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The Troubled Deathbeds of Henry I's Servants: Death, Confession, and Secular Conduct in the Twelfth Century*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2014

David Crouch
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Extract

When Sir Richard Southern wanted to illustrate the moral compromise that was the inevitable cost of being a courtier and servant of King Henry I of England—the culture of whose court encouraged profiteering and sharp practice—he found the material to hand in a number of surviving letters of the unfortunate Nigel d'Aubigny. At some time between 1109 and 1114 Nigel fell ill, and he believed himself dying. He dictated to his royal master a letter—on which one can almost see the spots of the tears—begging him to confirm the restorations of land that he wanted now to make to various churches he had formerly deprived. Another letter was to his brother, listing further—rather weighty—restorations he wanted made to numerous laymen likewise defrauded by him in the course of his career. Perhaps he felt rather silly when he got better, as he did, and lived for many years more to meditate on his unworthiness.

Sir Richard proved his point, but it occurs to me that the same evidence can be used to explore further a different but related issue: how it was that these men who lived and worked in Henry's service were so very conscious of the moral compromises they had made. If Nigel d'Aubigny was brought to the state that his letters reveal that he was, when he was threatened by death, it can only be because he had been aware of actions that might be considered his sins for quite some while.

Type
Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 34 , Issue 1 , Spring 2002 , pp. 24 - 36
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 2002

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Footnotes

*

A version of this paper was read at the Eighteenth International Conference of the Charles Homer Haskins Society, Cornell University, Ithaca NY, on 14 November 1999. I must thank for their insights several contributors to the debate, notably Professors Robin Fleming, Lois Honeycutt, and Paul Hyams. Professors Judith Green and Edmund King and the Rev'd. Dr. Peter Jupp were kind enough to look over the manuscript at a later stage of the process, and offer helpful comments. I would particularly like to acknowledge the help received from a useful and generous critique offered by one of the anonymous readers. It naturally follows that the guilt for such errors as are left will burden my soul and mine alone.

References

1 Southern, R. W., “Henry I,” in Medieval Humanism and Other Studies (Oxford, 1970), 220–21Google Scholar. For the correspondence see Charters of the Honour of Mowbray, 1107–1191, ed. Greenway, D. E. (British Academy, Records of Social and Economic History, ns, no. 1, 1972), nos. 2–10Google Scholar. The earlier history of the written deathbed notification of restitution is obscure, but there are precursors to the d'Aubigny correspondence. The Maurists noted two: one that came from the deathbed of Hubert, bishop of Angers (c. 1047), who was attended and confessed by his kinsman, Wulgrin, bishop of Le Mans; the other from that of Adhemar, vicomte of Toulouse (c. 1070) who mentions that he has made confession, but does not say to whom (Thesaurus Novus Anecdotorum, ed. Martene, E. and Durand, U., 5 vols. [Paris, 1717] 1: cols. 141–42, 200–01)Google Scholar.

2 The relevant canon runs: “Every Christian of either sex, after attaining years of discretion, shall faithfully confess all his sins to his own priest at least once a year, and shall endeavour according to his ability to fulfill the penance enjoined him, reverently receiving the sacrament of the Eucharist at least at Easter…,” translated in Medieval Handbooks of Penance: a translation of the principal libri poenitentiales and selections from related documents, ed. McNeill, J. T. and Gamer, H. M. (New York, 1938), 413Google Scholar. For some recent and judicious comment about the limits of our knowledge, see, Murray, A., “Confession before 1215,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 6th ser., 3 (1993): 63–65, 79–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McLaughlin, M., Consorting with Saints: prayer for the dead in early medieval France (Ithaca, NY, 1994), pp. 219–27Google Scholar; Biller, P., “Confession in the Middle Ages: Introduction,” in Handling Sin: Confession in the Middle Ages, ed. Biller, P. and Minnis, A. J. (York Studies in Medieval Theology, 2, 1998), pp. 7–9Google Scholar. For earlier studies exploring the same uncertain ground, Anciaux, P., The Sacrament of Penance (London, 1962), esp. 63–73, 166–81Google Scholar; Vogel, C., Le pécheur et la pénitence au moyen àge (Paris, 1969)Google Scholar; Dudley, M., “The Sacrament of Penance in Catholic Teaching and Practice,” in Confession and Absolution, ed. Dudley, M. and Rowell, G. (London, 1990), pp. 56–65Google Scholar.

