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XV.—Garnier de Nablous, Prior of the Hospital in England, and Grand Master of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 November 2011

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Extract

It is by the kind permission of the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's that I exhibit the charter on the table. This document is a grant, by the Prior of the Hospital of St. John in Jerusalem in England and the Chapter, of the church of Broxbourne, Herts, to the Bishop of London for a yearly payment of four marcs.

The charter is sealed, and it bears the date of 1190, a date which, as I shall explain, is of some historical consequence. Although calendared so far back as 1883 by my friend Sir Henry Maxwell Lyte in his valuable report on the muniments at St. Paul's, the charter seems to have been overlooked, for it was not found in that great repertory of all the charters of the Order, published by M. Delaville Le Roulx, although he endeavoured to include all those that are in England.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1903

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References

page 383 note a Muniments of the Bean and Chapter, A. 28, No. 291.

page 383 note b Broxbourne with its church had descended from the house of Grantmesnil with its heiress to her husband, the Earl of Leicester, and they had united in giving it to the brethren of the Hospital shortly before.

page 383 note c Ninth Report Historical MSS. App. I. p. 3.

page 383 note d Cartulaire général de l'ordre, etc. vol. i. I called attention to its omission at the time, and it i s now, I hear, inserted in a supplemental volume. Newcourt gave the text of the charter from the Register, Lib. A, which omits several witnesses (Bepertorium, i. 809).

page 383 note e Ancient Deed, A. 6708).

page 384 note a Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi, p. 372, in vol. i. of Chronicles and Memorials of the reign of Richard I., edited by Stubbs, WilliamM.A. London, 1864 (Eolls Series 38).Google Scholar

page 384 note b It is based on a list found at the end of Cott. MS. Nero E. vi. the MS. from which was also derived the error as to the foundation of the Clerkenwell Priory.

page 384 note ca Mr. Robert Gladstone, junior, has kindly sent me confirmation of this statement from Villeneuve-Bargemont's, Vicomte deMonumens des Grands Maitres (1829), where we read that lie is called “Garnerius Sirianus” on his funeral monument (vol. i. p. xi. and plate facing p. 47). Mr. Gladstone has made, I find, large collections for a history of the early PriorsGoogle Scholar.

page 384 note d Archaeologia, lvi. 223228Google Scholar.

page 385 note a Ancient Deeds, A. 6708, 8990.

page 384 note b 13th February, 1873 (Proceedings, 2nd Series, v. 447).

page 385 note c Calendar of Documents preserved in France, p. 15 (Charter of 6th December, 1190).

page 385 note d See Dr. Stubbs' note to the Itinerarium quoted below.

page 385 note e “Mediante vero et plurimum satagente magistro Hospitalis Jerusalem, statutum est colloquium inter regem et imperatorem.” (Itinerarium, 196-7).

page 385 note f “Rex imperatorem commisit Warnero de Naplis snmmo magistro Hospitalis ad custodiendum.” (R. de Hoveden, ii. 173. Compare Benedictus, ii. 657.) The Hospitallers kept him at their Syrian fortress of Merkeb or Margat.

page 385 note g The History of the English Hospitallers (1902), already spoken of, accepts his death at that date, and suggests that the Prior of England must have been a brother of his! See p. 185: “Garnier de Neapolis is the first recorded Prior of England. He could not have been the Garnier de Neapolis, afterwards Grand Master, who died of wounds received at the Battle of Tiberias, A.D. 1187 …. He was in all probability a brother of the Grand Master.”Google ScholarPubMed

page 386 note a Itinerarium Ricardi, 372, note.

page 386 note b L'estoire de La Guerre Sainte (Documents inedits), 1897.Google Scholar

page 386 note c I here give side by side the versions of the passage in question in (1) the Trench poem, (2) the Latin version of it in the Itinerarium Ricardi. It will be observed that the misunderstanding arose throgh a of punctuation (the stop after “Guarniers”)and the rhetorical amplification in the Latin should also be noted. It was similarly, by misunderstanding William of Malmesbury, that Wace (Roman de Rou), as I have shown (Feudal England, 414), evolved from the former's description of the shield-wall at the battle of Hastings the long and confused passage which has been held to describe a “palisade” of some kind.

Ad baæ Magister Hospitalis, regem adiens, ait

illi; “Domine rex, vehementer infestamur”….

page 387 note a This is not quite correct. Dr. Stubbs spoke merely of “The connection of Gamier with the English nation,” i.e. as Prior of England.

page 387 note b Compare the version in the Itinerarium, p. 372, where Dr. Stubbs assigns the incident, more correctly it would seem, to 12th June.

page 387 note c See his charter of 5th January, 1194, in Calendar of Documents preserved in France, 469.

page 388 note a Cott. Chart, vii. 5.

page 388 note b Both charters are dated in the Michaelmas chapter in London, and both, as Mr. Gladstone has pointed out to me, are sealed with the seal of Prior Gamier. He had independently arrived at the conclusion that this charter must belong to 1190, in spite of the words “nonagesimo nono” being quite plain, on the ground that Gilbert de Ver had himself become Prior before 1199, in fact, circa 1196-7. My own ground for suspecting the date to be 1190 was that the names of the witnessing brethren are similar to those found in the charters of 1189-1190 (see Appendix of charters). Here are the names of those in Alan's two charters

page 388 note c Mr. Gladstone has collected several passages from the chronicles recording the fact. The bishop, who died about a year later, is usually entered as “Alban” in the lists.

page 388 note d Proceedings, 2nd S. v. 448.

page 389 note a Cartulaire générale, i. 552.

page 389 note b Cartulaire générale, i. 552-3.

page 389 note c The exact correspondence of the names in this and the preceding charter should be observed.

page 390 note a I am indebted to Mr. Gladstone for the reference to this charter.

page 390 note b Proceedings, 2nd S. v. 446-7.

page 390 note c Document damaged. The chief gaps are supplied from the transcript in Cott. MS. Nero E. VI. f. 139.