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The making of a twelfth-century relic collection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Denis Bethell
Denis Bethell*
Affiliation:
University College, Dublin
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Extract

The present communication derives from an attempt to make an edition of the list of relics of Reading Abbey to be found in one of the abbey’s cartularies, British Museum MS Egerton 3031, fols 6v–8r. This is a list of no less than 242 relics, a collection which must have been formed between the founding of the abbey in the 1120s and the writing of the cartulary in the 1190s. It can be supplemented by a much shorter list of 24 relics made by the Dissolution commissioner, Dr London, which however only adds one relic not present in the twelfth-century list, a bone of St Osmund of Salisbury, canonised in 1457. If we add the ‘head’ of the apostle Philip, given by king John, and added to the cartulary in a slightly later hand, we can be fairly safe in saying that the abbey acquired all but two of its relics in the first seventy years of its existence, and the list, which is very full and comparatively early as such lists go, has much to tell us of how such collections were made.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 8: Popular Belief and Practice , 1972 , pp. 61 - 72
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1972

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References

page no 61 note 1 [Thomas], Wright (ed), [Three Chapters of Letters relating to the Suppression of the Monasteries, Cam. S, XXVI (London 1843)] pp 225-7Google Scholar. A variant of the list will be found in Gon-ville and Caius College Cambridge MS 607, fol 279r. This adds one more relic, of St Mary Salome.

page no 62 note 1 Two articles which discuss such questions are Heliot, P. and Chastang, M. L., “ Quêtes et voyages de reliques au profit des églises françaises au moyen âge’, RHE, LIX (1964) pp 789-823 and LX (1965) pp 5-53Google Scholar; and Toepfer, B., ‘Reliquienkult und Pilgerbewegung zur Zeit der Klosterreform im burgundisch-aquitänisch Gebiet’, Vom Mittelalter zur Neuzeit. Zum 65 Geburtstag von H. Sproemberg (Berlin 1956) pp 420-39Google Scholar.

page no 63 note 1 The Travels of Rozmital 1465-7, ed Letts, M., Hakluyt Society 2 Series, CVIII (Cambridge 1957, for 1955) p 56 Google Scholar;: ‘I have never seen its equal norshall I ever see one to compare with it if I progress to the ends of the earth. ‘

page no 63 note 2 Egerton 3031, in a later hand: ‘Dux Aquitanie dedit puerum regi Henrico fundatori monasterii Rading. ‘ This is explained in a note in Lambeth MS 371, printed by James, M. R. and Jenkins, :C., A Descriptive Catalogue of the MSS in the Library of Lambeth Palace (Cambridge 1932) p 503 Google Scholar, in a thirteenth-century hand: ‘Mem. quod in prima creacione monasterii Rading dedit dux aquitannie Regi henrico fundatore quendam puerum ad ecclesie’: verses on p 513 show that the image was known as the ‘Child of Grace’: that it had a chapel where miracles were worked, and that the cult still existed in the late fifteenth century, since the verses consist of a prayer for prince Arthur (d 1502).

page no 64 note 1 ‘Johannes rex Anglie dedit nobis caput Philippi apostoli venerandum. Et nobis nundinas ipso die concessit habere’. The ‘head’ is not the whole head of the apostle, but a head- shaped reliquary. There can be little doubt that this was part of the loot of the fourth crusade, c 1190 it was believed that the body of St Philip had been brought from Hierapolis in Syria to Constantinople: the body was in the Bucoleon chapel, the head in the church of All Saints. After 1204 both were dismembered and distributed in the West. For fuller references see Riant, C., Exuviae Sacrae Constantinopolitanae (Geneva 1878) 1, pp 20, 121Google Scholar;11, 64-5, 115-16, 131-2, I75-6, 178, 199,213,217,223,227,235- 6, 237.

page no 64 note 2 ‘De ligno Domini crux que fuit de capella Ducis Saxonie’. Henry the Lion made the Holy Land pilgrimage and was a considerable relic collector.

page no 65 note 1 A (not always reliable) study of the Leominster list was made by Doble, G. H., ‘The Leominster Relic List’, Transactions of the Woolhope Naturalists’ Field Club, XXXI (London 1942-7) pp 58–65 Google Scholar.

page no 65 note 2 Leland, , quoted Monasticon Anglicanum, IV, p 55 Google Scholar: cf William of Malmesbury, De Gestis Pontificum, ed Hamilton, N. E. S. A. (London 1870) p 188 Google Scholar.

page no 65 note 3 ‘Quoddam magnum os sancte Aelfgive regine avie sancti Edwardi regis et martiris ’ (d 944). See Liebermann, [F.], [Die Heiligen Englands] (Hanover 1889) p 17 Google Scholar.

page no 66 note 1 Gasquet, [F. A. and Bishop, E.,] The Bosworth Psalter (London 1908) pp 165, 168, suggest that he is probably Aethelmod bishop of Sherborne с 772-81Google Scholar. A fuller note would be required than is here possible, but briefly his cult in the West Country is well established by pre-conquest liturgical evidence, and this with the evidence of the Reading list seems decisive against the treatise on the Resting Places of the English Saints (Liebermann, pp 13-14) which says that St Ethelred lies at Leominster.

