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Piety and Charity in Late Medieval London1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

J. A. F. Thomson
J. A. F. Thomson
Affiliation:
Lecturer in Medieval History, University of Glasgow
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Extract

The recent work of Professor W. K. Jordan on charitable benefactions in the period between 1480 and 1660 has focused the attention of historians on this aspect of social history, and there is no doubt that his studies have made a significant contribution to the understanding of these years. Certain aspects of the work have, however, been criticised by reviewers, and. the purpose of the present paper is to examine the subject from the viewpoint of the medievalist to see if this throws light on general problems of the study of charity as well as on the more specific topic of late medieval charity.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , October 1965 , pp. 178 - 195
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1965

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References

page 178 note 2 Philanthropy in England, 1480–1660, London 1959 (cited as Jordan, Philanthropy); The Charities of London, 1480–1660, London 1960 (cited as Jordan, London); The Charities of Rural England, 1480–1660, London 1961; The Forming of the Charitable Institutions of the West of England, 1480–1660, Transactions of the American Philosophical Association, Philadelphia 1960; Social Institutions in Kent, 1480–1660, Archaeologia Cantiana LXXV, Ashford 1961Google Scholar; The Social Institutions of Lancashire, 1480–1660, Ghetham Society, Manchester 1962.Google Scholar

page 178 note 3 Notably by D. C. Coleman in The Economic History Review, and. ser. xiii (1960–1), 113–15; Stone, L. in History, xliv (1959), 257–60Google Scholar; Elton, G. R. in The Historical Journal, iii (1960), 89–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Ashton, R. in History, xlvi (1961), 136–9Google Scholar.

page 179 note 1 Stow, J., A Survey of London, ed. Kingsford, C. L., Oxford 1908Google Scholar (cited as Stow, Survey), i. 115.

page 179 note 2 The earliest extant register, Rous, is of no value as a sampling unit, because it comprises two disparate portions, one covering the years prior to 1400 and the other a brief period in the middle of the fifteenth century.

page 180 note 1 Jordan, Philanthropy, 31–40.

page 180 note 2 Register of Archbishop Henry Chichele, ed. Jacob, E. F. (Canterbury and York Society), Oxford 1938–47, ii. 241Google Scholar. (Cited below as Reg. Chichele).

page 180 note 3 Somerset House, Prerogative Court of Canterbury will register (cited as P.C.C.) Marche 2 (1402).

page 180 note 4 Guildhall Library, London, MS. 9531/5 (Register of Bishop Gray), fol. 79.

page 181 note 1 Calendar of Wills proved and enrolled in the Court of Husting, London (vol. ii, 1358–1688), ed. Sharpe, R. R., London 1890 (cited as C.W.C.H.) ii. 571–2.Google Scholar

page 181 note 2 Jordan (London, 92–3) places a similar bequest in 1527 under the heading of charity.

page 181 note 3 An example of this may be seen in the gift of £18,000 to education by Lady Margaret Beaufort. It might be noted, incidentally, that Prof. Jordan's inclusion of members of the royal family in his London volume makes his figures a less clear indication of the charitable interests of the great mass of the citizens: Jordan, London, 30.

page 181 note 4 P.C.C., Jankyn 4.

page 181 note 5 P.C.C., Jankyn 6. Cf. wills of Henry Halton (P.C.C., Marche 30) of 1415, ‘tertiam vero pattern michimet reservo’, and of Henry Smith (P.C.C., Jankyn 2) of 1529, ‘whereof I will that oon parte thereof shalbe to agnes my wife, and the other parte thereof to be to joane my doughter and the thirde parte to be reserved unto myself for the performance of this my present testament and last wille’.

page 182 note 1 Reg. Chichele, ii. xxxv.

page 182 note 2 Jordan, London, 54–5.

page 182 note 3 Ibid., 50, 53–4.

page 182 note 4 Jordan, Philanthropy, 146–7; London, 87.

