NOTES
1. CUL, Letter to M. R. James, Add 7481, Letter J40.
2. For Augustus Jessopp’s thoughts about the text and its significance, see also his ‘St William of Norwich’, The Nineteenth Century 33 (1893), pp. 749–66.
3. See R. W. Pfaff, Montague Rhodes James (London: Scolar Press, 1980), p. 99. The letters sent by Jessopp to James are kept as part of the M. R. James archive at Cambridge University Library; only fragments have remained of James’s letters to Jessopp and these are kept in the Norfolk Record Office. Jessopp’s letters make fascinating reading about a relationship between scholars (CUL Add. 7481, J40–J82).
4. M. R. James, Eton and King’s: Recollections, Mostly Trivial, 1875–1925 (London: Williams & Norgate Ltd, 1926), pp. 205–6; also The Life and Miracles of St William of Norwich by Thomas of Monmouth, trans. and ed. Augustus Jessopp and Montague Rhodes James (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986) [henceforward Jessopp and James], p. 1. See also Nicholas Roscarrock’s Lives of the Saints: Cornwall and Devon, ed. Nicholas Orme, Devon and Cornwall Record Society, new ser. 35 (1992); see below, note 36.
5. For details, see Jessopp and James, p. vi.
6. M. R. James thought that two books were bound together here, since folios 81ra–83ra (where the Life of Wulfric of Haselbury begins) are written in a smaller hand (between 36–40 characters to an average line, rather than around 32 in other parts). Other contingencies may explain this change, but the book is fully conjoined at that point. I am most grateful to Dr Tessa Webber for helping me understand the manuscript.
7. I am extremely grateful to Dr Jenny Sheppard, coordinator of the Medieval Bookbinding Structures Census Project, for sharing with me her detailed analysis of the binding, and for confirming a date of c. 1200 (‘late twelfth-century binding (possibly very early thirteenth century’). I am struck by the similarity of the binding to those of several books from Buildwas Priory: see Jennifer M. Sheppard, The Buildwas Books: Book Production, Acquisition and Use at an English Cistercian Monastery, 1165–c.1400, Oxford Bibliographical Society Publications, Third series, vol.2 (Oxford: Oxford Bibliographical Society, 1997), see figure 33.
8. For M. R. James’s description, see Jessopp and James, pp. l–liii.
9. See the detailed description in Jayne Ringrose, Summary Catalogue of the Additional Medieval Manuscripts in Cambridge University Library Acquired before 1940 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2009), pp. 50–51.
10. ‘Epistola de canone missae’, Patrologia Latina 194, ed. J.-P. Migne (Paris, 1878), cols. 1889–96; on this text, see Franz Bliemetzrieder, ‘Isaac de Stella, sa spéculation théologique’, Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale 4 (1932), pp. 134–59; esp. pp. 135–7; E. Rozanne Elder, ‘Early Cistercian Writers’, in The Cambridge Companion to the Cistercian Order, ed. Mette Birkedal Bruun (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 199–217, at pp. 199–204, and Bernard McGinn, The Golden Chain: A Study in the Theological Anthropology of Isaac of Stella (Washington, DC: Cistercian Publications, 1972), pp. 2–7, and on the Epistola, pp. 30–31. Isaac de l’Etoîle’s writings were rare in England; Leland recorded a copy of his sermons at Tewkesbury Abbey.
11. ‘Expositio in apocalypsin’, Patrologia Latina 117, ed. J.-P. Migne (Paris, 1852), cols. 937–1220; lib. VII, col. 1206: ‘Smargadus pretiosus […] doctrina confortant’. This commentary was popular in the twelfth century. I am grateful to Winston Black for explaining the use of lapidary knowledge in biblical commentary.
12. Folios 81–82 are copied more densely, and the habitual hand resumes on fol. 83. For a translation of the Life, preceded by an excellent introduction, see John of Forde, The Life of Wulfric of Haselbury, Anchorite, trans. Pauline Matarasso (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2011), pp. 2–84; on John of Forde, pp. 2–5; and on the four surviving manuscripts, p. 81. For an edition of the Latin text, see Wulfric of Haselbury, by John, Abbot of Ford, ed. Maurice Bell, Somerset Record Society 47 (1933). On the text, see H. Mayr-Harting, ‘Functions of a Twelfth-Century Recluse’, History 60 (1975), pp. 337–52; Elder, ‘Early Cistercian Writers’, pp. 206–7. See also Susan J. Ridyard, ‘Functions of a Twelfth-Century Recluse Revisited: The Case of Godric of Finchale’, in Belief and Culture in the Middle Ages: Studies Presented to Henry Mayr-Harting, ed. Richard Gameson and Henrietta Leyser (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 236–50.
