The Cloister and its Story.

By S. W. Kershaw, f.s.a.

“The treasures of antiquity laid up
In old historic rolls I opened.”
—Beaumont.

Fair and famed are the monastic ruins of our land, from Fountains and Rievaulx among the Yorkshire dales, to Tintern on the silvery Wye, and Netley near the placid Solent, one and all alike tell a tale of their past annals, making up, verily, a treasured page of “Bygone England.”

With these buildings are closely connected one of their great agencies, when, as dispensers of learning, in the early ages, darkness and ignorance was all around. Just as the legendary dictum arose, that the exquisite lantern of Ely Cathedral became a guiding light to the traveller, in the fens and morasses of Eastern England, so these religious homes were the beacon spots of learning.

In that remote period of way-faring, it was the custom for some churches to have a fire lighted in an iron framework on the top of an angle turret, to direct the steps of the stranger, especially through those vast woods which covered our land, and of which a famous example existed in the forest of Galtres, in Yorkshire.

The visitor to Gloucester Cathedral will have noticed its exquisite cloisters, and have seen the screens or “carols” where the monkish scribe sat diligently to copy his chronicle, or the artist to illuminate its page.

The examples at Gloucester are almost unique as an illustration, so to speak, of the workshops of the mediæval copyist; but a “scriptorium,” or room, was arranged in most monastic houses, as the more general place of labour.

As the chief homes and nurseries of religion, these houses attracted their different leaders and schools of learning. With Bede in Northumbria, and Augustine in Kent, two great missionary scholars, the memories of ancient lore seem to be recalled. In quick succession arose the vast abbeys of our land, at St. Albans, Glastonbury, York, Canterbury, Lindisfarne, and Hexham, spreading their influence far and wide, with a host of lesser foundations. Their erection, often due to the zeal of some noted ecclesiastic or pious layman, is closely connected with our church history and customs, revealing many a vivid picture of olden days. Their abbots and priors can show many illustrious names, and Matthew Paris, Aldhelm, Bishop of Sherborne, St. Cuthbert, and William of Malmesbury, are but a tithe of the roll-call of writers and chroniclers.

It is, however, the work which remains to this day as the evidence and link of an almost forgotten agency, through the preservation of our early documents, that the moving history of those times is recalled. The “scriptorium” under the abbot’s direction, with specially trained scribes, was the great literary workroom, rules and admonitions were hung on its walls, expressive of the care to be taken in copying, the work was portioned out, and no monk could exchange his allotted task for another.

There were those specially selected, to insert the rubricated letters and designs of the border page, while others prepared the vellum, or attended to the binding. In the larger monasteries, especially of the Cistercians, there were smaller “scriptoria” for the more learned of the community, distinguished also by their skill and attainments.

The transcription of Missal or Service books was often made, not only for the great houses, but for the smaller ones, unable to maintain so large a staff, and then both “scriptorium” and cloister became a ceaseless centre of labour. Books were often lent from one monastery to another to be copied, and besides the actual staff, hired writers were also employed, thus rapidly developing the learning of those early times. Special grants of money were made to support this constant occupation—tithes and other aids procured the vellum, the ink, and the colours for the artist; thus, by degrees, came into existence those grand volumes which, despite time and decay, have survived to our day. The abbey chronicle and the abbot’s letters became one great monastic diary, each containing a record of events and customs which shadowed forth many a noted incident or rare tradition.

In the Christ Church letters, at Canterbury, we hear of Prior Chillenden’s love of building, and mention of the grey old walls of that city, portions of which are now standing, is found in this correspondence.

Truly can it be said, that the abbey and its literature grew together, that the annals of the one were the foundation stones of the other. The “Chronicle,” perhaps the most typical form of monastic work, gave expression to endless literary fragments, some, undoubted forgeries, as one scribe often copied the errors of a preceding writer. The lives of saints, and their legends, were lightly interwoven in this day-book of the religious house, and the famous miracles of Thomas á Becket, repeated in all their varying allurements, formed the staple theme for many a credulous monk.

On the other hand, the “Chronicle” recorded important events, especially the building of a noted minster, oratory, or shrine. Ingulphus treated of Croyland; William of Malmesbury, of Glastonbury; Gervase, the burning of Canterbury, and many like instances. In these volumes we often find allusions to the means used to raise money for building, and the curious customs arising out of this effort. When a cathedral wanted repair, the bishop selected from among his clergy a few preachers, and along with them a saint’s shrine, in which relics were enclosed and carried by young clerks in procession. On reaching a town, these relics were taken to the church and left on one of the altars, and those who could afford, threw their offerings on the same.

