The story of Coventry E-Book

Mary Dormer Harris

• Herausgeber: Librorium Editions
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Time has brought many changes since old Drayton thus vaunted the stateliness of Coventry. The walls, the cross are gone, and of the twelve stately gates, but two remain. Gone, too, is the splendid conduit in the Cross Cheaping, S. Nicholas' Hall in the West Orchard, meeting-place of the Corpus Christi guild; and S. Nicholas' Church, out to the north beyond Bishop Street, which fell to ruin soon after the Reformation. But the "proud pyramidès," the "three spires," remain yet, and give greeting to all who approach Coventry, dominating the flat midland country for many a mile, changing their relative position as the spectator moves, and their colour in the shifting lights. Highest and fairest of all—so "the Archangel," says Fuller, "eclipseth the Trinity,"—is the nine-storied belfry of S. Michael's, tower, octagon and spire, a wonderful example of symbolism of design and harmonious disposal of ornament. The tower, begun in 1373, was the gift—says tradition—of the men of the Botoner family, the spire of its women, not the least among the many noteworthy achievements that in Coventry history are linked with a woman's name.

Leseprobe

The Story of Coventry

Henry VI.from the painting in the National Portrait Gallery.

The Story ofCoventry

by Mary Dormer Harris

Illustrated by Albert Chanler

1911

© 2023 Librorium Editions

ISBN : 9782383839316

AD MATREM

PREFACE

In preparing this volume for the press I have omitted some of the matter in Life in an Old English Town, which did not seem suitable for this series, and added fresh material likely to be useful to those who wished to identify the historic sites, and see the historic buildings of Coventry. In expanding Chapter XV. in so far as it dealt with the Corpus Christi plays—a task the labours of Dr Hardin Craig have rendered comparatively light—I have been able to add one hitherto unpublished item to the subject of the mediæval dramatic history of Coventry (p. 296), and dispel the idea that the name "S. Crytyan" given to a play acted in 1505 is a misreading for S. Catherine. For permission to publish this item I am indebted to the kindness of Mr William Page, F.S.A., editor of the Victoria County History. Another point remotely bearing upon the pageants is the chronology of royal visits to Coventry (p. 288), which I have endeavoured to clear up as far as I could, Sharp's Dissertation on the Coventry Mysteries, the usual guide in these matters, being extremely faulty in this respect on account of the confusion which prevails in the MS. annals or mayor-lists, on which he depended for dates. Of these extant lists, both in print and in MS., I have given a detailed account (p. 106) in connection with the entry concerning Prince Henry's supposed arrest by Mayor Hornby, a matter which, in view of the Shakespearean interest involved, is more fully treated of here than in my previous book.

My thanks are due to Mr J. Munro and the Early English Text Society for the kind permission to print extracts from Dr Craig's Two Corpus Christi Plays and from my own edition of the Leet Book. To Mr George Sutton, Town Clerk of Coventry, and all the unfailing courteous officials with whom I so constantly came in contact during my work, I must (not for the first time) express my gratitude. My obligations to Messrs Longmans and the Society of Antiquaries for permission to print portions of Chapters XII. and XIII. respectively have been acknowledged in my previous work.

MARY DORMER HARRIS

Leamington, Aug. 7, 1911.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

The Three Spires and Coventry

1

CHAPTER I

Leofric and Godiva

14

CHAPTER II

The Benedictine Monastery

24

CHAPTER III

The Chester Lordship

37

CHAPTER IV

Beginnings of Municipal Government

45

CHAPTER V

Prior's-half and Earl's-half

56

CHAPTER VI

The Seigniory of the Prior and Queen Isabella

66

CHAPTER VII

The Corporation and the Guilds

73

CHAPTER VIII

The Mayor, Bailiffs, and Community

84

CHAPTER IX

Coventry and the Kingdom of England

95

CHAPTER X

The Red and White Rose

112

CHAPTER XI

The Last Struggle of York and Lancaster—the Tudors and Stuarts

135

CHAPTER XII

The Lammas Lands

169

CHAPTER XIII

The Companies of the Crafts

212

CHAPTER XIV

Daily Life in the Town—the Merchants and the Market

233

CHAPTER XV

Daily Life in the Town (continued)—Religion and Amusements of the Townsfolk

269

CHAPTER XVI

Old Coventry at the Present Day

317

Index

346

ILLUSTRATIONS

King Henry VI. (From a painting in the National Portrait Gallery; painter unknown) Photogravure Frontispiece HALF-TONEA Courtyard in Little Park StreetSmithford StreetPalace YardCouncil Chamber, showing PanellingBablake and S. John's ChurchNew StreetButcher RowMayoress' Parlour, showing State Chair LINEThe Two Spires from top of Bishop Street8 Much Park StreetRemains of Old Wall—back of Godiva StreetSaint John the Baptist, CoventryGosford Green24 Gosford Street130 Far Gosford StreetGodiva WindowHeraldic Tile found in Hales StreetPeeping TomCathedral RuinsCarved Miserere Seat, S. Michael's ChurchPriory Row, CoventryCheylesmore Manor HouseGable of Cheylesmore Manor House34 Far Gosford StreetOld Whitefriars' Monastery, now Coventry Union40 Far Gosford StreetCourtyard, S. Mary's Hall, CoventryMinstrel Gallery, S. Mary's HallThe City KeysThe City Mace—The SwordThe Old State ChairHigh Street, CoventryView of Interior of Saint Michael'sGosford StreetSmithford Street, CoventryCook Street GateOld House in Little Park StreetQueen Mary's ChamberSwanswell GateThe Council Chamber, S. Mary's HallTrinity LaneArms of City of CoventryOld House beside S. Mary's HallWhitefriars' LaneOriel Window and Stocks, S. Mary's HallOld Bablake SchoolFord's HospitalHoly Trinity ChurchSwillington's Tomb, S. Michael's ChurchPulpit, Holy Trinity ChurchOld House in Cox Street36 Gosford Street91 Gosford StreetOld House in Cox StreetEntrance to Kitchen, S. Mary's HallArchdeacon's Chapel, Holy Trinity ChurchThe Staircase, Old Bablake School

The Story of Coventry

INTRODUCTION

The Three Spires and Coventry

"Now flourishing with fanes, and proud pyramidès, Her walls in good repair, her ports so bravely built, Her halls in good estate, her cross so richly gilt, As scorning all the Towns that stand within her view."Drayton, Polyolbion, xiii.

