Medieval society was a highly religious place.
In people’s minds the spiritual and the natural world were
intertwined. Evil was all around, and battle had to be done to protect people
from malignant forces that surrounded on all sides.
This battle was undertaken by an army of spiritual warriors
who prayed and worshiped between them around the clock for the souls of both
the living and the dead.
Priests, monks, friars, priors, chaplains, warrior monks, Hospitallers,
nuns, vicars, chantrists, Bishops and Abbots took this fight for salvation to
the enemy, and protected their flocks.
Their abbeys, priories, churches, chantries, perceptories,
chapels and roadside shrines dotted the landscape of Medieval Sherwood Forest in
the towns and villages, and in the remote areas of the great heaths and woods
(see the Monks and Friars of Sherwood Forest entry).
In modern times a life in the cloth is seen as a calling- a
spiritual choice based on faith. In medieval times where all the world was
religious and had faith, it was a career choice taken by many younger sons of
the local gentry; by clerics wishing to rise through the ranks; and by great
men of the realm becoming Abbots and Bishops and wielding incredible power and
attaining immense wealth.
Many of those who joined the church probably lived quiet
lives dutifully tending to their flock and the needs of their parishioners...
But such quiet lives rarely raise enough of an eyebrow to
warrant recording... but for every quiet and dutiful man of the cloth there was
a ‘priest behaving badly’ to provide us with a rich story of life in medieval times...
the religious men of Medieval Sherwood Forest were no different...
The religious houses of Sherwood Forest provide us with many
tales of misdemeanour:
Monks were often
found wandering away from their houses, such as at Newstead (see Gadding aboutin the Forest entry) and Lenton where in 1350 Prior Peter requested Civil
assistance to ‘prevent three apostate monks of Lenton walking abroad in secular
dress’ (Marcombe and Hamilton 1998)...
Worse still Prior Gilbert de Ponteburgh of Thurgarton Priory
just outside the forest was accused of adultery with two local women in 1284, a
few months later Alexander de Gedling was in trouble for swearing during a
meeting of the chapter and in 1290 Walter de Bingham assaulted a John de Sutton
in church and was excommunicated!
At Newstead Priory in Sherwood a Roger of the Cellar and a
Geoffrey of the kitchen were dismissed as being a nuisance to the monastery,
and evidence suggests drinking and wandering outside the cloister was common...
... In 1307 the prior was accused of ‘incontinence with one
woman and of relapsing into incontinence with another’ (Marcombe and Hamilton
1998)...
Vicars, priests and monks were often known felons and members of notorious gangs who committed kidnap and extortion as well as vandalism and robbery (see Medieval Outlaws: the Folville Gang entry for more details).
In Nottingham the Friars of the town provide us with a few
incidents of note:
In 1402 the warden of the Franciscans was arrested in Leicester
on a charge of sedition and in 1500 warden William Bell was charged with
incontinence as a pimp!! (Marcombe and
Hamilton 1998).
It should be noted that the some of the clergy had a bad
record of frequenting houses of Ill-repute. In London the Brothels called ‘stews’
in medieval times were controlled by the Bishop of Winchester, where the women
were known as the ‘Winchester Geese’.
In Nottingham there was probably a brothel, with a vacant
plot of land called ‘Parodyse’ situated in ‘Whore Lane’ in 1391 (Foulds
2006)... subtle...
Maybe the Warden of the Grey Friars was involved somewhere
nearby...
In 1398 an action was brought before the borough court of Nottingham
against a Chaplain for misbehaviour with a parishioner’s wife:
John de Bilby made a complaint against Roger de Mampton,
chaplain on a plea of trespass:
While John was at Ratcliff (Radcliffe-on-Trent) attending
his affairs, Roger ‘broke his close and entered his chamber on ‘Brydilsmythgate’’
(Modern Bridlesmith Gate), Nottingham, and ‘was found under a curtain of the
bed’.
John warned Roger not to be found by him ‘with his wife, nor
in his house in any manner’ again...
Roger promised not to... however:
Sometime later Roger ‘came by night to the house of the
aforesaid John in ‘Stonestrete’ ‘(they must have moved to Stoney Street- maybe
to get away from the vicar?!)...’and here broke the wall... and leaped over it
to the houses of the aforesaid John de Bilby where his secret places were,
which he entered with the wife of the aforesaid John and was there with the
wife of the aforesaid John for a long time, without the permission and consent
of the aforesaid John, and so was there continually for a whole year after the
aforesaid warning’...
Apparently Roger the Chaplain and Johns wife damaged two
pairs of sheets, a table cloth, towels and one brass pot during their times in
the ‘secret places’...
Well I never...
When brought before the court Roger the Chaplain pleaded that
he was carrying out his duty ‘as is the custom with the parochial clergy to go
through their parish with the holy water’...
He was administering Holy water!
That’s one way of putting it.
Such stories remind us that the medieval world was a
colourful place.
They come down to us through the records and enrich our understandings
of the lives of the people who reside in those documents. It is often the bad stories that outshine the
good... but we all love gossip, and the medieval records provide plenty of
it...
Many lay people’s lives are also recorded and will be
discussed soon.
They include forestalling and black-market dealings, robberies,
fist-fights, scolds, cuckolds, hangings and banishings...
It is worth
remembering that such things will always be found in court records, and should
not be taken to reflect the activities of everyone in medieval life. They do
however offer us a chance to view a world full of humanity and strife- not to dissimilar
to our own...
(more from the Borough Court Rolls of Nottingham,
Inquisitions Post Mortem and the Manorial Court Rolls from the villages of
medieval Sherwood Forest coming soon)...
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