The Abbot's Gibbet
( A Knights Templar Mystery - 5 )
Michael JECKS
The year is 1319 and Tavistock's fair has drawn merchants to Devon from all over England and beyond. Keeping the streets clean and the locals in order is no easy task, for the influx of visitors and their money puts temptation in the way of cut-purses and other villains. But no one expects a murder, and butcher Will Ruby is stunned to discover a corpse – a headless corpse at that.
Former Knight Templar Sir Baldwin Furnshill, Keeper of the King's Peace, and Simon Puttock, bailiff of Lydford, have just arrived in Tavistock as guests of Abbot Robert Champeaux when the body is found. The crime falls within the Abbot's jurisdiction, and when he asks Simon and Baldwin to investigate, they can hardly refuse. But with an unidentifiable victim, they're badly hampered in their inquiries.
Nonetheless there's no shortage of suspicious behaviour to spur them on. Elias, the cook near whose shop the gruesome remains were found, clearly has something to hide. A surprisingly aggressive young monk has been behaving in an ungodly fashion. And the town is awash with strangers, any one of whom could be concealing a sinister past.
Can Simon and Baldwin unravel the complex web of intrigue that has brought death to Tavistock, as the undercurrents of anger and violence that lie beneath the bustling activity of the fair grow ever fiercer?
Michael Jecks
THE ABBOT'S GIBBET
1998
Author's Note
Most readers will be surprised to hear the town of Tavistock described as a port. It lies many miles from the north and south coasts of Devon, and the River Tavy is not deep enough to allow large ships to navigate so far – nor was it in 1319.
However in those days a port was not a coastal town, but any place where merchants could bring their goods to trade, and living in a port conferred attractive rights upon the town-dweller. He was invariably free, in an age when men commonly owed feudal service to their lord, and could often make good money from sidelines: renting out rooms to visitors or selling food and drink. At the same time, citizens were free of tolls, so they could participate in the profits of the market or fair without having to pay for the privilege.
Certainly in Tavistock the citizens grew wealthy at the expense of older towns such as Lydford and Chagford, and their duties as townsfolk were minimal. The portmen could be called on to serve as port-reeve (a sort of cross between a mayor and a magistrate) or some other position; had to go to the Borough Court when called; had to use the Abbey’s mill; had to pay rent to the Abbey – but that was about it. In exchange they no longer had to go to the Abbey’s fields to work, which must have been a huge relief, because all too often people had to leave their own crops to wilt on the best harvesting days because their lord expected his to be brought in first.
For all the positive aspects there were few negatives. The citizens of Tavistock liked being free portmen.
The modern reader may also find the medieval legal system a little confusing compared with our contemporary juridical process.
There has always been a problem collecting enough information to be certain of convicting someone, whether or not it’s the right “someone.” Nowadays we have the Crown Prosecution Service, which sifts all the available evidence and tries to establish whether there is enough for a conviction before incurring the expense of going to court. If the solicitors in the CPS think there isn’t, the case isn’t brought, which is why you can find police officers in pubs muttering darkly into their whiskies about having to try each case before it ever comes before a jury, and if prompted with another whisky, they will usually continue by demanding how much the CPS itself costs, how much it costs to have the police preparing cases for the CPS, and how many extra policemen could be paid for by that sum.
In the fourteenth century, this would be incomprehensible. The concept of justice then was that the men of the jury were the only people who could determine a man’s guilt or innocence. It was the ancient, accepted, understood, and fair approach. In those days, people had faith in the judgment of their peers. The process of justice was not complex. Although it wasn’t consistent across the country, it was at least understandable to the average person, be they freeman or peasant, which is more than can be said for our present system.
For example, if a sudden death occurred, the man who found the body was expected to raise the hue and cry. This often meant little more than bellowing for help. Normally, the man who discovered the corpse, the first finder, would then be attached, or held until he had paid a surety to guarantee he would appear at the court. The four nearest neighbours would also be attached, as would any relatives who could be found; they would have to swear to the dead man’s Englishry – the fact that he was English – in court. Meanwhile the hue and cry would chase over the country.
In theory the man accused of a crime would be arrested, and the local court would try him before a jury of ten to twenty men (the number varied in different areas) formed of local freemen and others, and the matter would be closed. Sadly, real life is rarely so straightforward.
For example, if the suspect managed to get to a known place of sanctuary, he could stay there for a while. The local coroner could demand that he should surrender, and some did. Most who did so were not found guilty of murder, but of killing in self-defense or by accident – which leads one to suppose that the posse must have set off in hot blood, and once calmer counsel was taken, even angry locals could accept the suspect’s evidence.
The second course offered by the coroner was that of abjuring the realm. Justice then, as now, was expensive. Far preferable that a criminal should compensate the kingdom for breaking the King’s peace by paying, and then leaving forever. A felon could be granted his life, but lost everything else: home, money, property – everything.