Time has brought many changes since old Drayton thus vaunted the stateliness of Coventry. The walls, the cross are gone, and of the twelve stately gates, but two remain. Gone, too, is the splendid conduit in the Cross Cheaping, S. Nicholas' Hall in the West Orchard, meeting-place of the Corpus Christi guild; and S. Nicholas' Church, out to the north beyond Bishop Street, which fell to ruin soon after the Reformation. But the "proud pyramidès," the "three spires," remain yet, and give greeting to all who approach Coventry, dominating the flat midland country for many a mile, changing their relative position as the spectator moves, and their colour in the shifting lights. Highest and fairest of all—so "the Archangel," says Fuller, "eclipseth the Trinity,"—is the nine-storied belfry of S. Michael's, tower, octagon and spire, a wonderful example of symbolism of design and harmonious disposal of ornament. The tower, begun in 1373, was the gift—says tradition—of the men of the Botoner family, the spire of its women, not the least among the many noteworthy achievements that in Coventry history are linked with a woman's name.

THE TWO SPIRES FROM TOP OF BISHOP STREET

Such a medley is Coventry that the great steeple over-shadows quiet, memory-haunted places, and streets filled with the clamour of traffic, pleasant houses rich men have lately built, and squalid courts, that occupy the site of many an ancient burgage croft and garden. It is a typically English city, whose history might serve as the "abstract and brief chronicle" of England. A thoroughly corrupt borough in the worst days of municipal corruption, rigidly Puritan under the Stuarts, loyal under Elizabeth, steady for hereditary right at Mary's accession—but Protestant, as witness its martyrs—Lollard in the hey-day of Lollardry, patriotic and Talbot-worshipping in the Hundred Years' War—as England was, so was Coventry. In art and letters, also, the city recalls what is most characteristic in the achievements of the English people. Here flourished mediæval architecture, an art wherein Englishmen have excelled greatly, and the mediæval religious drama, foundation of Shakespeare's greatness; while chance, and the sojourn of George Eliot, have given the city associations with the literary outburst of the Victorian time.

The doings of Coventry folk or the happenings within the city must have impressed the minds of generations of English folk, since the name has entered into folk rhymes[1] and flower names, and proverbial English speech. Old botanists speak of "Coventry bells" and "Coventry Marians," where now we say "Canterbury bells"; children play card-games called "Peeping Tom" or "Moll of Coventry"; and we still, by silent avoidance of our friends, "send them to Coventry," a reminiscence maybe of the uncivil treatment the city Roundheads gave to imprisoned Cavaliers what time the bitterness engendered by the Civil War was abroad in the land.

Interesting too—albeit scanty—are the relics of legendary lore and heathen custom which ofttimes perplex the student of the city's history. Here was played the Hox-Tuesday play, survival, say folklorists, of the struggle to gain possession of a victim for the sacrifice; here the national legend of Godiva grew up; and here, men fabled, S. George, patron of England, was born.

In the country round about Coventry two Englands meet, one a land of green woods and well-watered pastures, the other black with the toil of the coal-fields. The city turns its most prosperous side southwards, and the common view of the spires is the one from the south, where the tree-bordered road from Kenilworth, whereon so many kings and queens have travelled, slips into Coventry, past a fringe of ample, comfortable houses, that the well-to-do have raised in our own time. This was Tennyson's view of the spires, and George Eliot must have seen it daily in her school-life, which she passed in the house that is farthest from the town in Warwick Row. It is the common view, but not the most interesting, since the octagonal Decorated steeple of Christchurch, recased in fresh stone, last remnant of the now demolished church of the Greyfriars, is the least commanding of the three, and by its nearness somewhat dwarfs the rest. The Greyfriars of Coventry, be it said, have gained by a scribe's error, a probably quite unmerited fame as producers of the noted Corpus Christi plays; in reality, this honour should belong to the lay-folk and craftspeople of the city.

It is well—so the journey is made from the south—to gain a more distant view of the "proud pyramidès" over the flat fields from the Stoneleigh Road, where Christchurch falls into its proper place. The trees make the way through Stoneleigh a lovely one, and the village church, redolent of eighteenth century peace, with a magnificent Norman chancel arch, furnishes a fine excuse for delay. Nearer to Coventry the way winds on over Finham Bridge, shadowed by poplars, and through Stivichall, a hamlet the widow of Earl Ranulf of Chester gave to the Bishop of Lichfield for the welfare of her husband's soul. Allotment gardens and newly-built streets occupy the land to the south-east of the city, formerly known as the Little Park, once part of a royal estate. It is a commonplace-looking site nowadays, albeit thronged with memories. Here Lollard sermons have been preached and miracle-plays played, and hither Laurence Saunders and others were led out to be burned in 1556, on ground now occupied by a factory, where once long after men discovered charred fragments of a stake. They are building streets over the Park area by the station nowadays; but this was a practice inaugurated long ago when Much Park Street (vicus parci maioris) and Little Park Street (vicus parci minoris) were built on ground cut out of the royal estate. The east end of Little Park Street may be reached by Park Road, past a newly-raised memorial to the Coventry martyrs.

