I note amidst this mass of evidence that one vicar,
Kobert Patryngton, deposes that a Gradual {i.e., a Ser-
vice-Book), on the north side of the choir, is greatly in
need of fresh binding, and has lost several leaves.
William Knight, chaplain of the Gynwell Chantry, in-
troduces a new subject of complaint. He says that the
master of the choristers affirms that the Monastery of
Haverholm owes the choristers £20, viz., an annual pen-
sion of £5 for four years in arrear, to the great damage
of their income.
William Burgh, the vicar of Pveginald Kentwode, Dean
of the Cathedral Church of London, says the choristers
are not under governance, but wander about as they like,
22 VISITATIOX OF LINCOLN CATHEDRAL.
and learn nothing. He further complains that in the
Mass of the Blessed Virgin Mary red vestments are worn,
whereas they ought to be white.
John Hamond, vicar, after bringing up the accusation
previously made against Simon Darcy for the blot on his
birth, complains that the roof of the nave of the Cathe-
dral is greatly in want of repair.
John Utlawe, chaplain to the Precentor, affirms that
Robert Swaby is a connnon gamester and player with
dice.
We get a little glimpse of the collegiate life of the
vicars in the evidence of Thomas Darby, one of the body,
and rector of Donington-on-Bain. He says that certain
books, viz., the Homilies of Gregory and Bede, were given
to the senior vicars in order that some poor person, sup-
])orted by their bounty, might read to them at the hour
of dinner each day ; but the books are not put to this
use, nor is there any one who would care to read them,
or listen to them being read. He also says that the
music-books in the choir, in the Chapel of the Blessed
Virgin Mary, and in the Chapel le Pele, differ greatly from
one another.
The gamester, Robert Swaby, ^^'ho was chaplain of the
Cantilupe Chantry, and rejoiced in an alias, that of
Wylingham, now comes on the scene. His grievances
are pecuniary. Money is owed to the Chantry from
various quarters,
John Rose, cha])lain of the Burghersh Chantry, charges
another chaplain with having made off with a chalice
worth 30.-^., substituting one only worth lOs.
Robert Breton, chaplain of the Walmesford Chantry,
in general terms complains that the vestments used in
the Catliedral are disgracefully out of repair.
A number of poor clerks and junior vicars follow ; but
their grievances are mainly ])ecuniary. .Among them
William Cressy, a subdeacon and junior vicar, speaks of
tlie vestments at the Pele altar as so torn and battered
as to be a disgrace, and all owing to John Skynner, the
chaplain, who has wasted the goods of the said altar in
r!<jtous jiving.
1 must not omit the evidence of a senior vicar, William
Muston, who complains tliat a certain John Bellrynger
VISITATION OF LIXCOI.N CATHEDRAL. 23
keeps a dog in a keunel in the cliiu'ch, close Lo the i*ele
altar, which has become a perfect nuisance from its un-
clean habits.
I cannot give many more details of evidence, but will
in general terms say that the tenor is to the effect that
both in the city and in the Cathedral decay is visible on
all sides. Houses are falling down for want of repair;
the "ministri ecclesice" have their stipends unpaid, or else
get them only paid in part ; vestments, ornaments, fabric,
all are in a shameful condition ; discipline is suspended ;
and all mainly owing to the strife and confusion in the
Chapter. The house was falling because divided agairist
itself. I will briefly add that the vergers and bell-
ringers unite in complaining against the Precentor for
having deprived them of the "feedings" due to them,
and I will conclude with the grievances of the choristers,
which, as juvenile ones, are somewhat amusing.
William Langholme asks that in winter they should
have fuel allowed them.
Kobert Ford complains that the stipend due to them
for holding a torch has been withheld.
John Wodecok concurs in the above complaints, but
further adds that on Fridays and Saturdays they used to
have at their breakfasts a composition of flour, honey,
and milk, which has been taken away by their steward.
John Paronell says an obit of 205. value of the late
Bishop William, has been taken from them, and mentions
the abstraction of their fuel in winter.
John Corbrig complains that at their breakfasts they
have nothing but bread.
John Thwyng says that the young vicars frequently
beat him and his brother-choristers, and give them boxes
on the ears, for nothincr.
John Derby says the bell-ringers do not bring them
charcoal at the j) roper time, as they are bound to do by
their office.
All with one voice complain that the Precentor has
arrogated to himself the power of giving them leave to
visit their parents and friends, and go out of the town,
which, within the memory of man, has been the prero-
gative of their steward.