page 182 note 5 P.C.C., Luffenam 18.

page 183 note 1 P.C.C., Luffenam 22.

page 183 note 2 P.C.C., Logge 2 (Penbridge), 18 (Haynes). Emphasis on good conduct was not required only in cases of gifts to the poor. A bowyer, Robert Barker, devised lands to his son with a proviso in the will ‘if he be of good conversation’ (P.C.C., Milles 1O). In the endowment of marriage portions, too, there were sometimes requirements that the recipients were to be of good reputation: wills of Thomas Walyngton, 1403, P.C.C., Marche 4, and Sir John Skevynton, 1524, P.C.C., Bodfelde 40.

page 183 note 3 P.C.C., Logge 24.

page 183 note 4 P.G.C., Luffenam 29.

page 183 note 5 Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1422–19, 259; Stow, Survey, i. 242–3. Stow records a number of almshouse foundations in the fourteenth century, by John Stodeye and John Philpot: Survey, i. 106, 107.

page 183 note 6 Acts of Court of the Mercers’ Company, 1453–1527, ed. Lyell, L., Cambridge 1936, 286–7.Google Scholar

page 184 note 1 P.C.C., Logge 5. Assuming a fifty-two week year and neglecting the odd day, the annual cost of these alms works out at £17 11s., precisely 2½ per cent, of £702. There is no reference to this benefaction being perpetual, although perpetuity may be suggested by the affirmation that no one should be put out of the alms without due cause, and as the annual rent charges on £702 would have produced a higher return than 2½ per cent, it is certainly possible that the endowment may have been perpetual. It is clear, however, that Bifield worked out his benefaction in detail.

page 184 note 2 Jordan, London, 136–9.

page 184 note 3 Jordan, Philanthropy, 57.

page 184 note 4 Jordan, London, 128–9.

page 184 note 5 Ibid., 181.

page 185 note 1 P.C.C., Logge 27 (Shelley), Luffenam 5 (Maynell), Marche 35 (Grantham).

page 185 note 2 P.C.C., Marche 10 (Winter), Adeane 2 (Alwyn).

page 185 note 3 Jordan, London, 181, 182, 183.

page 185 note 4 Cf. Jordan, London, 180–3.

page 185 note 5 P.C.C., Luffenam 32 (Rider), Bodfelde 4 (Sharp), 23 (Gowlsell).

page 185 note 6 Jordan, London, 168.

page 185 note 7 Ibid., 173.

page 186 note 1 Stow, Survey, i. 107.

page 186 note 2 P.G.C., Marche 30 (Marchford), Bodfelde 34 (Partrich).

page 186 note 3 P.C.C., Adeane 2. Not one hundred pots as stated by Jordan, London, 184.

page 186 note 4 For these, see Jordan, London, 211–50.

page 186 note 5 Calendar of Plea and Memoranda Rolls, 1458–82, ed. Jones, P. E., Cambridge 1961, ix–x, xiii, xix–xxi.Google Scholar

page 186 note 6 Thrupp, S. L., The Merchant Class of Medieval London, Chicago 1948, 155–61Google Scholar; Galbraith, V. H, ‘John Seward and his Circle’, in Mediaeval and Renaissance Studies, i. (1941–3), 85–104Google Scholar.

page 186 note 7 Acts of Court of the Mercers' Company, 360, 361, 362–3, 364, 374–5, 376–8. 401, 765.

page 187 note 1 P.C.C., Rous 11; Epistolae Acadcmicae Oxon., ed. H. Anstey (Oxford Hist. Soc., xxxv, xxxvi, continuous foliation), Oxford 1898, 275–6, 277–8, 323–4, 326–7, 429–30, 451. 453.

page 187 note 2 P.C.C., Logge 2.

page 187 note 3 P.C.C., Marche 31 (Barantyn), Jankyn 15 (Gonne).

page 188 note 1 Reg. Chichele, ii. 340.