8 Much Park ST

Much Park Street led by Whitefriars through Newgate to the London Road; Little Park Street led but to a postern gate. In Stuart times the latter road had little traffic and much social dignity; beautiful houses stood therein with spacious gardens, where dwelt the neighbouring gentry, who were wont to enjoy the amenities of urban life for a season, a common feature of the social life of country towns at that period. Sir Orlando Bridgman's house, most magnificent example of these gentlefolks' dwellings, was wantonly demolished in the early nineteenth century, though the Jacobean mantelpiece from the presence-chamber is still preserved in the school at Bablake. The street still retains in Banner House, and a lovely little quadrangle of the time of William III., relics of the grandeur of that bygone time.

A COURTYARD IN LITTLE PARK STREET

The London Road comes past Whitley, a manor held in the fifteenth century by William Bristow, the most troublesome and litigious person in Coventry history, and Shortley, where in Edward II.'s time, one John de Nottingham, a necromancer, dwelled, concerning whom there is much to be found in this book. At Shortley is the Charter-house where, incorporated in a modern dwelling, are remains of the Carthusian monastery, which the Botoners helped to build, and whereof Richard II. was patron. Wayfarers from London and Daventry (Shakespeare's "Daintry") entered the town at Newgate by Whitefriars, the modern workhouse. At Newgate the mural circuit was begun in 1356, when Richard Stoke, mayor, laid the first stone. Here, too, in August 1642, Charles I. made a breach in the town wall, whereat divers Cavaliers found entrance; but so vehement was the onslaught made upon them by the townsfolk—men and women—and so impregnable were the citizens' barricades of carts and furniture, that the Royalists withdrew discomfited. Another breach in the wall, twenty years later, made also at Newgate, marked the beginning of the work of dismantling the fortifications. This was done by order of Charles II. to avenge the old affront offered to his father, and occupied 500 men for three weeks and three days. The superstitious found in the destruction of the walls the subject of one of the famous Mother Shipton's prophecies. It was foretold, they said, "that a pigeon should pull them down," and in truth they were dismantled in Thomas Pigeon's mayoral year.[2]

REMAINS OF OLD WALL—BACK OF GODIVA STREET

From Little Park Street only two spires are seen; and but the same number is visible in Bishop Street, which lies to the north. The traveller comes almost suddenly into the turmoil of this street from the pleasant uplands of Fillongley, where the Hastings' family had a castle, and the Shakespears a farm-house, and Corley, of George Eliot memories, with its prehistoric camp on the Rock. It is good to see but two spires, that it may serve as a reminder that the church of the Greyfriars is but an unessential feature in Coventry history. The twin steeples of S. Michael's and Trinity represent the two parishes—the two estates, Earl's-half and Prior's-half—which anciently composed the city.

Maybe these two steeples look most magnificent in the twilight from Poolmeadow, formerly covered by a sheet of water known as S. Osburg's Pool. This is a bare place running east and west of Priory Street, to the north of the site of the ancient monastery. By daylight the surroundings of Poolmeadow are unbeautiful enough, yet it is in some respects the most interesting spot in Coventry, since it is connected with the earliest name that occurs in Coventry history.

What connection there was between the Saint, whose nunnery the Danes destroyed, and this pool, we know not. At her shrine in the priory were miracles wrought, and her head seems to have appeared among the relics treasured by the religious house at the Dissolution.

Another non-parochial church comes very prominently into view when the approach is made from the south-west, Canley and Hearsall, though I imagine that few enter by those by-lanes save the ruddy, brown-gaitered farmers on their way to the Friday market. This is the guild-church of S. John the Baptist at Bablake, whereof the tower, that has a fortress-like touch, rises high above the roofs of the town. Even the sea-element is not lacking in the history of this inland city, since the guild brethren declared that they wished to raise this church in part as a memorial "for the good success the king had upon the sea" upon S. John's day—probably at the battle of Sluys, June 24, 1340.[3] Hard by this church and the collegiate buildings clustered behind it stood Bablake Gate, and all who came by the great highway leading from the north-west—now called the Holyhead Road—made their entrance there. Before coming to Bablake, however, wayfarers would cross the Sherbourne at Spon, close by the chapel of S. James and S. Christopher, now incorporated in a modern dwelling-place. Here they would, belike, pay their devotions just as other travellers coming from London and Daventry paid theirs at the Lady Tower, wherein was a wooden image of our Lady, hard by Newgate and Whitefriars.

SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST COVENTRY

Smithford Street, which reminds us of the early activity of the workers in iron, leads to Bablake, and by the bridge there tradition says that there grew a great tree "that from the strangeness of the fruit was called Quient" (quaint), an imaginary etymology of the name Coventry. Modern scholars are, however, agreed that it was from some memorable (and possibly sacred) tree that the earliest form of the word "Cofantreo" is derived.

Gosford Green

To those who look on the spires from Gosford and the eastern side the tall ones appear in their relatively close proximity. This is the entrance to Coventry where most historical associations abound. "Two dukes should 'a fought on Gosford Green," succinctly say the city annals in 1397, but, as all the world knows, Richard II. forbade Bolingbroke and Mowbray to fight. Sinister memories for the House of York are connected with the Green, for here in 1469 Queen Elizabeth, Woodville's father, Lord Rivers, and her brother, John, were beheaded by Warwick's orders. It is said that it was on this side of the city that Edward IV. advanced in 1471, what time the King-maker held the city against him. Further west, beyond Far Gosford Street, is Dover Bridge, whereon once stood S. George's Chapel, meeting-place of the tailors and shearmen's guild, demolished in 1821. Outside this chapel once hung the blade-bone of the dun-cow, slain, says the legend, by Guy of Warwick of famous memory.

24 Gosford ST

In Gosford Street, long, ancient and grimy, was formerly the first station for the performances of the pageants; and in Cox Street, anciently Mill Lane, which runs to the north of Gosford, were the pageant-houses or places for storage of theatrical paraphernalia owned by the crafts. From Gosford the long thoroughfare street passes into Jordan Well—commemorating the well sunk by Jordan Shepey, mayor of Coventry, who died 1349, the year of the Black Death—and thence into Earl Street, where, it may be, a castle of the Earls of Chester once stood with an entrance at Broadgate.

