In this Priory happened that most disgraceful scene of violence in which the Archbishop of Canterbury, an alien of Provence, was the chief aggressor, when he visited the Priory in defiance of the rights of the Bishop of London and replied to remonstrance by violence. This prelate was Boniface, uncle of Queen Eleanor of Provence, who had been brought to this country with so many of his countrymen and preferred to the highest place that the realm had to offer (see vol. i. p. 29).
We have in this episode a graphic and most suggestive picture of the exasperation caused by the admission of aliens to the offices and dignities which, above all, required a knowledge of the country and its institutions and its prejudices. The rights and privileges of ecclesiastics and of Religious Houses were defended with the greatest possible jealousy and tenacity. It was clearly a privilege of this House that their visitor was the Bishop of London, and that the Archbishop had no right to intrude himself into the House. That he did so is proof of an attempt at encroachment, of which an Englishman would have been incapable. But observe, as well, the arrogance of the Prelate. He seizes the Sub-prior and hurls him against a pillar; the Canons run to his rescue, and the Archbishop is thrown on his back ignominiously, betraying the fact that he is armed beneath his episcopal robes. And his men, his followers, are themselves strangers and aliens—men of Provence, like himself.
THE GATE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW’S PRIORY
From the Grangerised edition of Brayley’s London and Middlesex in Guildhall Library.
It may be observed, as well, that the citizens had their own standard of episcopal duties, if the words are correctly reported. “He is no winner of souls,” they cry: “he is an exacter of money, whom neither God nor any lawful or free election did bring to this promotion.” That the ideal of the people was so far above the practice of the prelates in such cases as this shows, it might be fairly argued, that the parish priest of Chaucer, drawn a hundred and fifty years later, existed already in the thirteenth century.
The restored plan of the Priory is here reproduced by permission of the Rev. Sir Borradaile Savory, Bart.
In 1410 the church was rebuilt “almost anew.” The apse of the east end was removed; a square east end terminating with two large windows was inserted; the Norman Lady Chapel was taken down and the present one erected with a crypt; the Norman Clerestory was taken down and replaced by the present one; the Norman capitals were changed; the stone screen under the North Transept was inserted, probably to give strength to the piers. A Chantry Chapel was built on the north side of the north aisle. In wills of this period St. Katherine’s Chapel is referred to, also a Pardon churchyard. A stone pulpit was put up in the choir. A peal of five bells was given to the church in 1520 by one Thomas Bullesden. This is the oldest peal in London, and the bells are dedicated respectively to St. Bartholomew, St. Anna, St. Peter, St. Katherine, St. Johannes Baptista.
The last Prior but one was Bolton (1506-1522). He built the oriel window on the south side of the Choir. His rebus of a Bolt-in-Tun is in the centre panel. The same rebus is found in the spandril of the door leading into the Vestry Room, and in the brickwork of Canonbury Tower, Islington, which was also built by Bolton. This Tower, with buildings now destroyed, standing in extensive grounds, the boundaries of which can still be made out, was apparently a summer residence of the Canons.
To return to the Hospital, Rahere’s first Hospitaller was Alfune, who built St. Giles’s, Cripplegate, also outside the walls. Alfune used to go into the shambles every morning begging scraps and bits of meat for the sick men and women. He had under his orders eight Brothers of the Hospital, who were priests as well as physicians, and four sisters.