3 For the Canterbury indulgence, Goscelin of Canterbury, Historia translationis sancti Augustini episcopi, in Patrologia Latina, ed. Migne, J-P.et al., 221 vols. (Paris, 1844–1864) 155: col. 19Google Scholar.

4 Gilbert Crispin, abbot of Westminster (c. 1085–1117), writes verses on confession, which dwell on the flogging that scourged the guilt from the sinner (The Works of Gilbert Crispin, abbot of Westminster, ed. Abulafia, A. S. and Evans, G. R. [Auctores Britannici medii aevi, viii, 1986), pp.180–81Google Scholar).

5 Murray, , “Confession before 1215,” pp. 77–78Google Scholar.

6 For Anselm, William of Champeaux, Abelard, and their interlinked teaching, see Clanchy, M. T., Abelard: A Medieval Life (Oxford, 1997), pp. 67–85Google Scholar.

7 De Vita Sua, translated as Self and Society in Medieval France, ed. and trans. Benton, J. F. (Toronto, 1984), p. 75Google Scholar.

8 Hermann of Laon, De miraculis sanctae Mariae Laudunensis, in Patrologia Latina, 156: cols. 977, 978. Confession to a priest was enjoined severally at Winchester on a royal butler and a usurer; at Exeter on a crippled beggar and an arthritic; and at Barnstaple on a crippled twelve-year old girl (ibid., cols. 978, 979, 982).

9 Geoffrey Gaimar, in the late 1130s, gives a highly-colored account of the death of King William Rufus, the mortally wounded king in his agony gasped out three times his demand for the corpus domini, and since the king was in a delirium a huntsman pressed on him some flowering herbs to eat in the guise of a priest administering viaticum, see L'Estoire des Engleis, ed. Bell, A. (Anglo-Norman Text Society, 1960), 2: ll. 6329–40Google Scholar. Some indication of this widespread need among warriors to confess appears in the chansons de geste, for instance this passage in Raoul concerning an impending battle, that probably derives from the third quarter of the twelfth century: “From either side the troops advanced. Each noble man was deeply moved; all promised God that if he survived that day he would sin never again his whole life, or should he do so, he would do penance. Many a knight gave himself communion with three blades of grass—for there were no priests in the army—and commended his soul and body to Jesus.” Raoul de Cambrai, ed. Kibler, W. and Kay, S. (Paris, 1996) ll. 2244–51Google Scholar (my translation). The threefold nature of the substitute sacrament doubtless derives from the practice of breaking the host into three at the point of fraction in the mass, see Lancelot do Lac, ed. Kennedy, E., 2 vols. (Oxford, 1980) 1:332, ll. 4–5Google Scholar, for the twelfth-century theology of the three-fold fraction, see Rubin, M., Corpus Christi: the Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture (Cambridge, 1991), 38–39Google Scholar. This threefold division was given a teaching significance for the benefit of the laity. The romance Garin (from a similar time and place as Raoul) interprets the three blades as the “iii. vertuz del del” (viz. the “theological virtues” of faith, hope and love) and in extremis as an acceptable and conscious substitute for the corpus domini, Garin le Loherenc, ed. Iker-Gittleman, A., 3 vols. (Classiques français du moyen àge, 1996–1997) ll.10001–04Google Scholar. The Prose Lancelot, some decades later, interprets the three blades in a Trinitarian sense, Lancelot do Lac, 1:14, ll.11–13. A telling twelfth-century curse against an enemy was to wish him a sudden death (so that he died unconfessed), see Ami et Amile, ed. Dembowski, P. F. (Classiques français du moyen àge, 1987), 1: l. 324Google Scholar, where the author curses the traitor Hardrez: “Dex li envoit la male mort soubite!.”

10 William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum, ed. Mynors, R. A. B., 2 vols. (Oxford, 1999) 1: 458, 492, 554Google Scholar. Other early twelfth-century writers give a similar expectation of their better characters. The accounts of the death of Count Charles of Flanders highlight his piety, his practice of regular alms-giving and his joining in the psalmody of the daily office; he was killed as his chaplains were saying the morning office, see the account in Galbert of Bruges, The Murder of Charles the Good, ed. and trans. Ross, J. B. (Toronto, 1982), pp. 89, 112Google Scholar. Master Wace, around 1160, depicts the young Richard I of Normandy as attending daily prayer and the morning mass, Le Roman de Rou, ed. Holden, A. J., 3 vols. (Société des anciens textes français, 1970–1973Google Scholar) 1: pt. 2, ll. 3088–89, 3190–92. Wace also, incidentally, has the same low opinion of the piety of the pre-Conquest English aristocracy, that he portrays drinking and singing the night away before Hastings, disturbing the neighboring Normans, who were spending all night at their prayers and confession (ibid., 2: pt. 3, ll. 7323–80.