130 Far Gosford ST

To see the spire of S. Michael's alone it is best to leave this long thoroughfare and turn to the right by a half-timbered Tudor house down the narrowness of Pepper Lane where the immense steeple almost seems to blot out the sky.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Northall, Eng. Folk Rhymes, 403.

[2] Mayor-list or MS. Annals (eighteenth century) in the possession of Mr Eynon of Leamington.

[3] Morris, S. John's Church.

CHAPTER I

Leofric and Godiva

It was ever the boast of Coventry men that their city was of "much fame and antiquity,"[4] being "remembered," so John Throgmorton, the recorder, assured Queen Elizabeth, "by Polydore Vergil to be of ... small account in the time of King Arviragus (which was forty-four years after our Saviour) in the Emperor Claudius' time."[5] And Shakespeare's contemporary, Michael Drayton, had a pretty fancy of his own concerning the place,[6] whereby its antiquity is made manifest. He tells us how, when Coventry was but "a poor thatched village," the saint of Cologne brought thither

"That goodly virgin-band Th' eleven thousand maids chaste Ursula's command,"

who at departing,

"Each by her just bequest, Some special virtue gave, ordaining it to rest With one of her own sex";

which special virtues, the poet adds, were in aftertimes bestowed on Godiva, "that most princely dame," who freed Coventry from toll on the occasion of her famous ride.

But of all this history tells us nothing, even as it tells us nothing of Vespasian's visit to Exeter, or the founding of London by Brutus of Troy, in the days when the foundations of Rome were not laid. Coventry is not old in the sense wherein we apply the word to Colchester, York, Bath, or Winchester, and many towns dating from Roman or early Saxon times. If the site of the present city were ever occupied by the Romans—and the point is a doubtful one—their occupation left no permanent traces.[7] But just as families love to boast of a high and noble ancestry, so dwellers in cities and members of institutions delight to trace their origins back to a legendary past, and the fables of Brut, who came from Troy to London, or the story of Mempric, contemporary of David, and founder of the university of Oxford,[8] were once accepted as truth. We, however, are content to leave this record of obscure beginnings unexplored, confessing that we have, as Dugdale says, "so little light of story to guide us through those elder times."[9]

In truth, we hear nothing authentic concerning the Romans', and but rumours of the Danes', coming to Coventry. In 1016 the Northmen, led by Canute and the traitor Eadric Streona, laid waste the Midlands, and are said to have destroyed a nunnery on the spot founded by an obscure Saxon saint, the virgin Osburg, who probably came from the neighbouring house for nuns at Polesworth.[10] But S. Osburg is a shadowy figure, and the memory of her foundation has almost entirely passed away. The convent of the "convent town,"[11] did not gather together there until the middle of the eleventh century, when Leofric, Earl of Mercia, and his wife Godiva, built a dwelling for an Abbot and twenty-four monks to live under the rule of S. Benedict. Thus was laid the first stone of a monastery which ranked with the Confessor's Abbey of Westminster, King Harold's College at Waltham, and the twin abbeys built by William I. and Matilda in their city of Caen, among the most famous foundations of that age. The monastery became the nucleus of a thriving town in later days, as was the case with Bury S. Edmund's, Abingdon, Reading, S. Alban's, and many other places in England.

It was a great time for the founding of religious houses, and the Confessor, as befitted one of known sanctity of life, greatly encouraged these pious deeds. "It behoves every man," ... runs his charter to the monks of Coventry, "diligently to incline to almsgiving, whereby he may release himself from the bonds of sin. For our Lord in a sermon thus speaketh: 'Lay up for yourselves with alms-deeds a treasure-hoard in heaven, and a dwelling with angels.'[12] For which needful things I make known to you all that I grant with full permission that the same gift which Leofric and Godgyuæ have given to Christ, and His dear Mother, and to Leofwin, the abbot, and the brethren within the minster at Coventry, for their souls to help, in land and in water, in gold and in silver, in ornaments, and in all other things, as full and as forth as they themselves possessed it, and as they that same minster worthily have enriched therewith, so I firmly grant it. And furthermore, I grant to them also, for my soul, that they have besides full freedom, sac and soc,[13] toll, team,[14] hamsocne,[15] foresteall,[16] blodewite,[17] fihtwite,[18] weardwite,[19] and mundbryce.[20] Now I will henceforward that it ever be a dwelling of monks, and let them stand in God's peace, and S. Mary's and in mine, and according to S. Benedict's rule, under the abbot's authority. And I will not in any wise consent that any man take away or eject their gift and their alms, or that any man have there any charge upon any things, or at any season, except the abbot and his brethren for this minster's need. And whosoever shall increase this alms with any good the Lord shall increase unto him Heaven's bliss; and whosoever shall take them away, or deprive the minster of anything at any time, let him stand in God's anger, and His dear Mother's and mine. God keep you all."[21]

Thus the monastery was endowed by Leofric and Godiva with twenty-four lordships of land; and by the king with full rights of jurisdiction over the tenants dwelling in these various estates, privileges greatly valued by the monks. They laid the two generous founders, the husband in one porch, the wife in the other, of the minster in Coventry, when they came to die. As for this building, it was one of the glories of the age, and seemed too narrow, a chronicler tells us, to contain the abundance of treasure within its walls. Godiva paid the most famous goldsmiths of her day to visit the place, and make reliquaries and images of saints to beautify the church she loved; she also gave a rosary of gems to hang about the neck of an image of the Virgin, her chief patroness. The monks, too, gathered in a great store of relics, whereof the most famous was an arm of S. Augustine of Hippo, brought from Pavia by Archbishop Ethelnoth, having been purchased for the sum of one hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold.

