitations in the Diocese of Lincoln, 1517–1531, ed. Thompson, A. H. (Lincoln Record Society, 33, 35, 37, 1940–1947), 1: 6Google Scholar. Similarly in 1519, the curate of Hardwik parish was charged with pulling out a sword on Thomas Bek and on another occasion using it to strike Henry Ships. See, ibid., 1: 43.

30 Among others, musters of the clergy were officially issued by royal writ in 1386, 1400, 1415, and 1418. For an example of the clerical muster of 1415, see, Registrum Roberti Mascall, ed. Parry, J. H. (CYS, 21, 1917), p. 87Google Scholar. “Item vicesimo nono die Junii, anno supradicto [1415], dominus recepit breve regium pro monstro faciendo cleri sue diocesis, tam regularibus quam secularibus, exemptis et non exemptis, uniendis et convocandis, ac sufficienter araiari faciendis, prout eorum suppetant facultates, ita quod prompti sint et araiati ad resistendum protervie malicie et infestacioni inamicorum sancte matris, ecclesie, regisque eciam et regni sub forisfactura omnium queque forisfacere poterunt. Que omnia et singula juxta dicti brevis exigenciam fuerunt adimpleta. Et certificatum fuit ad cancellariam domini regis tercio die Julii.” See also, Cullum, , “Clergy,” pp. 188–89Google ScholarPubMed; McHardy, , The Age of War, pp. 29–37Google Scholar; McNab, B., “Obligations of the Church in English Society: military arrays of the clergy, 1369–1418,” in Order and Innovation in the Middle Ages: Essays in Honour of Joseph Strayer, eds. Jordan, W. C., McNab, B., Ruiz, T. F. (Princeton, N.J., 1976), pp. 299–304Google Scholar. McNab notes that in 1418, a year in which Henry V mustered the clergy, a group of Worcester clergy were armed “cum loricis et palletes ac curteis lanceis vel pollaxis.”

31 McHardy, , The Age of War, p. 36Google Scholar.

32 Ibid., pp. 29–37; “English Clergy,” p. 176. Quotation found in, Cullum, , “Clergy,” pp. 188–89Google ScholarPubMed.

33 McHardy, , The Age of War, pp. 33–36Google Scholar.

34 McHardy, , “English Clergy,” pp. 173–74Google Scholar; Cullum, pp. 188–89. Cullum believes that the clerics of York Minster who were caught walking around the city with poleaxes and helmets were also acting as mustered clergy. See, n. 23.

35 Cullum, , “Clergy,” p. 189Google ScholarPubMed; For discussion of knights and gentry providing incumbent priests, see, Heath, , English Clergy, pp. 136–37Google Scholar.

36 Ibid., pp. 10–11.

37 PRO STAC 1/9. The offenders of Southwell Minster, John Bull and Thomas Cartwright, probably wore concealed daggers because they tended to absent themselves from the chapter and most likely to frequent areas of potential conflict such as taverns. See, Visitations and Memorials, pp. 50–51.

38 Registrant Ricardi Mayew, ed. Bannister, A. T. (CYS, 27, 1921), pp. 218–19Google Scholar.

39 Property and economic gain may have been the motivating factor in many poorly attested cases of assault between clerics in the late Middle Ages. See for instance: An Episcopal Court Book for the Diocese of Lincoln, 1514–1520, ed. Bowker, M. (LRS, 61, 1967), pp. 31–32, 33Google Scholar; Yorkshire Sessions of the Peace, 1361–1364, ed. Putnam, B. H. (YASRS, 30, 1939), p. 83Google Scholar; Rolls of the Warwickshire and Coventry Sessions of the Peace 1377–1397, ed. Plucknett, T. F. T. (Dugdale Society, 16, 1939), p. 33Google Scholar; Hale, W., A Series of Precedents and Proceedings In Criminal Causes, extending from the year 1475 to 1640 (London, 1847), p. 54Google Scholar.

40 See, Bourdieu, P., Outline of a Theory of Practice, trans. Nice, R. (Cambridge, 1977)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Michaud, J. B., Cohesive Force: Feud in the Mediterranean and the Middle East (New York, 1975)Google Scholar.

41 Select Cases in Chancery, 1364–1471, ed. Baildon, W. P. (Selden Society, 10, 1896), pp. 92–93Google Scholar.

42 PRO STAC 2/18/290. For similar incidents of violence involving positions and property, see, PRO STAC 2/7/93, 2/23/311.

