A Source-Book of English Social History

by M. E. Monckton Jones

(f) It was the custom among the English that he who was about to be lawfully consecrated a knight, should, the evening before the day of his consecration, with contrition and compunction make confession of all his sins, before some bishop, abbot, monk or priest, and should after being absolved, pass the night in a church, giving himself up to prayer, devotion and mortification. On the following day he was to hear mass, and to make offering of a sword upon the altar, and after the Gospel, the priest was to bless the sword, and with his blessing to lay it upon the neck of the knight; on which after having communicated at the same mass in the sacred mysteries of Christ, he became a lawful knight. The Normans held in abomination this mode of consecrating a knight, and did not consider such a person to be a lawful knight, but a mere tardy trooper and a degenerate plebian. (p. 147.)

And not only in this custom but in many others as well did the Normans effect a change, for the Normans condemned the English method of executing deeds; which up to the time of King Edward had been confirmed by the subscription of the faithful present, with golden crosses and other sacred signs, and which chirographs[21] they were in the habit of calling charters. The Normans were also in the habit of confirming deeds with wax impressions, made by the especial seal of each person, with the subscription thereto of three or four witnesses then present. At first many estates were transferred simply by word of mouth, without writing or charter, and only with the sword, helmet, horn, or cup of the owner; while many tenements were conveyed with a spur, a body scraper, a bow, and some with an arrow. This, however, was only the case at the beginning of this reign, for in after years the custom was changed (p. 142).

BURNING OF CROYLAND ABBEY

(Ingulf, p. 197)

A most dreadful misfortune befell ... through a most dreadful conflagration.... For, our plumber being engaged in the tower of the church, repairing the rood, he neglected to put out his fire in the evening; but ... covered it over with dead ashes that he might get more early to work in the morning, and then came down to his supper.

After supper was over all our servants had betaken themselves to bed, when after the deepest sleep had taken possession of them all, a most violent north wind arose, and so hastened on this greatest of misfortunes that could possibly befall us. For as it entered the tower in every direction through the open gratings, and blew upon the dead ashes, it caused the fire thus fanned into life, to communicate with the adjoining timbers.... The people in the vill for a long time perceived a great glare of light in the belfry, and supposing it was either the clerks of the church or else the plumber busily engaged at some work there; but at last on seeing the flames bursting forth, with loud outcries they knocked at the gate of the monastery. This was about the dead of night, when all of us, resting in our beds, were in our first and soundest sleep. At last I was aroused from slumbers by the loud shouts of the people, and hastening to the nearest window, I most distinctly perceived, as though it had been midday all the servants of the monastery running from every quarter, shouting and hallooing, towards the church. Still in my night clothes I awoke my companions and descended in all haste to the cloisters, which were lighted up on all sides just as though there had been a thousand lamps burning. On running to the door of the church and trying to effect an entrance, I was prevented from so doing by the melted brass of the bells which was pouring down, and the heated lead which in like manner was falling in drops. Upon this I retreated and looked in at the windows and on finding the flames everywhere prevailing, turned my steps towards the dormitory ... of the brethren....

On recognising my voice, full of alarm, they sprang up from their beds, and half naked, and clad only in their night-clothes, the instant they heard the fire in the cloisters, rushed forth through all the windows of the Dormitory, and fell to the ground with dreadful force; many were wounded and severely shaken by the severity of the fall, and shocking to relate, some had their limbs broken. The flames, however, in the meanwhile, growing stronger and stronger, and continually sending forth flakes from the church in the direction of the Refectory, first communicated with the Chapter house, then they caught the Dormitory, and after that the Refectory, and at the same instant the Ambulatory, which was near the Infirmary. After this they extended their ravages with a sudden outburst, to the whole of the Infirmary, with all the adjoining offices. All the brethren flying for refuge to the spot where I stood in the court, on seeing most of them half-naked, I attempted to regain my chamber, in order to distribute the clothes which I had there, among such as I saw stand in the greatest need thereof; but so great was the heat that had taken possession of all the approaches to the Hall, and so vast were the torrents of molten lead that were pouring down in every direction, that it rendered it impossible for even the boldest of the young men to effect an entrance.... (p. 199).

At this moment, the tower of the Church falling on its south side I was so stunned by the crash, that I fell to the ground half dead and in a swoon. Being raised by my brethren and carried to our porter’s room, I was scarcely able, until morning, to recover my right senses or my usual strength....

About the third hour of the day, the flames being now greatly subdued, we effected an entry into the church, and water being carried thither, extinguished the fire there, which had now pretty well burned out. In the choir, which was reduced to ashes, we found all the books of the holy office utterly destroyed, both Antiphonaries as well as Gradals. On entering the vestiary, however, we found all our sacred vestments and the relics of the Saints, as well as some other precious things deposited there untouched by the flames, the place being covered with a double roof of stone. Going upstairs into our muniment room, we found that, although it had been covered throughout with an arching of stone, the fire had still made its way through the wooden windows; and that, although the presses themselves appeared to be quite safe and sound, still all our muniments therein were burnt into one mass, and utterly destroyed by the intense heat of the fire, just as though they had been in a furnace red hot or an oven at a white heat. Our charters of extreme beauty, written in capital letters, adorned with golden crosses and paintings of the greatest beauty, and formed of materials of matchless value, which had been there deposited, were all destroyed. The privileges also, granted by the kings of the Mercians, documents of extreme antiquity, and of the greatest value, which were likewise most exquisitely adorned with pictures in gold, but written in Saxon characters, were all burnt. The whole of these muniments of ours, both great and small, nearly four hundred in number, were in one moment of a night, which proved to us of blackest hue, by a most shocking misfortune, lost and utterly destroyed (p. 200).

A few years before, however, I had of my own accord, taken from our muniment room several charters written in Saxon characters, and as we had duplicates of them, and in some instances triplicates, I had put them in the hands of our chauntor, the lord Fulmar, to be kept in the cloisters, in order to instruct the juniors in a knowledge of the Saxon characters; as this kind of writing had for a long time, on account of the Normans, been utterly neglected, and was now understood by only a few of the more aged men.... These charters having been deposited in an ancient press, which was kept in the cloisters, and surrounded on every side by the wall of the church, were the only ones that were saved and preserved from the fire.... (p. 201).