Of this minster, however, nought remains, and its successor, the Gothic cathedral, was destroyed after the Reformation. The legend of its foundress has been more enduring. Vulgarised by later associations, the narrative, in its early forms, has a grandeur which still impresses the imagination. The story was a favourite one with Landor from his boyhood, though his Imaginary Conversation, and Drayton's brief lines are less popularly known than the poem of Tennyson. There is no contemporary evidence to guide us, for Roger of Wendover, whose account of the famous ride is probably the earliest we possess, died in 1237,[22] some hundred and fifty years after the noble lady herself. The chroniclers differ as to the motive which prompted the undertaking, some asserting that the Coventry folk were to be freed thereby from a grievous incident of villeinage; others again[23] connecting it with the local immunity from the payment of toll—except for horses, a special feature of the market of Coventry.[24] It is in the latter connection that the story has impressed itself on the local mind.

"I Lueriche for the love of thee Doe make Coventre Tol-free,"

was written under a window placed in Trinity Church in Richard II.'s time in commemoration of the deed.[25]

"This cite shulde be free, and now is bonde, Dame goode Eve made hit free,"

wrote a discontented burger poet of the fifteenth century, when a custom for wool had been laid on the people of the town.[26]

Roger of Wendover tells us how the countess besought her husband continually, with many prayers to free the people from the toll; and though he refused and forbade her to approach him with this petition, "led by her womanly pertinacity," she repeated the request, until he gave answer: "Ride naked through the length of the market, when the people are gathered together, and when thou returnest, thy petition shall be fulfilled.... Then the countess, beloved of God, loosened her hair thus veiling her body, and then, mounting her horse and attended by two knights, she rode through the market seen of none, her white legs nevertheless appearing; and having completed her journey, returned to her husband rejoicing, and ... obtained from him what she had asked," for he forthwith gave the townsfolk a charter emancipating them from the aforesaid service.[27]

Naturally, the charter is not forthcoming, and historians have shrugged their shoulders at the mention of the story this many a day. It was not, however, until the time of Charles II. that the Godiva procession became a feature of Coventry fair. In 1678, we are told "Lady Godiva rode before the mayor to proclaim the fair" and the custom thus inaugurated obtains to this day. Of the window noted by Dugdale all traces disappeared amid the vandalism of the eighteenth century save a few fragments of glass now in the Archdeacon's chapel of Trinity Church, and of these one showing a tiny figure in a yellow dress riding a white horse and holding some foliage in the hand, is traditionally said to have formed part of the original design.[28]

GODIVA WINDOW

Such is the story which some accept undoubting, others dismiss as fabulous, and a third school, following the lead of Mr Hartland[29] and perceiving in the tale elements which occur in the folk-lore of widely distant countries, regard as a reminiscence of heathen ritual, maybe some processional festivities of spring or summer.[30] In support of this contention it may be urged that the story is not peculiar to Coventry, that there is a good deal of evidence showing the part unclad or bough-clad women played in magical and religious rites,[31] that black-faced characters—whereof more presently—appear in festivals manifestly derived from heathendom, and that the "Peeping Tom" element may be part of the universal fairy tale which relates the punishment awaiting those who pry into sights forbidden. Moreover, the prominence given to the horse in the story is extremely suggestive. In one version it is the neighing of Godiva's steed that attracts the attention of the peeper, causing him to look forth from the window, whence it comes that in Coventry market there is no exemption from toll for horses.[32] It may not be too fanciful to recall in this connection the part played by the hobby-horse at folk-festivals, and the sacrificial character of the horse in Teutonic heathendom.[33]

HERALDIC TILE FOUND IN HALES STREET

The nearest variant of the Coventry story belongs to St Briavel's in the Forest of Dean, like Coventry a woodland district. Here it is said that the wife of one of the Earls of Hereford won from her lord privileges of woodcutting for the commonalty by undergoing a like ordeal.[34] In a Dunster tradition the parallel is not so close. Here Sir John de Mohun's wife gained from her husband for the Dunster folk as much common land as she could make the circuit of, barefoot, in a day's space.[35]

Godiva is always traditionally represented riding on a white horse. It is curious that in an illuminated document formerly in possession of the Smiths' company, two Godivas appear, one a white woman on a white horse and another a black woman on an elephant—the last in allusion to the elephant and castle, the arms of the city.[36] Black-a-vised characters—explained by various theories[37]—are of common occurrence at festivals on May Day and Midsummer; it is only about forty years ago that a Jack-o'-green and his attendant sweeps ceased to parade the city on May Day, while at Southam, near Coventry, and possibly in Coventry also, a "black lady" rode in the "show fair" as well as Godiva.[38]

As for the "Peeping Tom" incident it may well be older than the eighteenth century, when the first printed allusion appears.[38] A ballad written about 1650 mentions that Godiva ordered all persons to keep within doors during her ride and shut their windows[39]; but in a Coventry version given in the MS. city annals[40]—dating, it appears, before the use of glass became common in domestic buildings—the peeper is said to "let down" a window, i.e. the wooden shutter of early times. The famous figure of Peeping Tom, mentioned in the city accounts in the year 1773,[41] still looks out of the northeast top window of the "King's Head" in Hertford Street. It is a wooden figure, thought to represent S. George, with armour of the time of Henry VII, broad-toed sollerets, and under a monstrous and absurd three-cornered hat is a bascinet. The arms, as far as the elbow, have been hacked away, and to the spectator in the street the figure is only visible from the waist upwards.

PEEPING TOM

For many people Coventry suggests Godiva. It is always well to bear in mind she was an authentic person, wife of Leofric, mother of Aelfgar, Earl of East Anglia, also buried in the monastery, grandmother of the Earls Edwin and Morkere, and of Aldgyth, first wife, then widow, of Gruffydd, Prince of Wales; then wife and widow of Harold, King of England. After Godiva's death, stories of her holy life and alms-deeds would be soon rife among the oppressed Saxons. It is noteworthy that Matilda, queen of Henry I., a sovereign of the old Saxon blood royal, and a most pious princess to boot, was called Godiva, no doubt in scorn of her birth, by the Norman courtiers.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] Harl. MS. 6195 f. 7.