13. I am extremely grateful to Margaret Coombe for sharing her research on the Lives of Godric of Finchale with me. Might Walter be Walter Daniel of Rievaulx, the author of the Life of Aelred, rewriting an earlier Life of Godric?
14. I have not been able to identify this poem, although other poems for this occasion are known, such as that by the scholar and courtier Henry of Avranches (see The Shorter Latin Poems of Master Henry of Avranches Relating to England, ed. Josiah Cox Russell and John Paul Heironimus (Cambridge, MA: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1935), no. 44, p. 54) and by the monk Matthew of Rievaulx (see André Wilmart, ‘Les Mélanges de Mathieu, préchantre de Rievaulx au début du XIIIe siècle’, Revue bénédictine 52 (1940), pp. 15–84; poem VIII, p. 57). Julie Barrau and Nicholas Vincent are currently working on these verses.
15. Jessopp and James, p. lii.
16. On the Life of Wulfric citing Godric’s Life, see John of Forde, The Life of Wulfric of Haselbury, pp. 106, 109, 113, 132. See also Gillian R. Evans, Bernard of Clairvaux (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 37–41.
17. See, for example, fol. 3rb and fol. 32rb. And there are more elaborate initials with elaborate pen flourishes, like those on fols. 32rb and 49rb, which fit the late twelfth-century dating of the manuscript. On such decoration, see Patricia Stirnemann, ‘Fils de la vierge: L’initiale à filigranes parisienne: 1140–1314’, Revue de l’Art 90 (1990), pp. 58–73.
18. I greatly benefited from studying the manuscript with Dr Tessa Webber and Professor Rodney Thomson. See also Nigel Palmer, ‘Simul cantemus, simul pausemus: Zur mittelalterlichen Zisterzienserinterpunktion’, in Lesevorgänge: Prozesse des Erkennens in mittelalterlichen Texten, Bildern und Handschriften, ed. Eckart Conrad Lutz, Martina Backes and Stefan Matter (Zurich: Chronos, 2010), pp. 483–569; esp. p. 497; and M. B. Parkes, Pause and Effect: An Introduction to the History of Punctuation in the West (Aldershot: Scolar, 1992), pp. 131, 49.
19. On shared features in Cistercian decorative style, see Anne Lawrence, ‘English Cistercian Manuscripts of the Twelfth Century’, in Cistercian Art and Architecture in the British Isles, ed. Christopher Norton and David Park (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 284–98.
20. See Anne Lawrence, ‘Cistercian Decoration: Twelfth-Century Legislation on Illumination and its Interpretation in England’, Reading Medieval Studies 21 (1995), pp. 31–52, esp. pp. 32–7.
21. ‘Vita S. Gulielmi Nordouicensis a Thoma monacho Monumetensi ad Gulielmum episcopum Nordouicensem scripta. Prologus carmine scriptus est. Martyres egregii. Cetera scribuntur soluta oratione’, English Benedictine Libraries: The Shorter Catalogues, ed. J. P. Carley, R. Sharpe, R. M. Thomson and A. G. Watson, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues 4 (London: The British Library in association with the British Academy, 1996), p. 307; and the original edited in John Leland, Collectanea (IV), ed. Thomas Hearne (London: Benjamin White, 1774), p. 28; Jessopp and James, p. lviii. See also on Leland’s visit to Norwich, John Leland, De uiris illustribus: On Famous Men, ed. James P. Carley with Caroline Brett, British Writers of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period 1, Studies and Texts (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2010), pp. lxxxii–lxxxiii. A manuscript noted in a mid-fourteenth-century catalogue of Ramsey Abbey was entitled ‘Vita sancti Willelmi’. It has not survived, but it may have been a Life of William of Norwich; see B68.373 in English Benedictine Libraries: The Shorter Catalogues, p. 391.
22. Nova Legenda Anglie II, ed. Carl Horstman (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1901), pp. 452–5; Peter J. Lucas, ‘John Capgrave and the Nova Legenda Anglie: A Survey’, The Library, fifth ser. 25 (1970), pp.
1–10. For a comparison of these excerpts with the Life and Passion in our manuscript, see Jessopp and James, pp. liv–lviii. William of Norwich was included already in the martyrology compiled by Richard Whytford, a brother of Syon Monastery, and printed in 1526: The Martiloge in Englysshe after the Use of the Chirche of Salisbury and as it is Redde in Syon with Addicyons, ed. F. Procter and E. S. Dewick (London: Harrison and Sons, 1893), pp. xvi, 57–8; William also entered the second edition of Cesare Baronius’s Martyrologium romanum (Antwerp: Christopher Plantin, 1589), p. 493.