43 Given, J., Society and Homicide in Thirteenth-Century England (Stanford, 1977), pp. 179Google Scholar; Bennett, H. S., The Pastons and their England (Cambridge, 1975), pp. 226–28Google ScholarPubMed; T. and Cohen, E., Words and Deeds in Renaissance Rome (Toronto, 1993), pp. 65–70, and 135–39Google Scholar; Blumenthal, D., “Defending their Master's Honour: Slaves as Violent Offenders in Fifteenth-Century Valencia,” in Thiery, D., Falk, O., and Meyerson, M., eds., A Great Effusion of Blood? Interpreting Medieval Violence (Toronto, 2004)Google Scholar.

44 PRO STAC 2/29/53; Abstracts of Star Chamber Proceedings, ed. Mundy, P. (Sussex Record Society, 16, 1913), pp. 73–74Google Scholar.

45 PRO STAC 1/9, 2/14/113–15.

46 For violence on the part of the servants of the Abbot of Eynesham and the bishop of Ely, see, PRO STAC 1/26, 1/34, 1/63. Select Cases before the King's Council in the Star Chamber, 1477–1509, ed. Leadam, I. S. (Selden Society, 16, 1902), pp. 38–42, 109–13, 136–62, 236–53Google Scholar.

47 Select Cases of Trespass from the King's Courts, 1300–1399, ed. Arnold, Morris (London, 100 and 103, 1985–1987), 1: 25Google Scholar.

48 Adams, C. P., “Rituals of Personal Confrontation in late Medieval England,” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 13 (1991): 83Google Scholar; Bennet, , Pastons, pp. 226–28Google Scholar; Heath, , English Clergy, p. 26Google Scholar. A lay patron was an invaluable means of power and prestige. Sometimes, a cleric's loyalty was paid tenfold such as when a Yorkshire layman attacked an entire priory in order to get his selected man made a chaplain. See, Yorkshire Sessions of the Peace, p. 83.

49 Langland, W., The Vision of Piers Plowman, ed. Wells, H. (New York, 1945), lines 92–96Google Scholar.

50 Heath, , English Clergy, p. 26Google Scholar.

51 Bennet, , Pastons, pp. 215–18Google Scholar.

52 Paston Letters, pp. 64–67; Bennet, , Pastons, pp. 228–29Google Scholar. The Stonor family also used their chaplains for many secular duties, including as a representative in litigation. See, The Stonor Letters and Papers, ed. Kingsford, C. L. (Camden Society, 3rd series, 29–30, 1919), 1: 127–28Google Scholar. For other cases of chaplains as belligerent servants of the laity, see, PRO STAC 2/3/143–18, 2/3/286–87.

53 Adams, , “Personal Confrontation,” pp. 83–84Google Scholar. For examples of chaplains in raiding parties, see, PRO KB 9/349/65; PRO KB 27/861/104; Star Chamber Cases from Lancashire and Cheshire, pp. 10, 32, 47, 56, 70–71, 89, 110, 120; Yorkshire Star Chamber Proceedings (45), pp. 51–52.

54 Dives, 1: 186–87Google ScholarPubMed.

55 One chaplain detailed his participation in Henry's army all the way to Agincourt. See, Gesta Henrici Quinti: The Deeds of Henry V, ed. and trans. Taylor, F. and Roskell, J. S. (Oxford, 1975)Google Scholar.

56 See, Thiery, “Polluting the Sacred.”

57 Swanson, , “Problems,” pp. 848–49Google ScholarPubMed; Cullum, , “Clergy,” p. 189Google ScholarPubMed; Meyerson, “Clerical Violence”; Heath, , English Clergy, p. 133Google Scholar.

58 PRO STAC 2/19/319.

59 For anthropological studies of holy men as mediators whose status outside of the social system enhanced their ability to arbitrate, see, Michaud, , Cohesive, pp. 93–94Google Scholar; Gellner, , Saints, p. 74Google Scholar; Jamous, R., Honneur et Baraka: les structures sociales traditionnelles dans le Rif (Cambridge, 1981), p. 89Google Scholar; Gluckman, M., “Peace in the Feud,” Past and Present 7 (1955): 17Google Scholar. Historians have also explored the role of clergy and holy men acts of peacemaking. See, Thomas, K., Religion and the Decline of Magic (Oxford, 1997), p. 154Google Scholar; Dobson, R., “Politics and the Church in the Fifteenth-Century North,” in The North of England in the Age of Richard III, ed. Pollard, A. J. (New York, 1996), pp. 12–13Google Scholar; Swanson, , “Problems,” 846–47Google ScholarPubMed; Bossy, , “Blood and Baptism,” p. 139Google Scholar; Brown, P., Society and the Holy (Berkeley, 1981), pp. 122–26Google Scholar.