[5] Poole, Coventry, 90. Elizabeth visited the city in 1565.

[6]Polyolbion, xiii.

[7] Some rough (?) Roman pavement was discovered in the Cross Cheaping during excavations at the end of the last century. Victoria County Hist. i. 246.

[8] Rashdall, Universities, ii. pt. ii. 323.

[9] Dugdale. Warw. i. 134.

[10]Ibid.

[12] See Matt. v. 20. This translation mainly follows Birch.

[13] Privilege of administering justice.

[14] Obscure. Birch says privilege of vouching to warranty.

[15] Power to punish for forcible entry.

[16] Power to inflict punishment for waylaying.

[17] Power to punish assault with bloodshed.

[18] Power to punish assault.

[19] Power to maintain watch.

[20] Power to punish for breach of peace.

[21] Add. MSS. Ch. 28657. Birch, Edward the Confessor's Charter to Coventry. "A most elegant specimen of eleventh century native palæography" (Birch).

[22] On events which occur before 1154 (or 1188) the chronicler is dependent on some earlier unknown writer (Dict. Nat. Biography, s.v. "Godiva").

[23] They follow Higden, author of the Polychronicon, who was the first to mention the ride in this connection. As a monk of S. Werburgh's, Chester, a city which held frequent intercourse with Coventry, he may have had opportunities of hearing the tale from local sources.

[24] In Coventry market the burgesses were free from toll, except for horses, in the time of Edward I. (Dugdale, Warw. i. 162).

[25] Dugdale, Warw. i. 135. Some tiny fragments of this window yet remain in the Archdeacon's Chapel of Trinity Church. See also Gent. Mag. (1829), pt. i. 120-1, for another account of the fragment.

[26]Leet Book (E.E.T.S.), 567.

[27] Rog. Wendover, Flores Historiarum, i. 497.

[28] So an old sexton told Sharp, the antiquary. See also Gent. Mag. Topography, xiii. 53.

[29]Science of Fairy Tales.

[30] Chambers, Mediæval Stage, i. 119.

[31] Grant Allen, Evolution of the Idea of God, 110 (festival of the Pòtraj).

[32] Hartland, op. cit., 77.

[33] As a tyro in folk-lore I venture with some diffidence to put forward the theory that it may be by research in custom and belief as regards the horse that we may arrive at an explanation of some of the problems of this mysterious legend. See Grimm, Teut. Myth. (trans. Stallybrass), 47, 392; Frazer, Golden Bough, ii. 24, 64; Gomme, Ethnology and Folk-lore, 35; Chambers, op. cit., i. 131.

[34] Rudder, Gloucestershire, 307 (quoted Hartland).

[35] Camden, Britannia (Gibson), 67. I am indebted to Mr Addy for this reference; cf. the story of the Tichbourne dole, Chambers, Book of Days, i. 167.

[36]Coventry Standard, Jan. 15-16, 1909. The MS. (1684-1833) has passed into private hands, and I have never been able to see it.

[37] Sir Lawrence Gomme explains the black Godiva by a reference to Pliny's account of the woad-stained British women, but see Chambers, Mediæval Stage, i. 125.

[38]Science of Fairy Tales, 71-92. Mr Hartland was the first folklorist to submit the story to scientific investigation. He gained his local knowledge of the Southam black Godiva from the late W.E. Fretton of Coventry.

[39] See Dict. Nat. Biog., s.v. "Godiva."

[40] Hartland, op. cit., 77.

[41] See Dict. Nat. Biog., s.v. "Godiva."

CHAPTER II

The Benedictine Monastery

The Benedictine house was built in part upon the northern slope of a low hill, in part in the hollow through which the river Sherbourne flows. This was a situation well adapted for the building of a monastery; there was rich soil in the neighbourhood, good roads—both the Watling Street and the Foss Way ran within a few miles from the spot—and running water. The Sherbourne is but a small stream nowadays, but it was a more important watercourse in earlier times, and in the fifteenth century many precautions had to be taken "in eschewing peril of floods." The monks could stock Swanswell Pool[42] with fish, and plant their orchards or vineyards in or near the hollow in which the monastery lay.

CATHEDRAL RUINS

Little remains of the minster save the bases of a few clustered pillars of the thirteenth century, the remains of the west end by the Blue Coat School at the north end of S. Michael's Churchyard, and the fragment of the north-west tower, now incorporated in a dwelling-house in New Buildings. Under the gardens and pleasant red brick eighteenth and nineteenth century houses of Priory Row, which give the churchyard the look of a cathedral close, diggers often come upon fragments of ancient masonry, showing how the cathedral stretched down the slope of the hill. Between the cathedral and the southern bank of the Sherbourne were the Priory buildings, with the cloister garth, locutorium or parlour, synodal chamber and grammar school,[43] which last had an endowed existence as early as 1303.

CARVED MISERERE SEAT, S. MICHAEL'S CHURCH

Another relic of the monastery, a beautiful old timbered hostry or guest house in Ironmonger Row, was only cleared away in 1820. The inn known as the "Palmers' Rest" now occupies a portion of this site, and carvings of hunting scenes, and grotesques worked into the window frames, and now painted a dreary brown, were taken from the ancient guest house of the monks. Some of the obligations of hospitality were lifted from the monks by the foundation in the twelfth century of the hospital of S. John the Baptist, whereof only the church is left. Here poor wayfarers had food and lodging and the sick poor of the place were nursed and tended. The brethren were clothed in a black or dark brown garb, ample and flowing, and marked with a black cross, and the sisters wore a white veil and long closed mantles or cloaks. Another foundation for the nursing of the sick was the lazar-hospital at Spon, dedicated to S. Mary Magdalen, of which not a trace remains.