23. See above, p. xli, note 57. On a ‘double feast’ the antiphon, a short chant, was sung before as well as after each psalm, as was the custom; see Robert Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things? Saints and Worshippers from the Martyrs to the Reformation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013), pp. 122–3.
24. On Bury St Edmunds, see The Chronicle of Bury St Edmunds 1212–1301, ed. Antonia Gransden (London: Nelson, 1964), p. 51. Those identified as organizers of the riot were later tried and hanged at the behest of Henry III. See the detailed and dramatic local account in Bartholomaei de Cotton, Historia Anglicana, Rolls Series 16, ed. H. R. Luard (London: HMSO, 1859), pp. 146–9.
25. On the fire, see James Campbell, ‘Norwich before 1300’, in Medieval Norwich, ed. Carole Rawcliffe and Richard Wilson (London: Hambledon Press, 2004), pp. 29–48; esp. pp. 34–5. On the consequences for Norwich Cathedral’s library, see H. C. Beeching and M. R. James, ‘The Library of the Cathedral Church of Norwich’, Norfolk Archaeology 19 (1915), pp. 84–90, and N. R. Ker, ‘Medieval Manuscripts from Norwich Cathedral Priory’, Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society 1 (1949), pp. 1–28.
26. Ibid., pp. 23–8.
27. See Norman Tanner, The Church in Late Medieval Norwich 1370–1532 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1984), pp. 83–4, 206, 210.
28. Many of the books from Norwich Cathedral Priory (which was dissolved on 6 April 1539) reached Cambridge University Library through the efforts of the antiquary Robert Talbot (1505/6–58). His executor was Nicholas Harpsfield (1519–75), a Catholic polemicist with strong northern connections.
29. See Sibton Abbey Cartularies and Charters I, ed. Philippa Brown (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 1985), pp. 17–18; Leopold Janauschek, Originum Cisterciensium I (Vienna: Alfred Hoelder, 1877), p. 118. Several great tenants-in-chief founded Cistercian houses under King Stephen.
30. On the de Cheneys’ genealogy, see Sibton Abbey Cartularies and Charters II, ed. Philippa Brown (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 1986), pp. 8–10.
31. ‘propter multa mala que gesserat tam tempore pacis quo regebat vicecomitatum quam tempore belli’, Sibton Abbey Cartularies and Charters III, ed. Philippa Brown (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 1987), no. 470, pp. 1–2.
32. See David Knowles and R. Neville Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses: England and Wales (London: Longman, 1971), p. 125, and Sibton Abbey Cartularies and Charters IV, ed. Philippa Brown (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 1988), no. 1187, pp. 109–11. The fate of monastic manuscripts after the dissolution of the monasteries and the suppression of the monastic function in cathedral priories in England between 1536 and 1540 is a complex and varied one. See James P. Carley, ‘The Dispersal of the Monastic Libraries and the Salvaging of the Spoils’, in The Cambridge History of Libraries in Britain and Ireland, Volume I: To 1640, ed. Elisabeth Leedham-Green and Teresa Webber (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 265–91.
33. Medieval Cartularies of Great Britain and Ireland, ed. G. R. C. Davies, rev. Claire Breay, Julian Harrison and David M. Smith (London: The British Library, 2010), no. 897, p. 181. I am most grateful to Nicholas Vincent, who suggested I trace cartulary ownership.
34. CUL Add 3037, fols. 4ra, 16va, 73ra in The Life and Passion; elsewhere throughout the manuscript, fols. 81r, 122r, 134rb. See Richard Ovenden and Stuart Handley, ‘Howard, Lord William (1563–1640)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004). On William Howard, see also Priscilla Bawcutt, ‘Lord William Howard of Naworth (1563–1640): Antiquary, Book Collector, and Owner of the Scottish Devotional Manuscript British Library, Arundel 285’, Textual Cultures: Texts, Contexts, Interpretation 7 (2012), pp. 158–75.
35. See Richard Ovenden, ‘The Libraries of the Antiquaries (c. 1580–1640) and the Idea of a National Collection’, in The Cambridge History of Libraries in Britain and Ireland, Volume I: To 1640, ed. Elisabeth Leedham-Green and Teresa Webber (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 527–61, esp. p. 533. On Lord Howard’s library, see David Mathew, ‘The Library at Naworth’, in For Hilaire Belloc: Essays in Honour of his 72nd Birthday, ed. Douglas Woodruff (London: Sheed & Ward, 1942), pp. 117–30.
