William de Colchester, Abbot of Westminster

by Ernest Harold Pearce

We have six rolls of his Seneschals between 1388 and 1403, and we may put together from these the facts that are to be gleaned about him. At this time, at any rate, he was a man of good health. There is a slight reference to an indisposition in 1389, and once there is a fee of one shilling to a doctor for treating his "tibia," which seems to have been a peculiarly vulnerable part of monkish anatomy. On the other hand, he does not appear to have been as fond of field sports as his great predecessor; at least in 1402-3 his steward bought 359 rabbits, 41 woodcock and a pheasant, which would hardly be necessary if his lordship were in the habit of inviting the neighbouring gentry to help him keep down his game. It is evident that his estates are being well managed. We can tell, for instance, that in 1388-9, on his manors of Eybury, Denham, Laleham and Pyrford, he sold 215 stone of wool at 1s. 9d. a stone. He made red wine at Islip, and his price for it was £2 12s. 6d. a pipe. The needs of his own establishment were mainly supplied from Denham and Pyrford, especially the former; for his accounts are full of small payments to servants who had driven pigs from Denham to la Neyte. In other words, when he was in town he did not patronize the Westminster tradesmen, but he purchased supplies from himself as over-lord of Denham. For these he paid his factor at Denham the current price, so that the manor could give a good account of its takings at the end of the year.

And this careful accountancy went to quite practical lengths. For instance, the Abbot was wont to receive during each year a large number of "exennia," which, as we have seen, were complimentary presents mostly offered in kind. It happens that there is a complete list of these with the names of the donors for 1388-9. The clergy beneficed on the estate, such as the rector of Islip, the vicar of Hurley, where the Abbey had a daughter priory, the rectors of Oddington and Sutton on the Gloucestershire property, and the vicar of Brailes in Warwickshire; the heads of the affiliated convents, such as Hurley, Greater Malvern, Deerhurst, and Pershore; the tenants, such as the miller at Pyrford; the man who rents the church farm at Longdon; various monks of the Abbey, such as John Stowe, who brings now a lamb as a peace-offering, now the results of his skill with the line, a pike or an eel, and now that which he has taken with his bow, a brace of bittern; and Peter Coumbe, the Sacrist and warden of the New Work, who offers a swan and a brace of pheasants. The gifts, in fact, are from all sorts and conditions of folk. There is the King's larderer with his modest present of fish; there is Master Thomas Southam, Cardinal Langham's lawyer, who now sends the Abbot a pipe of red wine, the most costly of all the gifts, in the hope, no doubt, of continuing to serve his present lordship in a similar capacity; and, most pathetic of all, there are two women, who claim to be of the Abbot's kin,[ 69] and who offer for his acceptance half a dozen capons. But the point for us is the careful management of his affairs, which appears in the fact that each of these eighty-three contributions is entered by the Seneschal at its market-price. The pipe of wine figures at £2 13s. 4d.; the lamb at 8d.; the six capons from the poor relations at 2s.; and the brace of bittern at 2s. 6d. Altogether these tributes towards his maintenance save the expenses of the mansion by £14 11s. 6d., and a reference to his steward's balance-sheet under the head of "outside receipts" shows this exact sum entered as derived from the "exennia" of divers persons. Prudent housewifery could scarcely go further. On the other hand, he does not so treat the presents he receives from the great ones of the earth. When a stag arrives from Windsor, or a buck from the Baroness Despenser, the cash value of these compliments is not taken into the account; there is merely an acknowledgment that certain recognitions in money have been given to the bearers of the gifts.

It is natural to ask whether the accounts show signs of luxurious habits. Certainly not in his furnishing. Thus, in 1401 he was adding to the accommodation of his London mansion of la Neyte. For his new parlour he obtained a cupboard for 10s., two chairs for 4s. 6d., six stools for 4s. 4d., and a deal table for the same sum. I think (the word is not quite clear) that he had a curtain provided for his study-window at a cost of 1s. 8d.; and there was a fireplace in his parlour, for which his Seneschal laid out 7d. upon coal. Certainly not, again, in wine and strong drink; for his outlay under this head was about a sixth part of the sum which he spent upon corn and meat. Nor is there any evidence that he used his position for the enrichment of poor relations. It may be that we can detect a needy kinsman in one John Colchester who was granted 3s. 4d. by my lord's command at la Neyte in March, 1389, and it was quite possibly for a sister-in-law—the wife of Thomas Colchester—that he ordered a diamond ring[ 70] at a cost of 40s. on May 31 of that year, perhaps because it was her birthday. When one of his servants was sent to Colchester on some personal business of the Abbot, the man was evidently not expected to comport himself as if his master's resources were unlimited, for his total expenses were 2s. 4d.

The Abbot liked to have one or two of the younger monks around him, such as John Sandon and Thomas Merke, whom we have met, as Shakespeare also met him, in the events that gather mysteriously round the end of Richard II.'s reign. No doubt, they joined him at table in the new parlour of la Neyte, but the only sign of further bounty towards them was a gift of 6s. 8d. to them jointly for a treat—pro gaudiis—a term which survives in the custom of applying the word "gaudy" to those College entertainments to which at the moment Oxford is patriotically a stranger.