The main feature of a monk's life was its well-ordered monotony, so congenial to many minds; but as a class monks were not specially addicted to idleness or solitude. Neither were they in most cases entirely devoted to spiritual things, for although the salvation of the individual soul was the primal object of monasticism, members of the religious orders were adepts at secular business, and did not suffer their houses to decay from neglect of the affairs of this world. There was always plenty of work for any monk possessing a clear head and a faculty for administration. The various officers of the convent, obedientiarii as they were called, had each his appointed task. Every one was allowed a certain proportion of the convent revenue to devote to the expenses connected with his office.[44] In return he presented his accounts at the annual audit, keeping them carefully and exactly, recording everything, down to the receipt of a pot of honey, "or the price of the parchment on which the various items were written." In the case of Coventry the rents of certain tenements in S. Nicholas Street, Bailey Lane, Well Street (super corneram Vici Fontis), among others, were assigned to the cellarer;[45] those coming from land in Keresley to the treasurer; the same forms being observed with regard to the pitancier and sacristan. The rents paid in kind—butter, honey, eggs, etc.—were probably entered among the kitchener's receipts; while the accounts, compiled from daily entries, must have given many clerks almost unceasing labour.

Priory Row Coventry

We have, unfortunately, no local chronicles,[46] such as those kept within the cloisters of S. Alban's, giving us particulars concerning the lives of the Coventry monks. But no doubt, in essentials, the management of various houses differed little. At Evesham, for example, the prior was bound to furnish the parchment required for the scriptorium, and all other writing materials except ink, out of the sum allotted to him. The manciple provided the wine, mead, oil and lamps, and kept up the stock of earthenware, jugs, basins, and other vessels required for the convent use. The precentor—as befitted one whose office was to train the choir—was bound to keep the organ in repair, and over and above to find all the ink and colour required for illumination, together with all materials for binding books. While to the chamberlain a certain revenue was assigned to provide for the clothing of the monks.[47] All these matters gave the convent officers daily occupation, and must have absorbed much thought and interest.

For those of fervent spirit the daily religious exercises were the salt of life, but for others—possibly the greater number—they were merely part of the daily routine, and repetition had increased monotony. Many hours of the day were passed in these regularly recurring services of the Church. At midnight the brethren rose and went to Matins and Lauds. Prime was celebrated at six, Tierce at nine, Sext at twelve, Nones at two or three, Vespers at four, and Complin at seven. After Tierce the duties of the day began; and the different obedientiaries went each to fulfil his appointed task. The rest sat in the cloisters, taught the children in the school, or copied manuscripts. There were frequent consultations in the chapter-house, and on Sundays, before Prime or Tierce, the abbot sat in the cloisters to hear the monks' confessions, and appointed to each the penance due for his fault. Now and then the coming of an important stranger—a royal guest, perhaps, such as William the Conqueror, who passed, it is supposed, through Coventry on his way from Warwick to Nottingham in 1068—would furnish the brethren with a topic for many weeks' conversation.

Sometimes the brethren were suffered to have a glimpse of the great world without the convent with their own eyes. The prior, who was of the company of mitred abbots, was frequently forced to journey to whatever place the King might appoint for the meeting of the parliament. The rank and file of the convent had now and then opportunities of seeing life in travel. They might undertake a pilgrimage; or, when a dispute was on hand, and appeal had been made to the Holy Father, one of the brethren would journey Rome-wards, with well-lined pockets, to look after the convent's interest at the papal court. These lawsuits were not infrequent, as may be shown by the career of Geoffrey, Prior of Coventry during the reign of Henry III.[48] In 1224 the monks tried to raise him to the episcopal throne, but the election was quashed by the archbishop, and the usual appeal to Rome only brought another—a papal—candidate to fill the vacant seat. This occurrence did not in all probability predispose the minds of the actual and would-be bishop to mutual goodwill. In 1232 the prior was suspended for resisting the episcopal visitation, and, together with the abbot of Westminster, set out hot-foot to Rome, to lay his grievances before the Pope. A year or two later we find him involved in a quarrel with the Abbot of S. Augustine's, Bristol. What heart-burnings these obscure disputes must have occasioned, what journeyings to and fro, and, above all, what wealth was lost to the monastery to satisfy the Roman greed of gold!

It is the record of these disputes that forms the bulk of the history of the monastic houses of England, and the priory of Coventry is no exception to the general rule. Placed in a somewhat dependent position—for during the episcopate of Robert de Limesey (1086-1121) the bishop's seat had been transferred from Chester to this place—the monks were, earlier or later, bound to realise the dangers of episcopal tyranny and encroachment. Limesey, the first bishop in whom the abbacy was vested—the superior of the convent being henceforward called a prior—soon made the monks feel his heavy yoke. Bitter were the complaints they made concerning his conduct. On the death of the last abbot he obtained leave to farm the convent revenue, and, using the permission to serve his own ends, wrought much harm to the estates of the monastery, pulling down houses thereon, and carrying off the materials to his own manors, seizing horses and other monastic property. But the crying instance of his greed, one which the chroniclers have carefully and tremblingly noted, was his plunder of the magnificent minster. He scraped off the silver coating of a beam—worth 500 marks—most likely from a shrine in that goodly treasure-house![49] It was little wonder that the indignant monks turned to Rome for aid against this devourer of their substance.[50]

Nor was this the only bishop who, from his fair palace in S. Michael's Churchyard, caused his neighbours of the priory to tremble for the safety of their possessions. Hugh of Nunant, a monk-hater, who vowed, it is said, that "if he had his own way he would strip every cowled head in England," was nominated to the see in 1188. He is variously described as a man of piety and eloquence or as one desperately wicked.[51] Politically he was a follower of Prince John, who, during his brother King Richard's imprisonment in Germany, was endeavouring to strengthen his own position by forming a rebel party in the Midlands. Nunant obtained licence to incorporate the prior's barony with his own episcopal one, and by his accusations so enraged the monks that they fell on him during a synod in the cathedral church, and broke his head with a crucifix. The bishop, indignant in his turn, applied to Longchamp, the absent King's representative, for licence to punish the outrage. And he was allowed to expel the brethren, "contaminated," so he said, "with secular pollution," from the monastery, and appoint secular canons, who probably came from Lichfield, in their stead. Appeal was made to Rome, but the monks were now too impoverished to obtain a favourable hearing of their suit at the papal court. So they remained in exile for several years.