36. Roscarrock was the author of an anthology, Lives of the Saints (CUL Add 3041 (C)), based on his research into medieval sources. He included William of Norwich in the calendar on 25 March (7r) and William also appears in the list of contents (23rb), though unfortunately the section dedicated to him has been torn away. On Roscarrock’s Lives see Nicholas of Roscarrock’s Lives of the Saints, esp. pp. 14–23.
37. On the Langdale Rosary, see Ronald W. Lightbown, Mediaeval European Jewellery with a Catalogue of the Collection in the Victoria & Albert Museum (London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1992), no. 81, pp. 526–8, plates 144, 144a, 144b. Two other saints named William appear on the second bead added at that time; see http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O17851/the-langdale-rosary-rosary-unknown. The Langdales were descendants of William Howard.
38. The Roscarrock family owned a farm in the Cornish village of St Endellion; see Nicholas of Roscarrock’s Lives of the Saints, p.5.
39. On the Brent Eleigh Library, see Ringrose, Summary Catalogue of the Additional Medieval Manuscripts, pp. 49–50; and on Fane Edge’s Howard connection, see Rebecca Rushforth, St Margaret’s Gospel-Book: The Favourite Book of an Eleventh-Century Queen of Scots (Oxford: Bodleian Library, 2007), pp. 103–104.
Obverse and reverse of a coin struck by Eustace, a moneyer of Norwich associated with one of the miracles.
(Courtesy of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.)
Prologue
[This is] the prologue1 to the life and passion of Saint William the martyr of Norwich.
To my father, of reverend holiness, and lord, William, Bishop of Norwich,2 by the grace of God, I, Thomas of Monmouth, the lowliest of his monks, send my greetings and the due service of obedience. Sharing, as I do, in the love that all have for you, and attached with a special devotion of my own, I have striven to offer and share with you, father, this little work, as much because I want your opinion of it as because I am excited by what we3 have discovered. And since Rome itself has recognized your eloquence, and Gaul has discovered it, too, and the whole of England has very often also realized it,4 nobody would therefore wonder that I should submit myself to the wise judgement of your consideration, and be led by your chastisement. Accordingly, let those across the sea, as well as our English folk, know how many rivers of eloquence have flowed forth from you, and what expert knowledge you have, in both divine and secular studies, and what fluency of speech contributes to that flow. Therefore, as I set out to put together the miracles of the glorious martyr William, I humbly implore your fatherly love, your loving kindness and your kindly favour,5 so that you grant me perfect pardon for my imperfect presumption.
Since I am, indeed, but slow in skill and untutored in eloquence, yet compelled by love for the blessed martyr – since I cannot remain silent about his virtues – so in the manner of babbling children, who of their own accord set out to do what they cannot adequately complete, I, too, have attempted somehow to offer my mumblings about them as far as I can. I do not doubt that in the sight of the omnipotent and pious Lord the accomplishment of a work is of less consequence than is the straightforward motive of pious intention. Hence, I forewarn the reader – if indeed anyone, inspired by love, wishes to read this little book – to seek in the course of this work not eloquence,
nor the charm of words, but rather an answer on my behalf to those who envy or detract, so that some pardon is granted to this new work. I say this, then, not in order to praise my effort impertinently, as if under a cloud of excuses, but rather, knowing the hard labour it has involved, in order to invite those who are interested in something new to read it. Travellers are sometimes more grateful to have a drizzle of water from a little trickling spring when they are thirsty, than a gushing flow of a fountain whose plenty they do not find at their time of need. Likewise, those who delight in the cultivated beauty of gardens sometimes find wild flowers pleasing too. The words of Virgil are often apposite: ‘White privets fall, dark hyacinths are culled.’6
The subject matter of a writer justifies him, when a worthless multitude of words may displease, but the true sense, or even faithful truth, will not displease. I have preferred, therefore, to forgo my modesty, rather than that so many and such great virtues of the holy martyr William should grow old in oblivion or in the rust of disregard. And since love for my brothers has commanded me to hammer out his [William’s] passion7 and miracles on my anvil, I undertake to make them known to the devotion of believers, in an effort not so much to be elegant but to be truthful. And so, like the ass who is neither sufficiently strong to bear the load nor able to throw it off, I submit myself to so pious a labour. I would have preferred that some carrier more suitable for this load be found, and would prove to be so, but this has not happened, so I prefer myself to no one at all. And although, by so boldly setting forth, I confess myself guilty of presumption, nevertheless let there be pardon when compelling fraternal pressure is my excuse. For it is not presumptuous to make known to those who wish to know the lives and virtues of saints. ‘Keeping the king’s secret is, of course, a good thing, to make the works of God known is an honourable thing’;8 and it is the duty of each and every Christian.
The Life and Passion of William of Norwich (Penguin Classics) Page 7