These juvenile grievances complete the list. The evi-
24 VISITATION OF LINCOLN CATHEDRAL.
deuce is sufficient to show how terribly corrupt the
Cathedral life had become, and what a task lay before
Bishop Alnwick. He did his best. He compiled his so-
called Xovuiii Ilegistrum, — a sort of codification of cathe-
dral law; but Dean Mackworth steadily refused to accept
it. Into this I need not now go ; but I will end my
paper with the expression of a hope that this Visitation
may prove a fragment in the mass of evidence which
illustrates the condition of England in the fifteenth cen-
tury.
25
THE ROSE OF PROVENCE AND LILIES
OF FRANCE,
IN A VISION OF LINCOLN,
BY T. MORGAN, V.I'., F.S.A., HON. TRP:ASURER.
{Read 20 Noc. 1889.)
A GOOD measure of your indulgence is needed on this
occasion, particularly from those who have so lately re-
turned from the Lincolnshire Cono-ress, and from visitino-
the numerous remauis of antiquity in that county, espe-
cially the Cathedral of Lincoln, — a building for all time,
which is not in ruins, like the rest, hut unites in every-
day utility the days of St. Hugh of Burgundy with those
of the revered Prelate who now rules the see, and who
honoured the Congress with his presence.
Archaeology has to deal with history in a matter of fact
w^ay, and from perhaps too strict an observance of the
laws of evidence may sometimes not sufficiently take into
account the influence of popular feeling through succes-
sive ages, which has in a remarkable manner swayed
events, the mainsprings of which seem to escape the ken *
of our philosophy.
It cannot be uninteresting to investigate the sta.te of
public feeling which runs through what are called the
middle ages ; and as the illuminated MSS. of these ages,
wdien they illustrate scenes of ancient Greek and Roman
life, are interesting to us in their many-coloured pictures
by giving the costume and feelings of the time when
they were drawn, and not certainly because they depict
Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar in the veritable
costume of the ancients; in like manner a little excursion
into the romance and ballad scenery of the eleventh and
twelfth centuries may not be out of place if we are not
dazzled by the tints of imagination so freely made use of
at the time when historians became poets, and poets his-
torians. We must, however, be careful to distinguish
between the one and the other, and to give due credit to
2G THE ROSE OF I'llOVENCE
those eminent men who have left trustworthy accounts
of their own times.
As a prelude to St. Huo-h and his works, and to what
was going on in England under Henry II, let us carry
our vision as far as the fertile province of Burgundy, on
the banks of the rivers Saone and Rhone. It probably
owed its name to the burghs or fortresses of Valenti-
nian I, and numbered among its chief towns Lyons,
Vienne, and Grenoble. When formed into a kingdom, in
A.D. 413, it comprised the Vallais of Switzerland, and ex-
tended south to the sea at ]\Iarseilles, taking in probably
the whole of the Rnc'ient Xa rhonen sis, ili^it is the modern
Dauphiny, Provence, and Languedoc.
This first kingdom of Burgundy lasted, under its own
kings, one hundred and twenty years, till finally over*-
thrown by the sons of Clovis, King of the Franks. The
baptism of Clovis inflamed his zeal for subduing the Bur-
gundian kings, and after partially defeating them by his
arms, they relapsed into Arianism, and were not finally
conquered till S. Sigismond annexed Burgundy to the
kino'dom of the Franks in 534.
Mr. Hallam {Middle Ages, vol. i) says " The distinction
of Arian and Catholic was intimately connected with
tliat of Goth and Roman, of conqueror and conquered, so
that it is difiicult to separate the efi:ects of national from
those of sectarian animosity." Clovis defeats Alaric II,
Kino; of the Yisio-oths, near Poitiers, who was reioninof
at Bordeaux, a city of his kingdom of Aquitaine. of which
the capital was Toulouse. " It grieves me", said Clovis,
"to see theArians possessing the fairest portion of Gaul."
He set off from Paris, calling on his way at Tours to con-
sult at the shrine of St. Martin ; and after a great vic-
toiy over Alaric II, Avintered at Bordeaux, notwithstand-
ing the assistance given by Tlieodoric, King of the Ostro-
goths of Italy, to his brethren in the west ; and so the
defeated Visigoths had to leave France for Spain ; by
which, I suppose, is meant their rulers, and not the mass
of the people ; and a Visigothic kingdom was founded in
Spain, which lasted three hundred years. They retained,
liowever, in Gaul the province of Septimania, or Langue-
doc, until this was wrested from them by the Mahometans
of Spain.
