Paddington: Past and Present

by William Robins

The Dean states that the account he read was taken from an ancient MS. preserved in the archives of the Dean and Chapter. The following is the Dean’s own translation of the manuscript in question:—

“Walter, Abbot of Westminster, died the twenty-seventh of September, in the second year of King Richard the first, and in the year of our Lord, 1191.

The manor of Paddington was assigned for the celebration of his anniversary, in a solemn manner, under this form.

On the fifth of the Kalends of October (that is on the twenty-seventh of September), on the festival of Saint Cosmas and Saint Damian, the anniversary of Walter, the Abbot, is to be celebrated; and for the celebration, the manor of Paddington is put wholly in the hands of the Almoner, for the time being, and entrusted to his discretion; and this he is faithfully to observe, that whatsoever shall be the final overplus is to be expended charitably in distribution to the poor.

On the day of the celebration, the Almoner is to find for the Convent, fine manchets, cakes, crumpets, cracknells, and wafers, and a gallon of wine for each friar, with three good pittances, or doles, with good ale in abundance at every table, and in the presence of the whole brotherhood; in the same manner as upon other occasions the cellarer is bound to find beer at the usual feasts or anniversaries, in the great tankard of twenty-five quarts. [14a]

He shall also provide most honourably, and in all abundance, for the guests that dine in the refectory, bread, wine, beer, and two dishes out of the kitchen, besides the usual allowance. And for the guests of higher rank, who sit at the upper table under the bell, with the president, ample provision shall be made as well as for the Convent; and cheese shall be served on that day to both. [14b]

Agreement shall likewise be made with the cook, for vessels, utensils, and other necessaries, and not less than two shillings shall be given over above, for his own gratification and indulgence.

The Almoner is likewise to find for all comers in general, from the hour when the memorial of the anniversary is read to the end of the following day, meat, drink, hay, and provender of all sorts, in abundance; and no one either on foot or on horseback during that time shall be denied admittance at the gate.

He shall also make allowance to the Nuns at Kilburne, both bread and wine, as well as provisions from the kitchen, supplied on other days by the cellarer and the cook: neither shall the Nuns lose their ordinary allowance, on account of the extraordinary.

But the servants of the court, who are at other times accustomed to have wine and flagons, and all those who have billets upon the cellarer for allowances, shall receive wine and bread only from the Almoner on this day, and not from the cellarer; they shall likewise have a pittance from him.

But those who have a pittance from Bemfleete at other times, and three hundred poor besides, shall have a refection on this day, that is to say, a loaf of the weight of the Convent loaf, made of mixed corn, and each of them that pleases a pottle of ale; and those who have not vessels for this purpose shall take a draught at pleasure, and two dishes from the kitchen suitable to the hospitality of the day.

The Almoner, moreover, besides these doles, pittances, and allowances, shall find bread at command, but not wine, and therefore those who have the command never allow wine, though they admit military men with their swords on. [15]

He is likewise bound to find bread of mixed corn, by his office, to each of the servants, but not beer; neither is he bound to find beer for the Convent to drink after vespers, unless he chooses it as a special favour; neither does he usually find the collations.

But without all doubt, the president with his guests in the refectory, have a right to wine and beer in abundance after their refection, and the Almoner shall likewise allow mead to the Convent for the cup of charity, the loving cup.

The Almoner, also, who is not accustomed to brew in large quantities more than four times a year, shall take especial care to provide five casks of the best beer for this anniversary.

Afterwards, however, a modification was made of this anniversary in this form: namely, that every year (on the festival of the Saints aforesaid), the Prior and the convent shall sing the placebo and dirige with three lessons, as is usual on other anniversaries, and with the chiming (or a peal) of bells. That two wax candles shall be kept burning at the tomb of Walter, from the vigil of the anniversary to the end of the requiem mass the following day, which the prior or any head of the order present shall sing; and on that day the Almoner, for the time being, shall distribute two quarters of corn in baked bread to the poor, according to the usuage of the Convent; but there shall be no distribution of other things, or dispensation of alms.”

Whether the song of the monks really pleased the people as much as the cakes and ale we are not told, but considering the present use of the word placebo, we may doubt it. We are not informed either, when this modification was made; but the Dean tells us that the retrenchment was very necessary, for the convent stood in some danger of being ruined by anniversaries; almost every Abbot having one.

Widmore, who mentions this anniversary, tells us Dr. Patrick, the editor of Gunton’s History of Peterborough, got his account from John Flete, the Monkish Historian of Westminster, who died in the Convent in 1464, having completed its history, which he wrote at the request of the monks, down to 1386.

Of John Flete, Widmore says, in his account of the writers of the History of Westminster Abbey, “He sets down his authorities as he found them; but as criticism was not a study in request in his time, he neither doth, nor was, I suppose, able to distinguish what in antiquity was true and genuine from forgeries.” [16]

Of Walter of Winchester, the same learned writer remarks “There is little account left what this man did while Abbot here: he seems to have been too easy in granting out the estates of the church in fee farm: the manor of Denham in Bucks, the tithes of Boleby in Lincolnshire, the Church of St. Alban in Wood-street, what the Abbey had in Staining-lane and Friday-street, and the manor of Paglesham in Essex, were so granted by him. He seems to have been solicitous to perpetuate his memory by an anniversary, having ordered a very pompous one, much beyond those of any of his predecessors, and got the profits of the manor of Paddington assigned for that purpose: but this, sometime after, being thought too great, was very much lowered, and only loaves made of two quarters of wheat were on that day given to the poor, by the Almoner of the Abbey.”

Richard de Croksley, who died in 1258, was still more liberal with the funds he could no longer use, for he assigned the whole produce of the manors of Hamstead and Stoke for the celebration of his death-day. The ringers were paid thirteen shillings and four-pence for ringing the bells on the eve of the anniversary; one thousand poor were to receive a penny each on the first day; and for six subsequent days, five hundred were to receive daily one penny, for which sixteen pounds, thirteen shillings and four-pence was assigned; while for the arduous duties enjoined on the monks—“for the repose of the Abbot’s soul, four monks were to celebrate mass at four different altars every day for ever,” only twenty-seven pounds was given. But in less than ten years after this Abbot’s death “the burthen of commemorating him in the way he had ordained was found too heavy to be borne;” and after petitioning the Pope on this subject, and receiving his mandate thereon, this anniversary was modified and ten marks was assigned for keeping it. [17]

From the Taxatio Ecclesiastica, made under the authority of Pope Nicholas the fourth, and published by the Record Commissioners, we learn that a century after the death of Walter, the whole of the temporalities of Paddington were devoted to the purposes of charity; that they arose from the rent of land, and the young of animals, and were valued at eight pounds, sixteen shillings and four-pence. And the same valuable work informs us of a chapel built and endowed in this place, at the time this survey was taken.

In the preface to this work the following account of this taxation is given—

“In the year 1288, Pope Nicholas the fourth, granted the tenths of all Ecclesiastical benefices to King Edward the first, for six years, towards defraying the expense of an expedition to the Holy Land; and that they might be collected to their full value, a taxation by the King’s Precept was begun in that year (1288) and finished as to the Province of Canterbury in 1291, and as to that of York in the following year; the whole being under the direction of John, Bishop of Winton, and Oliver, Bishop of Lincoln.

The taxation of Pope Nicholas is a most important Record, because all the taxes, as well to our Kings as the Popes, were regulated by it until the survey made in the twenty-sixth year of Henry the eighth.”