60 Brown, , Society and the Holy, pp. 124–30Google Scholar.

61 Swanson, , “Problems,” p. 845Google ScholarPubMed; Excessive litigation was frowned upon by most communities. See, Sharpe, J., “Such Disagreement betwyxt neighbours: Litigation and Human Relations in Early Modern England,” in Disputes and Settlements: Law and Human Relations in the West, ed. Bossy, John (New York, 1983), p. 179Google Scholar.

62 Registrum Annalium Collegii Mertonensis, 1483–1521, ed. Salter, H. E. (Oxford Historical Society, 76, 1923), pp. 33–34Google Scholar. Shinners, J. and Dohar, W. J., eds., Pastors and the Care of Souls in Medieval England (Notre Dame, 1998), pp. 268–70Google Scholar.

63 Lincolnshire Visitations, 1: 43Google Scholar. For other citations of quarrelsome priests, see, 1: 128, 148.

64 Gratian, , Decretum, pp. 453–57Google Scholar.

65 PRO STAC 2/8/153.

66 Norwich Consistory Court Depositions, 1499–1512, 1518–1530, ed. Stone, E. D. and Hardy, B. C. (Norfolk Record Society, 10, 1938), case 163Google Scholar.

67 PRO STAC 2/18/181. Yorkshire Star Chamber Proceedings (45), pp. 50–54.

68 Stonor Letters, 1: 67–68Google Scholar.

69 PRO STAC 2/7/93, 2/8/78–94, 2/10/153, 2/27/41; Hale, , A Series of Precedents, p. 42Google Scholar.

70 Select Cases in Chancery, pp. 23–25.

71 PRO STAC 2/8/78–94, 2/17/131. Yorkshire Star Chamber Proceedings (41), pp. 166–72.

72 PRO STAC 2/8/85–90.

73 Select Cases in Chancery, pp. 23–25.

74 PRO STAC 2/8/78–94.

75 Cutts, , Parish Priests, p. 164Google Scholar.

76 Speculum Christiani, p. 180.

77 The Disciplinary Decrees, pp. 256–260. This law was repeated in English councils. See, Councils and Synods, pp. 752–53.

78 Speculum Christiani, p. 180; Mirk, , Instructions, p. 56Google Scholar; Durandus, W., De Rationale Divinorum Officiorum, eds. Davril, A. and Thibodeau, T. M (CCML, 140B, 2000), pp. 191–93Google Scholar; Dives, 2: 227–29Google ScholarPubMed.

79 Mirk, , Instructions, p. 56Google Scholar. Durandus also emphasized that a priest must have his stole for any ritual from praying to baptizing except in urgent circumstances. See, Durandus, , Rationale, p. 192Google Scholar.

80 Speculum Christiani, p. 180.

81 PRO STAC 2/8/153.

82 See for instance: Registrum Roberti Hallum, ed. Horn, J. M. (CYS, 72, 1982), pp. 220–21Google Scholar; Registrum Thome Spofford, ed. Bannister, T. (CYS, 23, 1919), pp. 9–10, 141–42Google Scholar; Registrum Iohannis Gilbert, ed. Parry, J. H. (CYS, 18, 1915), pp. 12–15Google Scholar.

83 Select Cases in Chancery, pp. 34–35.

84 Ibid., pp. 55–56.

85 Lincolnshire Visitations, 1: 139Google Scholar.

86 PRO STAC 2/10/153.

87 See, Geertz, C., “Religion as a Cultural System,” in Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Religion, ed. Banton, Michael (London, 1966), pp. 3–49Google Scholar; Gluckman, M., Essays on Ritual and Social Relations (Manchester, 1964), pp. 7–52Google Scholar; Turner, V., The Ritual Process (London, 1969)Google Scholar.

88 PRO STAC 2/29/44; Yorkshire Star Chamber Proceedings (70), pp. 28–36.