A.ND LILTES OF FRANCE. 27
A second Burgundy arose in 888, after the dismember-
ment of the einpire of Charlemagne, and became two
separate principalities,— the Ti-ansjurane, under llodolph,
Avhich comprised Savoy, the Vallais, and Switzerland ;
and the Cisjurane, or Provence, with its capital at Aries,
under Boson, in 877. The two Burgundies were after-
wards united, and ultimately settled upon Conrad, Empe-
ror of Germany, in 1016.
It will be seen that a vast field was open for the poeti-
cal treatment of the burning questions which agitated
Europe after the fall of ancient Eome. The fear also of
being swallowed up by the conquering armies of Mahomet
and his Asiatics kept adding fresh fuel to the flames.
The incidents of battles and sieges, of private duels, of
conspiracies, of revenge, jealousies, and love-adventures,
with descriptions of tournaments, ceremonials of the
Court and of the Church, aftbrded to the troubadours of
the south and the trouveurs of the north of ^ Europe
ample material for their tales of adventure, which Avere
given to the world as history, and circulated from
one nation to another. These bards or minstrels wei-e
welcome as well to the castle of the baron, the monastery
of the monk, and the more humble dwelling of the
knight, as they were to the hall of the merchant and the
cottage of the poor.
The monks who, with some few of the more polished
of the ruling chiefs, alone cultivated literature, and knew
how to write, would be glad to receive the stories of
what was going on in the world, and by moulding them
into shape miglit exercise, in this manner, an important
influence on the ballads themselves, and correct the gross
licentiousness and immorality of many such compositions,
or qualify them at least by the recital of noble examples
from history, which were often strung together without
much regard to time or distance. The preaching friars
also had a large share in educating public opinion.
The five events below named under their dates, per-
haps more than any other threw a veil of poetry over the
centuries under review,— the first Crusade, preached bv
St. Bernard, 1095-99; the second, under the command of
Conrad III and Lewis VII of France, in 1147; the third,
under the Enq^eror Frederic Barbarossa of Burgundy,
28 THE ROSE OF PROVENCE
Philip Augustus of France, and Richard I of England, in
1189; the fourth in 1248; Q.nd Ji/th in 1270, under
St. Lewis IX of France.
The crusade against heretics in Europe, preached
against the Albigenses of Provence, and headed by Simon
de Montfort, stirred the deepest feelings of human nature
midst scenes of tyranny and bloodshed. The description
of the war by Vaissette, the historian of Languedoc, is
said by Mr, H. Hallam (Middle Ages) to be fairly given,
and he adds that the "Benedictine spirit of mildness and
veracity tolerably counterbalanced the prejudices of ortho-
doxy."
Other crusades for the conversion of refractory heretics
were undertaken until zeal for such means of persuasion
grew cool ; but Spain could never wipe out the stain of
Islam until she had restored the whole of her fertile pro-
vinces to Christendom, which was only completed after
an occupation by the Arabians of nearly eight hundred
years. The new and peculiar state of public feeling in
and after the tenth century may be attributed, in its
origin, to —
1. The great power acquired by the feudal chieftains
after the disruption of the empire of Charlemagne, when
the great nobles almost converted their fiefs into petty
sovereignties, and Hugh Capet seems by this agency to
have acquired the crown of France.
2. The religious differences of the Goths and the Catho-
lics of New liome, as well as of the Greek Church strug-
gling for power in the West.
3. The invasions of the Arabians or Moors, who, after
rendering themselves formidable on the shores of the
Mediterranean Sea, became masters, at the beginning of
the eighth century, of the whole of Spain, and the conse-
quent danger to the rest of Europe.
4. The zeal and party spirit which gave to the Catho-
lics of various nationalities that unity which made them
predominant over other confraternities.
5. The influence, as before named, of the Crusades both
against the Saracens of the East as well as against the
All)igensian heretics in Languedoc, and against the Moors
in Spain, together with the institution of the religious
orders of knights devoted to adventures in the service of
^ religion, galhintry, and danger.
AND LILIES OF FRANCE. 29
Amoiio' tlic numerous secondary causes, the revolutions
in the families of kings and of chieftains contributed
largely to act upon public opinion ; and it is incorrect to
assume that there was no public opinion in those days,
though formed in a manner differently from our own.
The minstrels or bards had the opportunity, by moving
among different classes of men, to influence those by
whom they made their living, by picking up anecdotes
and scraps of history, to sing or recite in the palaces,
castles, and monasteries where they were entertained.