11 This canon either reflects long established practice or a penitential impulse from quite a different direction, the papal curia, see Councils & Synods with other Documents relating to the English Church i, pt 2, 1066–1204, ed. Whitelock, D., et al. (Oxford, 1981), p. 738, c. 2Google Scholar.

12 For the “Day of Absolution” as practiced in France as well as England in the twelfth century, when penitents would make confession before presenting their offerings at the chief church, see Avril, J., “Remarques sur un aspect de la vie religieuse paroissiale: La pratique de la confession et de la communion du xe au xive siècle,” in, L'encadrement religieux des fidèles au moyen àge et jusqu'au Concile de Trente (Actes du 109e Congrès National des Sociétés Savantes, Paris, 1985), pp. 349–53Google Scholar. Stephen de Fougères, chaplain of Henry II, and later bishop of Rennes (1168–78), describes the model burgess as one who honors his parish priest and makes his confession to him in Lent, when he pays his tithe (Le Livre des Manières, ed. Lodge, R. A. 2 vols. (Geneva, 1979), 2: 881–84Google Scholar.

13 Thomas of Monmouth, The Life and Miracles of St William of Norwich, ed. Jessopp, A. and James, M. R. (Cambridge, 1896), pp. 26, 30, 84Google Scholar. Wichemann the monk is called one to who in consulendis penitentibus suas episcopus uices commiterat, and episcopalium confessionum tunc uicarius, ibid., pp. 30, 84. The episcopal prerogative to administer penance is perhaps reflected in Wace's account (c. 1170) of the night before Hastings, when the bishops of Coutances and Bayeux administered absolution to the Norman soldiers after their confessions (Le Roman de Rou, ed., Holden, 2:pt 3, ll. 7349–54. In his scholastic examination of confession (which is generally uninformative on contemporary practice), Peter Abelard refers to the sacerdos or prelatus as the cleric to whom the sacrament is committed, both words with episcopal connotations in the late 1130s, and later he talks of it being the power of the episcopus to bind and loose, Peter Abelard's Ethics, ed. and trans. Luscombe, D. E. (Oxford, 1971), pp. 98, 116–18Google Scholar.

14 Life and Miracles of St William of Norwich, pp. 2–13.

15 Aelfric, abbot of Eynsham, in the early eleventh century assumes that penitents will confess and seek absolution and do penance under the guidance of a holy man (Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church, trans. Thorpe, B., 2 vols. (London, 1844) 1: 165Google Scholar; 2: 603.

16 Liber monasterii de Hyda, ed. Edwards, E. (Rolls Series, 1866), p. 312Google Scholar.

17 The Cartulary of Holy Trinity Aldgate, ed. Hodgett, G. A. J. (London Record Society, 7, 1971), p. 230Google Scholar. Norman is the only clerk explicitly named as the queen's confessor. We know of several other of her clerical intimates. Bernard, her chancellor, who became bishop of St. David's is unlikely to have been her household confessor, as he did not take priest's orders until the day of his consecration as bishop (18 September 1115), see St David's Episcopal Acta, 1085–1280, ed. Barrow, J. (South Wales Record Soc., no. 13, 1998), pp. 2–3Google Scholar. Ernisius, who ultimately became first prior of Llanthony is merely described as notassimus among her household chaplains, Historia Fundationis, in Dugdale, William, Monasticon Anglicanum, ed. Caley, J., et al., 6 vols, in 8 (London, 1846) 6:pt. 1, 128Google Scholar. Bishop Gundulf of Rochester is credited in his vita as having a pastoral link with the queen, viz. “she frequently summoned him to her, and was eager to indulge in his improving conversation” but the passage does not indicate he heard her confession, only that she found him a helpful counselor (Vita Gundulfi, in Patrologia Latina, 159: col. 830. I thank Professor Lois Honeycutt for her advice and assistance in this matter.