An abjurer had to leave the kingdom by the shortest road. He would be taken to a stile or church gate away from the town center, and made to swear an oath on the Gospels before the coroner that he would leave everything behind (most of which would be taken by the local lord or the King), and make his journey clothed in white and carrying a wooden cross to demonstrate his penitence. The official would tell him which roads he might take, where he could stay overnight, and which port he must go to, and if he failed, he could be executed instantly. If he left the road, if he remained for too long on his way, if he ever returned to the kingdom, he could be beheaded, and the men who visited punishment on him would be immune from prosecution.
Lastly, it was often hard to get enough reliable witnesses to any crime, and just as today we need super-grasses, the prosecution sometimes depended on criminals ratting on their colleagues. Now it is termed turning Queen’s evidence; then it was called approving. An approver was a man who agreed to confess and give away his partners in exchange for his life. Afterward he would have to abjure the realm: not necessarily only because the law demanded it – such a man was not universally popular in the area.
I have been asked whether any of the characters in my books really existed. In the main, the answer has to be “No,” for the simple reason that chroniclers didn’t take any interest in the lower classes. Peasants didn’t merit comment in most records.
With the more important characters, I have tried to include any whose times were documented. Thus Walter Stapledon was the Bishop of Exeter; he was a powerful man who contributed to Exeter Cathedral, who was involved with the Ordainers and later helped create the Middle Party, who founded Stapledon Hall in Oxford (now called Exeter College), and who began a grammar school in Exeter. Later he was to become Lord High Treasurer to the King, until murdered by the London mob in 1326.
Likewise Abbot Champeaux was a real man, notable for his ac
hievements in promoting his Abbey. He is described as an amiable and benevolent man, known for his piety, and from the records appears to have been fond of hunting (he kept getting told off for poaching on the moors), kindly with his more wayward monks, and generous.
That he was shrewd can be seen from his ability to increase the wealth of the Abbey. When he was elected Abbot in 1285, he inherited debts and had to borrow ₤200, a vast sum; by the time he died in 1324, the Abbey’s treasury had acquired ₤1,200. This was based on his success in divesting himself of unprofitable lands and expensive responsibilities, in making astute loans to the Crown to finance wars, and in purchasing offices, such as warden of the stannaries and controller of the silver mines. The profits of these were huge, as can be guessed from the fact that Champeaux paid ₤100 per annum for the profits of the wardenship alone.
But these men, as they appear in my books, are fictitious. Chronicles give only bald facts – there aren’t even pictures of these two men so far as I know – so I have had to invent them as I think they would have been. Much the same is true of the Abbey and its fair.
Tavistock Abbey never regained its prominence after Champeaux’s death. It had a period without an Abbot, and then Robert Bonus was forced on the unwilling monks, a man who had to be deposed for “contumacy and intemperate behaviour” in 1333. John de Courtenay took over, but he was vain, addicted to hunting and field sports, and a spendthrift. The Abbey sank into decline as the plague laid waste to the nation, and never recovered. It, like so many others, was swept away in the Reformation. Now there is little to see of this once-great institution.
Michael Jecks
Godstone, August 1997
N. B. For those who wish to find out more about Tavistock, Abbot Champeaux, and the history of the fair and town, I recommend H.P.R. Finberg’s Tavistock Abbey (Cambridge University Press, 1951).
1
The sun was almost unbearably hot, the journey distinctly uncomfortable. Arthur Pole wiped his face with the hem of his cloak to clear the fine dust that rose from the road in thin clouds as hooves and cartwheels stirred it.
“Is it far now, Arthur?”
Marion, his wife, was a few yards behind him on her new mare. An amblere, it was trained to give a lady a smooth ride, swinging first the legs of one side of its body, then the other, always moving left together, then right. It had been ruinously expensive, for training a horse in such a gait was difficult, but the gift was necessary to compensate her for having to make this journey at the height of the humid summer heat.
“Not far, dear,” he said. “Would you like to halt and refresh yourself? We have wine, if…”
“Father, if you give her any more of your wine, Mother won’t be able to stay on her horse,” his daughter called cheerfully.
Arthur stifled a smile as his wife snapped back waspishly. After two days travelling from Exeter, where he had been engaged on business, his backside ached, but his excitement made him want to get on. It was two months since he and his family had left their home on the coast and made the journey to Exeter to meet a steward of the King, and in his purse he had a written authority to buy wine on behalf of the royal household for when King Edward II visited later in the year. Now he was on the way to Tavistock Fair to acquire the best available, and his profit should be enough to stock another ship with fleece to be sold in Flanders. With any luck he wouldn’t have to visit any more fairs for two or three years, but could rest at his home living on the proceeds.
His daughter interrupted his musings as she came alongside him with her maid, and he could see her gaze fixed firmly ahead. “Looking forward to it, my dear?”
“Of course I am. It’s the first fair I’ve been to for five years, Father.”
“I only hope it justifies your enthusiasm.”
“Oh, it will! You’ve always told me that Tavistock has the best fair in the land.”
“Your mother will insist that I buy you the best, too.”
“Don’t sound so sour!” she laughed. “You wouldn’t want me to dress like a beggar, would you?”
“Certainly not, especially for your wedding.”