They were welcomed as are the daily newspapers of the
modern world, and were able to till up many a dreary
interval of leisure at a time when books were expensive,
and only read by the few. They undoubtedly did, by
their love of travel and adventure, largely tend to form
public opinion in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,
as appears by their literary productions ; but whether
these can be absolutely traced to the early dates assigned
to them by later writers is a question still suh judice.
The lives of early troubadours are often given when none
of their works survive to prove even their existence.
M. de Sismondi (Literature of Europe) is unable to trace
any written ballads of the troubadours before the eleventh
or twelfth centuries. He tinds a MS. of about this date
of the Chronicle of Archbishop Turpin of Rheims, in
which is described the history of Charlemagne and his
paladins. Arabian tales were sometimes versitied, and
Persian poetry also placed under contribution. In the
twelfth century Carmentiere, a monk of the Isles of
Hieres, compiled some account of Romance poems by
direction of Alphonso II, King of Arragon and Count of
Provence.
The poetry of the South is indebted to M. de Curne
de Ste. Pelaye, who devoted his whole life to collecting
and explaining these works. His MSS., tilling twenty-
five folio volumes, have not been printed in extenso. M.
Raynouard has published a Choix des Poesies originales
des Troidmdonrs, but without annotation and without
translation (Sismondi).
After the twelfth century the ballads became more
numerous, and tended to form the languages of modern
Europe. Some are very long, and what in these days
30 THE ROSE OF PROVENCE
we should call tedious and prosy ; but they would not
have been repeated in full at one time. The " Romance
of the Rose" contains 20,000 verses, and is the work of
two different authors : — 4,1;30 verses were written by
Guillaume de Lorris, who died in 1260; while his con-
tinuator, Jean de Meun, jiroduced the remainder of the
poem fifty years later. " The Lay of Aristotle", by Henry
d'Audelay, is noted by M. de Sismondi. It has been
edited by Sir Frederick Madden. "Amadis of Gaul", the
model of chivalric romances, is claimed by the people
south of the Pyrenees as the work of Vasco Lobeira, a
Portuguese, who lived between 1290 and 1325.
The transformation of Latin into the Romance lan-
guages, and the relation of the popular language to the
Latin in each country, is not easily settled by what little
evidence there is on the subject. M. de Sismondi is
surely too arbitrary in fixing at particular periods the
formation of — the Provengal at some time within a range
often years, at the court of Bozon, King of Aries; of the
French, within a range of twenty-six years, at the court
of William Longsword, son of Rollo ; of the Costilian,
within a range of twenty-eight years, at the Court of
Ferdinand the Great; of the Portuguese, within a range
of seventeen years, at the court of Count Henry, founder
of the monarchy; of the Italian, within a range of twenty-
five years, at the court of Roger I, King of Sicily ; that
is, when firm governments were formed by uniting sepa-
rate nationalities.
It is against our experience that the language of a
country should change at one time : on the contrary, a
change of language progresses very slowly. Still the
formation of a court, whether of a king or of a great
baron, would facilitate the moulding into one of the
various dialects of which a country might consist, through
the authority of bards, chroniclers, and other literary men.
The Counts of Provence were not the only sovereigns
in the south of France at whose courts the Icing ue cVOc,
or Romance Provenfal, was spoken. At the end of the
eleventli century one half of France was governed by
almost independent princes, the most renowned being
the Counts of Toulouse, Dukes of Aquitaine, Dauphins of
Vieniiois and Auvergne, the Princes of Orange, and the
AND LTIJES OF FPwVNCE. 31
Counts of Foix. The Imu/ue cVOc, tlicn, is given by M. do
Sismondi to the south of France, and the langue d'Oil to
the nortli.
In the time of the Komans, Lyons was the great seat
of learning in Ganl, and it is quite reasonable to suppose
that pretty good Latin was sj^oken there, and might
be called the language between two rivers, Saone
and Rhone, to distinguish it from the Oil, Wallon or
Celtic, for the French pronunciation brings out nearly
the same sound. Celtic France is described byC. J,Ca3sar
as running across diagonally from the Lyonnese province
No. 1 up to the north-west, or No. 3, which is Brittan}^,
Lyonnese No. 2 and 4 being respectively Normand}^ and
Champagne, with the Isle of France.
The lansjfuao-e of Catalonia and Provence seems to have
been at one time the same, and even at the present day
has not been merged into the Castilian. lioyal person-
ages were not above adopting the language and senti-
ments of troubadours, and composing ballads on themes
of war, gallantry, and love. Of this we have an instance
in our own Richard Ca3ur de Lion, who filled up the time
of his imprisonment by Leopold, Duke of Austria, in
weaving such compositions.