18 Murray, , “Confession before 1215,” pp. 75–79Google Scholar.

19 de Torigny, Robert, Chronica, in Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II and Richard, ed. Howlett, R., 4 vols. (Rolls Series, 1884–1889), 4:123Google Scholar.

20 Green, J. A., English Sheriffs to 1154 (PRO Handbooks, no, 24, London, 1990), pp. 29, 48, 78Google Scholar.

21 Colker, M. L., “Texts concerning Gilbert, founder of Merton priory,” Studia Monastica 12 (1970): 241–70, esp. 269Google Scholar.

22 John of Ford, Wulfric of Haselbury, ed. Bell, M. (Somerset Record Society, 47, 1933), pp. 117–18Google Scholar, translated in The Cistercian World: Monastic Writings of the Twelfth Century, ed. Matarasso, P. (Harmondsworth, 1993), p. 265Google Scholar.

23 Cartulary of Holy Trinity Aldgate, p. 232.

24 Cartularium prioratus de Colne, ed. Fisher, J. L. (Essex Archaeological Society, Occasional Publications, no. 1, 1946), p. 30Google Scholar, …Roberto capellano confessore meo. The charter dates to a time immediately after the death of Queen Mathilda, and makes a grant for her soul.

25 Charters of the Honour of Mowbray, nos. 2, 3.

26 Crouch, D., The Beaumont Twins: the Roots and Branches of Power in the Twelfth Century (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 3, 216–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 The Cartulary of Shrewsbury Abbey, ed. Rees, U., 2 vols. (Aberystwyth, 1985) 1:23–24Google Scholar.

28 …reddidi Ermenfrido de Ponte homini meo duas virgatas terre in Meluertona sicut pater meus moriens mihi precepit uiua uoce, et per breuem suum dapifero suo et ministris suis mandauit, quam terram Ermenfridus Anschetillo dapifero inuadiauerat pro .xx. solidis. Cartulary of Kenilworth Priory, British Library., MS Harley 3605, fos. 69v–70r. Repeated receipt of interest payments on loans was the principal sin confessed by the bedridden merchant of Winchester, Walter “Kiburs,” to satisfy the concern of the canons of Laon about making available their relics to cure him in 1114, De miraculis sanctae Mariae Laudunensis, cols. 974–75.

29 For the collected documents see, Kealey, E. J., Roger of Salisbury: Viceroy of England (Berkeley, 1972), pp. 262-–69Google Scholar; for general observations on the bishop's death, see ibid., pp. 202–06.

30 The Letters and Charters of Gilbert Foliot, ed. Morey, A. and Brooke, C. N. L. (Cambridge, 1967), p. 265Google Scholar. The point at issue seems to have been Ps. 76: 5: “the proud are robbed, and they have slept their sleep: and all the men whose hands were mighty have found nothing.” This concern with psalmody would indicate that Earl Robert, like Queen Mathilda II, observed the hours of the divine office (he ended his days as an Augustinian canon).

31 For Henry's essay, De contemptu mundi (a product of the mid 1120s), see the edition in Historia Anglorum, ed. Greenway, D. E. (Oxford, 1996)Google Scholar. Wace's essay is in the prologue to the third part of his “Roman de Rou,” composed probably in the early 1170s in his old age (Wace had been a clerk in orders before 1135 and claims to have met and talked to Henry I), Le Roman de Rou, 1:pt. 3, ll.1–190.

32 Self and Society in Medieval France, p. 37.

33 For informative treatments of this question, Duby, G., Les trois ordres: ou l'imaginaire du féodalisme (Paris, 1978)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, trans. Goldhammer, A., The Three Orders: Feudal Society Imagined (Chicago, 1980), pp. 134–39Google Scholar; Paxton, F. S., “History, Historians and the Peace of God,” in The Peace of God: Social Violence and Religious Response in France around the year 1000, ed. Head, T. and Landes, R. (Ithaca NY, 1992), pp. 21–40Google Scholar; Barthélemy, D., L'an mil et la paix de Dieu: La France chrétienne et féodale (Paris, 1999), pp. 43–137Google Scholar.

34 Vitalis, Orderic, The Ecclesiastical History, ed. Chibnall, M., 6 vols. (Oxford, 1969–1980), 3: 182–84, 226–28Google Scholar.