page no 66 note 2 Not in the Leominster list, but a series of indulgences to the arm of St David in the Leominster cartulary (British Museum MS Cotton Domitian A III, fols 72r-3r) show that the arm of St David was generally accepted to be at Leominster, even by bishop Iorwerth of St David’s (1215-29).

page no 66 note 3 ? Aethelgifu, Alfred’s daughter, first abbess of Shaftesbury, died с 896, feast day 9 Dec.

page no 66 note 4 On him see The Bosworth Psalter, p 167.

page no 66 note 5 See Grosjean, P.,’ Vie et miracles de S. Petroc’, An Bol, LXXIV(1956) pp 172-3,174-84Google Scholar.

page no 67 note 1 Eadmeri, , Historia Novorum, ed Rule, M. RS, 81 (1884) p 181 Google Scholar, describes the arrival in England of hairs of Our Lady which had been obtained by Bohemund of Antioch from Constantinople; but the relic was common early in the west. Athelstan gave such hairs to Exeter, Edward the Confessor to Westminster, and Henry of Blois to both Glaston-bury and Winchester.

page no 68 note 1 Richardson, H. G., ‘Some Norman monastic foundations in Ireland’, Medieval Studies presented to Aubrey Gwynn S.J., ed Watt, J. A., Morrall, J. B., Martin, F. X. (Dublin 1961) pp 29–44 Google Scholar.

page no 68 note 2 See the miracles of the hand of St James in MS Gloucester Cathedral 1.

page no 69 note 1 For this embassy see the Aldgate Chronicle, London Guildhall MS 122, IV, fol 16.

page no 69 note 2 ‘ Preputium Domini vel illud quod ab umbilico pueri Jhesu precisum est creditur esse, cum cruce de ligno Domini in textu quem imperator Constantin’ misit Henr’ regi Anglorum primo. ‘

page no 69 note 3 ‘Crux quedam que de Constantinop’ allata est deaurata, in VI capitibus auro quod oblatum fuerit Jhesu Christo.’

page no 69 note 4 ‘De aqua in qua Dominus apud Bethleem balneatus est, ac diende ipsa aqua conversa est in manna usque in hodiernum diem’.

page no 69 note 5 Wright, p 58.

page no 69 note 6 Saxer, V., Le culte de Marie Madeleine en Occident des origines à la fin du moyen âge (Auxerre 1959)Google Scholar. Saxer dates the ‘discovery’ at Vézelay to 1037-52, that at Aix to between 1195 and 1205. For queen Matilda’s gifts to Westminster see John, Flete, The History of Westminster Abbey, ed Robinson, J.Armitage (Cambridge 1959) p 68 Google Scholar. The priory of Holy Trinity, Aldgate, founded under her patronage, was in fact dedicated to the True Cross and St Mary Magdalen.

page no 70 note 1 Johannis Confratris et Monachi Glastoniensis Chronica sive Historia de Rebus Glastonicnsibus, ed Hearne, T. (Oxford 1726) 1, p 165 Google Scholar.

page no 70 note 2 Bibliotheca Sanctorum, Institute Giovanni XXIII nella Pontificia Università Lateranense (Rome 1961-8) VIII (1966) s.v. Nympha.

page no 70 note 3 Otto, Lehmann-Brockhaus, Lateinische Schriftsquellen zur Kunst in England, Wales, und Schottland vom jahre 901 bis zum Jahre 1307 (Munich 1955) IV, no 1491, p 403 Google Scholar.

page no 70 note 4 Paul, Devos, ‘Le Miracle Posthume de St Thomas l’Apôtre’, An Bol, LXVI (1948) pp 231-68Google Scholar.

page no 70 note 5 Relics of St Agnes the martyr are so common that there is really very little way of telling how Reading acquired its relic of St Agnes: but one twelfth-century translation should be drawn to the attention of English historians. The inscription on the shrine at Mont St Michel as read in 1640 was ‘Anno domini 1184 Robertus abbas hanc dexteram fecit componi auro et argento et lapidis pretiosis in qua rcposuit grande os de brachio sanctae Agnetis virginis et martyris, quod translatus fuit apud nos de capella regii Regis Sicilie per manum Thomae Brui qui fuit cancellarius predirti regis’, Dubois, D., ‘Le Trésor des reliques de Mont St Michel’, Millenaire Monastique de Mont St Michel, ed Laporte, J. (Paris 1967) 1, p 562 Google Scholar.

page no 70 note 6 It may be permissible to list a few puzzles here with a request for assistance. Among the martyrs: Who was ‘ St Theonost ‘ ? Can ‘ the tooth of St Reginald the martyr ‘ conceivably refer to Reynald of Châtillon, executed by Saladin (1187) ? Among the confessors: What was ‘the ring of St Nicodemus’? Who was ‘St Frinolaus’? Among the virgins: Who was’St Willa’?

page no 71 note 1 Guiraud, J., ‘Le commerce des reliques du commencement du IXe siècle, Mélanges de Rossi, G. B., supplement to Mélanges d’archéologie et d’histoire, XII, Ecole Française de Rome (Paris 1892) pp 73–95 Google Scholar; Hotzelt, W., ‘Translationen von Martyrer-reliquien aus Rom nach Bayern im 8 Jhrdt. ‘, Studien und Mitteilungen zur Geschichte des Benediktiner Ordens und seiner Zweige, LIII (Munich 1935) pp 286ff Google Scholar.