Processions to some noted spot formed another source of revenue, and the picturesque though fanciful custom of strewing the churchyard cross with boughs on Palm Sunday, may have been another of the quaint usages to attract the devotee to make his offerings.

Fairs, too, were held, sometimes in the very cathedral precincts, and mystery and miracle plays also combined to increase the funds required for a grand fabric, or village church. A leading feature in the archivist’s work were the bishop’s registers, to be found in every diocese, and varying greatly in their interest and contents. Those of Canterbury and York form a unique collection of church history, while others are models of exactness or statesmanlike precision.

As we turn over their pages, we recall the names of William of Wykeham (Bishop of Winchester), Bishop Alcock (Ely), Chichele, the munificent founder of All Souls’, Oxford, while among lesser dignitaries may be classed Abbot Islip, of Westminster, and John of Whethampstead, for St. Alban’s, whose registers and minute books betoken their care and knowledge, as “Supervisors” of the noble buildings under their charge. Perhaps the register of St. Osmund, Bishop of Salisbury (1078-1107), may fairly be taken to represent the idea of what is usually found to illustrate the growth, maintenance, and customs connected with those stately fabrics and minsters of our land. As St. Osmund was one of the prelate-architects, so to speak, and having much to do with the building of that cathedral, there are, naturally, endless allusions to antiquarian lore, indeed, his register can well be likened to a storehouse of local customs, and ecclesiological learning.

On one page is an account of the maintenance of Savernake forest, over which the Dean and chapter of Sarum had certain rights. On another, we find a description of the stones and ornaments for the church, while elsewhere are the charters for the bestowal of land, towards the endowment of canonries and other preferments, and to these last were attached seals of deep historical value.

This register may be taken then as the keystone to the annals of Sarum diocese, and what the keen inquirer finds in this as a typical book, may equally be said of several other episcopal archives. In their silent, though not less expressive, language, they have handed down those incidents on which hang the story of many an effort to build a costly shrine, a sculptured porch, or greater still, the minsters and abbeys which have made England of the past so rich an inheritance for us of to-day.

The fullest scope for the mediæval artist was found in the pictured chronicle, or the illuminated missal, that task on which painter and scribe devoted their best talents, and with this embellishment is interwoven many an old usage or fanciful legend.

The monastery garden supplied endless designs for the exquisite plant-forms and scrolls which mingled so gracefully with the written text or the printed page. In the gifted words of the late Lady Eastlake, who said, “Here on these solid and well-nigh indestructible parchment folios, where text and picture alternately take up the sacred tale—the text itself a picture, the picture a homily—the skill of the artist has exhausted itself in setting forth the great scheme of salvation.”[21]

Flowers also supplied an un-ending theme for symbolism which always allied itself to sacred and legendary art, and tradition asserts that the monks reared an appropriate flower for each holy-day, and that certain flowers were dedicated to saints. The ivy a type of immortality, the oak of virtue and majesty, the lily, and the rose, all had their significance on the vellum book.

Mingled with the border designs were satirical allusions in the form of grotesques and other drolleries, evidently aimed at the jealousies of the secular and regular clergy, one against the other, or both against the mendicant friars. What was found on the illuminated page, was echoed in the architectural carvings of the time, and the fantastic wood work in some of our cathedrals and many churches, especially in the stalls of Christ Church, Hants, repeat the teachings of the caustic monk in his cloistered seclusion.

It was reserved for the architect-artist to perpetuate in stone the beauties of the floral world, and nothing speaks a stronger though mute language than the foliage sculptured on the arches, doorways, and nooks of our minsters, churches, and abbey ruins.

“Ivy, and vine, and many a sculptured rose,
The tenderest image of mortality,
Binding the slender columns, whose light shafts
Cluster like stems in corn-sheaves.”

Not only was symbolism embodied in these carvings, but as an exercise and offering of devotion to the Unseen, the best efforts were lavished on it by the skilled master-workmen of the time.

Thus the scribe, the illuminator, the architect were all striving in a kind of companion rivalry, each illustrating by his efforts some phase of artistic labour, or reviving a long-forgotten custom.

However much we may dissociate legend with truth, we cannot always ignore it, mingled though it may be with monkish ignorance and superstition.