His feelings for his daughter ran very deep. Partly it led from comparison with his wife. Where Marion could snap, Avice was gentle; where his wife was careful with money, Avice was generous; where his wife sought his errors and corrected them, Avice always congratulated him on his successes. In short, for Arthur Pole, the most important woman in his life was his daughter, and he would move heaven and earth to please her, no matter what the cost – and yet he wanted to make sure that his wife was not discountenanced. If she was upset, he would be the first to hear, every time, and he had no wish to see her with her nose out of joint over the matter of his daughter’s marriage. She had set her heart on having her daughter, her only daughter, marry a squire, and join herself to a decent, noble family. It was her only desire, and he did love his wife and respect her wishes.
His words made Avice quiet a moment. She had always been a dutiful daughter, but the thought of marrying John of Hatherleigh was not thrilling. John was the son of a knight, but the purpose of the match was advancement, not love: John was related to the de Courtenays.
The family was the most powerful in Devon, and any attachment to them could only reflect well on Arthur, and as Marion had pointed out, with the dowry Arthur would grant, Avice need not worry about John’s income. Yet she did worry, increasingly, as she thought of his thick lips and heavy brows, powerful shoulders and strutting arrogance. John looked the kind of man who might take pleasure in beating his wife.
Avice thrust the idea from her. The sun was shining, she was on her way to a fair, and the wedding was some way in the future. It was not worth worrying about. As Marion had said, he would probably listen to her, just as Arthur took advice from her mother. It was the way of marriage, in which the wife ordered all things in the household while the man saw to his duties outside. In any case, as she knew, it was the part of a daughter to accept the groom selected for her.
“Father, this house where we are to stay, is it close to the fair itself?”
“Yes, it’s in the town, but it’s only a short walk to the ground. I have stayed there before, in previous years, and there is plenty of space.”
“It was lucky you could find a place,” she said. Avice knew how quickly properties would be rented. One of the best opportunities the townspeople had for making money came from selling sleeping space to visitors for the duration of the fair.
“There was no luck. The owner was pleased enough to agree,” Arthur said. The amount he had offered had guaranteed it, but he didn’t grudge the expense. His margin would more than justify the costs. “Anyway, I didn’t want to arrive with you and your mother and then have to hunt high and low for a miserable hovel.”
“Mother wouldn’t like it!”
“Um, no.”
Avice glanced over her shoulder. Her mother was riding along comfortably enough with her maid beside her. Behind was Henry, her father’s groom, while Arthur’s steward rode in the wagon at the rear. It was the first time Avice had gone away with her parents on such an extended journey, and she was surprised at the military efficiency of the operation. The wagon held Arthur’s strongbox, filled with money and important documents. In case of emergencies, Arthur had brought several pewter plates as well, which could be used either for entertaining or pawned for cash. The entourage, with the three of them, two maids, the steward and a groom, was the largest Avice had been a part of, and she was filled with pride that her father could make such a brave show.
She caught a glimpse of dust far beyond the wagon. “Father, it looks as if someone else is making for the fair.”
“Eh?” Arthur turned and peered back. His first thought was that they were about to be waylaid, but his suspicion was groundless. There were only three riders galloping up behind them.
Outlaws were still all too common, especially on busy roads like this from Exeter. The famines of 1315 and 1316, still refer
red to with awed horror, had forced many to leave their land when the rain destroyed crops and left whole communities starving, and wandering bands of homeless and hopeless men robbed at will on all the main roads in the kingdom, but few of them could afford horses. The men approaching must be merchants.
“Good day, sirs,” he called as they came closer.
The first was a solid man in his late forties, paunchy, and with a florid face. His eyes were light gray, and creased with pleasure as he returned the merchant’s greeting courteously enough. Arthur thought he must come from one of the cities in the Papal States, or perhaps Florence or Venice; his accent was strange as he returned the greeting, “Good day. Are you travelling to the fair as well?”
“Yes. I have to buy wine. And you?”
“My son Pietro and I are to visit the Abbot of Tavistock.”
It was said with a calm hauteur, and Arthur accepted his subservient position. If the Italian could call on an Abbot, a man who ranked with a lord, he must be important. Once Avice was married to John, a little of that great family’s importance would reflect on him, but until then Arthur knew he was only a merchant, someone who might be rich, but who was insignificant compared with a man of God or even the poorest member of the nobility. Caste was important, and Arthur knew his place in society. He might well be one of the most affluent men in southern Devon, yet to a knight or baron he was simply a commoner, and as such unimportant.
Arthur passed a measuring eye over the man. There was no doubt in his mind that the stranger was very prosperous. His tunic was expensive, of softly woven wool, and his shoes were of supple red leather. At his belt was a sword, and Arthur wondered a moment whether he might be a knight, but although he carried the trappings, something struck a wrong note. Neither he nor his son displayed a shield; neither had heraldic arms woven into their clothing. Their servant, who led two packhorses laden with goods and a large box, was dressed only poorly in a coarse tunic with a linen shirt beneath and ordinary hose whereas a knight’s man-at-arms would have demonstrated how well-heeled his master was by wearing a costly uniform to display his rank and position. This servant was no better clad than Arthur’s groom.
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