But the adversary's triumph was, after all, short-lived. In 1194 King Richard, ransomed from prison, returned to England, and the scheme of Prince John and Bishop Nunant fell to the ground. The latter was deposed from his bishopric, and the monks he had oppressed took heart of grace, and bethought them how they might return to their old home. The story goes how one of their number put an end to the brethren's exile by his intercession with the Pope. Although often forced to beg his bread, brother Thomas tarried long at Rome, and offered to each fresh occupant of S. Peter's chair the petition of the monks of Coventry. On one occasion his Holiness in an angry mood bade the monk withdraw, telling him that other petitions to the same purpose had been exhibited to Clement and Celestine, his predecessors, but rejected, and therefore his expectations were vain. Unto which the monk, with bitter tears, replied: "Holy Father, my petition is just and altogether honest, and therefore my expectation is not vain; for I expect your death, as I have done your predecessors', for there shall one succeed you who will hear my petition to purpose." Then said the Pope to the cardinals: "Hear ye not what this devil hath spoken?" And immediately turned to him and said: "Brother, by S. Peter, thou shalt not expect my death; thy petition is granted."[52] So the monks returned joyfully to their old home; but Hugh of Nunant, so the chroniclers tell us, died in remorse and torment of mind, deploring the injuries he had done to the Coventry brethren "with abundant sighs and tears," and praying that he might die in a frock of the order he had in life despised.

But grasping bishops were not the only enemies known to the monks. There was a long-standing feud between the brethren of Coventry and the canons of Lichfield, dating from the time when Stephen gave them, together with the canons of Chester, permission to elect the bishop of the diocese.[53] The monks frequently defeated their object by nominating a candidate of their order, usually the prior, whom the canons would in nowise be induced to accept. Appeals to Rome would follow; and the Pope, seizing the opportunity, would set aside previous nominations, and impose his own candidate upon the contending parties.

At the first election we hear of, the Coventry brethren were able to secure the bishopric for one of their order, the prior of Canterbury, in spite of the canons' protests and appeal to Rome. But when, after his enthronement at Coventry, bishop Durdent came to Lichfield, the canons barred the gates of their fortified close against him, and, in the face of the episcopal excommunication, denied him entrance. They also refused to enthrone Gerard la Pucelle, elected by the sole voice of the monks in 1183. "Unica est sponsa mea, nec habeo duo cubicula,"[54] said the bishop in his discouragement. And this learned and righteous prelate died four months later, not without suspicion of poison. Nunant was appointed by the Crown; but on his death in 1199 the passions of the rivals, strengthened by political antagonism—for the canons were partizans of John while the monks clave to King Richard—again broke loose. On the nomination of Richard's candidate, one of the monks led off the Te Deum, as a signal that the proceedings were over, though the canons had taken no part in the election. "Who made thee cantor here?" cried the Archdeacon of Stafford, a member of John's party, in great wrath, for the cantor on these occasions conducted the singing. "I am cantor here, and not thou," was the reply, and as King Richard's party was then predominant the monks had their will.[55]

At the next election[56] the brethren were brought face to face with King Richard's successor, and John found it a hard thing to subdue the Coventry monks, though he had at his back the entire company of the canons of Lichfield. When England was under an Interdict, the King sent to them the Abbots of Oseney and Waltham, proposing the Archdeacon of Stafford as a candidate for the vacant See of Coventry. But the monks would have none of him. They elected their prior, Joybert of Wenlock, and purposed to send the nomination oversea to the incoming archbishop, Stephen Langton. At Tewkesbury, John proposed the Abbot of Bindon. The monks refused utterly. "None whom I love wilt thou choose," cried the angry King. Then to the justiciar said the prior, afraid: "If it suits the lord king well, I will elect his chancellor." The chancellor was Walter de Grey, who was subsequently raised to the See of York. This proposal found no favour then, and the King appointed another meeting with the monks at Nottingham. On their return home they held a consultation in the chapter-house, and determined that they would elect neither of the King's candidates, Richard de Marisco nor the Abbot of Bindon. At Nottingham Castle Joybert and six monks besought the King that he would allow them to elect freely and canonically the prior or some other fitting man. Meanwhile all manner of threats and blandishments were used to make them give their voice for one of the royal nominees, but they held firm. Next morning, however, when the prior and two monks tarried long in the King's chamber, the four remaining brethren, fearing that their superior would at last give way, determined to go home and reserve their vote; but Fulk de Cantilupe shut the castle gate in their faces, vowing "by the tongue of God" that they should not leave ere they had made a bishop to the King's liking, "and other things he uttered," the record continues, "not meet to be said."

At last Prior Joybert began to waver, for the King promised him great rewards and honours if he would do his will, and urged him, saying: "Speak, prior, speak!" Then Joybert fell on his knees. "By the soul of thy father the King," he said, "and of thy brother the King, and by the honour of thy life, who art King, if it be not possible for us to have any other than one of these two, give us the Abbot of Bindon." "Never while I live shall this be," cried one of the monks, named Thomas, "and never shall he be my bishop." A bystander reproved him for this outburst towards his superior. "In the cloister I am but a monk," the fearless brother answered, "but here at the election of the bishop, I am the prior's fellow." Then John, looking about him in great anger left the room, and many nobles gathered about the monks, and urged them to fulfil the King's will. "Verily ye have much to fear," they said, "if you bring down his wrath upon your heads."