The tale of many a noble structure has been veiled under the guise of the chronicle or the monastic ledger book, and the foundation of Waltham Abbey is said to have originated from a 12th century MS., entitled, “De inventione Sancte Crucis.” Around the grand church of Minister in Thanet, gathers a pretty story, in that Dompneva, wife of Penda, King of Mercia, asked Ethelbert to grant her land in Thanet, on which she might build a monastery. In answer to how much she required, “Only as much as my deer can run over at one course.” The King gave her the wide tract of land run over by the deer, and she founded the cloister on the spot where now stands Minister church. Local names have sometimes been associated with the story of the cloister. The Bell-rock with its lighthouse was so called from the bell which the monks tolled, to warn the mariner of his danger.

The smallest item on the parchment page can have an extended meaning; the sign of the cross was found in many old deeds, which often contained an invocation to the Trinity, and the famous story of St. Helena, and the finding of the cross, has its incidents oft repeated in the MS., the printed book, the panel or fresco painting, as well as in the marvellous pieces of the sacred wood, so greatly venerated by the faithful! Of St. Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, there is a drawing, said to be by his own hand, in the illumination of a manuscript in the Bodleian Library, and of dedication of churches to saints, the name is legion. St. Barnabas Day is specially linked with English life and manners, it was the longest day according to the old style, and the old rhyme,

“Barnaby bright, Barnaby light,
The longest day and the shortest night.”

Every form of chronicled lore, be it register, fabric roll, charter, or brief, teems with some peculiar custom which is a moving history, an heirloom from the old world, helping to connect the past and the present.

Architectural items enter largely into the varied forms of church documents; the Indulgence often gave full particulars as to the repairs of a building, a fact most valuable for supplying the date at which any portion was built or renewed. Cathedral archives of whatever class, are sure to abound in allusions to the fabric or its annals, sometimes going so far as to sketch some portion in the marginal pages, of which an example is found in a drawing of old St. Paul’s in the 14th century, occurring in a MS. called the “Flores historiarum.” The statutes of our minsters are rich in ecclesiastical lore, the mediæval fraternities or guilds are often mentioned in them, and in the statutes of St. Paul’s a most curious custom is mentioned of waits parading the streets of London, to give notice of the feast of the Transfiguration, and carrying with them a picture or banners of that event.

The antiquarian enthusiast on these subjects cannot do better than consult the work on “English Guilds” published by the Early English Text Society, and that of the “Statutes of St. Paul’s,” by Dr. Sparrow Simpson, 1873.

Fabric rolls and inventories are an endless source of detailed information, in both of these, most minute descriptions are given; the painting and drawing of images, the materials, even to the pencils and brushes, being mentioned. Perhaps the most elaborate is that of the expense rolls for St. Stephen’s chapel, in the old palace of Westminster, a bill of charges that helps to identify the kind of work done at that time, and the general artistic treatment in the reign of Edward III.

The following entries may be given as a typical illustration:—

William de Padryngton, mason, for making twenty
angels to stand in the tabernacles, by task work at 6/8
per each image		 £613s.4d.
For seven hundred leaves of gold, bought for the
painting of the tabernacles in the Chapel		 £18s.0d.

The following item shows that there were artists who designed the work afterwards carried out by inferior craftsmen.

Hugh de St. Alban’s and John de Cotton, painters,
working on the drawings of several images.		 £09s.0d.

An examination of this expense roll, of which this is not a tithe of the entries, printed in Smith’s history of Westminister, will well repay attention.

With those graceful chantries, which adorn most of our minsters, are closely connected the service books of the middle ages, for it was usual to insert in the blank spaces of the collects the names of the founders of the chantry chapels.

Indeed, the subtle way in which our old documents, of whatever class, interweave themselves with the annals of our mediæval buildings, whether as regards the general plan, the design of some sculptured porch, the pictured images on walls, or the many-coloured votive chapel, each and all illustrating a quaint legend or significant custom, is too numerous to indicate.

“Nor was all this labour spent in vain; their homes for centuries were in the silence of the sanctuary; their authors have mingled with the dust of the convent cemetery; over them have passed the rise and fall of the kingdoms of this world; but through them history has been transmitted with a continuity and fulness not to be found in any other form of art, or, it may be said in any form of literature.”[22]

“Mid all the light a happier age has brought,
We work not yet as our forefathers wrought.”