page 188 note 2 C. W. C. H., ii. passim.

page 188 note 3 Stow, Survey, i. 17–19, ii. 40–1; C.W.C.H., ii. 509–11; Calendar of Letter Books of the City of London, K, ed. Sharpe, R. R., London 1911, 355–7Google Scholar.

page 188 note 4 P.C.C., Moone 4.

page 188 note 5 P.C.C., Bodfelde 3 (Rest), 15 (Carr).

page 189 note 1 Jordan, London, 196–7.

page 189 note 2 Prof. Jordan does not differentiate between these two groups (London, 279–81).

page 190 note 1 Reg. Chichele, ii. 403 (Coventry); P.C.C., Luffenam 19 (Russell), Moone 3 (Michell), Adeane 2 (Wyngar), Jankyn 4 (Eccleston).

page 190 note 2 P.C.C., Milles 1 (Graunt), 6 (Luyt).

page 190 note 3 Jordan, London, 280, 281.

page 190 note 4 Corporation of London Record Office, Letter Book N, fol. 18v; Journal 12, fol. 75.

page 190 note 5 Corporation of London Record Office, Repertory 3, fol. 245v; 4, fol. 38v; 5, fols. 15v, 80. Both grants are recorded in two repertories.

page 191 note 1 Jordan, London, 278–9.

page 191 note 2 P.C.C., Logge 19.

page 191 note 3 In the will of Robert Bifield: P.C.C., Logge 5. There were very few cases of temporary chantries for a period of over twenty years, probably because the normal rent return on land seems to have been in the region of 5 per cent. (In the will of John Aleyn in 1499 (P.G.C., Moone 6) £80 was left to buy rents of £4 a year). Because of this a testator who could afford to support a priest for twenty years would normally, it appears, invest the sum in a perpetual chantry.

page 192 note 1 Thrupp, op. cit., 200–4.

page 192 note 2 Even in the early fifteenth century a man with heirs might leave little to charity. John Hende (P.C.C., Marche 42) left benefactions of £117 13s. 4d., compared with £1,000 to his wife and £1,500 each to two sons. After the Reformation, too, some of the more remarkable benefactors, such as Henry Smith, were childless: Jordan, London, 118.

page 192 note 3 Lyndewode, W., Provinciale, Oxford 1679Google Scholar, Bk. iii, tit. 27, cap. 2.

page 193 note 1 Stow, Survey, i. 227.

page 193 note 2 The Great Chronicle of London, ed. Thomas, A. H. and Thornley, I. D., London 1938, 290, 296.Google Scholar

page 193 note 3 Corporation of London Record Office, Repertory 7, fol. 228; Letter Book O, fol. 61v; Churchwardens' Accounts of All Hallows, London Wall, 1455–1536, ed. C. Welch, London 1912, 57–9.

page 193 note 4 Corporation of London Record Office, Journal 2, fol. 136v; Guildhall Library MS. 9531/5 (Register of Bishop Gray), fol. 60v; Calendar of Letter Books of the City of London, K, ed. R. R. Sharpe, 106.

page 193 note 5 Jordan, Philanthropy, 234.

page 193 note 6 Stow, Survey, i. xvi–xvii.

page 194 note 1 Stow, Survey, i. 105–17.

page 194 note 2 Jordan, London, 293, 297, 301.

page 194 note 3 Thompson, A. Hamilton, The English Clergy and their Organization in the Later Middle Ages, Oxford 1947, 132Google Scholar.

page 194 note 4 Jordan, London, 373.

page 194 note 5 See the present writer's ‘Tithe Disputes in later Medieval London’, in E.H.R., lxxviii (1963), 1–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 195 note 1 Jordan, London, 90–104.

page 195 note 2 P.C.C., Logge 10–11 (Taylour), Bodfeldc 26 (Aleyn).

page 195 note 3 Jordan, London, 220–3.