One of the most Quixotic of troubadours was Pierre
Vidal of Toulouse, who followed the said King Richard
in the third Crusade, and " was no less celebrated for his
extravagant actions than for his poetical talent." He
recalls, in his writings, the glorious days of his youth,
when Heaven permitted all Europe to be governed by
heroes ; when Germany had the Emperor Frederick I ;
England, Henry II and his three sons ; Toulouse, Count
Raymond ; and Catalonia, Count Beranger and his son
Alphonso.
William IX, Count of Poitou and Duke of Aquitaine
(born in 1071, died 1127), was a composer of troubadour
poems. He was father of the famous Eleanor, Queen of
France, who, divorced from Louis le Jeune, transferred
the sovereignty of Guienne, Poitou, and Saintonge, to
Henry II of England when she became his wife. Another
Eleanor of Provence, in marrying Henry III of England,
brought her husband the magnificent dower of that
French province.
32 THE ROSE OF PROVENCE
A new phase in the history of Europe could not hut
react upon Eng-land when Henry II became King. He
had inherited Normandy from his mother, and Anjou
from liis father ; and adding to these domains the great
Duchy brought by his Queen, Eleanor, he became pos-
sessed of more than half of France. The insular position
of England, if it has been a cause, with our writers, for
depreciating the influence upon it of foreign nations, has
also enabled their writers to undervalue the influence of
this country upon continental Europe.
The Cathedral of Lincoln, which crowns the heights of
the upper city, furnishes useful historical lessons in its
architecture no less than in the lives of its bishops.
St. Hugh of Burgundy, the sixth Bishop, claims the
honour of having rebuilt the old Norman church of St.
Kemigius ; and in considerate reverence for those who
went before, he preserved, in the beautiful w^est front, a
portion of the old wall of the Norman church with its
still older sculptured frieze. This ancient relic, while it
somewhat jars with the beautiful architecture in which
it is enclosed, may be likened to a rough Anglo-Saxon
jewel in a setting of filigree-work.
Mr. John Henry Parker, in describing the Cathedral
in Archceologia, xlvii, p. 45, establishes the fact that the
work of the time of St. Hugh (1192-1200) is pure Early
English Gothic ; and it is, he says, " the earliest building
of that style in the world. The best informed French
archaeologists admit that they have nothing of the
character of Lincoln for twenty or thirty years after the
time of St. Hugh. He employed the natives of the
county, and the style is that of Lincolnshire and part of
Yorkshire at the end of the twelfth century, or just before
the year 1200. The arches of the central tower of the
small church of Clee, at the mouth of the Humber, dedi-
cated by St. Hugh in 1192, the year the Cathedral was
commenced, will be found to be almost equally advanced
in style." He says, further, that "the choir and aisles of
Lincoln were originally intended to have had wooden
roofs ; but St. Hugh insisted on having stone vaults, to
which he had been accustomed at Grenoble. The same
thing had previously occurred at Waltham, in Somerset-
shire, where the parish church of the Carthusian monas-
tery of St. Hugh still remains."
AND LILIES OF FRANC'E. 33
This is a very positive statement, if only given on
architectural grounds, and it should be borne in mind
that there were two Bishops Hugh of Lincoln living
within a short period of each other ; that is, St. Hugh of
Burgundy, consecrated in 1186, and Hugh of Wells, con-
secrated Bishop of Lincoln in 1206 ; and the works of the
two in succession at Lincoln may easily be confounded
together.
Hugh (Trotman), the second Hugh of Lincoln, was
brother of the Joceline (Trotman), Bishop of Bath, who
rebuilt the Cathedral of Wells from the presbytery west-
ward, and rededicated it in 1239. The acts of the Church
for the purpose of reducing to a stricter submission to
her canons the too independent monastic Orders, and
the part taken by the two Trotmans in the strife, are de-
lineated with much clearness by the liev. C. M. Church,
M.A., F.S.A., in Archceologia, li, p. 281.
There was an intimate connection between the two
Cathedrals. The second Bishop, Hugh of Lincoln, had
been Archdeacon of Wells, and founded, in conjunction
with his brother, a religious house at Southover (part of
Wells) in 1236.
The two western towers of Lincoln rise from behind
the western wall which screens their bases. The towers
are carried up far above their original elevation, as are
those at Wells, having been added to more than a cen-
tury after the Early English work, which in both cases