When the great man moved about, it was seemingly not with any great train; otherwise it would hardly be necessary for the Seneschal to give 1s. 8d. to a certain man for guiding my lord out of the forest of Rockingham, as if the Abbot were too lonely to face the possible appearance of Robin Hood with equanimity. But, of course, there were exceptional circumstances when he would travel in the dignity of his position. There was a formal visitation of the manors of Denham, Laleham, Staines, and Pyrford in 1402-3, which cost over £6, and visits to Henry IV. in the same year at Ware and Windsor and Berkhamstead, at an expense of about £4. A short time after, the Abbot had to face a continental journey, but £4 12s. is no great sum to enter as "the expenses of my lord and his household in setting out for Calais with porterage and the hire of a boat to take him to the ship, and also the expenses of John Sandon and John Stowe [two monks] and part of the household on their way back to London."

Not a little of his petty expenses arose from the frequency with which he was officially visited by persons of position who were not too proud to receive a present of money, and would have resented its absence. They were mostly content with much less than the 20s. imparted to the Remembrancer of the King's Exchequer, but the gifts of 3s. 4d. mounted up when the Abbot must receive now a Herald and his boy, now the Sheriff of Middlesex and his valet and his boy, now a messenger with a summons to Parliament, now two criers from the King's Bench, and all within a brief space of time.

But Abbot Colchester did indulge one luxury, whether out of a taste for it or because it was the fashion of the time, I cannot say. He was fond of being entertained, particularly by musicians; and his Seneschal's accounts during these six or seven years are full of small payments to such persons, from a boy who danced before my lord at Walsingham for 6d. to Henry the piper—fistulator—who was retained at Pyrford all Christmas time for 14s. He could provide some of this enjoyment from the resources of the Abbey, as when he made two clerks bring a pair of organs from Westminster to Pyrford. His chief delight was to have Master Percyvale and other of the King's minstrels, especially on great festivals such as St. Peter ad Vincula, and he could listen to Percyvale for the modest consideration of 2s. Evidently it came to be known that he had tastes of this kind, for William of Wykeham's pipers journeyed to Pyrford to strut their little hour before the Abbot; Henry Despenser, the fighting Bishop of Norwich and doughty champion of Richard II., sent his minstrels to entertain my lord when he was at Birlingham; the Duke of Gloucester, Thomas of Woodstock, kept a blind harper who gave a performance at Denham; and the other visitors included the Abbot of Eynsham's player—lusor—and the musicians of the ill-fated Earl of Arundel. Even when he was resident for a space in Northampton for the General Chapter of the Benedictine Order, he was sometimes entertained by mummers.[ 71]

But it would not be fair to think of him as having no desires that went down to the realities of things. For he lived in troublous times, and he knew how Christian men should face the serious issues that then emerged. His duty to the country and to the various properties for which he stood in trust called him away from Westminster often, and sometimes for prolonged periods. It is possible by means of the accounts of his various bailiffs to follow his comings and goings; for the receipts from the properties must be delivered to the Abbot in person, and there is thus an entry of the cost of journeying to such and such a place, wherever he happened to be, and generally of the cost of one or two horsemen for safety's sake. But the Abbey and the welfare of his Brethren were in his mind, and he kept a guiding hand upon their spiritual concerns, particularly in times of trial. There is an instance of this in a document,[ 72] which bears no date except August 31, but which may be assigned with reasonable certainty to Richard II.'s troubled reign. It is headed in another hand, "W. Abbot of Westminster to the Prior of the same place"; but this is an error. The Abbot in a quite exceptional way addresses himself to the officers or obedientiaries without mentioning the Prior, and I incline to attributing the document to the latest years of Richard II., because the Prior, John de Wratting,[ 73] was then becoming unequal to his duties. It is true that our evidence for this is dated 1405,[ 74] but, as Wratting was then over eighty, it may hold almost as well for seven or eight years earlier. The Abbot's message is as follows:—

"My beloved sons in Christ,

"The most serene Prince our lord the King has urgently required of us that in this present time of dire necessity we should be instant in prayer to the most High with all our hearts for the good estate of King and country. For enemies without and rebels within are confederate in their malicious plots to shatter the peace of the realm. You therefore to whom (under us) belongs the administration of government in our monastery we hereby urge and enjoin that, considering what we say above, you should put a limit upon the Brethren's walks abroad and upon their ridings into distant parts—except of course in the case of the Monk Bailiff—until God grants us more peaceful times. Call all and singular your Brethren to Chapter and bid them from me to be content with their usual recreation within the house and to give themselves so much the more earnestly to meditation and prayer as the distress and wickedness of the times become more pressing. Go in solemn procession every fourth day round the bounds of the monastery, and every sixth day through the vill of Westminster, praying for a successful issue and for the common weal of the King and the realm—petitions which are already earnestly commended to the private prayers of all the Brethren. Summon all the chaplains and clerks dwelling within St. Margaret's parish to join you, and specially the clerks of our Almonry, according to custom. Fare you well in Christ now and for ever."